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have reprimanded her sharply. She asked Father Emil who they were, and he replied that God chose His own instruments to accomplish His glory, and it was not up to human beings, especially children, to question His choices.
    Amanda decided that if these people were God’s choice for instruments, then God was as crazy as Father Emil.
    Now she trudged along beside him, in the long circular corridor that ringed H level of Luna City. A small tram rounded the curve, stopped beside them, and said cheerfully, “Hello! I make a circuit of this residential level every ten minutes, stopping whenever you instruct me to do so. Or, if you prefer, you can walk. All entrances to residential clusters are found on or just off this main circular corridor.”
    “We’ll walk,” Father Emil said, and the tram glided off.
    “Father Emil—”
    “Be quiet, Jane, I’m thinking,” he said, with such an emphasis on the “Jane” that Amanda knew he was reminding her to not talk until they were back aboard ship. That was another thing. Father Emil was the most paranoid person alive, worse even than her father. Daddy always thought the universe was out to harm Amanda and Sudie. Father Emil always thought the government was out to listen to every little boring thing he said.
    They reached the elevator, ascended, and came out under Luna City’s dome, below the black sky set with glittering stars. It was a small dome, nothing like the domes on Mars. Father Emil said only eight thousand people lived here, all “Pharisees: scientists, technicians, military, and their rich dependents. No poor that can fit through the needle’s eye.” All the living and working places were below ground, safe from meteor bombardment. On the surface, under the dome, were only some foamcast buildings, a playground for little kids, and a garden with raked smooth sand set with boulders, benches, and some beds of what looked like genetically modified flowers developed from fungi.
    The flowers were the first thing Amanda had seen since the kidnapping that stirred her interest, and she would have liked to kneel and examine them. They had broad, almost transparent green leaves and tiny blossoms in pale yellow. Probably they were genemod for low light. But Father Emil hurried her into her suit, out of the airlock, and onto the empty rocky plain between the dome and shuttle to the spaceport.
    “Amanda,” he said, and she realized he was on the private channel, so his words would reach only her, “I have a confession to make. I have sinned against you.”
    She looked at him sideways. If her father had said that, he would just have been being fizzy again, joking around like his usual ridiculous self. But Father Emil sounded as if he meant it.
    “I lied. When I took you here to see Marbet Grant, I already knew she was on Mars.”
    “You did? How?”
    “My friends found that out. It was easy, you know. Marbet Grant is a famous if disliked person, and certain trivial news channels report the movements of famous persons. Actors, Sensitives, celebrities like that woman Magdalena … I knew she left for Mars, alone, three weeks ago.”
    “That woman said Marbet wasn’t alone! She was with Colonel Kaufman!”
    “No,” Father Emil said, “the woman said Marbet Grant went off to join her lover. Kaufman must have already been on Mars.”
    Amanda said hotly, “If you knew Marbet was on Mars, why did you take me to Luna City?”
    “I wanted you to see for yourself that she was gone, hear it from someone unconnected to me or the organization. So you would believe it.”
    “All right, I believe it,” Amanda said. She was angry, and upset, and confused. Grown-ups didn’t talk to kids this way.
    “But to obtain your belief, I lied,” Father Emil said. “I ask your forgiveness.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to ask God’s forgiveness?” She had learned this from him.
    “That, too.”
    Really, he was ridiculous. Her father would have made terrible fun of him. But Amanda