Hart had turned ten that year. He would not, I thought, be as tall as either Jes or myself, but he was a slender, well-built child, perhaps the most handsome of us all -- save for a hint of sullenness about the mouth, a faint gleam of disbelief in the eyes. Jes at his age had been a being of endless, enthusiastic curiosity, as open as a clean window; a bright child. But Hart, although perhaps equally curious about the world around him, was dark, despite the gleaming of his blue eyes, the shine of his skin. Now that I looked at him I found it extraordinary that he should be my son. But, then, I found all my children extraordinary, when I looked at them.

"Hi," Mish said as we came into the room. Hart still held his bookreel, his finger on the switch to mark his place. "What are you reading?"

He showed us the title -- some elementary biophysics test. I was surprised. I didn't know he had advanced that far.

"Did Gren suggest it?"

Hart glanced at me and nodded his head. "I already know most of this stuff," he said. "This is just brush-up work."

"Oh." I looked over his head at Mish, at a loss for what to say next.

"He's rather unpleasant, isn't he?" she said.

Hart frowned. "He used to be, at first. But he's become a lot better."

My son smiled, a captivating grin which, vaguely, disturbed me. "He's quite nice, now. And I do learn a lot from him."

"I wish you'd told us about seeing him," I said. "We like to know what you're doing."

"I didn't think it was that important," Hart said. "You're always so busy; I didn't want to disturb you. And it's better than hanging around the schoolyard playing dumb games with the other kids. I like learning, and sometimes the school is boring. It's too slow." He turned to Mish. "And it's perfectly safe. We don't do anything dangerous, just cutting up plants and dissecting dead animals. It's not like we're mixing up explosives. I like it.

I'd like to be a biochemist."

He couldn't, I thought have rehearsed that.

"I don't want to stop the studies," Hart said. "It's the most interesting thing I'm doing."

"Well, fine," Mish said. "Only, please let us know what you're up to, okay? We don't want to pry, but we do think we should know where you are. In case something happens, and we have to find you. In case of an emergency," she finished lamely.

"I understand. Of course I'll let you know. For now, I'm at Gren's during the afternoons. If we're out collecting, I'll leave a note. Will that be all right?"

I nodded and Hart gave us another brilliant smile and went back upstairs. I sat, trying to assess the sarcasm-quotient of his last statement "Are you sure he's only ten?" I said to Mish.

She nodded without smiling. "It probably is a good thing for him. Maybe a good thing for Gren, too. He's been less nasty lately. That may be because of Hart." She knelt and banked the fire. "I suppose we just leave him be."

"I don't see what else we can do. There seems to be nothing to object to."

She shrugged, and we went upstairs to bed. Mish fell asleep but I spent a good deal of the night staring out the window at the halaea, and trying to banish the image of my son rehearsing speeches for our benefit. Finally, exasperated, I told myself that even if he had, it was nothing to worry about.

I curled my body around Mish, put my face near her scented hair, and fell asleep.

*Part Three*

*1223*

*New Time*

*Making*

*Life*

'"Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love."'

'-William Shakespeare, 1598'

"DON'T GO YET.".

Quilla turned and Tabor put his arm over her waist. The room was still dark; she couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or closed.

"It's almost dawn," she replied.

"Not yet. Another half hour."

"I'll be late." The cool autumn night had left the room chilly, and she pulled the blankets up to her chin. Tabor's body felt warm and comfortable beside her. She put her face against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

They had been awake until early morning, loving, resting, loving again; now desire was a small, sleepy warmth between them, easily satisfied by their lazy embrace. She thought about the long day ahead: the barn to be cleaned in the morning, the town meeting in the afternoon, tonight's Harvest and Rescue celebration, Mish and Jason due back. She burrowed deeper under the covers.

Tabor's cheek rested on her forehead. His breath warmed her ear.

"I'm glad you ran away from home," he whispered. "I wish I'd thought it up myself."

"That was three years ago," she said. "Don't talk about it."

"Why not?" He pulled away from her. The darkness had lifted; she could make out the shape of his head above hers. She touched his lips with her fingertip.

"It's not important," she said, and pulled his head down against hers again. "But I'm glad that you're glad."

He kissed her shoulder. She wondered if he was going to talk about it again. The subject embarrassed her, reminded her of how young she had been, how young she still was. Yet Aerie had seemed such a dreary world three years ago, a world of people working and growing and loving and changing, while tall, gawky Quilla Kennerin peered in and watched, envious. Her childhood ended when the refugees arrived, and she helped on the farm while her parents took care of Aerie's new people. When Meya was born, Quilla took over her care and raising. The start of the plantations had pulled Jason and Mish away from the farm and Quilla at seventeen held responsibility for the vegetables and fruits which kept the family alive, the livestock and their care, and the twenty to thirty kasirene who worked the farm and tended the animals. She didn't attend school with the refugee children. She knew enough already, her parents had said, and they needed her at home; there wasn't the time for school. She missed the outings and trips and parties; something always needed doing, and she was always there to do it. Hart kept to himself, moving deeper into his studies and further from the family. Jes stowed away to adventure and heroism aboard Hetch's starship. Meya ran free, from family to Aerans to kasirene, a quick, lovely doll of a child, reaping love, while her gaunt, ugly sister watched and wondered if there would be any love left over for her.

There never seemed to be.

Tabor fell asleep again. She moved away but his arm tightened around her waist. She turned so that her back nestled against his stomach. He mumbled and quieted.

She had been promised Kroeber. It had seemed a normal part of the universe, that she would grow, that the sun would rise, that the crops would ripen, that on her eighteenth birthday she would be sent through grabs and tau to the university. The promise was not kept. The family lacked the money.

There wasn't time. Had the refugees not come, she would have gone, of course, naturally, because children grow into women and men who need men and women, and on Aerie there had been only family and the tall, alien kasirene. But now Aerie was populated -- now there was an entire village of other people a kilometer away. No reason for Quilla to leave. And there was work to do.

The memory of her lost adventure still made her angry. She had raged and stormed with un-Quilla-like ferocity, locked herself in her room for days.

When Aerans and kasirene were busy with the harvest, she had packed provisions, taken the orbital map of To'an Cault, and marched southward. No one followed her, or so it seemed. She walked the broad back of the island, amid the silence of birds and grasslands, and the silence settled into her and calmed her rage. The anger and regret passed, as did the awkwardness. She moved through a realm without words, through a different time, and arrived at Cault Tereth, the southern mountains, entirely at peace.

Tabor waited for her at the mountain pass, took her to his valley, his home, and his bed, and destroyed her serenity by telling her that her freedom had been observed and monitored, that the kasirene had watched and reported to the Kennerins in the north and to Tabor in the south. Her new-found confidence fled, leaving her caught between the unhappy adolescent of Tor Kennerin and the adult of the broad, empty plains. The calm silence was harder to reach now, the words overwhelmed the quiet, and in its place she put the closest thing to hand. Tabor. Love.

But love, it seemed, was never quite enough. She went south to the Cault, or Tabor came north to the Tor; when he wasn't with her she missed him, and when they were together she felt an emptiness, a distance which she tried to fill with words and caresses. The emptiness remained.

This time, when she moved away he let her go. She swung her legs from warmth to the chill air and dressed. Already she heard the kasirene gathering in the barn at the foot of the hill, and pale light filtered through the curtains. She sat on the edge of the bed to lace her boots, and Tabor turned and grabbed her arm.

"Quilla, marry me."

She looked at him, surprised.

"I mean it. This doesn't make sense. I see you for a month in the winter and a month in the summer, and it's not enough. Quilla? We live well together, our bodies like each other."

"Did you come all the way from the Cault to ask me that?" Her skin felt damp.

"You weren't happy to see me?"

"Of course I was." She stared down at her boots.

"Your parents would be pleased if we married. I don't like being apart from you. We could live here if you want. I don't have to live in the south."

"You sound like a court paper."

"I've thought it out." He ran his finger down the line of her arm. "I do love you."

"Quilla!" Laur shouted from the kitchen. Quilla jumped away from the bed, hitting her shin on the chair.

"Later," she said to Tabor. "I'm late."

She almost ran from the room. Her shin hurt.

Meya made a puddle of her milk and ran her finger through it, tracing the outlines of ungainly birds with four wings, and pregnant airflowers.

Quilla stared at the outlines.

"Looks good," she said. "Maybe a little more lift to this wing here."

"Quilla, you stop that," Laur said. The old woman waved her spoon.

"Meya's not supposed to do that, you just stop encouraging her, hear? Jes, finish your breakfast."

"Yes'm, Captain," Jes said. Laur frowned and turned back to the stove.

Jes winked at Quilla, and she grinned.

"What are you doing today?" she said.

"Usual. I promised Dene that I'd help her with the new comsystem. Ved keeps complaining that it buzzes, but we're damned if we can figure out why."

He put the last bite of sausage into his mouth. "Laur, can I have some more of this? Thanks."

"Close your mouth when you chew," Laur said.

"Then I thought I'd practice a bit. Now that harvest's over, and Tabor's here, maybe we can play some duets. Is he up yet?"

"Soon, I'd guess. Meya, finish your breakfast, okay?" She filled her teacup and Jes'. "Did Ved ask you to give a speech tonight?"

"Yeah, since Hetch won't be here. Ved's the only person I know who gives a speech to ask you to give one. I don't know what to say."

"Simple." Quilla waved her teacup. "You tell them how humble and grateful you feel at being the object of their adulation, and it wasn't anything, really, but it sure took a lot of guts and smarts, anyway, all for the greater glory of Aerie, now how about some dancing and would someone please bring you a beer."

Jes laughed, then shook his head. "I did the equations a couple of months ago, Quil, and they scared hell out of me. I was this close to being cindered." He finished his second helping of sausages. "I wish Hetch was here."

"Another three days, Jes. Are you coming to the meeting this afternoon?

Meya, finish your milk."

"Only if Dene needs me there. I thought I'd head on down to the Glents'

house and see the new baby. I haven't seen her yet. She's supposed to be pretty."

"So I hear. Meya, if you don't finish your milk and get going, you'll be late for school."

Jes leaned toward his young sister. "And then Simit will beat you. I know; I've been through it."

Meya snorted. "You're a damned liar, Jes Kennerin. Besides, you only want to see the new baby because Taine's watching it, and you've got lizards in your pants."

"Meya Kennerin!" Laur said. Meya gulped her milk and fled the kitchen while her brother and sister ducked their heads, grinning.

"It's your fault, talking that way around the child." Laur glared at them. "If your parents were here -- "

"Jason and Mish talk the same way," Jes said, but Quilla waved at him to be quiet.

"It's all right, Laur. I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget that she's around.

We'll watch it, won't we, Jes?"

He winced as she kicked him under the table, and nodded.

"Sure, promise," he said. "Any sausages left?"

Quilla heard the uneven, three-tapping sound of Tabor descending the stairs, the click of his cane against the railing. She drank her tea quickly and stood.

"Late today," she said. She kissed Laur on the forehead and touched Jes' shoulder as she passed. "Mish and Jason ought to be back by this afternoon. I'll be in town at the meeting. Send someone to tell me, all right?"

Laur shouted a grumpy agreement as Quilla walked down the hill toward the barn. The kasirene stood lounging in the sunny doorway, their equipment piled beside them. Someone had already taken the livestock to the pens, she could hear the lowing of the cloned cows competing with the morning chatter of the fourbirds. She knotted a cloth over her unruly hair as she walked, and Palen shouted a greeting in kasiri. Quilla shouted back, and walked into the welcoming maw of the barn.

Late morning sunlight fell into the barn through the high windows; the air in the loft was warm and close, heavy with the sweet smell of curing 'Zimania' sap and the scent of fresh-mown hay. The pitchfork felt easy and comfortable in her hands, and the hay swished and landed with a deep, satisfying whump on the barn floor below. Palen worked at the other side of the hay pile, manipulating her fork with an efficient swing which, Quilla suspected, it took four arms even to think about.

"Enough," someone called in kasiri. Quilla leaned on her fork and wiped her face with her sleeve, then reached for the jug Palen offered. The kaea was warm but refreshing. Quilla handed the jug back and looked over the edge of the loft. Below, kasirene workers pitched the hay over the newly cleaned floors.