I drank more coffee. Eddie was not a linear thinker, going from A to B to C. Sometimes, when I listened to him, I was reminded of weaving, of how the pattern emerged bit by bit as the shuttle went back and forth. If I waited long enough, I would understand his argument.

He said, “That isn’t what bothers me, though I wonder what all these people will do if the natives say, ‘No. We don’t want you. Go home.’

“What bothers me is the speculation. It’s especially bad among members of the crew.

“There’s a lot of discussion about the feasibility of interstellar trade. What is so valuable—and so unique—that it’d be worth moving from star to star? And what would keep its value for one hundred twenty years? Most people figure life and art.”

“Eddie, this has been talked about for centuries.”

“There are people on the ship who are building economic models. The economists, of course. We should never have brought them along. They are running everything they can think of through the models. Is it worthwhile to ship iridium? Or platinum? Or copper? What if we assume improvements in our technology? Ships that move a lot faster or use a lot less energy?

“What about people? Think of the knowledge and skill that’s contained in almost any human brain. Why send art to Earth? Send the artist.

“And when we send samples of the life here—or anywhere—back to Earth, we ought to send the people who understand that life. The farmers and hunters and animal trainers. The old women who know which herbs are medicinal.

“How else can we possibly know what we have when we grow an organism? How else can we take care of it? And use it?”

I poured myself more coffee. “The ship is full of people who like to play with ideas. And as you have pointed out before, the crew doesn’t have enough to do at present. Neither do the social scientists. I think you’re taking this way too seriously.”

“Maybe.” He finished eating. “There are problems with all the models. For example, how can we send people on a trip that will last one hundred twenty years? Not humans. Natives, who may not understand the nature of the journey.

“No one has an answer to that question, though some of the crew are hypothesizing natives who like to travel and who don’t care if they ever come home.”

“Um.”

He made the gesture of agreement.

“Eddie! You’re learning.”

He repeated the gesture and then went on.

“Let’s suppose that it is economic to ship iridium or platinum. Who’s going to mine it? And refine it? We’re going to have to assume a good-sized colony. Maybe the natives will help us. Maybe we’ll teach them our technology.

“There are people who say it’s crazy to think of moving raw materials—even raw materials that have been at least partially processed, such as ingots of metal. They say, why not build the factories here and produce a finished product? For example, why not build ships? We could fill them with goodies—with life and art—and send them back to Earth. Or else we could go on from here and find other planets in other systems.

“As you might imagine, this plan would require a really large colony. Or a lot of help from the natives. We’d have to bring them into the industrial age.” He pushed his plate to the side. “And this brings us to Comrade Lu Jiang. Do you remember her?”

I made the gesture of indecision, then added, “I’m not certain.”

“She’s the woman who thinks the natives are trapped in their present historical stage. They can’t gather in cities because the men are solitary. The women need men during the mating season and maybe at other times. In most of the societies we’ve studied, the men are important economically. At least to some extent.” He paused, frowning, obviously trying to get his ideas in order.

“They’re not likely to develop the kind of trade and manufacture that leads to industrial capitalism. Without industrial capitalism, there can be no revolution. These people will always be tribal. Unless we help them, they can never develop a socialist society.

“It is our duty to help them, according to Comrade Jiang.”

“I am getting a headache,” I said.

“I’ve had one for days.” He stood up. “Come on.”

We took our dishes to the recycling table and stacked them, then went out to the lake. The beach was gravel. Little birds ran over it, stopping now and then to peck. What—if anything—were they finding? Small animals? Bits of debris?

“You see why I think it was dangerous to come down, even to find you?”

“I guess so.”

“I told the meeting, if we did this now—if we hunted for you—we’d do it again. There’d be another good reason and another.

“I said we had to draw a line. We had to make an unbreakable rule.”

I was angry with Eddie, of course. Anyone would have been. He’d been willing to let us die for a theory—in order to defend a bunch of people he didn’t know against a danger that might be imaginary. It was too damn abstract for me. I thought of myself on the island and Derek on his sandbar. We could have died. Easily.

“The meeting didn’t listen to you.”

“No. They were hungry, and they heard Ivanova make her speech on the Code of Space.”

“Why’d you come on this expedition if you didn’t want to meet aliens?”

“I was hoping they’d be so damn different that we couldn’t harm each other. I thought—if there were people here and they were vulnerable, there had to be someone on the ship with a good memory. Someone who’d be ready to defend them.” He looked out at the shining lake. “Eddie the Galactic Hero. The man who tried to save his people—four hundred years after the fact and more than eighteen light-years from home.” He glanced at me. His glasses had been transparent in the dining room. Now they were like polished metal again.

I kept silent.

“I’ve gotten myself angry. I think I’ll take a walk.”

“Okay.”

He started down the beach. I went looking for dome number one.

It was empty: no other shoppers and no volunteer fashion consultants, nothing except a computer on a table next to the door. I punched in a request for clothing, and it answered with a map. Aisle two, shelves one through nine. “Please remember to input your selections,” it added in luminous yellow letters. “Without this information we cannot charge your account.”

I got my clothing and went back to my room. My bed was made. There was a note on the pillow from Derek.

“Always remember: Neatness is next to revolutionary zeal.”

I crumpled the note and tossed it into the recycling bin, then put on a pair of jeans, a bright pink shirt, high boots, a belt of lizard skin. I needed jewelry. The computer had none, which was hardly surprising. If I wanted jewelry on the ship, I didn’t punch the supply department. I punched arts and artifacts or I went to the personal exchange.

The rest of the clothing went into a cabinet. I decided to take a walk—not south, the way Eddie had gone. North along the shore.

The beach was narrow in that direction. Bushes grew almost to the water. There were outcroppings of rock.

After a while I looked back. I could see the dock and the rocket planes, but not the domes. Vegetation hid them. I found a hunk of limestone and sat down on it. Birds darted along the shore. They were like the ones I’d seen earlier: little and brown. Runners, not fliers. One stopped and stretched its wings. There were claws at the tips and joints.

“Li-sa?” a voice said.

I turned.

Nia stood there. Her tunic was ripped. Her fur was matted. She looked miserable.

I jumped off the rock and grabbed her, hugging tightly. She stiffened, then returned my embrace.

“You’re alive!”

“Both of us.”

I let go and stepped back. “Who?”

“I,” said the oracle.

His kilt was in worse shape than Nia’s tunic. It was a gray rag that barely covered his pubic area.

“Ulzai?”