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Heemskirk’s fulsomeflattery with some amusing and self-depreciatory remark. Today he couldn’t think of one. He merely shrugged and bowed, earning a frown from the fat man. He knew what that was due to: the same reason that had made van Heemskirk present the delegates to him, not the other way around, although their relative status on their home worlds was probably far superior to Thorkild’s on Earth. In van Heemskirk’s eyes, Earthside prestige counted above all else. He never tired of reminding people that Earth got there first.
    Got where? To what purpose?
    Cautious, the rank and file were spreading across the vantage platform, whispering in awe at the sheer scale of the transit-hall. So might they well; it was the largest building on any human planet. But Thorkild had heard such ooh-ing and ahh-ing before. He concentrated his attention on the two he had just been introduced to.
    Mother Uskia: a flat-faced, dark woman in a tight white shirt and tighter white trousers cut to show off a bulging melon-belly. Pregnant, and proud of it. On Ipewell fertility was emblematic of social status—hence the honorific Mother before her name. Clipped to her collar was a microphone, and a thin flex led from it down the open neck of her shirt, vanishing between fat mounds of breast. Presumably she was making a sonic record of her trip to Earth, though why she should prefer a sound-only to the equally available and more informative solido version was a mystery.
    And Lancaster Long: immensely tall, a hand’s breadth more than Thorkild himself, wearing a splendid purple robe and a cylindrical hat of white fur. His complexion was rather sallow. His high-arched nose and sharp dark eyes lent him the appearance of a bird of prey.
    Being awestruck could be left to underlings. Boththese leaders moved to the furthest edge of the platform and gazed down, evaluating what they saw. After a pause, Long said, “How much bigger is this place than the station on Mars that we were brought to first?”
    “In terms of handling capacity? Sixty or eighty thousand times,” Thorkild answered.
    There was a silence. Shortly van Heemskirk began to fidget. He did not easily endure inactivity. “Uh… Jorgen!” he suggested. “Tell our friends about the System. Whatever you think would interest them. After all, it’s most impressive, isn’t it?”
    What would they not already know? What could van Heemskirk imagine they did not know? They had been under instruction before they left home, then on Mars, then again since being forwarded to Earth… But Thorkild obeyed, and began to recite worn facts, parrot-style.
    “The station on Mars doesn’t have to be any larger. It’s dedicated solely to the needs of people like your-self who have to undergo quarantine and prepare themselves psychologically for a first visit to Earth. Apart from the times when we are newly in contact with an aspirant world, it’s on standby—idling, as you might say—except when someone reports a risk of epidemic disease. That’s the one thing we are constantly on guard against: the chance that some microorganism on a world we have not yet fully explored might prove to be fatal to human beings on an interstellar scale. Then volunteers present themselves and from our computer resources we construct the necessary counter-agent. We haven’t failed to do so yet, and it’s as well, because once your worlds are spliced into the Bridge System you’ll have unlimited access to it. Some idea of its scale can be gained by looking around this hall. Here we have Bridges direct to all the inhabited worlds, plus well over a hundred more which link usto the starships constantly hunting for others that we haven’t yet re-contacted. We build on a generous scale. We expect our present equipment to remain adequate for at least another hundred years.”
    His words ground to a halt. He was acutely aware of Mother Uskia’s microphone, and of her intense, suspicious manner. What could someone