kfasters were quick to make the connection between the
timespan and the previous night's First Sharing, no doubt aided by the
little group's satisfied expressions.

"Female or male?" someone called.

"Female!" Hovan called back, too proud for Steve to be dismayed by the
interruption.

Within seconds Tarlac and Daria were surrounded by well-wishers, being
congratulated with obvious sincerity. There was no doubt in the
Ranger's mind of that, as he found himself grinning like an idiot,
accepting the compliments and feeling as pleased with himself as any
Traiti male.

A clan-sized family had built-in safeguards against his swelling head,
though. A youngling Steve couldn't remember meeting tugged at his
shirt, and when he looked around, said, "Hey, ruchaya Steve, you don't
talk funny any more."

Tarlac laughed. "Thanks! Think you could do any better, in English?"

The youngling grinned engagingly at him. "Sure I could, if you teach
me."

"We'll see. If I have time, it's a deal."

Over the next several days, however, Tarlac was too busy to teach; he
was studying instead, fourteen hours a day, which left him time for
little except food and sleep. He didn't mind the hard work; it was
interesting, and it would very probably keep him alive--if anything
would.

Hovan did leave him time to study the first-contact tape and read the
daily news summaries the Supreme had delivered as promised. Neither
brought any surprises, though he paid close attention to the tape,
trying to find some way the war could have been avoided. Doing so
wouldn't solve this situation, but it might help prevent another
first-contact disaster.

He didn't find anything. The tape simply confirmed Hovan's account of
the first human/Traiti meeting, adding little to Tarlac's knowledge
except a sight of the guardship crew's intense horror when they saw
women aboard an armed scout, being taken into danger only males should
face. The human scouts had followed first-contact procedure, Tarlac
found; the problem was the mixed crew, and there was no point in
changing that. Anything the Empire did there--except perhaps for
crewing all scouts with Irschchans, whose sex was difficult for
non-felinoids to distinguish--could be just as bad, depending on the
culture being contacted. And that had other practical difficulties.
No, the Ranger decided, it was what he'd originally called it: a mutual
misunderstanding. What he'd called the Empire's fault,