"Yes," said the translator. "To you, this is New Home, and to-gether we have community. You will help us if we need it, as you helped the others in the scarab that crashed?"

"Life helps life," said Z'eth. "We will do what we can."

"Our situation here is not easy." The image of the ambas-sador seemed to shrink a bit. "There are those with whom we disagree about our rights to this world, and consequently yours. They might attempt to cut off our supply routes from the other worlds. We may be forced to ask for a great deal of as-sistance in maintaining ourselves here."

Hope and fear burned together inside D'seun. There was clear acknowledgment that this was New Home. That would relax many of the ambassadors at his back. But there were words in this delectation that would raise the questions he needed openly debated. Here was the first crack in the New People's shell.

D'seun opened his muzzle to speak, but Z'eth spoke first. "This is our world, together. We will of course help you."

Ambassador Helen's image raised its hands again. "Thank you, Ambassadors all. We will talk more in the future. Hope-fully our engineers can find a way to make this easier."

"I am certain they can." Pride swelled Z'eth. She hadn't heard it, then.

That was all right. He would make her hear.

"Good-bye, then," said the words beneath Ambassador Helen."Good luck in your life."

Z'eth a apparently resisted the urge to trumpet her triumph, but she did spread her wings to the assembled ambassadors. "We have them. We have this world. Clean and clear, it is ours."

"But we still have a problem," said D'seun, deflating humbly.

"Ambassador?" Z'eth shrank to something close to her nor-mal size.

"The other New People. Their distant family on their other world." He swelled and lifted his muzzle, making sure his words touched all the Law Meet of New Home. "Did you not hear the ambassador? They are willing to dispute the clear and legitimate claims to this world, when they have no counter-claims in place. They are insane."

Vee watched D'seun and the other ambassadors spread their wings and rise gracefully into the sky like a dream of golden birds.

"I cannot believe you did that," she whispered harshly to the command board. "Holy God and Mother Creation, I cannot believe you did that!"

I can't believe I let you do that. Vee looked down at her own hands on the command board. Helen Failia once again sat in the pilot's seat.

"I didn't do anything," said Helen, firmly. "I just made sure we had backup in case the C.A.C. tries to force us to do things their way."

"Didn't do anything?" Vee stared at her in complete disbelief. "You just got an alien race involved in a pissant bid for revolution that they can't possibly understand. You called yourself an ambassador, for God's sake.

Do you know what that means to them? It means you speak for a whole city, that you have the right to make decisions for an entire population!"

"I do speak for a whole city," replied Helen.

"Did Michael and Ben know what you were going to say?" asked Josh from his position in the back of the cabin. They'd rigged up a monitoring station in the Discovery so that he wouldn't have to leave the scarab to keep an eye on the equipment."They knew." Helen nodded once. But she did not, Vee no-ticed, look at either of them.

"Did they approve?" inquired Josh.

Helen turned and gave him an icy glare. "That is none of your business."

"The U.N. could be doing anything," said Vee hoarsely. "They could be planning an embargo. They could be sending in soldiers!"

"Maybe." Helen's voice was flat and practical, just like the expression on her face. "That's their problem."

Vee got slowly to her feet, her hands shaking with rage. Josh scraped his chair back a little, and she saw his expression urg-ing her to caution.

She didn't care. He didn't get it. None of them got it.

"You idiot!" she rasped at Failia. "You stupid, bloody-minded, idiot! If we get them involved with this, they may de-cide the Terrans are greedy or crazy. Do you know what that means to them?"

"No." Helen regarded her calmly. "And neither do you. Sit down, Dr.

Hatch."

"And remember who I'm talking to?" shot back Vee. She swept out her hand. "How could I forget? I'm talking to a woman who is willing to get an entire alien race involved in her stupid little pissing games!"

Helen's face flushed a dark purple, even though her voice remained soft and calm. Her gnarled hands clenched the seat's arms.

"Dr. Hatch, thank you for your help in facilitating communi-cation with the People. I think, however, you had better be aboard the shuttle which will be returning your colleagues to Earth."

Josh laid a hand on Vee's shoulder. He opened his mouth to start to say something.

"No, Josh," said Vee, coldly. "I think you'd better distance yourself from me." She met Dr. Failia's gaze without blinking. "I think I'm a very bad person to be near right now."But if you think I'm going to let this happen, Dr. Failia, think again.

Think hard.

They held their ground, staring each other down. There was no way for her to win here, Vee knew, and her only exit op-tions lacked dignity. But a display of petulant vulnerability now might be beneficial later on.

God Almighty, Vee you have been doing this for too long.

"They shipped all the dissenters out of Bradbury too." She whirled around and stormed down the central corridor and into her cabin. The door swished shut behind her. She wished it would slam.

Vee dropped onto the edge of her couch and pressed her fingers against her temples. Think, think. This has to handled. You can't let them do this to T'sha. To the world. To everything. A sad realization came over her.

Nobody even asked about T'sha. We don't know what's happening to her.

She stayed like that until she heard the door swish open again. She unfolded herself. Josh stepped over the threshold and let the door close behind him.

"How's life outside?" she asked lightly.

He sat on the edge of the couch facing her. "Helen's calling up to the base to say mission accomplished. Adrian is going a little nuts checking and rechecking the soundness of the scarab." He glanced at the door. "I think he really does not want to be here."

Vee laughed, once. "That makes two of us." She looked down at her fingertips. "What are you going to do?"

Josh sighed and looked around the cabin, a little bleak, a lit-tle annoyed. Vee sympathized. This was a lousy place to be having this discussion. Neither one of them could stand up straight. The crash-couches weren't comfortable to sit up in. Her shoulders ached and she bet his did too, and who knew when Helen was going to come walking through the door to see what they were conspiring about. The whole situation stank.

"You know what's the worst?" Josh asked suddenly, as if reading her thoughts. Vee shook her head. "That I can't win. If I go home, I'm turningmy back on what might be the most im-portant thing that's ever happened to humanity. On the other hand, if the Venerans start anything, you know the propaganda machine on Mother Earth's going to paint Venera as a bunch of mindless Fullerite rebels. So, if I stay, it'll look like I'd rather be with traitors and aliens than my friends and family." He glanced at Vee and shook his head again. "It'll look like I'm a traitor."

"I know," she said. "It's pretty much a disaster." She reached up and pulled her veil off, picking out the pins and dropping them into her lap.

"Maybe the smart thing is to leave it to the disaster makers."

Josh's mouth quirked up. "You don't mean that."

She shrugged. "Not really." She wound the scarf through her fingers. It was real silk, a blazing paisley pattern. Amber, her next-to-youngest sister had bought it for her, for some birthday or the other. "What's going on here, it's stupid. If I can stop it, I have to."

"Because it's stupid?" he said quizzically. "Not because it's right, or wrong, but because it's stupid?"

He looked incredulous, and she supposed she couldn't blame him. It sounded hard, even to her. She searched herself for an explanation. "You know why I do my act? My Vee-the-Temperamental-Artiste act?"

"I have a few ideas." Josh leaned back on both hands. "Most of them have to do with getting attention."

Vee waved his words away with the end of her scarf. "When I hit college, the beauty fads had cycled back around to tall, skinny, and pale."

She spread her arms wide. "Ta-daa. Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I was it. I was the ideal. As a result, I had people sidling up to me and saying"- Vee leaned forward and gave an imaginary person a confi-dential nudge-" 'My dear, wherever did you get yourself done?' I'd say I'd never been 'done.' This"-she gestured at her torso-"was just me.

They'd look smug or sour, and not one of them would believe me. So"-she shrugged-"I started telling this long story about this bod shaper in the Republic of Manhattan and how much physical therapy I had to go through after he added ten centimeters to my height, and how he'd died last year in a boating accident, and I was just devastated because what if I needed to get short again..." She dropped her voice back to normal.

"Nobody with a brain believed me for a second, but the ones without abrain..." She tightened her hands around the scarf. "Right and wrong can be difficult, but stupidity is easy to spot, and this situation is brimming with stupidity."

The corner of Josh's mouth twitched. "Must be a nice view from up there."

"Maybe." Vee looked at the door. It remained closed. "Will you help anyway?"

Josh dropped his gaze. A dozen different kinds of indecision played across his face, one after another. Did he have family on Earth? Vee wondered. She didn't know. She'd never asked. She'd accepted the appearance of a bachelor researcher, with-out ties to bind or to anchor.

The realization hit Vee hard. She'd become so used to being judged by her surface appearance, she'd somewhere started doing the same with other people.

And here was the one person of unquestioned substance in this whole gigantic mess, and he might be about to slide through her fingers.

Josh sighed, interrupting her thoughts. "I will help. I think we'd better start by talking to Michael Lum. He's the steadiest member of the governing board, and has the fewest political interests."

Gratitude rushed through Vee. "Thank you," she breathed.

Josh studied her, looking for what she had not said. Maybe he found it.

She hoped he did. She hoped there'd be a chance to say it later. "You're welcome." His smile was small, but it reached his eyes. "What do we do now?"

Vee considered. Much to her relief, ideas sparked quickly to life. "You need to go out there and make obeisance. Make sure she knows you're still on her side so you can keep working on the mobile com drone. We may need to be able to talk to the people without interference." She gave him a wry grin. "No-body's got you down as a troublemaker yet. You'll be able to work the system more easily than I can."

"All right." Josh uncrossed his legs. "While I'm working behind the scenes, what are you going to do?"Vee grinned at him. "Make trouble."

"Ambassador Helen has with her own words condemned the New People's distant family as insane." D'seun flew with the Law Meet over the New People's transports and his words were heavy with assurance. "They would hold back the spread of life if they could. Do we permit New Home to grow in the presence of this threat? Do we refuse to do our best to help this life with which we now share our new world?" This life which cannot survive without its distant family, unless they turn to us, and then we will have the control we need. Yes, all could still be made right.

"Do we know that this is the best?" countered bloated K'ptai, overflying him without regard to rank. D'seun might be younger, but he had been an ambassador longer than she. "Our understanding is still incomplete."

"Helen is an ambassador." Z'eth steered her path between D'seun and K'ptai. "We must agree that her words are more ac-curate than any engineer's could be."

"Ambassadors, Ambassadors." P'eath lifted herself up until it seemed as if she would touch the clouds. "We are not children playing about the edges of our village. These are not appropri-ate questions for the open air.

We must return to our debate chamber, crude as it is, and make proper consideration of all matters there. Our haste is unseemly. We have not examined all the evidence." But D'seun did not miss the way she glanced up at Z'eth as she spoke, almost as if she were seeking per-mission to be reasonable.

"There is one question we might think on as we return, however," said D'seun softly, lifting himself up so they would all feel his words. "The New People require raw material from the world they call Earth to maintain themselves. We have many records of this fact. The distant family is threatening to withhold this. Do we deny our neighbors access to the raw ma-terials they need to survive and spread their own life because an insane family stands in their way?"

Silence spread across the wind. D'seun flapped his wings, taking himself outside the quieting circle of ambassadors and saw what he expected. They all looked to Z'eth. Could they all owe Z'eth? Had she brought every vote with her? And she had promised her vote to him.If that was true, it was done. Even if T'sha returned this minute, she could not ruin what he grew here. The New Peo-ple would be contained or destroyed. The health of New Home was assured.

D'seun swelled. All was finally well.

Helen watched the People filter into their dirigibles and de-part. She felt empty, as if somehow drained of purpose.

Not surprising, I suppose. I just gave the world away. She brushed her hair back behind her ears and tried not to hear Vee's accusations ringing in her ears.

The radio crackled to life. "Scarab Ten, this is Venera Base," came Tori's voice.

Helen leaned forward and touched the Reply key. "This is Scarab Ten.

Go ahead, Venera."

"I'm glad we got you, Dr. Failia. There's a message here in-coming from Earth, and they won't talk to anyone else on the governing board."

Won't talk to anyone else? Is it Su? "Can you send it down?"

"It'll be audio only, but yes, I can."

Helen pushed herself up a little straighter in the chair on pure reflex.

"Okay, Tori, put it through."

"Everything okay up here, Dr. Failia?" Adrian's head poked around the corner from the analysis nook.

"Fine." She picked a coffee cup up out of its holder and stared at the dregs in the bottom. "It's just the C.A.C. calling to tell me I'm in contempt, I'm sure." Or to find out what I think I'm doing, at the very least. She tried to remember whether the cup was hers or not, and couldn't. She put it back.

"Helen?" said the voice from the intercom. "This is Su. I have Secretary Kent with me. You've raised a great deal of concern with your... abrupt disconnection from the commit-tee meeting."I'm sorry to have to drag you into this Su. "Good afternoon, Madame Secretary Su."

Venus spread out in front of her. Beta Regio lifted itself out of the ragged plain. The plateau was the color of ashy coals in the twilight, but with bright ribbons of lava lacing its side from the volcano that forced itself up from the tableland's edge. It steamed and smoked in the wavering air and would continue to for centuries to come.

Unless, of course, the People wanted to do something else to it. Could they stop a volcano? They could travel instantly across light-years, and they were talking about transforming an entire world. What was one volcano compared to all that?

"Dr. Failia," came Secretary Kent's voice. "I'm not going to turn this conversation into a total farce by informing you that you've been charged with contempt of a governmental com-mittee."

I'm so glad.

"What I am going to tell you is that in accordance with the articles of incorporation for Venera Base, you are being re-moved as head of the governing board."

"By whom, Madame Secretary?" asked Helen.

The time delay dragged out. Helen watched the smoke of the burning mountain. She remembered her first glimpse of the volcano. She'd been dropped down with Gregory Schoma in a very crude version of what would become a scarab. Theirs was more like a cross between a turtle and the original lunar rover. It was cramped as hell, they were strapped in to the point of suffocation, and despite the shielding, despite the scrubbers, despite everything, the cabin still smelled strongly of rotten eggs.