At least his parents didn’t make him stand in the reception line with them. Instead, his mother pointed him toward the gaggle of Embassy and Wertyngeri kids. The latter’s parents were either university faculty and administrators, or planetary government officials who had been invited. His father pointed out the daughters of the Prime Minister of the Free Union of Wertynger. Just say hello, how are you, my parents are the Ambassador and the Chief Legal Counsel. Practice it… The reception hall was packed. Surviving veterans of the Zoki or Lizard War, scarred survivors of the Zoki occupation, had all been invited. Thousands of the survivors had been frozen and stored in hibernacula and thawed only when the Zoki left. The thawed were lucky. Others had been harvested for Lizard food. The Branch Warriors and the green-robed priests of the Temple of the Holy Trees were well-represented, along with the brown-robed Voices for the Trees, and the senior royalty of the small Kalson Community. The Ambassador from Kalso was, of course, present, along with representatives of at least ten other HC planets, including Terra and the HC High Council and Parliament. His parents had briefed him thoroughly. A group of kids about Edvard’s age were dressed in the yellow-green robes of Sprouts or the emerald green of the older Saplings, all young Friends of the Trees. So far, he had not succumbed to his parents’ repeated suggestions to join.

It was too much—way too many people, almost all strangers or acquaintances whose names he didn’t remember. Edvard found a safe spot in a corner, near the long white-linen covered dessert tables, where he could fight off the urge to run by going through the exercises he had learned on Avalon, from focused breathing to centering, to stretching, to yoga exercises. After that, he focused on what was on the tables: cakes, cookies, tarts and pies, trifles, and on and on, both local and off-world. He saw his mother smiling at the Kalson Ambassador, a tall, thin man, with white-gold hair, golden skin, blue eyes, and pointed ears. The Ambassador, of course, like all Kalsons, looked like the fairies and elves in his grandmother’s books. Edvard knew Kalsons insisted they had no magic, but looking at the man, he wasn’t so sure.

Someone spoke in a language that was almost familiar. Edvard turned to see a beautiful boy, who looked to be part- Kalson, smiling at him, and holding a plate with a slice of a custard of some kind, golden-brown on the outside, yellow on the inside, with a dark brown sauce. The boy looked like a fairy prince.

The boy pointed to the plate and said something. Edvard shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

The boy laughed. “Sorry,” he said in Standard English, “I forgot. I was speaking Geri, the local dialect. I said: these are really good. What are they called?”

“That I do know,” Edvard said. “Flan, with caramel sauce. From Sudamerica, on Terra.” The desserts were an effort to represent both Wertynger and the Human Community to the
servants of the Trees. His mother had made him learn the names of at least five.

“Is that where you are from, Sudamerica on Terra?” the boy asked as he stuck a forkful in his mouth. “This is really good.”

“I was born on Terra, in Stockholm, nowhere near Sudamerica. It’s the capital of the Nordic Union. I don’t remember it much; I was three when we left. Are you from Wertynger? You look like you’re a Kalson.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Everybody says that. Part-Kalson. My great-grandfather was born on Kalso. A lot of Kalsons were here when the Zoki invaded. And no, no magic.” The boy shrugged and pointed to another dessert, a fruit tart of some kind. “What’s this? And this?”

“A pinkberry pie from Jardín. Sweetbread from Kainga. This last one, with the orange sauce, next to the sweet bread, no idea.”

“I know these two.” The boy pointed to a cake with purple icing, and a tart with purple berries. “Geri lucasberry cake, with lucasberry icing, and a lucasberry tart. Everybody eats both, and
drinks the juice. Walk with me. I’m Lucien Aurèle Delacroix. Call me Luc. You are?”

“Edvard Nils Lindqvist. Call me Ed, Edvy. Edvard is okay, too. My mother is the Ambassador. My father is the Chief Legal Counsel at the Embassy.”

“My folks have been on research leave,” Luc said, as he sat his plate and glass down on the table. “We were in the Southern Hemisphere, on Beta Continent. We just returned. They both teach at UNP, the University of New Paris. My mother is a marine biologist, and Dad is a tree doctor and a human doctor. He treats mostly the thawed.”

“The thawed? Oh, you mean folks the Zoki froze and put in cold storage? I thought they had all been emptied, and everyone thawed out years ago. The ones the Lizards didn’t eat.”

Luc shrugged. “Most have been, especially the people in the big freezers, like the one that’s a museum here in New Paris.” Edvard nodded. His parents had taken him there. It had given him nightmares. “But a lot of little ones have been discovered only in the past ten years and the government is working on those. And anyway, no matter when you get thawed, a lot of people have problems recovering. My dad is thawed. Come on, let’s go explore the garden out back. My dad looks after the trees in the garden…”