“I’ll be going over the ecosystem from the microorganisms up in the more detailed session tomorrow; and I’ll be doing it again for my own staff in a morning session day after tomorrow. Check your schedules, and if you find you want to sit in on that lecture you’re quite welcome. It’s going to be pretty detailed, but after the other session it might make fair sense. Session to begin tomorrow morning is Zell Parham on security and law, this room, 0700 mainday…

“Game in R12.”

viii

T20 days MAT

“…The world is to be loved,” the taped voice whispered, and Jin accepted it deeply, wholly. “The things you will find there are beautiful. All the things that really belong to the world are to be protected; but you will build there. Born‑men will tell you where you will build and if life is taken in the building, that is as it must be. If you can spare a living thing you will do so, if it is your choice alone. You will observe certain cautions in touching wild things. You will report all such contacts to your supervisors, just as born‑men have to report them.

“You will work in the fields; and it may be you will take lives. That will be an accident and there is no guilt.

“You will catch fish and eat them, and this is the order of nature. There is no guilt in this. Fish are there for your use, and they feel very little pain.

“You will become part of this world, and if ever people came to harm it you would take up weapons to defend it. In that, you might kill, and you would not have guilt. But if ever you had to take up weapons, you would be trained, and the governor would tell you.

“You will work because you are strong and because your work is very important. You will have a right to be very proud of what you do, and when it is all done well, you will be closer to being born‑men.

“The government which holds your contract is very pleased with you. You’re learning very well. Soon you will get born‑man tapes teaching you the nature of the world, and in very little time you will step out on your land. Through all the difficulties you will experience you can find occasion for pride that you will overcome them all. Every difficulty will make you stronger and wiser, and you will fit more and more perfectly into the world. Be happy. Not everything will be pleasant, but every difficulty will give the pleasure of its solution, and the confidence that you are as intelligent and as fine as the promise of your gene‑set. The government believes in you. The born‑men will take care of you and you will take care of them, because where they are wiser than you, you are very strong and you have the capacity to become wise. Love the land. Love the world. Care for the born‑men, and expect their care for you. You have every right to be proud and happy…”

Jin lay relaxed, dissolved in the pleasure of approval–stirred, as much as anything moved him in this time, with the anticipation of his becoming. There had never been such azi as themselves, he was persuaded, and he had only believed he was ordinary because no one had ever pointed out to him his uniqueness. He saw his descendants in vast numbers, his genetic material, and Pia’s, who was quite as wonderful, ultimately mixed with all the other specially chosen material. They were made of born‑manmaterial: he had never realized this until the tape told him. The capacity was in them, and it was awakening.

He thought on this, having a capacity for sustained concentration that could knit together the most complex of problems. This capacity could be turned to pure reason. He had never had it called upon in quite this way. In fact, it was discouraged, because an azi’s understanding was full of gaps which could mislead. But this special capacity which born‑men lost in the distractions of their sense‑overloaded environments–could make him very wise as the total sum of his knowledge increased. Of this too, he was proud, knowing that a 9998 was extraordinarily capable in this regard. It would make him loved, and secure, and born‑men would never give him bad tape.

“Highest life native to the world are the Calibans,” the tape told him. “And if you understand them, they will do you no harm…”

ix

T42 days MAT

Venture log

“…arrival Gehenna system 1018 hours 34 minutes mission apparent time. US Swiftand US Capableto follow at one hour intervals…”

“…estimate Cyteen elapsed time: 280 days; dates will be revised on recovery of reliable reference.”

“…confirm arrival US Swifton schedule.”

“…confirm arrival US Capableon schedule.”

“…insert into orbit Gehenna II scheduled 1028 hours 15 minutes mission apparent time. All systems normal. All conditions within parameters predicted by Mercury probe. System arrival now determined to be possible within narrower margin to be calculated for future use. Systemic positions were accurately predicted by Mercury probe data. Venturewill make further observations during exit from Gehenna system…”

x

T42 days MAT

US Venture

Office of Col. James A. Conn

It was there, real and solid. The world. Gehenna II, the designation was; Newport, he reckoned to record the name. Their world. Conn sat at his desk in front of the viewer with his hands steepled in front of him and looked at the transmitted image, trying to milk more detail from it than the vid was giving them yet. The second of six planets, a great deal blue and a great deal white, and otherwise brown with vast deserts, sparsely patched with green. Not quite as green as Cyteen. But similar. The image hazed in his eyes as he thought not of where he was going, but of places he had been…and of Jean, buried back home; and what she would say, when they had been like Beaumont and Davies, travelling together. Even the war had not stopped that. She had been there. With him. There existed that faint far thought in his mind that he had committed some kind of desertion, not a great one, but at least a small one, that he had hoped for happiness coming here, for something more to do. He left her there, and there was no one to tend her grave and no one who would care. That had seemed such a small thing–go on, she would say, with that characteristic wave of her hand when he hung his thoughts on trivialities. Go on, with that crisp decisiveness in her voice that had sometimes annoyed him and sometimes been so dear: Lord, Jamie, what’s a point in all of that?

Something had gone out of him since Jean was gone: the edge that had been important when he was younger, perhaps; or the quickness that crackle in Jean’s voice had set into him; or the confidence–that she was there, to back him and to second guess him.

Go on, he could hear her saying, when he pulled out of Cyteen; when he took the assignment; and now–go on, when it came down to permanency here.

Go on–when it came to the most important assignment of his life, and no Jean to tell it to. It all meant very little against that measure. For the smallest evening with her face looking back at him–he would trade anything to have that back. But there were no takers. And more–he knew what lived down there, that it was not Cyteen, however homelike it looked from orbit.

The light over the door flashed, someone seeking entry. He reached across to the console and pushed the button–“Ada,” he said curiously as she came in.

“Ah, you’ve got it,” she murmured, indicating the screen. “I wanted to make sure you were awake.”

“No chance I’d miss it. I’d guess the lounge has it too.”

“You couldn’t fit another body in there. I’m going down to 30; the officers are at the screen down there.”

“I’ll come down when the vid gets more detail.”

“Right.”

She went her way. Bob Davies would be down there. Jealousy touched him, slight and shameful. There would be Gallin and Sedgewick and Dean and Chiles; and the rest of the mission…