The planet shines below us, cloud-flecked, dazzling against the dark backdrop of space. Down there it is cool and green and peaceful. In a little while we will take the ship out of orbit and leave this world behind, a mere speck in the vast currents of the universe. This world, which we call Andrecia -- the third planet of a quite ordinary yellow sun... but that's just coincidence, of course. What difference does it make that just such a planet was my own people's ancestral home?

I am not supposed to cry. I am not supposed to let my personal feelings get involved. How could a girl ever become a field agent if it affected her this way every time? Maybe I'm upset now only because of Georyn. Or maybe I should never have joined the Anthropological Service at all, though it's a little late to decide that now. I've been warned often enough that an agent's life is not easy. I used to think people meant simply that you had to study hard and work hard, and that you were sometimes in danger; but I guess that's not the point... Last night when we got back to the ship, Father said that he hoped I saw now why people as young as I (I'm still a First Phase student) are not normally allowed to make contact with Younglings. But Father's a compassionate person, and he's well aware that I'm not sorry I got myself into this. Pretty soon he took me in his arms and smoothed my hair and said that it was his fault as much as mine for allowing it to happen. He admitted that he'd used me, and that he had had no right to because I wasn't ready. Yet we did accomplish something on Andrecia... without me, perhaps we couldn't have. And in the end I didn't cause any of the disasters untrained people can cause; there's been no harmful disclosure, and if Georyn and Jarel were hurt by their contact with us, it was only because they had to be. Anyway, I keep telling myself that.

But I wish I could know, really know, how it was down there. Was it only a hoax, a sham? Or was there real magic after all? I'm afraid I haven't much of the empathy that Father says an agent needs most of all. (He says I do have, perhaps too much, only I'm too young to channel it properly.) All the same, I've got to try to put together the pieces, not only to prepare my report but because it's important to me. There's a lot I don't understand yet... The things Younglings take seriously-- are they all real underneath, as a tree is real no matter what language you describe it in? Was Georyn not deluded, but only attuned to another kind of truth? Can believing something make it a fact? Is the Stone more than a stone, really?

That's one set of questions, the ones I may be able to answer. I'll try not to get bogged down with the others. The ones like why do Younglings have to be Younglings at all. Why, for instance, must Georyn be capable of wanting something that he'll never be able to reach? Why must a man like Jarel, a good man, have clearer sight for the dark side of human progress than for the bright? And why should a person be stuck in the wrong age, anyway?

Well, I'll never get anywhere worrying over those things.

Because the starship was diverted to Andrecia, Father and I won't be coming to the family reunion, and it's just as well for I'm no longer in any mood for a vacation. You'll see why; I am going to record the whole story and send it to you, since we are not only cousins but friends, I think, although we've never met. You asked me what the Service is like, and I can't think of any better way to tell you. This account may help you make up your mind about applying to the Academy, but I honestly don't know which way you're likely to be swayed.

Since I'll be putting in a lot of detail, I'll keep a copy of the tape and edit it later for my report. The report won't be a formal, official one. Father will write that. It'll be simply the personal account required from every agent who's involved in a mission. I've been asked to cover the Andrecians' and the Imperials' viewpoints as well as my own reactions; the Service often requests this because they want you to learn to look at things the way Younglings do. (They demand that you be totally objective about the picture anyone you contacted got of you, even if this causes you to make yourself sound better, sometimes, than you really were. So please forgive what may seem like distortions in my favor!) It's easy now for me to see through Georyn's eyes and to speak in the words appropriate to his view of the world. With Jarel it is harder, since I didn't know him well; still I can try to imagine how he must have felt. This, then, is the way I think it was: for Georyn's people, for Jarel's, and for us....