Anna liked the quickness of her mind and the gravelly quality of her voice. She liked her humor. But in the two days they'd lived and worked together, she'd not felt an ease of companionship. It seemed she was always looking for something to say. Mostly silences were filled with work. Those that weren't had yet to become comfortable, but Anna had hopes.

The bear researcher dropped the skunk accent, adjusted her oversized glasses and said, "Take a seat. This is Rory Van Slyke. He's our Earthwatch sherpa, general dogsbody and has promised, should a bear attack, to offer up his firm young flesh so that you and I might live to continue our important work."

Rory, the individual to whom Joan referred, smiled shyly. In her years with the National Park Service Anna had only had occasion to cross paths with the Earthwatch organization once before. Some years back, when she was a boat patrol ranger on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior, Earthwatch-an independent environmental organization funded by donations and staffed by volunteers-had been working on a moose study with the National Park Service. They had the unenviable task of hiking cross-country through the ruggedest terrain of a rugged park seeking out dead and rotting moose, counting the ticks on the carcasses, then packing out the really choice parts for further study. They did this not merely voluntarily, they paid for the privilege, suggesting that the altruism gene was not a myth. All of the Earthwatchers she'd met, including Rory Van Slyke, were young. Probably because the work they did would kill a grown-up.

"How you do?" Anna said mechanically.

"Well, thank you. And yourself?"

A long time had passed since anybody had bothered to finish the old-fashioned greeting formula. Evidently Rory had been raised right-or strictly.