"My translator is working badly," the voice of the elder was parroting.
"Look," the baron grunted at the mike. "All we want is to accomplish what we came here for, and then get out--as quickly as possible. We don't have much time to be polite. I invite the elders of the Geoark to confer in my flagship. We'll try to make everything clear to you. Is this agreed?"
A pause, then: "I understand that you wish us to come to the place where the sky-fleet rests."
"But what of the welcome we have made for our brethren in the feast-glades?"
"I shall dispatch flyers to pick you up immediately. Unless you have aircraft of your own."
"We have no machinery but the self-sustaining mechanisms in the Earth."
"Any of your population understand the mechanisms?"
"Then bring technicians. They'll be best able to understand what we want, and maybe they can make it clear to you."
The baron terminated the contact and turned to his staff with a satisfied smile. "I think we shall have what we need and be gone quickly," he said.
"The elder took it well. They must be afraid of us."
"Respectful awe is more like it," the baron grunted.
"I suggest the answer is in the word 'brethren,'" came a voice from the back of the room.
"Meikl! What are you doing in here?" ven Klaeden barked irritably.
"You called my department for a man. My department sent me. Shall I go back?"
"It's up to you, Analyst. If you can keep your ideals corked and be useful."
"Having it in mind that our only objective is to go through the tooling-mining-fueling cycle with a minimum of trouble and time--have you got any suggestions?"
"Certainly ... but with the accent on _our_ problems."
Meikl paused to snap the tip from an olophial and sniffed appreciatively at the mildly alkaloid vapor before replying. "From what we've gathered through limited observation, I think we'd better gather some more, and do our suggesting later."
"Not quite. About the question of recessive kulturverlaengerung...."
"_Our_ problems, I said!" the commander snapped.
"In Earth culture at the time of the Exodus, there were some patterns we'd regard as undesirable. We can't know whether we're still carrying the recessive patterns or not. And we don't know whether the patterns are still dominant in the natives. Suppose we get restimulated."