Playing in advance was a good move. As Sobek had predicted, some of the dinosaurs on guard had overheard many humans arguing among themselves about whether or not to make requests, and it hadn't even been an hour since Al's 'disobedience'.

Dreyfus and Malcolm, like many more shrewd ones, had begun to fear the worst. Like Sobek, they too imagined that things would quickly degenerate.

Fortunately, Old Li's public announcement calmed everyone's mind. Knowing that governments around the world wanted to negotiate had rekindled hope in the hearts of humans who were now more likely to wait a little longer. In a flash, every source of revolt was extinguished; even the most belligerent agreed that it was appropriate to observe how the situation would develop.

The other announcement, namely the one in which Old Li passed off Sobek's promise to bring families together as a gift, was received even better: the parents who had been separated from their children almost cried at the thought of being able to hug their children again. Malcolm had mentally praised the intelligence of the dinosaur leader: he had understood his game very well. Others had noticed, too, but most people didn't ask too many questions.

The announcement made all requests from humans disappear. Some tried to ask Old Li if the spouses or friends would also be reunited, but the ankylosaurus, very slyly, had claimed that the children took precedence and that he would discuss all the others at a later time. This had put humans in check: no one wanted to look like someone trying to pass a child separated from their parents, so the adults bite the bullet and accepted their condition without protest.

Over the next few days, some dinosaurs came every day to ask parentless children to line up and provide names and faces of their families. Since Cartago was a city of more than a million inhabitants, the work could not be completed in one day, but that was good for Sobek: more time spent managing the children meant more time spent without any further requests.

Human minds were very easily manipulated. Even though many people continued to remain apart, seeing that at least one family was reunited every day kept them hopeful, and they became convinced that the next day would be their turn. If anyone asked questions, the dinosaurs used the card of 'we're doing it as fast as possible, but finding someone among all these people takes time'. In this way, no one became suspicious, everyone remained good in their place and the disorder was minimal.

While this was happening in Cartago, in the rest of the world the political leaders publicly declared their intention to negotiate. The proposal wasn't well received by everyone: many, especially among the army, were convinced that such a plague should be eradicated immediately, before its strength increased and became too powerful to be able to counter it. However, public opinion was in favor of peace and the liberation of the citizens of Cartago, so the governments had been adamant in their choice to negotiate.

In reality, public opinion was just the excuse: the truth was that governments feared their new adversary, since they knew too little about dinosaurs. Therefore, they preferred to have a very cautious approach. While many governments, both on Eden and on the Earth from which Sobek came, were considered pugnacious and warmongering, the truth was that they raised their voices only against those they were sure they could defeat. But when the strength of their enemy was unknown, these governments confined themselves to a few words, and otherwise acted very carefully. After all, if they miscalculated, they could have been the ones to lose.

Rather, the problem was finding some ambassador brave enough (or mad enough) to go into the enemy territory amongs giant dinosaurs whose intentions weren't yet known. After the end of the Three Hundred Years War no one had to go to a war zone to negotiate anymore, so the ambassadors of the new generation were completely unprepared for such an eventuality. None of them aspired to be the chosen one. After all, who guaranteed that the dinosaurs wouldn't kill all the delegates if something went wrong? Or that they would have done something worse? Messengers and ambassadors enjoyed immunity ever since humanity began to divide into nations, but nothing guaranteed that an entirely different species had the same precept.

After a long debate, the NMWA decided that since Odaria was primarily responsible for the conflict and had withheld valuable information about their common enemy, for punishment that nation would be the one who send ambassadors to negotiate peace, obviously under the jurisdiction of a NMWA delegate. In practice, the governments of the world had handed over the problem to a single nation. While that might have seemed a petty move, that was how relations between nations worked.

And so, Odaria found herself having to decide which ambassador to send to the enemy territory. For this, the head of the wealthy families of the country gathered a week later in the home of Markus Jersey. Although formally the issue was political, they knew that they had to choose who would negotiate, since they were the true leaders of the nation. After all, depending on how the negotiation ended, their business might or might not go bankrupt.

Despite that, nobody liked that situation, for obvious reasons.

"Those bastards of the NMWA!" Oswald Mosley grumbled. "How can they expect us to do all the work?"

"This is our colony we're talking about" Jersey pointed out. "This is a problem that concerns us directly"

"This problem concerns the whole world! It is a threat to humanity what we are talking about! Not only to us!" Mosley retorted furiosly.

"It doesn't matter. The mistake was ours, twice. We have kept our mouths shut with the rest of the world and we have chosen war, putting the whole of humanity at risk! If it weren't for the fact that the dinosaurs' leader is fortunately a patient guy, our nation might already be gone by now, and the whole world might be going through an unprecedented crisis!" Jersey growled. "The NMWA has been even too forgiving to not just close all trade routes with us or make us pay an enormous fine! The least we can do is take our responsibilities!"

"Tsk! The responsibility lies with that fool of Davies, at most. He lost against animals!" Darby Sabini, one of Mosley's supporters, said. Many nodded at those words: several of them attributed all the blame to the incompetence of general Davies.

But Jersey wasn't of the same opinion. "Those animals, my distinguished colleague, were better armed and more armored than our troops! It was a war that no general could win!" he exploded in anger. "And anyway it's irrelevant who's to blame. We have already lost more than 90% of our army and the punitive sanctions the NMWA has imposed on us will halve our economy. In addition, three-quarters of our wealth came from our colony, and now they are no longer available! If we don't do something, this country will crumble on itself in a few months without that the dinosaurs having to do anything!"

Unfortunately, Jersey was telling the truth. With their main source of income lost and the severe sanctions imposed by the NMWA to Odaria, the nation was destined to become drastically impoverished. With poverty came discontent, and with discontent came unrest. And without the army, it would have been impossible for the government to maintain order. The chances of a rebellion were very high.

"Stop arguing! Let's focus on the main problem: even if we find an ambassador crazy enough to go over there, what could we possibly offer the dinosaurs?" Kimber asked. "I doubt the money is of interest to them. After all, what can animals do with money?"

Jersey sighed. "You've all seen the video, so you already know. They want us to leave the colony to them"

"If we leave the colony to them, how can we maintain our economy?" Mosley exclaimed. "It would mean giving up oil, gas, wood, raw materials... our entire country would be drained!"

The territory of Odaria, like that of many countries of the world, had already been squeezed out of all its natural resources. The only hope for humanity was to get them elsewhere... but where would they go to get them, if the rest of the continent was claimed by another species?

"That is why it is important that we send a competent ambassador" Jersey explained. "Listen to me: I know that none of you like the idea of negotiate with animals, but we don't have a choice now. They have the upper hand and the entire humanity is against us. Our only hope is to convince the dinosaurs that we can coexist. We must assure them that the land will still belong to them, but we must reach an agreement so that they will allow us to continue exploiting it"

"Yours is an utopia, father"

Everyone's heads immediately turned to the door. Jocelyne Jersey had just appeared at the doorway.