"Jes!"

Dene Beletes touched his arm and nodded her head toward a free corner.

Jes followed her through the disorderly rows of chairs.

"It went well, didn't it?" she said. "Do you think it did? Did they seem interested?"

Jes nodded. "It's a good plan," he said.

"The plan's nothing. Windmills are old. Do you think your father will like the idea? The plan's nothing, it's how things will be put together, that's the new stuff. How to apply it here. With the sea breezes. Did they listen when I talked about the wind patterns?"

"Yes."

Dene put down her drawings and ran her stubby, scarred fingers through her red hair, then shrugged. "It's your father's decision. You'll tell him about it?"

"I think it would be better if you came up the Tor and told him yourself. Besides, Quilla will mention it when she tells them about the meeting."

"Perhaps. Perhaps." Dene grinned. "Hoku spiked Ved again, didn't she?

Wish I had her guts."

Jes nodded. Dene gathered her drawings and headed toward the podium.

"Leave these with Quilla," she said over her shoulder. "She can take them up the Tor. Show your father before the party tomorrow. We can talk about it."

Jes watched her elbow her way through the crowd, then turned toward the door. As he walked down the steps he heard Quilla banging the gavel to start the meeting again. He hesitated, then continued down Market Street.

The Glents' place was one of the newer houses in Haven, built a year ago when the young couple declared that they refused to live with either set of parents any longer and applied for the lot. Jes had helped with the construction, laying in solar paneling under Dene's directions, learning the rudiments of framing, brick-laying, and cabinet work. It had been his idea to build the porch around the halaea that stood on the land, and the sight of the smooth, pale trunk rising through the porch flooring and the roof pleased him.

When he built a house for himself, he would weave trees through it. Roots for foundations and leaves for a ceiling. He pictured the house in his mind, and saw himself coming home, spaceport behind him, dress greens neat and fresh; saw Taine waiting by the door, smiling. The image faltered and died. He shook his head and crossed the flat, sun-drenched lawn to the porch.

Taine opened the door before he could knock, and put her fingers to her lips. "The baby's asleep," she said, and came out onto the porch.

Jes flushed. "That's why I came," he said. "To see the baby. I haven't seen it yet -- "

"Her. It's a girl."

"Oh. Yes, of course." Jes stared at the planks of the porch floor and fingered his flute. "Well, I thought I'd see her. I guess I can come back later -- when she's awake, I mean."

He glanced up and saw Taine's lips quirk in a smile. He turned to leave.

"No, it's all right," she said and touched his arm. "You can look at her now." She moved toward the door. "Well, come on."

Jes stuck his hands under his belt and followed her into the cool dimness of the house.

The baby was chubby, bald, and tan-colored. She lay naked in the crib, her bottom thrust toward the ceiling. Jes stared at her, then touched her shoulder with his fingertip.

"She's tiny," he whispered.

"No tinier than most," Taine replied. "She'll be as big as her mother, in time."

Jes thought of that, but it seemed impossible that this small sleeping baby could grow to the size of Kala Glent. He shook his head and followed Taine from the room.

"Want something to drink?" Taine said before he could think of an excuse for staying. He nodded and she led him into the kitchen. She opened the thick-walled stone cooler and brought out a pitcher of juice.

"The meeting's still going on," Jes said as she poured juice from pitcher to cup.

"Talk," Taine said. She poured herself a cup of juice and sat at the table across from Jes. "You'd think no one here has anything better to do with his time."

"It is important," Jes said. "It's how we run things properly.

Otherwise..."

"I know." Taine shook her hair. It slid around her face, a red-brown wing shining in the light. Jes bit his lip, then sipped his juice. Taine stared out the window.

"Are you living here now?" Jes said to break the silence.

"Yes. Then Medi wants me for a month, and after that I'll spend some time with Hoku."

"Hoku?" Jes looked surprised.

"Not for herself. She said she'd need someone for the ward then; there are two or three babies due, including Tham's new one."

"That makes three," Jes said. He thought about Tham doing extra runs to support his family. "He sure keeps busy, doesn't he?"

Taine laughed and Jes blushed, realizing how that must have sounded to her. He ducked his head to his cup. She looked at him, amused.

"Why can I talk to everyone except you?" he said, staring into his cup.

She stood and took the pitcher away. When she bent to the cooler, her hair slid forward and hid her face.

"Maybe you try too hard," she said.

The baby whimpered and she went out of the kitchen. Jes stood at the door until she appeared with the baby over her shoulder. She put the baby on a couch in the living room and bent to diaper it.

"How does it feel, always living in other people's houses?" Jes said.

Taine shrugged, her mouth full of pins. She folded the white cloth around the baby's bottom and pinned it.

"Different," she said, then picked up the baby. "Better than not living in any house at all."

"That's not the choice, is it?"

She looked at him, and they went onto the porch. Jes held the baby in his lap. It wriggled around, cooing, and dribbled on his shirt. Taine sat on the porch rail and brushed her hair from her face.

"My folks were pretty rich," she said finally, as though talking only to herself. "You know that sort of thing -- private tutors, clothes, having servants for everything. I guess I thought it would always be that way: doing only what I wanted to, getting everything I asked for, having people obey me.

Then the -- the trouble came. My dad disappeared. Mom and I were taken to Great Barrier after that, just a little while before your father came. Maybe two weeks." She twisted a strand of hair around her finger, still not looking at him. "Mom was pretty good-looking. They took her away the second day. No one would tell me where she was, but I could guess. There weren't too many pretty women, not there. Either they were taken away, or they got ugly very fast. So I guess maybe Mom was lucky. At least they made sure that the pro -- that the pretty women ate."

The baby grabbed for Jes' hand. He tickled her stomach and looked from the baby to Taine, puzzled at her sudden confidences. Taine set her shoulders back and put her hands on her hips.

"There was an old woman in the camp. She made me cover my face with mud, and she put something on my teeth to make them ugly. She told me not to wash and she tied knots in my hair. I guess I looked pretty awful, and smelled worse. Anyway, they left me alone. I don't remember much of it. I guess I wasn't thinking much. I know I wasn't. Jason says he had to shout at me, and when I didn't move he picked me up and carried me until I started running by myself. I didn't know why I was running, either. I just followed everyone else."

Her face looked tight and without expression, like a mask. Jes said her name, and she turned her head away from him.

"Someone in the ship gave me a washcloth, and someone else brought me a blanket, and I decided that the nightmare was over, that things were going to be as they were before. That I was Princess Taine again, and I owned the world. That wasn't true, either."

The baby started crying. Jes put her against his shoulder and rubbed her back, murmuring. She quieted.

"You do that very well," Taine said, then took the baby from him. "So do I. That's how I live, on your planet. I can't do anything else."

"Don't you like it?"

"I suppose. I like children." Her face softened.

Jes wet his lips, wondering how much talk she would allow. "You're different with children," he said. "You're not so ... so..."

She looked at him, her eyebrows cocked, and he pressed his lips together.

"Ved wants to marry me," she said.

"Ved Hirem?" Jes stood, upset. "But you can't -- he's too old."

Taine looked at him.

"Are you going to do it?"

She shrugged and took the baby into the house. Jes sat back on the porch and pulled his flute from his belt. He played a few notes.

Taine came to the door. "No," she said, then went inside again.

Jes continued playing. He felt like crying.

Ved was expostulating about the beauties of the law when the kasirene pup bounded onto the dais and whispered in Quilla's ear. She whispered back and, as the pup left, awoke Hoku.

"Mish and Jason are home. Can you take over the meeting?"

Hoku nodded, and Quilla left the hall. Any character assassination that Ved tried after she left would be dealt with by Hoku; there was no love lost between the abrasive doctor and the windbag lawyer. The heat had increased.

Quilla pulled her damp shirt away from her breasts and wished for a breeze, but none came. Down Market Street, she heard the plaintive notes of her brother's flute and saw Jes sitting alone on the Glents' front porch. Taine, bouncing a baby on her hip, stood at the window. She looked impassive. Quilla sighed and shook her head. She'd hoped that Jes would outgrow his infatuation, but it seemed only to increase. Snippy, pretty, self-sufficient Taine treated the entire thing as a joke.

We don't seem to do love very well, Quilla thought. She passed the last house and started up the hill to the Tor. Jes and Taine, Tabor and me. Even Mish and Jason have their rough times, lasting years. They cope by going away together in the summer, walking the island, learning about each other again.

It seems to work, for them. Maybe all of us carry our emotions in our feet.

Mish and Jason were already in the hot tub behind the house. Quilla took some beer from the kitchen and went up to the enclosed tubhouse.

"Got room for some beer?" she asked.

"Quilla? Come on in."

Jason and Mish lay in the hot water, sweat beading their foreheads.

Quilla handed Mish a beer and kissed her forehead, and Jason grabbed for his kiss and beer simultaneously.

"You're both crazy," Quilla said, retreating to the door. "A hot bath, in weather like this?"

"I'm trying to boil my muscles loose," Jason said. "Your mother thinks a leisurely hike means covering eighty kilometers a day. Uphill."

"Liar," Mish said.

"How was it?" Quilla said.

"Good. Long. Hot. Pretty."

"That about covers everything," Jason said.

Quilla laughed.

"And here?"

Quilla drank her beer and brought them up to date on the farm, orchard, and village.

"Ved's been giving me a hard time, but that's not surprising," she said, concluding. "He's on the rub about his laws again, and every time I try to reason with him he pinches his nose and tells me he'll talk it over with you. I get a little tired of being treated like a child."

"I'll take care of him," Jason said. "Anything else?"

"No. Tabor's here."

Jason moved his legs in the water. He took up half the length of the tub; beside him, Mish looked as tiny as a child.

"He's here in the summer?" Mish said. "Why?"

Quilla shrugged and finished her beer. "Got tired of mountains, I guess. Are you up to the celebration tonight?"

"Sure," Jason said. "How can I miss hearing about how my wife and son defeated an entire armada of bloodthirsty maniacs? Is Ved doing the oration this year?"

"Who else? Oh, and Jes will be talking. Hetch commed to say he'd be a few days late."

"Too bad, he'll miss a great performance."

"Sure." Quilla grinned. "Last year Ved upped the fleet to twelve ships and a battle cruiser. You want to bet that this year it's twenty ships and four chargers?"

Jason pulled on his moustache. "No, that's not enough: thirty-two ships, three chargers, and a Federation cruiser, at least."

Mish laughed. "And this year, maybe he'll give me a blaster. I could have used one. How about another beer?"