Haik drew the animal on the other side of the pot, giving it a slightly different pose, then fired the pot and glazed it. The glaze, as planned, was clear and uneven, like a film of water running down the pot’s dark grey fabric.

As you know, there are regions of the world where families permit sex among their members, if the relationship is distant enough. The giant families of the third continent, with fifty or a hundred thousand members, say there’s nothing wrong with third or fourth or fifth cousins becoming lovers, though inbreeding is always wrong. But Haik’s family did not live in such a region; and their lineage was so small and lived so closely together, that no one was a distant relative.

For this reason, Haik did not experience love until she was twenty and went down the coast on a trading ship to sell pots in Tsugul.

This was an island off the coast, a famous market in those days. The harbor was on the landward side, protected from ocean storms. A town of wood and plaster buildings went down slopes to the wooden warehouses and docks. Most of the plaster had been painted yellow or pale blue. The wood, where it showed, was dark blue or red. A colorful town, thought Haik when she arrived, made even more colorful by the many plants in pots. They stood on terraces and rooftops, by doorways, on the stairway streets. A good place to sell Rakai’s work and her own.

In fact, she did well, helped by a senior forester who had been sent to sell the Tulwar’s other product.

"I’d never say a word against your teacher, lass," he told her. "But your pots really set off my trees. They, my trees, are so delicate and brilliant; and your pots are so rough and plain. Look!" He pointed at a young crown-of-fire, blossoming in a squat black pot. "Beauty out of ugliness! Light out of darkness! You will make a fortune for our family!"

She didn’t think of the pot as ugly. On it, in relief, were shells, blurred just a bit by the iron glaze. The shells were a series, obviously related, but from different parts of the Tulwar cliffs. Midway up the cliffs, the first place she found them, the shells were a single plain coil. Rising from there, the shells became ever more spiny and intricate. This progression went in a line around the pot, till a spiked monstrosity stood next to its straightforward ancestor.

Could Haik think this? Did she already understand about evolution? Maybe not. In any case, she said nothing to her kinsman.

That evening, in a tavern, she met a sailor from Sorg, a tall thin arrogant woman, whose body had been shaved into a pattern of white fur and black skin. They talked over cups of halin.The woman began brushing Haik’s arm, marveling at the red fur. "It goes so well with your green eyes. You’re a young one. Have you ever made love with a foreigner?"

"I’ve never made love," said Haik.

The woman looked interested, but said, "You can’t be that young."

Haik explained she’d never traveled before, not even to neighboring towns. "I’ve been busy learning my trade."

The Sorg woman drank more halin. "I like being first. Would you be interested in making love?"

Haik considered the woman, who was certainly exotic looking."Why do you shave your fur?"

"It’s hot in my home country; and we like to be distinctive. Other folk may follow each other like city-building bugs. We do not!"

Haik glanced around the room and noticed other Sorg women, all clipped and shaved in the same fashion, but she did not point out the obvious, being young and polite.

They went to the Sorg woman’s ship, tied at a dock. There were other couples on the deck, all women.

"We have a few men in the crew this trip," her sexual partner said. "But they’re all on shore, looking for lovers; and they won’t be back till we’re ready to lift anchor."

The experience was interesting, Haik thought later, though she had not imagined making love for the first time on a foreign ship, surrounded by other couples, who were not entirely quiet. She was reminded of fish, spawning in shallow water.

"Well, you seemed to enjoy that," said the Sorg woman. "Though you are a silent one."

"My kin say I’m thoughtful."

"You shouldn’t be, with red fur like fire. Someone like you ought to burn."

Why? wondered Haik, then fell asleep and dreamed that she was talking with an old woman dressed in a plain, rough tunic. The woman’s feet were muddy. The nails on her hands were untrimmed and long, curling over the tips of her fingers like claws. There was dirt under the nails. The old woman said, "If you were an animal, instead of a person, you would have mated with a male; and there might have been children, created not as the result of a breeding contract, but out of sexual passion. Imagine a world filled with that kind of reproduction! It is the world you live in! Only people use reason in dealing with sex. Only people breed deliberately."

She woke at dawn, remembering the dream, though it made little sense. The woman had seemed like a messenger, but her message was obvious. Haik kissed the Sorg woman goodby, pulled on her tunic and stumbled down the gangway. Around her the air was cold and damp. Her feet left prints on dew-covered wood.

She had sex with the Sorg women several more times. Then the foreign ship lifted anchor, and Haik’s lover was gone, leaving only a shell necklace.

"Some other woman will have to make you burn," the lover said. "But I was the first, and I want to be remembered."

Haik thanked her for the necklace and spent a day or two walking in the island’s hills. The stone here was dark red and grainy and did not appear to contain fossils. Then she and her kinsman sailed north.

After that, she made sure to go on several trips a year. If the ship was crewed by women, she began looking for lovers as soon as she was on board. Otherwise, she waited till they reached a harbor town. Sometimes she remained with a single lover. At other times, she went from one to another or joined a group. Her childhood nickname, long forgotten, came back to her, though now she was known as "Fire," rather than "Crown-of-Fire." She was a flame that burned without being burned.

"You never feel real affection," one lover told her. "This is nothing but sex for you."

Was this true? She felt affection for Rakai and her family at home and something approaching passion for her work with clay and stone. But these women?

As we know, men are more fervent and loyal lovers than women. They will organize their lives around affection. But most women are fond of their lovers and regret leaving them, as they usually must, though less often in modern times; and the departures matter less now, since travel has become so rapid. Lovers can meet fifty times a year, if they’re willing to pay the airfare.

Haik enjoyed sex and her sexual partners, but left with no regrets, her spirit untouched.

"All your fire is in your sexual parts," another partner said. "Nothing burns in your mind."

When she was twenty-five, her family decided to breed her. There was no way she could refuse. If the Tulwar were going to survive, every healthy female had to bear children. After discussion, the senior women approached the Tsugul, who agreed to a mating contract. What happened next Haik did not like to remember. A young man arrived from Tsugul and stayed with her family. They mated till she became pregnant, then he was sent home with gifts: fine pots mostly, made by her and Rakai.

"I won’t have children in my pottery," Rakai said.

"I will give the child to one of my cousins to raise," said Haik.