FLEET THREE,
SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION

* * * * *

So it came, repeated continuously for an hour, followed by an hour of
silence, and then by another hour of repetition. The linguists were
unable to discern meanings. Thousands of memorizers were consulted, but
none knew the words of the harsh voice from the ships. At last, the
sages consulted the books and memnoscripts in the ancient vaults,
pouring over tomes that had been buried for countless centuries. After
hours of hurried study....

"It is found, _it is found_, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry in
the glades and the garden pathways.

Happily, the sages recorded the linguistic structure of the forgotten
tongue on memnoscript, and gave it to a servo translator. Outmoded
mechanisms were being brought out of wraps and prepared for use. The
servos supplied a translation of the message, and the sages studied it.

"It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the garden
pathways.

"Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that are
similar," was the only explanation the sages could give.

In translation the message seemed meaningless, or unfathomable. Only one
thing was clear. The sons of Man meant to descend again upon the world
of their ancestors. There was a restless unease in the gardens, and
groups of elders gathered in the conference glades to mutter and glance
at the sky. "Invite our brothers to land," was the impetuous cry of the
young, but there were dissenters.

In the Glade of Sopho, a few thoughtful clansmen of Pedaga had gathered
to muse and speak quietly among themselves, although it was not
ordinarily the business of tutors to consider problems that confronted
society as a whole, particularly problems arising outside society
itself. The Pedaga were teachers of the very young, and deliberately
kept themselves childlike in outlook in order to make fuller contact
with the children in their charge.

"I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked around
at the others for a response.

She got nothing in reply but a flickering glance from Marrita, who sat
morosely on a cool rock by the spring, her chin on her bare knees. Evon
gave her a brief polite smile, to acknowledge the sound of her voice,
but he returned almost at once to absently tearing twigs and glancing up
at the bits of sky that showed through the foliage of the overhanging
trees