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from a slow-moving truck a block or so away, the traffic just at this moment was all pedestrian. The higher buildings of the central area of Rhombus some distance away were visible above the roofs ahead of them. Kyal found himself feeling mildly agoraphobic at being unenclosed by walls for the first time in months, but it would no doubt soon pass. Yorim slowed several times to draw a toe of his boot wonderingly through another novelty spread out under their feet: sand . Vereth looked amused. Kyal had the feeling he'd seen all this before.

    "Where are you from?" Kyal asked him.

    "Korbisan, originally."

    "You look on the dark side for a Korbisanian."

    "The sun here will do that."

    "How long have you been on Earth now?"

    "A year."

    "What brought you out here?"

    "I came to join my older brother. He's with an excavation party working over in the east at the moment, in China. My family were pressuring me to find a wife and get married."

    "Oh." Kyal didn't want to get too personal. "What brought your brother out here?"

    Vereth's teeth flashed in a quick grin. "Same reason."

    The Site Operations Support office was located in a two-story building on a corner across the street, announcing itself under a larger sign that read ARMIN HARRA SPACE PORT. Vereth brought them to a room with some chairs and a counter. A plump, middle-aged woman in tan work fatigues appeared through a doorway from an office to the rear at the sound of their entering. "You found them, then?" she said to Vereth, and nodded jovially to the arrivals. "It's a long trip out, isn't it? Glad to have you here."

    "This is Olin," Vereth said. Kyal and Yorim inclined their heads. "What have you managed to come up with?"

    "A week, and then going to Luna."

    "Yes," Vereth confirmed.

    "It's a bit difficult. The hotel rooms and the short-term apartments were all taken by pre-bookings. It's always like this when a ship arrives."

    "Olin doesn't mean just the regular commercial hotels," Vereth explained. "It's what people here also call the quarters that ISA manages for professionals visiting Rhombus"

    Olin looked at Kyal and Yorim anxiously. "The best I've been able to do is a double room in the hostel. It's where people like technicians usually stay for a few days when they come down to the surface. But it's comfortable and clean. And you'll probably be away seeing other places for most of the time anyway."

    "It wasn't decided until lunchtime today," Kyal said. "We're very grateful. The hostel will be fine."

    "You make life too easy."

    Yorim was studying a wall adorned with notices, timetables, and a large map of Earth showing the main surface bases and areas of ongoing exploration. Rhombus was marked prominently, sitting in the middle of it all. "Here are your cities, Kyal." He pointed at areas to the west and north. "Europe and Russia. Those are the areas you wanted to see right?"

    "A lot of work is going on in those areas," Vereth said. "Huge old cities, millions of people. They even built them in colder climate where the precipitation falls as snow."

    Olin shivered. "I'll just stick to watching the pictures," she said.

    Kyal moved closer to the map to look at the region Yorim had indicated. It was where the latest Terran civilization seemed to have originated, the one known as Western, which the Americans took over and carried worldwide. A number of other major civilizations had come and gone before the rise of the Western, but none had attained a significant level of technology. The Venusians had gone unerringly from simple beginnings to industry to air flight and space travel with no such diversions in other directions, as if they had been predisposed in that direction. No particular explanation had been offered as to why there should have been such a difference, or seemed called for. It was just one of those things that was accepted.

    "What other kinds of things are there to see closer to home?" Kyal asked, turning back toward Olin. "Here in Rhombus,