sky seemed to be the same color, a soft bluish gray. The beach ran seemingly to infinity on each side, sloping strangely upward and vanishing in a mist of twilight distance. And in that dimness, dotted here and there along the beach, a hundred thousand tall statues stood. Every time Nita looked in a different direction, there seemed to be more of them. They were wonderfully made. It seemed to Nita that the statues had been painted to look just like real people: very tall people, of whom even the shortest were six or seven feet high. They wore long, loose, comfortable clothes, tunics and soft trousers and long skirts, and they were all very handsome, with blind, bland faces, all slightly smiling. Nita went over to the closest of them, admiring the wonderful realism with which the statue had been carved. You could even see the coarse, soft weave in the fabric of the clothes it wore, as if it were real. She reached out to touch the fabric of the nearest statue s sleeve And found that it was fabric, something like loosely woven linen…and the arm underneath it was warm. They re not statues Nita snatched her hand back, shocked. But there was no answering movement from the Not a statue. A person. But what s the matter with them Why don t they move Why don t you move she cried to the night. What s wrong No voice answered her, at first. But then, slowly, Nita began to hear another sound, one she d mistaken for the sound of the little waves coming up the beach. It was someone whispering. The whisper said, We are as we ve decided to be. Everything is fine. It s not! Nita said. There s more to life than just standing around! You should move! You should do things! We are as we ve decided to be, said another whisper. And another, and another, until there was a whole chorus of them, all saying, as if in perfect content, Everything is fine. Everything is fine… In the dream, Nita was not convinced. She started to walk down the beach, looking for just one of these people who would say something besides Everything is fine. Finally, she broke into a run, looking into face after smiling face, and the speed of her running stirred the clothes of the people she ran past…but nothing else. None of them moved. None of them turned to watch her. Finally, after a long dream-time of running, Nita stopped. Because this was dream, she wasn t out of breath. But she could still hear the whispering, endless, like the sound of the sea: We are as we ve decided to be… .. and everything is fine… She stood there in the twilight, which was slowly growing brighter, and started feeling like she wanted to leave. She didn t want to see the light of full day shine on all these statues and make it plain how stuck they were. Nita started to look for a way to get off the beach. But it was all beach, a beach full of statues, no matter where she turned. She started to despair. Then, far away, something moved. Nita strained her eyes to see it. Slowly, she began to see that it was shorter than all the other blind, frozen figures, and it was walking right toward her. As it came ever closer, Nita found herself feeling an irrational fear, which grew with every step it took toward her. She wanted to run. But she couldn t. Now she was the frozen one, a statue herself. No! Nita thought, and tried and tried to move; but she had stayed here too long, and the statues immobility had spread to her. And that single moving figure was closer now. Much closer. Only a few hundred feet away In terror she stood there, rooted to the sand, and watched him come. He was only as tall as she was, but Nita felt as afraid of him as if he d been a hundred times taller. He was dark-skinned, wearing pale, long, loose clothes like the statues wore. He had long, dark reddish hair-stuff that hung down his back, and his eyes were dark, too, unreadable. He came to stand right in front of Nita, and nothing she could do made her able to move so much as a muscle, though she desperately wanted to get away. I ve been waiting for you a long time, the man said. You know what has to be done. Nita couldn t speak, couldn t even shake her head. It s all right, he said. It ll be morning soon. And sure enough, dawn was coming on. In fact, it seemed to be coming on with a rush, as if something had held it back, waiting for this man to arrive. Now the whole eastern sky went pale with light, paler, bright, blinding, and the Sun leaped into the sky as if over a wall, and the whole beach went up in a single cry of terror as at last, at last, the statues spoke It was the Sun that woke her up, finally, streaming very early into her room through the east-facing blinds that she d forgotten to close. The briefing folder, programmed not to waste energy, had folded itself up again after Nita fell asleep and was hovering in the air over her head, a neat little dark package. Nita plucked it out of the air, threw off the covers, got up, and stuffed the folder into her backpack, which was hanging over the back of her desk chair. Then she got into her jeans and threw on a baggy T-shirt stolen from her dad. Everything is fine… Wow, Nita thought. That s one for the book. She got her manual, opened it to her dream log pages, and added a record of what she could remember of the dream. Most of it, I think. It was vivid. When she finished, she went down for breakfast. Dairine was there ahead of her, which was moderately unusual. She was sitting at the dining room table, halfway through a bowl of cornflakes, with a folder spread out on the table next to the bowl. Spot was crouched off to one side, with no legs in evidence, but he had put up a pair of stalked eyes and was regarding the cornflakes with a dubious expression. Morning, Nita said. Yeah. Nita put a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, started them toasting, and went to get a mug from the dish drainer. What s that you re reading An orientation pack with information on the incoming guests. Dad s got one, too. Nita was surprised. When did that come in Last night. It is in English, isn t it No, Dairine said. It s got a Speech-to-text converter, though. Very neat. He started in on it last night. I think he s reading the rest of it in bed right now. Great. How many guests are we getting Three, it looks like. Nita opened the cupboard over the counter and rummaged around a little for the dark tea she liked. Where from All over. There s a Demisiv, a Rirhait, and somebody from Wellakh, which I ve never heard of. Wellakh, Nita said. Don t think I ve heard of it, either. Then it hit her. Three Where are they all going to stay We ve only got one extra bedroom, and I don t have the bunk beds in mine anymore. She found the tea bags and fished one out of the box. Assuming they can even use beds, and don t need racks or hooks or something… They ll stay in the pup tents. That s what they re for, Dairine said. They can put as much of their own stuff in there as they like, if it turns out they need it. Beds, furniture, whatever. In fact and Dairine looked up at Nita I ve been looking over the docs, and they could do a lot more than that if they liked… Nita looked around the corner of the kitchen door at Dairine. The expression on her sister s face was one Nita had seen entirely too often the amused look of someone who s figured out a new way to put something over on the universe. It s too early in the morning for this, Nita thought, picking up the kettle and going over to the sink to fill it. How do you mean she said. The pup tents have a back door, Dairine said. What, like the main access No, it s different, Dairine said. There was a pause and some crunching. If you change the permeability of the pup tent s matter-void interface Whoa, wait a minute! Nita said. That s reverse engineering! The custom gate interface said you weren t supposed to do that. Oh, to the gate, yeah. But the pup tents Dairine! There was a pause for more crunching. I said you could do that, Dairine said. I didn t say I was going to. This declaration wasn t specific enough to give Nita any relief, but she sighed and put the kettle on the stove, turning the burner on. And if she does start gimmicking things while I m not here, well, that s just her problem. The thought of not having to be involved in cleaning up after some trouble of Dairine s made Nita feel oddly cheerful. Her toast popped up. Nita got a plate and reached into the fridge for the butter. So how are you guys doing your big transit to this planet Dairine said. What s its name again Alaalu. We ll use public transport to start with. We ll short-gate it to Grand Central around two, and then go over to the Crossings from there. After that we just pick up a scheduled service for Alaalu. The manual says there are outbound gatings from the Crossings about once every two hours, or on demand. No big deal. Leaving early, huh Dairine said, reaching out to the cornflake box in front of her to pour another bowl. Can t bear to see Dad freaking out over the new arrivals Actually, Nita said, cutting her toast in halves, I think he ll do just fine… and the sooner I m out of here, the happier he ll be. One less thing for him to concentrate on. Hnh, Dairine said, a noise which suggested both that she was chewing and that she didn t know whether to believe Nita or not. Nita sat down and started eating her toast. You packed yet Dairine said. Nita shook her head. After breakfast, she said, picking up the second piece. She munched in silence for a little while, and then looked up to find Dairine looking at her with an expression that on anyone else might have been somewhat wistful. What This is turning out okay after all, isn t it Dairine said. I think so, Nita said. And Dad s calming down a little. Dairine snickered into her cereal. I think so. Anyway, it ll be fun to have some other wizards here to hang out with. And Carmela s been wanting to get some more practice with the Speech: This ll be a great way. Dairine poured more milk on her cornflakes. It ll be good for them to meet a normal Earth person… Nita smiled slightly as she finished her toast. Don t let Kit hear you call her that. Yeah. Dairine took another spoonful of cornflakes. Go on, you should start packing. It s gonna take you longer than you think. It annoyed Nita to have to admit that her sister was right. After her dad went off to work, she spent the rest of the morning and the very beginning of the afternoon putting things into her pup tent and taking them out again. The things that stayed in included Nita s desk, which, she discovered, was too heavy to drag in so that she wound up having to levitate it; a lot of books and CDs and her own little desktop CD player and sound system; a lot of clothes in cardboard boxes, including every swimsuit she owned, and much other junk from her dresser drawers that Nita had gradually realized she couldn t do without. That recurring realization was what stopped her, eventually, as she stood in front of her dresser holding her third stack of underwear. Am I insane I can always come back. She chucked the underwear back into the open dresser drawer, pushed it shut with her foot, and went into the bathroom for toiletries and a couple of towels. There s a thought. Beach towels… She opened the towel cupboard and pulled out a couple of big ones, smiling at the thought of lying around under some alien sun, listening to the ocean, doing nothing Sunblock! Nita rummaged around in the medicine cabinet, but all the sunblock in there had sell-by dates in the previous year. This stuff is useless now. I can always use a wizardry to do the same job… She went back into her room, which looked strangely empty without her desk, and glanced around to see if there was anything she d forgotten. A glance at her watch told her it was one-thirty. Getting close to time to go, Nita thought. Looks like I m all set Honey Good grief, what s going on in here Nita looked over her shoulder. Her dad was standing in the doorway, gazing into her room in some confusion. Are you going to leave anything in here he said. Are you sure you don t need the posters on the wall, too Nope, I m all done, Nita said. As she spoke, she bent down to pull the tag of words in the Speech that controlled the pup tent s access; the gray shadow of the portal slid up into the silvery rod and vanished. Nita took the rod down out of the air, telescoped it down to a foot, and slipped it into her backpack. You re home for lunch It s lunchtime, yeah, but I ve already had a sandwich. I just thought I d see if you needed me to drive you and Kit to the station in Freeport. Daddy, we re going straight into Grand Central, Nita said, picking up the backpack and slinging it over her shoulder with one last look around her room. And you should be getting ready for the visitors. There s not that much to do, her dad said as they went down the stairs together. The place is clean Dairine did a good job of it. I guess I just wanted to see you off. I know, Nita said. Dad, I ll be fine. This isn t any worse than going over to Kit s: I can be home in a minute if you need me. And I see from my manual that Tom s done something to your cell phone so you can call me any time. It ll just come through the manual. That s the only thing I m not sure about, her dad said as they headed toward the kitchen. My cell phone company has too many different ways it charges me to start with. If phone calls to other star systems show up on my next bill Nita grinned. If they do, I think you should take them right to the phone company and see what they do. And I want to go with you. Her dad nodded, smiled, reached out to her. Nita went and gave him a big hug. I ll send you postcards, Nita said. Just don t confuse the mailman. Nita grinned. Bye, Dad, she said, and went out. In the driveway, Dairine was waiting for her, and trying not to look as if she was waiting. You got everything she said. Nita rolled her eyes. Yes, she said. In fact, that s what I m afraid of. You may see me coming back to return stuff. I don t want to see you for at least a couple of days, Dairine said, with such force that Nita was a little surprised. Well, just do me a favor and call me if anything starts to happen, okay If I need you, sure. This was not the answer Nita had been looking for. I want progress reports, Nita said. If Dad Dad will be fine! Don t you trust me with him Nita broke out in a sudden sweat, as any direct answer was likely to get her in trouble either as a wizard or as a sister. Just set your manual to generate a daily precis, okay If I don t hear from you, I can check that, she said. That won t be any trouble. And it won t find endless, creative ways to cover up whatever s happening, either. Yeah, sure, Dairine said. And, without warning, she hugged Nita. You take care of yourself, she said. Don t get in trouble. Me Nita said. They say the memory s the first thing to go, Dairine said under her breath. She turned and went back into the house, waving one hand more or less behind her. Have fun… Nita shrugged her backpack into place and turned away. A few minutes later, at Kit s house, Nita knocked on the back door, then stuck her head in. In the living room, cacophony from Carmela s chat utility made a background to more urgent voices. You should take a heavier jacket, honey! I don t think I need to, Mama. The average temperature there this time of year is eighty degrees. In fact, it s eighty degrees for most of the year. It might still get cold at night if you re going to be at the beach. You re not going to have to go anywhere nice, are you Out to dinner or anything You should take a good shirt. Mama, I can come right back here and get one. Why waste the time when you can put it in this wonderful magic closet right now Yeah, said Carmela s voice from the living room. I want a wonderful magic closet, too! Or I ll take that one when you re done. There was a silence, which to Nita said more about Kit s state of mind than many words could. Helloooo! she said as she walked into the kitchen. Kit In the living room. She went in there and found him standing in front of his own pup-tent access, looking very resigned and simply throwing through the interface everything his mother handed him. Carmela, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, as usual, was watching the whole process with intense amusement though not laughing out loud. Nita suspected that Mela knew this could be bad for her health at the moment. Oh, hello, Nita, Kit s mama said. He ll be ready in a sec. See that, she s wearing a heavier jacket she said, and hurried past Nita toward the kitchen and the back door. What time is it Kit said to Nita. Almost two, she said. We should go. Instantly, if not sooner, Kit said silently. I m beginning to feel like a garage sale here. You can always smuggle