Mirny was indifferent. "The Investors," she said, and followed the remark with something in the language of the springtails, which he didn’t catch. Despite his linguistic training, Afriel had never caught up with her in her use of the springtails’ grating jargon. His training was almost a liability; the springtail language had decayed so much that it was a pidgin tongue, without rules or regularity. He knew enough to give them simple orders, and with his partial control of the warriors he had the power to back it up. The springtails were afraid of him, and the two juveniles that Mirny had tamed had developed into fat, overgrown tyrants that freely terrorized their elders. Afriel had been too busy to seriously study the springtails or the other symbiotes. There were too many practical matters at hand.