"Silence!" Noonday's voice rose over them like a hunting horn's call, though he did not move. "I give the guarantee. Bring them, Sir Keff."
"Cari?"
"On their way," Carialle said. "There's just about room to land on that balcony, but Narrow Leg shouldn't push his luck. He's going to set down on the roof… just… about… NOW!"
There was a boom! and the thunder of rocket engines shook the council chamber. The Thelerie assembly looked frightened, but none of them broke for the exits. Keff found himself full of admiration for their bravery. In a moment, the shadows of travel globes appeared outside the woven window screens, and the casements opened wide. Naturally, the plump councillor had jockeyed himself into first place, and entered triumphantly.
"I should have been first, before these others," he signed indignantly at Keff.
"It could have been dangerous," Keff gestured back, in as few gestures as possible.
"No matter!" Big Voice said, punctuating his signs with a squeak, now that all peril was past. "I would have faced it for the sake of my people."
Smiling a little, Keff stood forward, like a court herald, and bowed to the Thelerie.
"Allow me to introduce Big Voice, another one of the Eight, Narrow Leg, captain of the Cridi ship, Gap Tooth, Wide Foot…" As he recited their names, the globes touched down on the polished floor and rolled into an arc around Keff's feet.
"I bid you welcome, Cridi," Noonday said, gravely. "And now, speak. What are these grievances?"
Big Voice rolled out just to one side of Keff, where the human could see and hear his every word.
"I have traveled far and endured many hardships to ask these words," Big Voice said in carefully practiced Standard. His voice quavered when faced with so many griffins, awake and mobile, but he puffed himself up and continued. "Your people have confined us, you have killed us, you have stolen from us. What I must know is why? Why do you hate us? Why do you think us monsters?"
The Thelerie stared at him as the assembly resounded with protest. A younger member of the chamber spoke out.
"The Melange told us you were monsters, that you killed innocent beings. You harmed their ships, and would kill us, though we only seek to see what is among the stars. We do not harm your kind. It is the other way around."
"We have never seen your people before." Big Voice shrieked, and several of the Thelerie held their ears. "We do not kill others, and we do not destroy or terrorize. Your Melange have lied to you! Keff is the first human we have ever seen, too!"
"Humans don't lie!" a Thelerie howled angrily, a bassoon counterpoint to Big Voice's piccolo. The plump councillor retreated swiftly into the group of his fellows and hunkered down in his globe.
Keff opened his mouth and shut it again. "I can't say anything," he told Carialle. "If I say humans do lie, then I've started one of those conundrums that makes computers break down."
"What have we stolen?" Noonday asked, in a mild tone intended to calm his listeners. "Will you enumerate your losses?"
"Three power sources, known to us as Cores," Big Voice said, counting on his long fingers, "engines and equipment from our ships, the lives of at least three crews, but most of all, our freedom! We have been imprisoned on our world for fifty of our years, because our ships could not pass the barrier you created!"
Keff translated for the Thelerie, who immediately protested.
"We did not set any barrier," Noonday said, earnestly. "Our people have few ships, which have not crossed out of our star's circuit as of yet. The Melange say we are not ready. It must be their barrier you cannot cross. Surely it is for your own good."
Keff shook his head. "Sayas Noonday, the Cridi don't need any protection of that kind. They are accomplished space travelers, with colonies in other systems."
"Are they?" Noonday asked, eyeing the Cridi with new respect. "They seem so helpless, so… lacking in a center."
"Once we were not," Narrow Leg said, speaking up. "I am old of my kind. I remember the first time we lost contact with a ship, fifty revolutions ago. The Melange must have destroyed it without warning, for no word ever came back to us. They kill to keep us from leaving our world."
"No!" The Thelerie protested the idea of the Melange killing. Keff held up his hands, pleading for silence.
"The spacecraft we saw when we landed," Keff urged, pointing out of the window in the general direction of the landing pad. "Did you construct these?"
"Yes," said Noonday proudly. "They are made of gifts from the good humans who have visited us in the past."
"But the parts were not given freely to those humans," Keff said. "I recognized some of the components, and my associates recognized others as Cridi technology. Piracy is a great problem in our culture, too."
"It is not piracy. You were giving of these objects to us, honored human," one of the younger Ro-sayo said.
Keff shook his head. "I haven't. Many ships were robbed or destroyed to yield those parts."
"It could not be. The Melange is honorable," the first Thelerie protested. The Ro-sayo broke out in hoots and cries of agreement, with the high-pitched whistles of Cridi voices causing many of them to flinch.
"They might have been taking things that didn't belong to them," Keff said.
"Nonsense!" Noonday said. "Some of our most honored citizens have taken ship with the Melange, sworn allegiance, and brought home goods so that we may fly the stars."
"Who are the Melange?" Keff asked, shouting to be heard.
That question provoked the greatest outburst of them all. Noonday gestured for silence, and turned a hard stare on Keff.
"Who are you that you do not know of the Melange?"
"We are travelers," Keff said. "We come from the Central Worlds. That means something to you," he added, as some of the Thelerie conferred hastily among themselves. "Central Worlds is a vast confederation of intelligent peoples, governed by common laws to aid life, health, and prosperity. We go from place to place, meeting new people, and sending word of them back to our Central Committee. I promise you, no word of the Thelerie or of the Melange has ever gotten back to the CenCom."
"But how can this be?" Noonday asked, spreading out all four of his hands. "Humans have given us so much, for so many years. They made themselves one with us, gave us helpful innovations. Why, see," he gestured around him with a narrow wing-finger, "these lamps would never be so small or bright without human machines."
"Cari?" Keff said, turning his body full toward the baroque sconce.
He heard a sharp whistle. "It's a dilute form of heavy-water fuel, Keff, very clean and hot-burning, the sort of high-quality stuff I'd use myself if I could get it. If those valves weren't so small, that whole room would go up, blammo!" Keff blanched.
"Where does the fuel come from?" he asked.
"It lies here and there in the deep places," Noonday said, gesturing vaguely with a few of his hands. "The technology to make use of it was brought to us by humans to our mutual benefit, for which we are very grateful. We assumed that all humankind was behind their good intentions."
"Are there more? More innovations?"
"But, of course," Noonday said, with a gentle smile. It was clear he and the others still did not believe Keff's protestations of ignorance. "For everything the Melange takes from Thelerie, they always bring us gifts, more than fair exchange."
"The Thelerie couldn't be using more than a few million barrels a year for light and heat," Keff said, sublingually. "Leaving a source of quality rocket fuel for whoever knows to come and take it."
"I see why now," Carialle said, "but I still don't know who, or if they connect to me."
The youngest Thelerie, Midnight, stood up and placed an indignant wing-hand on its breast. "You have come here with many accusations. You wrong us, and you wrong our friends and benefactors."