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who had lent me her Mars suit for my trip to the rim, and I began to follow her about.
    “You’re like those old-timey pets,” said Chili Mech. “Some little cat or dog. Every time I turn around, there you are. What’s the attraction?”
    “You know things,” I told her. “You talk about things.”
    “What things?”
    “The Gentherans. Tell me about the Gentherans.”
    “Hasn’t your didactibot taught you about the Gentherans?”
    “Not really, no.”
    “Well, let’s see. When the Gentherans discovered us, they told us the Earth biome was terminal, they told us how we could save it; but they didn’t think we would, so they gave us some spaceships so Earth could set up a few colonies to preserve our species.”
    “Why?”
    “What do you mean, why?”
    “I mean, what was their reason for helping us? Did they just like us humans, or what?”
    “The Keeper knows, kid, I don’t.”
    “Who’s the Keeper?”
    “It’s just a saying the Gentherans have. Anything nobody knows, they say, ‘The Keeper knows.’ Then you say, ‘Well, ask the Keeper,’ and they say, ‘You can only reach the Keeper by walking seven roads at once.’
    “Nobody can do that,” I said.
    “That’s the point. It’s like saying, when hell freezes over or when pigs fly. Pigs are extinct animals that didn’t have wings…”
    “I know that,” I said, somewhat offended.
    “Anyhow, the Gentherans insisted we set up one government for Earth, and one government for the off-Earth humans, because if some predatory race found us, all our political subdivisions would get eaten for lunch. ISTO only deals with one government per planet or group of planets, and if a planet doesn’t have one government, the Combines just swallow all the local governments up. That threat scared people badly enough that Earthgov got voted in very quickly, and as soon as the colonies were running, they set up Dominion Central Authority. DCA has representatives from each of the six colonies plus one each from the little stations on Luna and Mars, plus a bunch of Gentherans, because they were responsible for helping set up the colonies.”
    “Someone told me you’re the Mars delegate to Dominion.”
    “I am that. I’ve been here since the Gentherans picked Mars as the site for Dominion Central Authority and offered to build the DCA structure, around 2067.”
    “That’s the same year my mother went to Phobos, with her parents.She was ten years old. My father got to Phobos fifteen years later, and I was born in 2084.”
    Chili Mech shuddered. “Lucky man. He got out just in time. The eighties were bad years!”
    “How do you mean?” I sat on the floor and crossed my legs, looking up at the little woman. “I never heard about that?”
    “Well, 2080 was the year the Mercan Combine discovered the human colony on Thairy. They showed up in Earth orbit. You’ve seen the ships. Compared to the little Gentheran ships, they’re enormous, like planetoids! They said they were from Interstellar Trade Organization. I can remember Earth people being all bug-eyed like kids at a carnival, here the splendid ETs were, come to solve our problems.
    “Well, that didn’t last long, just until the Combine and the Federation had a chance to examine Earth and decide it wouldn’t be worth their while to negotiate a trade agreement because we had nothing to trade. Earth was falling apart, and it was too late to fix anything.”
    She pursed her lips, as though about to spit. “Then they dropped the bomb. Since we were out on the edge of nowhere, a very expensive destination to get to, they were planning to hang around in orbit until the imminent collapse occurred and mine the wreckage for scrap after everyone was dead.”
    My mouth was open, as it had been for some time. “They said it just like that?”
    Chili Mech looked over my head into space, slowly nodding. “Just like that, with nine-tenths of Earth’s population watching and listening. After we died, their