He trailed off as Faraday's face suddenly clicked. The chapter on the Qanska, and Balrushka's muleheaded but failed attempts to work out a trade deal. "You're Jakob Faraday," he breathed. "The Jakob Faraday."

"Of the tether-probe team of Chippawa and Faraday," Faraday agreed, a slight smile briefly touching the corners of his mouth. "First men ever to make contact with the Qanska."

The smile turned into an ironic twitch of the lip. "Such as it was."

"They cut your tether," Raimey said, trying hard to remember the details. Balrushka and his trade negotiations had been the real point of that chapter, with Chippawa and Faraday more a sidebar than anything else. "One of the Qanskan young ran into it, and one of the predators—"

"A Vuuka."

"Right—a Vuuka chewed through it," Raimey said. "Then one of the older Qanska caught you or something. They held a meeting, and decided to send you back up."

"Not bad," Faraday said. "You remember all the essentials, anyway. Now, let's try a real test. Do you remember the name of the man who finally cracked the Qanskan language code? Or the name of the two women who compiled the first English/Qanska tonal dictionary?"

Raimey made a face. "You must be joking. Of course not."

"Which is exactly my point," Faraday said. "No one remembers them, at least no one in the general public. But they were obviously highly important to history."

He smiled again, self-deprecatingly this time. "Far more important than Scotto and I were, to be perfectly honest. Just as the men who translated the First Immigrants' languages were more important to the history of the Americas than Christopher Columbus was. But everyone remembers Columbus and not them. Why? Because he was the first."

"Fine," Raimey said. "I agree; first is good. Now tell me the rest of it."