Tadko waited breathlessly in his assigned cubicle as the SS Werauer circled slowly in a holding orbit above Monna. He wondered when the ship would get clearance to land. Tadko felt oddly suspended, hanging between past and future: this planet Monna was his father's home. He had seen some old pictures, but had no real memory of his father.

His mother had done all she could to prepare him for a possible reunion. She had set up a school in a disused room in a storage cave. Table, two stools, styli to write with, stacks of paper bought every year at Port Town. (Grandfather had disapproved and frowned terribly, but Mother had her way.) There was also a helmet called a Tutorial, powered from a shiny box she called a persat, both brought from Monna, years ago. He had learned the Monnan language, and some basic education. So, he had thought he would come to Monna someday, but not like this.

His door alarm sounded sharply.

"Tadko?" Jerely called. "May I come in?"

Tadko opened the door. Jerely looked him over and shook her head. "My father sent me to tell you you'd better wear your ship clothes for disembarking," she said. "He doesn't want you looking like an Elnakti, any more than you have to."

"Why shouldn't I look like an Elnakti? That's what I am."

"The router came on to give us our clearance," she explained. "When my father gave his last port of call as Elnakt, the router said, 'Are you bringing another load of Elnakti refugees? We'll have to refuse clearance, we can't accept any more.' So my father said no, he wasn't bringing a load of refugees, because one person isn't a load, you see." She grinned cheerfully. "But you'd better wear your ship gear for landing—I brought it—and here's a belt and pouch. Also here's a crew bag, you can pack your other things in this and take it with you."

Tadko looked with disfavor at the crew clothes he had worn on shipboard.

"Will I look like a Monnan in those?" he asked dubiously.

Jerely laughed out loud. "None of us could look like a Monnan! No, we hope these will make you look like a nondescript human who might have come off any ship, from anywhere. What you want is to look as inconspicuous as possible. You can put these on after landing—you won't have time now—then come up to the control room. You'll hear the signals—ah, there's the first warning."

The buzzer sounded through the ship and she was out the door, flinging herself up toward command level. Tadko closed everything into a locker to secure for landing, then strapped himself in to wait again.

Landing procedures dragged on much longer than he expected, but at last the bell sounded; he could get up. He joined Master Jaong and his family in the control room, dressed according to Jerely's instructions. His Elnakti jacket, breeches and boots, and the undersuit of smoothweave, were rolled and packed in the bag.

Jaong looked him over as Jerely had, and nodded approvingly. "You'll do, younker."

Tadko smiled at being called "younker." True, he was young enough to be Jaong's son, but he was 18 in Elnakti years, or 17 in standard years, after all. A man, at home.

"By the way," Jaong continued, "do you have any squares on you?"

Tadko looked blank. "Squares?"

Jaong fished in a pocket and pulled out a handful of squares, some large and black, some small and silvery, each covered with a complicated tracery of fine gold lines.

Then Tadko remembered one of his mother's lessons—he was small, then, just about old enough for his first shearing feast—and she, too, had held out a handful of squares like these. She explained their use, and told him, reminding him from time to time since, that he must be sure to take them if he ever went to Monna. He sighed.

"That would be Monnan money. No, I don't have any. My—my family had some, but there wasn't time to get it before I left."

Jaong shook his head. "You'll not get far without it. Not anywhere, I think. I, ah, hmm." He sniffed, rubbed his chin, and looked faintly embarrassed. "You'd better take these."

He clapped the squares into Tadko's hand, closed the young man's fist around them, and turned away to the port. Tadko looked at the squares in his hand. For a moment he was about to refuse them, unwilling to accept Jaong's charity beyond the passage on the Werauer. Then he remembered his mother telling him that he would be helpless on Monna without money. Jaong, for all his short manner, was a kind man.

Tadko put the money in his pouch. "Thank you, Master Jaong. I don't know that I'll ever be able to repay your kindness, but if I can, I will."

Jaong sniffed again. Elnakti promises had weight to them. "Never mind. All of your stories have entertained us. Think of it as wages, younker. You've made yourself useful. There! See the towers over there, with the smaller shaft beside them?"

Tadko went to the port, his eyes following Jaong's pointing finger. Then he found himself gaping, incredulous, at the sight of those towers, built on the top of an extinct volcano. They seemed to dwarf even the ship; on Elnakt, the ship had loomed big against the sky.

"Is that the terminal center?" He asked a bit shakily.

"So it is. Now they'll extend a tube from the side shaft, and we'll disembark that way. In the shaft we'll get on a lift platform that will lower us down to the crews' quarters. But on the way down, we'll pass ramp entries for the passenger areas. You jump off onto one of those. Once you get into the passenger concourse, you'll want the shuttle to the city center. You can use a comline from there, to call your father. Can you remember all that?"

"Could I call from the spaceport?"

"They'll charge you there. At the shuttle landing, in the City, you can call for nothing to anywhere on planet."

Tadko nodded and repeated the instructions word for word. He came from a culture that prized a good memory, and said so.

"Don't show off that talent too much," Jaong counseled. "Because if anyone wants to know what ship you arrived on, you must tell them you've forgotten." Jaong shook his head. "They'd find out soon enough if they wanted to, but as long as you keep away from the greens and keep your mouth mostly shut, you should be all right."

"Greens?"

"They're the law. Not bad sorts if you're not a lawbreaker, but if you are, they're not pleasant. Your father can fix things up about your entry, but until you're with him, be careful to stay out of their way. If you don't have a landing permit on you, you be in bad trouble."

Tadko nodded again. He straightened himself up, telling himself that, after all, he was Tadko Darusko, Mosor of Daruskan, a chieftain of Elnakt, and therefore a person of no mean consequence. The shakiness remained, however. He tried to ignore it, watching the tube slowly extend from the terminal building. It locked on with a clang, the airlock opened, and then they were all jostling along the tube. Jaong's crew—mostly members of his family—chattered loudly, discussing plans for their stay on Monna, goods they hoped to pick up for private sale, the probable profit from their cargo of Elnakti timber.

Tadko went with them silently. As the lift platform lowered them inside the terminal shaft, he watched the various openings closely, trying to conceal his nervousness.

"There!" said Jaong, pointing.

Tadko gripped his bag and leaped, staggered slightly but managed to keep his balance, and found himself riding a moving beltway that took him down at a slant into another section.

"Good luck, Tadko!" He heard Jerely call, and then Jaong and his family had disappeared behind him. Walls fell away on each side of the beltway, and there was nothing but a handrail between him and a long fall.

He clutched it tightly, braced his feet, and spiraled downward. The beltway curved past dormitory levels, with rows and rows of bunks stacked up in tens; signs along the beltway announced "For The Use Of Passengers In Transit." Smaller signs directed one to sanitary facilities for a bewildering variety of species, plus showers, tubs, and semibaths—whatever they might be. Other levels were walled off from the beltway except for luxuriously carpeted foyers; here the signs said, "First Class Accommodations Only; Please Display Ticket."

Another level was one vast restaurant; still another was devoted entirely to business transactions. Here luminous signs hung unsupported in the air, designating various areas as "Banking," "Offworld Currency Exchange," "Out Stars Freightage," or "Transtellar Communications Center."

People stepped on and off the beltway at all levels, a few managing it with a jump and a grab as he had done, but most of them making the transition with an ease and indifference that suggested long experience. He had a few moments of dreadful uncertainty when he noticed that the handrail he gripped disappeared briefly each time this happened, reappearing after the living body had passed out of the way. Yet it felt solid enough in his hand, and after he passed the first few levels he realized it would stay solid for him, as long as he stayed in place and held it. Nevertheless, he was glad enough to jump off at the end, on the floor of the concourse.

For a while he simply wandered around, aimlessly, gawking. He had lost count of the many floors above, and yet the ceiling of the first level was so high he would not have been surprised to see clouds caught in its height. Instead there were luggage floats, rising and falling, darting here and there, the luggage handlers seated on an edge with legs dangling as they maneuvered.

Spiral beltways like the one he had just used were spaced at regular intervals, carrying a continuous stream of people up and down. More luminous signs hung in the air, and announcements belled out of communicator nodes. Everywhere was noise, as thousands of people drifted, hastened, sauntered, gathered in eddies around a booth or kiosk, lined up at the great computer banks of the ticket rotundas, separated, crowded together again. Jaong's crew had told him that tourists came to Monna from half the galaxy, and now he believed it.

Most of the people he saw were human, from various worlds in the local group—Eilonsaders, Dorrans, F'thisk'k'zow—though their appearances showed great contrasts. He saw four men wearing only black kilts and boots, their skins bright scarlet, yellow hair standing straight up on their heads like crests. Was it dye, or their natural skin color? A couple passed by, followed by at least twelve children. All of them were bald, with blue-gray skins, prominent goggling eyes, ears reduced to tiny nubbins. All were dressed alike in form-fitting yellow coveralls. Parents and children both were almost as broad as they were tall, but the breadth appeared to be muscle and bone rather than fat. He had heard of high-gravity worlds and decided that this family must come from such a one. He stared with a mixture of pity and revulsion, wondering how his own people could ever have thought the Rhionny were alien, until the adults swiveled their bullet heads on nearly neckless shoulders and returned his stare balefully. Embarrassed, he turned and walked off briskly into the crowd. According to his lessons, all these were human—as were the Elnakti and Monnans—all descended from some (possibly mythical) single planet of origin.

He came to another stop at the sight of genuine non-humans. These two were just a few feet away, buying drinks at an automatic dispenser. They were half again as tall as himself, each standing on four thin stiltlike legs. Their long arms were articulated in two places, swinging forward and back with equal facility. Their torsos were draped in multicolored feathers; he could not tell if this was clothing or their natural integument. Their heads were triangular, vaguely insectoid.

The two had obtained globes of colorless liquid from the dispenser, which they proceeded to suck up noisily. Presently they were joined by a biped creature resplendent in bronze scales and crest, wearing a complicated arrangement of silver straps and tabs.

Tadko realized that he was thirsty, too. He approached the dispenser. All in transparent containers, it displayed liquids both colored and clear, some small pink ovoids that might be fruit, a grainy-looking black substance, pale green finger-sized nubbins, and stacks of red and white wafers that really looked appetizing. But the names on the various cells meant nothing to him and he moved on, deciding he had better make use of a dispenser patronized by Monnans.

The native Monnans certainly were the vast majority in the crowd. They were slender, graceful, and tall, with fine-grained, ebony skin, short black curls, and violet eyes. Men and women both wore elaborate sandals, and loose trousers and smocks in a multitude of bright colors. Soft pouches hung at their sides, suspended from ornamental belts. A handsome people indeed, with a poise, an easy elegance of manner, that made Tadko feel lumpish and stupid, a clod. In comparison, Tadko was short, stocky, with straight brown hair and brown skin.

As he walked through the building, he watched for other Elnakti, certain he could pick them out even in this crowd, but saw none. Jerely had told him they would have come in four or five days ago, but where were they now? Their absence worried him.

He found his way to another dispenser—a wide, squat column around which a good many Monnans stood sipping drinks. It took an effort to make himself pass through them, but he caught their attention for only a moment, and then they turned back to their own affairs. He watched, sidelong, while several of them operated the dispenser, noting how it worked and which drinks they received. Then he fished a silvery square from his own pouch, dropped it in the slot, and punched for a brown beverage in a tall container.

The liquid proved to be a mild, cool beer, and he drank it with pleasure, resting his bag of clothing on the floor at his feet. It came to him, watching the activity of this spaceport, that being Mosor of Daruskan meant little or nothing, here on Monna. He might as well be the 'nondescript' Jerely had spoken of, who could have arrived on any ship, from anywhere. Just another tourist, come to see the sights on a tourist planet. He finished his beer, pushed the container into the disposal slot as he had seen others do, hoisted his bag on his shoulder, and moved off, somberly, to look for an information booth.

He found one near a beltway descent, and presented himself in what he hoped was a confident manner.

"Shuttle to the city center?" He asked hopefully.

The young woman nodded, flicking an experienced eye over Tadko's clothing and features.

"Shuttle to Monna the City leaves every hour, Portal Twelve. Do you have a ticket?"

"No."

She turned to a machine and pulled levers. "One ticket to the City—that'll be six zinae."

Tadko dug six of the silvery zinae from his pouch, inwardly blessing Master Jaong's kindness.

"Right enough," said the young woman, accepting them. "You just arrived on Monna?"

"Uh, yes."

"All right, that's where you'll wait for the shuttle," and she leaned out of her booth and pointed. "Follow the black arrow to the portal and wait right there, don't let anyone push you out of line."

Tadko muttered his thanks and took his ticket. The young woman reached below her counter, brought up a black arrow made of smooth, faintly luminous material, touched it to a lens on her comp board, and set it in the air. It floated off through the terminal, an astonished Tadko hurrying behind it.

At the portal, the arrow disappeared into an opening beside the ticket window, and Tadko joined the line boarding the shuttle.

© 2000 by Margaret Howes. All rights reserved.