Ribbons

Just the place for a landing the pilots cried
As they dropped off the crew without care
Supporting each man to the planetary tilt
On a parachute up in the air

Just the place for a landing, we've said it twice
That alone should encourage you few
Just the place for a landing we've said it three times
What we tell you three times is true

And when all the colonists they had discharged
(Not without some weeping and jeers)
They then flew away in a relative way
And nobody saw them for years

Tall were the Atevi and golden of eye
With inventors just starting to dream
And they were just leaving agrarian ways
For technology powered by steam

The two peoples shook hands on a number of things
On each other began to depend
Till the colonists chanced to discover one day
They 'd mistaken the word they thought "friend"

They fought a brief war to a stalemate and then
As a way to make everything tidy
They channelled diplomacy all through one man
And gave him the title of Paidhi

The Paidhi was Bren who was very adept
At keeping discussions on track
But his world was disrupted one night as he slept
When the ship and the pilots came back

The Aiji omitted to mention to Bren
The cause of his great consternation
But simply observed that the Paidhi looked tired
And sent him away on vacation

They sought him with ribbons, they filed their Intent
They pursued him with aircraft and rope
They threatened his life with assassins for rent
And they charmed him with tea and hope

So Bren went away and sat on his tail
And perceived that his main tribulations
All stemmed from his lack of perception involved
In triangular forms of relations

First of all there was him and his mother and Barb
Then his mother and Toby and he
When Banichi and Jago got into the mix
How very complex that would be

The Aiji, the Paidhi, the dowager too.
Ilisidi, Cenedi and Him
If Cenedi worked for an undisclosed third
His hopes for the future looked grim

At length they relented and showed him their cause
As it shone in the evening sky
Then they went for a ride, mecheiti-back
While bombers above them did fly

And the ship chose as well to get into the act
And sent down Yolanda and Jase
Tabini was quick the advantage to seize
And promptly put Bren on the case

In a rice field at midnight with bodyguards pent
A parachute bobbed in the breeze
And now Tatiseigi and Geigi could claim
That even Paidhin came in threes.

A felicitous number of years had gone by
When the captains just chose to confess
They had upset a neighbouring alien race
Perhaps Bren could sort out the mess?

So they boarded the ship and Tabini just wrote
To appoint Bren "High Lord of the Dark"
And with hopes very high and Bren's heart in his boots
Away they've all gone... to hunt Snark!

They sought him with ribbons, they filed their intent
They pursued him with aircraft and rope
They threatened his life with assassins for rent
And they charmed us with tea and hope