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genetics; they seemed to know just about everything, and the human race had been relying on that stream of new knowledge for centuries. She set up a base on Janus and began her first halting experiments on her own egg cells. She had no intention of producing living human beings. What she did was introduce changes and grow the result to a fetal stage of development, then use what she had learned to guide her next step.
    She was not sure what she was seeking. She was not sure why she was doing it. At her worst times, she suspected she was merely acting out the desires of a little girl who had loved to play medico.
    But at other times she was sustained by a vision. She did not know where it came from, but at times it felt as though it were not really a part of herself, not a product of her own mind. It was a vaguely defined but compelling vision of a human race scattered to the stars, redefined, transformed.
    There was one vivid picture that went along with the vision. She saw it every night as she fell asleep. She was running through tall grass and trees under a blue sun. It was a lovely blue that washed into her skin and the flowers that waved beneath a gentle breeze. There was someone running with her.
    Lilo was staying at Earthhome, Tweed’s pocket disneyland, sleeping in a grass shack she had been forced to build herself.
    Her first visitor every morning was Mari. Lilo could not leave Earthhome without someone to escort her. She had tried several times, but had been unable to find the streambed entrance effectively one-way. So each morning Mari came and blindfolded her, then led her splashing through the water.
    But this time the two of them reached the embankment leading down to the stream and Mari did not reach for the scrap of cloth.
    “Himalaya this week, right?” Lilo said, casually.
    “No,” Mari said. “You’re shipping out today.”
    “Today?” But it made sense. If she had known when she would leave, she might have made an escape deadline.
    “That’s right. Take my hand, and hold on to your gut. This is not too pleasant until you get used to it.” She led Lilo to a tree that grew from the opposite bank. Lilo was sure she had explored it. They started to go around the tree….
    Lilo had an attack of vertigo as everything seemed to tilt down in front of her. She held back. The scene was distorted, like looking through a bottle. Mari pulled on her hand.
    “Step
up
,” she said. “Three steps. You won’t fall.” Lilo gulped, and stepped into the empty air. She felt concrete under her bare feet. She was rising, but it looked as though she were going down a vertical hillside. “Turn left, then left again. Close your eyes, it’ll be easier.” But Lilo kept them open. She had seen trick holos like this at funhouses, but none so perfect. Theyemerged into the water-filled corridor.
    “Can you tell me where I’m going?” Lilo asked. “So I’ll know what to pack?”
    Mari laughed. “No. Truthfully, I don’t know where it is.”
    They stopped off at Mari’s lab. An hour later, Lilo emerged minus her left lung. In its place was a null-suit generator, something she had never used before. It seemed to indicate that she was going to Mercury or Venus, since these were the only places where null-suits were necessary to get by. She curiously fingered the small metal flower below her collarbone, which was the air exhaust valve and control unit of the suit, as Mari explained how to operate it. She had a slight soreness in her neck where Mari had installed the binaural radio and voder that went with the suit.
    Lilo was sure she was going off Luna when she was introduced to Iphis. He was certainly a spacer, since he had no legs. He was obviously on a layover too short to justify the expense of getting legs grafted on. He sat strapped in a padded basket on top of a spidery walker.
    The female Vaffa appeared, as she had a habit of doing, right beside Lilo’s elbow.
    “Where’s Tweed?” Lilo asked.
    “He said