"...standing around staring..."

"...got in during the night..."

"...started it..."

"...fire..."

"No," Jason said loudly, and the voices paused. "It's impossible.

Fire's sacred to them."

"So what's to stop them from building a big one?"

"We don't even know if it was arson," Mish said. "We don't know how it started. It might have been a lantern that someone forgot to put out. It could have been anything."

Hoku shook her head, but remained silent.

"Could have been deliberate, too," someone said.

"It almost took out the place next to the doctor's."

"They'll burn us right off the planet."

Voices rose in anger, and Quilla glanced at Tabor's face. He remained unconscious, but the dials were steady.

"Listen to me!" Jason shouted. "We'll investigate. If it was set, I'll talk to the kasirene."

"They'll lie..."

"I've worked with them for twelve years!" Jason bellowed. "Do you think you know more about them than I do? You couldn't even cope with your own natives; you killed them all off. Does this give you a right to tell me about mine?"

In the ensuing silence, a voice said, "We didn't do it, not us. That happened a century ago."

"Are you going to tell me how to run my planet?"

Tabor moaned, and Quilla looked at him. He moved his hand under hers but did not waken.

"All right," Jason said finally, "we'll do it my way. Understood?"

They assented and Quilla let her breath out. She slipped her hand away from Tabor's, drew up her knees, and cradled her head in her arms.

HART SAT IN A CORNER OF THE KITCHEN, HIS arms tight around his knees, and watched the kasirene cooks pummeling bread dough at the large tables. They chattered to each other, but Hart ignored their light voices. A kassie pup lay by his feet, near the warmth of the ovens, and Hart played with its small hands. It kicked its feet at his wrist, snaked its lower arms through his fingers, and used its upper arms to stuff his thumb into its mouth. Hart shook his hand away. The pup wailed, and one of the cooks came over, picked up the pup, and dropped it into her pouch. The pouch jiggled as the pup squirmed toward the hidden nipple. The cook popped a piece of bread dough into Hart's mouth with one hand and tweaked his ear with another.

"Thanks," he said in kasiri. The cook laughed as she returned to the table. Hart rose, pulled at his short jacket to straighten it, and stole a fritter on his way out of the kitchen. The second cook saw him and said something and laughed as Hart slipped out the door.

Autumn had come to To'an Cault, the equatorial island on Aerie where the Kennerins had made their home. On the far hills the leaves of the kaedos and halaeas browned and fluttered, exposing stark white branches, and the wind cooled the air. Jason and Mish had talked about the weather last night; the kasirene predicted that this year would bring snow to the summits of the hills, and would surely frost the flanks of the mountains to the south.

Shaggies had been seen far north of their usual territory. Mish talked about insulating her new greenhouse, and Quilla offered to fetch the leftover solar sheeting from the barn. Hart could see Quilla now, helping Mish stretch the sheets over the greenhouse, while Tabor leaned on his crutches and offered verbal help. Hart scooted behind some bushes, then parted the leaves and glared at Tabor, willing the pale man to disappear. Tabor gave Jes flute lessons in the evenings, during the times that Jes and Hart would otherwise have been playing in the attic of the house. He sat after dinner with Mish and Jason and talked about politics and farming. Every time he entered a room, Quilla would stammer and bump into things. Worse, Tabor spent much of the afternoon in the kitchen, talking with Laur, and to Hart's disgust Laur seemed to like it. Jason and Mish had taken Tabor in after the fire, Quilla had nursed him, Jes had amused him, and Laur had fed him. Hart could not have put it into words, but he felt that Tabor symbolized all that Hart hated in the refugees -- their disruption of his life, their changing of his schedules, their usurpation of his world. Hart moved behind the rows of bushes and down the hill, looking for Laur. This afternoon she, at least, would be alone.

He found her in the barn, a building Laur shunned unless she was forced to enter. She stood in the hay, a length of material in her hands, and together she and the holocube lady smoothed and folded the cloth.

"Well, I don't say I entirely approve, either," Laur said. Her stiff black gown creaked as she bent to catch a corner of the cloth. Hart remembered Mish saying that Laur was so respectable it made one's teeth ache, and the words had lodged in his head, associated with the creak of Laur's stiff clothing. He touched his jaw and moved through the door.

"The children should work in the fields," Laur continued. "But they need their schooling, too."

"Hold classes at night," the other woman said. She folded the cloth with abrupt movements of her arms. "For the older ones, I mean. Younger ones can be in school daytimes, keep them from underfoot."

"But there's only one teacher." Laur sighed. "It would probably just make trouble, classes day and nights, too."

"Enough trouble already," the other woman agreed. "I never expected to see such trouble."

"Well, with the fire and all that -- "

"I don't mean just that. After everything else, that's almost minor."

"It just about burned the entire town." Laur sniffed. "That doesn't sound minor to me."

"No, of course not," the other woman said soothingly. They walked together, flipping the cloth into neat folds, until they met in the middle and Laur took the folded material and laid it to one side. They picked up another length and began the folding again.

"I still think the kassies did it," the holocube lady whispered, but Laur shook her head.

"They're like children," Laur said, "superstitious, and you can't count on them. Sometimes they show up to work, sometimes they don't, but there's always enough of them around, one way or another. Just certain ones come and go, you know. Teach some of them to do one thing, and the next thing you know they're gone and you have to teach others all over again. But they wouldn't hurt a thing. Why, when Jes was just little, he disappeared one day and I almost lost my mind looking for him, and that evening..."

"Laur, I'm hungry," Hart said. "I want something to eat."

"Oh, go ask the cooks, Hart. Go on, I'm busy."

"But I want you to feed me," he insisted. Laur freed a hand from the cloth and pinched his shoulder.

"Go on, child. You drive me to distraction. Go find something to eat in the kitchen and get back to school, hear? You're going to be late. You never give me a chance to do anything. These children..."

Hart retreated, but did not leave the barn. Instead, he circled around the working women and slid into the hay nearby, where he could still hear them.

"...he'd just spent the entire day in the village, and they brought him home that night. Taken good care of him, for kassies, but just didn't understand that he was supposed to be at home. They can't think straight, but they wouldn't harm anyone. Not deliberately."

"Well, I don't know. Back on Great Barrier, they're still telling stories about the natives. You wouldn't believe some of the things they did to the early colonists."

"Really?" Laur's voice was breathless with curiosity.

"Well, they were humanoid, you know. I mean, more than your kassies are. Only two arms. And big -- you wouldn't believe how big. I heard that in some of the outlying towns, or on some of the farms, if they caught a woman by herself..." The woman's voice dropped. She and Laur stood leaning together, their voices a small, unintelligible buzzing. Hart lay back and ate the fritter, watching dust motes float from the distant lofts through the sun-speckled air. He knew that he should be in the new schoolhouse, listening to the droning of Simit, the teacher, and the hum of his classmates, but he did not rise to leave. He hated the classroom, his teacher, the other students, and resented having to waste his time sitting on the uncomfortable benches learning historic nonsense. Quilla didn't have to go to school. She was fourteen but there were students older than that in the school. Jason told him that Quilla had absorbed the materials and lessons well before the refugees arrived. Hart didn't see why he couldn't do the same thing in the privacy of his room. Besides, the school was next door to where Gren had built his shack, and Hart was afraid of the taciturn, violent old man.

Even without Gren's unwelcome presence, Hart would have resisted going to school. He already knew how to read and write and cipher, and the lessons on the poisonous plants of Aerie left him cold. He had known them for years, and if all his schoolmates killed themselves eating the roots of airflowers, or the leaves of crepeberries, it would be to the good. As for the other subjects, he saw no use for them whatsoever. He knew what he needed to know; besides, he was a Kennerin. He shouldn't have to go to school. Even if the others were against him, even if Jason and Mish insisted and Quilla tried to explain and Jes teased, he knew that Laur would take his side. He turned in the hay, moved a stalk out of his way, and closed his eyes. Laur's voice and that of the holocube lady continued to buzz comfortably, and he slept.

He woke some hours later as the refugees came into the barn at the end of their day's work. Although much of Haven was finished and many of them now had houses of their own, they still gathered in the barn in the late afternoon, and Hart could not understand what good it did them. He glanced around, did not see Laur, and stole out of the barn and up to Tor Kennerin.

The cooks were gone, leaving the family's dinner simmering on the stoves. Laur put a pile of dishes on the kneading table and the holocube woman picked them up and took them into the dining room.

"What's she doing here?" Hart demanded. Laur made a surprised noise as she turned to him.

"Well! It's about time you came back. I've been looking for you all afternoon. Go wash up and tell everyone that dinner's ready. And get yourself clean this time, hear me?"

"I want to know what that woman's doing here," Hart repeated stubbornly.

Laur grimaced. "Her name is Mim, and she's going to be helping me from now on. You don't think I can run this entire circus by myself, do you? Now, get going!"

"Is she going to live with us?"

"She has a room here, I helped her move in today. Now, 'move', child, I can't spend all night answering your questions." She pushed him toward the door. "And wash your neck this time, understand?" she shouted after him.

He splashed water over his face and hands, rubbed them dry on a towel, and left the bathroom after making sure that the ends of his hair were wet.

Laur always checked them to make sure he had washed properly, and the dampness always convinced her that he had. He entered his room, made sure no one had come in during his absence, and pulled on a clean shirt, tossing the dirty one under the bed. He could hear Jes' voice from the room beside his, singing some dumb song they had learned in school yesterday. Hart listened and felt superior to his brother. Jes was a trefik, a stupe, and had forfeited Hart's regard forever by accepting school, accepting Tabor, accepting the entire invasion as though it were a wonderful adventure. Hart slammed his bedroom door behind him and went to the living room.

"Laur says dinner is ready," he said loudly as he came in, and the adults stopped their conversation. Tabor smiled at him, but Hart turned away and said to his father, "Do you know that there's someone else here? That lady named Mim, she's going to live here."

"Yep," Jason said. "About time Laur had some help, too, other than from the kassies. You'll get used to her, Hart." He pulled Hart onto his lap and kissed his son's cheek. Hart wriggled away and stood by the fireplace until the adults left the room. He went to the base of the stairwell and howled until Quilla and Jes clattered downstairs. Jes held him back from the dining room door.

"You're going to get in big trouble," Jes whispered. "You weren't in school today, and Simit asked where you were."

"You shut up about that," Hart said vehemently. "You tell anyone and you'll be sorry."

Jes shrugged and went into the dining room. Hart took a deep breath before following him.

During dinner, Hart spilled a glass of juice over Mim's gown. Mish said, "You must learn to be more careful, baby." Mim, though, caught the look Hart sent in her direction, and she frowned as she left the room to change her dress. The adults continued discussing Mish's greenhouse and the progress of her silly plants. Jes caught Hart's eye and winked, and Hart spent the remainder of the meal staring at his plate.

After dinner Hart sat by the fireplace poking branches into the flames while the adults sipped wine and talked. Jes had taken Tabor's flute to his room, and Hart could hear the whistles and slides as Jes practiced the scale.

Jason said "Hart? Don't you have any studying to do?"

"No, I don't need to," Hart said. "I already know all that stuff."

He saw his parents glance at each other. Then Mish shrugged and Hart turned his attention to the fire again. He wondered if he could talk Quilla into playing with him in the barn, then remembered the refugees there.

Besides, Quilla was too busy making big eyes at Tabor and falling over her own feet.

Just before sebet'al, as Mish was beginning her bedtime prodding, someone knocked at the door. Jason went to answer it. Hart glanced up as his father, and Simit, the teacher, entered, and he thrust the remains of the twig into the fire and stood to leave.

"No, Hart, wait," Jason said. "Mish, Simit wants to talk to us."

"Maybe I should go," Tabor said, but Jason waved him to his seat again.

"I want Laur," Hart said sullenly.

His mother glanced at him, then nodded to the teacher. "Go on, Simit.

What is it?"

"I want Laur!" Hart shouted. "I won't stay here unless Laur comes! I want Laur!"

"Oh, Sweet Mother," Mish swore. Jes clattered down the stairs, attracted by the noise, and Mish sent him to fetch Laur. Hart quieted, but when Laur entered he went to her and held her hand.

"Simit?" Jason said.

"It's Hart," the teacher said uneasily. "I know he's not used to school, it's something new to him, and maybe he just forgets, so I don't want to make a big issue of it."

"But?" Mish prompted. Jes, leaning against the door-frame, winked at Hart again.

"Well, we've had school for four days now, and he was there all day the first day, just the morning the second day, part of the morning yesterday, and he wasn't there at all today. I thought maybe you could remind him to come?"

Simit looked uncomfortable.

Mish and Jason turned to look at Hart. He tried to slide behind Laur, but she pushed him into the center of the room. Quilla reached for his hand, but he jumped away from her.

"Hart, I remind you every morning," Mish said.

"He comes in to get lunch," Laur reported. "I always tell him to hurry back to school."

"And you lied to me about your studying this evening." Jason frowned.

Hart looked at them with growing defiance.

"I don't have to go," he said. "I know all that stuff, I don't need to learn any more. I can do other things, like Quilla, she doesn't have to go to school. I hate the other kids. I hate all of them. I'm a Kennerin. I don't have to go to that dumb school!"

His parents glanced at each other, and Jason grew as angry as Hart had ever seen him. With no warning, he grabbed Hart, flipped the boy across his knees, and spanked him as hard as he could. Hart howled and shouted, hurt and embarrassed. When his father set him on his feet, he backed away. His eyes felt hot and his throat hurt. Mish said his name and held her arms out, but he ignored her.

"I hate all of you!" he said, his voice unsteady. "All of you! I hope you all die!" He spat on the rug.

Laur grabbed him, spun him around, and slapped him so hard that he almost lost his balance.

"You pay attention to your father!" she shouted. "I never, never want to hear words like that out of you again! You tell your parents you're sorry, and you apologize to your teacher and to Tabor, too, for the way you acted!

And you're never going to miss another day of school in your life! Hear me? Do you hear me?"

Hart stared at her, his eyes wide with shock, then bolted from the room. No one followed him.

HART CROUCHED BY THE WINDOW, HOLDING the sash with one hand, and listened to the footsteps coming down the hallway. They paused outside his locked door, and the knob rattled gently.

"Hart?"

Quilla's voice.

"Hart? Let me in."

"Go away," he said.