He was going to tell it all! Everything! All the facts that the whole party had agreed must remain dead secret until a high-level approval to discuss them had been granted. Darya tried to kick Rebka’s leg under the table and hit nothing but empty air.

“We found a small group of Zardalu—” He was grinding on.

“You mean, you found people from the territory of the Zardalu Communion?” Glenna Omar was smiling with delight. Darya was sure that she thought Rebka was making up the whole thing for her benefit.

“No. I mean what I said. We found Zardalu, the original land-cephalopods.”

“But they’ve been extinct for ten thousand years!”

“Most have. But we found fourteen living ones—”

“Eleven thousand years.” Merada’s high-pitched voice from the end of the table told Darya that everyone in the dining room was listening.

Bang went a lifetime’s reputation for serious and sober research work! Darya kicked again at Rebka’s leg under the table, only to be rewarded with a pained and outraged cry from Glenna Omar.

“Or rather more than eleven thousand,” Merada went on. “As nearly as I can judge, it has been eleven thousand four hundred and—”

“ — Zardalu who had been held in a stasis field since the time of the Great Rising, when the rest of the species were killed off. But the ones we met were very much alive, and nasty—”

“But this is disgraceful!” Carmina Gold had awakened from her dormouse trance and was scowling down the table at Darya. “You must know of the fearsome reputation of the Zardalu—”

“Not just the reputation.” Darya gave up the attempt to stay out of it. “I know them from personal experience. They’re worse than their reputation.”

“ — we managed to send them back to the spiral arm.” Rebka had his hand on Glenna Omar’s elbow and seemed to be ignoring the uproar rising from all parts of the long table. “And later we returned from Serenity ourselves, except for a Cecropian, Atvar H’sial, and an augmented Karelian human from the Zardalu Communion, Louis Nenda, who remained there to—”