text: [Themes: Science Fiction, research, science fiction, complicity, clothing, aliens, diplomacy, genetics, moral choice]
  
  > Look around
  There's no real bed, only a stone platform, too short to accommodate your full height, in the center of the room. The sole gesture towards comfort is a pillow of Earth style, perhaps left here by Valenti. Aside from this, the place is unfurnished.
  
  A refreshment room is visible to the west, and the hallway is back to the south.
  
  Your suitcase lies open on the floor, displaying a yellow paper note, some fuzzy bunny slippers, and a silver kiddush cup.
  
  > examine the bed
  It is deep red stone, decorated with bands of small colorful tiles. There's no attempt to accommodate a body either human or otherwise. And no sheets or blankets, which is discouraging.
  
  > go to the west
  Divided into several sections for hygienic purposes. To one side are the toilet facilities; on the other side, the food cabinet. Eating is considered a disgusting bodily function, here: something to be done out of sight and only when necessary.
  
  A long scarlet robe in the native style hangs from a clothing stand.
  
  Slightly raised from the floor by the door is a round grate, evidently the output vent for something-or-other.
  
  > look at the robe
  The purpose of clothes here is to keep a person warm while disguising as much as possible the presence of a solid body. They're made of light but tightly-woven material, generously cut, and studded with floatpins, allowing the cloth to hover, drift, and swirl perpetually without coming into indecent contact with the flesh.
  
  The robe is designed to drape from the shoulders, with several shorter layers of floatpinned cape at the back. It must billow magnificently when a person walks, and double as a sail in a strong wind.
  
  > look at the grate
  A pipe comes up an inch or two from the floor and, like a trunk sawn off near the ground, ends in a round brass-colored grating about nine inches in diameter. The only reasonable thing for it to be in this climate is a heating outlet. It is ideally placed for stubbing the toes of sensitive, non-floating Earth feet, so you'll have to keep an eye out when you go by.
  
  > open it
  The grate is secured in place.
  
  > open the food
  You open the food cabinet, revealing a squashed unripe seed and some ration bars.
  
  > look at the seed
  Once upon a time, this appears to have been a partially ripe seed or fruit. The skin is streaked in orange and green, like an unready tomato. Then someone squashed it, and now it's gooey and possibly fermenting.
  
  > Examine bar
  High Command provided example ration bars to show the locals what nutrition was required. Apparently they took these instructions literally, and now all Embassy food comes in tasteless tan squares.
  
  > take the seed
  You pick up the seed by the least drippy part.
  
  > take the robe
  It is disorienting to pick up something you can't touch: you pull on the air around the long scarlet robe, but never come in contact with the surface because of the floatpoints.
  
  Taken.
  
  The chronometer chirps, indicating that you have a new message waiting to be read.
  
  > Go east
  There's no real bed, only a stone platform, too short to accommodate your full height, in the center of the room. The sole gesture towards comfort is a pillow of Earth style, perhaps left here by Valenti. Aside from this, the place is unfurnished.
  
  A refreshment room is visible to the west, and the hallway is back to the south.
  
  Your suitcase lies open on the floor, displaying a yellow paper note, some fuzzy bunny slippers, and a silver kiddush cup.
  
  > Close suitcase
  You close the suitcase.
  
  > take it
  It's too large and unwieldy to carry around casually -- as a matter of fact, you probably spent a considerable amount of your mass allowance on the suitcase itself.
  
  > take all from the suitcase
  yellow paper note: Taken.
  fuzzy bunny slippers: Taken.
  silver kiddush cup: Taken.
  
  > go south
  At the top of the shallow stairs there is a spacious landing, with windows giving a view east across the Grand Solarium garden. Apparently past ambassadors have found this a pleasant place in which to read, because there is a small library of Earth books, otherwise impossible to get here.
  
  The other interesting item is a chute in the wall, looking (like everything else here) as though it had grown as metal or bone into the wall.
  
  The entry to your bedroom is to the north, and an office area to the south.
  
  > examine the chute
  It leads down into darkness, possibly meant for laundry or garbage, possibly for something else.
  
  > go to the south
  Adjusted by your predecessors, and more like an Earth room than any other you've seen here. There are two paintings, a serious tax on someone's luggage limit. There is a plain floor that doesn't assume you can hover in midair. The foyer is back out to the north, and there's a child-sized Communications Room west of here.
  
  A crate, marked with shipping and import seals from Earth, sits in the middle of the room. It has been broken open.
  
  > read the mail
  The following messages are available for you to read or reply to:
  
  12:19 pm: RE Hello
  11:21 am: Instructions
  10:02 am: Hello From Ivory Coast (R)
  9:34 am: Shuttle Departure Plans
  
  > read re
  You select the message and read:
  
  Sorry to hear about Valenti. Sounds bad. Congrats on the promotion, though.
  
  To point: rumors say High Command has issued orders for you to negotiate, colonists are returning, will be given Africa under terms. You MUST NOT DO THAT. Human population gone, rain forest beginning to recover. Better than expected. Gene-splicers would ruin it. If they want a laboratory, let them stay there, fix existing planet. Was a reason they went away in the first place. Survived plague without them (sort of), don't need them now. Unless they can RESURRECT dead, it won't do any good.
  
  Didn't think so.
  
  That is all. Return to delicious ration bar, ruminate. Jane.
  
  > Taste bar
  You chew and chew and with difficulty swallow a small corner thereof, which will now probably keep you nourished until next month.
  
  Somewhere on this planet there is probably something worth eating, but you could no more ask for details than you could inquire into favorite forms of contraception.
  
  > think
  You run over the things you still need to get done:
  acquire vaccine from the Museum (HC's orders)
  prepare gift for Ambassador Aylene
  wear something red(dish) (High Command's instruction)
  find a working float unit
  
  > wear the robe
  You settle the robe around your shoulders, where it is much lighter than it has any right to be considering the amount of material. Still, it lends you a sense of authority, of moral weight.
  
  Or possibly makes you look like Little Red Riding Hood.
  
  Mentally you check off "wear something red(dish) (High Command's instruction)" on your list of remaining tasks. You run over the things you still need to get done:
  acquire vaccine from the Museum (HC's orders)
  prepare gift for Ambassador Aylene
  find a working float unit
  
  > put the cup in the box
  You put the cup into the box -- luckily it is just short enough to fit, though it rolls back and forth slightly inside.
  
  A flash of memory: Your mother is sitting up in bed. "Your father wanted another child," she says to you abruptly. "But I told him, no. If we had another, we couldn't afford to send both to a quarantined school. One, we could afford to keep safe. Two would both be in danger and might both die."
  
  "Mother, you shouldn't have--"
  
  "Of course," she says, with the dry little chuckle of her last days. "I thought you would grow up to have Jewish sons and daughters, later, when it was safe. I thought the number of my grandchildren would make up for the number of my children."
  
  There is nothing to say. Coming out of the room, you run smack into Jane. "That was completely unfair," she whispers to you. "You shouldn't let her make you feel--"
  
  "You were listening?" you say.
  
  "I was in the hall and overheard part and it didn't seem like the right time to walk in," Jane answers, putting something cold into your hand. "I brought you more pain meds."
  
  "I know you get curious, but don't ever listen at the door again," you say.
  
  The blood creeps up her cheek. "It was hard to avoid hearing," she says, which is probably a legitimate point. You look down at the bottles and say nothing.
  
  Mentally you check off "prepare gift for Ambassador Aylene" on your list of remaining tasks. You run over the things you still need to get done:
  acquire vaccine from the Museum (HC's orders)
  find a working float unit