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Space Sweeper. With one claw! Honestly, I thought the lasers would short out!"
    The little group groaned in unison, "Dot, lasers don't ..."
    By then Rob and Cara were out of range. Glancing down the right branch of the corridor, Rob hastily warned Cara to turn off her camera. They were about to pass by a Shadgui.
    Cara quickly complied. "Esteemed Ssoriszs warned me yesterday. He said they have a strong opposition to representations of their bodies, that it's a part of the Shadgui belief system." She regarded the people ahead of them with interest. "Is 'they' the correct term to use for a symbiont?"
    "Correct enough," said Rob. "At least, when you're using English.."
    A human male about Cara's own height and coloring faced
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    the Shadgui, a huge, eyeless being who rather resembled a sloth. The presence of pink-tipped mammary glands amid the coarse dark brown hair covering her chest identified her as a female. On her shoulder, attached to her neck, rested a fat, reddish, warty-skinned creature with bright button eyes.
    "Hress, you're coming to the game this afternoon, aren't you?" Rob heard the human student ask. "I've been assigned to describe all the plays in Shadgui, informal dialect. I want you to tell me if I say the words right."
    "Honored will I be to have my tongue in your mouth, Ahmed," replied the alien female solemnly in halting English.
    Beside him, Cara choked with stifled laughter, and Rob saw, even with the dark skin, Ahmed's vivid, involuntary blush. Chuckling, Rob stopped.
    "Hress, you just made his day," he informed the Shadgui in Mizari. Rob glanced at Ahmed. "Are you going to supply the language lesson on this particular colloquialism or would you rather I did?"
    Hress smoothed her shaggy chest hair, concerned. "Is it that I say wrong?"
    "That's okay, Dr. Rob, I'll explain," Ahmed said, recovering his aplomb. He caught Hress by one of her massive arms and led her away with him. Rob heard him beginning his explanation, this time in Mizari. "It's just a misunderstanding, Hress. The reason it's funny is that, on Earth, when two humans kiss ..."
    - "This voder is great!" Cara exclaimed. "I can understand everything, no matter what language. With this technology available, do new students ever balk at having to actually learn Mizari and all the other languages they study?"
    "When they do, I tell them about the time Mahree and I had our First Contact with the CLS, and how we learned that communication between worlds is too delicate an art to be entrusted to mechanized translation programs." Rob spoke with conviction. "Even the best translation program can have glitches, which can have serious consequences during delicate negotiations."
    As he finished, a soft bell chimed; the corridor lighting flashed off, then back on, and the already-thinning crowd practical y disappeared.
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    "Uh-oh, I'm supposed to be open for business by now," Rob said. He smiled at Cara. "I don't have anyone scheduled but you, though, and since we're already together, I guess I'm not late. Got your interview questions ready?"
    "Of course." They rounded the last curve and she stopped suddenly. "Uh ...
    Dr. Gable, you may not have anyone scheduled, but I think someone's here to talk to you anyway."
    Rob's eyes narrowed in concern as he recognized the young man pacing before the door to his office. He'd been counseling Mark intensively since his mother's death, but lately the student had become more and more
    withdrawn, avoiding discussions of the things that were really troubling him.
    Yesterday's missed session hadn't been the first. Now here he was
    voluntarily.
    As they say in one of my favorite movies, I've got a bad feeling about this, Rob thought grimly, taking in Mark's pale face and determined expression.
    Absently, he wondered what to do with Cara as they came face-to-face with the student. He didn't want to put Mark off; all his professional instincts warned him that the young man needed immediate attention.
    "Hi, Mark," he