There had been no more messages from their secret benefactors. But that didn’t matter. Even more important than the techniques they had received had been the boost to morale, knowing that someone back home still cared.

Even the officials back on Earth seemed to have relented. The colony was buzzing about the “Care Package” that was nearing rendezvous with Halley—sent at high velocity by an Earth Control apparently guilt-racked over its past neglect.

No wonder Jeffers s teams are getting so much done, down at the south pole. Virginia estimates they’ll actually be ready to begin the Nudge this month.

If this peace among the clans lasts, that is…

The passage lightened ahead. Max and Sylvie launched themselves from his back and sped along a wall cable, rushing toward a chattering greeting.

“Who is it, Hokulele? Who’s coming?” a deep voice asked from beyond a stone arch. “Oh, quiet down, you silly monkey, can’t you see it’s only Max and Sylvie? Come on in, Dr. Lintz!”

Keoki Anuenue’s grin was broad and his grip strong as he hauled Saul into a wide chamber that looked half ice palace, half mad scientist’s laboratory. Cavelike crannies led off in all directions, bordered by glittering, faceted structures of hardened crystal. People could be seen moving in some of the rooms, working at various tasks. A few stopped and waved at Saul.

In the chamber’s center there protruded a great boulder of some bluish metal agglomerate, an odd formation that had given the group that lived here its name.

Everywhere was the soft verdance of lush plant life. Here a lawnlike expanse of cloverlike Trifolium halleyense, there a shock of mutated marigolds, growing out of night soil into spindly shapes that never would have been possible on the homeworld.

“Great to see you again, Doc,” Anuenue said. “My people are always glad when you visit.”

Saul had given up trying to get Keoki to call him Saul, like everyone else did. That the big Hawaiian was now older than he—his once jet-black hair had turned silver and his eyes were deeply etched by smile lines—hardly seemed to matter to him.

“Hi, Keoki. You’re looking well.”

“How could I not? I was never really sick, like so many others, but those treatments of yours have me feeling I could climb a wave all the way to Molokai!”

His laugh was infectious. Saul reached up and petted the little capuchin monkey on his friend’s shoulder, who hid behind Anuenue’s head and glared suspiciously at the gibbons. “And how is Hokulele? Does she still have a big appetite?”

Keoki laughed. “There hasn’t been a purple sighted anywhere near Blue Rock Cave for weeks. She has to live off table scraps, these days, and she hates it!”

“Well.” Saul smiled. “I’m sure motherhood will keep her busy enough.”

“You can tell?” Anuenue held up the little monkey. “Ua huna au is mea… Iwasn’t sure I should tell you, since you wanted us to be careful before letting any Earth species become independent of your cloning chambers. But Virgil Simms was visiting from Central, and he brought his male with him.”

Saul waved a hand. “No matter. The modified capuchins are a success, obviously. We ought to see if they breed true.”

The data from Earth had been the key. For although science was still a dull affair, back home, some progress could not be avoided. Saul would never have been able to develop the cloning machines himself, even using parts from a dozen scavenged sleep slots. But by implementing designs released from JonVon’s unclogged memories, he had been able to build astonishing devices.

Using samples taken from their still-frozen “zoo” of test animals, he could now force-grow a monkey or ape from blast cell to fetus to adult in a month. A month.

It was, frankly, almost beyond his comprehension as a biologist. Saul was grateful that half of the process could be run by JonVon, without his having to understand it. He could turn most of his attention to modifying the original genes—an art at which his skill was not obsolete—giving them an artificial inheritance to thrive in the new ecosystem that was coming into being under Halley.

Anuenue was trading monkey faces with Max and Sylvie, making Hokulele insanely jealous.

“I still can’t really understand why you chose gibbons for your own watchdogs, Doc. Without a prehensile tail, they’re almost as clumsy as a man.”

“I have a weakness for apes,” Saul began. “They have their.”

“Saul!” two feminine voices called out, almost in unison. He looked overhead and saw a young woman in roughly sewn fibercloth over-alls drop down from a shaft to alight on the blue rock. A spindly machine fell after her and she caught it deftly, placing it gently on the floor. The whirring, spiderlike mech whizzed ahead of Lani to reach Saul first.

“Hi Saulie!” The machine spoke with Virginia’s voice, but in a slightly higher register, a simpler tone. It was easy to tell that Virginia herself wasn’t “present” —was not operating this particular mech herself—and Saul was just a little disappointed.

“Hello, little Ginnie,” he said to the very unmachinelike, colony-made machine as it reached out an arm and stroked his leg. The device was another hybrid of Earth-based and homegrown research—a mixture of new designs sent up by their secret benefactors, the mechanical brilliance of Jeffers and d’Amario, and Virginia’s hypermodern approach to personality-based programming.

“I love you, Saul,” the childlike voice said softly. The little artificial persona was an edited replica of Virginia’s own. Sometimes, as now, it led to embarrassment. Keoki coughed, grinning behind his hand.

Saul felt particularly unnerved since, at the moment, Virginia was mad at him. Can’t even really blame her, he thought.

“Hello, Lani,” he said to the young woman who followed the robot. She enveloped him in a warm embrace.

“You are looking wonderful,” he said, holding her back at arm’s length.

She blushed, turning slightly away as if to hide the scars the zipper Pox had left on her once-smooth cheek.

“You’re a magnificent liar, Saul. Almost as good as you are a doctor.”

But to him she did look wonderful. For he well recalled when Lani Nguyen had been slotted. At the time it had seemed as pointless as storing a corpse. Now the pallor of deepsleep had almost left her face, and the blue eyelids only made her half-oriental features seem all the more sultry and mysterious.

Virginia should never have told me about Lani Nguyen’s secret cache of human sperm and ova. I’ve almost questioned her about it several times, since her unslotting… to find out where it’s hidden.

Ah, but if I had that plasm in my hands, I might be too tempted …

“When can I go back on duty, Saul? I want to join the crews mounting the Nudge Flingers, before all the really important work is already done.”

A spacer to the last, he thought. “Even if the Nudge does begin in a month or so, Lani, it’ll be years in progress with lots of motors left to build. You’ll do your turn, don’t worry. Right now, though, your job is to rest, get up-to-date.”

She nodded. The little capuchin monkey transferred from Keoki’s shoulder to hers and she scratched it.

“I’ll try to be patient, Saul. Anyway, I’ve got to thank you for assigning me to Blue Rock Clan for my recuperation. I’ve been to some of the other groups to try to visit people…” She blinked, remembering. “Saul, how can people, professional people, with college degrees, act so… so…” She groped for the right word.

“So meshuggenuh?” he suggested.

Lani laughed—clear and bell-like. “Yeah. So meshuggenuh.”

Anuenue put an arm around her shoulder. “We’ve been very glad to have Lani. Any of the clans of the Survivor faction would welcome her as a permanent member.”