The Tindler was such a fool. Resembling a giant armadillo with long, clawed hands used for walking and for grasping, he moved down the road, confident that his thick shell could protect him from any inhabitant of a nontech hex. His night vision would alert him well in advance of any traps.

“Help me! Oh, please! Someone! Help me!”

There it was again—a strange, high-pitched voice pierced the darkness. From its sound, it had obviously been processed by a translator. The Tindler, himself a far-traveling trade negotiator, used one. When both speakers wore them the voices sounded slightly more artificial.

“Help me! Please! Somebody! Help!” The mysterious voice pleaded just ahead of him. The Tindler grew wary, automatically suspecting a trap set by brigands reported to be in the area. Worse, he feared someone had somehow inadvertently touched one of the great trees that abutted one another across the whole hex. These were the immobile Kyrbizmithians themselves, who moved by swapping minds with one another and who would absorb the mind of anyone touching them without approval.

Suddenly he saw it, a tiny thing lying in the roadway. The creature was more than seventy centimeters of bright-red fur tinged with gold. Its bushy foxlike tail was almost as long as its body, and its build was something like that of a small monkey. As the Tindler drew cautiously closer, the creature, a kind he’d never seen before, emitted a low moan; then he saw that one of its hind legs seemed set at an odd angle—almost certainly broken.

The Tindler’s bulk made it impossible to conceal his presence; the little creature’s head, lying in the roadway, turned and stared at him with beady little eyes from a curious face that resembled an owl’s, complete to a tiny beak.