Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief." "How silly! What's that to do with it?" "He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a club toe in the spring. Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on the Geoark to make up its mind?" "What do you think they'll do?" "The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?" "Tell them to go away." "And suppose they chose not to go?" The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the Geoark." "Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with ours?" "_Two_ Geoarks? What a strange idea." "Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware that I have one too?" "Evon! What a _strange_ idea." He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring, then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to wander into the clearing from the pathways. "I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone suggested. "About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?" "I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them." "Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're _people_--such as you and I." So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet. PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, PRESENTS GREETINGS! HAVING RECEIVED NO ANSWER TO OUR PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION, WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAND AT ONCE. I AM IMPOSING AN INFORMATIONAL QUARANTINE TO AVOID RESTIMULATING POSSIBLE RECESSIVE KULTURVERLAENGERUNG, BUT SUGGEST YOU GUARD YOURSELVES. OUR CULTURES HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. WE COME IN ARMS, WITHOUT ENMITY. ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION This was even more mystifying than the previous one, even less meaningful in translation. One thing was clear, however: the fleet was going to land, without invitation. Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans. "Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked. "They are revived," answered the tech clans. "Then let us speak to our brothers from space." And so it was that the people of the gardens of Earth sang out: BRETHREN TO BRETHREN, PRESENT LOVE LOVE LOVE.