I ran over and snatched her up, held her, cuddled her against my chest, letting her smear me with the blood of my fellow Humans. "I was so worried, all of us were, we love you we LOVE you…"

"I love you, Owen. You came to get me!" She curled into my embrace, pressing her little narrow skull against mine with surprising force. Then she started crying, howling and yapping into my ear.

"Oh goodness," I said, and held her, pressing her long neck and long head to my face. "It's okay, Sweetie. It's okay now."

The five wealthy men and Doctor Harrigan stared. Both Schmendrick and I were smeared with Human blood and must have looked quite horrible.

"Owen, I'm so sorry. I was mad. I…I got into fights. With Human people."

"I know."

"For this," Harrigan said dully. "Everything. Lost, because of this."

I turned, faced the five men, allowing Schmendrick to climb onto my shoulder like a gory pirate's parrot. "Humans," I said formally. "This is your second chance at first contact with an alien race. One that doesn't involve incarceration, abduction or whatever other abuse you know you committed. She's listening, anything you want to tell her?"

And indeed, her narrow carnivore's head craned forward on its long neck, inspecting the men. A single drop of blood rolled from her snout, dripped on the nice floor. "I'm listening, Human people."

The five men, still enduring the misery of the Human race pouring into them, blinked in confusion. Looked at one another. A long silence fell. Harrigan watched, looking resigned.

President's Son finally spoke up. "We're supposed to talk to it?"

The ceiling of that fancy lounge was torn away with a terrible shriek of bending girders. The concrete and drywall and air conditioning vents shredded and burst into the sky, which was filled with the hovering Feast of Fools dome.

The lounge filled with black birds, swirling and fluttering, otherwise making no sound. The air between them was heavy with communication, causing my skull to ache.

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Huge bony tentacles, jointed and covered with spines, tore another chunk of the Patriot Capital Base away, flinging it into the desert beyond the shattered window.

A terrifying humanish mouth appeared where the window had been, lined with teeth the size and shape of tombstones. That terrible maw opened, releasing a nightmare version of Cassie's voice: "FOUND HER, HUSBAND."

Husband Schmendrick came scampering along one of those building-destroying tentacles, followed by Phobos and Deimos. The air buzzed with subsonic Cazador communication.

Schmendrick left scratches in my shoulder as she leaped down, and she and her family were reunited, yapping and barking joyously, running in circles, leaping, screaming.

The Ari Maspai were forming into flocks, reforming into different flocks, swirling and zipping through the air. I wanted to speak with them, to learn more about them, but the day had already been pretty busy.

Thuds, something landing on what was left of the roof. Heavy and metallic and inarguable. I saw them peering facelessly over the edge of the hole in the ceiling: Makers.

I wanted to shout something at the five men, some jokey nonsense about here's your chance to have first contact with the Makers and the Ari Maspai, and I have some Bees and balloon dudes too…. But the sounds of destruction were simply too much.

As the Makers filled the lounge, dissecting everything that interested them, the five men and Harrigan seemed frozen in their expensive chairs. That ended when Art Deco tipped one of them out of said chair and began disassembling it. That was the signal for all of them to get up and run, I suspect.

It's just as well, since the technology allowing such old men to run at all would have been fascinating to Art's crew. They reached the door, fled down the hall, perhaps making it to the elevator, who knew? Where could they even go?

To his credit, Harrigan looked disgusted with them. But as I watched him, his face fell. He looked alarmed, fearful in a way he hadn't been.

In the door was a figure in white, huge and puffy. No helmet. Taylor, looking determined and exhausted. His armor was covered with blood and ashes and he had clearly been in a number of fights himself. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his scalp bled profusely. Something was wrong with his left leg.

The bartender, that young lady who had been so frightened of me, was supporting him, helping him reach this room. He gently pushed her away.

Fell to his knees on the expensive floor. Panted as Schmendrick and her family approached.

All of us stood back, away, watching.

She trotted up to Taylor, rubbed her face against his. "I love you."

He picked her up, held her, rubbed her bloody fur into his face, smearing her with his tears.

Husband kept back; I understood how forgiveness might be difficult.

Deimos, Schmendrick's daughter who disliked me, ran up and bit Taylor. The armor saved him from her half-centimeter teeth.

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