Trent might be bigoted; but even bigots sometimes needed to save a little face.

Ambassador Pankau returned twenty hours later… with an agreement that was fully as much a charade as Roman had expected it to be.

“The Arachne colonists will be moving their power plant about thirty kilometers further downstream,” Pankau said, handing Roman the tapes and signed papers to be filed into the Dryden’s official records. “Aside from that, they won’t have to give up all that much.”

Roman could feel Trent’s eyes on him. “What about the settlement itself?” he asked Pankau, accepting the papers. “If they’re moving the power plant, won’t they have to move with it?”

Pankau grimaced. “Some of them will, yes. Not all.”

“And what,” Trent put in, “will the Tampies be giving up?”

Pankau turned a quietly official glare on him. “It just so happens,” he said evenly,

“that on this one, the Tampies turn out to have been right. The power plant was interfering with the local migration pattern of at least four different species of birds and animals.”

Trent snorted. “Any animal that can’t adapt its life around one lousy power plant deserves extinction,” he growled. “It’s not like the damn ghornheads are actually useful for anything.”

Pankau kept his temper, but Roman could see it was a near thing. “The ghornheads may not be, no; but the same can’t be said for the mrulla. Which keep the rodunis population down to manageable levels in the fields, and which in turn follow the ghornheads around like adoring puppies.” He didn’t wait for comment, but turned back to Roman. “Ccist-paa also tells me they’re having trouble with human poachers grabbing space horses from their Cemwanninni yishyar system.”

“‘Their’ system?“ Trent muttered, just loud enough to hear.

Pankau looked back at him, his gaze hardening. “Yes, their system. Like it or not, Commander, the Senate has relinquished all human claims there. The Tampies can make real use of a space horse watering hole; we cannot. Playing dog-in-themanger is hardly the action of civilized people.”