"There is ample room here for more than one family," he stated.

"Yes, but you're missing my point. You have no desire to spread your wings? To have a place that's exclusively yours, rather than your parents'? Where I come from, people tend to leave home as soon as they're done with their schooling, to get out and start their own lives. Parents nurture up to a point, then turn their creations loose and hope they become productive adults. You are an adult, right?"

That got her a scowl that she couldn't help chuckling over. It was so rare of him to display frowns of any sort, other than in confusion.

"Sorry," she said. "But I had to ask, when nothing else around here is what I'm accustomed to. Do women even work on your planet, you know, make things, build, create? Do they have occupations.

"Not in the way you mean."

"Take me home."

"Yet they do have hobbies."

"Doesn't suffice for a working woman," she mumbled. "And yet you do have industry here, craftsmen, woodmills. Evidence is all over your town. Where do you hide it?"

"Kan-is-Tra has not these things. We do not tamper with nature above the surface of the ground, other than to add to it in the growing of food."

"And below the surface?"

"The gold metal Is extracted in many areas of the world, including here in Kan-is-Tra. Usually Darash who live near each mine have the knowledge of crafting and shaping the metal into useful objects."

"And the furniture I've seen?"

"It is made in countries to the south. Twice a year we get huge caravans of merchants who bring these things to us. There are potters in the north. Most all Darash are skilled in weaving, sewing, and dyeing. Glassmaking is known in the east, but is generally not transported by caravan because it rarely survives the trip."

"I guess that's something," she said with some relief "How hard is it going to be for me to commute to one of these craft countries to get a job?''

No answer and a really blank look. Brittany sighed, but recalled that there was a better information source attached to her hip.

"Martha, what wasn't to understand about that question?" she asked.

"He understood it, doll, he just didn't understand it, if you get my drift. Sha-Ka'ani women have simply never had a need to work. They go from one protector to another all their lives, so they never lack for support-which doesn't mean they don't have responsibilities. If you need an example, think of them as the medieval lady of the keep who keeps everything running smoothly, supervises the servants, and makes sure things get done and done right."

"That isn't work, that's home chores."

Martha chuckled. "The culture you came from had evolved in leaps and bounds in just the last hundred years, and took giant leaps where women are concerned in just the last fifty years. So I know your women didn't always have this 'gotta work' attitude. You have it because you were born when it was already starting, and by the time you reached adulthood it was already fully in place. You expected to support yourself, expected to continue doing so even after you married, because your people have let their economy go bonkers, forcing them to hook up to combine incomes in order to get anywhere."

"And your point?"

"Look back just fifty years ago, when your culture expected women to stay home and be housewives as soon as they married, and work in only menial, unimportant jobs until then, and your women were happy in this role. Like the medieval women before them, they didn't bring home the bacon, but they worked: they ran the home front, which was often harder work than their mates were doing elsewhere. Now look what you have here: a lot of 'housewives' comfortable with that position just as your women were a few decades ago, something you can adapt to because it's not so far off the mark from your own history."

"Inactivity is going to drive me up a wall," Brittany insisted.

"That's a distinct possibility, and one that Dalden will have to think hard to rectify," Martha said. "Paying attention, big guy?"

He was, and replied stubbornly, "Hobbies will occupy her as they have my mother."

Martha all but snorted, "Don't kid yourself. Tedra's job had been in security. There was strenuous exercise to keep fit, and the occasional head-bashing to do, but for the most part it was a boring job because Kystran was a peaceful planet. So she's happy to putter about with a few crafts here, but she doesn't spend much time at it. She spends more time involving herself with people, and to a degree, security at the Visitors' Center. In other words, Dalden, she's active in things she enjoys. Everyone needs that kind of activity."

"My lifemate will have it."

"But not enough, if I know you, and I do," Martha warned. "She needs to build things, useful things. It's what she enjoys doing and she does it damn well. Her craft could also be a benefit to your people, since she can create things unknown here. Like this, for instance."

Brittany had been really impressed with Martha's speech, so it was a bit of a shock to have the double rocker that she had built on the ship suddenly appear before them. No one had carried it In. It was just-there.

"By the way, Brittany, my girl," Martha said now in smirking tones, "if that's an illusion, then you probably won't want to try sitting on it or moving it out to the balcony where it would be ideal for enjoying the view. On the other hand, if you would like to sit on it, you'll probably have to accept that I just Transferred it to you, huh? Just like I did with all your belongings, now piled into Dalden's closet."

"What belongings?" Brittany said resentfully. "You people didn't exactly give me time to pack."

"Your things weren't needed aboard the ship. But Corth II collected all of what was yours, with your roommate's help-all except your rust bucket. There was no point in bringing that here when its fuel source is unique to your world."

"All of my things?"

"Yes, not that you'll get much use out of your own clothing, though you can probably convince the big guy to let you wear some of it in private. "

Brittany didn't remark on that demeaning "convince." She noted the two doors on the wall without windows, The larger one led to the stairs they had mounted to get to the bedroom. The other she moved to now, and saw that it was a room a bit bigger than her bedroom at home, filled with standing racks that had local clothing draped over them, so just about everything was seen at a glance. And there piled on the other side was her own suitcase stuffed to the brim, and some boxes she and Jan had been storing in case they were needed come Christmastime, filled with what hadn't fit in the suitcase. Even her tools!

The room had no windows in it, yet it was well lit. She had to visually search for a moment to find the source of the light, a small wooden box high up on one of the shelves where Dalden's boots and belts were laid out. For that matter, there had been short ledges in his room between the windows with identical boxes on them. This one was open on top, light pouring out of it.

She was able to reach it and lowered it until she could see inside. A small blue rock was in it, about the size of a silver dollar, a single stone, the rough edges smoothed, but not perfectly round. She brought her other hand close to it, but there was no heat coming off of it as there should have been, considering this was what the light was coming from. Closer still and still no heat.

It took a moment for her to gather the nerve to actually touch it, then clasp it in her hand. Cool it was, and almost weightless.

She was fascinated, wanted to examine it closer in daylight to find the seams she couldn't manage to see just by turning it around. There had to be some. There had to be a battery inside it, making it a light.