But the epiphany never made it through the barrier. A feeling only, cloudy and huge— then the pressure on her mind passed, and the afternoon took on its ordinary pewter luminance. She walked home feeling full, oceans of clouds in her chest, full to bursting with something like frustration, or a kind of anguished joy. Again she told Michel what had happened, and he nodded; he had a name for this too:

But all of his symptomatic categories suddenly seemed to Maya only to mask what was really happening to her. Sometimes she got very confused; sometimes she thought she understood things that did not exist; sometimes she forgot things, forever; and sometimes she got very, very scared. And these were the things Michel was trying to contain with his names and his combinatoires.

• • •

Almost seen. Almost understood. And then back into the world of light and time. And there was nothing for it but to go on. And so on she went. Enough days passed and she could forget what it had felt like, forget just how frightened she had been, or how close to joy. It was a strange enough thing that it was easy to forget. Just live in la vie quotidienne, pay attention to daily life with its work, friends, visitors.

Among other visitors were Charlotte and Ariadne, who came down from Mangala to consult with Maya about the worsening situation with Earth. They went out to breakfast on the corniche, and talked about Dorsa Brevia’s concerns. Essentially, despite the fact that the Minoans had left the Free Mars coalition because they disliked its attempt to dominate the outer satellite settlements, among other things, the Dorsa Brevians had come to think Jackie had been right about immigration, at least to an extent.

“It’s not that Mars is approaching its human carrying capacity,” Charlotte said, “they’re wrong about that. We could tighten our belts, densify the towns. And these new floating towns on the North Sea could accommodate a lot of people, they’re a sign of how many more could live here. They have practically no impact, except on harbor towns, in some senses. But there’s room for more harbor towns, on the North Sea anyway.”

“Many more,” Maya said. Despite the Terran incursions, she did not like to hear anti-immigrant talk in any form. But Charlotte was back on the executive council, and for years she had supported a close relation to Earth, so this was hard for her to say:

“It isn’t the numbers. It’s who they are, what they believe. The assimilation troubles are getting really severe.”

Maya nodded. “I’ve read about them on the screen.”

“Yes. We’ve tried to integrate newcomers every way we know, but they clump, naturally, and you can’t just break them up.”

“No.”