And when she wanted companionship — when she wanted to listen to their music, or let Bluecloak try out its rapidly increasing store of words and expressions — they were there. Quiet, polite, and eager. She didn’t mind being the center of attention when she could choose the time. In the evenings, when they played music, they offered her any of their musical instruments. She usually shook the gourd with its seeds, but she had finally coaxed a note — breathy but musical — from the handful of hollow reeds. They listened when she played music cubes for them; they even tried to sing along with the children’s songs, and came surprisingly close to the melodies. She tried to hum along with their songs, but worried that she would sing the wrong notes; it was easier to keep a rhythm on the gourd. Bluecloak and one of the others seemed determined to learn to read; they encouraged her to read from the children’s books in the center schoolrooms. She explained about letters and numbers, and soon saw them tracing letters in the air, on walls, in the dust of the lane. They seemed to learn very fast, but she had no idea how fast adults could learn letters if they had not been to school as children. She wondered if the creatures had any written language of their own. Again, her questions to Bluecloak didn’t seem to get through. Did it not understand, or did it not want to answer? She couldn’t tell.

Kira Stavi reminded herself frequently that she had not expected this trip to be pleasant. It didn’t need to be pleasant; it was a chance to meet the first alien intelligence ever found on a colony world. On any world, for that matter. What did the usual shipboard nonsense matter, with that in view? Still, it was annoying. All of them had superior academic qualifications — that went without saying — so there was really no need for the covert pushing and shoving, the backbiting, the attempts to impress. They’d all get publications out of this, no matter how it turned out — material for a lifetime’s maneuvering in the academic or bureaucratic jungle. They were not competing with each other.

Except that they were. Primary and backup teams, two sets of paired specialists, eight active minds each determined to make or complete a reputation out of this trip, and too much shipboard time with too little to do besides worry about how the others might frustrate that ambition. The primary team alone could generate, Kira thought, a storycube of problems. Bilong Oliausau had to impress them with her knowledge of neolinguistic AI, and her sexual attractiveness. Ori Lavin, normally a calm, pragmatic Pelorist, almost a caricature of that sect, had reacted to Bilong as if to a shot of rejuvenating hormones, and sleeked his moustache every time she undulated by. He had engaged in one fierce argument after another with Vasil, most of them unnecessary. Vasil, for his part, interpreted “team leader” to mean that both Bilong and the lion’s share of transmission time were his by rights. Kira didn’t care about Bilong’s behavior — she even had a sneaking sympathy for the girl, off on her first long expedition, given a place on the primary team only because the director of the linguistics faculty had chosen this inauspicious time to collapse with a richly deserved bleeding ulcer. Kira had heard about the almost-mythical Dr. Lowaasi, who went through secretaries and graduate assistants with equal voracity. Rumor had it that the linguistics faculty cheered as the ambulance drove away. Anyway, it was no wonder Bilong seemed immature and unstable, and threw herself at Vasil while flirting over her shoulder with Ori. What really upset Kira was the way Vasil hogged the transmission time. Kira reminded herself that her own position was secure. She had tenure; she had a high citation index, and after this it would go even higher. The xenobiologist on the backup team, whose unpronounceable name everyone rendered as Chesva, respected her without embarrassing hero worship, leaving Kira free to do the thinking, and treat Chesva as a normal assistant. Whether the creatures were intelligent or not, whether they signed a treaty or not, she would have exclusive access to the biota… wish fulfillment for a xenobiologist. She had samples already — Sims Bancorp had deposited the requisite samples with the colonial office decades before — but samples were no substitute for observing living organisms in their native ecosystem. All she had to do was survive the voyage without committing assault on her team members.

She reminded herself of this day after tedious day, through the intermediate jumps and the long insystem crawl to the planet. She reminded herself that it would have been worse — it would have taken longer — on most ships. Although it was tempting to think that a larger team would have been less difficult, she knew from previous field experience that large teams could offer just as many opportunities for interpersonal unpleasantness. Here, the small size of the team would force them to cooperate once they were on the planet. And she, the only one presently acting like a responsible adult, would make sure of that. When they were close enough, she joined the others at the wardroom viewscreen. Blue, white, tan, dark green… polar caps, mountain ranges, forests… no wonder someone wanted to colonize it, she thought. If it had been purpose-built for humans, it could not have been closer to ideal. “Needs a moon,” Ori said, as if reading her mind. Sometimes he could; they had been on several expeditions together. Kira took it as a sign that he was getting over his infatuation with Bilong. She smiled at him without saying anything.

“We’re going to sit out here for awhile and really look at things,” Vasil said. He had said this before, more than once; Kira felt her shoulders tighten now. She didn’t like being treated as an idiot who couldn’t remember. Perhaps that was what he was used to; unlike the others, he had no academic appointment. She tried to convince herself that this explained his attitude. “We’re going to launch a low-orbit scanner,” he went on. Kira could have repeated his next words with him; she did it silently, careful not to move her lips. “And only when we know what we’re getting into, will we decide where to land.” The obvious place was the old colony site, since their mission included shutting down that powerplant. Vasil knew that. The shuttle pilot knew that. Kira glared at the viewscreen and told herself she’d feel better when she got out of the ship for awhile.

She watched the launch of the low-orbit scanner, and then went to the lab to put the first transmissions through her own special filters. She didn’t expect the analysis of atmospheric gases to have changed from the baseline data filed before Sims Bancorp was issued the first development license, but she would be more comfortable with her instruments than the tension in the wardroom. Chesva followed her, “Would you like me to do the atmospheric stuff, and let you get right to the surface data?”

“I don’t think there’ll be any surface data for awhile, but we can check the response of the visuals.” “I’ll load the old data for comparison.” They knew it by heart, but the computer would catch subtle changes they might miss.

“Thanks,” Kira said. She wished Chesva were on the primary team with her… but then she might have had someone like Bilong for her backup. Better this way, probably.

The atmospheric data began to show up on her screen. She pulled up the old, and had the computer highlight any changes. Nothing showed. Just as she’d expected.

“What about that old weathersat?” Chesva asked. “Do we have the access codes?” “I’ll check,” Kira ran through the expedition manual, which was supposed to contain a précis of all relevant data, including enabling codes for any equipment Sims Bancorp had left behind. “Yes — and I’ll just give it a shove—” The weathersat’s computer obligingly dumped a long file of weather observations, graphics and all. Kira called up the current image. Blue water, swirling white clouds in streaks along the wind patterns, a mass of clouds lumped up over something on the western side of the image. She muttered her way through the selection tree to pull up information about that. Mountains, it turned out to be. Chesva had moved over to her workstation. “Do you suppose the weathersat has any idle scanners? If so, maybe we could get an early peek—”