With thanks to Tim McCleerey and to Anita Madson for her helpful inputs.

All cultures have vices. For Uralians these include playing music too loud and being a showoff dancer. We used to include not letting another Uralian speak their beliefs. Now, of course, speaking your beliefs on (new) Uralia would be illegal, if your beliefs happen to disagree with those of the Great and Sacred Leader. In the Lian system, this censorship continues to be a vice.

For the humans on Luna, their vices include heavy drinking of alcohol, recreational drug use, paying for copulation, and gambling to excess.

Dr. Madison Forbes tells me that in the past, on their home planet Earth, laws were passed to limit these activities. Apparently they didn't work; people enjoyed their vices too much to quit. They just got more clever about finding ways to facilitate and perform them.

On Luna, at least in Luna City, vices are legal, but they are available only in certain locations. In our (limited income) neighborhood, local entrepreneurs sell whatever you want for use in your own home. Practitioners practicing their vices in public are arrested by the Luna City Administrative Law Enforcement and allowed to sleep it off in a government cell. In the posh Parkside neighborhood, there is a designated public site called the "Relaxation Station."

As a Lian, not a Lunar, I never expected to find myself in the Relaxation Station. But...

Dr. Madison has asked me to do her a favor. She has a colleague at New Harvard University, an anthropologist, who is trying to get a second degree in xenopology. She needs to interview a "xeno" for her doctoral dissertation. Would I be willing to do this?

Dr. Madison has no idea how much I HATE things like this, but, she is a GOOD friend, and I (reluctantly) agree.

So here I am... sitting (chair backward, of course) at a table in the Relaxation Station bar waiting for Dr. Levine. I had suggested meeting in the Embassy, but that was not OK with Dr. Levine; the Park? Not there either; the FastFood? No again. Dr. Levine wants to hold this interview in the Relaxation Station bar. (They don't have one in New Harvard and she, as an anthropologist, wants to study this environment.) I can only hate this even more...

But, interestingly, this Relaxation Station is located in what was, until recently, the (new) Uralian Embassy. I guess the gilt on the building exterior is desirable for a Relaxation Station: it gives it a "tone." I am glad this large (showy) building can get some good use.

While Uralians get no benefit (or negative effects) from alcohol, I have discovered that the bar manager includes beef and chicken bouillon among his offerings, and I have a cup of each. The beef is much better than the chicken.

A competent-looking middle-aged woman enters the room, zeros in on me (as the only feathered being in the room... in fact, the only non-human in the room) and makes a beeline for my table.

"Ambassador Ptsgbw?" she asks, holding out her hand. Her pronunciation is not the worst I've heard.

After 2149 days on Luna, I know she expects me to shake her hand. A xenopologist should know better. But, my claws will teach her to not insist on Lunar norms for "xenos."

"Call me Ambassador P," I suggest, and take her hand as gently as possible.

She rubs her hand, sucks on a (tiny) scratch, and settles down in the other chair. "I want to thank you so much for volunteering to answer my questions about Uralian culture."

I mumble something.

"Is "Uralian" the proper term?" she asks, setting her com down on the table for taking notes.

"Probably," I prevaricate. Ura and Lia have always been split, even on our home planet before our star expanded. But, with a few differences in style, our cultures were pretty much identical. Now with Uralia on a new planet, mostly Uran in population, but with some "invited" Lians allowed there, and with the remaining settlements on planetoids in what we seem to be calling the Lian system, but with citizens (like my fellow Ambassador Clmntr and our friend Lnbršr) who are ancestrally Uran, but now Lians... it is enough to make my head explode. Uralian culture? Sure, why not...

A waiter comes by, and she orders something called an "obscura." When it arrives (with a bowl of peanuts) it is a greenish-gold liquid in a cocktail glass with a slice of lemon on a toothpick leaning in it.

Since she is coming from the area of anthropology, I am expecting to be grilled on "kin terms." And I am... "What would you call your mother's sister's daughter? Her son? Your mother's brother's daughter? And son? What about your father's? Does the first-born have a different term? The second?"

Amazingly, for Lunars, at least those in Luna City and New Harvard, all of these relatives are called "cousins." This imprecision makes me suspect these distinctions are not very important to humans.

"And can you marry any of these cousins?"

"We can choose a mate from any Uralians." Why not?

"Even your siblings?"

"No, that is considered genetically contraindicated."

"Not culturally contraindicated?"

"Culturally... genetically... I'm not sure we make a distinction..."

"Your name: Ptsgbw. Is that a family name? Are you named after one or both of your parents?"

I shake my head. Uralian names generally consist of between four and six letters. That's not much scope for including parental letters. I know that Lunars generally have a personal name and a family name. Sometimes the family name is the second name, sometimes the first. For example, our Ambassadorial aides: Juan and Wan. Juan is his personal name. His family name, Hidalgo, is his last name. Wan, on the other hand, is actually the family name. Li, his personal name, is his last name: Wan Li. But everyone calls him "Wan." This also is enough to make my head explode.

"Do you change your name when you marry... er... choose a mate?"

"Of course not... why should we?"

"On Earth, for the ancestors of most Lunars, the woman would change her family name for her husband's upon marriage."

"Wouldn't that make it hard to locate your female friends after - er - marriage?"

"Yes, it did. So on Luna, this practice has mostly died out."

But still, when I meet the spouse of someone, I usually call them Mr. Blahblah or Mrs. Blahblah, using the spouse's family name, and wait for them to correct me. One who didn't was: "But Dr. Madison took her husband's name: Forbes...?" I query.

"No, she was always a Forbes," Dr. Levine assures me. "You must remember, there were only a limited number of people who came as refugees to each of our city-states. New Harvard had the largest population - just over a hundred. Luna City had a few less, including the Forbes family. The smallest number was New Nuuk with just twenty..."

Dr. Levine peters out. I don't know her well, but she seems like someone who would not "peter." It is hard to tell, since she is human, and the lights in the bar are a funny color, but she seems to be paler than usual. She is also leaning to the side a bit.

"Are you OK?" I ask.

She waves, coughs, says, "Just a little diz..."

She collapses on the table, hitting her head with a loud clunk!

"Dr. Levine?" I reach out and pat her hand uselessly (and VERY carefully.)

The bar erupts in a din of murmuring and suggestions (also useless.)

The bar manager is on the com, presumably calling an ambulance.

A young man swoops to our table, identifies himself as a nurse at the hospital and (without moving her) does things.

Nothing in Luna is far away (...and Luna City is smaller.) Within five minutes (which seems like FOREVER in this sort of situation) the EMTs arrive, the nurse gives them his report, and they start doing things with medical instruments and then tying her to a board and moving her into the ambulance. "Her name is Dr. Levine. She teaches at New Harvard," I yell at them. They nod and keep on going.

The nurse advises me not to go with her in the ambulance: I'll be in the way, and they'll charge me a fortune.

I pay our bills, call Dr. Madison Forbes (Forbes from her own family, not her husband's, although they are the same family) grab my vehicle and tell it, "The hospital!"

***

"I hear you had a fun evening last night," Lnbršr observes. He has his own apartment (in a VERY nice section of the city) but spends a lot of his time slumming with us at the Embassy. He is playing "attack the foot" with Kitty. Kitty's tiny claws can't do much damage compared to our, shall we say, rather "robust" claws, so she is attacking his feet; he is not attacking hers.

"It was a lovely evening," I assure him sarcastically.

"I'm thinking you are a Mgrfs. It's not the Embassy that attracts murder, it's you," he teases me.

A Mgrfs is a jinx in Uralian legends. A Mgrfs brings bad luck to every situation.

I hope I am NOT a Mgrfs. Although, admittedly, evidence is not strongly in my favor.

"She's not dead," I assert. "And it's unlikely to be murder. She just passed out in a bar..."

"After drinking one half of a cocktail? Must be strong."

Clmntr moves irritably. She is working on the books for the Botslean Corporation - she is now our official accountant for the new corporation. Since the Lian stellar system is mostly dependent on taxes paid by SafeGuard and Botslean, our bookkeeping is critical to Lian survival. We are distracting her.

I send a com doc to Yaeyeia to meet her at her Embassy and leave Clmntr to her books and Kitty to Lnbršr.

Yaeyeia is in her own "relaxation station" - she has a plot of Oeyian soil in her Embassy in which she can really stretch out her roots and relax. When she has to leave the Embassy, she gathers her roots together into a root ball, and her Aide moves her into her wheeled pot, patting a little extra soil across the top. Because the wheeled pot contains her communication apparatus, it sits next to her plot with a probe accessing her roots so that she can root communicate with any non-Oeyian (like her Aide or me) who happens to be there.

She, too, is teasing me about my meeting last night. "Are you SURE you aren't the Eouia?"

"I'm assuming Eouia is a jinx that brings bad luck to every situation."

"It is."

Apparently every culture has a Mgrfs. Dr. Levine should do her doctoral dissertation on THAT.

The Xx are dormant right now. I cannot go to them for comfort. And they probably have a Mgfrs, too.

I go for chicken nuggets.

***

Since it is a possible attempted homicide, Lt. Forbes has been called in to investigate Dr. Levine's collapse. As the last person the victim was seen with, I am (as always) a prime suspect. Since I am not at the Embassy or in the Park, he seeks me out at the FastFood.

"Hello, Ambassador P," he greets me.

"Do Lunars have a Mgrfs?" I ask.

"A WHAT?" he asks in confusion.

"A jinx that brings bad luck to every situation."

"Of course," he says. "I don't think we have a specific name for it. There was a cartoon character called Joe Btfsplk. He walked around with a black cloud raining on his head all the time. Cars crashed as he passed; buildings exploded... you have to be REALLY into cartoons to know that one."

When the Lieutenant says Btfsplk he pronounces it exactly like he pronounces Ptsgbw. Except with an "L" in it.

"Are you investigating Dr. Levine's collapse as a crime?"

He nods. The hospital has Dr. Levine on life support. They have identified tiny specks of something in her cocktail that appear to have caused her collapse, but they cannot identify what the substance is other than that it is bacterial.

"The bar says she was drinking an obscura. We've tested the bottles containing the ingredients. None of them contain the bacteria."

"So it was likely added."

"It's not a Lunar bacteria..."

"Ah, so a xenobacteria... and I'm the only "xeno"..."

"Sorry," he says. "I have to explore every possibility."

"I had never met her before that evening. She wanted to interview me for her doctoral research."

"So my wife told me..."

"I hear you and your wife are cousins," I observe.

He looks startled. "I suppose so," he muses. "There are so many Forbes in Luna City..."

"Dr. Levine is researching who can marry who. And who gets named after who."

He nods.

"Is there anyone who has married the wrong cousin?" I ask. "Someone who needs to keep it secret? Maybe they poisoned her..."

"I don't think anyone cares any more..." he hypothesizes.

We are joined by Clmntr and Lnbršr.

"Bookwork done?" I ask Clmntr.

"Bookwork done," she agrees.

Lnbršr brings chicken nuggets.

"Dr. Levine was given a xenobacteria in her cocktail," I share.

"I knew it was you," Lnbršr says.

"The Lieutenant is exploring that possibility," I confirm drily.

Lnbršr gulps. "Sorry!"

"Not really," assures the Lieutenant.

"Dr. Levine was also telling me about how few refugees actually started the Lunar cities. It brought home to me how Lunar settlement was so different from Uralia. We had our entire home planet working for centuries to resettle Uralians to habitable locations in the system."

The Lieutenant nods. "You really need to talk to my wife about that. She knows all the stories of that time. But while on Earth, the Lunar settlers were working in secret, in cities and universities the government had sent the military to subjugate. It is miraculous that as many ships, people, supplies got to Luna as did. And not one of the Lunar transport ships was lost."

"She mentioned New Nuuk had only a very small number of settlers. It sounded like too few to maintain a population."

"I seem to remember you need about 40 breeding pairs to avoid inbreeding," says Lnbršr.

"I remember 25," says Clmntr.

The Lieutenant supplies, "One of the earliest priorities was to make contact with all the other cities, which, of course, weren't cities at that time. One of the goals was to get young, unmarried people together."

"Even the unconnected cities?"

"Well, at first, NONE of the cities were tunnel-connected. We barely had enough air to fill our tiny settlements. The first tunnel, between Luna City and New Harvard, had no air. You had to wear a pressure suit and breathing tanks to go through the tunnel. All of the earliest tunnels were that way. After the Gilgot set up trade with the settlements, we could import air, and then we could expand the settlements. Eventually even the tunnels were air-filled. Although the space docks, as you know, are still depressurized - a vacuum."

We nod. The same constraints were true of the early Uralian settlements. Except we didn't have to rely on the Gilgot for air and other supplies.

"But the unconnected cities COULD be having inbreeding problems?" I ask.

"For all we know, they could be extinct," asserts the Lieutenant.

"No," Lnbršr says, "you have sensors that detect space transport activity. If a settlement was extinct, there would be no activity."

"True," Lt. Forbes agrees. He is messing with his com. He reports his findings. "All 23 cities have recent space transport activity detected, so I guess they are still populated. But New Haifa only gets about one delivery a year."

Clmntr turns to me. "You may have been one of the last to visit the three unconnected cities."

"Oh?" asks the Lieutenant.

"SafeGuard," reminds Clmntr.

I nod. "Yes, I only visited one of the unconnected cities: New Haifa. It was the last Lunar city we treated. I was there, but that was about 45 years ago."

"But 45 years ago, it was populated?"

"Yes. I remember about 70 or so people living in apartments hollowed out of the cave walls. The majority of the area was farmland." I think a bit. "I remember them as the most frightened people I have ever encountered. They were terrified to have us there doing the treatments. I mean, they knew they were necessary and were glad for the technology, but still terrified."

The Lieutenant shook his head. "60 years ago, when we first arrived, I'm sure we all were terrified. But after 15 years of safety...?"

"Do the New Haifa young people ever meet with other Luna young people?" Clmntr asks.

"None of the unconnected cities do," the Lieutenant tells us.

"Were the other two unconnected cities terrified?"

"I wasn't on the team for all of the treatment areas. I never personally visited the other two unconnected cities. Of course, there were four then; New Petrograd was unconnected, too. But technicians who were at all of the sites seemed surprised about how frightened the New Haifans were."

The Lieutenant's com hums. "Dr. Levine is conscious," he reports.

We all gather our debris for the recycling bins and leave for the hospital.

***

Dr. Madison is visiting her friend. The Lieutenant is deep in discussion with the hospital staff. We are lurking in the hall outside Dr. Levine's room. We have been asked to stay outside to minimize distractions for the patient.

The Lieutenant joins us. "Bad news," he reports. "The bacteria IS Uralian."

"No!" gasps Clmntr.

"Good news," he continues, "The bacteria are subject to genetic drift. And these have drifted in a different way than those in your Embassy."

"You tested our Embassy for bacteria?" I ask testily.

"Yes," he says brazenly, "And these are not yours."

"But originally Uralian?" asks Lnbršr.

The Lieutenant nods. "They could have come to Luna with the SafeGuard teams about 50 years ago. The magnitude of drift is about right for that."

"And our Embassy bacteria are not dangerous to humans?"

"No, apparently not."

"Why didn't humans die like flies when the SafeGuard teams were treating the cities?"

"The original bacteria might have been safe. Apparently even the drifted bacteria have to be mixed with alcohol and ingested to be dangerous."

"Would the modern Embassy bacteria eliminate any SafeGuard era drifted bacteria?"

"Apparently so. They seem dominant."

"So any city visited by a modern Uralian would not contain any dangerous bacteria?"

"Even the air-filled tunnels would transport enough modern bacteria to eliminate the dangerous bacteria."

We all think for a bit.

"So, only the unconnected cities would still have non-modern drifted bacteria..." muses Clmntr.

"Only the three..." agrees the Lieutenant.

"And each might have drifted differently..."

"Most likely..."

"So, we don't know which of them is the source?"

"We don't..."

***

Dr. Levine is recovering nicely. Unfortunately she forgot everything she talked with me about before her collapse, and her com file was garbled during the evacuation to the hospital.

Luckily, Lnbršr has been visiting her, and she is interrogating (excuse me) "interviewing" him about innumerable Uralian kin terms. He is enjoying it more than I did.

Lt. Forbes is asking her about the attack. It turns out, she has a pretty good idea about what is going on.

It seems to hinge on New Haifa. The people there are Jewish. This seems to be an Earth culture/religion that was historically demonized on Earth for everything from medieval plagues to economic disasters to societal takeovers. Apparently there was even a belief that Jews had a satellite zapping people with a space laser.

The new Haifans had fled Earth after an attack by a neighboring geopolitical party. This evacuation was a result not only of the attack but also because of abuse from their own bullying government, and also because there was no place on Earth at that time that was not blaming them and their government for a genocide of the neighboring geopolitical group by the bullying government. Not to mention the space laser. The New Haifans fled to Luna, dug in, and hoped to be left alone in peace and safety.

When the other refugees fled Earth to come to Luna, New Haifa had already been there for a decade. (Nobody on Luna knows this except Dr. Levine!)

When the Luna refugees arrived, they didn't know New Haifa hadn't come as part of their migration. They made contact with them; the Gilgot brought them items they needed as part of the AI contract; we visited their city for SafeGuard treatments. But they found all of this to be terrifying. They had no fond memories of contacts with outsiders.

Dr. Levine is also Jewish, although her ancestors were from Boston not Haifa (and victims of a different bullying government.) She suspected the New Haifans were isolating because of fear of antisemitism, a form of prejudice reserved for Jewish people (not, as you would expect, prejudice against SEMITIC people, which would include Arabs/Moslems, too - they seem to have their own form of prejudice against them... Earth seems to have been a particularly nasty planet in many ways not related to their bullying governments. Luckily, the self-selected refugees on Luna seem to have few prejudices against each other. Of course, they now have us "xenos" to be prejudiced against if they care to go that way.)

So Dr. Levine made contact with the New Haifans, hoping to reassure them about the lack of antisemitism (and anti-Arab-ism, too) on Luna. To persuade them to meet with Jewish people in the other cities (apparently only New Nuuk doesn't have Jewish citizens.) This would, of course, be genetically INDICATED to avoid inbreeding!

So, I was NOT the last person to contact New Haifa - Dr. Levine had been there within the last year to try to convince them that outside contact would be safe.

But the New Haifans did not believe her and became even more terrified, feeling pressured into leaving their safe hole - possibly even invasion by outsiders from the other cities. And they were good scientists (as all Lunars are; the governments of Earth were anti-science, driving scientists to flee to Luna.) They had discovered the Uralian bacteria after the SafeGuard teams left. They observed its genetic drift. They discovered its deadly results when ingested in alcohol. And, tragically, one of their terrified, probably young, people decided on violence to eliminate the threat of contact with outsiders from other cities, to be a brave spy, leave the safety of New Haifa in a trade vessel going to New Harvard, identify and follow Dr. Levine and spike any drink she might happen to order with the deadly bacteria.

That spy could be anywhere now.

Anywhere EXCEPT New Haifa... they haven't had a transport delivery since Dr. Levine's attack. And NO ONE would be foolish enough to try to walk back to New Haifa on the Lunar surface, even from New Portland, the tunnel-connected city closest to New Haifa.

Of course, the spy could still be here, still trying to kill Dr. Levine.

So she is now joining the New Haifans in fear. But she fears a fellow Jew, not the non-Jews.

***

Dr. Madison is giving us the latest update at Dr. Levine's bedside.

Her husband had been trying, through the emergency channels, to contact New Haifa. No response.

He was forced to take a (dangerous) surface transport journey to the New Haifa dock where he pounded on the space docks hatch (figuratively, not literally; it's radio contact) until they let him in.

He met with the city elders and explained the situation. (They do not speak Lunar standard speech, and he had to use his com as a translator.)

After denial and obfuscation, the elders finally volunteered that one of their young people, Reuben Levine, had been missing for about a month; that he must have left on the last delivery transport. That he had been VERY angry and terrified of outside contacts. That he blamed Dr. Levine for this disturbance to his culture.

They asserted that if this atrocity had been perpetrated by Reuben, they were devastated. They were only relieved he did not succeed in killing Dr. Levine.

"So kind of them..." murmurs the victim.

"Levine?" asks Clmntr. "Could he be a relative?"

Dr. Levine shrugs. "Possibly. Possibly some of the family made aliyah to Israel while others remained in America, in Boston. But certainly we would be related through a common ancestor, Levi, thousands of years ago."

Dr. Madison is interested. "That is fascinating! I love genealogy, and it is so DIFFICULT to do on Luna because most of the records were left on Earth."

But, she returns to the narrative: "Malcolm told the elders that we had no idea of the location of Mr. Levine. He asked if they would have any idea... any information... any way of contacting him... any way of tracing him...?"

It turns out that the New Haifans, like the tunnel-connected city citizens, are microchipped. Their chips are different, but compatible. Scanning within about 15 feet of a chip will generate a "hit" and identify the carrier. Tunnels connecting the city-states have chip scanners. So do the gates to the space docks.

(Lunars do not use the "all body scans" Uralians use. These can tell who you are from a low-planetary orbit if you are on the surface visible from space. They also don't require bits of tech to be implanted under your skin...)

They gave him the ID of Reuben's chip. Lt. Forbes contacted Luna City to start the search through the scanner records.

"Reuben would have thought he was doing a righteous act," one of the elders tried to explain.

"Fear is the path to the dark side," the Lieutenant replied. (He is a fan of Star Wars.)

Dr. Madison provides the latest update: "So, they went through all of the scanner data and traced his path from Luna city through all the tunnels to New Portland. And THERE he went out the gate to the space dock. Just yesterday."

"Did he catch a space transport?" Lnbršr asks.

"We don't know," Dr. Madison reported.

But, he didn't.

The next transport out of the New Portland dock reports seeing a body just outside the hatch.

Reuben Levine has walked through the depressurized space dock and onto the Lunar surface without any environmental suit or equipment. Experts estimate he could have lived no more than 90 seconds.

New Portland contacts New Haifa. New Haifa comes and collects Reuben's body.

New Haifa agrees in future to answer communications from the tunnel-connected cities, but they request that only critical communications be sent. They also request that any other contacts with the city-states or people in them be prohibited.

Dr. Levine (the "people in the city-states" they want to prohibit communication with) is sad for them. She says she understands their continuing fear. But she thinks they are wrong. What they feared no longer exists.

But, if fear is all the people of New Haifa have, if it is the basis for their culture, would trying to eliminate it be wrong?

Dr. Levine wants to study "xeno" cultures, but the New Haifa culture seems more "alien" to Lunar culture than the commerce-oriented Gilgot, the confused-but-trying-to-figure-it-out Uralians, or any other species represented by the "xeno" Embassies. We all want to make contact, want to "get along."

But Dr. Levine cannot investigate this interesting hypothesis. She is prohibited contact with the most "xeno" culture available on Luna.

She will have to rely on us.

I am glad Lnbršr enjoys chatting about kin terms.