He approached the intruder.

Who glanced up, dropped its hands and rolled to its feet with amazing suppleness, whereupon it performed the bow of youngling to elder and straightened, awaiting his pleasure.

An eggling, thought the T’carais, astounded.

Of all who had complained, none had said that the intruder was but an eggling. He remembered, then, the disconcertment this particular eggling had caused members of the Knife Clan, not to mention unleashing harmful energies in the vicinity of growing blades, and stiffened his soul. Withholding any indication of regard for his petitioner, he studied it at his leisure.

It was somewhat smaller than those of the Clans of Men he had previously known, and ridiculously thin. Also, it had no fur on its lower face, though a profusion upon its head, dark brown in color. It was dressed in garments of black leather over another long-sleeved garment of some softer stuff: garb worn by many men, especially those that traveled between stars. Around this one’s middle was a wide belt, hung with a confusion of objects.

The T’carais returned his attention to the face, seeing that it was small; looking as if one of his kin had taken a nugget of soft golden ore and used a knife to plane off five quick, angular lines, finishing the work by setting two crystals of the most vivid green possible well back among them, shadowed by long lashes and guarded by straight, dark brows.

The T’carais deigned to speak. “Egglings are not permitted here,” he said sternly, and in Terran, so there should be no mistaking his meaning.

One of those straight brows twitched out of line with its brother, as the master of them both looked down at itself, and then back up.

“I am sure that to one of your own magnificence,” it said softly, and with a lilt to the words that fell oddly on the ear, “it must appear that I have not yet achieved adulthood. However, I must insist that I am not an—eggling—but a man grown.”