When the stranger came stiffly marching out of the desert toward her, Keemy Brynshae, colonist, was standing at the top of the hill near her new home, watching the moons waltz round the sky, and waiting for the rainmaker.  She was a Smart, and her parents had bought her every recommended teacher-module available.  Mr. Physics liked to pipe up when she looked at the moons and work multi-body gravitation problems in her mind, and Old Uncle Stone, the exogeology module, liked to chime in with talk about this moon's molten core or that one's ice volcanos.

      This evening though, Keemy had "told" the teachers shutup(cmd) and was pretending that the moons were mythical dragons and dolphins, playing in the sky.  The tall stranger could be a knight!  Keemy was a mature nine years old.
      He walked straight up to her.  "I don't know you," he said.
      "Keemy Brynshae.  My mother's Dr. Kell Brynshae, and my father's John Brynshae.  That's our house down the hill there."  Pointing to the modular village she smiled at the stranger, then added, "They both work in Botany."
      "I'm David Laughlin,  independent scout.  Of course I don't know you."
    Keemy thought the man looked funny, but she still liked him.  His clothes were simple coveralls and boots, and looked dirty, as did his skin.  He must have been in the desert a long time; he'd soaked up the copperweed and dust-storm smell of the desert.  He was tall, lean, and would have been handsome if he somehow had more...more energy in his expressions.  Still, it was exciting to see somebody from outside the colony, and an independent scout at that.
      "I've been an independent scout!" she said, a little too forcefully, according to her Aunt Abbey module.  "I mean in a virtreal.  I was an independent scout and I saved a colony ship that had broken down, and the Captain of that ship fell in love with me. Have you done anything like that, Scout Laughlin?"
      Laughlin looked like he wasn't listening.  He stood straight and stared down the hill.  He seemed to be squinting, as if he couldn't see very well.  Finally, he spoke.
      "What is that down there?"
      Keemy looked back down.  "What do you mean?  Are you talking about my house?  Or do you mean the whole place?  That's our colony -- it's only been there a few weeks."
      Laughlin didn' t answer but Keemy watched his lips form the word "house."  He seemed to roll it around in his mouth as he would a strange food.  Keemy started to wonder if he wasn't...well, unSmart or something.  She'd been taught about such people, and they showed up in virtreals, but knowing only colonists, she'd never actually met an unSmart person.  She tried to look, as gracefully as Aunt Abbey let her, at Laughlin's scalp to see if he had Smartscars, but his scalp looked to be matted with dirt, so that the hair, the  neck, and the hairline were smudges, seemingly blended