The hippies were but three. The head Alterationist, the cook, and Prudence (for a robot’s point of view) had come, not to gloat, as the militant woman feared, or to start a battle, as others rumored; they had appeared because a portal was something that affected all on the planet.
They weren’t the sort to hold grudges, as Deidre had written, to exploit, as she implied. They were more like the earlier hippie legends; zoned out on what was left of nature, chilled out on the good life and happy hot chocolate, developing new drills (vibrators) to smuggle across to Hilda—until, that is, they arrived at the campfire.
Nothing inspires gloating like needy confusion, and those by the campfire had it in spades.
The hippies took one look at the forlorn looks of the Archaeologists, the confused pis
