"A strange, circular course of events, don't you think?" Danchekker's voice said from nearby. Hunt looked away from the screens. "Long ago, Minerva's orphaned Moon traced its solitary course to Earth, bringing the ancestors of our kind. Now here we are, the descendants of fifty thousand years later, returning to where it all started. Rather in the manner of paying homage to our place of origins; a pilgrimage, as it were." Danchekker had evidently been entertaining similar thoughts of his own.

"A bit like salmon," Hunt said.

Danchekket clicked his tongue. "You really can be quite Philistine at times, you know, Vic."

Hunt grinned. "Probably a touch of New Cross coming through," he said. That was the area of south London where he had grown up. "'Every inch a working man, an' proud of it,' my dad used to say. He didn't have a lot of time for high-falutin fancy stuff. 'The 'igher a monkey climbs, the more of an arse 'e looks to the rest of us,' was another one. He could never fathom the kinds of things I got into. Said the only thing I'd be good for was going off into other worlds. I suppose he was right enough about that." Danchekker blinked through his spectacles, not quite sure how to reply.

Monchar and the two crew officers from the Shapieron were silent. They alone among all those in the descent party had actually seen Minerva before. They were not Thuriens. For them it was the lost home they had departed from millions of years ago-somewhere over twenty years by their own reckoning-magically restored once again.

The shuttle broke through a high layer of cirrostratus. Below, Hunt recognized part of the southern Lambian coastline showing intermittently against the gray ocean between patches of lower cloud. "You've got company coming up," ZORAC observed, speaking from the Shapieron but reading the shuttle's radar via a probe positioned off to one side of the Moon. The screens showed interceptor jets rising and spreading out into an escort formation around the descending craft-whether as an honor guard or to keep a wary eye on it was impossible to say. They were swept deltas design mounting side-by-side engines in a flattened fuselage beneath twin tail fins-uncannily like some of the Terran designs of the turbulent period around the late twentieth century. As with things like sharks and dolphins, shapes that worked were probably restricted within quite narrow limits and likely to be found universally, Hunt guessed.

"You're on course and looking fine," the Lambian ground controller who was seeing them down reported. "The landing area is clear."

"We have your approach beam," the Ganymean copilot acknowledged. "It's looking like just over three minutes."

"Check."

"Does it look familiar?" Eesyan asked Monchar and the two Shapieron crew officers.

"No," Monchar replied, staring at the images. "Everything has changed."

The city of Melthis took shape and resolved into progressively finer detail until a cluster of buildings that the descent radar identified as the Agracon steadied in the center of the view. They opened out and grew, transformed slowly into profiles of roofs and windowed facades sliding slowly upward on the screens showing the side views as the shuttle came down between them, and then were stationary. The mild humming that was all the shuttle produced to mark its exertions, died.

"Landed. Powering down. We are on the planet Minerva," the pilot announced.

"It's been a long time," ZORAC said, presumably for the benefit of the three original Ganymeans aboard. They seemed a bit too overcome to respond.

The views from outside showed that they were in an open space surrounded by high gray buildings that looked imposing and solid, with a scattering of gray, scrubby plants sprouting in beds by the wall and along paths across patches of gray lawn. Hunt was already forming the impression that this whole world might be a composition of grays, like an old black-and-white movie. Vehicles were parked around the edges of the area: an assortment of ground cars and trucks, and some helicopter-type craft crammed to one side as if they had been moved out of the way. The cars, like the buildings, looked solid and indestructible, but utilitarian and boxy. Detroit stylists would have despaired. The predominant colors seemed to be black, a kind of khaki… and shades of gray.

No Lunarians had been visible when the shuttle touched down. But after the engine cut, figures began appearing through what seemed to be the rear entrance of one of the larger buildings flanking the square and moved out toward the craft. For the most part, their garb was of the monotonous, tuniclike patterns that the Shapieron's previous visits had shown to be characteristically Lunarian, along with variations of common themes that suggested uniforms. A number of topcoats and hats were in evidence. "I think it might be cold out there," Hunt said.

"Nine-point-three Celsius," ZORAC supplied.

Frenua Showm and Eesyan moved up to stand facing the inner door of the shuttle's lock, with Hunt, Danchekker, Monchar, and the two Shapieron officers behind them. An indicator showed the lock pressures to be balanced. The inner door opened. They moved forward. Then the outer door opened. A wave of cool, damp air met them. It carried a hint of the odor of tunnels that pervades subway stations and was slightly pungent.

In a typically Thurien touch, Eesyan and Showm did not pause at the top of the ramp, where they would have eclipsed the two smaller Terrans squeezed in the lock chamber behind them, but descended at once to where there was space for all to spread out and be presented equally. Although basic information had already been exchanged via the communications connection, it seemed that the occasion required a few formal words. Showm gave the customary Thurien head-bow of greeting, introduced herself, and proceeded to name the others with her. The link back to ZORAC, via a relay connection in the shuttle, made it available as a translator, but the distance of the Shapieron created a turnaround delay of three to four seconds. Interacting was not as sophisticated as the methods developed later with VISAR. The party wore headbands carrying audio and video pickups, with information from ZORAC delivered through clip-on ear pieces and wrist screens. Showm concluded, "We have come from a world known as Thurien, a planet of the star that you know as the Giants' Star."

The central figure of the group facing them wore a uniform with lots of braid and a peculiar three-cornered hat-the uniforms were noticeably more ornamented than those that would come into use later, when the war got serious. He was of stocky, rounded build, and light brown in countenance like the others, with a flattened nose and narrow eyes that lent a vaguely Asiatic appearance. He held himself upright and replied stiffly. "Gudaf Irastes, Commanding General of the Household Forces to Crown Prince Freskel-Gar of Lambia and its dominions." Iraste hesitated, his eyes flickering uncertainly in the direction of his retinue. Then, evidently deciding his wasn't about to go through the list of all of them, "Greetings on behalf of Minerva. Freskel-Gar is waiting inside to receive you. If you will follow this way…"

They proceeded in through the entrance that the Lunarians had emerged from. Hunt noticed several figures in the background following them with what looked like movie or TV cameras. Inside, a short hallway brought them to an open vestibule area of marbled floor, surrounded by square columns going up to overlooking galleries. Corridors led away left, right, and ahead, between clusters of alcove spaces and doors. They went past the main staircase leading up to the galleries, and behind it passed through an archway to stairs leading down. At the bottom were sturdy double doors attended by guards. Beyond the doors, they followed a stone-floored corridor through surroundings that seemed severe compared to the halls above. The thought was just forming in Hunt's mind that this seemed an odd kind of setting in which to receive the first diplomatic delegation from an alien race of another star, when they entered a room where a number of uniformed Lambians were working at desks and consoles. It turned out to be an anteroom to a spacious, brightly lit area filled with screens and communications gear. Armed Lambian soldiers were stationed along the walls. More entered behind the party and took up stations inside the door. Prince Freskel-Gar was waiting with members of his staff at the far end. His expression was not that of a host about to welcome guests, but stony and hard.