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“All in favor?”
    A wave of “ayes” went around the room before Benson knew what was happening.
    â€œOpposed?”
    â€œMe!” Benson said.
    â€œYou have to say ‘nay,’ Director Benson.”
    â€œNay!”
    â€œThat’s better. Of course, the ayes have it regardless. Motion carries.”
    â€œWonderful,” Mahama said. “Mr Feng, you will make the arrangements?”
    â€œOf course, captain.”
    â€œExcellent. Now, I must excuse myself.”
    Valmassoi stood up and gave a small bow in Mahama’s direction. “Of course, captain. Thank you for coming.”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking.” Mahama smirked as her image faded to black.
    The meeting concluded, the council members stood up to leave. Benson sank into his chair. “What just happened?”
    â€œYou were volunteered for a high-profile mission, dear.” Theresa patted his forearm, trying and failing to hide her amusement.
    â€œSo it seems.”
    â€œI don’t know why you’re upset, you got to vote on it.”
    â€œDemocracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on who’s for dinner.” Benson twisted around to look at Feng. “And exactly what arrangements are you going to make?”
    â€œTransportation, obviously. We’re going to need to fit this little trip into the shuttle schedule. Unless you want to build your own boat?”
    â€œI just might.”
    â€œBryan,” Theresa moved behind Benson and put her arms around his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you excited to meet the neighbors?”
    â€œIt’s not that.” Benson reached up to squeeze her wrist. “I just really hate flying.”

Four
    K exx sat next to Mei on the banks of the small lake at the center of the village, watching in rapt attention as the children swam, splashed, and squealed in the water. The human children, as the visitors called their race were, to be blunt, simply terrible swimmers. Even the youngest among the G’tel village were comfortable moving through the water as soon as they entered the world.
    But whatever they lacked in competency, the strange, pale little creatures more than made up for it with sheer, screaming excitement. Their joy was infectious, quickly spreading among many of the village children who had come running down to the lake to see what all the noise was about. Without a second thought, and much to the surprise of the horrified parents who came looking for them, many of the G’tel children jumped in and started splashing the visitors, spraying them by blowing water through hollow stems, and challenging them to see who could stay underwater the longest. In this last category, the human children inevitably lost, but giggled anyway.
    Kexx couldn’t remember seeing anyone have so much fun while being so profoundly awful at something. But more importantly, it was the first time ze’d seen any of the visitors and zer own people interacting so freely. For the children in the water, all of the fear, mistrust, and apprehension of the last three Varrs had simply disappeared. They played like they’d all been friends since their naming. Even the ring of nervous parents standing around the shores of the lake, both G’tel and human, soon lost interest and sat or laid down to enjoy the afternoon sun. Even a pair of bearers, usually nervous and fearful, had come out to enjoy watching the frivolity.
    Leave it to the innocence of children to set fear aside in favor of an afternoon free of their daily chores. Glancing around at the adults sunning themselves, Kexx realized that maybe that spark still burned in everyone.
    Ze looked over at Mei’s face, trying to gauge zer expression. It wasn’t easy. The visitors’ skin was, well, dead. It was a single color, uniform and unchanging like the sunbleached flesh of the recently departed. Even Kexx found it unnerving at times.
    The humans couldn’t produce