NINE

She dropped her incognito for him the same day. They maintained it in the presence of others, except the Gran-stads, whom they seldom encountered. This cost Skip the friendship of the blonde nurse, who started wondering why he spent hours on end with that skinny Cohen woman, old enough to be his aunt—well, years older than him—that he could have spent with her. She didn't take kindly to his explanation that Miss Cohen had a wonderful mind.

Oh, well, there'd been a few almighty enjoyable nights. And he kept on playing an occasional game of ball or bending an occasional elbow with the rest of the younger set. Though equally puzzled by the change in his behaviour, they didn't ask him the reason. Individualism would not combine with close quarters and need for disciplined co-operation unless you added the catalyst of respect for privacy.

Doubtless they decided that one must expect eccentricities in a sigaroon.

Skip quickly got on first-name terms with Yvonne. They were both afire, exploring the consequences of his hypothesis, laying plans, making preparations. Barring the un-~ foreseeable, she was pledged to stay in the fleet to Los Angeles. Colonel Almeida and company needed that long at a minimum to arrange for her safety. She fretted, until she discovered how she and Skip could put the interval to use. Ormen could draw on data lines, computer banks, worldwide visiphone service, as readily as her workroom at home.

The ReaderFax could print out a copy of any item in any important library anywhere, with any degree of fidelity for which the customer was ready to be charged. There was even a Mitsui Sculptor, to do a similar job for three-dimensional objects whose scans were on file. Normally these were statues and ceramics, but Skip insisted on it for paintings, and hang the expense.

'Texture's more important than people realize,' he said. 'They don't know how sensitive their own vision is, trained or not. The fact's most obvious in oil painters who put on thick daubs, like many Impressionists. Don't think it doesn't matter for others, though. They can be as slick as Dali, but that surface is not optically flat. Same for Oriental inks and water colours. In them, the cloth or paper becomes part of the composition.' He hesitated. 'Uh, Uncle Sam will reimburse you for those we've ordered here aboard for examination. Won't he?'

'Silly,' she laughed. 'I can debit him directly.'

They stood on the fantail, late after a day of projecting image after image on the screen, making choices, continuing to debate these while they went out for dinner. Nobody else was here astern. The throb of full speed was tranquil in the ship. Above shone stars, and a moon that built a bridge over darkly sheening waters and turned the wake into a white river. The lights of a companion vessel glowed tiny and jewel-coloured across kilometres. The air was mild, quiet save for that low beat of engines, the rush and gurgle of passage. Yvonne and Skip leaned on the taffrail, side by side, gazing aft and drinking peace.

'Good,' he said. Musingly: 'You know, I've wondered if modern repro is altogether a desirable development. I mean, look, if you can have a Leonardo or Monet or whatever in your living-room at reasonable cost—not a print from a photograph, not a copy by some hack, but in essence the real thing, every shade and contour identical— well, won't you? Instead of travelling thousands of kilometres to break down your arches in a gallery?'

'Y-yes. At home I collect Matisse and Picasso… and Byzantines, by the way.'

'What I wondered about is, what's going to happen now that the modern artist has to compete this directly with the masters of two or three thousand years? I see us these days as on the brink of a renaissance. You know what absolute garbage-pit bottom we hit in about the middle twentieth century, don't you? Or have you been spared? I see a new idiom with all sorts of potentials, a blend of Western, Oriental, aboriginal, and scientific motifs, I see it beginning to develop. Will it get the chance, though? Will enough aficionados pay for it? And the artist himself, surrounded by overwhelming greatness—what'll that do to him? One reason I went on the wing was to try and get back to life itself and find how I look at things.'

Yvonne patted his hand. She smiled in the moonlight. 'You're an idealist.' At once, as if frightened, she withdrew the touch and reached into her beltpurse.

'Who, me?' His ears grew warm. 'Lady, no! I do what I want, not a lick more if I can help it. You're the service-to-mankind specialist in this duo.'

She took forth a pack of joints and offered it to him. 'Thanks,' he said. 'Reckon we could both stand a relaxer, high-keyed the way we are.' They struck and inhaled. 'Although,' he continued after the first tingly breath, 'you thrive on work. You were like a spook when I met you. Now, a week later, on the job ten-twelve hours a day, you've fleshed out, you don't jump at shadows, you joke—'

That was not entirely true, he thought. She appreciated humour of certain kinds, but hadn't much of her own. And, while physically she was about back to normal— which he enjoyed seeing—her nerves could still attack her. As now. The red end of her cigarette trembled between her fingers, waxing and waning with inadvisably quick, deep drags.

'Did I say something wrong?' he asked.

She shook her head. Pain edged her voice. 'Not your fault. You accidentally reminded me. I am not altruistic. If only I were, just to the average extent, I wouldn't have made the total mess I did.'

'Are you kidding? Yvonne, you've done tremendously.'

'Have I?' The pot must be grabbing hard and fast, in her exhausted state, for her to let down the barriers so. 'I killed a man. I see his dead face before me, pop-eyed and slack-jawed in bewilderment. He'd be alive if I'd simply wounded him.'

'Huh? I knew a boltless nut tried to murder you, but the newscaster never—'

She told him, in short harsh words between inhalations. At the end, tears rivered down her cheekbones, turning them silver in the moonlight.

He clasped both her shoulders and said: 'Yvonne, listen. You're not to blame. Not an atom's worth. You were scared out of your wits. And you'd no experience with guns, had you? That must've been a double-action weapon. You can empty the magazine in seconds. You didn't have time to know what you were doing. And you did nothing evil anyhow. You were defending yourself. The world needs you. The world is better off without that creature, that thing.'

'That human being, Skip.'

'Come off it. Shooting's an occupational hazard in the Underworld. Would you feel sorry if the incident had happened to a stranger and you heard about it?'

'This happened to me! Y-y-you've never killed a man. Have you?'

'No. I've come close. And I always carry a fang. Illegal as typhoid, but I sew a hiding place into every pair of pants I buy, and I keep in practice. If someday there's no choice, sure, I'll open him up. Which'll cause me neither pleasure nor remorse.'

You're telling me the same as everybody else.' She turned and looked back out to sea. Skip let his right arm slide down around her waist. She sighed and leaned lightly against him.

'Sorry.' Her tone was muted, rather slurred. 'I shouldn' wish my troubles on you.'

'I'm honoured to help, if only as a convenient shoulder,' he said. 'And I don't pass on what's told me in confidence.'

'Thank you, Skip.' She smiled, however forlornly. Her eyes remained fixed straight before her. 'I'm healing 'bout as fast's the therapist predicted. I don' often think 'bout… that… any more, an' it's rarer yet I feel guilty. Soon I'll stop al… al-to-gether. Doubtless, awhile af'erward, I'll stop wondering if I do wrong not to feel guilty.' She let out a slow, smoke-scented breath. 'This b'longs to a whole complex of troubles I've had throughout' life. Be glad you're 'n extrovert. Introversion's no fun. My marriage disintegrated b'cause I saw too seldom that he needed more of me 'n I was giving. An' do I really want to be as alone as I am?' She tossed the stub overboard. 'Hell with it. I'm stoned. Better go to bed.'

He escorted her to her cabin. At the door, in the empty, ventilator-murmurous, drive-quivering corridor, she smiled at him, unsteady mouth and imperfectly focused eyes. 'You're a darling,' she whispered.

He rejected temptation, bowed and kissed her hand, and left with a single 'Good night.'

They had taken to meeting on the promenade deck each forenoon, to walk around it for an hour and discuss their work. Skip reported there next day, unsure whether Yvonne would. She did, though later than usual, stiffly striding. 'Hi,' he greeted. 'How are you?'

'Fine, thank you.' He could barely hear her, and her look avoided his.

"Fraid you might've been sick,' he continued glibly. 'Contrary to folklore, people do get sick from an overdose of mary jane, and we tied one on last night, didn't we? At least, I did. Can't remember too well—hazy recollection we said things which seemed important but probably weren't—drugs are sneaky when you're not a regular user.'

She gave him a quick, startled glance. 'Do… do you feel ill, then?'

'Not bad. The judge gave me probation.' They started their walk at a brisk pace. The wind blew loud and chill, the waves ran heavy and grey-green, under many clouds. Ormen had entered the Japan Current.

'Let's lay the art question aside for a while,' Yvonne proposed, more quickly than was needful. 'I've noticed you don't seem to understand how Sigman biology differs from terrestrial. The facts may suggest something to you.'

What is suggested to me, he thought, is that you want a safe topic— art being concerned with emotion— till you get over having bared yourself. Okay. 'Well, I know the chemistry's another.

Where analogues exist, amino acids and whatnot, they're apt to be… mirror images of ours… isomers, is that the word?'

Yvonne took a cigarette: tobacco, of course. 'I'm thinking about cellular organization,' she said. 'The biological specimens we were given were both plant and animal. A few of the plant samples were of more than microscopic size, none of the animal. But the animalcules included both protozoans and metazoans—single-celled and multi-celled—and there were several grams of tissue that may be from a member of the dominant species. Naturally, our scientists failed to culture or cultivate anything, and the cells didn't look similar to any of Earth. Some cytologists claim they've identified what corresponds to chromosomes, ribosomesj et cetera. Others dispute this. No matter for now. The broad general principles seem roughly the same. Don't they?' (

'I reckon,' Skip said.

'They aren't! The metazoans are put together completely unlike the main terrestrial kinds.'

Yvonne paused. A whale broached a ways off. Skip thought: The human beast has redeemed itself to the extent of establishing half-way decent conservation policies. Haw shoddy my life would be with no miracles like that yonder! ' —easiest explained by starting with—' Oops, I forgot. He made himself pay heed to the woman. Her lecture might be a shield for her; nevertheless, she delivered it well:

'—the conjectural development of such organisms on Earth. I'm not a biologist, I may get details wrong, but here is how I understand the idea.

'The original aggregates of cells must have been mere clumps; something like them survives in algal ciliate balls. They went on to become hollow spheres, often two concentric spheres, like the modern volvox.

But presently— this was still in the Pre-Cambrian era, remember—such spheres developed specialized inner and outer walls. They had an opening at either end, for intake of nourishment and excretion of what they could not use. From simple gastrula like that is descended almost every kind of animal we know.

Some formed mere colonies, like the sponges and corals. But others joined end to end, becoming the first segmented worms.

'From those early worms in turn'—Skip refrained from the obvious double pun— evolved all the higher forms. In an elaborated version, we keep to this day that old, basic tubular-modular structure. The bilateral symmetry, the oral-digestive-anal tract, the ribs and vertebrae show it. Even branched-off organs like heart and lungs adopt the canal principle, though the lungs have become sacs—well, I needn't illustrate further.

'This isn't the only way to evolve biological complexity, I'm sure you know. Plants haven't followed it.

And if we've been given a fair sample, no Sigman life has. Perhaps the closest terrestrial analogue to it is our ductless glands.

'Here on Earth, certain protozoa swim by means of cilia, hairlike processes along their sides. Something similar exists in what we have seen from the Sigman planet. But not identical. Those protozoans typically are not fiat but spheroidal. The cilia are spaced over the entire surface, and they are for more than locomotion. They whip the water, and any organic matter it may contain, towards the cell. The animalcule has no particular intake or outlet; its skin is permeable, and the currents raised by the cilia force the foodstuff through to the interior. Oh, more is involved than that. Chemical action on the membrane probably breaks down the larger molecules to smaller ones that can pass in, and interior processes must be extraordinarily complicated. But our biologists would need a great many living specimens to trace the details.'

Yvonne stopped for breath. Skip said, 'I can guess what's coming. Yes, I remember vaguely reading an article. My private life at the time was overloaded with new impressions and— Point is, when these Sigman microbes decided to join forces, they held hands instead of kissing.'

He was pleased to see a flash of grin. 'You would think in those terms,' she said. 'Yes, they linked some of their cilia. These lost the original sweeping function and became tubes for support and for the conveyance of fluids. In various parts of the tissues our people have studied, the tubes have shrunk till the cells are in direct contact. But this is for special purposes, as we use independently swimming blood corpuscles. The basic Sigman metazoan structure is a lattice of spheroids held together and integrated by rods. The rods may be solid, hollow, or permeable; they may be rigid or flexible; that depends on what their particular function is. The topology remains the same. So does the permeability of the cellular skin, however modified this has been here and there in the course of millions of years.'

They walked a lap in thoughtful silence. A Viking passed by. ' God morgen, du' Skip hailed. His accent wasn't bad. The sailor responded. Skip returned to his brown study.

'I believe I see where this leads,' he said at length. 'Check me out. The basic symmetry is not bilateral, it's axial or radial. There's no tendency, anyhow much less tendency than here, to develop a definite front and rear end. You get much less development of specialized organs, too. The permeable cell1 can take in its own air and water vapour —it's kept free cilia, developed into efficient little fans, am I right?—and, uh, it excretes waste products directly and continuously. Our Sigman friend needs claws to break down solid food, but only to the point where the juices seeping from the surface between those claws can reduce it to a mush that dissolves and passes on up the arm. They must be even fiercer than our stomach acids, those!'

'You catch on fast,' Yvonne nodded. 'It's thought the same juices probably circulate throughout, in diluted form —the main protection against disease germs. As for physical protection, the skinless lattice would be hopelessly vulnerable, except that probably most land animals have staggered pine-cone shingles like our space traveller. With air and water passing freely between, the animal isn't insulated from sense impressions, the way a lobster or turtle is. Therefore the evolution of intelligence isn't inhibited.'

'Uh-huh,' Skip said. 'And with four stalked eyes in addition, and who knows what other extensible organs, I'll bet the Sigman experiences more than we do. Our only cells that make direct contact with the environment are in the breathing apparatus, parts of the food tract, and the skin, and those last are dead on top.' Excitedly: 'The Sig-man's whole body does! I'll lay odds that if you limited it to human capabilities, it'd go bonkers. Sensory impoverishment.'

'Oh, there must be many qualifications and exceptions,' Yvonne said. 'For instance, it must have a brain.'

'Must it?' he challenged. 'As we understand a brain? Why can't those not very specializing cells carry nerve impulses too? Maybe the Sigman thinks as well as senses with its entire body. If that's true, I envy it___M-m, a less compact layout than our cerebral whatchacallum. Signals take longer to cross. The Sigman 'ud think slower'n us. Which might not matter on its planet. Animals that want to make a lunch off it have the same handicap. And gravity's weaker. You have more time to recover from a stumble or dodge a falling rock.'

Yvonne halted. 'Why—you may be right!' she exclaimed. 'Among the features I found in the language was that it does have considerably lower rate of information transmission.'

'I recall,' Skip answered. 'Given the enormous sensory input, however—if we aren't building theories in mid-air— well, I'd guess it thinks more deeply than us. We're quickwitted hut shallow, it's ponderous but profound.' He beat a fist on a rail-post. 'Hey, hey, hey! How about that? What type of artistic conventions would develop— Zonk! Wowsers!'

He capered whooping around the deck. Finally he stopped before her and burbled, 'You were inspired to raise this subject. We've got to explore the notion further. C'mon, let's inspire ourselves with a morning beer in Olav's pub. A single schooner apiece. Two at most. All right, you win, three. If the sun isn't over the yard-arm, we'll have them lower the yard-arm for us.' He tugged her arm. She resisted. 'Come on, robin!' She did.

Maury Station rested on the continental shelf off the Oregon coast, about fifty kilometres out and as many fathoms down. The Vikings had a cargo of refined metals to deliver. Ormen, too huge for the docks, anchored at a. safe distance amidst its followers, except for the concentrator ship. That one laid along the assigned pier, which projected from the caisson-mounted platforms supporting a complex of buildings and machinery.

Unloading would be quick, but Granstad had promised a six-hour stay for the sake of children who had never toured the place. The rest must keep out; their numbers would swamp the available facilities. Most of them had visited Maury or similar colonies before. And the fleshpots of Los Angeles, where organic products were to be landed, were now only a couple of days away.

A few men wangled leave to go off hydrofoiling, scuba diving, or dolphin riding under the aegis of local youths who frolicked about the vessel on their big fish-herder animals. Yvonne regarded the splashing, leaping, and shouting wistfully. 'I'd enjoy that,' she said.

'Water's cold hereabouts,' Skip warned. 'The merfolk are used to it, we aren't. True, you get warm fairly quickly in a wet suit___Well, why don't you? We're passengers, not under orders, nothing to prevent.

And any boatman or diving guide or Dolphin boy would come snorting like a grampus to oblige you.'

Their relationship had reached the point where his habit of speaking little gallantries to any good-looking woman didn't embarrass her. This was the first time in a week or more that he had seen her slightly unhappy.

She sighed. 'I mustn't. Andy Almeida would be furious. He insisted I stay aboard, incognito, the whole trip. For safety's sake. I couldn't be Yolanda Cohen here. Not that I've ever been to Maury, but it's crammed with scientists and some are statistically certain to have met me at Triple-A-S conventions or wherever. My earlier work had applications to cetacean pseudo-speech.' She squeezed his hand. 'I talk too much. You go. Have fun.'

'Do you yourself think you're in danger?' he asked.

'No,' she said emphatically. 'If the attempt on me wasn't a case of mistaken identity or something, then it has to have been the work of a lunatic-fringe anti-Sigman group. Those are known, and I'm sure the government has put the fear of the Lord in them.'

'So does this Almeida own you? Will a squad of police meet you at the gangplank?'

'He wanted that, but I wouldn't have it. He gave in when I pointed out that, precisely because no one will know where I've been, no assassin can be lurking.'

'Right. Well, take my word, you're a blessed sight safer in Maury, with the sea laying nine or ten atmospheres of pressure on you, and killer whales which are supposed to be tame flippering around loose, than in Los Angeles. I've not been here either, but I know LA and I've read about Maury. They're your breed, of cat, come from all over the world to study and conquer the seabed together. How can they threaten you?'

'I'd… I'd hate for the news to run ahead of me. A crowd of journalists would be almost as bad as a melodramatic killer.'

'Okay, we go first to the director and arrange precautions. Confound it, woman, I want to see the place and I suddenly realize you can get me entree to parts I'd never be let into by myself. Let's fare! Right away! No, don't stop to change your vests. You're dressed for energetic sightseeing and I doubt they ever notice who's wearing what in an R & D station.'

She let herself be swept along. They descended the ladder on Ormen's clifflike side. Skip whistled and waved at a passing boat. The pilot was glad to give them a lift in exchange for a bit of gossip. From the upper structure, they took an elevator down the shaft to the central undersea dome. Five minutes afterward, they were in the director's sanctum. Three of the minutes had been spent in finding it.

Burly and shaggy amidst a clutter of oceanic memorabilia that filled walls and overflowed floor—books, pictures, instruments, an old-time diving helmet, corals, mounted fish, harpoons, God knew what—Randall High-tower pumped Yvonne's hand till Skip wondered if water would gush from her mouth, and boomed welcome. 'Sure, sure, m'lady, nothing's too good for you. I'll record a notice, for hourly replay on the entire intercom system: You must avoid strain and you don't want publicity and will they please not get on the phone to Uncle Oscar in Keokuk or Cousin Ching-Chang in Shanghai for the next few days, to blat that they personally eyeballed Yvonne Canter. They'll understand. You can trust

'em. You know what inhibited close-mouthed rabbits we scientists are. I still think of myself as a scientist.

Somebody's got to administer this chaos. I sneak off to my lab when I can. Experimenting with production of alcohol from plankton. Bigger things are under way in Maury, of course. Alison!' He gave his pretty secretary, who was standing by, a pat on the bottom. 'Man the guns a while. If anybody insists his business with me can't wait, drop him in the Mindanao Deep. I'm going to show these people around.'

'The announcement,' Yvonne reminded him.

'At once, Dr Canter,' he said worshipfully.

The remaining hours were sheer marvel. The central hemisphere was surrounded by a ring of others.

These were connected by tunnels and kept at ambient pressure, allowing swimmers to pass in and out through simple airlocks with no need for compression or decompression. To go between them and the middle dome naturally required time in a chamber. Besides atmospheric density, composition must be altered, at a rate which allowed the body to adjust. The helium content made voices shrill to the point of unintelligibility. It was an experience to hear High tower roar squeakily. He supplied his guests with headsets that stepped down sonic frequencies. The mer-folk didn't bother. They were used to the upper range, and were gradually evolving a set of dialects adapted to it.

In two-three hundred years or less, Skip thought, a whole new undersea civilization.

Windows in the compression chamber looked out upon dimly greenish-lit waters, here and there brightened by lamps or flashbeams; on crusted rocks, upward-waving green-and-brown kelp, fish, crab, lobster, shellfish, squid, fishlike humans passing, bubbles astream from the McPherson 'gills' that extracted oxygen for them, a sounding orca and a man directing it— A whole new world, Skip exulted.

Arts like none that landsmen could imagine.

When I settle down at last, why not a seabed colony? The biggest already have room for wives and kids. Surely a painter coidd be squeezed in somewhere— and Charlie Russell didn't have a wider-open range to fence with canvas!

When laboratory workers engaged Yvonne in conversation, he found pleasure in the shapes of the scientific apparatus. He found ecstasy when Hightower gave him and Yvonne a ride in a superglass submarine. When finally they must return and the Vikings sailed off, he chattered to Yvonne over dinner as if he had been blowing pot or downing gurgle, except that she thought his talk really did verge on brilliance. His gaiety infected her. Afterward they went dancing in the Bellman Club, with champagne on the side.

At her door she said, holding hands, 'Thanks for a wonderful day. Your initiative made it.'

'Thank you,' he replied. 'Mainly for your company, but for the magnum too.' He had no more resented her buying than he would have resented buying for her if he'd been flush and she broke. 'Not to mention everything else I've enjoyed because of you. What an all-time faring this has been! I'm sorry it's about to end.'

'We'll be going on, remember,' she breathed.

Her eyes, her lips, her slight sway forward, could not be misunderstood. The kiss lasted longer than most, and she was better than he had expected.

They broke apart. She opened the door. He made a tentative move to follow her. 'Good night, Skip,' she said gently. He stopped. She lingered a second. He couldn't tell if she wished he would insist; she was the first top-grade Orthian he'd had anything meaningful to do with, and eight years his senior to boot. 'Good night,' she repeated. The door closed behind her.

Oh, well, he thought. Maybe later. It'd be— I dunno— another dimension for something great—or am I simply curious? Unaccustomed to brooding over his own emotions, he let the speculation die and sauntered to his cabin.

'No luck, eh?' Andrew Almeida asked.

'None,' responded the face in his desk-phone screen. 'Every combination of man-Sigman phrases, beamed on every reasonable frequency band, starting with the one on which it signalled us when it originally arrived… all drew blank.'Not a flicker in return.'

'Ump. Can radio pass through those force screens, do you think?'

'If the Sigman can transmit, which it did three years ago, it can receive. No, I suppose either it hasn't recognized our message as a plea to continue building communications, or its interest in us remains barely marginal, or it has a motive we can't comprehend.'

'Damn!' Almeida gnawed his moustache, which reminded him it was approaching an unmilitary length.

'Well, at least the Russians and Chinese and the rest have failed too.'

'Do you think they tried?'

'I know they did. We maintain reconnaissance. Besides, didn't we try?'

The scientist bridled. 'Why are the nations duplicating their efforts? For that matter, Colonel, why have I been instructed to report to you alone?'

'The first question answers the second,' Almeida told him. 'If I have to repeat the briefing you got when we instituted security here, you should consider submitting your resignation.'

Wang Li looked up. His wife was home early from her solidarity meeting. Moonlight came in the doorway around her, striking shimmers off the mother-of-pearl insets that ornamented his old, dragon-carved ebony chair. A breath of dewy jasmine followed, and chirring of crickets. She snapped the door shut and switched on the fluorescents. He blinked.

'Why were you sitting in the dark?' she demanded.

'Good evening, my dear,' he said. 'How was the assembly?'

'If you had been patriotic enough to attend, you would know,' she answered.

He averted his gaze from her tall, gaunt, drab-clad form. 'I am still tired after the language assignment.

We had no mercy on ourselves.'

'You never attend if you can avoid it.'

'Not my function. "From each according to his ability." Besides, tonight I have a difficult matter to think through.'

Yao was silent half a minute. Then, mildly, seeking to be reconciled with him, she said, 'Oh, I see. Can you tell me what?'

He shifted about in his seat. 'I must compose a letter to Yvonne Canter. She cannot be reached by visiphone, but no doubt a letter to her at Armstrong Base will be passed on when she comes back from wherever she has fled.'

'Surely you need not ask an American's help.' Yao walked closer, till she stood above him, and touched his cheek.

'I might. Remember who had that first insight. In this case, however, I wish to express my regret at her bad experience, and assure her that we, her Chinese colleagues, are overjoyed that her esteemed person escaped harm. But it is not an easy thing after all, because—'

Her indignation returned on wings. 'What! An imperialist—' She broke off. 'I understand we must maintain the courtesies,' she said. 'Why is a formal note hard to write?'

'It should not be formal. She may well think that that cowardly attack on her was instigated by our government.'

'Let her, if she has a persecution mania.'

Wang's fingers strained together. 'And she could perhaps be right,' he said around a thickness, while he stared at the floor. 'My every attempt to ask was met with bland denials, until I was called before General Chou and informed that further asking would be considered evidence of deviant thoughts. Yes, I realize disproof may be impossible. I cannot be shown details of our intelligence operations. Still, I am not a wholly unimportant man. Why could no one take the time to explain to me precisely why disproof.is impossible in this particular case?'

He raised his eyes and saw shock livid on Yao's countenance. 'You dare say that?' she gasped. A screech followed : 'You dare call our leaders murderers?'

His temper broke. He sprang to his feet. 'Be quiet!' he shouted. 'I will not be named traitor, I who serve beyond the sky! What do you do for the people? You nag and pettily tyrannize a few score wretches who might instead be busy at something useful! Leave me! I do not want to see you again this night!'

She covered her face and ran. He wondered if she would weep.

Poor Yao. Grief welled in him. He sat down like an old man. If she had let me explain before my worn-out nerves gave way… I can imagine— I do not believe, yet I can imagine—that a decision was made to kill Yvonne Canter, not in hatred, not in callousness, but because the imperialists would use her to gain their ends. If I truly thought that, I would kill her myself, with these hands.

He saw them open and empty on his lap. I do not fear her. I fear those whose ancestors in spirit forced opium on mine, sacked Peking, bombed Hiroshima, slaughtered and slaughtered to block the liberation of Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Thailand— the list goes on too long— who blocked liberation by a wall of corpses. And I fear the Soviets who killed my father and bombed my land; 1

fear the Europeans and Japanese, fat, bustling, smug, who could so quickly turn back into hungry demons; I fear whoever might burn my P'ing alive, and it is so easy, so gruesomely easy to make a nuclear weapon .. . and now that spaceship, like a vulture wheeling over this fair, living Earth ___

Poor Yao. Poor Yvonne Canter. Poor mankind.