"That's okay,” Gideon said quickly. “That's all right. No problem at all, Arthur."

In the absence of the superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (on vacation in Hawaii) Assistant Superintendent Arthur Tibbett was the ranking park official and the host at the welcoming dinner for the class. A soft, compact man with a vaguely beleaguered air, he seemed a fish out of water at this table of fit, outdoorsy men and women; a paper-pusher among the nature children. Already he bore the mark of his kind, the bureaucrat's habitual little pucker of anxiety between his sandy eyebrows. His interest in-and probably his knowledge of-prusiks and Kleimheists had run out early. For the last twenty minutes he had been going through the motions: here a minuscule nod, there a preoccupied murmur of agreement, here a vacant smile while his fingers tapped restlessly on the table.

Spousal programs seemed to be more in his line. “Last year,” he told Gideon with his first show of enthusiasm, “we flew them to Haines to see Lust for Dust, which is really a great show. And did you know they have the world's tallest totem pole there? But I just can't justify the cost for one person. My budgetary allocation for-"

"Really, I'm fine, Arthur.” Spousal activities. Was the term itself repellent, lascivious even, or was it just his mood? “I'm having a great time. Don't give me a thought. Really.” He tipped his head toward the table at the other end of the room. “The white-haired man over there…he looks awfully familiar. You wouldn't happen to know who-"

"Oh,” Tibbett said lukewarmly, “you mean Professor Tremaine."

Gideon snapped his fingers. “Tremaine! That's M. Audley Tremaine, isn't it?"

"It is?" Julie said, impressed.

The three of them looked across the room at the suave and celebrated host of “Voyages,” television's preeminent science program and king of the Sunday-afternoon ratings, if you didn't count football season.