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discuss the matter with them, but she didn’t want to invite the aliens to understand the discussion and she didn’t think it would be a good idea to turn off the translators.
    “You are without males?”
    The question caught Eden by surprise. Her head whipped around so quickly in response that she felt a bone crack in her neck. “What?”
    Baen frowned. His gaze flickered from Eden to Ivy and then to the squad members. “These are female soldiers.”
    The concept was obviously boggling his mind. She wasn’t about to tell him anything one way or the other, however. The aliens might decide that the colony would be easy to take if their doubts were removed about the presence of any males.
    “We came to negotiate peace,” she said, tightness creeping into her voice. “Our bots have built our city. We do not wish to fight with our neighbors over territory.”
    Baen and the others exchanged glances. “Very well,” Baen responded. With that, he turned abruptly and strode toward the fortress once more.
    Eden stared after him and the others slack jawed.
    “What the hell was that?” Ivy demanded, equally stunned.
    Eden dragged her gaze from the retreating backs of the alien soldiers. “I don’t know. Did he say ‘ok, fine?’ or was it just my imagination?”
    Med Tech Deborah Pugh spoke. “He seemed to think the discussion has been concluded.”
    “Let’s go back. I don’t see any point in standing around here melting,” Stacy Sessions commented.
    “Sweating,” Ivy corrected, smiling faintly.
    “Whatever. It feels like melting.”
    Feeling strangely let down, Eden followed as the other council members filed up the gangplank once more. She paused at the top, studying the aliens along the fortress wall.
    Baen was among them again. Even at this distance, Eden recognized him.
    Shaking her head, she stepped inside and settled in her seat for the trip back to New Savannah, wondering what they had accomplished in their attempt to form a treaty with the other colonists.
    * * * *
    “Was the meeting a success?”
    Eden exchanged a glance with the women who’d accompanied her. “It was not a failure,” she responded cautiously. “Liz, you’re in behavioral sciences--what did you make of it?”
    Liz’s finely arched black brows rose almost to her hairline. “I’m supposed to make an educated evaluation based on that?”
    Eden scowled at her. “Take a wild guess then,” she snapped.
    Liz considered it and finally shrugged. “Everything about them indicates a civilization that’s fairly advanced--maybe not as advanced technologically as we are, but certainly well beyond a primitive or simple social structure. This is a society that doesn’t seem to correlate with anything I’ve seen before, though, or studied. Their spokesman said they had no leader, but also that the colony they’d established wasn’t military in nature.
    “By our standards, it would seem to be just that, though. If he wasn’t lying, and I saw nothing to indicate that he was intentionally doing so, then I’d have to guess that their entire social structure is basically military. And, if they’re not here to make or prevent war, then the colony was constructed as it is merely for security purposes.
    “That seems to suggest they’re as alien to this world as we are and aren’t certain what they might come up against--and I’m still confused about his assertion that they have no leader and they’re not here to establish a colony.”
    Eden, seated at the head of the council table, leaned back in her seat, tapping her fingers impatiently on the surface of the table. “I’m more interested in a threat assessment at this point.”
    Liz studied her for several moments in silence. It was obvious she didn’t like being placed in the position of having to make such an important evaluation on so little. “They don’t appear to represent a threat to our colony. There was nothing overtly hostile in their behavior--as we all saw--nothing