He understood everything clearly. The voice was calm, polite, and friendly: everything the voice of a best friend ought to be. It told Eric what he had to do. Just push a little with this part of his brain. Push gently, there and thusly, and he and Lisa would be teleported to safety aboard the Syrax starship. Then they would be safe forever from the malicious, primitive actions of human beings and could live out their natural lives in comfort and peace. The Syrax saw nothing immoral in rewarding a device for a job well done.

Push, the voice urged reassuringly, just a little.

At the same instant the tiny monitor the bioengineer was showing Eric let out an electronic squeal. Uberaba and. Orema shouted simultaneously. Eric wasn’t certain what they said because he was too busy reacting.

The reaction was instinctive and involved a mind-push, utilizing another bit of information that had been thoughtfully stored in his brain. It was not a teleport-push, however. It jumped out from Eric toward his enemies, and they all went down, falling over one another like a box of toy soldiers.

It was quite a push, because as the security team collapsed, every readout in GATE Station went momentarily berserk and the lights flickered unsteadily. The colonists broke and ran, mothers carrying children, fathers trying to shield their families from the alien thing that stood next to the GATE.

The security team was very good, and despite the power of Eric’s defensive reaction a couple of them had managed to fire their weapons. One had shattered a relay in the ceiling before being stopped by the thick wall. Several members of the team were twitching like frogs in a biology lab. The bioengineer had fallen across Orema. Eric knew the paralysis wouldn’t last long, just as he knew it wasn’t fatal.

Lisa turned to look at the man she loved. “The GATE, Eric. While there’s still time.”

Behind him, the darkness beckoned. A glance showed no change in GATE status. It was still fully powered, still awaiting its next quotient of travelers. It wouldn’t stay that way much longer.

He remembered the soporific gas they’d used on him on the Nueva York to London flight. Here they’d like as not exhaust the atmosphere from this section of the city in order to protect the secret of the GATE. That would kill a large number of the screaming, panicky colonists who were trying to force their way back into the Departure Lounge, not to mention the technicians and scientists who sat cowering in their seats. One was moving fingers toward a switch, perhaps a power shutoff. Eric glanced at him and he fell forward onto his console. No one else raised a hand from where it lay. It occurred to him that they thought he’d killed Orema and his people.

Let them. For the moment it was nice to have fear on his side. Striding purposefully forward, he bent over Orema and pulled the needle gun from his fingers. He could see Orema’s eyes glaring up at him, unmoving in their sockets.

Then he turned slowly to face Lisa, who still stood waiting by the GATE. When she saw his arm rise she screamed and tried to reach him. He was much too quick for her.

With great precision and care he stuck the gun against his head and pulled the trigger.

Her scream degenerated into something sharp and feral, the first inhuman, purely artison sound he’d ever heard her make. She slammed into him with her hands flailing at the gun, but he’d already let it drop.

Then he calmly took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. Only a little blood trickled from the neat hole in his skull. Sobbing, she struggled to hold him up. Her sobs faded and her expression turned to one of astonishment when she realized he didn’t need the support.

Those who were still conscious stared blankly at him.

“It’s all right, Lisa. It’s already healing over.” Behind them the security guards were beginning to stir, hands groping for weapons, eyes jerking stiffly toward their target. They would not need orders from Orema this time to shoot to kill.

Eric ignored the activity. “They built me very well, gave me the best of human abilities as well as everything Syrax that could be put into a human body and brain. But they didn’t plan on me falling in love. You see, Lisa, they made me a little too human.” She was looking past his ear, toward the wound which was sealing itself much too quickly.

“There was a transmitter there. The transmitter the bioengineer referred to. Maybe it could function as a control unit as well. I didn’t want to find out. Now it’s gone. So are the Syrax. They were talking to me … here.” He touched his head near the wounds. “Now that’s gone, too.”

“They won’t give you up easily,” Lisa said. “They’ll come after you, attack the city …

“They might,” he replied as though it was no longer a matter of consequence, “but I doubt it. Of course, they wouldn’t want me taken prisoner either, but with the transmitter destroyed I don’t think they can touch me. Now we can go, Lisa.”

“Tambor series four. It doesn’t bother you?”

“Everybody should have a nickname. I’m sure you’ll think up a cute one for me.” He led her toward the GATE.

I am not a human being, he thought, and was pleased that the idea no longer troubled him, because he knew better.

“Ready,” he announced. There was a pause and he looked back at the technician monitoring the ultimate console.

“Ready, but you’re not supposed to …”

Orema raised the rifle he’d taken from the guard next to him and fired just as Lisa and Eric stepped into darkness. The energy bolt never reached them, went instead where spent energy went to die.

As they vanished, the little monitor lying next to the prone form of the bioengineer let out a sharp buzz, and a readout flashed all the way over into the red. Whether it signified Eric’s disappearance or represented some distant howl of alien rage, no one would ever know.

Parseconds, the newsawks dubbed travel time through the GATE, and they were not far off. Eric had taken off on his left foot and for a brief eternity it seemed the right one would never come down, would just continue lengthening until he boasted an inseam a light-year long.

But it did come down, contacting something hard and unyielding. He stumbled, felt Lisa stumble against him.

They stood in a room very different from the one at GATE Station. The walls were paneled with pressed wood. Real wood, of a quality only the wealthy could afford on Earth. Eric looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see Orema and his soldiers come tumbling through the GATE. But they were far away now, unimaginably far away.

The GATE opening was disconcerting because it was a near duplicate of the GATE they’d just stepped through, but on close inspection he could make out small differences in construction.

A few simple tables were waiting across the floor of the barnlike structure. Small computer consoles rested on the tables, and connecting cables were strewn haphazardly around wooden legs and metal power outlets. The figures seated at the tables were dressed simply. Not primitive, but hardly fashionable.

The nearest removed his feet from the monitor they’d been resting on and stood to greet them. He was quite tall and lanky, a good deal taller than Eric. His expression was good-natured, if momentarily confused.

“Hi. I’m Jeeter.” He jerked a thumb toward the colonists milling around the tables at the far end of the barn. Some of them might wonder what had happened to the rest of their group, but they were too involved in processing to inquire. They were, of course, completely ignorant of the events that had transpired at GATE Station subsequent to their own transportations, divorced from the news of the moment by time and many trillions of kilometers.

“I was beginning to think we were through for the day,” the tall man explained. He looked past them. “Are you two the last? Some of the newcomers said we should expect more.”

“There was a cutoff imposed,” Eric said thoughtfully. “We’re it for a while, I think.”

“Strange. Wonder why?”

“There’s been a little trouble, I think. I don’t know who or what is going to come through the GATE after us, but they might bring a pack of lies along with them. If you can take us to your local government representative or whoever’s in a position of authority, I’d like to explain.”

“Don’t worry yourselves. You just got here. Actually, nothing that comes through the GATE could surprise me. One week we receive new colonists, the next week it’s unexpected supplies we can’t use. Have to constantly realign the GATE, you know. What sort of trouble were they having?”

Eric glanced down at Lisa, chewed at his lower lip as he tried to formulate a good reply. “Actually, we’re the trouble.”

“I thought it might be something like that. Easy to see you’re not wearing the usual green, and no duffles, either. As for explaining to someone in authority, you might as well talk to me. One of the first things you’ll notice here on Eden is that we’re a lot less formal about rankings and so forth than they are back on good ol’ Earth.

“I’m Assistant GATE Supervisor. Stupidvisor I call it, some times. Anything you want to tell the Council you might as well tell me.”

Eric was beginning to feel a lot better.

“Do you mind if we sit down?” Lisa asked him. “We’ve had a hectic few days.”

“Inconsiderate me. Come over to my station. I’m still on duty and I have to keep an eye out in case they do send anyone else through. Sometimes kids can emerge in pretty rough emotional shape.”

They followed him down a wide wooden ramp. Near the base, several men in coveralls were using electric lifts to shuffle and stack crates.

“That’s the last of last week’s supply shipment they’re rearranging," Jeeter informed them. “We don’t rush things on Eden. That’s something all newcomers have to adjust to.”

As they walked further into the building Eric had come to think of as the “barn,” he was startled by his first glimpse of the landscape. Long picture windows provided a spacious view of the terrain immediately outside. Tall evergreens dominated. They were thicker and bushier than their distant relatives on Earth. Barely visible in the distance were high, rugged mountains. Above the trees, several extremely rotund flying creatures were battling a strong headwind.

Covering everything—ground, trees, mountain peaks and bird-things—was a familiar but utterly unexpected mantle of snow.

“Something of a shock, isn’t it?” Jeeter was amused by their expressions, though his expression soured quickly. “There aren’t supposed to be blizzards in paradise. New arrivals are quick to remark on the discrepancy. It’s the first of many, I assure you. Eden’s habitable, but paradise it ain’t, and it’s a few millennia from getting there.” His reassuring smile returned.