“We wouldn’t have to be cautious—we’d know in advance what you can and cannot take—if you’d permit a chromosome analysis,” Laure hinted. “The laboratory aboard this ship can do it.”

Her cheeks turned more than ever coppery. She scowled. “We refused before,” she said.

“May I ask why?”

“It…violates integrity. Humans are not to be probed into.”

He had encountered that attitude before, in several guises. To the Kirkasanter—at least, to the Hobrokan clansman; the planet had other cultures—the body was a citadel for the ego, which by right should be inviolable. The feeling, so basic that few were aware of having it, had led to the formation of reserved, often rather cold personalities. It had handicapped if not stopped the progress of medicine. On the plus side, it had made for dignity and self-reliance; and it had caused this civilization to be spared professional gossips, confessional literature, and psychoanalysis.

“I don’t agree,” Laure said. “Nothing more is involved than scientific information. What’s personal about a DNA map?”

“Well…maybe. I shall think on the matter.” Graydal made an obvious effort to get away from the topic. She sipped her drink, smiled, and said, “Mm-m-m, this is a noble flavor.”

“Hoped you’d like it. I do. We have a custom in the Commonalty—” He touched glasses with her.

“Charming. Now we, when good friends are together, drink half what’s in our cups and then exchange them.”

“May I?”

She blushed again, but with pleasure. “Certainly. You honor me.”

“No, the honor is mine.” Laure went on, quite sincere: ‘‘What your people have done is tremendous. What an addition to the race you’ll be!”

Her mouth drooped. “If ever my folk may be found.”

“Surely—”

“Do you think we did not try?” She tossed off another gulp of her cocktail. Evidently it went fast to her unaccustomed head. “We did not fare forth blindly. Understand that Makt is not the first ship to leave Kirkasant’s sun. But the prior ones went to nearby stars, stars that can be seen from home. They are many. We had not realized how many more are in the Cloud Universe, hidden from eyes and instruments, a few light-years farther on. We, our ship, we intended to take the next step. Only the next step. Barely beyond that shell of suns we could see from Kirkasant’s system. We could find our way home again without trouble. Of course we could! We need but steer by those suns that were already charted on the edge of instrumental perception. Once we were in their neighborhood, our familiar part of space would be visible.”

She faced him, gripping his arm painfully hard, speaking in a desperate voice. “What we had not known, what no one had known, was the imprecision of that charting. The absolute magnitudes, therefore the distances and relative positions of those verge-visible stars…had not been determined as well as the astronomers believed. Too much haze, too much shine, too much variability. Do you understand? And so, suddenly, our tables were worthless. We thought we could identify some suns. But we were wrong. Flitting toward them, we must have bypassed the volume of space we sought…and gone on and on, more hopelessly lost each day, each endless day—