Doc’s students ranged in age from twenty to seventy. Kath Two had never met any of them before. There was nothing unusual in that; the TerReForm was the largest project ever undertaken by the human race, and 99 percent of it still lay in the future. She recognized the oldest one’s face from pictures in scientific journals.
She felt awkward. Walking into the clearing and making herself known to these people had required a kind of courage. There was a class system within TerReForm. Doc was at its apex. Survey personnel were not so much at its bottom as on its wild fringes. Not so much looked down upon as looked at askance, seen as not entirely serious.
But they were polite. All except Doc greeted her with the Ivyn variant of the salute, an understated gesture that incorporated a suggestion of a bow. Doc held both of his hands out so that she could take them carefully in hers. He squeezed with surprising strength and she squeezed back.
Then suddenly they were alone. Whether by prearrangement or because the other Ivyns had sensed something, they all withdrew. Even the nurse stepped away and contented herself with a stroll around the clearing, holding her hand up from time to time to check Doc’s readouts on a palm-sized device.
“You’re coming to Cradle with me,” he announced. “There is need of a team.”
“A new research project?” she asked.
Doc’s eyes closed for a moment in disagreement, then sprang open, gazing at her directly. “A Seven,” he corrected himself.
“Hmm. And I’m to be—”
“One of us, yes.”
Doc said this as if it were obvious. But it wasn’t, not to Kath Two. A Seven—a group consisting of one person from each race—was usually assembled for some ceremonial purpose, like dedicating a new habitat or signing a treaty. Not Kath Two’s thing at all. And even if it had been, she was confused by the suggestion that she was to be in the same Seven as Doc. Because usually, when a Seven was being assembled, some effort was made to have all the members be of like status. And this was decidedly not the case between her and Doc. The gap in age, fame, and eminence was almost too wide to measure.
What could possibly make Kath Two special enough to deserve such an honor?
Her confusion lasted for only a few moments before she saw it, so obvious: it was something to do with what she had seen on the surface.
She saw faint amusement around Doc’s eyes as he watched her figuring it all out. This turned to a mildly apprehensive look as he perceived that Kath Two was getting ready to blurt something. And that alone caused her to stifle it. She said nothing. They would talk of it only when Doc felt it was time.
“You’ve never been to Cradle before,” he said.
“That’s correct.”
“Well, it should be a new kind of adventure for you then.”
“I’ll try not to look like a tourist.”
“Look like whatever you please,” he said. “We’ll be too busy to worry much about such things.”
“When do we—”
“Twelve hours, give or take,” he said, and looked over to the Camite. “Is that about right, Memmie?”
Memmie nodded. “Cabins have been booked on the elevator departing at twenty-two thirty.”
Kath Two hadn’t met Memmie before, but had heard about this person of indeterminate gender who kept Doc alive and looked after many of his affairs. “Memmie” was short for Remembrance, a common Camite name. At the moment Memmie seemed to be presenting as female, with a saronglike wrap around the waist of a coverall that was otherwise utilitarian in the extreme, appearing to consist entirely of cargo pockets. Some neck jewelry and a turbanlike head covering completed the ensemble. Her use of the passive voice—“Cabins have been booked”—was racially typical. Memmie, of course, had done the booking, made the other arrangements, and looked after the significant fund transfers needed to book a number of elevator cabins on short notice. But getting her to say that this had been her doing would have been like extracting teeth from her jaw. Some saw it as a becoming habit of humility; others saw it as irritatingly passive-aggressive. Kath Two had no opinion. She had a few free hours on the Great Chain and needed to make the most of them.
“See you there,” she said.
“I shall look forward to it,” Doc answered.