still didn't understand. Borny liked the story about the Man Who Lived withWomen, how he kept some women in a pen, the way some persons keep rats in apen for eating, and all of them got pregnant, and they each had a hundredbabies, and the babies grew up as horrible monsters and ate the man and themothers and each other. Mother explained to us that that was a parable of thehuman overpopulation of this planet thousands of years ago. "No, it's not," Isaid, "it's a moral story." -- "Well, yes," Mother said. "The moral is, don'thave too many babies." -- "No, it's not," I said. "Who could have a hundredbabies even if they wanted to? The man was a sorceror. He did magic. The womendid it with him. So of course their children were monsters." The key, ofcourse, is the word "tekell," which translates so nicely into the Hainish word"magic," an art or power that violates natural law. It was hard for Mother tounderstand that some persons truly consider most humanrelationships unnatural; that marriage, for instance, or government, can beseen as an evil spell woven by sorcerors. It is hard for her people to believemagic. The ship kept asking if we were all right, and every now and then aStabile would hook up the ansible to our radio and grill Mother and us. Shealways convinced them that she wanted to stay, for despite her frustrations,she was doing the work the First Observers had not been able to do, and Bornyand I were happy as mudfish, all those first years. I think Mother was happytoo, once she got used to the slow pace and the indirect way she had to learnthings. She was lonely, missing other grown-ups to talk to, and told us thatshe would have gone crazy without us. If she missed sex she never showed it. Ithink, though, that her Report is not very complete about sexual matters,perhaps because she was troubled by them. I know that when we first lived inthe auntring, two of the aunts, Hedimi and Behyu, used to meet to make love,and Behyu courted my mother; but Mother didn't understand, because Behyuwouldn't talk the way Mother wanted to talk. She couldn't understand havingsex with a person whose house you wouldn't enter. Once when I was nine or so,and had been listening to some of the older girls, I asked her why didn't shego out scouting. "Aunt Sadne would look after us," I said, hopefully. I wastired of being the uneducated woman's daughter. I wanted to live in AuntSadne's house and be just like the other children. "Mothers don't scout," shesaid, scornfully, like an aunt. "Yes, they do, sometimes," I insisted. "Theyhave to, or how could they have more than one baby?" "They go to settled mennear the auntring. Behyu went back to the Red Knob Hill Man when she wanted asecond child. Sadne goes and sees Downriver Lame Man when she wants to havesex. They know the men around here. None of the mothers scout." I realized that in this case she was right and I was wrong, but I stuck to my point."Well, why don't you go see Downriver Lame Man? Don't you ever want sex? Migisays she wants it all the time." "Migi is seventeen," Mother said drily."Mind your own nose." She sounded exactly like all the other mothers. Men,during my childhood, were a kind of uninteresting mystery to me. They turnedup a lot in the Before Time stories, and the singing-circle girls talked aboutthem; but I seldom saw any of them. Sometimes I'd glimpse one when Iwas foraging, but they never came near the auntring. In summer the DownriverLame Man would get lonesome waiting for Aunt Sadne and would come lurkingaround, not very far from the auntring --not in the bush or down by the river,of course, where he might be mistaken for a rogue and stoned-- but out in theopen, on the hillsides, where we could all see who he was. Hyuru and Didsu,Aunt Sadne's daughters, said she had had sex with him when she went outscouting the first time, and always had sex with him and never tried any ofthe other men of the settlement. She had told them, too, that the first childshe bore was a boy, and she drowned it, because she didn't want to bring up aboy and send him away. They felt queer about that and so did I, but it wasn'tan uncommon thing. One of the stories we learned was about a drowned boy whogrew up underwater, and seized his mother when she came to bathe, and tried tohold her under till she too & owned; but she escaped. At any rate, after theDownriver Lame Man had sat around for several days on the hillsides, singinglong songs and braiding and unbraiding his hair, which was long too, and shone

black in the sun, Aunt Sadne always went off for a night or two with him, andcame back looking cross and self-conscious. Aunt Noyit explained to me thatDownriver Lame Man's songs were magic; not the usual bad magic, but what shecalled the great good spells. Aunt Sadne never could resist his spells. "Buthe hasn't half the charm of some men I've known," said Aunt Noyit, smilingreminiscently. Our diet, though excellent, was very low in fat, which Motherthought might explain the rather late onset of puberty; girls seldommenstreated before they were fifteen, and boys often weren't mature till theywere considerably older than that. But the women began looking askance at boysas soon as they showed any signs at all of adolescence. First Aunt Hedimi, whowas always grim, then Aunt Noyit, then even Aunt Sadne began to turn away fromBorny, to leave him out, not answering when he spoke. "What are you doingplaying with the children?" old Aunt Dnemi asked him so fiercely that he camehome in tears. He was not quite fourteen. Sadne's younger daughter Hyuru wasmy soulmate, my best friend, you would say. Her elder sister Didsu, who was inthe singing circle now, came and talked to me one day, looking serious. "Bornyis very handsome," she said. I agreed proudly. "Very big, very strong" shesaid, "stronger than I am." I agreed proudly again, and then I began to backaway from her. "I'm not doing magic, Ren," she said. "Yes you are," I said."I'll tell your mother!" Didsu shook her head. "I'm trying to speak truly. Ifmy fear causes your fear, I can't help it. It has to be so. We talked about itin the singing circle. I don't like it," she said, and I knew she meant it;she had a soft face, soft eyes, she had always been the gentlest of uschildren. "I wish he could be a child," she said. "I wish I could. But wecan't." "Go be a stupid old woman, then," I said, and ran away from her. Iwent to my secret place down by the river and cried. I took the holies out ofmy soulbag and arranged them. One holy -- it doesn't matter if I tell you -was a crystal that Borny had given me, clear at the top, cloudy purple at thebase. I held it a long time and then I gave it back. I dug a hole under aboulder, and wrapped the holy in duhur leaves inside a square of cloth I toreout of my kilt, beautiful, fine cloth Hyuru had woven and sewn for me. I torethe square right from the front, where it would show. I gave the crystal back,and then sat a long time there near it. When I went home I said nothing ofwhat Didsu had said. But Borny was very silent, and my mother had a worriedlook. "What have you done to your kilt, Ren?" she asked. I raised my head alittle and did not answer; she started to speak again, and then did not. Shehad finally learned not to talk to a person who chose to be silent. Bornydidn't have a soulmate, but he had been playing more and more often with thetwo boys nearest his age, Ednede who was a year or two older, a slight, quietboy, and Bit who was only eleven, but boisterous and reckless. The three of them went off somewhere all the time. I hadn't paid much attention, partlybecause I was glad to be rid of Bit. Hyuru and I had been practicing beingaware, and it was tiresome to always have to be aware of Bit yellingand jumping around. He never could leave anyone quiet, as if their quietnesstook something from him. His mother, Hedimi, had educated him, but she wasn'ta good singer or story-teller like Sadne and Noyit, and Bit was too restlessto listen even to them. Whenever he saw me and Hyuru trying to slow-walk orsitting being aware, he hung around making noise till we got mad and told himto go, and then he jeered, "Dumb girls!" I asked Borny what he and Bit andEdnede did, and he said, "Boy stuff." "Like what ?" "Practicing." "Beingaware?" After a while he said, "No." "Practicing what, then?" "Wrestling.Getting strong. For the boygroup." He looked gloomy, but after a while hesaid, "Look," and showed me a knife he had hidden under his mattress. "Ednedesays you have to have a knife, then nobody will challenge you. Isn't it abeauty?" It was metal, old metal from the People, shaped like a reed,pounded out and sharpened down both edges, with a sharp point. A piece ofpolished flintshrub wood had been bored and fitted on the handle to protectthe hand. "I found it in an empty man's-house," he said. "I made the woodenpart." He brooded over it lovingly. Yet he did not keep it in hissoulbag. "What do you do with it?" I asked, wondering why both edges were