Chapter 40

It was about three weeks later that Meiersdottir and Igwanda found themselves summoned once again to the Edenites' primary nest.

During that span there had been an incremental but cumulatively perceptible change in the nature of the daily interactions between the human scientists and their native counterparts. Previously the aliens' appetite to learn as much as they could of virtually all disciplines had been voracious; they asked endless questions, absorbed the answers with the full power of their collective intellect, and returned with yet more questions and more again.

But following Zo and Hill's wedding the flow of questions had bit by bit slowed. The natives remained as cooperative as ever about helping the humans with their own acquisition of knowledge about both themselves and their planet, but their reciprocal quest for knowledge of their own seemed to be dwindling. Several of the scientists had taken note of this and brought their concern to Meiersdottir, who was herself puzzled.

"Have they hit some sort of saturation point?" she wondered aloud to her husband one evening. "I mean, up to now their learning curve has been so steep it was almost a vertical line. Have we started to overload them?"

"I suppose even the collective, powerful though it may seem, could have its limits," Igwanda replied. "Or it may be that they are simply plateauing. In us humans I have found that learning tends to take place in bursts rather than a steady progression. When I first was training with a laser, I recall that for a very long time I could draw and fire with extraordinary speed but my accuracy was not better than average or even below. One day I had two tests in fairly quick succession. On the first my results were my usual; on the second my speed was unchanged but I hit almost everything I aimed at, and I never regressed. I was consciously unaware of any difference in my approach, but I had surmounted whatever had been holding me back. Perhaps they have reached such a point and are temporarily stalled."

Meiersdottir looked skeptical. "I know that theory, and I've had similar experiences myself," she said. "But if it's true here, they've taken longer than I've ever heard of to reach that first plateau. Over a year of our first trip and now we're nine months into the second. It just doesn't feel like that."

He shrugged. "I have no other explanation to offer. But perhaps they will themselves in time recognize what is happening and give us their own."

Now, it appeared, they might be ready to do so.

The request for the visit, when Joe made it, came with a strong hint that what the Eden­ites had in mind would be of considerable moment. The alien began by asking that the two of them, alone, come again to the nest to speak with Gagugakhing the next morning, but then had more to say:

"In this time before you come we wish that there be no other talk between us. In morning none will come here, Akakha and I only to take you to nest. And Gagugakhing say that when you go this time you should bring with you hand-talk"—he meant their communicators—"so that all human may know what is said. It is as the first time we take you to nest. Gagugakhing wish talk only with you, Amanda, Igwanda, other human may not speak, but she wish also for all to hear."

The conditions were sufficiently unusual that they caused a considerable stir when Meiersdottir relayed them at a general meeting that evening. There was a predictable jealousy among the scientists, most of whom had never seen an Edenite nest, that once again only she and her husband were invited. But soon it gave way to speculation over why the aliens specifically wanted this conversation broadcast.

"I really have no idea," Meiersdottir told them. "Joe didn't say. The only other time we did that was when Carlos and I were invited to the nest the first time to begin to make real friends, and then everybody else was on the Gardener, we were the only two planetside. So this is something new. Well, we'll find out tomorrow. Everybody listen in, of course."

She told Shaw the same thing, and he agreed to pipe the session through the entire ship—where about half the ship's complement were currently based—on the overhead. Igwanda suggested that the guard on Miller be temporarily doubled against the possibility that the Edenite-hating prisoner might be aroused by what all expected to be a cordial talk. No other changes in their arrangements were proposed.

With no notion of what awaited them the next day, all went to bed as usual and, despite lingering questions, slept soundly.