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about whatever you're planning?"
    "The CLS will need to send an interim Interrelator to fill Bill's job. I intend to go myself. Ancestor's World sounds like a really interesting place, and I've always been fascinated by archaeology. Claire can come stay with you for a couple of weeks."
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    Rob's mouth dropped open. "What? Why you?"
    Her mouth tightened. "Bill was my friend. I intend to find out who killed him."
    "Mahree!" Rob's cry of protest echoed in the confines of his office. "Bill was murdered. You're an Ambassador, not V. I. Warshawski!"
    "V. I. who ??"'
    Rob sighed. He was used to Mahree (and most other people) not getting his references to his beloved antique film collection. "Never mind. Mahree, this is the responsibility of the local police, not the interim Interrelator. You could be the next victim!"
    "I'll work with the local police; don't worry. And I've been in enough tight situations that I know how to take care of myself." She leaned forward, intent.
    "Rob, don't bother arguing. I'm going because I owe it to Bill. I sent him to Ancestor's World, and he died there. I intend to find out what really happened."
    Rob Gable mouthed a Mizari curse, one guaranteed to make one's scales fall off if repeated before the Star-Spirits. Mahree shook her head at him.
    "Cussing at me won't stop me.
    He sighed. "When have I ever been able to tell you what to do? Please ...
    Mahree, don't."
    "Rob, I have to. I'm the Ambassador-at-Large, and Ancestor's World is high profile right now. Once Mitchell's discovery gets out, it's going to be even higher profile. The CLS needs somebody on the scene to help them evaluate what's going on--apart from Bill's death, I'd probably go there on a fact-finding mission anyway."
    Rob shook his head, but there was nothing more to say. "Well, I'll love spending time with Claire, anyway. I just hope she'll be able to adjust well to other human students. She's never been around kids her own age, of her own species, before."
    Mahree nodded. "That's true. We were planning to do this anyway in a year, remember. This will give us a chance to preview what it's going to be like."
    Rob nodded. "Well, at least I'll get to spend time with
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    one member of my family." He heard the bitterness in his own voice, and saw Mahree's reaction; her eyes dropped, unable to meet his own.
    "Rob, I'm really, really sorry I missed that family vacation we'd planned.
    Soon, we can do that. I promise. As soon as I get back from Ancestor's World ..."
    He gave her a quick, automatic smile. "Sure, honey. Have a safe trip, okay?
    Give Claire a kiss from me and tell her I can't wait to see her."
    She nodded wordlessly, her expression still troubled, and reached out to cut the connection.
    Mahree's image vanished, leaving Rob Gable alone in his office. The psychologist sighed, sipped absently at his cold coffee, and ordered his computer to locate Bill Waterston's mother's com code ...
    On the home planet of the Heeyoon, Arooouhl, deep in the ruins of ancient Kal-Syr, Etsane Mwarka signaled her autocam to turn itself off and just looked for a moment at the beautiful paintings that covered an entire stone wall. The wall lay inside a hallway of the Great Palace at Kal- Syr, capital of the first Heeyoon city-state. The paintings did not look fifteen hundred years old.
    "You're a beauty, aren't you?" she whispered to the wall.
    Yes, I am! the huge mural seemed to shout back at her.
    Before her eyes marched long lines of the wolflike Heeyoon, their long gray muzzles opened wide as they howled forth their song of welcome. In a series of panel scenes, they welcomed the Heeyoon autarch Moonwise, first to unite the peoples of the Warm and the Cold Lands. As an Iconographer who spoke the Heeyoon language fluently it had been her job to document in color, black and white, and infrared photographs, and with pencil drawings, the ancient images, then classify and describe them.
    She'd first seen pictures of this wall back home on Earth, at the