Behind the podium the doors swung open, and the Overclan Prime stepped into view. For a few beats he stood in the doorway, silently surveying the crowded chamber. Then, holding aloft a kavra fruit for all to see, he sliced through it twice in the ancient ritual of openness and trust. Placing the lacerated fruit on the low table beside the door, he wiped his fingers on a cleaning cloth and continued forward. He walked between the two shrines—the larger, in standard white ceramic, for the general Overclan family; the smaller, of carved black stone, for the Overclan Primes themselves—nodding with respect to each as he passed. "I greet the Speakers of the Thousand Clans," he said, seating himself on his couch and gesturing for the Speakers to do the same. "We are met to consider the disturbing events of four fullarcs ago that necessitated the evacuation of Base World Twelve. Searcher Thrr-gilag, Kee'rr; Searcher Svv-selic, Too'rr; Searcher Nzz-oonaz, Flii'rr: step forward."

His two colleagues beside him, Thrr-gilag walked up to the witness box beside the podium, the sweet-sour aftertaste of the poison-neutralizing kavra juice mixing with the acid nervousness on his tongue as he tried to read something—anything—from the Prime's expression. Hoping to get some idea where the titular leader of the Zhirrzh race stood on all this.

But the Prime's face was a mask. And small wonder. For five hundred cyclics, ever since the founding of the Overclan Seating, this family-without-a-clan had given its sons and daughters to live and work in the sprawling complex that served the Overclan, its members allied to no one, beholden to no one, favoring no one, opposing no one. No Zhirrzh could have risen through those select ranks to become Overclan Prime without long ago learning how to bury all personal thoughts and prejudices deeply within him.