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annoying little caveman. Meewee turned his pocket inside out and flung the last bits of gravel into the pond. The splashes made a gurgling sound that resembled a word, someone saying, “Galloway,” or maybe “Go away.” Meewee often heard words in running water, in the wind, in squeaky hinges.
    “I’m going, I’m going,” he replied merrily and climbed the rest of the way to the cart.
     
     
An Unwelcome Offer
     
     
    No sooner had Meewee returned to his office than Lyra called and asked him to join Ellen Starke in an ongoing meeting at the Starke Manse. Lyra was Ellen Starke’s new mentar, the replacement for Wee Hunk, her former mentar. Meewee had not yet found the courage to inform Ellen that it was Arrow who had killed Wee Hunk or that it was he, Meewee, who had ordered Arrow to do so. But now was not the time. This was a time for celebrating their successful launch.
    “By all means!” he exclaimed to the mentar. “Tell Ellen I’ll be right there.” He sat in his favorite chair and told Arrow to take him to the Manse. A moment later he was sitting opposite Ellen’s desk in the Map Room. The room was brightly lit by a single window that stretched the entire length of the wall. Ellen Starke’s persona sat behind her desk. She appeared to be thesame young woman she had been before the space yacht crash that had taken her mother’s life. In a chair next to Meewee sat the holo of another young woman, Andrea Tiekel, who had replaced her aunt, Andie Tiekel, on the GEP board. Andie Tiekel and Eleanor Starke had been murdered only days apart.
    Bracketing Ellen’s desk were the personas of the mentars Cabinet and Lyra.
    “It was a complete success!” Meewee announced, pumping the air with his fist. He turned to the corner of the room, where he knew the realbody Ellen would be sitting with her evangeline companion. And though he couldn’t see her, he gave her a triumphant thumbs-up.
    “Over here, Bishop,” Ellen said. Her holo persona at the desk waited for him to turn back to her. “What was a complete success?”
    “Why, the launch of the first advance ships. We’re on our way!” Ellen gave him a look of incomprehension. “The advance ships for the Oships,” he explained. “Aria had to push up the atomic boost to today. I thought that was why you summoned me.” Meewee’s elation began to leak away. “Why did you summon me?”
    “We have received an unexpected offer from Myr Tiekel here. Since you are titular head of Heliostream, I thought you’d want to sit in on this meeting.”
    Titular head? Meewee didn’t like the sound of that. He turned to the Tiekel woman. “Hello, Andrea. What offer?”
    Andrea smiled disarmingly. “Don’t worry, your excellency, my offer will have little effect on your position at Heliostream. And, by the way, congratulations on the successful launch. I think that’s marvelous.”
    Being told not to worry always made Meewee worry. He shot a questioning glance at Ellen, who said, “Andrea wants to buy Heliostream.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Heliostream,” Andrea said. “I’m in the process of retooling my investment portfolio. Except for E-Pluribus, Auntie’s investments are, frankly, a bit outdated. A space-based energy company like Heliostream would make an ideal core holding.”
    Alarmed, Meewee said to Ellen, “Why don’t you sell her our fish farms instead? The aquaculture sector is just as important as energy.” But these were only the surface words. Embedded in them was a hidden statement in another language.

    Ellen made no sign of understanding him in either language. Since hercrash, she had repeatedly refused to speak the secret family metalanguage with him. Sometimes he wondered if she even remembered it.
    Meewee turned to Cabinet, who was standing on one side of Ellen’s desk, and challenged its ID in Starkese.
    The mentar, once Eleanor Starke’s