"Yes," Embelsira said as they gathered all the oddments the guests had left, "she's been offered a lot of money to go work in Zrig. But she won't leave Katund; she was born here, and so were her parents."

"I do not blame her for wanting to stay," he said. "It's a very—homelike place."

She sighed. "To us it is, but I don't suppose someone who's city born and bred would feel the same way. I know you won't let yourself stay buried here forever, and what will I—what will Mother and I ever do without you?"

"It is—very kind of you to say so," he replied. "I am honored."

The girl—she was still young enough to be called a girl, though no longer in her first youth—looked up at him. Blue eyes could be pleasing in their way. "Why are you always so stiff, so cold?"

"I am not cold," he said honestly. "I am—afraid."

"There is nothing to be afraid of. You're safe, among friends, no matter what you may have done back where you came from."

"But I have done nothing back there," he said. "Nothing at all. Perhaps that is the trouble with me."

She looked up at him and then away. "Then isn't it about time you started to do something?"

The next time he went to Barshwat he took a lot of luggage with him, because, besides the artifacts and the flora and fauna, he brought cold pastries for the colonel. The colonel ate one in silence, then said, "Try to get the recipe."

"By the way," said Clarey, "the X-T boys made a few mistakes. The bugg isn't an insect; it's a bird. And the lule isn't a bird; it's a flower. And the paparun isn't a flower; it's an insect."

"Oh, well, I guess they'll be able to straighten that out," the colonel said, licking crumbs from his thick fingers. "We do our jobs and they do theirs." He reached for another pastry.

"Take good care of the bugg," Clarey said. "He likes his morning seed mixed with milk; his evening seed with wine. His name is Mirti. He's very tame and affectionate. I—said I was bringing him to my aunt...." He paused. "You are going to take him back alive, aren't you? You'd get so much more information that way."

"Wouldn't dream of hurting a hair—a feather—no, it is a hair, isn't it?—of the little fellow's head."

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