“As long as they’re in chaos, we’re in danger,” Nadia said. “We have to do what we can to help. To exert influence in the direction we want them to go.”

Someone else said, “The two planets are one system.”

“What do you mean by that?” Coyote demanded. “They’re different worlds, they could certainly be two systems!”

“Information exchange.”

Maya said, “We exist for Earth as a model or experiment. A thought experiment for humanity to learn from.”

“A real experiment,” Nadia said. “This is no longer a game, we can’t afford to take attractively pure theoretical positions.” She was looking at Kasei and Dao and their comrades as she said this; but it made no impact, she could see.

More meetings, more talk, a quick meal, and another meeting with the Sabishii issei, to discuss the demimonde as a springboard for their efforts. Then it was off to the nightly conference with Art and Nirgal; but the men were beat, and she sent them to bed. “We’ll talk over breakfast.”

She too was tired, but very far from sleepy. So she took her night walk, north from Zakros through the tunnel. She had recently discovered a high trail running along the west wall of the tunnel, cut into the basalt where the curve of the cylinder made the wall about a forty-five-degree slope. From this trail she could look out over the treetops, down into the parks. And where the trail veered out onto a little spur in Knossos, she could see up and down the length of the tunnel all the way to both horizons, the entire lengthy narrow world dimly lit, by streetlights surrounded by irregular green globes of leaves, and by the few windows with lights still on inside, and by a string of paper lanterns hung in the pines of Gbur-nia’s park. It was such an elegant piece of construction, it hurt her slightly to think of the long years spent in Zygote, under ice, in frigid air and artificial light. If only they had known about these lava tunnels…

The next segment, Phaistos, had its floor nearly filled by a long shallow pond, where the canal that coursed slowly down from Zakros widened. Underwater lights at one end of the pond turned its water into a strange sparkling dark crystal, and she could see a group of people splashing about in it, their bodies gleaming in the lit water, disappearing into the dark. Amphibious creatures, salamanders… Once, very long ago on Earth, there had been water animals that had crawled up gasping onto the shore. They must have had some pretty serious policy debates, Nadia thought sleepily, down in that ocean. To emerge or not to emerge, how to emerge, when to emerge… Sound of distant laughter, the stars packing the jagged skylights…

She turned and walked down a staircase to the tunnel floor, then back to Zakros, on the paths and streetgrass, following the canal, thinking in scattered darting images. Back at their suite she lay on her bed and fell asleep instantly, dreaming at dawn of dolphins swimming through the air.

But in the midst of that dream she was awakened roughly by Maya, who said in Russian, “There’s some Terrans here. Americans.”

“Terrans,” Nadia repeated. And was afraid.

She dressed and went out to see. It was true; Art was standing with a small group of Terrans, men and women her own size, and apparently about her own age, unsteady on their feet as they craned their necks, looking at the great cylindrical chamber in amazement. Art was trying to introduce them and explain them at the same time, which was giving even his motor-mouth some difficulty. “I invited them, yes, well, I didn’t know — hi, Nadia — this is my old boss, William Fort.”

“Speak of the devil,” Nadia said, and shook the man’s hand. He had a strong grip; a bald snub-nosed man, tanned and wrinkled, with a pleasant vague expression.

“ — They just arrived, the Bogdanovists brought them in. I invited Mr. Fort some while ago, but never heard back from him and didn’t know he was going to come. I’m quite surprised and pleased of course.”

“You invited him?” Maya said.

 “Yes you see he’s very interested in helping us that’s the thing.”

Maya was glaring, not at Art but at Nadia. “I told you he was a spy,” she said in Russian.

“Yes you did,” Nadia said, then spoke to Fort in English. “Welcome to Mars.”

“I’m happy to be here,” Fort said. And it looked like he meant it; he was grinning goofily, as if too pleased to keep a straight face. His companions did not seem as sure; there were about a dozen of them, both young and old, and some were smiling, but many looked disoriented and cautious.

After an awkward few minutes Nadia took Fort and his little group of associates over to the Zakros guest quarters, and when Ariadne arrived, they assigned the visitors rooms. What else could they do? The news had already gone the length of Dorsa Brevia and back, and as people came down to Zakros their faces expressed displeasure as much as curiosity — but there the visitors were, after all, leaders of one of the biggest transnationals, and apparently alone, and without tracking devices on them, or so the Sabishiians had declared. One had to do something with them.

Nadia got the Swiss to call a general meeting at the lunch hour, and then she invited the new guests to freshen up in their rooms and afterward speak at the meeting. The Terrans accepted the invitation gratefully, the uncertain ones among them looking reassured. Fort himself seemed to be already composing a speech in his mind.

Back outside the Zakros guest quarters, Art was facing a whole crowd of upset people. “What makes you think you can make decisions like that for us?” Maya demanded, speaking for many of them. “You, who don’t even belong! You, a kind of spy among us! Making friends with us, and then betraying us behind our backs!”

Art spread his hands, red-faced with embarrassment, shifting his shoulders as if dodging abuse, or sliding through it to make an appeal to the people behind Maya, the ones who might just be curious. “We need help,” he said. “We can’t accomplish what we want all by ourselves. Praxis is different, they’re more like us than them, I’m telling you.”

“It is not your right to tell us!” Maya said. “You are our prisoner!”

Art squinted, waggled his hands. “You can’t be a prisoner and a spy at the same time, can you?”

 “You can be every kind of treacherous thing at once!” Maya exclaimed.

Jackie walked up to Art and looked down on him, her face stern and intent. “You know this Praxis group may have to become permanent Martians now, whether they want to be or not. Just like you.”

Art nodded-. “I told them that might happen. Obviously they didn’t care. They want to help, I’m telling you. They represent the only transnational that’s doing things differently, that has goals similar to ours. They’ve come here by themselves to see if they can help. They’re interested. Why should you be so upset by that? It’s an opportunity.”

“Let’s see what Fort says,” Nadia said.

The Swiss had convened the special meeting in the Malia amphitheater, and as the crowd of delegates gathered, Nadia helped guide the newcomers through the segment gates to the site. They were still obviously awestruck at the size of Dorsa Rrevia’s tunnel. Art was scurrying around them with his eyes bugged out, wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve, intensely nervous. It made Nadia laugh. Somehow Fort’s arrival had put her in a good mood; she did not see how they could lose from it.

So she sat down in the front row with the Praxis group, and watched as Art led Fort onto the stage and introduced him. Fort nodded and spoke a sentence, then tilted his head and looked up at the back row of the amphitheater, realizing that he was unam-plified. He took a breath and started again, and his usually quiet voice floated out with the assurance of a veteran actor, carrying nicely to everyone there.