WHEN Kip was eight he asked Uncle Mike who his parents were. He thought a long time about how to do it so that Uncle Mike wouldn't guess that Gwen told him he had parents. He chose his opportunity carefully.
They were on the front porch of the big house after dinner. Across the field the scientists were bringing in specimens. There was a light snow cover on the tundra, and they'd used sleds. The dogs yelped greetings to each other, and all of Kip's dogs except Mukky and Silver went over to talk to their friends and ask what they'd found out there in the snow.
Purgatory's bright rings glistened as a big arch in the evening sky overhead, bright flashing bands of jewels in the blue-tinted light. They were beautiful, but Kip was used to them, as he was used to the endless rolling hills and their thin forest patches, and the thousands of lakes and pools clear above the permafrost in summer and frozen solid in winter, and as he was used to the burning summers when men didn't move outside if they could help it, and the terrible cold winters when you couldn't go outside without a hotsuit and lots of dogs and even then when the blue sun was up the light was bright and there were sharp shadows. He couldn't even remember when they didn't live in Purgatory.
"Aren't you my father's brother, Uncle Mike?" Kip asked. He thought that wouldn't cause any suspicions because he knew what an "uncle" was.
Mike Gallegher rocked gently in the wicker chair. He hitched it over a little to catch the last of the afternoon suns, and took out tobacco and paper to roll a cigarette.
When Uncle Mike did that, he was thinking about how to tell Kip something unpleasant. Kip knew that the way he knew you didn't put your hand in a firebrighter hole, or go far from Starswarm without a gun and a whole team of dogs, or stare at the night sun when it was out.
"Uncles can be mothers' brothers too," Kip said seriously. "My name is Brewster and yours is Flynn, so I guess you aren't my father's brother. Are you my Mommy's brother?"
Uncle Mike lit the cigarette, his big hands cupped around the lighter as if it might blow out. The dark green eyes lazily watched Kip from their nest of small brown wrinkles. Like everyone on Purgatory, Uncle Mike was tanned deep with ultraviolet from the blue sun. "Yeah, you can say that. Kip, how much do you remember about your folks?"
"Not much, sir." Uncle Mike insisted that older people were always called sir, even though he said most of them didn't deserve it. "Mommy gave me Teddy, I think. My real Teddy, not—"
"Yeah. I know. Kip, your folks are dead. Reckon you're old enough to know that now."
"Gwen, he says Mommy and Father are dead!"
"WHO SAYS?"
"Uncle Mike."
"YOU MUST ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE MIKE."
"How did they die, Uncle Mike?" Somehow Kip had always known, but he still wanted to cry.
"Can't tell you that, Kip. Not just yet. But they were fine people. Not really my relatives at all. I worked for your father. When you're old enough, I'll work for you. Right now, I have to raise you because that's the last order your father ever gave me."
"Oh." That was confusing. Someday Uncle Mike will work for me? The way Dr. Henderson's technicians work for him? But that means Uncle Mike will have to do what I tell him, and Gwen always says—
"Your folks had important work to do, Kip. One day when you're old enough, you'll have to do it for them."
"But who were they? What was the work?"
"I've said enough, Kip."
"If you worked for my father, and now you work for me, you have to do what I say! Tell me!"
"Reckon not, Kip. I've got a lot of orders to obey, boy, and right now you've been countermanded. I probably told you too much, but it's time you knew some of it. That's why you have to study so hard, so you'll know how to do your father's work when the time comes. It's a job needs doing and there's nobody to do it but you."