So, indeed, it had been a conspiracy; and it involved not only Sarco and Neuronius, but Axonius as well.
Synapo ignored Sarco, and with his hook set aggressively forward, he winged Sarco out of the way and took up his station in a tight circle immediately over the center of the compensator.
“What's up?” Sarco said, meekly yielding the space. “You don't seem happy.”
Synapo said nothing.
“What happened down there?” Sarco asked again, putting more insistence into his voice.
“You should know,” Synapo finally said. “One of your Cerebron toadies has already radioed you.”
“What are you talking about? Nobody has radioed anything; and I can't stand toadies, least of all a Cerebron.”
“Neuronius? What about Neuronius?”
“Neuronius coached me in pronunciation of the alien language. Does that make the poor soul a toady?”
“Poor soul, my hook. He was just trying to stir up trouble between you and me; if you somehow don't relish that idea, then he was using you, Sarco, and you must be exceedingly naive.”
“I must admit I thought it was an elegant idea, using your second in command to advantage in our rivalry. But, Synapo, it has always been a friendly rivalry.”
“Neuronius is striking, Sarco. And with Axonius on his side. Why do you think I took them both with me and excluded you rather unceremoniously?”
“Frankly, I didn't know, and you didn't appear to want to explain. So what did happen down there?”
“Neuronius made a wrong decision involving the aliens, I reversed him, and Axonius sided with him. It was as simple as that.”
“That doesn't sound like Axonius, Synapo. Give me the details. You three have involved all the Myocerons. You can't expect me to sit idly on the sidelines.”
“Axonius had you fooled as well, eh?”
With that slight dig, Synapo proceeded to describe the meeting in detail. Before the end of the long account, Sarco had rotated his hook so that it pointed passively aft, expressing silently but eloquently whose side he was on.
When Synapo finished, Sarco asked, “When are you having your caucus?”
Synapo had put off that decision until Sarco prodded him. His mind had been so paralyzed he had not worked out a plan of action during his slow climb to station.
“One hour from now,” he replied, making a quick decision.
“I hereby exercise my right as leader of the Myostria,” Sarco said, “and proclaim that caucus to be a joint gathering, a Cerebron caucus and a Myostrian hearing. Please announce it as such to your people, and I will do the same for mine.”
It was an historic occasion. A joint gathering of the elite of both tribes was something that occurred only once a decade or so, if that often.
In an ordinary Cerebron caucus, Synapo would be on station circling lazily above the center of the compensator in a large, loose circle with the other members of the Cerebron elite flying to right and left, above and below, a wingspread apart.
In the larger assembly of a joint gathering, however, the flight caucus was not compatible with clear and audible communication, so a grounded gathering was held on the high crags atop The Cliff of Time-a ninety-meter escarpment that cut across the intersection of The Plain of Serenity and The Forest of Repose eight kilometers to the northeast of the robot city and its node compensator.
Synapo, with his hook set forward, stood on the highest crag while the other ten members of the Cerebron elite stood below, facing him in a line on a slightly tilted table of flat granite. Their hooks were all set aft.
Neuronius stood in the middle of the line immediately below Synapo, Axonius stood to his right, the next in rank stood to the left of Neuronius, and the other members of the Cerebron elite stood right and then left in descending order of rank in the hierarchy.
Sarco, with his hook set aft, stood on a nearby crag on Synapo's right, above the same rock table, with his elite gathered below him in similar fashion and within easy earshot of Synapo.
In addition to Sarco, there were fourteen other members of the Myostrian elite. It had been temporarily expanded to handle the increased load imposed by construction of the huge node that compensated the weather effects of the robot city.
“As you all now know,” Synapo said, opening the joint gathering, “we are in a strike situation, not only at the highest command level in the Cerebron elite, but with regard to our world in general, for in all fairness, we must regard the invasion by the aliens as a strike for cohabitation of a world which we have previously regarded as strictly our own.
“To regard the presence of the aliens in any other fashion is not to give them their just due, for we cohabit now with many lower forms of life. The aliens may simply be another inferior species seeking peaceful coexistence.
“On the other hand, that may not be so. We must consider the possibility that we are seeing a superior race and may be bargaining from a disadvantageous position, trying then to retain cohabitation rights ourselves.
“The Cerebron elite and the leader of the Myostria were all familiar with this philosophy of negotiation and with the details of the discussion that had already taken place as we undertook further discussion with the aliens this morning.
“By this morning, however, it had come to my attention that Neuronius was striking for command, so we entered this latest meeting with the aliens under slightly different circumstances.
“If conditions were appropriate, it behooved me to give Neuronius his chance to prove competent in command, to possibly prove superior competence in our continual striving to avoid the pitfalls that beset a governmental hierarchy described by Petero's Principle.
“The Cerebron caucus has been called this afternoon to judge that competence, while remembering our delicate situation with regard to our cohabitation with aliens.”
Synapo then summarized the discussion with the aliens that had taken place that morning up to the point when he had turned over control of the negotiations to Neuronius.
After calling upon Neuronius to defend his response to the aliens' proposal, Synapo sailed down to the table rock to stand a pace in front of Neuronius, who then sidled out from behind Synapo, and with an awkward hop and a powerful flap of his wings, arrived at the position on the topmost crag that Synapo had just vacated.
“Cerebrons, your challenge this afternoon is not just a matter of judging day-to-day competence of command. The matter is far larger than that. You must also judge competence in assessing and establishing the rank of the Ceremyons in a galactic hierarchy that includes the invading aliens.”
His body language radiated confidence, even arrogance.
“There are many facets of superiority of one race with respect to another, but the fact of most concern to us should be whether we are superior enough to eject the aliens from our planet. All else is the weak juice of the soft, degenerate culture Synapo would have us embrace.
“That summarizes the results of my cerebrations, and I responded accordingly. There is no point in subjecting you to useless rhetoric. I told the aliens that we could no longer tolerate their presence on our planet and terminated the negotiations.”
Synapo was stunned for the second time that day. That last was a brazen lie. He, Synapo, had terminated the negotiations that morning. For Neuronius to lead the caucus to believe otherwise was to presume the outcome of the forthcoming vote.
Neuronius paused for just a moment and then continued, “However, I did not tell the aliens how I propose to insure their removal. Threats merely alert the enemy and eliminate the element of surprise.
“But to this caucus I suggest-and strongly recommend-that we immediately remove them the way one of their number accidentally and effectively removed himself from our world-when he blindly ran into the edge of an embryonic compensator.”
Neuronius paused for a moment. Then he dramatically rotated his hook forward.
“I suggest we ship them all into the black eternity that lies beyond space and time, where those two part company in the bowels of a node compensator. “