Tony, with Leo's valise clutched in his lower right hand, swooped between Leo and Van Atta in the cylindrical corridor and braked to a halt in front of them with three deft touches on the passing hand grips.

"Mr. Van Atta, can I introduce Mr. Graf to somebody on the way to Visitor's Wing? It won't be much out of the way—Hydroponics."

Van Atta's lips pursed, then arranged themselves in a kindly smile. "Why not? Hydroponics is on the itinerary for this afternoon anyway."

"Thank you, sir," cried Tony, and darted off with enthusiasm to open the air safety seal before them at the end of the corridor, and linger to close it again behind them on the other side.

Leo fastened his attention on his surroundings, as a less-rude alternative to surreptitiously studying the boy. The Habitat was indeed inexpensively constructed, mostly prefab units variously combined. Not the most aesthetically elegant design—a certain higgledy-piggledy randomness indicated an organic growth pattern since the Habitat's inception, units stuck on here and there to accommodate new needs. But its very dullness incorporated safety advantages Leo approved—the interchangeability of airseal systems, for example.

They passed dormitory wings, food preparation and dining areas, a workshop for small repairs—Leo paused to gaze down its length, then had to hurry to catch up with his guide. Unlike most free-fall living spaces in which Leo had worked, there was no effort here to maintain an arbitrary up-and-down to ease the visual psychology of the inhabitants. Most chambers were cylindrical in design, with work spaces and storage efficiently packing the walls and the center left free of obstruction for the passage of—well, one could hardly call them pedestrians.

En route they passed a couple of dozen of the—the four-handed people, the new model workers, Tony's folk, whatever they were called—did they have an official designation? Leo stared covertly, breaking off his gaze whenever one looked back, which was often; they stared openly at him, and whispered among themselves.

He could see why Van Atta dubbed them chimps. They were thin-hipped, lacking the powerful gluteal locomotor muscles of people with legs. The lower set of arms tended to be more muscular than the uppers in both males and females, power-grippers, and thus appeared falsely short by comparison to the uppers: bowlegged, if he squinted them to a blur.

They were dressed mostly in the sort of comfortable, practical T-shirt and shorts that Tony wore, evidently color-coded, for Leo passed a cluster of them all in yellow hovering intently around a normal human in GalacTech coveralls who had a pump unit half-apart, lecturing on its function and repair. Leo thought of a flock of canaries, of flying squirrels, of monkeys, of spiders, of swift bright lizards of the sort that run straight up walls.