"Then you must come in," the elder said, rising from his cushion, and extending his wing-hands toward Keff in a companionable gesture. "You are welcome. I am Noonday, Sayas of Thelerie. These are the Ro-sayo, the assembly of the wise."
Murmurs broke out in the chamber as Keff strode between the guards to the center of the room. He bowed to each of the councillors, centering their faces for his chest camera and Carialle.
"Slayim," he heard repeated over and over again. "Slayim."
"Word has already spread here of our arrival," Carialle said. "Slayim, slayim, slayim."
"Slime," Keff said under his breath, suddenly enlightened. "That's what they've been calling the Cridi."
"For their wet skins," Carialle said. "An uncomplimentary but not unreasonable pejorative. But it's a Standard word."
"It won't remain a mystery long, I hope. May I address this assembly?" Keff asked Noonday. The leader, after looking around at the others and meeting their eyes, nodded his great head.
"Not all speak your tongue, but I shall translate for those of us who do not understand."
"Thank you," Keff said, adjusting IT to pick up the leader's voice. "But first, I must introduce you to your nearest neighbors among the stars."
He stepped past Noonday's cushion and up to the great casement behind him. With a flourish, he threw open the windows, and the four Cridi globes sailed up and in on a wave of wind and dust.
"Slime!"
Brandishing their back-scratchers, the guards at once dove for the four small globes, but they rebounded against another unseen wall of force. They fought and tore at obdurate nothingness with hysterical fury on their big, flat faces.
Gawking, the elderly Ro-sayo leaped off their cushions. They tried to break for the door, the other windows, even out past Keff, who flattened himself against a pillar out of the way. The Thelerie all but rebounded off invisible barriers put there by Cridi Core power, and rushed to the next possible route of escape. Noonday held his place, but he looked aghast.
"You dare to bring our enemy here?" he asked Keff.
Keff hurried to the center of the chaos with his hands outstretched above his head.
"Please! They are not your enemy! They mean you no harm. My friends are called the Cridi. They are your closest neighbors in this part of the galaxy. Their planet circles the twin of your star. They wish to speak because they feel a great wrong has been done them."
"They?" one of the councillors said. It was backed into a corner, its eyes were huge with fear. Its wings were spread out, claw hands poised to defend. "They feel wronged?"
"They do," Keff said. "All they ask of you is that you listen to them. Please!"
It took some more moments of scrabbling at the air to realize that though the Thelerie could not leave the chamber, nothing else ill was happening to them. After many glances over their shoulders at the little plastic balls in the middle of the room, they soon stopped hammering on the doors and walls and windows. The small, green aliens sat in the water at the bottom of their travel globes, almost hidden by the circle of guards. The first Thelerie to have spoken closed its big wings, and daringly edged back toward its cushion.
"That's good," Keff said, his voice soothing. Noonday's voice sounded forth one of their multisyllabic sentences like the mellowest of brass horns. "Won't everyone else please sit down?"
"They fear us so," Big Eyes signed, her hands shaking. She was almost invisible behind the wings of the guards, but Keff heard her small voice over his helmet speaker. "I guessed nothing of this. For so many years, we pictured the destroyer of spaceships as great unknown."
"And they saw you as unmentionable monsters," Keff said. He moved in and pushed the guards aside. "We must put an end to those misunderstandings now, and discover the truth."
The guards looked to the Sayas for direction. At Noonday's nod, they withdrew to a distance of only three meters and settled onto their haunches. Keff sensed that they were not really relaxed, but ready to pounce again if needed. Slowly, all of the griffins but one resumed their places. The last, a young and slender councillor, found that its pad was closest to the Cridi. It crept close, set a single foot on the cushion, then fled, shrieking, to pound on the door again.
"Jurrelanyaro! Jurrelanyaro, yaro!" it cried. Keff walked between the cushions to the end of the chamber, feeling every head swivel to follow him. He stopped and bowed to put a gentle hand on the Thelerie's back. It jumped a meter in the air, its wings outspread, and landed facing the brawn.
"I am a human," Keff said, softly but clearly. "Your people trust humans. I mean you no harm. I promise you will not be harmed. Will you trust me?"
The beast's striped pupils fluctuated wide to narrow to wide. It may not have understood his words, but it seemed to comprehend his tone. It nodded its head. Keff stepped out a pace or so from the wall, and offered an encouraging hand.
"Come, then, and take your rightful place," he said. It followed him like a tame deer, all the while staring timorously at the Cridi. At Keff's signal, the globe-frogs stayed absolutely still. The young Thelerie settled down on all four legs, but its wings were open halfway, literally ready for flight. Keff turned to find that Noonday was smiling at him.
"You must have young of your own," the Sayas said. "We listen."
"Thank you," Keff said. "I would like to introduce the Cridi. You call them the Slime, but that is not their right name. Cridi." Noonday repeated his words in the musical Thelerie language. Keff smiled to himself as some of the beings around the room tried the foreign word on their tongues. "My companions are Tall Eyebrow, leader of the Cridi of the Sky Clear colony; Big Eyes, one of the eight conclave council members of their homeworld of Cridi; Small Spot and Long Hand, both of Sky Clear. Since, unexpectedly, we share a common tongue, you may hear in their own voices the complaints that they have."
Every eye turned toward the Cridi. Keff sensed how nervous the four were, but they held themselves bravely upright. When one of the globes wavered slightly out of line, Tall Eyebrow brought it back to its place with a sharp gesture from the wrist. Big Eyes rolled closest to him, and matched hands with him on the inside of their globes. Gradually, the assembly was quiet, awaiting.
"But they cannot speak for themselves," a white-headed Thelerie said, breaking the silence. "They are only creatures."
"They are not," Keff said. "In my ship I have video of their homeworld, and I assure you their attainments in art and science are most impressive."
"Impossible. They are dumb animals!"
"We can speak," Tall Eyebrow said, projecting his voice to carry as well as it could from his small plastic bubble. His words caused a sensation. As the hubbub grew louder, his high voice cut through the noise like a cutting torch. "But we choose Sir Keff to speak for us."
"Thank the stars for that," Noonday said, removing the wing-fingers from his ears. "Telling the truth, your voices are painful. We are not aware of any wrong that we have done these… people, er, Sir Keff, but you may address us as you please." The senior settled himself down, flipping his wings to his back and arranging his haunches like a big cat.
"I will," Keff said, "as soon as the assembly is complete. I await the arrival of the rest of the Cridi delegation. If you will give permission, and the assurance that they will not be harmed, I will ask them to land." He bowed deeply, sweeping an arm around to the rest of the chamber.
"There are more Slime?" one of the Thelerie asked, flinging its wings about it in the protective posture.
An older assembly member scrabbled up. "We are under attack! Guards!"
"Oh, where is the Melange? They should be protecting us," a slender Thelerie said, wringing both pairs of hands at its breast.