"I thought you'd still be up," I said blackly, resisting the urge to trot outsome of the colorful language that had earned me a seat in front of thatcourt-martial board so many years ago.

"I am up," he said. "Come take a look at this."

With an amazingly patient sigh, I clicked the safety back on my plasmic andslid the weapon back into its holster. With Ixil, the object of interest could beanything from a distant nebula he'd spotted through the haze of city lights toan interesting glow-in-the-dark spider crawling across the window. "Be rightthere," I grunted. Hauling myself to my feet, I kicked the door closed androunded the half wall into the main part of the room.

For most people, I suppose, Ixil and his ilk would be considered as much avisual nightmare as the charming Yavanni lads I'd left back at the taverno. Hewas a typical Kalix: squat, broad-shouldered, with a face that had more thanonce been unflatteringly compared to that of a squashed iguana.

And as he stood in silhouette against the window, I noticed that thisparticularKalix was also decidedly asymmetric. One of those broad shoulders—the rightone—appeared to be hunched up like a cartoonist's caricature of a muscle-boundthrow-boxer, while the other was much flatter. "You're missing someone," Icommented, tapping him on the flat shoulder.

"I sent Pix up onto the roof," Ixil said in that cultured Kalixiri voice thatfits so badly with the species' rugged exterior. One of the last remainingsimple pleasures in my life, in fact, was watching the reactions of peoplemeeting him for the first time who up till then had only spoken with him onvidless starconnects. Some of those reactions were absolutely priceless.

"Did you, now," I said, circling around to his right side. As I did so, thelumpon top of that shoulder twitched and uncurled itself, and a whiskered noseprobed briefly into my ear. "Hello, Pax," I greeted it, reaching over toscritch the animal behind its mouselike ear.