“You don’t have a chart of some sort? Aren’t there guide beacons?”

“You haven’t learned much about the place, have you? No, I don’t have a chart. Neither do the people who live there. Both planets are water worlds, though Kaihapa hasn’t been settled. Only the polar ice caps and the equatorial permanent rain belt can be distinguished from space, they’re not too clear with all the haze, and wouldn’t help anyway with the longitude problem. The cities float; they don’t stay put. Why are you going there, anyway? I thought anyone would learn something about a world before starting an expensive trip to it.”

“Research, and I’m not paying the freight. I care more about the people than their planet. I know several of the alleged reasons why they left Earth; for example, a lot of Polynesians got tired of the way oil-processing pseudolife stations were crowding the Pacific. There was never a war over the matter, just a lot of very expensive legal squabbling. I don’t know why they picked Kainui, even though it’s all ocean; it’s not an ocean you can swim in safely, I’ve heard, though I don’t know why. We know, we think, how many ships went there originally, but we don’t know how many arrived safely and succeeded in growing cities. Only one place, Muamoku, seems willing to spend energy on a landing beacon, so it’s the only place where ships can set down and expect to be in reach of anyone who can talk, buy, or sell. Whatever other cities there are seem quite willing to let Muamoku act as middleman in any off-planet trading. I’m a historical linguist by training and taste, and I’m looking for information on language evolution. All the original ships—that we know of, at least—left Earth from various Polynesian islands. We know the times they started out. Some people think there’ll be only one language by now, but I doubt it. That has to be affected by how much and in what ways the cities have been in contact with each other—trading, war, religious difference, what have you. I’m reasonably fluent in a dozen Polynesian languages, especially Maori and Tahitian, and should be able to figure out at least something of what’s happened, and when, and maybe even to whom.”