Shanelle's lifemate and his brother were examples of that. From a far distant town, they were black-haired and blue-eyed, while everyone from Dalden's town fell into the golden to light-brown hair and eyes category. The women from Falon's town apparently weren't quite as restricted, either, as they were in Sha-Ka-Ra, but that was one aspect of Sha-Ka'ani life that Brittany did not want to learn about yet.

She became friends with Shanelle. At least, the feeling was there that they were friends, even if it was all pretense on the younger girl's part. She even became friends with Martha, amazing as that was, when she had yet to meet the real Martha, and had to wonder if she ever would. But Martha had a dry sense of humor that Brittany took to-after she stopped allowing it to annoy her. And Martha was still her main source of information. Because she was faceless, Brittany could ask her things that she wouldn't ask the others.

One of those things was their differences in speech, which had confused her from the beginning. Several weeks into the journey she finally got around to asking Martha, "Why do you and Shanelle talk-I guess normally is the word I'm looking for? While Dalden, and Jorran's people as well, for that matter, sound foreign? If Shanelle is his sister, why doesn't she talk like him?"

"Dalden speaks pure Sha-Ka'ani. What you hear is his translation of your language. The same with Jorran, who speaks pure Centurian. Shanelle and I, however, speak Kystrani, and not pure Kystrani, but their Ancient dialect, which includes slang. We speak it because Tedra has a fascination with her Ancients, to include using their slang, and my main dialect is set to be identical to her preference. "

"But why would that be different, if you're using a translation as well?"

"Because of the similarities that we've found between the Kystrani Ancients and your people. Your history has closely followed theirs, so closely that even your slang is mostly the same. So in effect my language, the one Tedra prefers, is already the same as yours in basic content, as in same meanings, same slang, even same phrases. If I tell you that you got your socks knocked off when you met Dalden, you know exactly what I mean, don't you? A normal Sha-Ka'ani wouldn't have a clue, however, since they don't have a similar phrase in their language."

"Why didn't you say Dalden wouldn't have a clue?" Brittany had asked.

"Because he would. I told you Dalden is unique, a product of two cultures, though he'd prefer it were only one. Both of Tedra's children received a major part of their education from me, but only up to a point. Shanelle wanted to know everything and continued to learn, Dalden didn't. After he made the decision to follow his father's path exclusively, he wanted no more teaching from me, and he's tried to forget everything he'd already learned about the rest of the universe. He can talk just like Tedra, he just won't."

"So he took after his father, and she took after her mother?"

"In speech, yes, but women tend to be better at adapting, and Shani is a shining example of that. She can be the absolute perfect Sha-Ka'ani daughter, obedient in every way but one, or she could move to Kystran and take up the life career of flying ships for trade or world discovery-she spent a year there learning those careers."

"Back up. Every way but one?"

"Come on, kiddo, common sense would tell you that since she's been educated on how things are elsewhere, she's not going to like every aspect of how they are at home. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes, and she's not ignorant, which is why she learned to fly. She had every intention of leaving home to find a lifemate on some other world-until she met Falon and got her socks knocked off just like you did."

"And she's happy to stay at home with him now?"

"Oh, yes." Martha spared a condescending chuckle. "There's something about that love emotion you people have that makes you perfectly willing to be where your mate is, whether you like where that is or not."

"Is this finally my preparation for not liking Sha-Ka'an?" Brittany said suspiciously.

"Not at all. You may love the heck out of it, once you get used to it. No crime as you know it, no fear as you know it, no worries about war, disease, sickness, Jobs, or anything else you're used to worrying about."

"Utopia with a catch?"

More chuckling. "If everything was absolutely perfect, doll, you'd get bored real quick. Now back to Shani. She'd make an ideal ambassador for Sha-Ka'an, actually, because like Tedra, she's well versed in every known language in the universe, and respects each species for its own uniqueness. They both fully support the League's hands-off policy on underdeveloped planets, even though they might wish it were otherwise for Sha-Ka'an. They agree that a species must be left to develop at its own pace, for good or bad, that its full potential won't be reached otherwise. It's been proven by low-tech worlds that once they start trading with more advanced cultures, their own development stagnates, setting them back centuries in the way of personal growth."

"Why?"

"Because their creative people will naturally feel that anything that they could envision has already been created, so why bother."

"How is that avoided?"

"It's not, it's happened time and again. So now when the League discovers a new high-tech world, they rejoice, but when they discover a primitive world, they step very carefully. Trade gets restricted to the mundane, space travel isn't offered, educating the primitives on what's out there is minimal. A few non-League planets and rogue traders might break this policy, but for the most part, it's abided by."

"That doesn't sound like what happened with Sha-Ka'an," Brittany pointed out.

"They were an exception, because one of their natural resources is so greatly needed by the rest of the universe. But that's worked out well because they finally restricted off-world involvement themselves, so they get to progress at their own pace, while the League protects them from invasion by advanced worlds. And the League has a good representative there in Tedra. She's the perfect go-between, because she wants what's good for both sides."

In a contained environment like the Androvia, Brittany had expected to get bored pretty quickly, but she never did. She learned to play some of the games in the Rec Room, which really amazed her. She wasn't up to date by any means on computer-type games, never having owned a computer herself, but being able to control what seemed like real people in simulated wars and watch the action on movie-size screens was impressive. It was like watching a movie, but you were the director of it, or the master puppeteer in control of the actors.

And she had discovered a crafts room and ended up spending a lot of time there. It was for the crew, which the Androvia currently didn't have, or for people who might have personal hobbies they didn't want to give up just because they had elected space travel careers. Most of the stuff in the room made no sense to her, but the small section with stored wood and tools certainly did.

She cluttered up Dalden's quarters with her creations: a new table and chairs, and a nightstand-and she insisted the bed remain out at all times for it. She made a double-seated rocker that he'd never seen the like of and was sturdy enough for him to sit in with her. They used it each evening, sitting in front of the bank of windows, staring at the stars and the occasional streaking comet, and once, another ship that freaked her out until Martha's soothing tones assured her it was just a passing trader.

No, she was never bored. Corth II amused her a lot, too. He had a keen sense of humor and often used it to try and annoy Dalden, successfully. Martha explained that while Dalden had never experienced jealousy before and would discount it as being an emotion he wasn't capable of, he wouldn't experience it where other warriors were involved because he fully trusted them, while Corth II was a different matter, and unpredictable.