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into a bowl. First the woman had mocked her; now she seemed indifferent. Lydee stomped toward her. Etey poured a glass of wine and handed it to the girl.
    Lydee wanted to throw the glass to the sand; instead, she sat down and sipped the pink liquid. Etey nibbled at a green vegetable spear. “That girl,” Lydee managed to say. The woman reached into her bowl for another spear. “Daiya. What happened to her?”
    “You wish to know?”
    “Yes.”
    “And I had thought you would be too preoccupied with your own misery to care.” The woman poured herself more wine. “She lives near the village where she grew up. Her life has been a hard one, for her questioning of her world’s customs has made her an outsider, but her people occasionally speak to her, and sometimes younger ones seek her out. She is waiting for her people to accept what she learned from us — that Earth does not have to keep to its old ways, but can change. Homesmind has watched over her. It can speak to the cybernetic Minds of Earth, and through those Minds It can communicate with Daiya. But she has not spoken to It for a few years now, and Homesmind says that even the Minds housed in the pillars have been silent recently.” Etey frowned. “We think of Homesmind as a vast intelligence. But It is a young mind compared to those of Earth. Even It cannot fully encompass Them. Those Minds are also waiting for Earth to change, to awaken from what They see as a long dream.” Etey’s brown eyes gazed past Lydee.
    “Have you or Reiho spoken to Daiya?”
    “She didn’t want us to. She felt that Earth had to be left alone to find its own way. I believe she was right, but I don’t think she’ll see much change in her lifetime. The Earthfolk have lived without change for thousands of years, and fear it. Daiya has never asked us to return.”
    “I don’t know if Reiho could,” Lydee said. “I think he still fears it.”
    “I know he does. Anyway, he would be helpless without the mindpowers Earthfolk have. And I cannot return because I have such powers.”
    Lydee leaned forward. “But how can that be?”
    “As some on Earth are born without them, some here are born with them. Homesmind must think such qualities are worth preserving, though I don’t know why — we lack the means of using such powers here.” Etey shook her head. “On Earth, I heard voices inside me over which I had no control and saw impossible things. I could not hide my thoughts. I would be in danger if I returned.”
    Lydee was silent. She had only to remain on the Wanderer and live her life; surely that required little courage.
    “I once thought —” Etey paused.
    “What did you think?”
    “That there might be another reason for your being among us, that Homesmind had a purpose for bringing you up, that you might in time be a bridge to Earth, in a way. But now I think we’ll forget Earth, as we did before.”
    Lydee grimaced. “No one will let me forget.”
    “Don’t be foolish.” Etey sounded disdainful. “You’ll be a curiosity for a while, that’s all. Unless, of course, you are determined to make us remember.” She stood up and waved the globe away. “Farewell, Lydee.” She pressed her belt and drifted up, flying out over the lake.
    This is my home, Lydee told herself, clinging to the thought. She was ashamed of her emotional display; she would prove to everyone that she was no different from any civilized being. Earth was only a name. When she was as old as Etey, her origins would no longer seem as important.
    “Take down the tent,” she said to the golden crab.
    A t last , Homesmind whispered. I was afraid you might persist in your self-imposed exile .
    “No,” she said. “I’ll go home now.”

4

    She was in a desert. The air shimmered, rippling the flat, dry land; the sun seemed to fill the sky. Bones were strewn on the ground; mounds of dirt hid other bodies. A large bird perched on a skull and stared at her with beady eyes. Lydee screamed.
    She was