"I will do anything I can to make amends," Thunderstorm said earnestly, getting to his feet. "If I am given a chance."
"First, you will stop calling us Slime," Small Spot said, with emphasis.
The conference ended. Big Voice led the group back to the waiting griffins. Narrow Leg confronted Thunderstorm.
"We will not be guilty of spilling more blood," the Cridi captain said, "so we do not want yours. Our council will be made to agree that we are doing the right thing by sparing you. But until you learn what is right, you don't belong among the stars if you cannot respect those you meet there. We will dismember those ships we saw when we landed. They are unsafe anyhow. Your space program is cancelled as of now. One day you will learn right."
Thunderstorm's mouth fell open. "Don't take away my people's dream!" he exclaimed. He again dropped to his belly before the globes. "Take my life, here, now, honored ones, but don't let a foolish few close the door for all the others!"
"And yet, that is what you and your Melange have done to us," Narrow Leg said, severely. "We have colonies we have not visited in revolutions, nor have we been able to explore new systems."
"But the humans gave us this gift," Thunderstorm wailed. "If we had not been intended to fly among the stars, the humans would not have come!"
"Technically speaking," Keff put in unhappily, "the Central Worlds would forbid anyone giving a new species sophisticated systems until their own culture had developed the requisite sciences. Your own development would seem to be rather far below the minimum."
"This is terrible," Noonday said, clenching his hands. "I do not wish to lose the gift of flight, either. What can we do?" Everyone looked at Keff.
"Nothing at all until you've found the humans responsible," Carialle reminded her brawn.
"We need more detail on the Melange," Keff said. "Everything. How to find them, what they do when they're here, what their ships bring in, what they take with them. We need verification, first, for my government's information, whether this is the same group who destroyed the DSC-902 in the Cridi system."
"If it is in the Slime system, it was the Melange, I promise," Thunderstorm assured them, unhappily. "They are jealous of their territory. I am sorry to use the wrong name," he said bowing his head to Small Spot. "But I have known them fifty years, and you only minutes."
"I understand," Small Spot said.
"Do you believe them, Sir Knight?" Carialle asked.
"I think so," Keff said, tapping the desk with his fingers. "We can confirm to CW that those Thelerie that we left behind on the fifth planet were part of a network of pirates. They'll be on the lookout for more ships with the same modus operandi."
"But not all Thelerie are involved," Carialle said, with a sigh of relief. "I'll put that in my message to CW. They'll be very interested to hear about human involvement in this culture."
"Bets on whether the CenCom or Xeno gets back to us first?" Keff asked, playfully.
"Get back to the job," Carialle said, with a wry inflection. "We need data. We still haven't laid hands on the masterminds, and now we only have until the message reaches the CenCom."
"It's incredible that the secret of the Thelerie hasn't leaked to the rest of the Central Worlds in fifty years," Keff said. He settled on one of the spare slings in Thunderstorm's office. The Cridi stayed near him, not yet trusting their new acquaintances, but curious.
"We thought that it had," Noonday said, a little sadly. Thunderstorm could not meet his parent's eyes.
"Would you give up a free source of fuel?" Carialle asked. "This is a remote corner of the sector yet. If it wasn't for the bulk transport difficulties they might have been bootlegging it to exploration ships and miners. And here's an intelligent workforce who do complicated work without asking awkward questions. I think we ought to be amazed they weren't enslaved by this Melange. There's some vestige of morality in there, whatever else is going on."
"That brings me to another question," Keff said, looking from parent to child. "Why did the Melange take you into space in the first place? No offense, but I'd be afraid beings who had never known space travel might be a… liability."
Thunderstorm's upper lip parted in a smile. "I think to test a hypothesis. We are at the Center, and they wanted to understand Centering."
"Centering?" Keff asked.
"So you truly do not know," Thunderstorm said in surprise, settling down on a cushion in the sun with his wings on his back and his foreclaws thrust out before him like the Sphinx. "This is the heart of the universe." A wing claw rose to gesture from ground to sky to his own breast. "Its heart is our heart. Where we go, we can always return to here. It draws us. It is a part of us, and we a part of it."
"Extraordinary!" Keff exclaimed. "You mean that if I blindfolded you-covered your eyes-and took you anywhere on this planet, you could get home unaided?"
The sharp teeth showed in a quick smile. "Any child could. All do, to prove adulthood. We are never lost. Our legends of long ago said the Center would lead us home from anywhere, even the stars. But the wise ones of the past didn't provide us with the means to try the theory."
"An internal homing beacon. Whew!" Keff whistled. "But this Melange provided the means."
"Don't lead the witness," Carialle said in his ear. "If we give the CenCom this tape, we want it to be clear he is volunteering this information."
"Yes," Noonday answered, from another divan cushion. Her large eyes lifted skyward and turned dreamy. "One bright day in my youth, the humans came from the stars, and took some of our people away with them, including my child." A wingtip swept toward Thunderstorm. "The legends proved true. Those of our young people who travel far with the Melange learn to go other places with relation to our Center, but always return." The wing-finger twirled around but came to rest in front of Noonday's breast. "The Melange were fascinated by our natural talent, and said we could aid them. They find us worthy to travel with them, to fulfill our dreams of sailing where there is no air to tuck beneath our wings. It is a sacred destiny. One which, alas, has been defiled."
"And in return, you give them things of value," Keff said. "What besides innate navigators?"
"It is only fair to trade value for value," Noonday said with gentle conviction. "They have brought us electricity, useful machines such as distant talkers, knowledge, and the friendship of another race. We are pleased to know them. They have been benefactors to the Thelerie. Metal, ores, handworks, cut stones, smelly fuel-water, the use of a few years of a young Thelerie's time-all seem of little worth in comparison."
"So for fifty years someone's been cashing in on these people and giving them stolen spacecraft parts in return," Carialle said.
"The Interplanetary Revenue is gonna give us a rewaa-ard," Keff chanted in a sing-song under his breath.
"Don't count it yet," Carialle said. "Let's catch these brutes, first. We need the Thelerie to help us."
"I know," Keff said, and looked up at the two griffins, who eyed him curiously every time he stopped to talk to himself. He smiled at them, which seemed to make Noonday relax. Thunderstorm looked even more worried, his wingtips clattering together over his back.
"I represent the Central Worlds, an affiliation of thousands of planets, and many different species," Keff said. "We have rules against the introduction of technology to civilizations that have not yet developed it themselves. Still, there are immense benefits to membership, if you were interested in joining."
"Then we would really become one with humans?" Noonday asked.
"Much more so than with the Melange. From our point of view, they have interfered with your development." Noonday looked puzzled. Keff struggled to explain in Standard, then in pidgin Thelerie, and gave it up as a bad job. "Well, what was it like before the Melange came?"