Though our prerecorded appearances on your TV will have kept things simmering in accordance with the plan, that plan certainly didnot include the inexcusable actions of the Xankatikitiki, the Fluiquosm and the Wulivery! They have, as your people say, pushed the envelope of acceptable behavior. When we arrived at Pistach-home we learned of their incursions on Earth from a Confederation staffer. Evidently the predators had bragged of it at some interplanetary meeting or other. They do revel in coup counting, though it is often their downfall.
We immediately appealed to the Confederation headquarters. They responded, saying the three predatory races now claim they had never been informed that we, the Pistach, are assisting your planet toward Neighborliness.
Our ambassador to the Confederation immediately provided a copy of our previous notification, which had been circulated long before Vess and I even left Pistach-home! The Wulivery, as usual, claim communications problems, this time between their hunters guild and their Confederation legation. The Xankatikitiki and Fluiquosm claim they are merely acting in concert with the Wulivery, whom they relied upon to take care of the formalities. This is patently dishonest, a ploy which is new only in its details. They knew very well we were here and they risked failure of our project by their interference!
One knows why, of course. No planet has ever been discovered as crowded with intelligent life as yours! All of our predatory races prefer creatures of good taste, that is, brainy creatures. Even your native predators eat the brains of their prey first when they can.
Meantime, a good many of your people have been slaughtered, though the loss is only numerical. No appreciable proportion of humanity or any subset of it has been lost, no irreplaceable knowledge or experience has been deleted. Even so, the deaths are grievous to us. We will immediately touch the survivors to learn what may be done to atone. We must also, unfortunately, make our own arrangements to find the Xankatikitiki, et al., and bring them into compliance, for once on the hunt, these races do not call home.
As we must make clear to your people, dear Benita, our predatory associates are not easy to find, let alone admonish. While your armed forces might possibly locate and destroy them, leaving the matter to us will result in less loss of life in the long run. I will communicate this directly to your United Nations when we return, dear Benita. We are covered with chagrin.
Despite these alarms and confusions, I am looking forward to seeing more of your art and hearing more of your music. I still quiver at the memory of those paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. How majestic they are, how strong and pure. Even your ancient paintings at Lascaux and Altamira have a great strength and resonance, an inborn sense of beauty. There is much about your people that is enviable, Benita. You will be a great asset to the Confederation if we can only sort out these minor difficulties.
Benita—WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday evening, Chiddy and Vess returned, announcing their arrival by a phone call only moments before they appeared in Benita’s hallway. Over coffee, which they said they much liked and intended to export to Pistach-home, they told her about a Pistach named T’Fees who had gone crazy and upset the orderly way of things, requiring a lot of trouble on the part of their people. She listened, lips tight and growing more and more irritated, while they hemmed and hawed for a while, using a lot of words to say almost nothing.
Finally, Chiddy said, “Benita, we have to tell you something. We deeply regret it, but…”
“You don’t have to tell me the predators are here,” she snapped, in a voice that sounded testy even to her. “I’d rather imagined they were when one or more of them tried to get into this apartment last night! They’ve got Bert already. I don’t suppose you knew that!”
Both the Pistach turned rather green and slightly demorphous, as Benita had observed them do on similar occasions. When they were upset, they lost a certain definition of shape, becoming foggy about the edges, though only momentarily. As they solidified once more they glared at one another, turning redder and redder. During their visits she had learned to tell when they were angry, because no matter what shape they were in, they turned red, just as humans did. When she had mentioned this, they told her their vital fluids were similar to those of humans.