“Ouch.”

“The problem is not at the cellular level. It’s the fact that the natives look like us. They shouldn’t, according to all the best theories. We ought to be dealing with intelligent lobsters or talking trees.

“According to the biology team, the natives are an example of parallel evolution—like the marsupial saber-toothed tiger of South America. But no one is really comfortable with this explanation. We need more information. The medical team wants some tissue samples, and they want to know what goes on the intermediate levels—between the entire organism, which looks like us, and the biochemistry, which is almost certainly alien. What are the organs like? The muscles and the skeleton? The endocrine system? The chemistry of the brain? They want—in sum—to get into a native and take a really good look around. I’m going to refer this to the committee for day-to-day administration.”

“Okay.”

“In the meantime, the medical people say to treat the injury like a fracture.”

“Okay.” I turned the radio off.

“Li-sa?”

It was Nia. I glanced at her. She was up on one elbow, staring at me. Her eyes reflected the firelight. They shone like gold.

“Yes.”

“Is there a demon in the box?”

I tapped the radio. “This?”

Nia made the gesture of affirmation.

“No.”

“Then how can it speak?”

“A good question.” I thought for a while. “It’s a way for people to talk when they’re far away from one another. My friend has a box like this. When he speaks into it, his voice comes out here.” I touched the radio again. “I can answer by talking into my box.”

Nia frowned. “Among the Copper People—the people of Nahusai—there are songs of calling. When Nahusai wanted something, rain or sunshine or a ghost, she would draw a design that represented the thing she wanted. Then she sang to the design. The thing she wanted would hear her song and come. This is what she told me, anyway.”

I made the gesture of disagreement. “This isn’t a ceremony. It’s a tool, like your hammer.”

“Hakht would not believe that.”

“What does she know?”

Nia barked. “That is true. Well, then, the box is a tool—though it’s a kind of tool I’ve never seen before. I’ve never even heard of a tool like that.” She paused. “It sounds useful. I am going back to sleep.”

I woke in the morning before Nia did. The sky was clear and there was sunlight on the rim of the canyon. I went in among the rocks and relieved myself, then went to the stream and washed. On the way back I passed the dead man. He lay on his back, his arms stretched above his head. He was large—not tall, but wide and muscular with shaggy fur. His kilt was brown with orange embroidery, and his belt had a copper buckle.

His mouth was open. I could see his teeth, which were yellow, and his tongue, which was thick and dark. His eyes—open also—had orange irises.

I was going to have to bury him, I realized. The bugs were gathering already. Damn it. I had no shovel. I glanced at Nia. Still asleep. I bent and grabbed a rock and laid it next to the body. It—he—stank of urine. Poor sucker. What a way to go. Was there a good way? I went to get more stones.

Bugs hummed around me. Clouds drifted across the narrow sky. They were small and round like balls of cotton. My back started hurting. I scraped one hand on the rough edge of a rock. The injury wasn’t serious. It didn’t even bleed, but it stung.

Finally the man was out of sight, hidden by pieces of rock. Enough. I didn’t have to make him a tumulus. I straightened. By this time the clouds were gone. Sunlight slanted into the canyon. Nia was sitting up.

“Good,” she said. “His ghost should have a home. Otherwise, the wind will take him and blow him across the sky. That is no fate for anyone.”

“Is there any ceremony that ought to be performed?”

“No. If a shamaness were here, she would sing. That would avert bad luck. I do not know the right words nor what to burn in the fire.” She frowned and scratched her nose. “I ought to do something. I will give him a knife. A parting gift.”

“All right,” I said.

We ate breakfast. I bandaged Nia’s hand. We didn’t talk much. Nia looked tired, and I found myself thinking about the dead man under his heap of stones.

Midway through the morning my radio rang.

“Your box,” Nia said. “It wants to talk with you.”

I turned the radio on. “Yes?”

“Lixia? This is Antonio. I talked to the day-to-day committee.”

“Uh-huh?”

“They voted ‘no.’ And then they decided this was not an administrative problem. It was a question of policy. I wasn’t at the meeting, but there must have been someone on the committee who got upset with the vote and raised the question of policy in order to get another chance.”

I nodded agreement to the radio.

“So the question was referred to the all-ship committee. We had the meeting. An emergency session, but a good turnout nonetheless.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Eddie—of course—is against any kind of intervention. You know his arguments. I won’t repeat them. Ivanova went along.”

“She did?”

“According to her, we decided not to reveal ourselves to the people here until we knew more about them. There are good reasons for our decision: our own security and the fear of endangering the native culture through ignorance. How do we know what kinds of information they can handle?

“Now—according to Ivanova—we are asked to abandon a carefully thought out, democratically decided, historically important course of action. Because of a hairline fracture. A possible hairline fracture.

“She would have a different opinion if one of our people was in danger. But the person with the injury is a native, and the injury is not in the least bit dangerous.”

“Huh,” I said.

“As for our friends from the Chinese Republic,” Antonio paused for effect.

“Yes?”

“They said this never would have happened if the members of the survey team had been properly trained.”

“What does that mean?”

“You ought to have gotten a course in socialist medicine. Acupuncture, herbal lore, and Marxist ideology. As far as I can figure out, you are supposed to stick your companion full of needles and read selected passages from the Communist Manifestoto her.”

“Who came up with this wonderful line of reasoning?”

“Who do you think? It’s a perfectly preserved ancient Chinese argument. It came from a perfectly preserved ancient Chinese. Mr. Fang.”

The Chinese had said it was hard to go to the stars without children and crazy to go without people of age and experience. The rest of us had remained firm re children. There were none on the ship. But we had taken a number of people over sixty and a few over seventy. Mr. Fang was close to eighty, a thin man with long white hair and thick gray eyebrows. He was from Zhendu in Sichuan, a master wicker worker and a master gardener, in charge of the main room in the ship’s garden. Bamboo grew there, a dozen or more varieties. Along the walls were trellises covered with climbing palms. These were the raw materials for furniture. Most of the furniture on the ship was bamboo or rattan. Mr. Fang repaired it when it broke and made new furniture when needed.

I liked him. I had spent hours in his shop watching him work. From time to time we talked about philosophy. He especially liked the ancient Daoists and Karl Marx.

“They respected—at least in theory—the wisdom of the people. That is what matters, Lixia. A philosopher who fears or despises the people will come up with monstrous ideas.”

“How did the vote come out?” I asked Tony.

“What do you expect? We talked for hours and ended up where we started. For the time being we will stick to our original decision. We won’t go down to the planet—except maybe to help our own people. You are on your own. The medical team is not happy.”