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unremarkable body, really, at least here on Gla Taus.
    Once Lady Turshebsel had positioned herself in her immersion nook, her smile seemed that of a little girl who has tasted a forbidden confection. If she was indeed past middle age for a jauddeb, she bore her years well.
    “Come,” she said. “All others may attend this conference from vantages of their own choosing, but Master Seth must join me in the waters.”
    Kieri garments were made to don or doff without lifting the arms or raising the feet, and before Seth could protest or demur, an attendant had unstrung his jacket and split and peeled back the resealable leg seams of his pantaloons. Soon he stood before the mighty of the land in gooseflesh and breechclout, and that the Lady also wore no clothes was paltry consolation.
    Half panicked, Seth looked to his isohet for aid.
    “I suffered through the same thing this morning,” Abel said in Langlish. “Off with your breechclout, too. She wishes to take your measure.”
    But Clefrabbes Douin took Seth’s wrist and led him toward the nook opposite Lady Turshebsel’s. “Perhaps he’d be more comfortable, Lady, if only those immediately concerned with this matter take part in our talks.”
    Lady Turshebsel looked to right and to left, nodding each time, and, in a moment, there remained in the laulset only Seth, Abel, Douin, the silver-eyed patriot-priest, and a tall, ugly Kieri dressed in blue pants and a long, rope-hooked coat.
    This man Seth knew as Porchaddos Pors, Point Marcher of Feln. It was his function to formulate and implement local policy. Although one of the highest-ranking courtiers in the Liege Mistress’s service, Pors was hierarchically subordinate to the Point Marcher of Sket, who, possessing his title through a more ancient lineage, exercised a greater authority nationwide. Pors was of the Kieri nobility, whereas Douin was a career civil servant who had won his position and his house through the sometimes uncertain preferment of scholarship and ability.
    Seth did not like Porchaddos Pors because of his aggressive temperament and the animalish cast of his features. Although grateful to Douin and Lady Turshebsel for emptying the hall of extraneous onlookers, he still did not like to remove his breechclout before this man. The stare of the aisautseb, enveloped in his stiff, white robes, was also disconcerting. Why must he disrobe in front of strangers?
    Abel and Douin flanked him, and Abel, nudging him in the side, muttered in faint Langlish, “Remove it and get in. The priests believe that a naked jauddeb speaks the truth; naked humans, too, apparently.”
    Bathing with the Clefrabbes geffide had seemed a natural thing, a strengthening of the bond between host and guest—but this, despite the kindness in Lady Turshebsel’s eyes, seemed designed either to humble or to test; both, maybe. And because Abel had earlier said that getting back to Earth depended on how he conducted himself here, Seth tasted fear. What was he being tested on? What did they want of him?
    He unknotted the breechclout and dropped it to the floor. His scrotum contracted, and his legs threatened to give way. But he kept his teeth clenched and entered the warm water, settling into the immersion nook and relaxing a little the moment his body was covered.
    Water moved around him, and Porchaddos Pors came to the pool’s edge to stand behind the Liege Mistress. Half visible in the glare of light behind and to the left of Pors, the unblinking priest kept watch.
    “Your isohet says you wish to return to Earth, Master Seth,” Lady Turshebsel began. “In the Dharmakaya. ”
    “Yes, Lady.”
    “The ship you came in, formerly the property of the Ommundi Company, now belongs to us. The aisautseb, however, agree that you may regain it if you, your isohet, and the pilot who now lies aboard it in cold sleep agree to undertake a mission on behalf of the Kieri state. Master Abel has already agreed. The pilot, he tells us, will obey him,