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Detroit slum wherein it had spawned until nearly fifteen years after Farber left Earth.
    The fact is, Farber’s state of mind reflected the racial experience of his time. Thousands of young Terrans were going through similar kinds of culture shock in a dozen other places, although seldom were the consequences so drastic, or, in their own left-handed way (one thinks of the controversial Alternate Lives Society , founded by Eileen Ross and Tamarane, that had—and is having—enough of an effect on Cian culture as to nearly force the closing of the Terran mission) so far-reaching.
    Far from being the strutting egotist described in Nemerov and Gershenfeld, Farber was sad, bewildered, and apprehensive as he prepared to land on Weinunnach. A year of contact with the Enye—and, even worse, with creatures so alien they could barely interact with humans at all on any level—had stripped him of most of his original assurance, and given him no real knowledge or wisdom to replace it. Most of his pride had been leeched away, and he was unable to retreat behind a wall of defensive snobbery and cultivated disdain, as had many of his fellows. The path of his life, once so straight and obvious, had been lost in a morass of confusion. His career—once the vital, central thing in his existence—now seemed insipid, unimportant, meaningless.
    He didn’t even bother to watch as the orbot descended onto Weinunnach.
    When they reached the spaceport, in the low hills west of Aei New City, he took the high-speed line direct to the Terran Enclave, and, for all intents and purposes, did not come out again until Alàntene eve—either out of the Enclave, or up out of the stagnant depths of his own soul.
    Now, tonight, Alàntene eve, he had been drawn up out of himself again, and for the first time since leaving Earth he felt young and expansive and alive.
    Liraun had drawn him up, Liraun and the velvet intensity of the night itself—although the effect on him seemed more acute than even sex and strangeness could explain.
    Sex was good with Liraun, certainly (they had walked through the empty, echoing streets to the Enclave, to Farber’s apartment, without speaking at all, hand in hand, stealthily, like naughty children sneaking back to their rooms after some illicit escapade), but no better than it had been on occasion with other women. Their lovemaking that night was not a blaze of transcendental pleasure; like any other couple, they needed time to adjust to each other, and their first attempts were not without a certain element of clumsiness. It was the usual sweaty business, full of small mutual discoveries, disappointments, elations—not much different from his first time with Kathy a few days before, on a purely sexual level. Liraun was different, though, and the night was steeped through with her strangeness, as the air of Farber’s bedroom was soaked with the musty erotic smell of her body. She spoke little. She would laugh or sob at unpredictable times, for—to Farber—unanalyzable reasons. She was playful, and at the same time intently, almost grimly, serious; Farber could never be sure which mood to respond to, and couldn’t master her apparent trick of mixing the two. Physically, she was odd, although not enough so to be repugnant—rather the opposite, in fact. She had no breasts, or rather she had only vestigial ones, like Farber himself; the Cian men nursed the young, not the women. Her nipples were also vestigial—three pairs of them, spaced two by two, down along the rib cage, flat and almost unnoticeable except for large, smoky-dark aureoles. Most of her body was covered with a light, fine down that might once, millennia ago, have been fur. Her pubic hair was unusually thick and heavy, stretching down her thighs and up along her belly. Her canines weren’t really too much longer than a human’s, and she was very careful not to bite too hard, to Farber’s relief—and, almost, regret—since he had been half expecting her