The irritating buzzing in Carter’s head gave way to a crackling, popping noise as the bee in his brain abruptly switched from hive building to grub frying. Just as he was about to start pounding his skull against the nearest tree to try and mute the internal cacophony, the crackling faded and he heard quite clearly.

“Hullo there, chaps.”

Carter blinked, lowered his hands. Peering into the gully he waved hesitantly by way of reply. “Hello yourselves, whoever you are.”

“Whatever you are,” Ashwood murmured under her breath.

“All that matters to me is that they’re not Contisuyuns.” Igor held on to the branch of a nearby tree as he leaned over into the gully for a better look. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” the creature standing in the aperture replied. How he knew it was the one in the opening doing the talking Carter didn’t know. It had no visible mouth. But he was certain nonetheless. “You don’t look much like Contisuyuns, what?”

“We’re not Contisuyuns,” Igor informed it. “We’re locals, natives of this world. But you know about the Contisuyuns?”

“We know a bit of them, yes. They don’t know much about us. Now I’m afraid that may have to change. Pity, that. They refer to us as ‘Those-Who-Came-Before.’”

Carter swallowed hard. “You mean, you’re the people who built the transmitters and the learning machines?”

“All these centuries to develop and they’re still slow-witted.” The creature standing farther back in the opening gestured with several of its tentacles. “Of course we are,” it replied.

“Quite so, quite.” The one on the ground was still brushing at itself.

A hidden ramp silently extended itself from the lip of the portal to the ground, allowing the second pair of creatures to join their brethren below. It was an uncertain but fascinated trio of humans who descended to greet them. Macha remained on the rim of the gully, observing the encounter with detached feline interest.

“I’m sorry,” Ashwood announced upon concluding a preliminary up-close inspection of the visitors, “but you don’t look like no superrace to me.”

“Did we say we were super anything?” replied the most diminutive of the aliens, whom she immediately dubbed Shorty. Its companions she labeled Crease, for a particularly deep groove along its “front,” and Tree, for being the tallest. They proffered no objections to the unrequested appellations, nor did they counter with names of their own.

Displaying unexpected flexibility, Shorty twisted slightly to regard its companions. “She thinks we’re representatives of a superrace.” Mental laughter tickled Carter’s brain.

“What twaddle. We are no such thing.” Crease seemed to be the most serious member of the trio. “We are simply very intelligent.”

“Then why’d you go away and leave all that stuff on Contisuyu?” Ashwood asked it.

Root-tentacles rippled. “Groups of us like to establish ourselves on new worlds and then move on. We are easily bored, you see. Also, we harbor an intense dislike of packing. It’s most enjoyable to begin anew with each new settlement, build new infrastructures and all that as we go along. Keeps us fresh, don’t you know?”

“Not that we don’t like to revisit old haunts every hundred years or so,” Tree added. “When some of us went back to check on Contisuyu we found that the old homestead had been appropriated by humans. Obviously some of them had stumbled over the old links we’d left behind here and made use of them. They seemed to be having such a sprightly time of it that we decided to step back and leave them alone, to see what they’d make of it.

“After a while we de-energized the link with this world so that they could develop on their own. Then a few months ago the agency on Booj, our homeworld, which keeps an eye on all registered transmitters, reported that several in this vicinity had unexpectedly been reactivated. So it was decided to send a team out this way to check on things.”

“Why should you care?” Ashwood asked.

Tree inclined toward her. “Primitive locally developed technology does not impact upon our existence. Transmitters fall into another category entirely.”

“Unfortunately,” said Shorty, “some of the navigational aids we left here have been altered over the past millennia. As we never expected to have to return to this place, they were not maintained. In addition, our ship’s tolerance for error was greatly reduced by our desire to utilize a high-speed approach in order to avoid detection. I am afraid our landing was rather less than perfect, the result of which is that our vessel has sustained some damage.”

“It was all your fault,” said Tree.

“Whose fault? Who was at navigation control during final approach?”

“Don’t try to put the blame on me.” Tree’s roottentacles were waving around. “Who mismanaged a simple visual interpretation of the final coordination sequence as we came in over the major ocean?”

Carter hesitated. “You’re not talking about the lines in the ground at Nazca, are you? Those don’t really designate landing patterns.”

All three aliens inclined toward him. “Well, of course they do, old chap. What on Booj did you think they were for? Don’t you trust the evidence of your own eyes?”

“The drawings on the plains.” Igor was confused. “What about the big drawings that can only be viewed properly from high overhead? The eagle, the puma, and the rest? Surely those aren’t navigational aids as well?”

“Blimey, of course not.” Crease sounded amused. “Those were executed by the humans who lived in the area at the time the patterns were installed, for the amusement of their visitors. Us. The designs are quite pleasant in a primitive sort of way, don’t you think?”

“Obviously we’re communicatin’ by some kind of telepathy or mental projection,” Ashwood noted. “But if you don’t mind my pointin’ it out, your English sounds kind of funny to us.”

“As does yours to us,” Shorty replied. “Doubtless this is due to our having learned it during our last visit to your world, which was somewhat over a hundred of your years ago. As I am sure you are quite aware, your verbalizations vary considerably with time as well as geography.”

“During such occasional revisits to worlds where we have once dwelled,” Crease went on, “we enjoy engaging isolated and exceptional representatives of the local species in conversation. The last human we had the opportunity to converse with was a most fascinating individual, a mathematician of extraordinary gifts and vision. The four of us spent many enjoyable hours together debating both the nature of your species and reality.”

“Einstein!” Ashwood blurted excitedly.

Crease flexed upper tentacles. “Sorry. Don’t know the fellow. Our gentleman was a chap named Charles Dodgson. A teacher and a bit of all right. Turned to your primitive photography for a hobby after we convinced him there was more of a future to it than the simple line drawing he’d been doing at the time. More than once he spoke of utilizing snippets of our conversations in stories which could be related in human terms. It would have been a supreme accomplishment on his part if he had been able to do so. I fear much of our terminology was quite beyond him, as was our math.”

“Lewis Carroll,” Igor exclaimed. Ashwood gaped at him. He ignored her. “You said your homeworld was called Booj? You would not by any chance refer to yourselves as Boojums?”

“That transliterates rather well, old chap.”

Igor was smiling, reminiscing from childhood. “You might be interested to know that your human acquaintance Mr. Dodgson eventually did make a pretty good attempt at humanizing some of your terminology.”

“Look,” Carter interrupted, “this is lots of fun, but we’ve got a real problem here. The Contisuyuns have been harboring a five-hundred-year-old grudge against the people who drove their ancestors off this world and now they’ve returned seeking revenge.”

“You humans.” Crease sounded disgusted. “I for one don’t think you’ll ever develop a real civilization. That’s not for us to decide, of course. All that concerns us is the possible misuse of any technology which could conceivably affect the worlds on which we presently dwell.”

“What exactly is going on here?” Shorty inquired.

Carter and Igor, punctuated by Ashwood’s occasional pithy interruptions, proceeded to detail what they knew of the Contisuyuns’ intentions.

“Dear me.” Tree was distressed. “The transmitter system was designed to facilitate commuting, not foment aboriginal conflict.”

“That’s the problem with mass transit,” Shorty added sagely. “If one isn’t careful, any sort of riffraff can make use of it. We cannot allow the transmitter system to be used for aggressive purposes.”

“Quite,” Crease agreed. “It would set a bad precedent.”

“Then you’ll help us put a stop to whatever the Contisuyuns have in mind?” Ashwood asked them.

“From what you have told us it does not sound like they have a great deal to work with.” Tree hummed thoughtfully. “Like their technicians, I do wonder what caused the old cargo transmitter to malfunction so.”

“Are you sure you weren’t the one who programmed it?” Shorty suggested archly.

“You couldn’t program a route to a defecatory,” the taller alien replied.

“Actually,” Crease said apologetically, “the transmitter complex, like our navigational system, has never quite been perfected.” As Carter recalled the number of times he’d already traveled by transmitter he discovered that he was sweating. “Occasionally we lose something, or someone. They usually turn up somewhere else, safe and sound but more than a little cross with the engineering. I fear we are often as impatient in execution as we are brilliant in theory and design.