When she was able to get a word in edgewise Kate asked if the office would be open for much longer that evening. Office hours were from ten in the morning until nine at night, this information given to her in a voice thrilled at the prospect of recruiting another true believer into the army of the righteous. When she managed finally to get off the phone Kate pulled the Anchorage map out of the side pocket, found the street name on the card, and set off.

They were located on one of those ubiquitous four-space Anchorage strip malls. Gaea took up the middle two spaces, and everything looked very bright and shiny and new through the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the wall that faced the street. Kate pulled the Subaru into a spot in front of the double glass doors and looked at the logo printed in translucent paint across them both. It was a larger drawing of the logo on McKenzie‘s business card and the leaflet in Gammons‘s room, a kneeling goddess dressed in flowing blue-green robes, head bent over a globe cradled in her hands. The goddess was sort of a Euraisamerind racial blend designed to offend as few as possible. The Earth was resplendent in its customary blue-andwhite regalia. Beneath the image was the name GAEA, and beneath it the slogan, One people, one planet.

It was a clean image, unfussy, the artist had been restrained from doing too much, and it was very attractive. Kate was reminded again that the Niniltna Native Association had yet to decide upon its own new logo, following the grand plan she had instigated at the last annual shareholders‘ meeting in January. She sighed. The glass door with half a goddess on it swung out smoothly and heavily, all by itself announcing Gaea to be an organization with weight and gravitas. Money well spent. Inside, the front two-thirds of the room was filled with desks and tables. Volunteers were on the phones and computers. It wasn‘t a hive of industry but there was enough of a hum of activity so as to give the impression that Gaea was an organization with a serious base of support.

The last third of the space against the back wall was partitioned into a small kitchen, a bathroom, and the boss‘s office. Only the bathroom had a door you couldn‘t see through. The first impression you got walking in was transparency. Kate applauded their decorator.

May I help you?

It was the same voice that had answered the phone, and it belonged to a sweet young thing in a cropped top and low-rider jeans, who wore far too much black eyeliner and had punked purple hair shorter than Kate‘s held back by a wide band of rainbow spangles. Small silver hoops traveled from one lobe to the top of her ear, while its fellow sported a single hoop six inches in diameter that kept catching on the shoulder of her top.

She was totally styling, and Kate almost said so but caught herself in time. Hi, I‘m looking for—