"You have come." The words sounded as if they might be a part of some polite formula. So he replied in kind and aloud.
"I have come." Without waiting for their bidding, he dropped into the same cross-legged pose, fronting them now on a more equal level across their dead black table.
"And why have you come, star voyager?" That thought seemed to be a concentrated effort from all three rather than any individual questioning.
"And why did you bring me?" He hesitated, trying to think of some polite form of address. Those he knew which were appropriate to their sex on other worlds seemed incongruous when applied to the bizarre figures now facing him. "Wise ones," he finally chose.
Those unblinking yellow eyes conveyed no emotion; certainly his human gaze could detect no change of expression on their nonhuman faces.
"You are a male."
"I am," he agreed, not seeing just what that fact had to do with either diplomatic fencing or his experiences of the immediate past.
"Where then is your thoughtguider?"
Shann puzzled over that conception, guessed at its meaning.
"I am my own thoughtguider," he returned stoutly, with all the conviction he could manage to put into that reply.