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freeing just ours?” she said with a diffident shrug though this was the first she’d known of
that
facet of Zainal’s master plans. “Besides, Zane already speaks some Rugarian and Deski at day care.”
    â€œReally?” Kurt was startled.
    â€œGets a bit like the Tower of Babel in there some days,” Kris said, dipping the ladle into the stew pot to offer second helpings. The pot had been graciously full.
    They all had two pieces of the excellent nutty-flavored cake that had a topping of thick sweet blue-colored berries that did not at all taste like blueberries, or have similar seeds.
    As was often the case with young Zane, he was ready to go to sleep with his stomach nicely full so Kris prepared him for bed while the two men cleared the table. When she returned, she rather thought the humorous glintin Kurt’s eyes was for the accustomed manner in which the Catteni had performed the KP duties.
    The beer helped a great deal as the two Humans struggled with the guttural, harsh Catteni words, first jotting them down phonetically and then in the Catteni script. This was a cross between runes, Kurt’s definition, and glyphs, which was Kris’ notion. By the time the beer had run out, the two of them knew how to count to five hundred in Catteni, and Zainal could now spell all the words that had bothered him as well as understand all the computer abbreviations which had so baffled him. They set a time for the next lesson, and then Kurt got into the runabout and made a slow but competent turn to head back to the main settlement.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    SINCE THE MIND-PROBE HAD DISCOVERED very little useful information—apart from some shady dealings among the former administrators and administrations of the planet’s political divisions—the Ix had abandoned the project: bored even by the occasional scientific theories that had yet to be proven. Most of these were already in use by the Eosi: and far more sophisticated usage than the silly Humans had ever thought to employ.
    Unfortunately the obsession to destroy those protected by the Bubble had become so entrenched in the Ix Mentat’s mind that it thought of nothing but the means to do so. Where the Bubble had come from and what comprised the amazingly invulnerable material was almost a secondary consideration. The Juniors—which was not how they were called in Catteni but the translation was close enough to their actual position and authority within the Eosi context—had repeatedly tried to divert the Ix with other matters. Lest the Ix be provoked by their counter-arguments into another seizure, they had no choice but to proceed with the Mentat’s latest plans: toorganize the greatest force the Eosi had ever assembled, even larger than the one with which they had assaulted a planet that many High Emassi wished they’d left strictly alone. But it had seemed such a useful place: with a population density that would provide other, less desirable locations with an endless supply of workers needed to produce and refine the raw materials that kept Catteni ships in space. There was also the added fact that the Eosi were committed to extending their control of this arm of the galaxy as far as they could—and as fast as they could.
    So the orders were sent out to the naval shipyards and the plants and planets that produced the materials needed to build more AA-ships, and devise heavier, more devastating missiles to launch at this mysterious Bubble.
    The Ix Mentat was approached by one of its peers and tactfully asked why one small, insignificant world was its target.
    â€œBecause it’s there,” the Ix replied, glowering and seething with rage. “Because it defies us!”
    â€œDefiance is not permitted,” the Le Mentat agreed and that was the end of that.

Chapter Three
    MARGE BECAME MORE VOCAL BUT STRUGGLED painfully for sentences or words and would often burst into tears.