I don’t know why they weren’t listening — Kelvin and Chevron — they never seemed very good at listening at all. It was their fault that we got into this mess. They hadn’t paid attention. Paying attention is the sort of thing you should do when you have no idea what’s going on. They are always oblivious. That’s their fault.

Kelvin glared at me.

“I can hear you, you know—don’t you?” he said, mincing words — mixing them up like he was making a stew with poor grammar.

“I resent that,” he said.

“I never said that,” he said. “I thought that. If you’re going to start taking the narrative you’ve got to get things right.”

Kelvin fell flat on his face.

“That’s a lie,” Chevron said, “He didn’t fall anywhere. Now you’re taking creative license.”

Chevron tripped over his words like he tripped over that log.

“I never tripped over a log,” Chevron said. “You’re playing wolf with the narrative, now.”

“Fine,” I said. “That never happened. But still, got to say — taking creative license is fun. Probably why the Ambassador loves flinging people with his Titanium Levitation control. So, on a serious note: how can we understand each other’s thoughts?”

Kelvin scratched his chin, methodically; Chevron scratched his bald scalp.

“I don’t know,” they said. “But maybe we should follow our Pursuer and find out.”

“I agree,” I said, “It was a good idea when I thought it up.”

And we followed the Pursuer this time for sure!