"Not hatred," Jason said. He wet his lips. Hart handed him a glass of water and Jason sipped it. Hart put the glass by the bed.

"Shock," Jason said. "So malicious. Thoughtless. Killing people. And the other things. Not one of us, it seemed. Changeling."

"Maybe I was." Hart put his hands in his lap and looked out of the window. "I'd been robbed, you know. Everything; my home, my family. My world.

All of it taken over by strangers, and you all seemed to love it. You all helped rob yourselves, and me too. I didn't understand any of you. Then I got involved with Gren. I didn't want to, at first, then later I wanted to very much. It made me different from the rest of you, knowing something the rest of you didn't. Learning things. Doing things. It gave me back that sense of being special, of belonging, that I'd lost. And I guess I thought that you all owed it to me, that anything I did was only fair, considering what had been done to me." He paused. "I'm not trying to make excuses, Jason. I don't believe that anymore, but I did then. And when you caught me, when you sent me away, it was like being robbed all over again, only more so. The first time, I still had the semblance of my world and my family. The second time, I didn't have anything at all."

"Hart -- "

"I didn't come back at first because I was still angry, and later because I was ashamed. But I had to come back this time. To see you. To try to make things up to you, to the rest of the family."

"To the kasirene?"

"Possibly. Indirectly." Hart took Jason's hand again and looked at his father's face.

"I graduate next year," he said. "Biomedicine, chemistry. I'll get my certificate for surgeon five. I'm good, Jason. Best in my class. I've been doing outside work for the past three years for some of the firms near the medicine campus. I've developed some things on my own."

Jason looked at him.

"I can give you your body back," Hart said, "a whole, new, functioning body."

"They tried that. It didn't work."

Hart gestured. "Plumbers. Patchwork experts. Of course it didn't work, they were doing the whole thing backward. But I can do it right, I can make it work."

"How?"

"It's complicated, and I don't think you'd understand. Technical stuff, which wouldn't mean a thing to you. But it's something I developed myself, and it works. Can I do that for you, Jason? Will you let me try to help?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I told you, it's complicated. But I promise that it will work."

"I want to know."

"Can't you trust me?"

"No. Bottles and racks and dead kasirene. I haven't seen you for seven years, Hart. Don't know what you are now. Don't know if you've changed."

"That's going to haunt me for the rest of my life, isn't it?" Hart demanded. He stood from the bed. "You're never going to let me forget that, and you're never going to forgive me, either. I should have known."

Jason raised his hand. "Hart..."

Hart twisted the knob on the monitor back to its previous setting.

Jason's hand wavered, then fell to the coverlet. Hart waited until his father's breathing was deep and even again, then rearranged the pillows and tucked blankets into place. The square of light from the window had moved, leaving Jason's face in darkness. Hart blew out the lamp and walked into the hallway. He eased the door closed and pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he strolled back to his room.

"Where are you going?" Ozchan said.

Meya jumped and spun around.

"Hey, I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's okay," she said and laughed. "I didn't hear you coming. I'm going down to play Caraem."

"Caraem?"

"It's a game. People get worked up over it."

"People usually get worked up over games." He leaned against the wall by the front door and put his hands in his pockets. "I used to play some during school, ball games and things like that."

"Yes?" Meya bent to her bootlace again. "This isn't something you'd have known before. We invented it here."

"Sounds interesting."

She looked very young and very lovely, all legs and smile and golden-colored skin. Mongol eyes, like her mother's. He wondered whether he could keep her at the Tor a while longer, whether she'd be willing to spend an hour or so just talking. Whether or not she'd be bored around him. She wasn't at all like the women he had known before: the intense, self-assured women in college; the slighters and drifters in the town. Nor did he feel tense with her, that combination of fear and yearning which haunted his dealings with women. Provincial charm, he told himself, and didn't believe it. He didn't know how to talk to her, what to say, what to talk about. She smiled at him, reaching for her jacket, then stiffened. He heard steps on the stairs, and two voices. Hart and his friend Drake. Meya's smile disappeared.

"Listen," she said, "if you're interested, come on down with me and watch us practice. Can you leave Jason for a while? Just an hour or two? It's interesting, really. I've got to go now."

"Sure, Jason'll be all right. I'll get my jacket."

"No! Don't bother, you can use one of Quilla's. Here." She plucked a jacket from the rack on the wall and tossed it to him, then opened the door.

"Come on, we're going to be late."

Hart and Drake reached the foot of the stairs. Drake saw Meya and started to say something, but she grabbed Ozchan's hand and pulled him out the door.

"That's nice," he said, laughing. He pulled the jacket on and lengthened his pace to catch up with her. "I can't remember the last time a woman ran away with me."

"Just hurry," she said. She was almost running down the track toward the village. Around them airflowers popped and wilted, and the air, although still warm, held a hint of winter. Ozchan caught up with her at the base of the hill and grabbed her hand.

"What's the rush?"

"I told you, I'm late."

"You didn't start to get late until your brother came down the stairs."

Meya glanced back up the path. Ozchan looked, too. No one there.

"I just wanted to get away from the house," she said. "I guess I'm not late. There's no set time, anyway, just whenever we get there."

Then why the panic, he wanted to say, but didn't. Her hand felt warm and good in his.

"Then take some time and tell me about this place," he said. "I've never been to the village before. What's its name? What are all those kites for? And the windmills? Where does Hoku live? Is there a school here? How many people are there in town? What's the gray wood on the buildings? What are those crazy-looking animals over there?"

Meya laughed and pulled her hand away from his. "Do you practice asking questions? Here, we go this way." She gestured down the street. He walked beside her, watching the village and watching her, too. "It's called Haven. We built it after the refugees came from NewHome. Do you know about that? Jason had to go rescue them, their world was about to go poof and their government was crazy, so Jason and Hetch went over there and rescued about two hundred fifty of them and brought them here. I wasn't alive then, I wasn't born until the spring after they came. Anyway, those animals are called drays. They've got six legs because everything on Aerie's got six limbs -- except us and the fish, of course. Hetch arranged for them, some scientists came and took samples from some shaggies and mixed them up and made the drays. They're pretty stupid, but good for dragging things around."

"No trucks? No air cars? Just drays and feet?"

"Sure. Why would we need anything else? Oh, Hoku's got a skimmer, for emergencies, but she can't drive it. So either I drive it for her, or Quilla does, or someone in the village. Those kites generate electricity, Jason invented them. The windmills do the same thing. It's much better than burning things or trying to save the money for a power plant, isn't it?"

"They're pretty. But what do you do when the wind dies down?"

"The ocean's just a few kilometers away, so there's almost always a wind. But we store the power, too, of course. The gray wood's from kaedo trees. Most all of the wood is, around here. What else did you ask about?"

"I've forgotten," he said and smiled. To his relief, she smiled back.

"You must answer a lot of questions. You do it well."

"No, I just like to talk, is all. Here's the school, and that's the playing field, and there's my team, in the purple. You'd best sit over on the steps, it's the safest place."

He sat on the steps and watched with growing amazement. The kasirene players surprised him; generally humans and sentient aliens didn't seem to mix that well, but the game seemed to have been engineered with both species in mind. A few spectators had gathered to watch the practice and to watch him, and he felt on display. Then the twins sat beside him and he relaxed.

"Meya's the best player on the team," Jared said, while Decca nodded agreement.

"Is she?"

"Of course she is. Any flaker can see that."

"Well, I haven't seen this game before, so I can't tell."

"You haven't?" Decca looked at him with pity.

"They have different games where I come from," he said. "I think this game -- and Haven, and the Tor, and everyone here -- is very interesting."

Jared made a noise of disbelief. "It's just old Haven, and everyone.

When I grow up, I'm going to be a spacer like my Uncle Jes, and I'll go all over the place and see everything."

"You like Jes?"

"Sure," Decca said. "He brings us stuff from far away, and tells us stories. And he plays his flute, like Tabor does."

"What about your other uncle? Hart? Does he tell stories and bring you things?"

"Oh, no," Jared said.

"He's awful," Decca said.

"But why? He seems like a very nice man to me."

The twins looked frightened. They glanced at each other, then moved closer to Ozchan, flanking him.

"You mustn't ever be alone with him," Jared said. "He's a nasty, terrible person."

"Does he hurt you?"

Decca shook her head. "He never even talks to us."

"Then why are you scared of him?"

"I'm not scared of anyone," Decca said.

"Then why do you think he's a terrible man?"

"He just is. You'd better stay away from him."

"I certainly won't. He seems very nice to me, and you haven't told me why he isn't, so how do I know he is?"

Decca looked at her brother. "Maybe you'd better tell him," she said.

Jared looked uncertain.

"Go on," she said, reaching in front of Ozchan to poke her brother's chest, "before he gets into trouble."

"All right." Jared glanced around, then bent close to Ozchan's ear.

"Before Hart left here, he did something terrible. So terrible that people won't even talk about it. But Laur found out about it, and when Hart found out that she found out, he killed her."

Ozchan frowned. "I don't understand. Who's Laur?"

"Laur took care of everybody before," Decca said. "She came here with Mish and Jason, and she took care of the house and everyone. But then Hart killed her. He just looked at her, and she fell down dead."

"What are you people whispering about?" Meya said. The twins jumped away, then laughed and threw their arms around her.

"Let me go. I need a drink of water, and I'm all dirty."

Decca scampered toward the jugs piled under a tree. Meya sat beside Ozchan and brushed hair from her face. She was bright with exercise, and her face glowed.

"What do you think of it?"

"The game? I think it's the craziest thing I've ever seen."

She looked at him, then laughed. "Correct," she said. "Wait until you see a real game; it's even crazier."

She reached for the jug that Decca held out to her and took a long drink. Ozchan watched her throat move as she swallowed, and wondered if he could ask her about the twins' incredible story, then decided he wouldn't.

There were too many other things he wanted to talk with her about. Children's scare-tales could wait.

When she handed him the jug, he tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and put his lips where her lips had been.

"You think he won't do it?"

Hart leaned against the tree trunk and made a negligent gesture with his hand. The legs of his pants were bunched about his knees and his bare feet dangled in the water of the small, quick-moving stream. Drake stood a few feet away, careful not to lean back and dirty the pale gray cloth of his suit.