“If the village is generous, she continues on her way. If the village is stingy or rude, then…” Nia made the gesture that meant “you know” or “what do you expect?”

“Bad things happen,” Derek said.

Nia made the gesture of agreement.

“What kind of bad things?” I asked.

“People get sick. Animals die. There is not enough food.” She paused and looked at me. It must have been obvious that I wanted to know more. “The shamaness finds out which spirit is angry. Then the village must perform a ceremony. It is called ‘Welcoming the Stranger.’ They gather everything they like best: good food, knives with sharp edges, clothing that is covered with embroidery, gifts that come from the most distant places. They build a fire. The people sing.

“The food goes in. The knives. The clothing. Everything is burnt. If the people are fortunate, the Dark One will be satisfied. But it takes a lot. It is better to give her what she needs when she comes as an old woman.”

“What would happen if the Dark One came to the village of the People Whose Gift Is Folly?”

“I have never heard a story about that, and I don’t expect to.”

“Why not?”

“Stories about the Dark One are told in the summer and fall. That is when most people travel. That is when strangers are met.

“Stories about the People Whose Gift Is Folly are told in winter when the snow is deep and travel is impossible. That is when people like to hear about stupid behavior that has happened a long distance away.”

“The snow is deep,” said Derek in English. “The wind is howling. Let’s sit by the fire and laugh at foreigners.”

I turned off the recorder.

Nia stood. “If you are going to talk in that language, I am going to leave.”

“Do you want to eat?” asked Derek. He spoke the language of gifts.

I made the gesture of affirmation.

Nia said, “I’m making a bow. I’ve found some wood that isn’t bad. Deragu has given me a string.”

“You did?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

We left together, going out into the hazy sunlight. Nia made the gesture of farewell and headed inland toward the bluff. Derek and I went to the dining room.

We ate with Agopian and a thin black man, Cyril Johnson. He was the hydrology team, and his equipment hadn’t arrived. He made a speech about bloody incompetence on the ship and throughout human history.

We listened politely. I ate something that tried to be a Greek salad. The cheese was goat cheese, and there were too few olives. Most of the olive trees had died on the trip out. It would be years before the new trees were old enough to bear.

“We’ve scheduled a general meeting tonight,” said Agopian. “These people have the right to know what is going on.”

“You’re right,” said Derek. “They do. Unfortunately, we haven’t any idea.”

“You know more about the natives than anyone else.”

“Are they going to let us stay?” asked Cyril.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He frowned, pressing narrow lips together. Another example of bloody incompetence.

I finished my coffee and took my tray to the recycling table. Agopian followed me. We went outside. The sky was clear. The air was hot and damp. I took off my jacket.

“I’m going with you,” Agopian said.

“Upriver?”

He nodded.

“I’m sure there’s a good reason why Ivanova is taking an astrogator.” I looked at the dock. Both boats were tied up. People were working on them, doing maintenance or repair.

“I am a historian as well.”

“Of labor history, I think you said.”

“Every society has work and workers.”

I glanced at him. He wasn’t wearing the crew uniform today. Instead he looked almost American: faded jeans and a cotton shirt with narrow vertical blue and white stripes. Huaraches on his feet. His belt had a large metal buckle. There was a rocket plane on it and some writing in the Cyrillic alphabet.

“In North America we’d called that a railroad shirt.”

He grinned. “I got it in Detroit, in the gift store at the Museum of Working-class Culture.”

We walked toward the lake.

“The belt is from the gift shop on Transfer Station Number One. I got it when I joined the Kollontai.I am—I used to be—a great collector of souvenirs.”

“Not anymore?”

“Not really. Though I wouldn’t mind taking something back from here. If we go back.”

“If?”

“It is a long journey; and we have no idea what Earth will be like when we get there. Here—maybe—we have a future. There we’ll be curious leftovers from the distant past, like the mammoths they have reconstructed.”

“I thought they were going to be the new beast of burden in Siberia.”

“They are stupider than elephants; and their tempers are not reliable. It is not easy to domesticate a new species. Or, in this case, a very old species.”

We stopped at the edge of the water. There were the usual little brown birds running over the pebbles, hunting and pecking.

“How in hell did you end up with an astrogation certificate?”

He laughed. “You are wondering if Derek is right, and I am a—what is that word?—a vegetable.”

“I think you mean a plant.”

He nodded. “Or a vole.”

“All at once your English is deteriorating.”

“I have trouble with the language of paranoia. It does not come naturally to me.”

“Oh.”

“I got the certificate because I was a failure as a political officer.”

“You were?”

He nodded again. “You have to realize—from the time I was a boy, I had two dreams. Two passions. Space and political theory.”

An odd combination, I thought. But there was no accounting for tastes or passions.

“I knew from early on that I wanted to be a political officer in the Soviet fleet. I made it, and I found I was no good.” He pushed at a stone with the toe of his boot. It flipped over, revealing a bright yellow bug. The bug scurried away.

“The Kollontaiwas a freighter. I think I told you that. The crew were the kind of people you find in warehouses and on ships. Have you ever met any?”

I made the gesture of affirmation.

“There is something about the people who move freight around. All over the world and even in space, they are the same. How should I describe them? Robust? Down to earth? Though that sounds strange when I am talking about space travelers.

“They are certainly blue collar. The kind of people who made all three of our revolutions. I had no idea how to get along with them.”

He paused a moment, looking at the lake. “I am an intellectual. I think it would be fair to say that. I study ideas. That is what interests me. Political theory. The theory of history. The philosophy of science. The relationship between people and machines.

“I don’t really care for a lot of ordinary human activities. I play no games. I have no hobbies. I don’t like sports. I almost never watch holovision. I have never married. I have no children. I drink wine and beer, usually in moderation. I never drink brandy or vodka.”

“What do you do for entertainment?”

“I read science fiction, and I think.”

“It sounds like a heck of a lot of fun.”

“You see? Can you imagine me surrounded by blue-collar workers?”

I grinned. “No. Not really.”

He nodded. “It was terrible. I organized classes on Marxist theory. No one came. I tried to celebrate important events in the history of class struggle. Either they ignored me or they used the event as an excuse to get drunk. I spent time in the recreational areas, trying to get to know the crew.

“I couldn’t talk to them. It seemed to me as if we were speaking different languages. I had no idea of what was going on inside them.

“Things floated to the surface. I knew they liked sex and alcohol, z-gee and soccer. I knew the names of all their favorite shows, and I had seen most of them at least once. War and Peace. Crossing the Urals. Deep-Ocean Adventure. The Potato Cosmonauts.