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Catherine Asaro: Aurora in Four Voices
First appeared in Analog Science Fiction
and Fact, December 1998. Nominated for
Best Novella.

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From Analog

Aurora in Four Voices,
by Catherine Asaro


Part I: The Dreamers of Nightingale

He missed the sun.

The planet Ansatz boasts one city,
Nightingale, a gem that graces eternal
night. Just as a diamond sparkles because
light that ventures into its heart is
captured, bouncing from face to face, so
Jato Stormson was trapped in Nightingale.
Unlike the light inside a faceted diamond,
however, he could never escape.

After a few years, his memories of home
faded. He could no longer picture the
sun-parched farm on the planet Sandstorm
where he had spent his boyhood. It was
always dark in Nightingale.

The DreamersЦthe artistic geniuses who
created NightingaleЦwere also mathematical
prodigies. That was why they named their
planet Ansatz. It referred to a method of
solving differential equations. Guess an
answer, an ansatz, and see if it solved
the equation. If it didnТt, make another
guess. Another ansatz. Jato felt as if he
were trapped on a guess of a world.

One night he went to the EigenDome, an
establishment for dancing. He sat at a
table and waited for the drink server, but
the server never came to his table. That
was why he rarely visited the Dome. The
artist who had designed the place
considered it aesthetic to have humans
serve the drinks and the humans in