“It would be circular to verify ourselves,” Polaris suggested.

“Circular and direct,” Canopus agreed. “We must ascertain that we five are not hostage.” His faceted eyes bore on all the others simultaneously. “Amenable?” Sol nodded. Polaris glowed. Nath rippled. Canopus reset the unit.

“And after this,” Sol said, “we shall trust no one without immediate aural verification. Especially not Ministers, though this does present a problem. They are nominally the heads of our segment government, the highest officers among us.”

“Nominally,” Canopus agreed, his inflection carrying significance that made the others reflect agreement in their separate fashions.

Sol looked at the hostage. “What do we do with this one—at the moment?”

“We run it through an aural probe,” Canopus said. “Thereby we glean relevant information about the mechanism of involuntary hosting. Then we take our information to the single organization we can trust to contain no hostages.”

Sol raised an eyebrow, a feat none of the other species could duplicate. “Organization?”

“The Society of Hosts.”

The others, startled by the obvious, signified agreement.

“Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,” the Solarian murmured, awed at the concept of this organization becoming the true government of the segment, and perhaps of the entire Milky Way galaxy.

And the others completed the Litany of Hosts, taken from a poem written five centuries before transfer came to the author’s planet: “Recessional,” by Rudyard Kipling. “Lest we forget, lest we forget…”

PART I

MISTRESS OF TAROT

1. Melody of Mintaka

*occasion for preparatory briefing*