It seemed to her that she had been trying to get Hresh to tell her things all her life, but he had always kept her at arm’s distance. That was, she knew, not strictly true. In the days of the cocoon they had played together often and he had told her many things, fanciful things, his visions of the world outside the cocoon, his dreams of life in the ancient times, his versions of the tales that the old chronicler Thaggoran related to him. And all too often she had not been able to understand what Hresh was talking about, or had simply not been interested. Why should she have? She was only a child then. That was what all of them had been then, she, Orbin, Haniman, Hresh. But Hresh had always been the strange one, far beyond them all, Hresh-full-of-questions.

He must think I am a fool, Taniane thought bleakly. That I am empty, that I am simple.

But she was no longer a child. She was rapidly rising toward womanhood now. When she ran her hands over her body she could feel the buds of her breasts sprouting. Her fur was deepening in tone, a rich glossy dark brown with undertones of red, and it was growing thick and silken. She was becoming tall, almost as tall as such full-grown women as Sinistine and Boldirinthe. Certainly she was taller than Hresh, whose growth was coming on him more slowly.

It was the time when Taniane was beginning to think of finding her mate.

She wanted Hresh. She always had. Even when they were children in the cocoon, bouncing from wall to wall in the wild games they played, the kick-wrestling and the arm-standing and the cavern-soaring, she had dreamed of being grown up, dreamed of becoming a breeding-woman, dreamed of lying in the dark breeding-chambers of the cocoon with Hresh. Even though he was so small, even though he was so strange, there was a force about him, an energy, an excitement, that had caused Taniane to desire him although she had not yet known what desire meant.

Now she was older, and she still desired him. But he seemed still to treat her casually, with little show of interest. He was wholly absorbed with being the chronicler. He lived in a realm apart.

And chroniclers never took mates, anyway. Even if Hresh loved her the way she loved him, what chance was there that they would ever form a couple? No, she would probably have to mate with someone else, when her time came.

Orbin? He was big and strong, and gentle within his strength. But he was slow-minded and stolid. She would be bored with him quickly. Besides, he was unmistakably interested in little Bonlai, though Bonlai was two or three years younger than they were. Bonlai was the sort of easygoing, sturdy girl that someone like Orbin would prefer. And calm patient Orbin would be quite willing, Taniane guessed, to wait for Bonlai to grow up.

That left Haniman, then: the only other young man of their group. It struck her as odd, the idea of mating with Haniman. He had been such a woeful thing when they were younger, so slow, so fat, always tagging along behind the others. In the cocoon days she could not imagine that anyone would want to mate with Haniman, or twine with him, or do anything much else with him. But there was something likable about him, or at least unthreatening, that had drawn her to him for companionship. Now he was greatly changed. He was still a little slow and awkward, always fumbling things and dropping them, but he was strong now, and all that soft childish flesh was gone from him. There was nothing fascinating about him, as there was about Hresh. But he was acceptable, she supposed. And he might well be the only choice she had.

I will mate with Haniman, she told herself, trying the thought out to see how she liked it. Taniane and Haniman, Haniman and Taniane: why, the names had similar sounds! They went well together. Taniane and Haniman. Haniman and Taniane.

And yet — yet—

She couldn’t quite bring herself to it. To mate with Haniman, merely because he was the only one — Haniman the slow, Haniman the outsider, always the last one to be chosen in any game — no matter that he was different now, he would always be the same Haniman to her, a boy she liked to have as a friend, but not as her mate, no, no—

Maybe someday soon they’d meet some other tribe of people, as Hresh was always speculating. And she would find a mate in that new tribe, since she couldn’t have Hresh himself.

Or maybe she wouldn’t mate at all. There was always that possibility. Torlyri had never mated. Koshmar had never mated. A person didn’t have to mate. Koshmar was a magnificent leader, Taniane thought, though she seemed sometimes a driven person, narrow-souled, hard. There was no room in Koshmar’s life for a mate: the closest she could come to it was what she did with Torlyri, which was twining, not mating. But she was the chieftain. The chieftain did not mate, by custom. Or perhaps by law. And in Koshmar’s case by preference as well.

It was sad to think of never having a mate at all. Though if that was the price of being chieftain, perhaps it wasn’t too much to pay.

“Does the chieftain really never take a mate?” Taniane asked Torlyri.

“Maybe long ago,” Torlyri said. “You could ask Hresh about it. But certainly no chieftain I’ve ever heard of has had one.”

“Is it the law, or just the custom?”

Torlyri smiled. “There’s very little difference. But why do you ask? Do you think Koshmar ought to take a mate?”

“Koshmar?” Taniane burst into laughter. The thought of Koshmar with a mate was absurd. “No, of course not!”

“Well, you asked.”

“I was just speaking generally. Now that so many of our customs have changed, I wondered if that would too. Almost everyone is mating now, not just the breeders. Maybe a time will come when the chieftain mates also.”

“Very likely it will,” said Torlyri. “But not, I think, Koshmar.”

“Would that trouble you, if Koshmar mated?”

“We are twining-partners. That wouldn’t change, if she were to mate. Or if I were. The twining bond remains strong always, regardless. But Koshmar is not at all the sort to give herself to a man.”

“No. Not at all.” Taniane paused a moment. “Are you, Torlyri?”

Torlyri smiled. “I confess that I’ve been asking myself the same thing lately.”

“The offering-woman is another one who by custom never has mated, am I right? Like the chieftain, like the chronicler. But everything’s changing so fast. The offering-woman might take a mate too now. And even the chronicler.”

Torlyri’s eyes sparkled with gentle amusement. “Even the chronicler, yes. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Taniane looked away. “I was speaking in general terms.”

“Forgive me. I thought you might have some special reason.”

“No. No! Do you think I’d have Hresh even if he asked me? That weird boy, who pokes his nose in dusty places all day long, and never says a word to anyone any more—”

“Hresh is unusual, yes. But so are you, Taniane.”

“Am I?” she said, startled. “How?”

“You are, that’s all. There’s more to you than I think most people suspect.”

“Do you think so? Do you?” She considered the idea. Unusual? Me? Taniane preened herself. She knew it was childish and foolish to react with such obvious pleasure; but no one had ever praised her before, and to hear such things from Torlyri — from Torlyri —

Impulsively she embraced the older woman. They held each other tightly a moment. Then Taniane let go and backed away.

“Oh, Torlyri, I do hope you find the mate you want, if that’s what you’ve decided to do.”

“Wait, now!” cried Torlyri, laughing. “When did I say I had decided to do anything? Only that I was beginning to ask myself if such a thing was proper for me. That’s all.”

“You should mate,” said Taniane. “Everyone should. The chieftain should — the next chieftain, the one after Koshmar. The chronicler should. In this New Springtime no one should be alone. Don’t you think so, Torlyri? Everything is changing! Everything must change!”