“Hello, Eerin,” Moki said, reaching out and brushing her cheek with his knuckles. “It was a good link. I’m sorry that you weren’t with us.”

“I wish I had been,” she told them. “I came to see how you were doing. I’m concerned about you, en,” she said to Ukatonen. “You seem unhappy.”

Ukatonen nodded, a gesture he had learned from her. “It is a difficult thing to watch your world growing small enough to hold in the palm of ymir hand.”

“Are you sure that this is what you want to do?” Juna asked. “It’s not too late to turn the ship around and go back.”

“Eerin, when have I ever gone back on my word?” Ukatonen said. “You warned me that it would be difficult, but I will learn to live among your people as you learned to live among mine.”

Juna nodded. She hadn’t really expected him to change his mind. Going back would mean a loss of honor so profound that he would have had to kill himself. Still she had to remind him that the option existed.

“Then what can I do to help you adapt?”

Ukatonen shook his head. “Nothing. Everything must happen in here,” he said gesturing at himself with a long, graceful hand.

“And Moki, what about you?” Juna asked.

Moki rippled amusement. “You are my sitik,” he replied. “Your home is my home, your life is my life. Every day you teach me more about how to live among your people. All I need is time, and useful work to do. Though perhaps our cabin could be warmer,” he suggested, “and perhaps more— ” he paused, searching for the correct word— “water in the air.”

“Humidity,” Juna told him. “The word is humidity.” She traced the letters on his arm, showing him how it was spelled. The word flared on his chest several times as he memorized it. Ukatonen practiced the word along with Moki.