“And what is he going to do, I asked him, when the rest of the sociology team comes down? Ask all of them to lie? How long before someone says no and goes to the all-ship council?”

“This isn’t an ethical question for you,” I said.

“I’m willing to lie. But only for my own reasons and only if I’m pretty certain I will not get caught. I won’t lie for Eddie.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. The mocking tone was gone. “I am not certain that intervention is a bad idea. Eddie does not come from a culture with a pre-industrial technology. When he goes into the field, he takes a modern first-aid kit and a radio. If he gets into trouble, he can yell for help. He has never been through the kind of experience we’ve gone through, here on this planet. And he has never been through what I went through, when I was growing up.”

“You told him no,” I said.

“I told him maybe. As carefully as possible, in case there was a recorder on. But he thinks he has a chance to pull me in.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I never make a decision in haste, my love. And I never limit my options until I have to.”

“I don’t understand you.”

He laughed.

I waited.

“Eddie admits that his plan will do nothing except buy time. Interesting, isn’t it, how metaphors of buying and selling have stayed in the language? We buy time. We sell out our honor. He says he doesn’t really know what he is going to do with the time. But he will not let these people go the way of his people in the Americas. He’s willing to risk everything in the hope of stopping that.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Go on up to Nia and the oracle. I think I’ll go and find a bottle of wine. It’s been a long time since I’ve been drunk.”

I climbed the bluff, getting lost again. I have no idea how long I blundered around, tangling myself in bushes, tripping over roots, and sliding down slopes of dirt and stone, then climbing up again, cursing.

In the end I found the camp. I walked into firelight. The oracle looked up. “Your hair is full of leaves. And there is dirt on your face.”

“I’m not surprised.” I dropped the blankets. “There you are. Goddamn! I forgot something to hold water!”

Nia made the gesture that meant “no matter.” The oracle took a blanket and rubbed it with one hand. “I like the texture, though it isn’t as soft as the wool that comes from a silverback.” He wrapped the blanket around himself.

I got a blanket of my own and lay down in the cave. For a while I looked at the firelight, flickering on the stone wall and ceiling.

I woke to sunlight. The oracle sat in the clearing by the fire, adding branches. His clothing—the blue shorts and the yellow cotton shirt—were already a little dirty.

“Where is Nia?”

“She went down to look at her fish traps.”

I got up and pulled my knife out of my pocket. “She’ll need this. I’m going down to the village to eat.”

“You have the luck! I wish I had a place to eat. I am getting tired of fish.”

“Maybe I can work something out.”

This time the trip was easy. The path down was clear. Who had made it? I wondered. Did people come here?

I went to my dome and showered, putting on new clothes: burgundy-red coveralls, a white belt, white socks, and Japanese sandals. I fastened my hair at the nape of my neck and frowned at my reflection. I definitely needed a haircut. But what style? Maybe I should wait till I got to the ship. Meiling always knew what was in fashion. I went to the dining hall.

Eddie and Derek sat together. They were in the shade today, and Eddie was not wearing glasses. I got coffee and a muffin and went over.

“It’s a good thing you showed up,” Derek said. “Eddie has decided that we need to hold a meeting.”

I sat down and poured out coffee. What an aroma! How had I lived without it?

Eddie said, “I’ve been telling Derek, you ought to start work on your reports. You’re in a new environment now. You’re getting a different kind of information. It’s going to start interfering.”

“Gresham’s Law of Memory,” Derek said.

“What?”

“New information drives out old. Bad information drives out good.”

I buttered the muffin, which was banana walnut bran. “I don’t think that formulation is right.”

“It is frivolous and unuseful,” Eddie said. “Which seems to be Derek’s mood this morning.” He glanced at the notebook in front of him. It was open, and there was print on the screen. “Will you start work on the report, Lixia?”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Eddie pressed a button in the notebook. A line of print vanished. “The medical team says they want to watch you for another day.”

“Not us personally,” Derek said. “They are watching our cultures. If nothing strange and terrible has appeared by tomorrow evening, we can go back to work.”

Eddie looked impatient, but he let Derek finish talking. Then he leaned forward. “Ivanova and I want you to accompany us when we go upriver.”

I made the gesture that meant “I know.”

“Will you go?”

“Yes.”

He pressed the button again. Another line of print vanished. “Derek has suggested that we ask Nia and the oracle to come along.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. She’s from that village. They sent her into exile. They won’t harm her if she goes back, but they might not welcome her especially warmly.”

“Ask her,” Derek said.

“Why do you want her to go?”

“She and the oracle know more about humans than anyone else on this planet. They might have something useful to say about the problem at hand. And I don’t want to leave the two of them alone in the middle of nowhere. We can’t give them food, and I don’t know how people are going to feel about giving them tools or weapons. God knows what will happen if these savages get fishing hooks or knives with stainless steel blades. And—” He grinned. “I’m afraid to leave them here unprotected. The med people want to examine them. So do the biologists and the psychologists and…”

“What do you think?” Eddie asked.

I finished the muffin, washing it down with coffee. “We might as well ask her. Derek is right. She is something of an expert on humanity. We can’t leave her alone on the plain. And I’d hate to come back and find that she’d left because of the medical people. She might. She isn’t entirely easy with us, and a medical examination can be pretty dehumanizing, even if you know what is going on.”

Eddie nodded. More print disappeared out of the notebook. I glanced over. The screen was empty except for two characters. I squinted. The number four and a question mark. “Is that it?”

He looked at me somberly, his eyes unprotected. He wore a blue shirt this morning: plain chambray, open at the neck to show a bone-and-shell necklace. His hair was clipped at the back of his neck. The clip was beaded: a geometric design. Dakota work, like the necklace. Most of his ancestors were Anishinabe, but a few had come from the Seven Council Fires. A few more were French or English.

“There’s one more thing.” He paused.

“I told her,” said Derek.

“What do you think, Lixia?”

“I think it’s a lousy idea.”

Eddie sighed. Number four vanished. He turned the notebook off and closed it, folding the screen over the keyboard. The notebook was still too big to go into an ordinary pocket. The problem was human fingers. They had not been miniaturized. The keyboard had to be at least twenty centimeters wide in order for most people to use it.

“I was afraid of that,” Eddie said. “I’ll talk to you later. Please start on the report.” He walked away from us, carrying the notebook in one hand.

“That is going to be an unpleasant conversation,” I said.

Derek made the gesture of agreement.

“If you had told him no, I could have avoided it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you had told him no, he’d be angry with you. Now, he is going to be angry with me.”