Rachel sighed. “Good sign? Doesn’t feel that way.”

To her surprise, Catkejen laughed. “To expect the world to treat you fairly because you’re a good person, my new friend, is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.” Rachel laughed. It felt good.

“Okay, here’s our porch swing moment,” Catkejen said.

“What?”

“Bonding moment. Look, ain’t no such thang as a perfect Prefect.”

The sudden lapsing into a relaxed long-vowel accent alerted Rachel’s ear. “Uh…”

Catkejen raised an eyebrow. “Where from?”

A wary eye-move. “South.”

“South what?”

“North… America.”

Catkejen slapped the narrow kitchen counter. “Nailed it. Love that slidin’ suthrun accent. I’m American, too, from”—shifting to a clipped, higher tone—“Baaston. Massassachusetts.”

“Those Welcome people—”

“Smarter than they look, yeah.” More flat vowels.

Catkejen gave a little dance. Rachel echoed it, on the balls of her feet. Easy in low grav. Catkejen ended with a quick leap that took her to within a sliver of the ceiling. She landed and said, “Grab new duds, let’s get some suds.”

It turned out “suds” meant beer, a tipple term. Quite a lot of it. Rachel did not know how much until its effects were clear. Or unclear, which proved to be better. Until the morning. Which came too soon. Plenty soon. She wobbled through a breakfast that was mostly vegetables, found in the tiny refrigerator/thermer. Catkejen had already sprinted out to work, leaving a wall note: Nail it! See you 5ish.

Optimistic, indeed. More likely I’ll be using that plastic ticket to get on the orbital shuttle, bound back to Earthside. She took a deep breath and put such thoughts aside.

Rachel had some time before her wrist told her when the Prefect would inspect her. She wanted to see the Lunar landscape, which she had barely glimpsed at the landing area, so she took an elevator to the surface.

The main corridor was crowded. She wore the translator glasses she had dutifully bought Earthside. They proved essential when among nonAnglish speakers. A feeder line across the bottom view gave rough paraphrasings in scrolling yellow. Most of the dancing lines were talk about work at the mining operation, gossip, the usual. After all, she thought, I’m here to learn to interpret alien cultures, so this is kinda like that. There were some Chinese about, allowed in from the other polar region. Their staccato modified Mandarin darted like punctuation amid the flowing Anglish tide. Since the collapse of the last surviving Red regime, they mostly kept quiet, as if biding their time before their next big mistake.

Rachel made her way toward a dome overlooking the broad plain surrounding the complex. She had to be a tad careful, even though the 0.17 g was in principle easy on the body. It was awfully easy to bound upward, standing out above the moving crowd by arcing up to the ceiling. She could stride in long coasting steps, or else do a sort of slo-mo dance on the balls of her feet, for even more speed. The key was to find a liquid grace in it, so she didn’t look like a newbie, though she was.