But now the big blowhard had to put his two grocs' worth.
"Your Reverence—Your Honor—" he spluttered. "May I ask a question?"
"Certainly, brother."
"Since players have been lobbing pebbles out into space for thousands and thousands of ganaths, and as Your Honor says, some of them must long ago have landed somewhere, who knows what dead give-aways may have been in any of them?"
"Is that your question?"
"No, I have two. First, why haven't these intelligent beings whose existence you're presupposing—" I saw Myrwan's face set, and I knew he'd noted that rude and insulting word, but I managed to conceal my smile—"why haven't they come here before this? And since they haven't come, if they're smart enough to figure out our whereabouts why aren't they also smart enough to realize the difference between the old pebbles and these new ones, and to know that we're putting something over on them?"
We sometimes say that though the Thinkers are of course overwhelmingly our superiors mentally, they lack the emotional control which is the great characteristic of the rest of us Real People. I wish those scandalmongers could have seen Myrwan then. His face was as white as his beard and his wings quivered, but he let Sephar have his say out and he answered him very quietly.
"As to your first question, brother," (and if anybody ever called me "brother" in that tone I'd know it was a case of fight or run) "the only logical reason is that it must be only recently that such beings have reached a state of culture where they are able to analyze the pebbles and draw the right conclusions from them.
"And the answer to your second question is that we can only hope. Hope that all of the pebbles already in their possession are free of—shall we say, incriminating evidence? All we can guarantee is that all they find in the future will be. Does that answer you satisfactorily?"
"It will have to," muttered Sephar sullenly. I moved away from him and was glad to notice that I was not the only one.