“No no. A tour, for Jackie. Diplomatic mission.”

“Ah. Will you visit Uranus?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see Miranda.”

“Me too. That’s one reason I’m going.”

“Ah.”

They crossed a shallow creek, stepping on exposed flat stones. Birds called, insects whirred. Sunlight filled the entire crater bowl now, but under the forest canopy it was still cool, the air shot with parallel columns and wires of slanting yellow light. Russell crouched to stare into the creek they had crossed.

“What was my mother like as a child?” Zo asked.

“Jackie?”

He thought about it. A long time passed. Just as Zo was concluding with exasperation that he had forgotten the question, he said, “She was a fast runner. She asked a lot of questions. Why why why. I liked that. She was the oldest of that generation of ectogenes, I think. The leader anyway.”

“Was she in love with Nirgal?”

“I don’t know. Why, have you met Nirgal?”

“I think so, yes. With the ferals once. What about with Peter Clayborne, was she in love with him?”

“In love? Later, maybe. When they were older. In Zygote, I don’t know.”

“You aren’t much help.”

“No.”

“Forgotten it all?”

“Not all. But what I remember is— hard to characterize. I remember Jackie asking about John Boone one day, just in the way you’re asking about her. More than once. She was pleased to be his granddaughter. Proud of him.”

“She still is. And I’m proud of her.”

“And— I remember her crying, once.”

“Why? And don’t say I don’t know!”

This balked him. Finally he looked up at her, with a smile almost human. “She was sad.”

“Oh very good!”

“Because her mother had left. Esther?”

“That’s right.”

“Kasei and Esther broke up, and Esther left for— I don’t know. But Kasei and Jackie stayed in Zygote. And one day she got to school early, on a day I was teaching. She asked why a lot. And this time too, but about Kasei and Esther. And then she cried.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I don’t. . . . ‘Nothing, I suppose. I didn’t know what to say. Hmm. . . . I thought she perhaps should have gone with Esther. The mother bond is crucial.”

“Come on.”

“You don’t agree? I thought all you young natives were sociobiologists.”

“What’s that?”

“Um— someone who believes that most cultural traits have a biological explanation.”

“Oh no. Of course not. We’re much freer than that. Mothering can be any kind of thing. Sometimes mothers are nothing but incubators.”

“I suppose so—”

“Take my word for it.”

“. . . But Jackie cried.”