"I'd rather pioneer."

"We may not have a choice. When you were figuring weights, do you recall spaces marked 'Assigned mass such and such-list to come'?"

"Certainly. Total exactly one hundred kilos, which seemed odd. Space slightly less than one cubic meter split into crannies."

"Those are yours, snubnose. And Pop or Hilda. Mass can be up to fifty percent over; I'll tell Gay to trim to match. Got an old doll? A security blanket? A favorite book of poems? Scrapbook? Family photographs? Bring 'em all!"

"Golly!" (I never enjoy looking at my wife quite so much as when she lights up and is suddenly a little girl.)

"Don't leave space for me. I have only what I arrived with. What about shoes for Hilda?"

"She claims she doesn't need any, Zebadiah-that her calluses are getting calluses on them. But I've worked out expedients. I got Pop some Dr. Scholl's shoe liners when we were building; I have three pairs left and can trim them. Liners and enough bobby sox make her size three-and-half feet fit my clodhoppers pretty well. And I have a sentimental keepsake; Keds Pop bought me when I first went to summer camp, at ten. They fit Aunt Hilda."

"Good girl!" I added, "You seem to have everything in hand. How about food? Not stores we are carrying, I mean now. Has anybody thought about dinner? Killing aliens makes me hungry."

"Buffet style, Zebadiah. Sandwiches and stuff on the kitchen counter, and I thawed and heated an apple pie. I fed one sandwich to Hilda, holding it for

her; she says she's going to finish working, then scrub before she eats anything more."

"Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?"

"Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah-almost as rugged as you are."

"More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to-but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too."

"I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she's been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things."

"Hmmm- Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?"

"No, sir, I am not. I've decided to stay grown up. It's not easy. But it's more satisfying. An adult doesn't panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it's got rattles. I'll never squeal again. I'm grown up at last... a wife instead of a pampered princess."

"You will always be my Princess!"

"I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother-wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I'll learn-I'm stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop's microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop's rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn't allow for-"

"Didn't know he had it-what calibre?"

"Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge."

"Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!"

"Didn't know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah."

"I don't advertise it, it's unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it."

"Got any use for a lady's purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand... and it fires ninety times on one magazine."

"What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?"

"No, sir. Pop got it for me-black market-when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted-or maybe probation-than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven't had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He's just as highly trained-that's why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves."

"I'm afraid he's right."

"My husband, I can't evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven't lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs."

"Deety, your parents did okay."

"I think so... but that's subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles-public schools-until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight- armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered."

"Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar."

"Pop says you are better at it."

"Mmm- Longer reach. He's probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn't even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to."

"You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship."

I grinned down at her. "Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called 'research trip' in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition-sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maItres d'armes. Learned that it was a way of life-and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I've never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn't cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me."

"You were fast enough this afternoon!"

"No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight- not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did."

"My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!"

Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds-Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage-didn't want to reach the "morgue" still eating.

The "ranger" was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor.

Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade-did not look up until I spoke. "Learning things, Sharpie?"

She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. "Zebbie, you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

"Well... look at this." She touched the corpse's right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. "What's a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?"

I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the

human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. "Did you say 'girl'?"

"I said 'girl.' Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may ~e a retractable phallus. Female-but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn't hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch."

"Taking turns? Or simultaneously?"

"Wouldn't that be sump'n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I'd give a pretty to see two of 'em going to it!"