“This is the song the old woman sang when we sent the boy out of the village. Everyone was angry, especially the mother of the boy. A woman has many rituals in her life. A man has one: the ceremony of parting. And the old woman had ruined it. She made it a sad occasion. But what can we do? A good shamaness is hard to find. This one is excellent. She can cure almost any kind of illness. And the spirits send rain for our gardens when she asks them to. Have more to drink.”

We drank. Eshtanabai told me about the old shamaness, the one before the one they had now. She had been greedy.

“Aiya! She had a house full of things. The older she got the more she wanted. She asked for more than the ceremonies were worth. We gave it. We had to. No one wants bad luck or the anger of the spirits. But the spirits got angry, anyway. The ceremonies didn’t work.”

“Why?”

Eshtanabai frowned. “Because we gave too much. Look. I fill your cup. I’m generous. I fill it to the brim. That is a proper giving. You have enough. It makes you happy. I know you will give me something in return. That makes me happy. But if I keep pouring and the baragoes over the brim, if it gets your hand wet and spills on your clothing or the floor, that isn’t a proper giving. That is an insult and a mess.

“A giving is a binding. But only a fool ties a strong rope to a piece of string. You must tie like to like, otherwise the knot will slip or break.”

“Are you sure?”

Eshtanabai blinked. “I know the spirits did not listen to that woman. Her rituals got us nothing. We found a new shamaness—one who takes what is right and gives what is right, even though she is half-crazy and talks about her sons. Here. Let me show you again.” She poured out more of the liquid. “To the brim and no more. What will you give me, o hairless one?”

I went to my pack and got out a necklace and gave it to her. She gave me more bara.I gave her a bracelet carved out of a native wood and inlaid with the teeth of a kind of native fish. Derek had made the bracelet. He was a wonderful craftsman. By this time it was dusk. The western sky was orange-pink. One of the moons was up: a brilliant point of light. Too much was happening, I thought, and I wasn’t in control. Oh, well. I went to the back of the house and passed out on a heap of furs.

In the morning I went back to the house of the shamaness. Nia was sitting up, eating a bowl of mush. “Why are you having trouble walking?” she asked me.

“I did a stupid thing. Oh, my head!” I sat down.

“You did not come back yesterday.”

“The shamaness told me you needed rest.” Nia looked blurry. I rubbed my eyes.

“You didn’t give me an answer.” Nia set down her bowl. There was a blob of mush in the bottom. She picked it up with one finger and put it in her mouth. “Am I right? Or is Hua right?”

“What?”

“Am I a pervert?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “How do I know? I can tell you this: People have different customs. There are places where men and women live together the way you and Enshi did. There are places where the people would say what the old man did to you was terrible.”

“Hu!” said Nia. “Where are these places?”

“A long way from here.”

“Maybe someday I will go to a place like that.”

I said nothing. My headache was getting worse, and I was having trouble concentrating.

Nia scratched her nose. “But maybe I wouldn’t like a place like that.”

“Maybe not.”

In the evening I went to the river. It was hot and muggy there. The air was full of bugs. I made a call to Eddie and told him the story of Enshi.

“Interesting. They seem to have invented monogamy. Nia and Enshi, I mean.”

“And the old man invented rape.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t say anything for a minute or two. Rape was a subject that made most men nervous. Finally he said, “We’ve done another satellite survey. There are no cities. Not one. According to Tony, this makes sense. The men can’t survive in an urban area. And the men have to be close to the women. Otherwise mating would be difficult, maybe impossible. The whole species is stuck in a pre-urban stage of development. They always will be.”

A bug flew up my nose. I snorted and coughed. A second bug flew in my mouth. I spat it out. “Eddie, I can’t stay here. There are bugs all over.”

“Okay. Harrison says to ask about warfare. He doesn’t think it exists on this planet.”

“Okay.” I ran to the village. The gate was shut. I had to yell and bang on the wood till someone came along and let me in.

The next day I talked to Eshtanabai. She had never heard of organized violence. “How could such a thing happen? Sometimes, when two men meet, they both refuse to back down. Then they fight. And there are crazy women who quarrel with their neighbors. But no one will side with a quarrelsome woman. And no one will ever side with a man.”

Hm, I thought. I was on a planet without war or cities or sexual love. Was this good or bad? I didn’t know.

Eshtanabai held out a bowl. “Have bara.Let’s drink and talk about something that makes sense.”

After a while I asked, “Why do you have walls around your village?”

“There are animals on the plain. Killers. They follow the herd. And when the herd comes south, they prowl around. They look for anything that can be eaten. Garbage. Children. The wall is to keep them out.”

“Aiya!”

“Also, we like walls. We feel more comfortable when we look around and see we are enclosed.”

That made sense to me. I had grown up on an island. The wide ocean did not bother me, but I had never been entirely happy with the middle-American plain. There was too much of it. I did not feel comfortable standing on a piece of land that went on—apparently—forever.

We talked about other things. I stayed more or less sober. Eshtanabai got obviously fuzzy. Did she have a problem with the intoxicant? If so, why? The strain of being a go-between? Or was there some other problem, psychological or physical, about which I knew nothing?

We slept. I woke to sunshine. Nia came to visit me, limping and leaning on a staff.

“I am ready to go,” she said. “This place is making me restless, and the shamaness is giving me some very odd looks.”

“You’re barely able to walk,” I said.

“I know what to do about that. Don’t plan on staying here much longer.”

She limped away. I went to the house next door. There was an old lady there who knew everything there was to know about kinship. Or so my host had told me.

Late in the afternoon Nia came back. I was sitting outside, next to the old lady. She was explaining the obligations between sisters and the children of sisters.

Nia stopped and leaned on her staff, a rough piece of wood. The bark was still on it, and a twig stuck out near the top. “We go tomorrow. I gave my tools to the coppersmith. She gave me two bowhorns. We can ride.”

The old lady frowned. “You are interrupting me. I was about to explain who gives gifts to a boy when he is ready to leave the village. This person without hair is amazing. She knows nothing about anything. But she is willing to listen, and she doesn’t interrupt.”

Nia made a barking noise. “I will go. But be ready, Li-sa. I want to leave at dawn.” She limped away.

The old lady finished her explanation. I gave her a necklace made of wooden beads. The wood came from an island in the western ocean, a cold and rainy place that reminded me of Ecotopia in North America. It—the wood, not Ecotopia—was red and had a fine grain, full of twists and coils. The polished surface glimmered.

“Aiya!” the old lady said. “This will impress everyone.” She put the necklace on.

I went back to the house of Eshtanabai. My host was out—working on her garden, I decided. I sat down. In time she returned.

“You are leaving.”

I made the gesture of assent.

“Good.”