There was a polite spatter of laughter from the tipsy scholars, and Gideon smiled dutifully.

"Professor Oliver," boomed Dr. Rufus, "will be presenting the Visiting Fellow Seminars in Human Evolution at, um…" He consulted his notes. "Let me see; Sicily first, then back here to Heidelberg, then Madrid, then, ah, Izmir…"

Gideon’s mind focused soggily. Izmir? Madrid? Sicily? That wasn’t the schedule he’d contracted for. Heidelberg had been on it all right, but the other places had all been German cities too-Munich, Kaiserslautern, some others he couldn’t remember. Was Dr. Rufus confusing him with someone else? He hoped not; the revised schedule was tremendously more exciting. But they might at least have checked with him about it.

"As most of you know," continued Dr. Rufus, "we have not had a visiting fellow since the semester before last, ever since…well, since the semester before last."

Dr. Rufus frowned and paused, and a small ripple of discomfort seemed to spread over the room. Was Gideon imagining it, or did most of the eyes watching him suddenly avoid contact?

Dr. Rufus had lost his train of thought and did not recover well. "And so," he said, no longer jovial, "and so I… with pleasure I welcome Professor Oliver to the USOC faculty for the fall semester. Thank you." Abruptly, he turned from the lectern and went to his seat.

"Hey, man," said Eric before Gideon had quite sat down. "I didn’t know you were from California. Northern Cal, where’s that at, near San Francisco?"