"Please, come in."

For a moment Naas didn't move.  He had the feeling that something threatening lay just beyond the threshold of the door, something hard to define.

"Please," the voice repeated, nearer, more insistent.  "Here, I'll get the lights..."

A square of deep blue illumination appeared above, and then it expanded suddenly, filling Naas's vision.  He looked around.  He stood in the entryway to a wide curving rectangular space, a hall of sorts, with tables arranged in rows to give the impression of workstations--although Naas couldn't see any equipment--and at the far end there was a low raised platform holding a teaching lectern and a large black metal cabinet, closed.  It was a classroom, and it was empty except for Naas and the man who had welcomed him inside.

"I'm sorry," said the man.  He was short, a half foot shorter than Naas, balding but handsome, in his fifties, dressed in a plain dark suit.  "I'm so used to the darkness, I forget to turn on the lights sometimes."  He smiled, a crooked affair.

"That's alright," Naas said.  He didn't hold out his hand.

"Were you delayed at all in customs?  Oh no, you weren't, were you--you're right on time.  Just like they said you would be." 

The man stood with his hands together behind his back, balancing on his heels, appraising Naas. 

"You're younger than I'd thought you'd be.  Good.  That's an advantage, in a way." 

Standing there, Naas felt a little discomfited by the doctor's gaze.  He thought he should say something.

"Professor Tarnovsky," he began, and then he didn't know how to finish, so he said simply, "it's good to meet you."

The doctor frowned.  He was concentrating very hard on Naas's face--he didn't appear to have heard him speak.  "Yes...," he said finally, to himself, "very good.  You'll do."  He brightened a bit.  "Have you had dinner?"

                                                  *                    *                    *

To Naas's surprise, Andrea joined them for their meal.  He had gotten the impression earlier that she was a low-ranking assistant.  After all, by her own admission, she had never lived in Orbit.  She smiled at him across the big black metal table.  He blinked in return.

The three of them were seated in a corner in a large dining hall--the rest of the tables were empty, an air of austerity hanging over the place.  The clinking of their utensils echoed.

The doctor was the first to speak.

"Have you had any medical training?" he asked Naas, shoving a forkful of chicken and rice into his mouth.  The food was quite good, Naas thought, and he wondered briefly who had prepared it.  It had been waiting for them when they'd entered.

"No.  Just the basics.  First aid, Orbital hygiene, health."

"Ah, yes.  Orbit."

The doctor said it as if he'd forgotten that a certain part of the population spent all their time in the hundred or so space stations and other satellites that were spinning around the earth and the moon.  Tarnovsky sniffled around the food in his mouth.

"It's a fascinating thing...Orbit.  Do you like being an Orbital?"

Naas wasn't sure how to respond.  Nobody had ever asked him that question.  Quickly, reflexively, he glanced at Andrea.  Being an Orbital conferred not so much status as it did an aura, something beyond status.  The mark of a purer state of being perhaps.  It was not primarily about wealth or position, either, although those usually came with it.  It was about being exempt.  

And not having to live with the toxicities, and other dangers, of life sub-Orbit.

"I guess I do," he answered, cautiously.  "Yes, I enjoy it."

He kept watching Andrea, but her attention was fixed on her food.

"I've been of course," Tarnovsky continued, obliviously stuffing his face.  "When I was younger.  I was born there.  I got my education on the surface though."

"I see."  Naas picked at his chicken.  It was genuine animal flesh alright, a pretty rare treat since the viruses had struck.  There was wine, too.  "And what kind of work are you focusing on now, doctor?"

There was silence.  Naas glanced up from his plate and saw that the doctor, his fork halfway to his mouth, was looking at him.  There was a slight smile on his face, a calm, pleasant expression.  But there was something more, something behind it.  What?  Pity?

The doctor put down his fork, and it made a loud clanking sound in the hall.  Andrea was paying attention as well now.

"Mr Naas, do you know why the Agency sent you?"

Naas hesitated.  As far as he knew he'd volunteered for the assignment--two weeks on the surface, helping out in "research protocols," or so the logfile had described it.  He'd thought the change would do him some good.  He was getting bored.  And then there was Katherine...

"No," he said simply. 

"Good."  The doctor nodded, silently agreeing with some decision that had been made somewhere along the line--the decision not to tell the volunteer exactly what it was he was volunteering for.  It was not unusual for the Agency to work in this way.  It was like that.  The Agency controlled Orbit, and who became an Orbital.  They arranged things the way they wanted them arranged, including the lives of the people who worked for them.  

"We're educators here," the doctor said, and continued eating.  "We're pretty good at it, too.  I'd even say that we're one of the best all around medical institutions there is.  Most of our students go on to practice...where you live."  He pointed with his fork at the ceiling.  "But...," he smiled again, this time more relaxed, more open, "teaching is not what I do.  Not primarily."

"You're in research then," Naas said, taking the initiative.  "What kind?"

Andrea reached a bottle across the table to him, half rising from her chair.  "More wine?"

He waved her away.  "No, thank you."

She looked disappointed, as if he'd turned her down for more than wine.  He resumed his questioning of Tarnovsky.

"What kind of research do you focus on?"

The doctor stopped eating again, and this time he put down his fork on his plate and leaned forward, his hands braced against the table's edge.

"What do you know about Antaeus?"

Naas felt that he was on the spot.  But he was used to it, and he reacted accordingly.  He called up the information--it wasn't hard, after all everyone knew about Antaeus.

"It's a large terrestial type planet that orbits a star, Vasundhara, otherwise designated as Gliese 581, in a seven-planet system roughly twenty light years from earth.  The star is a red dwarf class minor in what was once called the Libra constellation.  Before the Chinese system was adopted, that is.  Antaeus was discovered in the early twenty-first century, before the First Global Conflict, and it has since been colonised and is used as an offworld research facility.  Its climate is stable, but it's subject to an extreme version of the greenhouse effect..."

He paused.  The doctor seemed pleased.  And then Naas added:

"And it's beautful.  Truly beautiful, in its temperate zones.  Which is why visiting it is used as a motivational reward by the Global Council.  Via lottery."

"Yes."  The doctor shook his head.  "The Global Lottery.  Awful thing."

Naas didn't offer an opinion.  The Lottery had been established ten years before.  Eight families were selected annually--they received a month on Antaeus, a month in which to do anything they wanted, a paid month without work.  It was supposed to supplement the regular vacations everyone received in Orbit.  Those didn't seem to be as effective anymore at inspiring the populace.  There'd been riots, and worse.

"It works," Andrea said suddenly.  They both glanced at her, and all her confidence evaporated.  "The Lottery, I mean.  It keeps order."

"Well..."  The doctor looked down at what was left of his meal.  "There are many ways of doing that."  He glanced at Naas.  "Have you been there?  To Antaeus?"

"Yes."  Naas thought that he saw Andrea give a little gasp.  "I was sent on an expedition two years ago."

"To the habitable belt, no doubt," the doctor finished.  "But what do you know about its polar ice caps?"

Naas shrugged.  "Not much.  They're large, much more extensive than the earth's once were.  And they're composed of CO2."

"...due to the extreme conditions, yes.  And what about meteor showers?  Do you know anything about those?"

Naas thought for a moment.  There had been a series of unexpected, intense meteor showers on Antaeus recently.  He'd heard about them on his porto-deck before he'd left Orbit.  He relayed the information to the doctor.

"Yes, yes," the doctor waved the news reports away, "...those weren't the first ones.  You see, they began some time ago.  About three and a half years...yes, that's about right.  What is also not as well known is that they were accompanied by a radiation storm.  A very strange radiation storm."

He paused, looking intently at Naas.

"What, if anything, do you know about terridium?"

"It's a myth," he said shortly.  And then added: "It was thought to exist on other planets."

"Right, right," the doctor nodded, lost in some obscure thought.  Then he smiled broadly: "Well, it does.  It exists on Antaeus.  Or at least it does now.  The radiation that was caused by the meteor showers helped us to find it.  Or created it.  We're not sure.  But wherever the showers were the strongest, the area was filled with it.  And we managed to isolate some.  And it was brought right here."

He pointed with his index finger at the table in front of him, and Naas half expected a glowing rock to manifest itself.

"Oh you wouldn't be able to see it," the doctor said.  "The sample is too small.  It was combined with other elements, to stabilize it, and we keep it in a semi-liquid state.  We call it the Soup."

"Soup," Naas repeated.

"Yes."  Tarnovksy grinned.  "That seemed appropriate...you'll understand why soon enough."

Naas fiddled with the last piece of chicken on his plate.  An idea was beginning to form at the back of his mind, and he didn't exactly like the shape of it.  "Doctor," he began, slowly, "why was the terridium brought to a medical research lab?"

Tarnovsky's grin vanished.  Then he turned to Andrea and exploded:

"Didn't I tell you?  Didn't I say they would send someone smart?  Smart...," he turned back to Naas, and his expression was one of extreme excitement now, "...as a whip."

"Doctor," Andrea said, leaning forward, "perhaps you should wait..."

"Wait?"  Tarnovsky shot her a look.  "Why?  He's halfway there already."

"Then the terridium" Naas said, leaping the rest of the way, "is for use on human test subjects."

Tarnovsky nodded, unable to speak.  The veins in his neck were bulging.  It gave him the appearance of a large lizard about to swallow a bird.  Still he managed to choke out the rest of the explanation:

"Oh yes.  Yes, the Soup is for use on humans, as you put it.  But not just anyone.  And not just on individuals.  No, no, no."  He shook his head vigorously.  "You see, the...effect...is most pronounced when two people take it at once.  Together.  That is, when they're...together."

Naas's eyes moved over to Andrea, and she was smiling shyly. 

"I see," was all he said. 

***