Page 4

"And so?"

"This. You’re going off planet tomorrow, Ambassador. You’re going to be the last opportunity we have to preserve our people."

"How?"

In answer, the Mediator walked to the hump near the wall and stripped off the fabric. There were two crudely hewn metallic boxes, dull silver and coppery. He picked one up gingerly.

"In this," he said, "are the eggs of all the castes of the Colony, including future Great Mothers. It’s the entire genetic heritage of our race."

"And?"

"If our species is to survive, we have to get off this planet. We don’t need much; any world with oxygen and liquid water will do. All I’m asking is that you find any such planet – any at all – and unload these eggs there, somewhere on land near water. Nature will take over after that."

"That’s all?"

"That’s all. Hatching should occur soon, and the babies will find their own way."

Anurag stared at the box. "And what do I get in return?"

"This." The Mediator picked up the other box. "We may be out of resources," he said. "But these were from centuries ago, when our mines weren’t worked out and our cities hadn’t died. Take our eggs along, and these are for you."

"What are they?" Anurag asked.

"Jewels." ShidarPrahal put the box down. Something inside rattled faintly. "You can take both boxes back and examine them at leisure. Just say yes or no."

Anurag opened one of the boxes. Rows and rows of rough, glassy balls filled it, gleaming dully in the globe’s light with the faint iridescence of rainbows. He opened the other one. The spheres inside, the size of marbles, caught the light and threw it back in a thousand shades of green and dazzling gold.

"Well?" the Mediator asked, watching. "Yes or no?"

"Yes, of course," Anurag said. "Yes, yes, yes."

Anurag sat back in his captain’s chair and felt the straps automatically tighten around him, holding him down gently. In the viewscreen, the HaKuru planet was a fading greenish-red disc.

"Captain to ship," he said conversationally. "Override coordinates. Set course for Earth, with flyby of the red giant."

"Confirming override of coordinates," the ship’s computer said. Rocket tubes set in the hull fired brief bursts, nudging it into a new course. "Course set with flyby of red giant."

Anurag smiled thinly. By his hand, strapped down to the table, was the box filled with the green and gold glimmering spheres. He’d loaded the box with the rough glassy orbs in the disposal chute long before launching from the planet. And it was without the slightest compunction that he now pushed the button that sent the little package spiralling down towards the swollen disc of the red giant.

"The universe has far too many bugs anyway," he said, and patted the coppery box.

"But never jewels enough," he murmured to it, or perhaps to himself. "Never jewels enough."

"You," the Great Mother said severely, moving her enormous bulk, "are evil. Totally and absolutely evil."

ShidarPrahal moved his mandibles deprecatingly. "Evil is a strong word, Great Mother. I did what had to be done."

"But to put on such a charade – just to get this human to take the eggs off planet! It’s wicked, that’s what it is."

"What else would you have me do, Great Mother?" ShidarPrahal peered up at the Great Mother’s expanse of whitish, rippling flesh. "It was our one and only chance to get the eggs to another planet, to make sure our species survives. I couldn’t appeal to the human’s better nature. I’d got to know him well enough to be aware that he had none."

"But you tricked him."

"Not at all." ShidarPrahal moved his forelimbs in negation. "I paid him in full, enough so that he’ll be able to go home to his Earth and never have to work again. All he has to do in return is..."

[ Continue to page 5 ]