"Leave more along the walls," Quilla called.

"Then give us more."

She dumped a load over the edge onto the kasir's head. He sputtered curses and Palen laughed. Quilla sat with her feet dangling over the drop, and Palen came around the stack and sat beside her.

"Tonight you celebrate the time the grab blew up," she said.

Quilla nodded and lay back in the hay. "That and the harvest. Big rocker. Food and speeches and beer and dancing. Are you coming?"

Palen executed the kasirene shrug, using her lower shoulders to move her upper set. "We always come. We stand and watch your new people, and they make polite noises and impolite thoughts. Then we go away. It grows monotonous."

Quilla grinned. "You're easily bored, Palen."

"One doesn't grow bored with dislike -- uneasy, wary, distrustful, but not bored. We can't afford that."

"They won't hurt you."

Palen tucked her foot into her lap and inspected the sole. "Are you sure?"

"I don't know. They're as alien to me as to you."

"They're your people."

"For whatever that's worth." Quilla rolled on her side and touched Palen's foot. "Cut yourself?"

"No, stepped on something. I can't see it."

"Here, sit still." Quilla pulled the kasir's foot onto her lap, and Palen lay back in the hay and put some of her arms behind her head.

"Noontime, Quilla," one of the kasirene called.

"Fine. Break for an hour, then do the last two fields before dinner.

Irrigation channels need clearing, and it's time to weed. I'll be out during the afternoon if I can make it."

The kasirene trooped out of the barn, and Quilla bent over Paen's foot.

Dust motes floated through the shafts of sunlight.

"You're half distant," Palen said.

Quilla glanced at her. Palen's large violet eyes were closed; her slightly snouted face was smooth and untroubled.

"Yes." Quilla poked at Palen's foot again. There was something wedged between the first and second pads, and she picked at it with her fingernail.

"Do you want to walk again?"

"I don't know." Quilla pulled a small knife from her pocket and opened it. She laughed. "Remember that first walk back, when we tried to drown each other?"

"You have a funny sense of humor, albiana," Palen said. "Don't cut off the entire foot."

Palen had appeared two days into Quilla's journey back to Haven from the Cault, and Quilla had been sure that the tall, young kasir was sent to spy on her, to guide her back, to take care of her. She had resented it, and Palen, who had been walking from her own troubles, resented Quilla's resentment. They journeyed together, hating each other's company, yet unable to part, arguing in kasiri over the slightest matters, engaging in a pitched battle in one of To'an Cault's many lakes, grudgingly lending each other assistance and refusing to give or accept thanks. When they reached Haven they swore the bloodfriendship. Palen claimed that Quilla was the only person she'd met with less sense than a fourbird. Quilla claimed that Palen's silence made more sense than her speech. When troubled, they walked together, covering the island with their restlessness. They'd not been apart in three years.

"Do you want to walk?" Palen asked again.

"I don't know. Not yet." Quilla urged the tip of her knife under the stone. "Tabor wants to marry me."

"That's this albiana thing, you tie yourselves to each other?"

"You make it sound terrible. Here, I got the stone out."

Palen sat and looked at her foot. "Thank you. It is terrible. None of you makes any sense. Am I bleeding?"

"With feet like yours? Come on, I'm hungry."

Quilla took the pitchforks and put them in their bin, then swung down the rope ladders to the barn floor. Palen followed more slowly, using all of her hands to grab at the ropes, and muttering as she came. The night's chill had fled; the day was hot and still.

"Are you going to do it?" Palen said as they sat against the barn's side. The orderly rows of the farm stretched before them, backed by the dark, green-black of the 'Zimania' orchards. Palen took their lunch from her pouch and handed some to Quilla.

"I don't know. People expect to get married, you know. My parents are."

"Doesn't answer the question."

"I can't answer now." Quilla leaned against the warm wood and closed her eyes. The world turned red beneath her lids. "I don't know. Maybe we should walk again ... soon."

Palen shifted beside her, and they ate their meal in silence.

Simit closed school early so that he could attend the afternoon town meeting, and the streets of Haven teemed with children. In a corner of the marketplace, a miscellaneous group of humans and kasirene played a long, complicated game. Meya ran among them, shouting orders as a Commander of the Galactic Imperium. She ordered soldiers into battle positions and deployed her spies in strategic locations; plotted long campaigns against the Freestar Confederation; choreographed swift, bloody battles among the empty vegetable and fish stalls; and argued with her commanders in chief. She was about to launch a flying attack on an enemy stronghold when she saw her sister cross the far corner of the marketplace on her way to the Town Hall. Meya grabbed her chest and fell dramatically to the street.

"I've been hit!" she yelled. "Carry on, troops! Remember that right is on our side!" She dropped her head against the rough pavement and spread-eagled her arms.

"No one shot at you! That's not fair!"

"Commanders aren't supposed to die until the big battle, not now!"

"You can't change the rules!"

"Sorry," Meya said, rising and brushing off the seat of her pants, "I'm dead. See you later."

She ran through the stalls and up Market Street. Quilla stood on the steps of the meeting hall, talking with Ved Hirem, Haven's new, only, and self-appointed judge. Meya frowned and hid in a doorway. Ved smelled funny and talked in long sentences. Jason said the smell was from an ointment that Ved used on his joints, and he talked that way because he was a lawyer and that's the way lawyers talked. He was Jason's friend. Meya wondered at her father's taste and kept away from the long-winded old man.

"But we have to codify the laws," Ved was saying. "The mainstay of any civilization is in its structure of legalistic and moral overviews of its society, and without this structure it would be impossible, perhaps even dangerous, to continue in an expansion which would only lead, eventually and inevitably, to an increasingly chaotic state insofar as the citizen and the state are concerned. Do you get my meaning?"

"What you're saying," Quilla said, "is that you can't be a judge unless you have laws and lawyers to argue them before you. We've gone over this before, Ved. There are three hundred sixty people in Haven, we all know each other, all of the adults participate in the meetings, there are no major disputes. We don't need a system of laws yet; they'd only complicate things.

Don't do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you, isn't that the way Hoku put it?"

Ved grimaced. "No person shall harm or defraud, or cause to be harmed or defrauded, any other person."

"And disputes and breaches heard by the community. We don't need anything more than that."

Ved jerked at the lapels on his jacket. "I'll talk to your parents," he said, and went into the hall. Quilla looked angry. Meya came out of her doorway and climbed the stairs.

"What are you doing here?" Quilla said. The lines on her forehead smoothed.

"Coming to the meeting." Meya stuck her hand into her sister's.

"You'll be bored."

"I won't! I promise, I won't get bored, I won't say anything, I just want to listen."

"Well, all right. But sit in the back near the door, okay? Then if you want to leave early, you can go without disturbing anyone."

Meya nodded and walked into the crowded room. Voices rose and fell; Aerans stood talking in groups, shouting their opinions. The representatives from the kasirene village lounged against a wall, arms crossed or hanging or around each other's shoulders. A pup stuck its head out of a pouch, looked around, chattered, and dove for the hidden nipple again. Meya found an empty chair near the door, and Quilla walked to the head of the room and mounted the platform. Ved had already taken his seat; he turned his back to Quilla. Old Dr. Hoku, seated at Quilla's other side, grinned and said something. Quilla laughed and picked up the gavel. To the sound of wood pounding on wood, the people found seats and quieted.

"Order of business," Quilla said. "Dene Beletes on the coms and the kites, Hoku on the hospital, Simit on the school, Ved on the court, report from the kasirene, open discussion. Report and response. Dene?"

"Where're Jason and Mish?" someone called from the audience.

"They're not back yet. I'm expecting them later this afternoon. Dene?"

"Let's wait for them."

Quilla crossed her arms. Some of her frizzy hair escaped from her kerchief and stuck out around her face. Meya pulled on her own smooth black hair and stuck some of it in her mouth.

"Town meeting's regularly scheduled," Quilla said. "We have a celebration tonight, and I'm sure we all want to attend it. If the feel of this meeting is that you'd like to wait for Jason and Mish, despite the fact that they'll be damned tired when they get in, and that you'd like to cancel tonight's party, then let's hear a motion. If not, perhaps we can get on with things."

No one made a motion, and Dene Beletes dragged her usual charts and graphs to the dais.

"Snippy bitch," said a woman seated in front of Meya. Meya kicked her chair hard, and when the woman turned around Meya stuck her tongue out. The woman glared and faced front. Jes slid into the seat beside Meya.

"Where's Tabor?" Meya said.

"Hush. I want to hear Dene."

Dene talked about the need for more kites, hitched directly to generators. She had a scheme for putting windmills around the perimeter of Haven, and gestured at charts full of lines and figures. Jes looked fascinated. Maya thought about bright colored windmills standing in fields of airflowers and decided that she liked the idea. Dene talked about the comsystem. Ved objected to her assurances that the lines were clear and static-free, and Quilla terminated the discussion after Ved shouted the same objection for the fourth time. The kasirene wanted to know more about the windmills, and Quilla spoke to them in kasiri, repeating Dene's statements.

They seemed satisfied. Dene collected her charts and stood down, and Dr. Hoku hauled her chair forward, pressed her wiry gray hair flat over her ears, and harangued the people on the benefits of the hospital she wanted. She painted grim pictures of Haven stricken with epidemic sicknesses, of the dire consequences of not having adequate diagnostic equipment, of the personal importance of life-support equipment, and scared everyone in the room.

"And you, I suppose, would run the entire thing," Ved said.

Hoku nailed him with a cold glance. "You got any other doctors on this mudball, Judge? Maybe you'd best leave medicine to people who can tell arthritis from senility."

People laughed, and Ved tightened his lips and crossed his arms.

Someone moved that Hoku's hospital be included in the next budget. Quilla amended the motion to shape it as a recommendation to the director of Kennerin Plantations, and the vote carried. Hoku pushed her chair into place and fell asleep.

"Where's Tabor?" Meya whispered again. "You were supposed to practice with him, weren't you?"

"Couldn't find him," Jes whispered back. "Got anything to eat?"

Meya dug into her belt-pouch and pulled out a grubby sweet. Jes looked at it and put it in his mouth.

"I'll bet Taine's getting awful lonely, with only that baby around,"

Meya said. "Do babies like flute music?"

"I don't care about Taine," Jes said.

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Shut up," the woman in front of them said. Meya stuck her tongue out again and slouched in her chair. Simit droned on about the progress of the students and reminded the parents present that at least half a child's education took place in the home. He made Quilla translate that for the benefit of the kasirene. He concluded with a plea for more texts and chips.

That, too, went on the recommended budget. Quilla called a break, and Meya slipped out of the hall and went back to the marketplace. The children had left. Sunlight bleached the wooden frames of the vendors' booths. It was as hot as summer, and no breeze yet. She looked down Market Street, then ran over to Schoolhouse Road and went toward the stream. The children would most likely be there, playing in the water.

The schoolhouse looked dim and a little frightening, empty of children's voices. Meya let her fingers run along the smooth wooden boards of the fence. A splinter lodged in her finger. She looked around, said "shit"

with emphasis, and pulled the splinter out, then put her finger in her mouth.

She rounded the corner of the fence and saw Hart perched atop old man Gren's roof, nails in his mouth.

"Hey, what are you doing up there?" Meya called.

Hart turned, startled, and dropped the shingle in his hand. "None of your business. Look what you made me do."

"I didn't make you do anything." Meya shaded her eyes to look up at him. Hart had grown in the last year. He had cut the legs from all of his pants, but the seats were still tight for him. His dark hair shone in the sunlight. "What are you helping crazy old Gren for, anyway?"

"Go away. Go study something. I'm busy."

Meya shrugged and considered the likelihood of Hart's falling from the roof. He looked well seated, though; besides, the drop to the ground wasn't very far.

"Can I help you?"

"Last thing I need is some nosy kid getting into things. Go away, will you?" He drove a nail into the roof with hard, loud smacks of the hammer.

Meya made a face and ran toward the stream. She hoped that Hart would fall down. He was like Mish was sometimes, abrupt and distant, and she wondered why her mother and Hart didn't like each other more. Maybe neither of them could like anyone. No, that wasn't fair. Mish loved Jason, of that Meya was quite sure. Mish loved Quilla, and Jes, and she probably loved Hart, and maybe even Meya. But on this count Meya was never quite sure. Her mother called her "winter child" when they got along. Meya didn't like the name; it didn't feel right. But Hart didn't get along with anyone except old Gren, although they often fought Meya shrugged and jumped into the shallow stream, remembering too late that Laur got mad when Meya muddied her shoes. Adults were impenetrable.

Downstream, she heard the whisper of voices and moved closer. The children were playing Swamp Raider, with the kasirene, as usual, playing the Rats. The kasirene never got to play Raiders; they were too good at tracking, and the game was always over too fast. Meya untied her shoes and shoved them into the crotch of a tree, pulled her straight black hair behind her ears, and crept toward the voices. Zeonea the MasterRat was about to strike!

"Jes."

He turned, not sure whether he'd heard the call in the tumult of the room. Quilla lounged against the podium, sipping from a cup of water and listening to the arguments of a mixed group of kasirene and terrans. Hoku said something to Ved Hirem, who frowned and marched away from her. Hoku grinned.

People pressed toward the door, eager for fresh air. Jes stepped out of their way.