Chapter 24

"How the hell did you do it, Carlos?" Meiersdottir asked. "Talk them down? I kept trying with Kalogakhing but I never felt like I really made a dent."

Meier, who had grown quickly unhappy with his confinement in the aliens' sparse nest, had at last decided to stop celebrating his new freedom and was sleeping soundly, leaving husband and wife some time to themselves. The aliens were continuing their mental reconnection at the outpost, with the trip back to their original settlement still ahead. And Meiersdottir was baffled by the peaceful resolution.

"It was your idea, Amanda," he told her. "As has been everything else of consequence on this planet." He leaned over to kiss her again, as he already had over and over again since they reunited.

"What do you mean, my idea?" she asked. "Quit kissing me so much and tell me. Oh, hell." And she in turn reached over to pull him to her for yet another kiss. "OK, now, say."

"Just before I left you said something about if only they would think together, and I knew you of course were right," he said. "But they stubbornly would not, each side had its back up. So I had to find a way to make them think together, but for a long while it stymied me."

"Tell me about it," she said, rolling her eyes.

"It was when I saw how close were the two expeditionary groups to each other"—he avoided calling them war parties—"and realized they were well within the limits of their think-together reach, that I understood how to accomplish it. It was a variation on the interference signal we used on the first trip."

"So?"

"Back then they were so accustomed to broadcasting only on a single frequency that a signal on that frequency alone was enough to block them," he said. "But they have since become familiar with the idea of using multiple frequencies, and of course have been doing so; it was part of the chasm that grew between the two settlements."

"I know. I spent half of last night beating myself up for having given them the idea in the first place."

"On that basis I considered that, if we used the interference again, they might now scan the rest of the spectrum for a clear wavelength."

Her mouth fell open. "So you covered everything except—"

"—except for one very narrow band," he finished. "Susan left that completely open. So both groups would have only that available."

She burst out laughing. "Oh, how I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when they found themselves with no choice but to think together! And once they did, they had to see how trivial were the differences that were dividing them."

"That was my hope. And it appears to have been successful."

"How did you talk that idiot major into letting you try it?" she asked. Edmundson and Accorda, who'd been overhearing without any pretense, looked at each other at the adjective but said nothing, although Accorda had a slight smile.