Portrait of a Net-rider: Katin looked at the date: the particular net-rider, with his pensive Negroid features, had sieved the mist two hundred and eighty years ago.

Portrait of a Young Man: contemporary, yes. He was standing in front of a forest of… trees? No. Whatever they were, they weren’t trees.

“In the middle of the twentieth century, 1950 to be exact,”—Katin looked back at the captain—”there was a small country on Earth called Great Britain that had by survey some fifty-seven mutually incomprehensible dialects of English. There was also a large country called the United States with almost four times the population of Great Britain spread out over six times the area. There were accent variants, but only two tiny enclaves composing less than twenty thousand people spoke in a way that could be called mutually incomprehensible with the standard tongue; I use these two to make my point because both countries spoke essentially the same language.”

“What is your point?”

“The United States was a product of that whole communication explosion, movements of people, movements of information, the development of movies, radio, and television that standardized speech and the framework of thought—not thought itself, however—which meant that person A could understand not only person B, but person W, X, and Y as well. People, information, and ideas move over the galaxy much faster today then they moved across the United States in 1950. The potential of understanding is comparatively greater. You and I were born a third of a galaxy apart. Except for an occasional college weekend to Draco University at Centauri, this is the first time I’ve ever been outside the Solar System. Still, you and I are much closer in information structure than a Cornishman and Welshman a thousand years ago. Remember that when you try to judge the Mouse—or Prince Red. Though the Great Snake coils his column on a hundred worlds, people in the Pleiades and the Outer Colonies recognize it; Vega Republic furniture implies the same things about its owners here or there; Ashton Clark has the same significance for you as for me. Morgan assassinated Underwood and it became part of both our experiences—” He stopped; because Lorq had frowned.

“You mean Underwood assassinated Morgan.”

“Oh, of course… I meant…” Embarrassment broiled beneath his cheeks. “Yes… but I didn’t mean…”

Coming between the paintings was a woman in white. Her hair was high-coifed and silver.

She was thin.

She was old.

“Lorq!” She held out her hands. “Bunny said you were here. I thought we’d go up to my office.”

Of course! Katin thought. Most of the pictures he would have seen of her would have been taken fifteen, twenty years ago.

“Cyana, thank you. We could have gotten up ourselves. I didn’t want to disturb you if you were busy. It won’t take much time.”

“Nonsense. The two of you come along. I’ve been considering bids for half a ton of Vegan light sculptures.”

“From the Republic period?” Katin asked.

“Alas, no. Then we might be able to get them off our hands. But they’re a hundred years too early to be worth anything. Come.” As she led them among the mounted canvases, she glanced down at the wide metal bracelet that covered her wrist socket. One of the micro-dials was blinking.

“Excuse me, young man.” She turned to Katin. “You have a… recorder of some sort with you?”

“Why… yes, I do.”

“I have to ask you not to use it here.”

“Oh. I wasn’t—”

“Not so much recently, but often I have had problems maintaining privacy.” She laid her wrinkled hand on his arm. “You will understand? There’s an automatic erasing field that will completely clear the machine should it go on.”

“Katin’s on my crew, Cyana. But it’s a very different crew from the last one. There’s no secrecy any more.”

“So I gathered.” She took her hand away. Katin watched it fall back to the white brocade.

She said—and both Katin and Lorq looked up when she said it—”When I arrived at the museum this morning there was a message for you from Prince.”

They reached the galley’s end.

She turned briefly to Lorq. “I’m taking you at your word about secrecy.” Her eyebrows made a bright metallic stroke on her face.

Lorq’s brows were metal rusted; the stroke was broken by his scar. Still, Katin thought, that must be part of the family’s marking.

“Is he on Vorpis?”

“I have no idea.” The door dilated and they passed through. “But he knows you’re here. Isn’t that what’s important?”

“I just arrived at the spacefield an hour and a half ago. I leave tonight.”

“The message arrived about an hour and twenty-five minutes ago. Its origin was conveniently garbled so the operators couldn’t have it traced without a lot of difficulty. They’re going through that difficulty now—”

“Don’t bother.” He said to Katin: “What will he have to say this time?”

“We shall all see fairly soon,” Cyana said. “You say no secrecy. I would still prefer to talk in my office.”

This gallery was confusion: a storage room, or material for an exhibit not yet sorted.

Katin was going to, but Lorq asked first: “Cyana, what is this junk?”

“I believe”—she looked at the date in gold decalcomania on the ancient wooden case—1923: the Aeolian Corporation. Yes, they’re a collection of twentieth-century musical instruments. That’s an Ondes Martinot, invented by a French composer of the same name in 1942. Over here we have”—she bent to read the tag—”a Duo Arts Player Piano made in 1931. And this thing is… Mill’s Violano Virtuoso, built in 1916.”

Katin peered through the glass door in the front of the violano.

Strings and hammers, stops, fobs, and plectra hung in shadow.

“What did it do?”

“It stood in bars and amusement parks. People would put a coin in the slot and it would automatically play a violin that’s on the stand in there with a player-piano accompaniment, programmed on a perforated paper roll.” She moved her silver nail to a list of titles. “‘The Darktown Strutters’ Ball’”… “ The moved on through the clutter of theremins, encore banjoes, and hurdy-gurdies. “Some of the newer academics question the institute’s preoccupation with the twentieth century. Nearly one out of four of our galleries is devoted to it.” She folded her hands on brocade. “Perhaps they resent that it has been the traditional concern of scholars for eight hundred years; they refuse to see the obvious. At the beginning of that amazing century, mankind was many societies living on one world; at its end, it was basically what we are now: an informatively unified society that lived on several worlds. Since then, the number of worlds has increased; our informative unity has changed its nature several times, suffered a few catastrophic eruptions, but essentially it has remained. Until man becomes something much, much different, that time must be the focus of scholarly interest: that was the century in which we became.”

“I have no sympathy with the past,” Lorq announced. “I have no time for it.”

“It intrigues me,” Katin offered. “I want to write a book; perhaps it will deal with that.”

Cyana looked up. “You do? What sort of book?”

“A novel, I think.”

“A novel?” They passed beneath the gallery’s announcement screen: gray.

“You’re going to write a novel. How fascinating. I had an antiquarian friend some years ago who attempted to write a novel. He only finished the first chapter. But he claimed it was a terribly illuminating experience and gave him a great deal of insight into just exactly how the process took place.”

“I’ve been working on it for quite some time, actually,” Katin volunteered.