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now, in a sick way. “We didn’t know the Izkop already had massacred the civs at Amity, and hidden themselves all over the valley. So we got massacred, too.
    “We knew they were in the hills but didn’t see them waiting in the valley itself. Maybe your people showed them how IR gear and stuff like that works. They figured out how to hide from it, and our leaders didn’t figure they’d do that. Just a bunch of spear-chucking primitives, right? There they are, no need to look around any more, no need to deploy special battlefield recce, especially when those civs need us now! So we dropped right in as if the whole landing zone was empty. Only it wasn’t. Someone wants to kill you that bad, usually there’s a real strong reason. I guess I’d like to know what the reason is, too.”
    “They destroyed everything in Amity, you told us,” she said. “That has to be a clue. Have I mentioned Prometheus?”
    “Prometheus? The Titan who stole fire from the gods?”
    “You know about that Prometheus?” She smiled, then looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I –“
    “No offense taken, ma’am.”
    “My students call me Professor Tisrok. My friends call me Ariana. No one calls me ma’am.”
    He couldn’t help grinning at her. “So what am I?”
    “Call me Ariana. The Izkop legends have a figure I call Prometheus. But the status of the Izkop Prometheus is confusing to me. Is he a god? Or a demon? He seems to be both. The Izkop value knowledge, but also fear having their souls corrupted by accepting things stolen from the gods.”
    “You think maybe the Izkop decided humans were working with Prometheus?” Johansen asked.
    “Maybe,” she said cautiously. “But our policies should have prevented the Izkop from ever thinking that. We never gave them anything. What happened that translated into massacre? What did the Izkop think happened? If only…“
    “Yeah?”
    Ariana clenched her jaw again. “My professional opinions aren’t popular. There’s a lot of politics in academia. I believe that mythologies, religious beliefs, tell you a lot about how sentient creatures think. That’s not fashionable right now. The orthodox, prevailing view in my field is that myths and religions are just window-dressing, not really fundamental to world-views and not regarded by cultures as serious explanations for how the universe works.”
    Johansen gave her a baffled look. “Where did anyone get that idea?”
    “If everyone you work with and socialize with thinks like that, then it’s very easy to believe that it’s true of everyone else.” Ariana sighed. “Like Juni, most of my colleagues back at Amity even argued that the Izkop aren’t truly warlike, that the spears and the battle practices and everything else are just vestigial and symbolic. They look at a primitive society and see the noble savage.”
    “Noble savage?” Johansen shook his head, his eyes searching the darkness outside. “How does someone be noble and savage? And how does that correlate with being primitive?”
    She laughed briefly, the sound filled with pain. “Those are exactly the sort of questions that I ask. Some very technological human societies have been very savage. Noble primitives seem to be something people want to believe in, like…like…”
    “Hookers with hearts of gold?”
    “Yes! Those are probably as rare in real life as noble savages.”
    “So,” Johansen asked, “what do noble savages do?”
    Ariana sighed, shaking her head. “I’ve been told by experts senior to me that the Izkop with their primitive technology are so closely connected to their world that they understand their place in the universe much better than we do.”
    “How exactly does that work?” Johansen asked after a long moment.
    She caught the hint of mockery in his voice. “That’s a question that Juni would answer with many words made up of many syllables. I don’t believe the logic behind them. That’s why I was posted out here, where I wouldn’t