'Sophist.' Drillen gave him a grin that was surprisingly boyish. 'You know why this is important.'

'Do I?'

'It's all the fault of the Solarnese, of course, all those squabbling little provincials huddled around the Exalsee – why are you laughing now?'

'Those "squabbling little provincials" have been teaching our artificers things we wouldn't have worked out for another ten years,' Stenwold said mildly. 'But do go on. You were blaming them for something.'

One of Drillen's servants arrived just then, having finally tracked down the right vintage in the Assembly's cellars, and the two statesmen took a moment to sip it appreciatively. 'The Solarnese,' said Drillen eventually, 'with their stupid names with all those extra vowels… what was that ambassador they sent? Oh yes, he wrote it as Caidhreigh, but then when you introduced him it turned out he was called Cathray. Anyway, everyone seems agreed now that they're some kind of stable halfbreed stock, Ant-kinden and Beetle-kinden combined. You can see it in their faces, and most especially you can see it in their Art, after we finally convinced them to talk about it. They're like those other fellows you were always banging on about.'

'Myna,' Stenwold agreed.

'Exactly. But they're obviously no relation because of their skin colour, and so the ethnologists started asking "Where did they come from?"'

'Nobody cared when it was just Myna,' Stenwold said.

'Two reasons, old soldier.' Drillen enumerated them on his chubby fingers. 'One: public attitudes were different back then. Two: Myna's within spitting distance of an Ant city-state – and not so very far from Helleron. No mysteries there, then. There are no Beetle-kinden around the Exalsee, and yet the ethnologists are adamant in their conclusions, so whence the Solarnese? Well, of course, we ask them that question, when politeness permits, and they show us their maps, and tell us their earliest word-of-mouth records say their ancestors came from Khanaphes.