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Sam was the head of the Political Liason Department between the Outer Satellite Diplomatic Corps and Outer Satellite Intelligence; and had all the privileges (and training) of both: he had governmental immunity in practically every political dominion of the inhabited Solar System. Far from being “oppressed” by the system, Sam had about as much power as a person could have, in anything short of an elected position. Indeed, he had a good deal more power than any number of elected officials; it came home the next time Sam did: some outmoded zoning regulations had been plaguing the co-op and three others near them for more than a year (the mixed-sex co-ops, in which three-sevenths of the population lived, tended to get more reasonable treatment, someone had grumbled; someone else had grumbled that wasn’t true), and the construction for the laying of some new private-channel cable suddenly brought the zoning plan to the fore. Threatened with eviction again? But Sam, apparently, had walked into some office, asked to see three files, and instructed them to throw away half the contents of one of them; and there went the contradictory parts of the zoning regulations. As Lawrence said, “It would have taken the rest of us a year of petitions, injunctions, trials and what-all to get those zoning codes—that were illegal anyway—straightened out.” Bron didn’t like that either. But even if Sam was jovial, handsome, brilliant, and powerful, Sam was still living in a nonspecified co-op (nonspecified as to sexual preferences: there was a gay male co-op on the corner; a straight one three blocks away; yes, just over two fifths of the population lived in mixed co-ops, male/female/straight/gay, and there were three of those ranged elegantly one street beyond that, and a heterosexual woman’s co-op just behind them). If Sam had any strong sexual identifications, straight or gay, there would have been a dozen coops delighted to have him. The fact that Sam chose to live in an all-male nonspecific probably meant that, underneath the friendliness, the intelligence, the power, he was probably rotten with neurosis; behind him would be a string of shattered communal attempts and failed sexualizationships—like most men in their thirties who would choose such a place to live. This illusion lasted another month. No, one of the reasons that Sam was away for so long between visits (Sam explained one evening) was that he was part of a thriving family commune (the other fifth of the population) of five men, eight women, and nine children in Lux (on Iape-tus), the larger of the two satellite cities to bear the name.
    Sam would spend a week there, three days here on Triton, and four days various other places, which is how his fortnights were divided up. At that, Bron (they were all, Bron, Sam, and Lawrence, drinking in one of the common room conversation niches) had challenged Sam (rather drunkenly): “Then what are you hanging out with a bunch of deadbeats, neurotics, mental retards, and nonaffectives like us for, six days a month? Does it make you feel superior? Do we remind you how wonderful you are?” (Several others in the commons had looked over; two, Bron could tell, were staunchly not looking.) Sam said, perfectly deadpan, “In the one-gender nonspecified co-ops, people tend to be a lot less political-minded. On the job, I’m in the middle of the Outer Satellite/Inner Worlds confusions twenty-nine hours a day. At one of your quote normal unquote co-ops, straight, gay, mixed, or single, it would be war talk all day long and I’d never have a moment’s peace.”
    “You mean,” Bron had countered, “here at Serpent’s House we’re too tied up in ourselves to care what goes on in the rest of the universe?”
    “You think so?” Sam asked, and considered: “I always thought we had a pretty good bunch of guys here.” And then, very wisely, Sam had excused himself from the argument—even Bron had to admit it was getting silly. And