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calm had infected her, or maybe it was her own bravery. Lucy had always been brave. Without discussion, they walked from the bridge to the docking bay, where the Vine ship would join theirs and the aliens would come aboard.
    He only hoped the Vines hadn’t yet interfered with the shuttle full of infected Furs. And that he could find a way to explain to them the unthinkable consequences if they did.

4
    MIRA CITY
    O utside the Mausoleum, the anniversary celebration was still in full swing. Inside, the triumvirate worked on the message for David Parker’s people to send to the Crucible. Then they composed a public announcement for MiraNet. Ashraf Shanti ended the emergency meeting, and Alex asked Siddalee Brown to take Jake home.
    “Lau-Wah, wait. You, too, Ashraf,” she said as they prepared to leave her small, cluttered office. They’d met there instead of tha mayor’s office because the latter faced the park, with all its anniversary noise: shouting, singing, laughter, dance music, firecrackers. Alex’s office, on the opposite side of the ponderous building, had it’s one window open to a stretch of experimental plant beds. Even so, revelers had clearly been here before moving on to within earshot of the speech platform. In the crop beds were trampled flowers and overturned benches. There wasn’t much actual debris; Mira City recycled everything possible and bottles, cans, and paper were too precious to waste. But various items of clothing littered the ground: was that a pile of wraps by the pond? Siddalee would grumble for days.
    “Is something else wrong?” Ashraf said. He usually anticipated something wrong. Well, this time he was correct.
    “Yes,” Alex said. “While I was supposed to be giving a speech, I was at the genetics lab. Lau-Wah, four of those dissident kids from Hope of Heaven broke in and loosed a lion from its cage. It was menacing four of the Mira lab techs, also all Chinese. They—”
    “Yat-Shing Wong?” Lau-Wah said, his face stony.
    “Yes.” So Lau-Wah already knew. Something, anyway.
    “Who’s that?” Ashraf said fearfully.
    “A misguided idealist,” Lau-Wah said. “Was anybody killed?”
    “No, because… because…”
    “Sit down, Alex. Do you want a glass of water?”
    “I’m fine. It’s just a lot for one day.” A ship from Earth, the disproved surge of fear that the ship might have been Furs, the hatred at the lab: a hatred such as Alex hadn’t suspected existed in Mira. Then the long, sleek, purple-blue body of the leaping lion, the girl with her ringed hands over her face, the spear arcing through the air and catching the lion in midflight. The alien Fur balanced on its jumping tail. Nan Frayne casually cruel in lacing the boy to her stick, with a supposed enemy of all humanity by her side.
    “Tell it from the beginning,” Lau-Wah said with a detachment that steadied her. She hated to appear weak.
    When she’d finished, Ashraf said, “Where are the kids from Hope of Heaven now?”
    “I turned all eight over to Guy until we decided what to say publicly about the ship. They were all there when Nan Frayne made her announcement. Ashraf, did you authorize her to bring a Fur to the city celebration?”
    “She never asked. And I didn’t anticipate it.”
    Alex managed a smile. “Well, no, one wouldn’t.”
    Lau-Wah said, “Has the Fur left Mira?”
    “I don’t know,” Ashraf said. “I didn’t even know it was here.”
    Alex said, “My guess is that Nan Frayne vanished back into the wilderness with the Fur, before anyone from the Cheyenne delegation realized it had come.”
    “I’m glad,” Ashraf said with sudden force, “that we only have this sort of event every fifty years.”
    Despite herself, Alex laughed. Lau-Wah didn’t. He said, “I propose we comlink Security Chief Davenport to let the lab techs go. By now MiraNet has made the public announcement of the Crucible. I’d like permission from you two to talk to Yat-Shing Wong alone.”
    Alex