"I see," Jennifer said slowly. And indeed she did see how, but not why. What good was ancient science fiction to the Foitani? She almost asked straight out. Before she did, though, she felt she had to deal with Aissur Aissur Rus's question. "In their own time, the writers you named?and some others like them?were often very highly esteemed indeed, exactly because they were such fine stylists. And to say they did not address serious issues is not true, either. But they are less often read now because their concerns are not as relevant to us today as those of other authors. Do you see?"

"Yes, I taste the distinction you are cooking, but I am not sure it is valid," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "Again I ask, which carries the greater weight, abstract artistic excellence or utility?"

"That is a question humans have asked for as long as they have examined their own art," Jennifer said with a smile. "No one has ever come up with a definitive answer."

"Questions have answers," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said reprovingly.

"That may be so, but often only on a case-by-case basis?and with something as subjective as artistic elegance, one man's answer is another man's error," Jennifer said.

"Before the Suicide Wars, the Great Ones would have known." Even through the translator's flat tones, Dargnil Dargnil Lin sounded sure of that.

"If the Great Ones were as great as that, why did they fight the Suicide Wars?" Aissur Aissur Rus asked. Jennifer did not think the remark had been meant for the class to hear, but the translator sent it forth all the same.

Thegun Thegun Nug said, "Enough. We interrupt the discourse of the honored professor." All three Foitani visibly composed themselves to listen. Jennifer found she had no choice but to go on with her lecture. One day, she told herself, I will ask my questions of them. It would not be that day, though.

"It's so frustrating," she said to Ali Bakhtiar when she got home from her last class. "They're good in class. They're very good. But what are they doing there?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Bakhtiar answered, as he had every time she raised the issue. Now his patience showed signs of wearing thin. "I wouldn't lose sleep over it, either. If they want to spend good money to hear you talk about your musty old books, that's their problem, not yours."

"Musty old books? Problem?" Jennifer didn't know where to start being indignant at all that.

"You look silly standing there with your mouth hanging open," Bakhtiar said.

If she'd had her stunner on her belt, she would have given him a dose big enough to keep him out the rest of the night?and maybe for the week after that. Her mouth was open, she realized. She shut it. She wasn't indignant any more; she was furious. Usually anger made her come to pieces. Now she knew what she had to do. When she spoke again, her voice was even tinier than usual. "I'll start looking for my own apartment."

Ali Bakhtiar stared at her. "Don't do that!" he said in alarm. She watched his face, the way his eyes moved up and down her. The alarm wasn't for her, at least not the part of her that dwelt behind her eyes. It was concern that he wouldn't be able to sleep with her any more. As if to prove it, he reached out to take her in his arms.

She took one step back, then another. He followed. "You leave me be," she said. She hated her voice for quavering. Her eyes filled with angry tears. She hated them even more.

"You're just upset," Bakhtiar said smoothly. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll apologize. Come here, Jennifer; it's all right." He put his hands on her shoulders.

A moment later he reeled away, right hand clutching left wrist. Jennifer hoped she hadn't broken it. She'd never needed unarmed combat on any of the worlds she'd visited, but all traders learned it, to protect themselves from aliens and humans both. Now she was using it for the first time, not a five-minute walk from the peaceful campus where she'd wanted to spend her days in quiet research. She'd already learned life didn't always work out the way one thought it would.

She walked past Ali Bakhtiar to the phone. He flinched back from her as if she'd suddenly sprouted fangs and talons; his eyes said he'd never seen her before. Maybe he hadn't, not really?maybe all he'd paid attention to was the small, shapely body, the blond hair that fell to the small of her back, the blue eyes and clear features. She started getting angry all over again.

She keyed the number of a friend, a colleague in the dead languages department a few years older than she. "Ella? It's Jennifer. Is there any chance I could sleep on your couch for a few days? I've had a fight with my boyfriend and I'll be moving out of here as soon as I can."

"I don't see any reason why not," Ella Metchnikova answered, her almost baritone contralto booming in Jennifer's ear. "Come on over."

"Thank you, Ella dear. I will." Jennifer hung up, threw some books, disks, and papers into an attach? case, then tossed the case, a change of clothes, and her toothbrush into a blue plastic shopping bag. She paused at the door to look back at Ali Bakhtiar. "I'll be out of here just as quick as I can get a place. If you mess with my things, even a little bit, I won't hit you in the wrist next time. I promise you that."

Then she had an afterthought. She went past Bakhtiar again, this time into the bedroom. It spoiled her grand exit, but she did not care for melodrama in her own life anyhow. She found her stunner and dropped it into the bag, too. One more trip by her lover?her former lover, she amended to herself?and she was gone.

Ella Metchnikova lived only a few blocks away. Her apartment building?and her apartment?were nearly clones of the one in which Jennifer had lived; the same construction company must have put up both of them.

Ella was large and blustery. She hugged Jennifer when she came in, kissing her on each cheek. "You have my sympathy, if you want it," she said. "More likely you think you're well rid of him, and if you think that, you're probably right. Let me give you something more practical instead." She took a glass from the refrigerator and handed it to Jennifer.

Jennifer sipped cautiously. Ella had handed her glasses before. Sometimes they were tasty, sometimes anything but?one of Ella's hobbies were reconstructing drinks nobody had drunk for hundreds of years. There were often good reasons why nobody had drunk them for hundreds of years.

This one wasn't bad?smooth, a little sweet, not alcoholic enough to scorch her throat or make her eyes water. As she was supposed to, she asked, "What's it called?"

"A Harvey Wallbanger," Ella said. "Orange juice, ethanol, and a liqueur called Galliano that I just found a bottle of last week. I thought it was long since extinct, but somebody still makes it. Can't imagine why. It's death by itself?think of high-proof sugar syrup with yellow food coloring. But it is good for something, you see."

"Yes, so it is." Jennifer took a larger sip, then another one. Warmth spread from her stomach. "Thanks for taking me in on short notice."

"On no notice, you mean." Ella laughed. A moment later, the laugh got louder. "I didn't know anybody on this planet could blush."

Jennifer's cheeks only grew hotter. "I can't help it if I'm fair."

"I know you can't. I can't help laughing about it, either. Have you had dinner?"

Jennifer let Ella mother her. It took her mind off the sudden crash of her relationship with Bakhtiar and off the hideous nuisance of moving?although her trader training would come in handy there, for she was used to packing quickly and thoroughly. Her trader training kept coming in handy all sorts of ways, something she'd certainly not expected when she signed up as an apprentice. All she'd wanted was something out of the ordinary on her resum?.