Kazzkark.

Of course, the truth was a little different. In fact, he was one of the least important free sapients walking around these ancient halls.

Walking … and scooting, slithering, creeping, ambling … name a form of locomotion and you could see it being used. Those too frail to stand in half an Earth gravity rolled everywhere on graceful carts, some with the sophistication of miniature spaceships. Harry even saw a dozen or so members of a long-armed species that looked something like gibbons — with purple, upside-down faces — leaping and brachiating from convenient bars and handholds set in the high ceiling. He wanted to laugh and hoot at their antics, but their race had probably been piloting starcraft back when humans lived in caves. Galactics seldom had what he would call a sense of humor.

Not long ago, a majority of those living on Kazzkark wore uniforms of MigrInst, NavInst, WarInst, or the Great Library. But now those dressed in livery made a small minority, lost amid a throng. The rest sported wildly varied costumes, from full body enviro suits and formal robes carrying runes describing their race genealogy and patronymics, all the way to beings who strode unabashedly naked — or with just an excretory-restraint cloth — revealing a maximum of skin, scale, feather, or torg.

When he first entered service, most Galactics seemed unable to tell a neo-chimpanzee from a plush recliner, so obscure and unimportant was the small family of Terra. But that had changed lately. Quite a few faces turned and stared as Harry walked by. Beings nudged each other to point, sharing muted utterances — a sure sign that the Streaker crisis hadn’t been solved while he was away. Clearly Earthclan was still gaining a renown it never sought.

A venerable Galactic expression summed up the problem.

“Look ye to peril — in attracting unplanned notice from the mighty.”

Still, for the most part it was easy enough to feel lost in the crowd as he took a long route back to headquarters, entranced by how much busier things had become since he left on patrol.

Using his plaque to scan immigration profiles, Harry knew that many of these sophonts were emissaries and commercial delegates, sent by their race, alliance, or corporation to seek some advantage as the staid routines of civilization dissolved in an age of rising misgivings. There were opportunities to be gained from chaos, so agents and proxies maneuvered, playing venerable games of espionage. Compacts were made and broken. Bribes were offered and loyalties compromised in double-cross gambits so ornate that the court intrigues of the Medicis might have occurred in a sandbox. Small clans, without any stake in galacto-politics or the outcome of fleet engagements, nevertheless swarmed about, endeavoring to make themselves useful to great powers like the Klesh, Soro, or Jophur, who in turn spent lavishly, seeking an edge over their foes.

With so much portable wealth being passed around, an economy flourished serving the needs of each deputy or spy. Almost a million free sophonts and servitor machines saw to the visitors’ biotic needs, from distinct atmospheric preferences to exotic foodstuffs and intoxicants.

It’s a good thing we chims had to give up some of our sense of smell, trading the brain tissue for use in sapience, Harry thought as he sauntered along the Great Way — a mercantile avenue near the surface of Kazzkark, stretching from pole to pole, where bubble domes interrupted the rocky ceiling every few kilometers to show dazzling views of an inner spiral arm of Galaxy Five. This passage had been a ghostly corridor when he first came from training at Navigation Central. Now shops and restaurants filled every niche, casting an organic redolence so thick that any species would surely find something toxic in the air. Most visitors underwent thorough antiallergic treatments to prepare their immune systems before leaving quarantine. And even so, many walked the Great Way wearing respirators.

Harry found the experience heady. Every few meters, fresh aromatics assailed his nostrils and sinuses. Some provoked waves of delight or overpowering hunger. Others brought him to the brink of nausea.

It kind of reminds me of New York, he pondered, recalling that brief time on Earth.

His ears also verged on sensory overload. The dozen or so standard Galactic tongues came in countless dialects, depending on how each race made signals. Sound was the most frequent carrier of negotiation or gossip, and the buzzing, clicking, groaning clamor of several hundred species types made the Great Way seem to throb with physical waves of intrigue. Those preferring visual gestures made things worse by waving, dancing, or flashing message displays that Harry found at once both beautiful and intimidating.

Then there’s psi.

Stern rules limited how adepts might use the “vivid spectrum” indoors. Vigilant detectors caught the most egregious offenders. Still, Harry figured part of his tension came from a general background of psychic noise.

Fortunately, most neo-chims are deaf to psi stuff. Some of the same traits that made a good observer in E Space also kept him semi-immune to the cacophony of mental vibrations filling Kazzkark right now.

Of course many of the “restaurants” were actually shielded sites of rendezvous, where informal meetings could take place, sometimes between star clans registered as enemies under edicts of the Institute for Civilized Warfare. Harry glimpsed a haughty, lizardlike Soro, accompanied by a minimal retinue of Pila and Paha clients, slip into a shrouded establishment whose proprietor at once turned off the flashing “Available” sign … but left the door ajar, as if expecting one more customer.

It might have been interesting to stand around and see who entered next to parley with the Soro matriarch, but Harry spotted at least a dozen loiterers who were already doing that very thing, pretending to read info-plaques or sample wares from street vendors, while always keeping clear line of sight to the dimmed entranceway.

Harry recalled the clumsy effort of the hoon inspector to probe him about E Space. As trust in the Institutes unraveled, everyone seemed eager for supplementary data, perhaps hoping a little extra might make a crucial difference.

He couldn’t afford to be mistaken for another spy. Especially not in uniform. Some of the other great services might be showing signs of strain, losing their trustworthiness and professionalism, but Navigation had an unsullied reputation to uphold.

Passing a busy intersection, Harry glimpsed a pair of racoonish Synthian traders, whose folk had a known affinity for Terran art and culture. They were too far away to make eye contact, but he was distracted by the sight and moments later carelessly bumped into the bristly, crouched form of a Xatinni.

Oh, hell, he thought as the ocelot face whirled toward him with a twist of sour hatred. Wasting no time, Harry ducked his head and crossed both arms before him in the stance of a repentant client, backing away as the creature launched into a tirade, berating him in shrill patronizing tonal clefts of GalFour.

“To explain this insolent interruption! To abase thyself and apologize with groveling sincerity! To mark this affront on the long list of debts accumulated by your clan of worthless—”

Not a great power, the Xatinni routinely picked on Earthlings for the oldest reason of bullies anywhere — because they could.

“To report in three miduras at my apartment for further rebukes, at the following address! Forty-seven by fifty-two Corridor of the—”

Fortunately, at that moment a bulky Vriiilh came gallumping down the avenue, grunting ritual apologies to all who had to scoot aside before the amiable behemoth’s two-meter footsteps. The Xatinni fell back with an angry yowl as the Vriiilh pushed between them.

Harry took advantage of the interruption to escape by melting through the crowd.

So long, pussycat, he thought, briefly wishing he could psi cast an insult as he fled. Instead of shameful abasement, he would much rather have smacked the Xatinni across the kisser — and maybe removed a few excess limbs to improve the eatee’s aerodynamics. I hope we meet again sometime, in a dark alley with no one watching.

Alas, self-control was the first criterion looked for by the Terragens Council, before letting any neo-chim head unsupervised into the cosmos at large. Small and weak, Earthclan could not afford incidents.

Yeah … and a fat lotta good that policy did us in the long run.

They gave dolphins a starship of their own, and look what the clever fishies went and did. They stirred up the worst crisis in Ifni-knows-how-many millions of years.

If the honest truth be told, it made Harry feel just a little jealous.

Beyond those coming to Kazzkark on official business, the streets and warrens supported a drifting population of others — refugees from places disrupted by the growing chaos, plus opportunists, altruists, and mystics.

The lattermost seemed especially plentiful, these days.

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