"You've got more nerve than I'd have, Mr. Graham. I'll give you that. But our ancestors made it, or we wouldn't be here."

" I hate to ask, but what was the failure rate? Do you have any stats on that?"

"Percentage? Low. I know that one sank in the sea. One hard-landed. Fatally. One lost the heat shield and burned up. They mostly made it, that's all I know. But with all your technology — isn't there some way to take a little time, at least modify that thing into a guided system? Nothing you've got can possibly serve as a landing craft?"

A pause. Then: " Not for atmosphere. The moon— no problem. But that's a deep, deep well, sir."

"Gravity well."

"Yes, sir."

It wasn't just Mospheira versus atevi that had a language gap. He guessed the shortened expression. And out of the expertise the technological translator necessarily gained in his career, other, more critical problems immediately dawned on him.

"Mr. Graham, I hope to hell if they unpack that parachute to check it, they know how to put it back in its housing. There's an exact and certain way those things have to unfold. Otherwise they don't open."

"You're really making me very nervous, sir. But they've got specifications on the lander. That's in the station library, they tell me."

"When are they sending you down here?"

"About five, six days."

"God."

" I wish you'd be more confident."

"Five days is pushing real hard, Mr. Graham. Is there a particular reason to be in a hurry?"

"No reason not to— I mean, we've no problem with ablation surfaces. We can do better in no time. I'm less sure about the parachute, but I have to trust they can tell from records. That's all. I have to trust it. And they'll be done, they tell me, in four days. And they can shoot us out there on a real precise in/all, right down the path. I don't know what more they can do. They say it's no risk. That they've got all the results. When did they lose the three they lost? Early on?"

"I think — early on. They didn't lose any of the last ones." A slight gloss of the truth. But the truth didn't help a man about to fall that far.

" I'll tell you, I'm not looking forward to the experience. I keep telling myself I'm stark raving crazy. I don't know what Yolanda's thinking. But if we just get down—"

"The atevi would say, Trust the numbers. Get fortunate numbers out of the technicians."

" I certainly intend to. — What's that sound?"

"Sound — ?" He was suddenly aware of the outside, of the smell and feel of rain in the air. And anxiety in Graham's voice. "That was thunder. We're having a storm."

"Atmospheric disturbance."

"Rain."

"It must be loud."

"Thunder is. Can be. That was. It's right over us."

"It's not dangerous."

"Lightning is. Not a good idea to be on the phone much longer. But one thing I should mention before I sign off. We've never had much of a disease problem, there's not much we catch from atevi, and we were a pretty clean population when we landed. But on general principles the aiji will insist you undergo the process our ancestors did before they came down."

"We began it last watch. My stomach isn't happy, but that's the least of our worries."

"Sorry about that. I'll relay your assurance to the aiji and I assure you the aiji will be happy you've taken that precaution on your own initiative. You'll impress him as considerate, well-disposed people. I'll also inform him about your companion needing to get to a plane without delay, assuming that will be her wish. I'll fax up a map with the optimum sites marked, with text involving advantages and disadvantages. You can talk to your experts and make a choice, but it's just more convenient to the airports if you can come in on the public lands south of the capital."

"I'll pass that word along. I'd like to talk to you fairly frequently, if you can arrange it. I want to look over this material you're sending up. I'll probably have questions. "

"I'll fax up my meeting schedule. Tomorrow I'm going to be traveling out to an observatory in the mountains. I'll be back by evening. But if something comes up that needs information from me, wherever there are telephones, they can track me down. Even on the plane."

"To an observatory. Why?"

"To talk to a gentleman who may be able to answer some philosophical questions. Your arrival has — well, been pretty visible to anyone in the rural areas. And call it religious implications, as well as political ones. Say that concerned people have asked me questions."

"Is that part of the job?"

"I hope we'll be working together."

" I assure youI hope we II be working together, sir. I'd just as soon they dropped us someplace soft."

He couldn't help but grin, to a featureless phone. "I'll pick you out a soft one, Mr. Graham. My name is Bren. Call me that, please. I've never been 'sir.'"

"I'm Jase. Always been. I really look forward to this. After I'm down there."

"Jase. I'm going to be very depressed if you don't make it. Please have those techs double-check everything. Tell them the world will wait if they're not sure. The aiji will. Under no circumstance would he want you to compromise your safety."

"I'm glad to know that. But I guess we're on that schedule unless they find something. To tell the truth, I'd just as soon be done with that part of it."

"We're on the end of our time." Thunder crashed, shocked the nerves. "That was a loud one. I should sign off now."

"Understood. Talk to you later. Soon as I can, anyway. Thanks."

The tea had cooled. The wind from the open doors was fresh and damp. Toby'd been right, the storm had swept right on past Mospheira and on to them in all its strength. The plane with the requested tomato sauce probably still hadn't made it in, and the paidhi had let his tea cool in that wind, talking on the phone with a man born in space at a star other than the sun.

A star the man still hadn't named for reasons that might not be chance.

Jason Graham claimed twenty-eight as old Earth measured years. The faxed-down information that preceded the call gave his personal record — his and his companion's, Yolanda Mercheson, thirty-one and an engineer trainee. Nice, ordinary-looking woman with what might be freckles: the fax wasn't perfect. Jase had a thin, earnest face, close-clipped dark hair — which was going to have to grow: ateyi would be appalled, and understand, because, different from centuries ago, they understood that foreigners didn't always do things for atevi reasons.

But two people of a disposition to fall miles down onto a planet and be separated from each other by politics, species, and boundaries for reasons common sense said surely weren't all altruism, or naive curiosity — he didn't understand such a mentality; or he thanked God it wasn't part of hisjob. He supposed if they talked very long, very hard —

He still didn't know, and he believed Jason Graham saying he was scared. The ship had come up with its volunteers very quickly. Which might be the habit of looking down on places, and the nerve it took to travel on such a ship — he had no remote knowledge what their lives were like on the ship. It was all theoretical, all primer-school study, all imagination. Atevi occasionally had a very reckless curiosity. But he didn't think that curiosity was all that motivated Jase Graham and his associate: humanly speaking, he couldn't see it, and he couldn't find it in himself to believe someone sounding so disarmingly — friendly. For no reason. No —