Diplomacy's Children

A New Generation Steps Forth... Young E'draMinr, starry-eyed recruit in the elite 'Dark Grays', is discovering that life is not nearly as simple as it seemed when he was a hatchling. Plagued by zero-G sickness, on the ragged edge of washing out due to poor grades, his worst nightmare is a self-centered, foul tempered human youngling who is making his first interstellar training cruise miserable. Now they're stranded on an alien world. Both are injured, and the planet is inhabited by primitive natives with who-knows-what ideas about these mysterious visitors. Not that it matters: the planet is about to be destroyed anyway. They are doomed unless their ship can get to earth and back with a new shuttle in record time, they can find something to eat, the natives decide not to eat them, and they don't kill each other while awaiting rescue. The fact that the Ic'nichi and the humans are on the brink of interstellar war - well, there's no sense in worrying over trivia at a moment like this.