He had no time for dawdling—his orders required him to be at Shipbay Fifty in little more than an hour. Everything was controlled now by the time demands of Colony. It might be the last quarter of dayside here, but down at Colony it would soon be dawn, and the shuttles from Ship tried to make their groundside landings in the early hours there—less hylighter activity then.

Hylighters . . . dawn . . . groundside . . .

The very words conveyed a sense of the exotic to him. No more of Ship’s passages and halls.

The full import of this change began to fill him. He could see and touch ’lectrokelp. He could test for himself how this alien intelligence performed.

Abruptly, Panille wanted to share his excitement with someone. He looked around at the sterile reaches of Medical’s corridors—a few med-techs hurrying about their business. None of the faces were friendly acquaintances.

Hali’s face was nowhere among these impersonal passersby. Everything he saw was just the bustle and movement of Medical’s ordinary comings and goings.

Panille headed toward the main corridors. Medical’s bright lights bothered him. It was a painful contrast with Ferry’s office—the clutter, the dank smells. Ferry kept his office too dim.

Probably hiding the clutter even from himself.

It occurred to Panille then that Ferry’s mind probably was like that office—dim and confused.

A poor, confused old man.

At the first main corridor, Panille turned left toward his quarters. No time to search out Hali and share this momentous change. There would be time for sharing later—at the next shipside period of rest and recuperation. He would have much more to share then, too.

At his cubby, Panille shoved things into a shipcloth bag. He was not sure what to take. No telling when he might return. Recorder and spare charges, certainly; a few keepsakes . . . clothing . . . notepads and a spare stylus. And the silver net, of course. He stopped and held the net up to examine it—a gift from Ship, flexible silver and big enough to cover his head.

Panille smiled as he rolled the net and confined it in its own ties. Ship seldom refused to answer one of his questions; refusal signaled a defect in the question. But the day of this net had been memorable for refusals and shifting responses from Ship.

Insatiable curiosity—that was the hallmark of the poet and Ship certainly knew this. He had been at the Instruction Terminal, his request. “Tell me about Pandora.”

Silence.

Ship wanted a specific question.

“What is the most dangerous creature on Pandora?”

Ship showed him a composite picture of a human.

Panille was irritated. “Why won’t You satisfy my curiosity?”

“You were chosen for this special training because of your curiosity.”

“Not because I’m a poet?”

“When did you become a poet?”

Panille remembered staring at his own reflection in the glistening surface of the display screen where Ship revealed its symbolic patterns.