text: > look at your surroundings
  The kiosk is no larger than a contamination testing booth back on Earth.
  
  A personal float unit hovers three inches off the floor at the middle of the room.
  
  The only thing of note here is a metal box, mounted on the wall at about shoulder-height, with a bonzai-sized tree growing out of the top.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  two kumquats
  a damaged recorder
  a vaccine sample
  a tiny sleeping man
  a puffy white jacket
  a silver kiddush cup
  some fuzzy bunny slippers
  a yellow paper note
  a mail packet
  an empty gift box
  a handheld computer (in which is a data disk)
  a grey widget saying SOC 15.50803, POW 20.5871, INT 12.24329
  a magnificent ensemble of flowing scarlet robe, chronometer, grey undersuit, shoes, and socks
  
  > examine mail packet
  Largely demands from people on Earth that Valenti pursue what happened to relatives long ago dead during the foundation of the Aleheart Colony. There's a particularly insistent batch about someone called Charla (the authors had apparently written to Valenti before, without satisfaction).
  
  > consult the computer about the fruit
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  four months ago: Appears that recording fruit retain everyone's social broadcasting as well as audio and visual -- the same stuff picked up by my live rock. Too bad it is not possible to read this off the recordings. Would be useful to record people and then study afterward what they really meant.
  
  > consult computer about the rock
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  six months ago: Aylene gave me a live rock! Which, in theory, calculates what everyone thinks of me, to many decimal places of accuracy (!). Don't think she realized what negative reinforcement this would be. Can't help experimenting with ways to make numbers go up and down. Bet I could crash all three to zero if I ran through the Solarium bareassed. Apparently the thing corresponds to a portion of the alien brain. I admit (if only to myself) that I find the concept disgusting. But I admit a lot to myself lately. I gather my predecessor talked to herself as well. I need some recordings of human speech or may go insane...
  
  four months ago: Appears that recording fruit retain everyone's social broadcasting as well as audio and visual -- the same stuff picked up by my live rock. Too bad it is not possible to read this off the recordings. Would be useful to record people and then study afterward what they really meant.
  
  three months ago: I tried asking her whether she can factor in my thoughts the same way her little live rock tracks everyone else's. She said no, I don't broadcast. She looked tremendously uncomfortable. I cannot say how smug this makes me.
  
  five weeks ago: Is it possible that Liam is jealous of me because of Aylene? I find him lurking around after she's been here, looking sniffy and grim. Naturally Aylene's live rock doesn't offer any sort of data analysis function. That might be dangerously useful.
  
  five weeks ago: Suppose I could feed recordings through social compression to get some idea what Feckless Assistant is thinking. Not sure I want to know, though. Despite live rock, this method feels a little like spying. Not to say I won't. Just that I'm not sure I will.
  
  > Examine widget
  A plain grey device, fitted to the shape of the hand,  on whose surface are three constantly flickering numbers: SOC 15.9316, POW 20.12017, INT 12.8573. SQUEEZE TO SUMMON AIDES. There is an inscription on the back, and it is in English: To LV from A3205.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  two kumquats
  a damaged recorder
  a vaccine sample
  a tiny sleeping man
  a puffy white jacket
  a silver kiddush cup
  some fuzzy bunny slippers
  a yellow paper note
  a mail packet
  an empty gift box
  a handheld computer (in which is a data disk)
  a grey widget saying SOC 15.4806, POW 20.3531, INT 12.2608
  a magnificent ensemble of flowing scarlet robe, chronometer, grey undersuit, shoes, and socks
  
  > consult computer about Peter
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  four months ago: More research. My Charla seems to have been married to Peter Long. Wish I had a clearer idea of what Peter Long was up to.
  
  four months ago: So. Put together the archive files on Charla and her companion Peter Long here. I have what appear to be six versions of the same events, recorded in distinctly stylized and different forms -- including what looks like an opera. (Or some perversion thereof.) I'd say they were literary reworkings but no, they seem actually to be a convention-based compression of some original, now-lost data recording. The weird thing is that they don't all end the same way -- apparently the conventions of recording are allowed to override, for instance, matters of fact.
  
  four months ago: Oh my. Cross-comparing the data and the compression algorithm information I could find I think I have worked my way to a fuzzy but more-accurate version of the original. Spent a good while in the archive building messing with the kiosks. Got to talk to A about this, find out if it is really true. If it is, we may end scuttling the whole treaty if I report what I found on Charla and Peter Long. Long is really the issue; it's just our bad bad bad bad bad luck that Charla's relatives are still alive and, worse, pushy about finding out what became of her.
  
  four months ago: Amazing it never occurred to me to wonder exactly what happened when they lost Earth contact here. Peter Long's solution seems obvious. In retrospect.
  
  three months ago: Long talk with A, and she essentially confirmed for me what I had already pieced together, though with some bits that I hadn't quite understood about Peter and Charla. And then I got rid of the recordings. The destruction of data, a slippery slope. This was much bigger than getting rid of Yamashita's correspondence disc but it felt less awful, somehow. This is something I cannot, cannot report back if I want these people saved. And increasingly I do. Even my infuriating assistant.
  
  two months ago: Funny sort of personal conversation with A. Turns out that she is descended from Peter and Charla herself -- the whole A line is. This is such a strange thought to me. Apparently they're among the most human-like of the remaining lines (though with certain obligatory modifications, of course), which I suppose is why she was assigned to deal with us.
  
  27 days ago: Went to the Earth Sanctuary and heard a few songs. Strangely moving. One of them was in fact about old Peter. Felt like it was the play to catch the conscience, etc., except of course in this case I'm not the murderer and it's everyone else's conscience that really ought to be bothered, not mine. It was a good song, though. They got out the flint knife at the end -- it's a prop of this performance, I gather.
  
  > consult the computer about solution
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  four months ago: Amazing it never occurred to me to wonder exactly what happened when they lost Earth contact here. Peter Long's solution seems obvious. In retrospect.
  
  > consult the computer about the knife
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  gift symbolism: knife: Apparently, according to the etiquette files, any edged instrument is a symbol of restrictions, living under strict controls imposed by someone else, and dating back to clinical trials in which new genetic lines deemed to be failing their intended purpose were slaughtered with a knife. This practice is now called flushing and does not require a blade, but the associations remain.
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  seven weeks ago: Liam told me about the flint knife in the Earth Sanctuary. Turns out it wasn't brought by us (always thought that a really odd thing to send) but they brought it here from Earth themselves. There's some sort of gloomy symbolism there which, as usual, he couldn't bring himself to explain directly. A less useful assistant would be difficult to find.
  
  27 days ago: Went to the Earth Sanctuary and heard a few songs. Strangely moving. One of them was in fact about old Peter. Felt like it was the play to catch the conscience, etc., except of course in this case I'm not the murderer and it's everyone else's conscience that really ought to be bothered, not mine. It was a good song, though. They got out the flint knife at the end -- it's a prop of this performance, I gather.
  
  > consult the computer about the contact
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  five months ago: I wonder whether HC have done any psychological studies on the effects of isolating a single person without any human contact whatever. I can guess the outcome!
  
  four months ago: Amazing it never occurred to me to wonder exactly what happened when they lost Earth contact here. Peter Long's solution seems obvious. In retrospect.
  
  > consult the computer about flushing
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  Aleheart family structure: On Aleheart Colony marriage bears a strong resemblance to a corporate merger. Possessions, resources, and knowledge are pooled; the efficiency rating of the family unit is understood to be an average of the efficiency of all its members, with income determined accordingly, so that merger with a significantly less efficient partner is a sacrifice rarely made. Children are rated on a different scale, but their rating is also counted for the family starting at the age of four. This produces extra economic and social pressure towards flushing children who turn out to be lazy or ill-made.
  
  gift symbolism: knife: Apparently, according to the etiquette files, any edged instrument is a symbol of restrictions, living under strict controls imposed by someone else, and dating back to clinical trials in which new genetic lines deemed to be failing their intended purpose were slaughtered with a knife. This practice is now called flushing and does not require a blade, but the associations remain.
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  28 days ago: Naturally after I read that I asked Aylene about it (if we're modeling our alliance on a marriage I'd rather not have "marriage" mean "eugenics program"). She says in practice there's hardly any "flushing". I still have some serious questions about this, but I think inasmuch as it applies to the current occasion we're looking rather at a joint stewardship of the resources available to both planets. HC should be able to live with that. I don't know whether the general population would be so enthusiastic, but the general population seems to think it's a point of principle not to make any concessions or in fact live in the real world in any way.
  
  > consult the computer about history
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  Europe: This could take a while to read, but as far as recent history is concerned, that territory is now mostly under the control of High Command, and still populated, though not nearly so thickly as it once was. There are a lot of crumbling suburbs all over the former first world, where no one wants to live any longer, because the lifestyle eats resources and the neighborhoods are lonely.
  
  Earth history (general): The recent history of Earth is not light reading, and it's hard to scan through the encyclopedia article without some sense of irritation; but it was prepared with the understanding that the computer might be taken and read by the Aleheart colony. Perhaps that is why it is so coy about the plague years, the desolation of Africa, Chinese separatism...
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  three months ago: I don't know why High Command likes this conditional adoption concept. For one thing, even if we do make them agree to do what we say for a while, we don't have the power to keep them in line by force, and if they resent us they'll eventually fight back. And second, segregating a minority culture and relegating it to some ghetto has a long history of being a horrible idea. HC does not think of these things?
  
  > consult the computer about Aleheart
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  Aleheart Climate: The article is somewhat rough, since, though Earth has been running its own tests by probe and satellite on the viability of Aleheart's climate, most of its information comes from the statements of the Aleheart diplomatic structure. There are those paranoid enough to think that they might be fabricating the problem for unknown reasons.
  
  Aleheart Colony: You've read the article before, but you refresh yourself on the major topics: how the Aleheart corporation grew large and powerful; how its forays into genetic experimentation came into conflict with many Earth laws; how Aleheart launched its own colony in order to have a place completely under its own jurisdiction. The rumors of human experimentation that trickled back to Earth made it difficult for Aleheart to continue operating at home at all, so instead the last employees were given a choice between layoff and emigration. Sometime after Aleheart Colony was established, it lost all contact with Earth, in the so-called Separation. The colony was picked up again only two years ago, orbiting a star in the wrong place, and so much changed that at first contact Earth-command thought it had heard from humanoid aliens.
  
  human genetic experimentation: There's no question, of course, that Aleheart has done things illegal on Earth -- far more extensively after all Earth contact was lost. The current population is the product of those changes; they've been changed in appearance and body shape, and probably in an assortment of personality traits. It is an open question whether they are still human enough for interbreeding, or whether they should now be considered a different species.
  
  Separation: The separation of Earth and Aleheart Colony occurred for reasons as yet undetermined. Contact was re-established when Aleheart sent a message to Earth requesting a meeting.
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  six months ago: Oh, I feel I am losing touch. Don't know whether Kruger intends this: for a smart man he can be very stupid. What happens if you send to Aleheart someone with no living family or lovers on Earth, and no humans to talk to? Of course they're bound to go a little native: people are social.
  
  five months ago: Have been doing the background research home people keep asking for, in attempt to stave off the suicidal gloom of winter, and because no one around here seems to want to do much in the mornings, when it is still so dark. Not that I blame them. But it turns out that the archives for Aleheart Corporation and the early days are terrible.
  
  > consult the computer about Separation
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  Aleheart Colony: You've read the article before, but you refresh yourself on the major topics: how the Aleheart corporation grew large and powerful; how its forays into genetic experimentation came into conflict with many Earth laws; how Aleheart launched its own colony in order to have a place completely under its own jurisdiction. The rumors of human experimentation that trickled back to Earth made it difficult for Aleheart to continue operating at home at all, so instead the last employees were given a choice between layoff and emigration. Sometime after Aleheart Colony was established, it lost all contact with Earth, in the so-called Separation. The colony was picked up again only two years ago, orbiting a star in the wrong place, and so much changed that at first contact Earth-command thought it had heard from humanoid aliens.
  
  Separation: The separation of Earth and Aleheart Colony occurred for reasons as yet undetermined. Contact was re-established when Aleheart sent a message to Earth requesting a meeting.
  
  First contact: First contact between Earth and Aleheart Colony after separation was the result of an Aleheart ship coming within cautious hailing distance of Earth. It remained in the solar system for several days before approaching directly. The crew then sent a message in rather simple English and Chinese, requesting the right to meet "to get to know one another with an eye toward better friendship".
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  seven months ago: If you ask me, the separation was the result of some kind of boneheaded physics experiment they did themselves. Who knows? Of course they wouldn't say, if so. But where do they get the floatpoints from anyway? Collective act of will so they'd never have to touch anything ever again?
  
  three months ago: Weird sort of nobility about the separation story. Wish I could tell someone. God, god, god. I might ask for a human assistant or something. But of course what good would that do? Burdening a second person's conscience wouldn't really improve matters, and besides, he or she might not agree with me about what to do. No, I should avoid that.
  
  > consult the computer about the conscience
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  three months ago: Weird sort of nobility about the separation story. Wish I could tell someone. God, god, god. I might ask for a human assistant or something. But of course what good would that do? Burdening a second person's conscience wouldn't really improve matters, and besides, he or she might not agree with me about what to do. No, I should avoid that.
  
  27 days ago: Went to the Earth Sanctuary and heard a few songs. Strangely moving. One of them was in fact about old Peter. Felt like it was the play to catch the conscience, etc., except of course in this case I'm not the murderer and it's everyone else's conscience that really ought to be bothered, not mine. It was a good song, though. They got out the flint knife at the end -- it's a prop of this performance, I gather.
  
  > consult the computer about the nobility
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  three months ago: Weird sort of nobility about the separation story. Wish I could tell someone. God, god, god. I might ask for a human assistant or something. But of course what good would that do? Burdening a second person's conscience wouldn't really improve matters, and besides, he or she might not agree with me about what to do. No, I should avoid that.
  
  > consult the computer about Yamashita
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  Ambassador Yamashita: You met Yamashita a few times before coming out here, but didn't get a strong impression of her, and her computer record is as tediously laudatory as you would expect; you lack the context to read between the lines. She spent several years here before honorably returning to Earth, apparently without doing anything other than sending home reams of reports. But possibly that was all there was to do here at the time.
  
  Your search turns up the following entries from Valenti's personal log:
  
  eight months ago: Met my counterpart, the ambassador Aylene, today. Frankly, High Command should have left Yamashita here -- they probably did wonderfully having tea parties together and comparing fashion notes. Have never met another human -- no, strike that, because she isn't human. Have never met any person with so little emotional affect in speech and behavior. Not sure what gene modifications they made to her, but it is frightening.
  
  eight months ago: Surprised and horrified by Yamashita's taste in office decor. Thought about donating hideous paintings to museum, but I worry this would lower us further in the opinion of the locals.
  
  six months ago: Well. Have been going through Yamashita's correspondence disk. I have solved the mystery of the hideous paintings: they appear to be a gift from a lover back home, who painted them herself. I had not guessed Yamashita was interesting enough to have a secret lover Kruger doesn't know about.
  
  Lover seems to be afflicted by residual plague nerve-degeneration too. I sense a conflict of interest! Wonder if Kruger did find out and yank Yamashita out for this reason? But since she doesn't seem to be languishing in disgrace, I don't know.
  
  four months ago: Destroyed Yamashita's correspondence disk. Don't really want HC reprimanding her after the fact for relationship that was probably the one thing keeping her sane... Then again, when I look at the paintings... Oh well.
  
  three months ago: Long talk with A, and she essentially confirmed for me what I had already pieced together, though with some bits that I hadn't quite understood about Peter and Charla. And then I got rid of the recordings. The destruction of data, a slippery slope. This was much bigger than getting rid of Yamashita's correspondence disc but it felt less awful, somehow. This is something I cannot, cannot report back if I want these people saved. And increasingly I do. Even my infuriating assistant.