Strata

been proved right so far. In any case, you are welcome to test the bill. It is genuine, I assure you.
    ‘I have not come to buy. I want to hire you . In thirty days I’m returning to the … flat world, for reasons that will become obvious. I intend to be away less than a year, and the pay I offer is the answers to questions. You may keep that bill, of course, even if you do not accept. Perhaps you would like to frame it, or maybe keep it for your old age.’
    He vanished like a demon king. When Kin lunged across the table her hands met empty air.
    Later she ordered a check on all shuttles going up the Line. Not even an invisible man could have got past the telltales secreted in the gangways. He’d hardly attempt to board a freight shuttle – most were not even pressurized.
    He didn’t. Kin realized later that he had bought a ticket under an assumed name and just walked past the security net, flaunting his visibility like a cloak.
    The message came twenty-five days later, along with the first wave of colonists.
    The main Line had long since gone, winched up into its synchronous-orbit satellite and loaded aboard a freighter. There were still a fewcosmetic teams just finishing work at the antipodes.
    Around Kin, as she stood on a knoll in the midst of the tangled jungle, the steaming, scent-encrusted land was bare of any obvious human mark. Eight thousand miles under her feet, she knew, men, robots and machines were converging on and boiling up the antipodal wire; soaring into the last of the freighters, a twelve-mile skeleton with one big fusion motor, and leaving the world to the newcomers.
    Despite appearances, it would be a planned withdrawal. Last off would be the sweepers, carefully scuffling over the ruts. A Company publicity film had once shown the last man off being winched up a few feet on the Line, then bending back to brush out his footprints. Not true, of course – but it missed the truth by mere inches.
    It was a good world. Better than Earth, but they said now that Earth was improving – population up to nearly three-quarters of a billion now, and that didn’t include too many robots.
    Better than her childhood. Kin had long ago dispensed with most of her early memories in a periodic editing, but she had kept one or two. She winced as she recalled the oldest.
    A hill like this one, overlooking a darkening countryside wreathed in ragged mists, and the sun sinking. Her mother had taken her there,and they stood in the small crowd that was the total population of almost half of a country. Most of them were robots. One of them, a Class Eight, hide criss-crossed with repair welds, lifted her onto its shoulders for a better view.
    The dancers were all robots, although the fiddler was human.
    Thump, thump went the metal feet on the dark turf, while early bats hunted for insects overhead.
    The steps were perfect. How could they be otherwise? There were no men to hesitate or stumble. The world was too full of things for the few humans to do that they should concern themselves with this. Yet they knew that such things must be continued against the day men could once again pick up the reins. Back and forth, crossing and leaping, the robots danced their caretaker Morris.
    And young Kin Arad had decided then that people should not become extinct.
    It had been a near thing. Without the robots, it would have been a certainty.
    While the stamping figures rocked darkly against the red sunset sky, she made up her mind to join the Company …
    The first of the big gliders swept over the trees and touched down heavily on the grass. It slammed into a tree, spun around and stopped.
    After a few minutes a hatch slid back and a man stepped out. He fell over.
    Kin watched him haul himself up and lean back into the hatch. Two other men came out, followed by three women. Then they saw her.
    She had taken pains. Now her skin was silver and her hair black, shot with neon threads. She had chosen a red cloak. In the absence of wind, electrostatic charges kept it floating about her in a sufficiently impressive way. No sense in skimping details. These people were coming to a new world. They had probably already drawn up a proud constitution writ in gold and freedom. They ought to be welcomed with dignity. There would be too much time later for reality.
    More gliders were drifting down, and the man who had been the first to step out climbed up to Kin on her knoll. She noticed his pioneering beard, his chalk-white face. But most of