Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!"
He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's
daughter!"
The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close
to the heat and said wearily:
"You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble
without that?"
Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking.
"Maybe there'd be less trouble for us."
Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes
glowed in the feeble light.
She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to
stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields."
The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung
tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the
Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to
kill them--all but the Captain's yellow daughter?"
Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut
up or I'll whale her, anyhow."
Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young
man! Now you stop it, both of you."
"All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands
over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have
his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry.
Hope they killed meat."
Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the
heat-stones."
"Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place."