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talk about.
    Now he thought that he should have lied;
invented an impromptu jam session or something else more-or-less
plausible that she could have pretended to believe.
    "What," Kem asked coldly, "is the Explorers
Club?"
    He cleared his throat, looking around their
cluttered parlor, brightly lit at this unhappy hour of the morning,
and Kem sitting stiff and straight in the rocking chair they'd
bought together at the campus jumble shop. She still wore the
exercise clothes she favored when she practiced dance, and he
wondered if she had worked at it all the time he was away,
again.
    "Would you like some tea, Kemmy?" he asked,
which was cowardly, unworthy, and wouldn't work, anyway.
    "I'm not thirsty, thank you."
    Well, he'd known better.
    "The Explorers Club, Hakan," she prompted,
voice cold, eyes sparkling. She was, Hakan realized, on the edge of
crying, and it was his fault. His fault, and Cory Robersun's.
    He was, he thought, committed to the truth
now. It seemed unfair that telling it was more likely to make her
cry than the comfortable lie he'd been too stupid to tell.
    "The Explorers Club," he said slowly, "is a
group of people interested in technology and the . . . future. Of
flight, mostly. But other things, too."
    "Other things," came her over-composed
voice, almost sweetly. "Like brewed tea coming out of a flat wall?
Or a doctor machine?"
    The things she hadn't
believed, when he'd told her. The things Cory'd told him nobody
would believe. He'd thought Kem would be different; that she'd
believe him because she believed in him.
    "Like those," he said calmly, his hands
opening almost as if he gifted her with the information. "Tonight's
presentation was on jet-assisted flight. We don't have it yet, but
the zhena thought we will, in ten years or less, traveling at
speeds three or four times faster than the aircraft we have
today–do you see what that means, Kemmy? At those speeds, Basil
would only be a day away; Porlint, maybe two. The world would get
smaller, but in a good way, we could–"
    He stopped because her tears had spilled
over.
    "Kem–" Hakan dropped to his knees next to
the rocker, and put his arms around her, half-afraid she would pull
away. To his relief, she bent into him, putting her forehead
against his shoulder.
    "Kem, I'm so sorry," he whispered, stroking
her hair. "I–the time got away from me. I was waiting for a chance
to speak with the new zhena–"
    In his arms, Kem stiffened, and Hakan
mentally kicked himself.
    Why couldn't you just
stick with guitar, Hakan Meltz ? he asked
himself bitterly.
    "Which zhena was that, Hakan?" Kem's voice
wasn't cold any longer; it sounded small and tired.
    He closed his eyes, and put
his check against her hair. Get this
right , he advised himself. Or you'll regret it every day for the rest of
your life .
    "A new member of the club. . . " he said
carefully. "She's from . . . away. Nobody seems to know where,
exactly. I'm told she's very knowledgeable, and has a number of . .
. creative ideas." Kem shivered, and he went on hastily. "I saw her
tonight, and–Kem, she looks like Cory."
    Kem pushed against him, and he let her go,
though he stayed on his knees beside the rocker. She looked down
into his face, hers white and wet and drawn.
    "Is she Cory's sister, then?"
    "I don't think so. When I say 'looks like,'
I don't mean family resemblance–or I do, but not close family. More
like a fifth or sixth cousin, maybe. She's got the same gold-tan
skin–and she's just a tiny thing, not much taller than Miri, if at
all. And when she talks, she moves her hands the way Cory and Miri
did sometimes–you remember . . ." He moved his hands in a clumsy
imitation of the crisp gestures their friends had used.
    "I remember," Kem said quietly. "And you
wanted to talk to this zhena."
    "I wanted to ask her if she knew Cory," he
said. "And I wanted to talk to her about–" he stumbled against the
forbidden subject, took a breath and soldiered on. "I wanted to
talk to her about that