Krysza, walking beside me, shrugged ignorance when I cocked an eyebrow at her.

Rarely did conditions Out There match expectations. That's what made it so interesting. But here? On Earth? This world of human genesis laid the foundation for our very existence Out There. We'd studied the videos and the documents and the photos in preparation for the inquiry we'd volunteered to make on behalf of Eridania. We knew Earth . . . didn't we? We were her children . . .

If Krysza and I were not who we thought we were, who the hell were we?

Krysza tucked a long stray lock of ochre hair over her ear. Under the mask, her nose twitched. "Air tastes funny," she said.

It had that desiccated, sanctified flavor of the air in our 'skip, between stars. Ever eat a bread crust while your mouth is dry? The memory of the flakes sticking to your gullet lingers long after you've swallowed. This was like that, only swallowing failed to ameliorate the condition. Krysza coughed, then sneezed. The sounds brought me back to the street. She was not alone in her distress. Tiny puffs from behind the masks of passers-by indicated a contagion of respiratory discomfort. But what in this surgery-room atmosphere could cause it?

At the first intersection we paused for the traffic flow indicators to change color, and garnered speculative appraisals from several young men--and from a young woman, who averted her eyes quickly when hers met mine. Krysza elbowed me sharply in the ribs, a playful reminder that, while I might be permitted the occasional dalliance, it would be with someone of her choice. Several paces away, a woman clad in faux tweed and puce leggings that revealed an attractive bit of knee and nothing else tugged at a leash. The dog, if dog it was [cross a chihuahua with a cocker spaniel and dye the result electric pink], sniffed at a waypost, turned around, and lifted its right rear leg.

A ray of sunshine flashed from the waypost diagonally across the intersection from us, choking off the woman's "No!" I heard a sound not unlike that which you cause by inadvertently laying the screwdriver across the battery poles. The dog vanished. The leash fell limp to the walkway.

Krysza gasped, and clutched at my hand.

A passing conveyance, its operator temporarily distracted by the incident, intruded into the intersection just as the indicators changed color from amber to crimson. Another ray of sunshine gleamed, and this time the pop! assaulted our ears.

The conveyance vanished, and its occupant.

"Order," said a young man--not one of the oglers. His was a hatchet face, the blade the nose and chin, tanned as old hide.

I nodded, eyes still on the waypost. About twenty meters high it stood, topped with a slotted bulb. I'd seen photos of bad weather sirens rather like this.

"I'm Laird," he said. He did not offer his hand.

My heart settled back into a decent rhythm. "Charlene Nash. This is my wife, Krysza."

He eased back a pace. Furtive eyes flicked from side to side. "Your . . . wife."

His tone alerted me to unknown dangers. "Is there a problem?"

Laird licked his lips. Something was awry . . . but what? "Have you two, uh . . . you know. Here. In this block, I mean."

"Have we two uh what here in this block?" Beside me Krysza stifled a giggle. "Oh! No." Not that it was any concern of his.

Visibly relieved, Laird looked at me again. Dark eyes absorbed my attire--a green jersey, a pair of old but still serviceable black jeans, and field boots--and Krysza's--similar, except her jersey was pale violet, like her eyes. With his inspection I became aware of our conspicuousness. His was what we call an outsuit, relatively form-fitting and quite utile. Underneath his body looked functional, though I was not inclined to test the theory.

"You are Externals," he said, as if that explained a question he had not asked.

Krysza sniffled, and cleared her throat. "We're from---"

". . . outside New Hudson," I broke in. "We're looking for DOOPHUS." He frowned ignorance, and I added, "It will be an office of some sort, probably a large one. We are to report in person. We have an inquiry to make." Such were our orders.

His eyes--they were almost chocolate in the sunlight--betrayed his puzzlement. Still, he ticked a fingertip at a keyboard implant in his left palm, then keened his head, as if listening. Belatedly I spotted the nodule in the dark hair just above his right ear.

Finally he said, pointing to his left, "Two blocks from here. It is one of the older buildings, perhaps one of the Originals. You seek the second level below ground."

I remained uncertain. "Perhaps you might be kind enough to escort us?"

Laird shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and looked away. His countenance suggested he regretted having offered conversation.

"Krysza and I won't do any uh-what in your presence." I tucked a note of plea into my tone. I was unaccustomed to requesting assistance. On Eridania it was offered in advance of need. "Is that satisfactory?"

His voice grew sullen. "This way, then."

We followed him. He stayed just far enough ahead of us to make the casual observer doubt Krysza and I were in his company. After half a block I'd had enough, and snagged him by the shoulder, spinning him around. "Are we doing something wrong?"

Laird almost laughed. "No, of course not. How can you?" He made a face at us, inconvenienced by the need to explain the [to him] obvious. "There is no wrong. There is only Order . . . here, as it is in your State. What did you think, that we were different? Externals! You think everything is a new wonder. I assure you it is not. We are quite like you."

Already I'd begun to doubt that, but I let his delusion survive. "Order" meant . . . what did it mean? Who made the rules here?

Krysza's lovely brow furrowed. "You mean, if we cross against the light, we will be killed?"

Laird bade us onward. "Don't cross against the light," he said, as if it were that simple. Well, perhaps it was. But not on Eridania.

At the corner we crossed with the light. And with the next. Pedestrians and small shops formed a defilade through which we passed without hindrance. From the row of eateries athwart the middle of the block there should have emanated aromas to inspire appetites. Instead, to the accompaniment of the whirr of tiny fans embedded in the walls above the shop windows, we scented only sterility. Even Krysza's alluring lilac perfume had dulled, diluted to parts per trillion. Absent the touch of her hand, if I closed my eyes, I could not sense her . . . which seemed a waste of friendly proximity. Our reflections in a window recalled to me just how much we stood out in our attire . . . and made me aware of the eyes on us. Truly we were Externals.

But another pair of eyes, somewhere beyond the range of the reflection, weighed on me. I doubted the waypost had keened to Krysza and me, wary of potential infraction. This surveillance felt, not technological, but personal. Someone was interested in us.

Krysza felt it, too. Her lilac eyes swept around us as we drifted onward, but failed to light upon any particular person. For a moment we were back on Eridania, in the Thronx Forest, playing Hide-and-Seek. But that had been a game. Again I wondered who made the rules here.

The structure toward which Laird led us was indeed venerable, its pale brown blocks fragmented and pitted with age and by ancient skirmishes. A battle had once been fought near here, perhaps the Intifada of New York that I had read about, the uprising of immigrants uneasy with the ways of their adopted land. It was none of my concern. My eyes, and Krysza's, swept toward the future. Whatever was past, had already happened.

Doors slid open when we ascended the brief set of gray plastic steps, shallow depressions in them hinting that the interior of the building was at one time frequented. Under our masks Krysza and I coughed as the rush of freshly-dried air reached us. We stepped into the foyer, but Laird remained at the entrance, his duties completed. I beckoned him onward.

He turned and fled.

"This does not bode well," Krysza whispered.

Her soft voice echoed through the chamber and down dimly-lit corridors long abandoned. Around us tiny fans hummed, inhaling dust and odors, replacing them with unhydrated air. My throat clogged, and I coughed. The atmosphere of Eridania was similar to that of Earth . . . or was supposed to be. There is a constant newness, standing on the front patio of the cottage in the sunlight, beside your wife, taking in the morning's first breaths. For unfathomable reasons, New Hudson had chosen to befoul its air with dry molecules, and Krysza and I could only share spasms racked with coughs.

Which rather took the romance out of it. And the newness. Krysza pointed.

A directory was affixed to the wall, its black field age-faded to grays, the white plastic letters stained as if by an explosion of coffee. Names of people and offices, numbers of rooms. Some of the letters were missing. Our destination was indeed on the second subterranean level. Another wall sign indicated the location of elevators. We followed the arrow and reached two sets of sliding doors. I pushed the button for Down, without effect.

"Stairs," said Krysza.

The excitement of impending completion spurred me onward. In that way, I suppose, accomplishing a task is rather like love-making. Krysza felt it, too. Her field boots tocked the plastic steps ahead of me, and echoes thrummed me as I passed through her vacated space. Two flights of stairs we took, and arrived at B Level. Here the air seemed moister, or perhaps it was my imagination. But the emptiness remained.

The building was unoccupied.

We'd reached a long corridor lined on either side with doors at regular intervals. Some had signs or placards indicating the purposes within. A length of luminous tiles divided the ceiling as far as we could see. The first door we came to bore a three-digit number, the next two units higher. We turned and headed in the other direction.

Krysza removed her mask and drank deeply of the air, the inhalation singing past the glob of mucus that had formed in the back of her throat. She coughed once to clear it and breathed again, quieter. Under the jersey her breasts trembled with the effort. "I don't understand this at all," she sighed.

Aboard our 'skip Eclair de Lune [I like Debussy, Krysza loves pastries, as we've explained on too many occasions] we'd received our ANTIs, standard prophylactics against all manner of organisms and proteins. We were as immune to disease as the human body could be made. Whence then our distress?

An echo reached us, faint as old starlight.

We'd brought no weapons, despite the possibility of being accosted in an alley as the videos suggested--ours was a peaceful mission. But Krysza was trained in aikido, and she was tenacious. Eyes and ears keened to stealthy approaches, we continued down the corridor, counting off the room numbers. The echo remained unrepeated. I recalled the line from Poe: Only this and nothing more.

Krysza tugged me to halt. I'd glanced at the door and been about to move on. Belatedly the number registered. Black block letters on the door just below the fogged window read: Domestic Organization for Off-Earth Population/Habitation, U.S.

We'd arrived.

And no one was home. I turned the door handle, anticipating resistance, and it yielded readily enough. Inside the room was dark and unoccupied. I felt for the wall switch and toggled it. In the ceiling, three of the ten tiles began to glow faintly. A fourth flickered and died, like a final hope. Had we come for nothing, then?

The room contained a desk of some dark hardwood that the little fans kept free of dust, and a captain's chair on casters behind it, and a sofa by the left wall, its wine upholstery faded now to blush rose in spots. There were no windows, of course, but set into the right wall was an aquarium scene, in three-dimension colors that shifted as the viewer moved through the room, so that the fish seemed lifelike. The movement was, perhaps, as illusory as our mission. Life had been here, and departed.

Krysza gave a little cry of dismay. She'd reached the same conclusion.

"All this way . . ." Her eyes were dry. The tears were in her voice.

A door in the far wall might open to answers. I tested it, but the lock was proof against unsolicited entry. The drawers of the desk were equally as secure. We might pry them open and rummage around inside, but to what end? We'd expected artstate technology, know-it-all computers, opulent resources. We'd found an abandoned room free of dust and of spirit. Fourteen light-years we had come, yet were no closer to making the inquiry. We might as well have remained on Eridania.

Krysza drifted to the sofa and flopped down, I beside her, to the hiss of cushions yielding. Bashing our heads against a blank wall had left us dazed. What now? Whither now? If a successor had been authorized to DOOPHUS, it lay beyond our ken. We might seek it out, if we knew whom to ask. The room was empty. The building was empty.

Presently I grew aware of Krysza, leaning against me. In desperate straits, love finds a way to expression. In a settlement of millions, we had stumbled into a spot of privacy. We required no encouragement to take advantage of it.

There's panic, and there's resignation. One evening some years ago, when Melanie Carlson and I, both just turned nine, were getting to know one another quite well in the living room, my parents returned early from work. In the panic that followed, I wound up wearing Mel's denims and one of her boots. Our faces were flushed and hot, bodies wet. My parents said not a word, but smiled at us stumbling and bumbling around the sofa, and headed to their room and the shower they needed.

I doubted Krysza and I could dress ourselves in the one point four seconds it took for the office door to open. We didn't try.

The man who entered was rotund and genial, his expression almost on the verge of befuddlement. He paused just inside the doorway, laced his fingers across his ample chest, and said, under his mask, "My my my."

He had the eyes of one who had seen the body of a woman and took pleasure in the viewing, but did not regard her nakedness as a forthright invitation to couple. After a moment, he turned away, without blushing. "Dear me. I'll only be a moment. Please forgive me for interrupting."

Krysza's jaw dropped. "Who are you?"

From somewhere in his tent of a shirt he fished a key, which he began inserting into one drawer after another in the desk. "My my my," he said, oblivious to the question. He had a coarse, rather high voice that addressed his surroundings but no one in particular. "I'll only be a moment. Yes yes yes. Now where did I put those . . . ?"

Gingerly Krysza and I finished untangling, and got dressed to the rhythm of his my-my-mys. Presently he uncovered the object of his search--a box of databalls--and eased himself around the corner of the desk and made for the door. Befuddled he might be, but he had remembered to secure each drawer.

"Wait," I said.

"Hmm? Oh, dear me. No no no. Please, indulge yourself. I can review these files in another office, you know. Yes yes yes. Well, of course you don't know. My my my. Of course not." Chuckling at some private mirth, he opened the door and started to step through.

"Please wait. I think we came to see you."

"To see me? Oh, my dears, no no no. I assure you I have absolutely no interest in your--"

"About Eridania," said Krysza.

"Oh. Oh?" Relief washed over his face and sparkled his eyes. "Eridania, you say. My my my." He held aloft the box. Under the mask his bulbous nose quivered as he gave a tiny cough. "These are the referent project histories. A message was forwarded to me from an STS, after passing through so many offices, so many offices, yes yes yes. They're coming back, you know. Well, of course you don't know. No no no. How could you know? I must study--"

"We're here," said Krysza, on focus as always.

". . . them to refresh my . . . my dear, what did you say? You're here? Oh, my my my. That is precious, that is. Yes yes yes."

"We're come from Eridania," she went on. "We're to make an inquiry."

He slumped against the wall, to the accompaniment of a minor vibration. "Oh, my." His hand lowered, the box slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor, breaking to send six crimson databalls clacking across the floor. Krysza gave a little cry and scurried after them. One struck my ankle, and I rescued it.

"You're here," he repeated. "From Eridania. To make an inquiry? My my my." He accepted the five from Krysza. I got up and dumped the sixth into his massive palm. Large he was, and quite overweight, but I got the impression he was also immensely strong. And immensely gentle.

He filled the box and closed it, and set it on top of the desk, then removed his mask as if to honor his guests. "I am Doctor Flavian," he announced, in a tone that said we might direct our inquiry to him. He looked at us, one and then the other, expectantly.

Proper formal address on Eridania required that Lady Charlene Nash and her Mistress Krystyna be introduced by a third party, but we were no longer on the planet, and in any case no one has used formal address for a century or so, except on rare and special occasions at the onset of lovemaking. I presented us as I had to Laird.

"Oh, dear me," he said. "My my my."

"You are in charge of DOOPHUS?" I pressed.

"Yes yes yes. Yes yes yes. That is, there is no one else. I am my own staff, you know. Well, of course you don't--"

"Doctor Flavian," said Krysza, her tone a knock of authority on his door. "Where are the colonists Earth promised to send? Why has Earth failed to maintain communications with Eridania? Why haven't people followed us out into the stars? Why have you forsaken us?"

"Oh, my dears," breathed Flavian. "Oh, my very dears."

I wanted to growl. "What!"

"You don't know? Well, of course you don't know, why would you? No no no. Oh, my dears, Earth no longer needs to found colonies elsewhere. We have Order now. Our population is stable and obedient. There is no longer any impetus for space exploration and settlement. No no no. This very office exists now only because it was established. What was established, must remain established, thus preserving Order. Someone must therefore staff it. Yes yes yes. That has been my privilege for . . . my my my, has it been that long? And my predecessor staffed alone as well." Flavian glanced over his shoulder. "They found him deceased in that same chair."

I was about to ask why anyone would bother to look for his predecessor if nobody cared about the office anymore.

"His personal wealth had accumulated in his account," Flavian went on, "and someone made an inquiry. Just as you are making now. Yes yes yes. They found Doctor Ashlon . . . rather mummified, so they said. My my my. He was almost completely desiccated."

"Like the air," I muttered.

"What's that, my dear? Oh, yes." He put a hand to his mouth and coughed behind it. "My my my. Quite."

I had to ask. "What is Order?"

An echo of footsteps in the corridor dopplered in. Someone was approaching at a run. One person, by the sound of it. Flavian's expression said he, too, was genuinely puzzled. As the sound grew nearer, Krysza tried to thrust me behind her, the better to protect me, but the Unknown is always best faced together, side by side. In the frosted door window a shadow loomed, with a pale face. Belatedly I thought of securing the door.

Into the office burst an unmasked woman who somewhat resembled Krysza. Flaxen hair swirled like an umbrella as she spun about. Wide blue eyes sought us and found us. "You're here," she breathed, and coughed. "Oh, you're here."

It was the young woman whose eyes briefly had met mine at the intersection. "Did you two make love in here?" she cried. "Please tell me you haven't made love in here."

On Eridania there is considerable preamble before one asks such a personal question. Sometimes years of preamble. Krysza and I exchanged glances. "We have, in fact," I said.

She whimpered, and put her fists to her head. "Oh, no. Oh, no."

And then she screamed.

The door I'd been unable to open led to, among other things, a wash basin. While Doctor Flavian fetched a glass of water, Krysza and I sat the young woman on the sofa [her name, she'd mumbled, between sobs, was Hypasha] and took turns trying to calm and console her, with minimal success. Alternately she sipped and coughed, the sounds punctuated by Flavian's my-mys and oh-dears as he trudged around the room. From time to time he fluttered his fingers on his chest, a bureaucrat out of his bureau. I understood something of what he felt. A creature of routine, he'd encountered a development beyond his expectations. Krysza and I felt the same way toward Earth. So very little matched the information in our briefings.

At last Hypasha gasped, and nudged the glass away. Vacant blue eyes gaped around the room. "All gone now. I can't go. You can't take me with you."

I caught her chin and tilted her face toward mine. "Let's start at the beginning. I'm Char--"

"I know who you are," she snapped, and wrenched her chin from my grip. "I overheard you introduce yourselves to that boy. And I know exactly what you are. That's why I followed you. I thought . . . I thought . . ." She put her fists to her head, and for a moment I expected her to scream again. But she regained control of that primal urge, swallowed, and forced her words out. Focus returned to her eyes, and with it a clarity cold as space. "I couldn't figure how you stayed alive this long. But when I looked up DOOPHUS in my PC, I knew. I knew. I was going to ask you . . . I came here to find you, to ask you . . . to beg you . . ." And then she broke down again. Tortuous sobs wracked her body, tears matted her hair.

PC, mouthed Krysza, to me.

My fingers went to Hypasha's right ear, and found the lump. "Palm computer," I said softly, to my wife. "They're wired here. Maybe linked to some central network. It must have something to do with Order."

"It has everything to do with Order," said Flavian, leaning now against the front of his desk. "Yes yes yes. Everything you say and do is recorded and evaluated." He jabbed a thick finger at the ceiling. What I had supposed to be air vents were apertures for sensors. The room was under constant surveillance. Audio and visual, probably even nosmic. "Should you perform an act that warrants your deletion," Flavian went on, as if from behind a podium in a lecture hall, "you will be deleted at the nearest intersection. This was explained to you at the beginning of your sixteenth year. There is a list of proscribed acts. Yes yes yes."

"I'm fourteen," protested Krysza. "Milady is fifteen."

"Earth years," I whispered.

Krysza rolled her eyes, chagrined.

"It doesn't matter," said Hypasha, despondent now. Her voice was a wood rasp on old knots. "You made love here. It was recorded. When you reach the next intersection, you will be deleted."

"That is insane," said Krysza.

"That is Order," said Flavian. "Yes yes yes. Order keeps us secure. As we comport ourselves, so shall we live."

"Are you telling me that what Krysza and I did in here was wrong?"

Hypasha swung her head from side to side, slowly, sadly. "There is no wrong. There is no right. There is only Order. You may do what you wish. You are free to do so. But if you perform a proscribed act, you will be deleted."

Krysza repeated herself, a clear signal of her utter astonishment. "This is insane."

"Who makes up this list?" I asked. I wanted to have a word or two with him.

Flavian gave me a blank look. Hypasha said, "I don't think anyone remembers. It's been this way all my life. If I hadn't begun to realize what I was, I might never have given the matter anymore thought than anyone else does."

Flavian was still drawing a blank, but his mouth worked. "And what is it that you are, my dear?"

And almost immediately, he added, "Oh, I see. Yes yes yes. My my my."

Krysza hugged herself at the same time I felt a stone form in my stomach. "We can't leave this block?" she said. "We can't even approach an intersection?"

Hypasha looked away, her answer transparent. Krysza coughed again, and I'd had enough. "What the hell is wrong with the air here?" I yelled, to no one in particular.

Flavian's slate remained empty. "Nothing is wrong with the air. No no no. It's purified to ensure that nothing is wrong with it. No impurities allowed. No no no. We are quite healthy here, my dears, I assure you. On Eridania you might experience respiratory difficulties, but not here, not on Earth."

"They pass ordinary air through an intersection," Krysza whispered bitterly. "And it comes out breathable."

The stone in my belly became a boulder. I rushed from the sofa and grabbed Flavian by the throat. "What have you people done?"

The Universe's gentlest hands tugged at my arm. A damp cheek nuzzled my shoulder--Krysza was weeping. "Let it go, beloved," she said. A sweep of her nose across my sleeve removed a couple teardrops. "It's too late. They will come no more. Eridania must survive on its own, as it has these years."

Flavian, for all his bulk, seemed to cower before me, and I released him. He'd done me no harm . . . probably his bureaucratic ancestors had meant no harm, either. They'd sought only Order, and they'd gotten what they wished for.

We had to tell Eridania: Make no more inquiries.

As for those who had other, divergent wishes--

Krysza knew my mind before I'd reached the decision. She gave me a little nod and a kiss, before I returned my attention to the sofa and to Hypasha, still despondent.

"You have to tell them," I said, and gave her the operating instructions for the Eclair de Lune. These were in fact quite simple. An order of "Return to Eridania" was required, nothing more. Hypasha's face radiated lambent joy, then sorrow, as the full implications of my instructions sank in. I shook my head once, firmly, to end her lament before she made it. Krysza was right: we had no choice.

I glanced at Flavian. "Take him with you," I said. "His function here is at an end. Let him breathe some air."

"My my my," said Flavian.

Hypasha hesitated. Now that the moment of decision was upon her, she was experiencing the perfectly normal momentary faintness of heart.

"You said yourself it was what you wanted," I reminded her. "Take it. Explore, live, fall in love. And remember us to Eridania."

Hypasha stood up, her expression sufficiently eloquent. "Yes, of course."

They left. No tearful goodbyes, no my-dears, for which Krysza and I were grateful. Flavian continued to appear numbed by sudden events. But he was a Doctor of something, and that would prove useful on Eridania. Perhaps, in time, he could explain to the colony why they were now, and of right ought to be, independent.

"What now?" whispered my wife.

"We can't live here, beloved. Not our way."

She looked at the sofa, and then at me . . .

The Unknown is always best faced together, side by side. In the morning, we decided to cross against the light.