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than the stuff they'd furnished the Giyts. Nor did the Hagbarths have nearly as nice a location, half a kilometer away from the lakeshore, with no real view out their windows—unless you counted the rather hideous shape of a towering Petty-Prime barracks next door. So whatever else the Hagbarths might do, no one could say they were pampering themselves at the expense of their charges.
    When she came back with the lemonade Olse settled herself on the couch to face him, looking motherly and hospitable. "There's one thing," she said. "You called the planet Tupelo, but the eeties don't call it that. They call it the Peace Planet. They get bent if we don't."
    "Oh, right," Giyt said, remembering. "I thought at the time I might've said something wrong—"
    "Not wrong, for heaven's sake. That's what the ET-Huntsville people named it when they discovered it, and we can call it what we like, can't we? But the eeties get antsy if you don't go along with their name. As I guess you noticed. How's the lemonade?" When he had reassured her that it was fine, she added, "Listen, Hoak was thinking about something, if you're interested. Hoak thought you might want to take a look at some of the off-island facilities. You know, the power plant on Energy Island, that sort of thing? Or even the mines and things on the polar continent. He said he'd order you a chopper any time you want to go to the island. You'll have to take the suborbital to visit the mines, but you could go along when the next shift goes there. Or we could order a flight up there for you. Take Rina if she'd like to go; probably you'd both enjoy seeing more of Tupelo than this one island."
    "Maybe so," he said, dazzled at the thought of having a high-speed suborbital transport ordered up for him any time he wanted to fly a few thousand kilometers away. "I'll talk to Rina."
    "You do that, hon. And listen, Hoak and I just want to say that you're doing a wonderful job, fitting right in the way you're doing. But that's our way, isn't it? I mean the Earth humans here. We pitch right in, don't make waves, don't start trouble for anyone—"
    "Like that Delt, you mean?"
    "Including the Delts," she said, nodding vigorously as she stood up. "They're all eeties, so what do you expect? Anyway, come see us again, won't you? Maybe we'll have a little dinner party. Now I'd better get busy and try to catch up on our reports back to the home office."
    On the way back home, Giyt thought about the trip to the polar continent. He had no idea what it would be like. Cold, yes. According to the pictures he'd seen it was almost as ice-covered as Earth's Antarctica, and just as bleak. When he told Rina about the invitation, sure enough, she was thrilled. She was standing in their front yard, talking over the fence to Lupe from next door, with a couple of Lupe's kids splashing in their wading pool. "I'd love it, Shammy!" Rina cried, and Lupe confirmed:
    "You will. Matya worked up at the Pole a couple of seasons, before the kids began to come, and I went up sometimes for weekends. It's nice. Great accommodations, and they have a really good health club—in the Earth-human part, I mean. I guess the other people have all that stuff, too, but I never got around to seeing it. And speaking of the kids coming . . ."
    She looked inquiringly at Rina, who shook her head. "I haven't had a chance to tell him yet. Come on inside and have a cup of tea, why don't you? You can watch the kids through the window."
     
    What it was that Rina hadn't told him didn't get told just then, either, because Rina disappeared into the kitchen to make the tea for the guest, leaving Giyt to be the gracious host. Since Rina liked the woman, Giyt made an effort to be hospitable. Rina had told him all sorts of stories about the de Mirs. She had been charmed by the fact that they had invented a new surname to replace their old ones—so that, Rina said, they would all have the same name, and the kids would always be reminded of where they