I longed for the small warrens and cramped tunnels of Mars, for my confined and secure youth.

I knew there were bigger cities, more crowded cities — but New York ’s fifty million citizens caused this rabbit a new kind of claustrophobia. My apprehension changed from fear of the unknown to fear that I would simply be sucked up and digested.

Five hundred and twenty-three years old, New York appeared both ancient and new at once. I emerged from Penn Station surrounded by a rainbow of people, more than I had ever seen crowded together in one place in my life. I stood on a corner as hordes walked in a cold breeze and spatters of sleet.

In design, New York had kept much of its architectural history intact, yet there was hardly a building that had not been rebuilt or replaced. Architectural nano had worked its way through frames and walls, down through the soil and ancient foundations, redrawing wires and fibers, rerouting water pipes and sewers, leaving behind buildings resculpted in original or better materials, new infrastructures of metal and ceramic and plastic. Nothing seemed designed as a whole; everything had been assembled and even reassembled bits at a time, block by block or building by building.

And of course many of the buildings a New Yorker considered new were in fact older than any warren on Mars.

The people also had been rebuilt from the inside. Even in my confusion, they fascinated me. New people in New York the old city: transforms, their skins glistening like polished marble, black or white or rose, their golden or silver or azure eyes glinting as they passed, penetrating glances that seemed both friendly and challenging at once; designer bodies put on for a month or a year, the flesh shaped like clay; designs identifying status and social group, some ugly as protest, some thin and austere, others large and strong and — Earthy.

Lights flashed over the street, airborne arbeiters like fairies on a trod in one of my children’s vids, or, even more fantastic, huge fireflies; arbeiters flowed through the city in narrow channels underground and above. Slaved cabs followed glassy strips pressed into the asphalt and concrete and nano stone of the streets.

What fascinated me most about New York was that it worked.

Most submitted to medical nano, body therapy as well as mind. By and large, the city’s people were healthy, but medical arbeiters still patrolled the streets, searching for the untherapied few who might even now out of negligence or perverse self-destruction fall ill. Human diseases had been virtually eliminated, replaced by infestations of learning, against which I had chosen to be made immune. New Yorkers, like most people on Earth, lived in a soup of data itself alive.

Language and history and cultural updates filled the air. Viruses and bacteria poured forth from commercial ventilators in key locations, or could be acquired at infection booths, conveying everything the driven New Yorker might want to know. Immunizations prevented adverse reactions for natural visitors not used to the soup.

The sun passed behind a broad cubical comb in New Jersey and lights flashed on, pouring golden illumination through the gentle drizzle.

Advertising images leaped from walls, a flood of insistent icons that meant little to me. Spot marketing had been turned into a perfected science. Consumers were paid to carry transponders which communicated their interests to adwalls. The adwalls showed them only what they might want to purchase: products, proprietary LitVids, new sims, live event schedules. Being a consumer had become a traditional means of gainful employment; some New Yorkers floated careers allowing themselves to be subjected to ads, switching personal IDs as they traveled to different parts of the city, trading purchase credits earned by ad exposure for more ad income.

Lacking a transponder, all I saw were the icons, projected corporate symbols floating above my head like strange hovering insects.

According to what I had been taught in govmanagement at UM, Earth’s economic systems had become so complicated by the twenty-first century that only thinkers could model them. And as thinkers grew more complicated, economic patterns increased in complexity as well, until all was delicately balanced on less than the head of a pin.

No wonder cultural psychology could play a key role in economic stability.

“Casseia!” Orianna stood on a low wall, peering over the crowds. We hugged at the edge of the walkway. “It’s great to see you. How was the trip?”

I laughed and shook my head, drunk with what I had seen. “I feel like a — ”

“Fish out of water?” Orianna said, grinning.

“More like a bird drowning!”

She laughed. “ Calcutta would kill you!”

“Let’s not go there,” I said.

“Where we’re going, my dear, is a quiet place my Mom owns up on East 64th, in an historic neighborhood. A bunch of friends want to meet you.”

“I only have a few days…”

“Simplicity! This is so exciting! You’re even in the Lit-Vids, did you know that?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

We took an autocab and she projected the news stories from her slate. She had hooked an Earthwide ex net and scanned for all material related to our visit. The faces of Bithras, Allen and myself floated like little doll heads in the autocab. Condensed texts and icons flashed at reduced speed for my unaccustomed eyes. I picked up about two-thirds of what was being said. GEWA and GSHA had linked with Eurocom to propose a world-wide approach to what was being called the Martian Question: Martian reluctance or inability to join the Push.

“You’re being pre-jammed,” Orianna said cheerfully.

I was horrified.

The sidebars detailed our personal histories and portrayed us as the best Martian diplomacy had to offer; the last seemed ironic, but I really couldn’t fathom the spin.

“You’re famous, dear,” Orianna said. “A frontier girl. Little House on the Planum. They love it!”

I was less interested in what was being said about me than in the backslate details. GEWA, leading the other alliances, would start negotiating with Mars after completion of what the US government was characterizing as “polite dialogues” with members of the standing Congressional committee.

I had a role to play. True shock would only grace my performance. “It’s terrible,” I said, frowning deeply. “Completely rude and impolite. I’d never expect it from Earth.”

“Oh, do!” Orianna said, creasing her brow in sympathy. The cab stopped before a stone and steel eight-story building with dazzling crystal-paned glass doors. The first-floor door popped open with a sigh and she danced ahead of me through crowds flowing along the walkway. “By the time my friends and I are done with you, you’ll expect anything.”

“We don’t stay here often,” Orianna said, emerging from the elevator. Her long legs carried her down the hall like an eager colt. She slowed only to allow me to catch up with her. “Mother’s given us the space here for a few days. My hab is just like the one in Paris . I’ve kept it since I was a kid.”

The door to apartment 43 looked tame enough — paneled wood with brass numbers. Orianna palmed entry and the door swung inward. “We have a guest,” she called. Beyond stretched a round gray tunnel with a white strip of walkway. The tunnel ballooned around us, unshaped.

“Welcome home. What can we do for you, Orianna?” a soft masculine voice asked.

“Fancy conservative decor — for our guest — and tell Shrug and Kite to rise and meet my friend.”

The tunnel quickly shaped a cream-colored decor with gold details, a rosewood armoire opening its doors to accept my coat and Orianna’s shoulder wrap. “English Regency,” Orianna said. “Kite’s idea of conservatism.”

Shrug, Kite — it all sounded very drive. I wondered if I would regret coming.