[dogscoff]

Shrikeesh's audience fee to her parents was far less extravagant than the one Shkimsk had shared with Shreekep. The modestly-sized but exquisitely tasty Roogafish imported from the Cue Cappan homeworld implied a certain intimacy, which hinted at the favour she hoped to regain.
"It certainly is very exciting," she said, "I hope they do well." It took everything she had not to writhe with hatred as she lavished praise upon her sister's adventures, but it was rarely wise to criticise a favoured heir of the royal couple to their faces, so she just had to swallow her bile and put up with it. She could vent her frustrations on her servants later- they had been getting fat and lazy anyway, some physical punishment would do them good.
"I mean, she can hardly fail to succeed, with all those warships she's assembled. Most impressive, I must say." Shrikeesh continued. It might not do to criticise Kleesh right now, but barbs could always be disguised as praise.
"It's just a shame that your majesties don't have a fleet of their own. If the homeworld were to come under attack from some... hostile force... we would have little to defend it."
"We have the ground defences, they are more than a match for any alien fleet," drawled the king. The defences he referred to were a number of hastily-constucted weapons platforms, thrown together when a rather large alien ship had appeared in the homesystem. It had been a representative of the enigmatic Overmind, and- as it happens- had turned out to be benign. It was the first alien craft to enter the homesystem, and the masses had panicked: After seeing what could be inflicted upon alien planets by Kleesh's invasion force, their imaginations went wild at the thought of what aliens might do to them- particularly strange, mysterious aliens like the Overmind. Little was known about them, and what information there was had fuelled all kinds of wild theories and fantasies. Stories about the ability to shape life to any purpose the way other races shaped metal were popular, although not as popular as the one about the edible spacecraft a hundred miles long. When the Overmind ship started advancing upon the homeworld, such utopian tales soon turned to stories of specially-engineered fire-breathing monsters, armour-plated and ready to swallow a thousand KanesS in a single gulp. In the end, the ship had lain in orbit for a short while, dropped off a small diplomatic party and then powered off toward the nebula that lay between the homesystem and the northern domains.

His majesty reclined opulently, while a juvenile servant carefully picked lumps of meat from the royal teeth. Shrikeesh knew from experience that the wily old sod was far more alert than his composure might show, and she began filtering her words even more carefully than before.
"Of course, your majesties, with the ground defences, life and death are yours to grant to any alien that dares to enter orbit." She emphasised the word 'alien' ever so subtly, and almost immediately thought it had been too much, the implication of a potential coup too plain. The king tilted his head at her, as though to pursue the matter, but the the queen interrupted with a change of subject- her thoughts perhaps guided toward the Overmind by talk of the weapons platforms.
"I understand the Overmind have sent a delegation. What manner of creature are they?"
Shrikeesh twisted awkwardly. This was a question she had hoped to avoid, because she knew her royal parents would never be able to see beneath the surface of her answer, even if they allowed her to attempt to explain it to them.

Something Shrikeesh understood that most KanesS did not, was that aliens are utterly different, and that- according to the laws of evolution- they are supposed to be. The chances of life on different worlds evolving into anything but vastly different creatures were as close to zero as made no difference, and Shrikeesh's job as minister for alien interaction put her in amlost daily contact with the reality of this simple fact. She was beginning to realise that aliens were not only built differently, but that they had different drives, priorities and ways of thinking as well. For example, while the concept of 'compassion' is not entirely lost on the KanesS, the idea that it might be considered a good thing would be somewhat laughable to them. Nonetheless, Shrikeesh had reaslied quite some time ago that the Drukshockans weren't joking when they talked about a "benevolent and compassionate interstellar relationship." She had already found ways to manipulate this strange notion to her own advantage, securing numerous charitable donations from various Drukshockan organisations.

Then there were the Norak, with the thing they called 'religion'. This one was trickier, but she was fairly confident she'd be able to exploit that one soon enough as well. Apparently it wasn't just make-believe or metaphor, it was all real- or at least, it was real to them, and very important to them, too. If she could use it to gain some kind of advantage, it would be important to her as well.

The Cue Cappans were even trickier still, since their mind-reading tricks made it very easy for them to conceal their true intentions, and more often than not it was they who were the manipulators, and the KanesS who were the unsuspecting dupes. For this reason trade and contact with them had gradually diminished over time, but Shrikeesh had undoubtedly learned a lot from them.

However the Overmind was undoubtedly the most unfathomable of the lot. For one thing, it didn't actually seem to be a race, as such- the impression she got was that everything from that planet was somehow part of the same personality. There appeared to be individuals, but the diplomatic emissaries that had been on the homeworld since the unannounced visit seemed to have little in the way of individuality. She might be talking to one, and then go and talk to another and find that it would pick up the conversation where the first had left off. They had explained it to her several times, that they were disconnected nodes from some great intelligence, but it hadn't made much sense to her, and the baffling nature of their explanations did nothing to improve her trust of them.

Her second concern was that she couldn't divine the creatures' motives. What were they here for? The other races harrassed her on a daily basis about trade, treaties, social functions, cultural exchanges, piracy and a hundred other things. The Overmind representatives did not. They seemed quite content with the current state of affairs, although they made occasional requests for information about KanesS biology, or their studies of alien life-forms, or medical sciences. In most cases the best Shrikeesh could do was to direct them to various culinary publications.

Also, a certain amount of espionage was expected and tolerated among all the diplomatic visitors, but the Overmind's emissaries were either completely uninterested in it or so subtle that no-one even suspected them of trying. When they first arrived, they had sought assurances that their ships would not be attacked, and offered a reciprocal promise. After that, they were housed in the diplomatic complex, where they politely conversed with anyone who approached them and attended any social events to which they were invited, but beyond the continued safety of their ships and their requests for reading material they seemed to have no interest in interaction at all. Shrikeesh had agreed to forbid any attacks on Overmind ships- after all, such promises were cheap enough, since threats from the homeworld had very little impact on the buccaneers. Somehow though, no overmind ships had been attacked. Perhaps the pirates were as wary of this unknown quantity as she was, or perhaps the Overmind ships were simply too large and well armed. Certainly all she had seen so far outmassed the simple escorts the Xiati had lost.

More worrying than anything else, though- the warning sign that she knew her parents would not be able to appreciate- was their appearance. At first glance, one might easily mistake them for KanesS. The size, shape and colourings of the emissaries were almost identical to those of a typical, adult KanesS, although the colour bands were slightly too regular, and the eyes seemed somehow too large on them, and the way they moved wasn't at all right. This subtle not-quite-right was almost more unappetizing to her than the completely inorganic nature of the Drukshocka, although other KanesS didn't seemed to mind it. Soon she felt as though the emissaries had been sent to deceive her, or at the very least to patronise her. Why hadn't this super-intelligence come to them in its own, true form instead of mocking them with these imperfect copies of KanesS? The emissaries insisted that it would be quite impossible because the true overmind covered an entire planet, but that notion was even more absurd than even the most fantastic stories circulating among the lower classes.

Shrikeesh snapped her attention back to the present, and the curious gaze her royal mother was focussing at her.
"The Overmind emissaries... look much like us, but they tell me they are not typical of their species."
"So they copy us, eh?" Exclaimed the king. "Perhaps they realise that the KanesS form is the most elegant and useful, and they seek to emulate us. It must be a joy for you to finally have some sensible aliens to work with, daughter."
"It is, Royal Father, a great relief. However, their ways are not like ours, and I have heard some... interesting news from the frontier regarding the Overmind."

The king snapped away his tooth-cleaner and tipped his head to regard Shrikeesh with just one eye. There was an unspoken question in the air, and she answered it, suddenly even more acutely aware of the dangers of upsetting her parents.
"A strange incident came to light regarding one of our transports and an Overmind ship." She began, hiding her caution behind false confidence. "Some routine bookkeeping showed that two hundred colonists had boarded a colony transport, but had not landed. It looked as though he had sold them for meat," The king bared his teeth slightly, and interrupted Shrikeesh's monologue.
"As I understand it, cannibalism laws have been relaxed on the colonies." He said. "You have no right to be harrassing your sister's starliner captains anyway, and even less right to punish them for homeworld laws."
Shrikeesh stammered, but her mother intervened.
"The Captain would still be guilty of breach of contract if he sold the colonists for meat." She pointed out, "and I was never comfortable with this relaxation of cannibalism anyway. Carry on, daughter."
"When the Captain - Trissi, his name was- was brought up on charges, he said that he had sold the colonists to an Overmind ship, which had been in a great hurry for them. He confirmed his story with sensor logs."
"I fail to see why that's so worrying, daughter." Said the king. " All it proves to me is that unlike all the other aliens, these Overminds aren't prudish about what they eat. If they have a taste for KanesS flesh, then good for them, I say. Our people have always known how short a distance there is between the top and the bottom of the food chain."
"Yes, father, I understand..." Began Shrikeesh, but the king was in no mood to be placated.
"No, you do not understand. You seem to fear that these creatures will attack us and try to take us as Kleesh has taken the Xiati. You are wrong. No creature will risk conflict when it can achieve its goals by less drastic means. If the Xiati had offered us there flesh in trade, we would not be attacking them now. If the Overminds want KanesS meat, we will trade them for it. I thought you above this kind of peasantish panic, daughter."
"But she may have a point about the fleets," teh queen intervened, sparing Shrikeesh from a fresh barrage of abuse."We shouldn't allow ourselves to be upstaged by our own daughter, so we must have a royal fleet to surpass Kleesh's collection of pirates. Design and construction will begin at once. Will that set your mind at ease, daughter?"
Kleesh made a tiny sound of agreement beneath the withering stare of her father, who snorted with disgust.
"I think a Royal fleet unnecessary, but your mother has now decreed it. But know, daughter, that your hints haven't been wasted upon us, and you can rest assured that Kleesh poses no threat to us. We can easily outbid her for her mercenary fleet if it comes to it, and we have troops and agents loyal to the crown on every colony. Her own troops are mostly untrained peasants anyway. We have nothing to fear from her, even if she doesn't realise it. She might try to take the throne from us yet, the little rascal. I do like her spirit."
He paused for a moment, apparently tired by his outburst, and for an instant he seemed to soften a little.
"We're very frond of you, Shrikeesh, but you could learn much from your sister, despite her odd ways. Now, your mother and I have other business to attend to."

The interview over, Shrikeesh retired, burning with humiliation. She hadn't had a chance to reveal the reason she had wanted to discuss the Overmind with her parents. There was one important detail missing, but now she felt inclined to keep it to herself. When the starliner captain had sold some of his colonists, he had accepted sixty tons of meat in payment. The meat had been delivered, but rather than an array of live creatures or frozen carcasses, it had arrived as three massive cubes, thirty metres to a side. The flesh-cubes had no internal organs, just a series of regular capillaries criss-crossing their masses in a perfect three-dimensional grid. There was no fat, bone, cartilage, tendon or other tissues, and the surfaces showed no sign of it having been cut from a larger creature. Such a mass could serve no purpose in any living creature- indeed, it couldn't even support its own shape in anything other than zero-gravity. There was only one explanation, and that was that it had never been part of an animal. It had been created specially for the purpose of trade in some kind of vat.

The Overmind had a meat factory, and Shrikeesh wanted it.