For the second day in a row, Mark was awakened too early. Not, in fact, by Severo. The Quotidians were also a crepuscular species, and liked to get an early start on the day.

"Human Mark," spoke the voice the translators had chosen for Sty mix Sty the freak-show wrangler. "I will tolerate seeing you."

"Clarify?" asked Mark. He pinched his face, thankful the call was voice-only. "You want to schedule a meeting?"

"Yes. I will attack your previous clown performance."

"C-clarify?"

"We will discuss your performance."

Mark untangled himself from his sheets. He had to get a grip on himself. Get going. This was important! "Of course. Of course, that would be fine. You're welcome to come to the Embassy at any time that's convenient for you."

"My personal development philosophy dictates that I spend some time every day in penance."

"Okay," said Mark meaninglessly.

"However, you should not offer me food."

"Whatever you say. We won't offer you food."

"But we must share a meal."

"Of course," said Mark, again meaninglessly.

"Do you understand me? When I reviewed our last interview, your emotional reactions indicated that my physical presence on your territory was upsetting to you, as were the contracts I brought."

Mark remembered the taste of the male Quotidians. He swallowed. "Not at all."

"Therefore, I smuggle to you the proposal of neutral territory. The photographer recommended a Neurospastic soup kitchen, although it is possible he was being sarcastic. In any case, we will be able to share food that is not related to either of us."

Mark held onto to whatever understanding he could. "Lunch at Paps?"

"Yes. You are exceptionally pitiful. But we'll discuss that over lunch. Goodbye."

Mark stared at the translator, wondering what the hell had just happened. Then the call from Laura came.

Mark said the right things to put a cork in her and buy himself a minute of time. He used that minute sitting on the bed, staring at the wall of his dark bedroom. Mix Sty was incomprehensible. Mr. Grumbles was annoying. Koen was useless. Laura was hard to control. Who would Mark punish for all of this?

He needed to figure out how to leverage mix Sty, what the next step was. He was due for lunch at the soup place because apparently a simple phone call was against mix Sty's religion. She wanted Mark to be disgusting at her or something, which he didn't understand, but couldn't ask Koen about it because the cook was dead on his feet. This Human Club side-project needed to pay off quickly, or else he needed to dump it before it wasted any more of his time.

Koen's suite, when Mark arrived, revealed itself to be an even more impressive mess than Laura's had been the morning before. Couch cushions on the floor, ramen strewn across the table. In the center of it, wearing an over-large T-shirt, was Mr. Grumbles.

He's like me, thought Mark. He's wild.

Laura sat on a chair, holding a cup of coffee. Both cup and woman steamed. Mark decided to get out of there. "Koen," he said. "Let's go. No time to clean up."

"I can't do this," said Koen. He was clutching a half-empty bag of Oreos. "This is going to give me a heart attack."

Mark shot from the hip: "Imagine what will happen if Graa comes in here and sees you and his pet."

Koen flung down his cookies and fled from his room. That was easy.

They found General Graa waiting in the foyer, perched on a wheeled, wrought-iron cane. Next to him crouched a creature shaped like a giant hatbox. The sides of the box had been painted in an attractive striped pattern of brown and white, and bristled with wooden knobs, bristles, and legs. Windows along the edges and on its upper face revealed green internal cavities. It was a Sprocket.

Horsetail spores are very interesting. As with ferns, these single cells are released by a parent plant (or "sporophyte") to wander off until they find a suitable place to settle down and grow into a gametophyte. Gametophytes produce sperm and eggs, which fuse into zygotes, which grow into new horsetails. Horsetails look a bit like segmented grass, but we needn't pay them much attention. Instead, consider the spore.

Horsetail spores possess four "elaters" which are rods made of two materials: one expands when wet, the other contracts. In other words, the elater bends and the spore "walks" toward areas of higher humidity.1

On one earth, a mutation caused the swollen tip of the fertile stem of a horsetail (called a strobilus) to fail to release the spores it produced. Instead, the spores stayed together, with their elaters interlocking. Many further iterations of mutation and selection produced a cluster of clockwork springs that could move around, dig holes, and find a good place to plant itself.

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Increasingly large and complex strobili fought with and ate each other like animals. In wet internal chambers, they formed gametophytes, which produced sperm and eggs that, when combined under very special and romantic circumstances, produced sporophyte-embryos. Some of these produced clockwork whose governing principles caused more sophisticated behavior.

Thus it was that the Sprocket between Law and Action formed. In the fullness of time, it was inducted into the Convention of Sophonts.

"What a dump!" said the Sprocket. Mirrors and prisms inside the windows in his shell flicked back and forth, up and down. "What is this smell? You need a Pitiful Species Fund."

"This is Officer Brown-white One-and-three-tens-and-two-zeros," said Graa. "Officer, Humans Mark and Koen."

"Your Excellency, I am sure there was no reason to involve the police," Mark said.

Brown-white scuttled his legs to bring a pair of green windows into alignment with Mark. "I'm not a cop. I'm in charge of animal control." He scuttled back around to regard Graa. "Your missing animal is not intelligent, right? His species didn't build particle accelerators?"

"No, no," Graa assured the Sprocket. "He's a domesticated cousin-species of these humans here."

Some knobs clicked up and down on Brown-white's carapace. "Yeah. One of those situations." A spring-jointed limb pointed at Mark. "You, Honored Sophont. Do you sympathize with the General's missing pet?"

Mark controlled his reactions. "What do you mean?"

"I have in mind: can you imagine what would you do, if you got lost in the forest? Any information which you can provide will speed up the search."

Mark hid any signs of his relief. "Well, if I was lost in the woods, I would try to make some kind of shelter. I would break tree branches and make a lean-to, maybe? Or dig a hole? Koen, what do you think?"

Oh, no. That was a mistake. Koen swayed and said, "…yeah."

"Yes," said Graa. "Wild steeds sometimes make their nests in the lower branches of trees. You should look for that, as well."

"I now take notes," said Brown-white. He flipped up two of his legs and bent them into complicated, jagged shapes. "Have you already walked around the area where you lost it and asked other people there? The next step is to make signs and place them in public areas around the forest. Is your pet tracked? Radio-frequency chip, radioactive isotopes, higher-dimensional resonator?"

Mark's neck hairs prickled. He resisted the urge to glance at the door to the corridor and the room where, he prayed, Mr. Grumbles was not resonating in any way.

"No." Graa crouched and made rack-rack noises. "I never thought it would be necessary. I am miserable."

"We can help with posting fliers," Mark offered, eager to move away from this topic.

"Do that," said Brown-white.

"Also, I will take Koen back to the forest," said Graa. "I am desperate. We will look everywhere again."

"I can't go," said Mark. "I have work. I'm meeting mix Sty at Paps this morning to talk about my performance."

"She didn't like it." Graa informed him. "But I wasn't thinking of you, Human Mark. I will once again require the services and company of Human Koen."

"Ugh," said Koen, red-eyed.

The note-taking limbs locked into shape, curled over Brown-white's back. "Listen, I'll be honest with you. In the Zogreion, pets go missing every day. In a quarter of cases, they are found. Is there anything that differentiates your steed as a pet, and not freely available protein?"

"I am distressed." Graa wiped his beak on his feet. "We have already looked at the meat market."

"Yes?"

"He was wearing clothing and sandals when he was lost," said Graa. "Isn't that right, Koen?"

"Toga?" said Koen, thinking about getting his T-shirt over Mr. Grumbles's head.

"Clarify? It that your name for a cute pet cloth."

"…Yeah."

"Why is Koen acting so stupid? I am concerned." General Graa flapped off his mobile perch and landed on Koen's shoulder.

"What is this?" Graa poked his beak at Koen's nose. The tip ticked up, down, sweeping Graa's inspection from Koen's matted hair to the bruises under his eyes, unshaven cheeks, and slack mouth. "You're still blown! Haven't you rested?"

"Guh?" Koen mumbled something in Dutch, which the translator rendered as, "No. Work. Work to be…done."

Graa jabbed his beak at Mark. "Why have you not allowed Koen to sleep?"

Mark held up his hands. "I haven't seen Koen in days."

"And what about that animal husband I called? Has he done nothing? Shameful treatment! I am angry." Graa gave a sharp cry and Koen winced. "I will steal you, Human Koen!"

"Uh." Koen blinked at General Graa. Why was this bird so angry? "What?"

Graa bristled his beard feathers. "Those are stupid sounds. I am dominant. I will take care of you."

"This sounds like personal business," said Officer Brown-white. "Should I go?"

"Yes," said Graa. "We will all go. Come, Human Koen!" He leaned forward on Koen's shoulder and the man trudged obediently forward.

"Wait," said Mark. "Uh, your Excellency, are you proposing to take Koen somewhere? He was with you all day yesterday and we need our cook."

Graa stood taller, shoulders rising to bracket his head. "I told you to let him sleep and you disobeyed. I am powerful and masculine! Now I must seize responsibility from you so your follower does not become psychotic."

"Oh." Mark made a rapid calculation. "Okay."

Graa slimmed back down. "I am appeased."

"What's happening?" asked Koen.

Graa wiped his beak down the side of Koen's head. "I am comforting you. I am comforting you. Now, come with me. I will enforce sleep."

"What does that mean?" asked Mark. "Like, do you have drugs?"

"No. A kennel."

1 Marmottant Philippe, et al. 2013 The walk and jump of Equisetum spores. Prox R. Soc. B 280: doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.1465