"Nicer," Paul admitted. "That way I'm around thirty-seven. Ann,
you--let's see: one Earth year, one point three eight--damn mental
arithmetic--let's call you half past twenty-seven."
"Imagine that." Ann achieved a smile. "And--Pakriaa?"
"Twenty-nine. See--already I am an old woman and ugly."
"Don't be absurd, Pak," Dorothy said. "And this lady----"
"You would not remember me," said Nisana.
"Oh, but I do, I do. You--voted for Paul----"
Pakriaa chuckled with unforced gaiety. "Politics," Nisana chirped.
"P.S., I got the job." Paul pinched her tiny ear lobe and stepped out
to the kitchen, where he found Wright with Arek. The children were at
school, with Brodaa, Mijok, and Miniaan: ordinarily Wright would have
been there too. When the youngest of this house were through with
lessons they would go wandering in the hills with Mijok and Muson, so
that Ann might have quiet, with only distant sounds of the laughter
and playing in sunlight. "She's awake," Paul said, and Wright hurried
to the bedroom, but Arek lingered, filling a tray.
Arek had grown almost to Mijok's height, filling out, a red mother
goddess still bemused by inner discoveries. Her fine soft-furred
fingers fussed at the earthen dishes on the wooden tray. "No ambition,
no achievement--nothing, I think, could be worth the price of what's
happened to her. Whether she recovers completely or not. There's human
right and wrong. I think sometimes, Paul, it's not necessary to do
much wondering. You can look straight at a thing and say: 'This ought
not to be.'"
"Granted," Paul said, watching the garden through the broad kitchen
window. His eldest, Helen, must have elected to do a little work after
school instead of strolling away with the others. She was weeding, her
brown head sheltered from the sun by an improvised hat of leaves; but
for that she was prettily naked as the day she was born, and though
she was humming to herself, she restrained the sound so that Paul
could hardly hear it. She saw him in the window and grinned and waved.
She had most of Dorothy's warm coloring, with Paul's long-legged
slimness.
Arek saw her too and smiled. "What Ann should have had too.... Paul, I
told you once, we love you. All the good new things we have--your
work. All the same there's a devil in--some of you. As in us too, of
course. Need of the laws is obvious. If Spearman is responsible--the
Vestoians too, maybe?--then I think we live in too much seclusion
here." She took up the tray. "Too easy to live all the time in
Paradise and--leave things undone."
"Yes. Vestoia is big, Arek--or was, when it almost destroyed us."
"True. But you tell me that over there on the beach she said, 'I have
two other sons.' Living, did she mean? We must find them, and Spearman
too."
"I believe she can tell us about it soon."
"Understood that I go with you when you find them."
"Yes. Yes, Arek...."
In the bedroom Arek's manner was altogether changed. "Observe: this is
asonis _roti a la mode Versailles_, whatever that means. All I did was
roast it. These are (Paul says) lima beans Munchausen, and here we
have could-be asparagus. And by the way, the cheese tastes better'n it
smells."
"Cheese----"
"Asonis milk," said Wright. "They moo, too."
"Oh, you've tamed them." Pain fought with interest in the haggard
face. "Yes, Ed wanted to do that, but we--somehow we never----"
"If you're good," Arek said, "and eat all that, there's cake."
"You found something for sugar?"
"Can't tell it from terrestrial," Dorothy chattered, "only it's pink.
From a tree fruit sort of like a plum. We have a plantation of 'em
across the lake. You boil it down to nothing and the sugar
crystallizes out. We make another kind from sap, not as good as maple.
Flour--that's from the same old wheat that came from Earth.
Miniaan--oh, you don't know her yet--Miniaan and Paul have
experimented around with the local grass grains--nothing yet that
measures up to wheat." Ann picked at the food, crying weakly at the
first mouthful. "Ah, don't do that," said Dorothy, looking away. "You
came home, that's all."