text: [Themes: Science Fiction, aliens, diplomacy, male protagonist, clothing]
  
  > Look around
  A room outfitted with lab desk, lab drawer, a recycling chute, and assorted equipment. It's immediately obvious what kind of experimentation that takes place here. The walls are a shrine to humans -- and not to the human genome, which would be comprehensible, but to human society. Some still shots from Chinese television, a sketch of Stonehenge, a landscape recognizably New Zealand...
  
  The door out leads southwest.
  
  Beside the lab desk is a female scientist, perhaps in her teens.
  
  On the lab desk is a tiny man.
  
  > take the pink card
  That seems to belong to the female scientist.
  
  > look at the drawer
  You can't get it open. No authorization.
  
  > examine the chute
  A chute for the disposal of wastes from the lab.
  
  > ask the scientist for the pink card
  Anything you might say in English -- or any other language you know, for that matter -- would be pretty much incomprehensible here. Unless you found a scholar of ancient languages, but as far as you can tell, they don't go in for that.
  
  > think
  You run over the things various people have decided you ought to do: acquire vaccine from the research facility (HC's orders)
  wear white jacket (Valenti's idea)
  summon Liam and show him the gift box
  meet with Ambassador Aylene to present your gift
  
  > consult the computer about the vaccine
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  High Command: An extremely circumspect article describing how, in the later years of the plague, the international quarantine authority in North America became a de facto government and managed the distribution not only of vaccine (once available) but also of other essential resources. All hints of controversy are omitted.
  
  plague: Billions of deaths, infection rates most severe in the less developed countries; revolutions and crumbling infrastructure; the regress of technology. This is why High Command wants back the Aleheart population. Fear of contaminating the environment with engineered flora and fauna seems insignificant now in the face of such medical sophistication -- an insurance against the same ever happening again. The vaccine exists, of course, and is produced in great quantity still, though it is very expensive to make.
  
  There isn't any personal data available from logs or annotations.
  
  > take the tiny man
  You gingerly pick up the tiny man, thinking that Kruger would have an aneurysm if he saw this thing. The girl seems to read this as encouragement, though. Perhaps this is her research project, her final thesis. Depressing thought.
  
  The little man is warm in the palm of your hand, like a hamster.
  
  Evidently feeling that she need not keep you any longer, she also gets out the vaccine sample and hands it over to you.
  
  Mentally you check off "acquire vaccine from the research facility (HC's orders)" on your list of remaining tasks. You run over the things various people have decided you ought to do:
  wear white jacket (Valenti's idea)
  summon Liam and show him the gift box
  meet with Ambassador Aylene to present your gift
  
  > examine the vaccine
  You recognize this -- and how could one not? The writing on the outside of the glass bottle has faded, and the contents perhaps degenerated with time, but the bulbous bottle shape, the sigil of High Command on the cap, the blue-black tint of the liquid like ink, all are iconic now.
  
  > Leave
  (heading southwest, since that is the only direction available)
  
  The lobby is an open oval room, with no security or reception desk.
  
  Mounted on the east wall are colorful project proposals.
  
  A baffling number of doors lead out to smaller rooms around the perimeter of the central space. They are all protected by security fields, so that you can't even approach them without a way to breach the barrier.
  
  A glance around reveals a Door 58 to the northeast.
  
  A personal float unit hovers three inches off the floor at the middle of the room.
  
  > Ride unit
  You climb back on the float unit, increasingly confident.
  
  > Go west
  Clearing (on the personal float unit)
  The street runs north/south, so that you have an uninterrupted view of Cordia Peak, and the leading edge of the glacier at the northern edge of town.
  
  Both sides of the street are built up. A substantial building of metal and glass lies to the east, houses to the west.
  
  The rings in the southern sky are partly obscured by the buildings on the horizon, but are still bright enough to catch the eye.
  
  A double set of insulating doors leads south into a huge glass and metal dome, a greenhouse and Solarium where most of the local population now lives; the Embassy is inside.
  
  At the center of the open space here is a monument shaped like a tusk or tooth.
  
  > Go south
  Grand Solarium (on the personal float unit)
  The Grand Solarium is an enormous dome with an oval roof of glass and grown metalwork. Inside is a botanical garden, which, on this planet, is a kind of art museum. Each plot displays some invented shrub that would be illegal on Earth.
  
  The southern end of the dome, where they grow edible crops, is hidden by a decorative screen of hanging flowers. The garden also continues to the east; away to the west is the front of the Earth Embassy, now your home.
  
  A double set of insulating doors leads north to the outdoors.
  
  > go west
  You wander between plots: what catches your eye this time is a writing-desk-tree, spreading to a flat surface at about three feet.
  
  Reflecting Pool (on the personal float unit)
  On the float unit, you are able to float above the water. The water underneath the float unit goes flat. The fish bump into the surface and bounce off as if from a sheet of aquarium glassthe eastern end of a shallow rectangular pool -- no doubt part of the reason the air is softer and more humid here than it was outside. The Embassy is just west of here, at the far end of the pool.
  
  If you look down, you catch the reflection in the surface, and a number of small red fish swimming around, in formation, making symbols which you cannot read.
  
  > Go west
  Front Stairs (on the personal float unit)
  The Embassy proper is directly west. The entrance is flanked by orange trees, familiar and earthly.
  
  From the top of the Front Stairs you have an excellent view of the whole interior of the Solarium, the sunlight catching in the curved triangular panes of glass.
  
  East, at the bottom of the stairs, is the mirror-glass of the pool. Beyond it the botanical garden has a structure invisible from the inside.
  
  > go west
  Embassy Foyer (on the personal float unit)
  Like most buildings here, the Embassy is built with an eye for organic color and form: windows and doorways framed with curved ironwork, accents of bright enamel, wooden floors grown in place. All conspicuously wasteful of both materials and labor. It might be intended to make Earth representatives uncomfortable, or it might be meant as an honor, or it might be an advertisement for a standard of living that Earth lost some time ago. Too hard to tell.
  
  There's a large Receiving Room to the west. Less prominent rooms lie north and south -- the south with a locked private door, the north an archway offering a mercifully limited view of the "Museum". Shallow stairs, almost a ramp, rise to a second story.
  
  > Foobar
  Enter saved game to store: Ok.
  
  > Time
  It is 4:20 pm -- here, anyhow.
  
  > remove the red robe
  You take off the long scarlet robe.
  
  > wear the white jacket
  You pull Valenti's white jacket on. The effect could be more flattering: the float-pins make it stand out around your torso as though inflated. You can't see, but it feels as though all your chest hair is being forced to lie flat. Breathing in is a challenge.
  
  Mentally you check off "wear white jacket (Valenti's idea)" on your list of remaining tasks. You run over the things various people have decided you ought to do:
  summon Liam and show him the gift box
  meet with Ambassador Aylene to present your gift
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a vaccine sample
  a tiny sleeping man
  a kumquat
  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 15.14945, POW 20.9361, INT 12.9797
  a flowing scarlet robe
  a humiliating outfit of puffy white jacket, chronometer, grey undersuit, shoes, and socks
  
  > put vaccine in the box
  You tuck the vaccine into the box.
  
  A flash of memory: A long line of people standing, closer together than strangers ever stand. Holding hands, sometimes kissing. Everyone wears their sleeves rolled up, their upper arms bare. Out in the middle of the square, two old men in drag are dancing a tango. A ring of girls has gathered to watch.
  
  Your mother stands beside you, periodically squeezing your elbow. "Your father would have loved this," she says each time. She does not sound wistful, just overwhelmingly glad.
  
  Far off at the front of the line is a white pavilion with a blue-black logo stitched into the roof.
  
  > show the gift box to Liam
  Liam takes in your clothing, then looks into the box. "Equal partnership, with a shared work in medical enterprises?" he says. "This is what you desire to propose to our Ambassador?"
  
  > Yes
  Liam bows and departs to make a few arrangements. You wait, and cool your heels. People come and go. Messages are sent. When everything is ready, you gather...
  
  Receiving Room (on the personal float unit)
  None of the rooms of the Embassy are ordinary, but this one is spectacular: the floor glittering with blue and gold glass, the vault a basketry of interwoven branches of interwoven branches. The lower half of the wall is covered with feathers, yellow and deep blue, like a parrot's.
  
  The heressa who must be Ambassador Aylene stands at the far end of the hall. The approach to her is flanked by two rows of witnesses. You hadn't anticipated that, somehow, though surely you should have. As for Liam, he is carefully in the corner, aligning himself neither with you nor with his own people.
  
  > look at Aylene
  You had been expecting someone slight and ephemeral-looking, but she is a tall woman and built proportionally, and reminds you of the pictures you have sometimes seen of proud African women from before the bad years. Only her eyes are wrong, not brown but something closer to golden.
  
  > give the gift box to Aylene
  Aylene receives the box and looks at the vaccine sample for a moment. She looks at you -- surprised, a little concerned, perhaps?
  
  Then she faces her audience and begins to speak.
  
  "
  
  It's not unpleasant to see Kruger grilling Valenti for a bit, rather than you. Though there's plenty of grilling to go around.
  
  "It was always a bad idea to invite them to Earth as our inferiors," says Valenti stolidly. "I would have arranged things differently if I had been the ambassador at the time, but I do believe this is the best thing David could have done with the options available to him."
  
  "The idea that the Colonists work in collaboration with human scientists will not be received well at home," says Kruger.
  
  "To understatement," Valenti replies, lifting his glass. He is drinking an anise liqueur he favors. You and Kruger watch him take another yellow sip. "Are you going to change the deal? I should warn you that alteration to a contract is viewed with extreme disfavor in their society."
  
  "Which is why you and David should have followed my advice in the first place!" Kruger yells. "I pulled Yamashita because she expressed reservations of conscience about what I was asking her to do, and I pulled you because I didn't trust you to follow orders, but I never thought David would go native on his first day there. What's wrong with you?"
  
  Valenti frowns into his glass, swirling the ice around. "With respect, sir, you a few hours on Aleheart itself would have been enough to change your plans."
  
  Kruger's face gradually loses the beet color. "We gave the matter a great deal of thought," he says. "Thought, study, polls, moral consultations. Also prayer, meditation, even a tarot reading or two, I'm told. Those were off the meeting record and on a strictly individual basis. But there is a female member of the commission who claims that a good tarot spread focuses her thinking."
  
  "There are things you cannot reason out," Valenti says. "When you're face-to-face with the colonists, you see how much they long to be back on Earth. They are afraid of our bad opinion, conscious that they are our descendants, and embarrassed by how primitive we seem to be. But they are also infatuated. There are some dissenters, but most would do whatever they could to be with us again. They will bend themselves to fit Earth. We do not have to force them to do anything."
  
  Kruger glares out the window. He does not say anything.
  
  Valenti catches your eye and raises his glass in a small salute.
  
  > Foobar
  Enter saved game to load: Ok.
  
  > ask the computer about the black
  Your search turns up the following articles:
  
  color symbolism: black: The color of termination, worn to refuse an agreement; to propose corporate splits or divorce.
  
  There isn't any personal data available from logs or annotations.
  
  > go to Receiving
  Receiving Room (on the personal float unit)
  None of the rooms of the Embassy are ordinary, but this one is spectacular: the floor glittering with blue and gold glass, the vault a basketry of interwoven branches of interwoven branches. The lower half of the wall is covered with feathers, yellow and deep blue, like a parrot's.
  
  Something like a glass flower grows from the wall, a disguised bracket for holding a recording machine.
  
  > take the seed
  Taken.
  
  > put the kumquat in the bracket
  The bracket is precisely shaped to hold only a small round recording machine.
  
  > go to the basement
  You hurry toward embassy foyer, the museum, and then the basement.
  
  Basement (on the personal float unit)
  Unlike the upper levels of the Embassy, the basement is built for practical purposes, and resembles the inside of a concrete cigar box. It continues to the south, dimly lit and cold.
  
  Along the west wall, a chute from above empties into a large metal container.
  
  > Go south
  Utility Room (on the personal float unit)
  Little more than a chilly concrete box. It continues some distance to the north.
  
  Something resembling the root system of Yggdrasil covers the south wall; from close up it appears to be a complex heating system with pipes and tubes.
  
  > give the seed to the beak
  You can only do that to something animate.
  
  > put the seed in the beak
  The heater tentatively opens its beak to admit the recording machine. Then it begins to chomp away. There are at first some sparks, droplets of flying juice, abortive beginnings of projections, but soon it is thoroughly destroyed and reduced to pure food form.
  
  > squeeze the seed
  An image begins to play, projecting itself:
  
  The room is a mess, bits of things scattered around. The camera begins on a heressa you assume must be Aylene, a beautiful woman of apparently African descent, who floats as still as if she were anchored.
  
  "Things like this," says Valenti forcefully, "you don't predict. You choose without full knowledge, and make the choice good." He picks up a silvery streamer from the floor and plays at crumpling it.
  
  She answers in her language, and the subtitle says: If it were me only.
  
  He stuffs his hands into his pockets, streamer and all. "It could be you only. With or without the treaty of cohabitation, I would still marry you."
  
  Your genes are bad. Why would I marry you?
  
  "For pleasure."
  
  The recording plays on: Valenti has stopped pacing and is watching her. She meets his eye and smiles a small smile. I do not know if I can walk all the rest of my life on dirt, even for you.
  
  "It's mostly floors, really," Valenti says, fists held rigidly in pockets. "The once-popular custom of walking barefoot in the dirt is a few hundred years behind us."
  
  Our greatest art is a disgusting offense on Earth. Do we go where we are despised?
  
  "I know," he says. "There are concessions I cannot make. If I tried, they would not be honored."
  
  He gives the tormented streamer another pull, and it breaks apart in his hands with a flash of grey light; here the recording ends.
  
  > go to the bedroom
  You hurry toward the basement, the museum, embassy foyer, the hall, and then the bedroom.
  
  Bedroom (on the personal float unit)
  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.
  
  > take the seed
  You already have that.
  
  > go to the south
  Hall (on the personal float unit)
  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.
  
  There are some ration bars and a squashed unripe seed on the floor.
  
  > go to Kiosk
  You hurry toward embassy foyer, the front stairs, the reflecting pool, grand solarium, the clearing, the broad street, ruined vineyard, and then kiosk.
  
  Kiosk (on the personal float unit)
  The kiosk is no larger than a contamination testing booth back on Earth.
  
  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.
  
  > Examine box
  (the empty gift box)
  A decorative box, obviously made on Earth, enameled like a Faberge piece. The exterior is covered in a design of leaves and morning glories.
  
  > look at the metal box
  A machine titled DATA COMPRESSION AND STORAGE. There is a miniature tree growing out of the top, naked of foliage. On the front of the metal box are green and blue push-knobs, and a movable bronze pointer.
  
  On the left side of the machine there is a funnel, the right size for inserting a recording fruit.
  
  > look at the pointer
  The green knob appears to say RECORD.
  
  The four settings of the pointer are ORIGINAL, SCIENTIFIC, STORY, SOCIAL.
  
  The pointer is currently set to story.
  
  > put the unripe seed in the funnel
  The damaged recorder rolls down inside the machine. There is a whirr like your mother's juicer on the first day of a new diet.
  
  > set the pointer to the story
  The bronze pointer is already aligned in that direction.
  
  > set the pointer to scientific
  The pointer turns with a heavy click. The selector now points to scientific.
  
  > set the pointer to social
  The pointer turns with a heavy click. The selector now points to social.
  
  > set pointer to the blue
  The pointer turns with a heavy click. The selector now points to original.
  
  > set the pointer to the original
  The bronze pointer is already aligned in that direction.
  
  > examine the damaged fruit
  It is evident (now) that this is one of those recorders that grows riper as it gets more full of information, and that something happened to it at a primitive stage of its growth. Probably Valenti could think of no place where people would be less likely to pry than his food cabinet.
  
  > squeeze it
  You squeeze the thing tentatively and it hisses sparks and juice, but then it begins to play, a projection hovering in the middle of the air:
  
  Liam is standing in a group with some others, in the Receiving Room, when Valenti walks in. DID YOU VOTE IN THIS MATTER? say projected English subtitles shakily.
  
  Liam shivers. Replacing the ambassador heressa? Everyone voted, my lord. We determined she does not make progress.
  
  Then Valenti grabs him by the middle of his robes where there are no floatpoints, and shoves violently. Liam falls hard on the sharp floor, mortified and astonished. Progress, Valenti repeats, dusting his hands.
  
  She stays until Gift Day,  Liam says, not trying to get up.
  
  Valenti nods curtly and goes out; the other people in the group tactfully turn aside. Liam wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. After a moment he crawls to the corner and is sick.
  
  The image flickers out, leaking warm juice from the recorder.
  
  > put red seed in the funnel
  The recording machine rolls down inside the machine. There is a whirr like your mother's juicer on the first day of a new diet.
  
  > take kumquat
  (the kumquat)
  Taken.
  
  > 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 15.79271, POW 20.83341, INT 12.5235
  a magnificent ensemble of flowing scarlet robe, chronometer, grey undersuit, shoes, and socks
  
  > look at the kumquats
  There is a symbol reading SOCIAL COMPRESSION on the skin of the kumquat.
  
  > examine the floatpoint
  (first getting down so as not to kill yourself with foolish attempts at acrobatic prowess)
  You get off the personal float unit.
  
  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.
  
  The contents might come out, and that would make a real mess.
  
  > turn the dial
  You reach down and twiddle the dial on the side of the float unit, feeling very much the master even of the most alien technology.
  
  This feeling passes, however, when the dial sticks in place without adjusting anything.
  
  > turn dial left
  You struggle with the dial, exerting the strength developed in the powerful Earthly gravity...
  
  ...and there is a snap like the shot of a gun, and the dial spins freely without effect.
  
  > turn dial right
  Whatever you did, it put an end to uses of the convenient dial. If you want to change the setting of the float unit, you'll have to do something with the contents of the reservoir by hand.
  
  > look at the reservoir
  (first getting down so as not to kill yourself with foolish attempts at acrobatic prowess)
  You get off the personal float unit.
  
  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.
  
  The contents might come out, and that would make a real mess.
  
  > examine the bonzai
  A machine titled DATA COMPRESSION AND STORAGE. There is a miniature tree growing out of the top, naked of foliage. On the front of the metal box are green and blue push-knobs, and a movable bronze pointer.
  
  On the left side of the machine there is a funnel, the right size for inserting a recording fruit.
  
  > put tiny man in reservoir
  The floatpoint reservoir is closed.
  
  > Open reservoir
  The contents might come out, and that would make a real mess.
  
  > put the little man in the funnel
  You push the tiny sleeping man into the funnel. The machine fires it back out, as from a cannon.