“No.”

“I don’t like coconut.” He ate the mix, washing it down with more mineral water. “You really think my idea is lousy.”

“It won’t work. We’ll get in trouble. And it’s immoral. The people here have the right to make their own decision, using good information.”

He frowned. “I think Ivanova has an advantage. I’m trying to do something about it.”

“How so?” I ate some more of the bar mix.

“These people know about strangers and trade. When Ivanova talks about cultural exchange, they are going to understand her. But they know nothing about modern technology. And they have no idea what happens when an industrial society meets a society that is barely agricultural.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘barely.’ It seems to me they have a pretty highly developed agriculture. And animal husbandry. What they don’t have is a state apparatus—which can be a sign of a primitive society or of a very highly developed one.”

“You are playing games, Lixia. These people are tribal, pre-urban, and pre-industrial. They don’t have the kind of society that the anarchists imagine. They have what my people had till the end of the nineteenth century.” He paused for a moment and looked at me, his expression thoughtful. “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

“No.”

“Will you report me?”

“To the all-ship committee? No. I’m not sure what the charge would be. Corrupting a translator? Conduct unbefitting a scholar?”

“God, what a mess.” He stood and walked out of the room.

I couldn’t tell from the tone of his voice whether he was angry or merely depressed. Angry, most likely. At the moment I did not care. I would in the morning when I was sober. But now … I finished drinking my wine and ate another handful of the bar mix, then I stood. My coordination was off. I swayed slightly.

“Are you all right?” asked Gustavo.

“Yes.” I decided to skip dinner. I wasn’t hungry, and I didn’t like to be the only drunk in a room. Curious, that one glass of wine should hit so hard. I went to my room and to bed.

Waking, I looked up and saw nothing outside my window. A dim grayness. There were fine beads of water on the glass. I could feel moisture in the air, even inside.

I got up and showered, putting on coveralls, a jacket, heavy socks and shoes.

Outside it was cool, maybe even cold. The bluff was invisible. I could barely see the trees at the edge of camp. The domes around me had lost most of their color and most of their solidity. They seemed to float in the fog: shadows or bubbles.

I walked to the lake. I could see the first few meters of water. It barely moved, making no noise as it touched the pebble beach. Why was fog so appealing? Was it the mystery? The sense of possibility? There was an old story that argued for the existence of many alternate worlds in close proximity. Sometimes the worlds touched and—for a time—blurred together. That made fog. It was the blending of different realities. Sometimes, when the worlds separated and the fog cleared, people found themselves in unexpected places. They had crossed over. They were in an alternate reality.

I decided I wasn’t interested in an alternate reality. Not at the moment. Though I liked the idea that life was blurred and shadowed by possibility. Nothing was fixed. Nothing was certain. There were no sharp edges, no immutable courses.

I walked up to the big dome and had breakfast with Marina and a trio of biologists. They asked me questions about the natives. I answered as best I could.

“Chia met a native,” Marina said and pointed at a tiny brown woman.

“You did?”

“Yes. North of the camp. I was looking for—” She hesitated. “We haven’t got a name for them. They look like centipedes. They are twenty centimeters long, and they live under rocks in the water.” She paused. “Most of them are blue.”

“About the native,” Marina said.

“He was pulling traps out of the water. We looked at one another for a while. Then he went back to his work, and I went back to mine. I had not realized they were so big.”

“That was Nia,” I said. “She is female, and she is no taller than I am.”

“You are tall, Lixia, compared to people in my country. And the native was very—” She hesitated again. “Very wide and solid.”

“The fur makes a difference. She doesn’t look as big when she’s wet.”

“Ah,” said the little woman. “Like a cat.” She added, “I have met tigers in the jungle. They like to swim. They look big even when they climb out of a river.”

I made the gesture that meant “I don’t know from personal experience, but most likely you are right.”

Marina said, “I miss cats. I keep saying we ought to grow a few.”

“No mice,” said one of the other biologists. “Except in the labs, and they aren’t a problem.”

“They will be,” said Marina. “Someone will lose a few. They’ll get in the gardens. We’ll have a plague, just like in the Bible. Mice and hemorrhoids.”

“What?” said the third biologist. He was huge and almost certainly Polynesian.

“The Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant, whatever that might be, and the Lord Almighty afflicted them with mice and hemorrhoids. I’m not lying. It’s in the Bible.”

“If that happens, we’ll grow some cats,” the man said. He sounded calm and practical.

The tiny woman frowned. “I do not understand how cats will be any use in dealing with hemorrhoids.”

“I have to work,” I said and left.

By noon the sky above my window was hazy blue-green. My report was a mess. I had a lot of information, but no structure. No ideological frame.

Oh, to be a Marxist! Especially a vulgar Marxist. They always had an explanation. Usually it came from the nineteenth century. Engels on The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.Surely Fred could explain this planet to me. Maybe I ought to find a library computer and call up ancient documents on social theory. I tossed my notebook on the bed.

The door opened. Derek leaned in and said, “You have a visitor.”

Nia entered, dressed in light gray shorts and a burgundy shirt. The shirt had big white letters on it. They said, “Best Wishes from the Iroquois Confederation.”

A donation. Everyone had wanted to contribute to the expedition. The ship was full of objects with names on them given by clubs and co-ops, cities, unions, tribes, and kibbutzim. The lamp in my cabin came from the Association of Airship Workers. The union emblem was on the shade: two hands clasped in front of a dirigible.

Derek said, “I looked for something without writing. But it is impossible to find a short-sleeved cotton shirt without a motto.”

Nia said, “Speak a language that I can understand.”

“He has said nothing important,” I told her.

“Good. I have decided to go with you.”

“Why?”

She made the gesture that meant “why not?”

“Is that a good answer?”

She came in and sat on the floor, folding herself neatly into a cross-legged position. “No. I want to find out what has happened to my children and cousins. I have told you that before. And I have to go in that direction. I promised to do work for Tanajin.” She paused for a moment. “Someone has to tell her what happened to the boat. Someone has to tell her that Ulzai has vanished. These clothes are tight. How can your people be comfortable?”

“Not easily,” I said.

“I’ll get new clothes at the village. And food. And tools. They will give me that even though they know me and can be almost certain that I am not the Dark One.”

Did I have a recorder? I glanced around.

“Here,” said Derek.

He tossed. I caught. It was an audio recorder the size of a box of matches. I turned it on. “Who is the Dark One?”

“A spirit. She comes to villages as a stranger—usually a woman, sometimes a man. Often she is ragged and hungry. She may be ill. She may look peculiar.

“Hua—the woman who taught me smithing—said her true shape is an old woman with black fur, bent and twisted. She has an odd aroma. She asks for help, though not in a pleasant way. Most of the time she is surly.