sharp, so you'd cut your hand if you used it. "Keep off attackers," hesaid. "Where was the empty man's-house?" "Way over across Rocky Top." "Can I go with you if you go back?" "No," he said, not unkindly, butabsolutely. "What happened to the man? Did he die?" "There was a skull in the creek. We think he slipped and drowned." He didn't sound quite likeBorny. There was something in his voice like a grown-up; melancholy; reserved.I had gone to him for reassurance, but came away more deeply anxious. I wentto Mother and asked her, "what do they do in the boygroups?" "Perform natural selection," she said, not in my language but in hers, in a strained tone. Ididn't always understand Hainish any more and had no idea what she meant, butthe tone of her voice upset me; and to my horror I saw she had begun to crysilently. "We have to move, Serenity," she said -- she was still talkingHainish without realizing it. "There isn't any reason why a family can't move,is there? Women just move in and move out as they please. Nobody cares whatanybody does. Nothing is anybody's business. Except hounding the boys out oftown!" I understood most of what she said, but got her to say it in mylanguage; and then I said, "But anywhere we went, Borny would be the same age,and size, and everything." "Then we'll leave," she said fiercely. "Go back tothe ship." I drew away from her. I had never been afraid of her before: shehad never used magic on me. A mother has great power, but there is nothingunnatural in it, unless it is used against the child's soul. Borny had nofear of her. He had his own magic. When she told him she intended leaving, hepersuaded her out of it. He wanted to go join the boygroup, he said; he'd beenwanting to for a year now. He didn't belong in the auntring any more, allwomen and girls and little kids. He wanted to go live with other boys.Bit's older brother Yit was a member of the boygroup in the Four RiversTerritory, and would look after a boy from his auntring. And Ednede wasgetting ready to go. And Borny and Ednede and Bit had been talking to somemen, recently. Men weren't all ignorant and crazy, the way Mother thought.They didn't talk much, but they knew a lot. "What do they know?" Mother askedgrimly "They know how to be men," Borny said. "It's what I'm going tobe." "Not that kind of man -- not if I can help it! In Joy Born, you mustremember the men on the ship, real men -- nothing like these poor, filthyhermits. I can't let you grow up thinking that that's what you have tobe!" "They're not like that," Borny said. "You ought to go talk to some ofthem, Mother." "Don't be naive," she said with an edgy laugh. "You knowperfectly well that women don't go to men to talk." I knew she was wrong; allthe women in the auntring knew all the settled men for three days' walkaround. They did talk with them, when they were out foraging. They only keptaway from the ones they didn't trust; and usually those men disappeared beforelong. Noyit had told me, "Their magic turns on them." She meant the other mendrove them away or killed them. But I didn't say any of this, and Borny saidonly, "Well, Cave Cliff Man is really nice. And he took us to the place whereI found those People things" -- some ancient artifacts that Mother had beenexcited about. "The men know things the women don't," Borny went on. "At leastI could go to the boygroup for a while, maybe. I ought to. I could learn alot! We don't have any solid information on them at all. All we know anythingabout is this auntring. I'll go and stay long enough to get material for ourreport. I can't ever come back to either the auntring or the boygroup once Ileave them. I'll have to go to the ship, or else try to be a man. So let mehave a real go at it, please, Mother?" "I don't know why you think you haveto learn how to be a man," she said after a while. "You know how already." He really smiled then, and she put her arm around him. What about me? I thought.I don't even know what the ship is. I want to be here, where my soul is. Iwant to go on learning to be in the world. But I was afraid of Mother and Borny, who were both working magic, and so I said nothing and was still, as Ihad been taught. Ednede and Borny went off together. Noyit, Ednede's mother,was as glad as Mother was about their keeping company, though she saidnothing. The evening before they left, the two boys went to every house in theauntring. It took a long time. The houses were each just within sight or

hearing of one or two of the others, with bush and gardens and irrigationditches and paths in between. In each house the mother and the children werewaiting to say goodbye, only they didn't say it; my language has no word forhello or goodbye. They asked the boys in and gave them something to eat,something they could take with them on the way to the Territory. When the boyswent to the door everybody in the household came and touched their hand orcheek. I remembered when Yit had gone around the auntring that way. I hadcried then, because even though I didn't much like Yit, it seemed so strangefor somebody to leave forever, like they were dying. This time I didn't cry;but I kept waking and waking again, until I heard Borny get up before thefirst light and pick up his things and leave quietly. I know Mother was awaketoo, but we did as we should do, and lay still while he left, and for a longtime after. I have read her description of what she calls "An adolescent maleleaves the Auntring: a vestigial survival of ceremony." She had wanted him to put a radio in his soulbag and get in touch with her at least occasionally. Hehad been unwilling. "I want to do it fight, Mother. There's no use doing it ifI don't do it right." "I simply can't handle not heating from you at all,Borny," she had said in Hainish. "But if the radio got broken or taken orsomething you'd worry a lot more, maybe with no reason at all." She finallyagreed to wait half a year, till the first rains then she would go to alandmark, a huge rain near the fiver that marked the southern end ofthe Territory, and he would try and come to her there. "But only wait tendays," he said. "If I can't come, I can't." She agreed. She was like a motherwith a little baby, I thought, saying yes to everything. That seemed wrong tome; but I thought Borny was fight. Nobody ever came back to their mother fromboygroup. But Borny did. Summer was long, clear, beautiful. I was learningto starwatch; that is when you lie down outside on the open hills in the dryseason at night, and find a certain star in the eastern sky, and watch itcross the sky till it sets. You can look away, of course, to rest your eyes,and doze, but you try to keep looking back at the star and the stars aroundit, until you feel the earth turning, until you become aware of how the starsand the world and the soul move together. After the certain star sets yousleep until dawn wakes you. Then as always you greet the sunrise with awaresilence. I was very happy on the hills those warm great nights, those cleardawns. The first time or two Hyuru and I starwatched together, but after thatwe went alone, and it was better alone. I was coming back from such a night,along the narrow valley between Rocky Top and Over Home Hill in the firstsunlight, when a man came crashing through the bush down onto the path andstood in front of me. "Don't be afraid," he said, "Listen!" He was heavyset,half naked; he stank. I stood still as a stick. He had said "Listen!" just asthe aunts did, and I listened. "Your brother and his friend are all right.Your mother shouldn't go there. Some of the boys are in a gang. They'd rapeher. I and some others are killing the leaders. It takes a while. Your brotheris with the other gang. He's all right. Tell her. Tell me what I said." I repeated it word for word, as I had learned to do when I listened. "Right.Good," he said, and took off up the steep slope on his short, powerful legs,and was gone. Mother would have gone to the Territory right then, but I toldthe man's message to Noyit, too, and she came to the porch of our house tospeak to Mother. I listened to her, because she was telling things I didn'tknow well and Mother didn't know at all. Noyit was a small, mild woman, verylike her son Ednede; she liked teaching and singing, so the children werealways around her place. She saw Mother was getting ready for a journey. Shesaid, "House on the Skyline Man says the boys are all right." When she sawMother wasn't listening, she went on, she pretended to be talking to me,because women don't teach women: "He says some of the men are breaking up thegang. They do that, when the boygroups get wicked. Sometimes there aremagicians among them, leaders, older boys, even men who want to make a gang.The settled men will kill the magicians and make sure none of the boys getshurt. When gangs come out of the Territories, nobody is safe. The settled mendon't like that. They see to it that the auntring is safe. So your brother