Soma sighed. "You shouldn't get all excited, Pehn. Come down into living room, and stretch out on couch. I'll rub your forehead. You may be ugly old atavism but you're only brother I have, and I want to keep you."
In the big living room, Soma drew the curtains from the lucite walls that looked over the white city. The early sunlight came in, warm and faintly blue, soothing. She put foam pillows under his aching head, and drew up a footstool beside him. She stroked his forehead and he was beginning to doze, lightly, when a muted chime roused him.
He activated his wrist dial, to find Nautunal's grave face looking at him. Pehn sat up.
"What have you found?"
"Something. Can you come here, now?"
Pehn struggled to his feet. "Just give me minute to clear my head."
"Don't go, Pehn!" cried Soma. "You're not well! It's nearly breakfast time, too. Don't go. What will I tell father?"
But the door had closed, and from the window Soma watched Pehn's copter rise above the rooftops and glide out of sight.
In the signal dome Pehn found the specialists still at work, pale and tense from lack of sleep. Some still conferred over pages of mathematical equations, some watched the tape which monotonously continued to record the symbols.