could foresee all the twists and traps the future could hold.
Most Adventurers satisfied their special emotional needs with physical challenges and sexual escapades. Revutev Mavarka seemed to be captivated by less benign outlets. His fiftieth awake had been marked by his attempt to disrupt the weather program that controlled the rainfall over the Fashlev mountain range. The First Principal Overseer had added twelve years to his next dormancy period and the Integrators had approved the penalty.
In his seventy-third awake, Revutev Mavarka had designed a small, hyperactive carnivore that had transferred a toxin through the food chain and transformed the habitues of a staid island resort into a population of temporary risk addicts. In his eighty-first, he had decided his happiness depended upon the companionship of a prominent fashion despot and kidnapped her after she had won a legal restraint on his attentions. The poisoning had added twenty-two years to his next dormancy, the kidnapping twenty-eight.
Varosa Uman and her husband liked cool winds and rugged landscapes. They liked to sit on high balconies, hands touching, and watch winged creatures circle over gray northern seas.
“It’s Revutev Mavarka,” Varosa Uman said. “He’s made an unauthorized contact with a visitation.”
“And the Integrators think you can give them some special insight?”
“They’ve placed me in charge of the entire response. I’m replacing Mansita Jano.”
Siti called up Mansita Jano’s data and scanned through it. “He’s a specialist,” Siti said. “It’s a big responsibility but I think I agree with the Integrators.”
“You may belong to a very small minority. They gave me a scrupulously polite briefing.”
“They don’t know you quite as well as I do.”
“Mansita Jano was getting ready to arrest Revutev Mavarka. And offer the Message.”
“And you think the situation is a bit more complicated…”
“There are two visitors. One of them is acting like it represents a planetary authority. The other one—the visitor Revutev Mavarka contacted—looks like it may have more in common with him. I have to see how much support Revutev Mavarka has. I can’t ignore that. You have to think about their emotional reactions when you’re dealing with the Adventurer community. I have to weigh their feelings and I have to think about the responses we could provoke in the visitors—both visitors. We aren’t the first people to confront two visitors but it still increases the complexities—the unknowns.”
“And Revutev Mavarka has piled more complexities on top of that. And the Integrators understandably decided we’d be better off with someone like you pondering the conflicts.”
The contact had told the Betzino-Resdell community they should call him Donald. So far they had mostly traded language programs. They could exchange comments on the weather in three hundred and seven different languages.
The alters that were interested in non-human sexuality lobbied for permission to swap data on sexual practices. There were six alters in the group and they represented the six leading scholars associated with the North Pacific Center for the Analysis of Multi-Gender Sexuality. The exploration units they controlled had observed the activities of eight local life-forms. All eight seemed to have developed the same unimaginative two-sex pattern life had evolved on Earth. Their forays into the cities had given them a general picture of the inhabitant’s physiology but it had left them with a number of unresolved issues.
Topic: Does your species consist of two sexes?
Betzino-Resdell: Yes.
Donald: Yes.
Topic: Are there any obvious physical differences between the sexes?
BR: Yes.
Donald: Yes
Topic: What are they?
BR: Our males are larger, bigger boned on average. Generally more muscular.
Donald: Males more colorful, more varied facial feathers.
Topic: Do you form permanent mating bonds?
BR: Yes.
Donald: Yes.
Topic: Do any members of your species engage in other patterns?
BR: Yes.
Donald: Yes.
Topic: How common are these other patterns?
BR: In many societies, very high percentages engage in other patterns.
Donald: Why do you wish to know?
The visitation committee was receiving a full recording of every exchange between Revutev Mavarka and the visitation device that called itself Betzino-Resdell. Revutev Mavarka was, of course, fully aware that he was being observed. So far he had avoided any exchanges that could produce accusations he had transmitted potentially dangerous information.
“It must be frustrating,” Varosa Uman said. “He must have a million subjects he’d like to discuss.”
“We just need one slip,” Mansita Jano said. “Give us one slip and he’ll be lucky if fifty members of his own class stand by him.”
“And the visitor will have the information contained in the slip…”
Mansita Jano’s facial feathers stirred—an ancient response that made his face look bigger and more threatening. “Then why not silence him before he does it, Overseer? Do you really think he can keep this up indefinitely without saying something catastrophic?”
“I’ve been thinking a dangerous thought,” Varosa Uman said.
“I’m not surprised,” Siti said.
“Every intelligent species that has sent visitors to an inhabited world has apparently lived through the same horrible experience we did. Some of them may not have survived it. If our experience is typical, everybody who receives the Message responds in the same way when they receive a visitation after they’ve gone through their version of the Turbulence. The Message is a great teacher. It teaches us that contact with other civilizations is a dangerous disruption.”
Two large winged predators were swooping over the water just below the level of their balcony. The dark red plumage on their wings created a satisfying contrast with the grey of the sea and the sky
“I’m thinking it might be useful if someone looked at an alternative response,” Varosa Uman said.
Siti ran his fingers across the back of her hand. They had been married for eighty-two complete cycles— twenty-four hundred years of full consciousness. He knew when to speak and when to mutely remind her he was there.
“Suppose someone tried a different role,” Varosa Uman said. “Suppose we offered to guide these visitors through all the adaptations they’re going to confront. Step by step.”
“As an older, more experienced species.”
“Which we are. In this area, at least.”
“We would have to maintain contact,” Siti said. “They would be influencing us, too.”
“And threatening us with more turbulence. I’d be creating a disruption the moment I mentioned the idea to Mansita Jano.”
“Have you mentioned your intellectual deviation to the Integrators?”
“They gave me one of their standard routines. They pointed out the dangers, I asked them for a decision, and they told me they were only machines, I’m the Situation Overseer.”
“And they picked you because their routines balanced all the relevant factors—see attached list—and decided you were the best available candidate.”
“I think it’s pretty obvious I got the job because I’m more sympathetic to the Adventurer viewpoint than most of the candidates who had the minimum expertise they were looking for.”
“You’re certainly more sympathetic than Mansita Jano. As I remember it, your major response to Revutev
