"I think I can entertain myself wandering on public thoroughfares for eight hours drinking coffee without alarming anyone, but maybe I'm overestimating the universal commonality of human cultures. What counts as 'in the presence of', anyway?"

"Same room, or observable by."

"If you feel very strongly that I cannot entertain myself for eight hours wandering public thoroughfares without alarming anyone, recommend me some local books and I can sit in the bathroom for eight hours reading?"

"I don't like to risk it when there's another option. Sure, you can sit in the bathroom and read. Here." He calls up a list of books available for public access from a local library on the comconsole. "I have no idea what kind of books you like, besides the one."

"I read pretty omnivorously these days but have a longstanding soft spot for old Anglophone literature - old relative to my usual year, ancient relative to this one, I guess. But I was hoping for recommendations that would be more traveloguey and informative."

"I'm sure they have both. I have no personal recommendations that qualify as traveloguey, and if you were interested in old Anglophone literature in the twentieth to twenty-second centuries I expect you've already read Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes."

"Yeah. I guess I'll browse this thing here, unless you want to go to sleep right now in which case I'll just go over my terraforming notes or something."

"Browse away."

Cam browses. "I prefer to acquire my books in largish batches," he says, "so stop me whenever you want me to get out of your way for the night."

Mark shrugs and goes to play with the map cube.

Cam browses. Eventually, he has enough books to last him a while and makes them on a format compatible with his computer and holes up in the bathroom for the night so Mark can sleep.

Cam emerges. He's got a coffee cup but otherwise doesn't seem to have been much affected. "The market for terraforming is huge," he remarks. "I'm going to be very busy."

"Maybe I'll get my brother a freshly renovated planet for Winterfair. If you don't mind doing an extra one on the side."

"As long as it's not too far out of my way, sure, why not. It shouldn't take me more than a few weeks to do basics on any rock that starts with adequate gravity."

"We'll see. No point staying on the planet any longer; let's go up to the orbital transfer station and wait for Bel. Maybe it'll be early."

Captain Thorne,

I will pay you fifty thousand Betan dollars for a one-way ride to Jackson's Whole, myself and one other passenger, departing immediately.

If interested, meet me in the public concourse of the orbital transfer station. I will recognize you.

And Thorne appears in the public concourse after the Ariel has docked, looking intrigued, accompanied by an ensign who's apparently there to watch its back.

Cam is subtly trying to figure out what gender Thorne is.

"Guess again," Mark says cheerfully.

"You're the clone," says Thorne. "I don't think I ever caught your name. You want to hire the Ariel? You and your friend?"

"Yes."