He was shown the sights of Nio Esseia: a city of five million—a quarter the population of his whole planet. They took him to Capitol Square and showed him the high bronze doors of the Directorate, the seat of the Government of A-Io; he was permitted to witness a debate in the Senate and a committee meeting of the Directors. They took him to the Zoo, the National Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry. They took him to a school, where charming children in blue and white uniforms sang the national anthem of A-Io for him. They took him through an electronic parts factory, a fully automated steel mill, and a nuclear fusion plant, so that he could see how efficiently a propertarian economy ran its manufacturing and power supply. They took him through a new housing development put up by the government so that he could see how the state looked after its people. They took him on a boat tour down the Sua Estuary, crowded with shipping from all over the planet, to the sea. They took him to the High Courts of Law, and he spent a whole day listening to civil and criminal cases being tried, an experience that left him bewildered and appalled; but they insisted that he should see what there was to be seen, and be taken wherever he wanted to go. When he asked, with some diffidence, if he might see the place where Odo was buried, they whisked him straight to the old cemetery in the Trans-Sua district. They even allowed newsmen from the disreputable papers to photograph him standing there in the shade of the great old willows, looking at the plain, well-kept tombstone:

Laia Asieo Odo

698—769

To be whole is to be part

true voyage is return.

He was taken to Rodarred, the seat of the Council of World Governments, to address the plenary council of that body. He had hoped to meet or at least see aliens there, the ambassadors from Terra or from Hain, but the schedule of events was too tightly planned to permit this. He had worked hard on his speech, a plea for free communication and mutual recognition between the New World and the Old. It was received with a ten-minute standing ovation. The respectable weeklies commented on it with approval, calling it a “disinterested moral gesture of human brotherhood by a great scientist,” but they did not quote from it, nor did the popular papers. In fact, despite the ovation, Shevek had the curious feeling that nobody had heard it.

He was given many privileges and entrees: to the Light Research Laboratories, the National Archives, the Nuclear Technology Laboratories, the National Library in Nio, the Accelerator in Meafed, the Space Research Foundation in Drio. Though everything he saw on Urras made him want to see more, still several weeks of the tourist life was enough: it was all so fascinating, startling, and marvelous that at last it became quite overwhelming. He wanted to settle down at the University and work and think it all over for a while. But for a last day’s sightseeing he asked to be shown around the Space Research Foundation. Pae looked very pleased when he made this request.