“Hold out your hand,” Gina said. Hunt obliged. She ran a finger along one of his and traced it over the palm. It felt warm and fleshy, with each line and wrinkle in the skin clearly discernible. “It’s uncanny,” she whispered.

“Not bad,” Hunt agreed. “What you saw a moment ago is what’s happening in a part of Shiban at this moment. Those people are really there. VISAR is very good at realism.” Hunt pointed at a spot on her arm. “You’ve even got the stain on your sleeve, where you rubbed your elbow in some ash that had fallen on the table when we were in the cafeteria.”

Gina looked at the sleeve of the green sweater she was wearing, and flicked at the gray patch with her other hand. Sure enough, most of it brushed away, leaving a faint smudge, just as real ash on a real sleeve would have done.

Hunt laughed. “There’s an easier way. In this world, you can do anything you want. VISAR, clean the sleeve.” The remaining discoloration vanished, leaving no trace. “Or change the whole thing if you don’t like it. VISAR, how about a red sweater?” Gina’s sweater promptly changed to a rich ruby red.

She gasped. “It’s true! This is all happening inside my head? I’m not really standing here? So aren’t you here, either?”

“Of course not. I’m inside your head, too. So I must be hooked in through another coupler, just as you still are.”

Gina struggled to come to terms with the meaning of it, but in the end faltered and shook her head decisively. “It’s no good. I can’t believe this. Prove it.”

“I can’t. Ask VISAR to.”

“VISAR. Prove it.”

And instantaneously she was back in the recliner, at ease and comfortable, as if she had never gotten up from it.

“Voilà,” VISAR announced, managing to sound quite proud of itself.

As Gina’s confusion subsided, she reminded herself that she never had gotten up. She had been here all the time… or had she? Was she really here now, or was this yet another construct in the maze of mirages that Hunt had led her into? She sat up with a strange feeling of déjà vu-only this time, Hunt wasn’t standing watching from the doorway, and the door was closed. Her sweater was green again; the smudge of gray was back on her elbow. It was all as the real thing should have been, but there was no way of telling. If this was another illusion, she could see no purpose in it. Anyway, it seemed she had no option but to go along. She moistened her handkerchief and cleared the smudge from her sleeve.

“Where’s Vic?” she asked aloud.

“Next door, to the right.”

Gina got up and moved to the door. She opened it, let herself out into the corridor, and peered into the next cubicle. Hunt was in repose in the recliner there, motionless with his eyes closed.

“Happy now?” VISAR asked her.

Okay, it was good enough for her. “Convinced, anyhow,” she conceded.

“Never say I don’t give you your money’s worth.”

Hunt opened his eyes and sat up. “Neat, eh?” he said to Gina. “Just think, you could go anywhere in the Thurien world-system right now if you wanted to. Imagine what that saves them in a year on bus fares.”

“Right now, you only need to worry about getting back to the lounge area,” VISAR said. “The others are there, and they’re asking where you are.”

“Tell them we’re on our way,” Hunt answered.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Twelve hours after leaving Earth, the Vishnu was five hundred million miles past the mean orbit of Uranus.

By the internal clocks of most of the passengers it was the small hours of the morning, and the mess area of the Terran section was quieter than it had been earlier. Gina and the four from UNSA were still up, occupying a couple of tables pulled together, where they had been joined by the schoolteacher from Florida, whose name was Bob, and two of the Disney World marketing executives, Alan and Keith.

“Wasn’t there something about an ancestor of modern horses?” Duncan Watt was saying to Danchekker. “It had stripes, suggesting that striping could be an inherited potential of all horse types. So there really isn’t any such group as zebras at all? They could all be more closely related to the horse lines than to each other.” They were talking about the investigations that Danchekker had conducted on specimens of early mammals from Earth’s late Oligocene period, which had been discovered in the wrecked Ganymean ship found on Ganymede, before the Shapieron’s appearance.

“Mesohippus,” Danchekker supplied. “Yes, indeed-which makes it not as complex a characteristic as one might imagine. Several separate lineages could then have acquired stripes independently, which would make the zebras simply realizations of a developmental path common to all members of genus Equus. It becomes even more interesting when one considers the chromosome counts, where a distinct correlation is seen to occur between…”

Duncan nodded as he sat with his arms wedged across his chest. He looked a little glazed and seemed content to let Danchekker carry on doing the talking.

Across the other table, Bob, the teacher, and the two Disney World executives were into politics.

“Maybe Ganymeans are instinctively what socialist idealists try to turn humans into,” Bob said. “But since it comes naturally to Ganymeans, nobody has to try and make them anything they’re not. So it works.”

“He’s got a point,” Al declared, turning to Keith. “We’re a competitive species-a competitive economic system fits our nature. Whether you like the thought of it or not, we work for what we are gonna get out of it, not the other guy. That’s the way humans are. The only way you can try to change them is through force. And people don’t like that. That’s why all these fancy ideas about molding human nature don’t work. They can’t work.”

Sandy pushed herself back in her seat and yawned. “I’ve just had three hectic days that I think have caught up with me,” she announced. “Sorry, but I’m going to be the first one to break up the party. So I’ll see you people tomorrow, wherever. The other side of Pluto, I guess.”

“Yes, get some rest,” Danchekker said. “I should, too, for that matter. You’ve certainly been busy. We didn’t give you much notice.”

“Don’t forget that chip you wanted me to borrow,” Gina reminded her as she stood up.

“If you want to stop by my room, I’ll let you have it now,” Sandy said.

“What chip’s that?” Hunt asked, turning from the conversation between Danchekker and Duncan.

“Some tracks of Jevlenese music that I collected together,” Sandy said. “Some of it’s really wild stuff.”

“Vic likes music,” Gina said as she rose. “I don’t know if what you’re talking about would be his style, though. That was a Beethoven score that you had pinned up on the wall at your place, wasn’t it, Vic?”

“Observant,” Hunt complimented. He took a sip of his drink. “Did you know that his dog had a wooden leg?”

Gina looked we citeiii. “Whose?”

“Beethoven's. That's where he got his inspiraition-when it walked across the room.” He raised a hand to conduct an imaginary orchestra. “Dah-dah-dah-dah… Dah-dah-dah-dah. See?”

Gina shook her head, smiling hopelessly. “Are all the English insane? Or did you take a class in it?”

“Come on, let’s go,” Sandy murmured. “They’re all past the crazy hour.”

“No, but you have to work at it,” Hunt said. He waved a hand at them both and grinned. “We’ll see you two at breakfast, then.” The rest of the group added a chorus of goodnights.

Gina and Sandy left the room and headed toward the cabins. “Guys and alcohol,” Gina said. “I didn’t want to be left that outnumbered.”

“I know the feeling,” Sandy agreed.

“Are we turning into old maids, Sandy?” Gina asked jokingly. “Six men back there, and the two girls leave together. Perhaps we really are as bad as they tell us.”

“You speak for yourself. I meant what I said: I’m exhausted.”