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“macroscope” which was kind of like a multiplex theater, only instead of movies there were pictures coming in from the different probes so we could see what was happening in the three active worlds that the New Mexico campus serviced, and the two prospective sites. One was Linnea, of course. The second one was the dinosaur world, and mosty they were just studying it, trying to decide how safe it might be to have people go across. The third gate opened onto a world almost completely frozen over; but it was a good source for ice, which meant water for New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Some people were arguing that they should shut that gate for a bit and then come back when the ice age was over; only nobody knew if this was a cold period or a warm period for this world, so they were
still studying. And meanwhile, sucking out water and electricity for the southwest. The water made the gate cost-effective, so they might just leave it like it is.
    Birdie explained, “ Every world is useful in some way. If there’s no life, we can still mine minerals and gases and chemicals. And if there is life, it’s always different. That means new plants, new animals, new things that we can use. We’re always discovering new foods, new spices, new flavors—and most important, new medicines. The thing about gateworlds, you’re always going to be surprised. More surprised than you can imagine—even when you know you’re going to be surprised.”
    And then she got very serious. She looked at all of us when she said it. “Those of you who are planning to be scouts or emigrants, you need to start learning this now. If you go through a gate, you have to start with one single fact—you cannot assume anything . Remember that. Everything is different on the other side. Remind yourself of it every morning. And maybe you’ll survive.”

DINOSAURS
    THE NEXT DAY WE VISITED the world-domes, each like a zoo, but not really. Each dome was at least a kilometer across, or more. And each one had a different environment in it, holding all the various plants and animals from whatever specific part of the gate-world it was simulating. There were twenty different domes. From a distance they looked like big pink pimples to me, but Rinky said they looked like tits. Mom-Woo gave her a look that said that kind of remark wasn’t appropriate here and Rinky shut up. Mom-Lu whispered to Mom-Woo, “I think Rinky’s getting ready for puberty. We’re going to have to talk about that.”
    â€œI am not,” said Rinky, and Mom-Woo gave her another look.
    Most of the domes you couldn’t go into. We had to look in through thick security windows. This was to protect the creatures inside from our bugs and vice versa.
    Birdie said the most dangerous part of crossing over to any world with its own life was that the germs would almost certainly be different. Every world has its own microbe ecology. And germs go through so many generations in a week, a month, a year, that after a thousand or two thousand or ten thousand years, the bacteria and viruses and whatever else there was would have had the chance to evolve a million different ways. So one of the first things the scientists have to do to make it safe to visit any new world is develop vaccines and medicines for everything we find over there.
    The other side of it, though, is even harder. When we cross over to a
new world, we risk infecting the things over there with our bugs. And they’re no more likely to have any more immunity to our germs than we’ll have to theirs. This is especially true for Linnea, which already has human beings—but with three thousand years of one-sided separation, so who knew what immunities they might have gained or lost? So we would have to be completely sterilized before we went. Everything inside and out—from the mites that lived in our eyelashes to the germs in our guts that help us digest our food.