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it, everything was quite different. Instead of the fascinating ever-changing facades of businesses and homes, Kubiilikaan was surrounded by a hodgepodge of partially completed structures of stone, wood, mud, even steel. Within each there seemed to be a somewhat solid core, but all around it sprawled construction and destruction in various phases of completion or dilapidation. Whatever talents the godlike Friends had, building and the design of buildings was evidently not one of them at this point in their lives.
    The voices congregated at the seaside, and she saw that there was a dancing platform erected down there, lit by many tiny lights of the same sort that were in the time wall. Their festive air was somewhat diminished by the fact that they blinked as if in alarm rather than twinkling. Twinkle technology must have developed later, she thought, since the lights in the ballroom she’d seen definitely twinkled.
    She skirted the seashore and made her way to the spaceport. A half dozen ships stood in dock, but only one of them was loading supplies. A Friend she had never seen before supervised the technicians equipping the ship. She didn’t see the one she’d overheard. Perhaps she simply didn’t recognize his younger self.
    How would she get Pircifir to take her along? Maybe she’d tell him Akasa and Odus had ordered her to go as part of her education—to see how she’d respond to alien environments or something.
    She approached cautiously, and the supervisor glanced at her, then returned his attention to his work.
    That was unexpected. In her time people were somewhat used to her, even though she had never been allowed out much, but here, would she not be a novelty? Perhaps other Linyaari had traveled back to this time? That would be disappointing. If she was going to go to all this trouble and brave alien dangers and that sort of thing, she wanted to be the first.
    While she was deciding how to ask to go on Pircifir’s mission, he glanced down at her again. “So, how’d you come up with that guise? It’s certainly original. I can’t even tell who you are.”
    Oho! So he thought she was one of the Friends in disguise? That would be handy. “It’s something new I’m trying out,” she said. “We’re hoping it will be a handy shape for space travel. I need to go along with you and try it out.”
    He shrugged. He didn’t care who she was. Theirs was a closed society, and he felt confident she would turn out to be someone he knew. Some of the Friends had political rivals, but their squabbles were short-lived. They had each lived a very long time, she knew that, and expected to live a lot longer, in good health and without perceptible aging. They didn’t seem to have any children, but she didn’t know if that was by choice or if they were sterile. She didn’t think that was why, since they seemed to have everything they needed to create babies in the lab and had tried several combinations to create her own race. Odus had made advances and remarks about mating with her in order to jumpstart the Linyaari race. He certainly didn’t seem to think he was sterile. She’d never thought to probe into the matter. Mating matters had not concerned her earlier because she was too young. Once Odus had tried to interest her in the subject, she avoided any natural inclination she might have had in that direction. It was just too—what did Jaya and Hap say? Yucky. That was it. It was too yucky to contemplate. It had become much more interesting when she was among her own kind, or even among human males close to her own age.
    She certainly hoped Pircifir would not be as interested in that sort of thing, especially if she were going to embark on a space voyage with him. So it was handy that he thought she was a Friend. Their guises could cross genders, as their romantic interests often did, so if Pircifir made advances, she could say she was what he did not prefer or that she had a mate for the time being or—well, she