This time everyone looked surprised. The question itself was not too
out-of-the-way, but his tone decidedly was.
"She's a great-grandmother," Clarey said. "She would be too old for
you. And I assure you it's difficult to part her from her money. I've
tried."
Everybody laughed. Irik was furious. "I understand that your aunt lives
very close to Earth Headquarters!"
Somebody must have followed him on one or more of his trips to
Barshwat, Clarey realized. "If the Earthmen chose to establish
themselves in the best residential section of Barshwat, then probably
my aunt does live near them. She's not the type to leave a comfortable
dome simply because foreigners move into the neighborhood."
"Perhaps she has more than neighborhood in common with Earthmen."
The room was suddenly very quiet again.
"She does sometimes go to sleep at concerts," Clarey conceded.
Irik opened his mouth. Malesor held up a hand. "Before you say anything
more against the Earthmen, Irik," he advised, "you oughta find out more
about them. Their cars move faster and higher than ours. Maybe their
catapults do, too."
No one looked at Clarey. Malesor had averted a showdown, he knew, but
this was the beginning of the end. And he had a suspicion who was
responsible--innocently perhaps, perhaps not. Love does not always
imply trust. And when he told Embelsira what had happened in the
Furbush, she, too, couldn't meet his eye. "That Irik," she said, "I
never liked him."
"I wonder how he knows so much about me."
"Rini writes him very often," she babbled. "He must have told him you
were responsible for the new music. That would make him hate you. Rini
likes to irritate Irik, because he's always been jealous of him. But
the whole thing's silly. How could you possibly make over the world's
music, even if you were--" Her voice ran down.
"An Earthman?" he finished coldly. "I suppose you went around telling
everybody your suspicions, and Rini wrote that to Irik, too?"
* * * * *
"I didn't tell anybody!" she protested indignantly. "Not a soul!" She
met his eye. "Except Mother, of course."
"Your mother! You might as well have published it in the District
Bulletin!"
"You have no right to speak of Mother like that, even if it's true!"
Embelsira began to sob. "I had to tell her, Balt--she kept asking why
there weren't any young ones."
"You could've told her to mind her own business!" he snapped, before
he could catch himself. Five years, and he still made slips. It was
her business. On Damorlan, it was a woman's duty not only to have
children but to see that her children had children and their children
had children.
He made himself look grave and self-reproachful. "I have a confession
to make, Belsir. I should have told you when I married you. I can't
have children."
"I never heard of such a thing! Everybody has children--unless they're
not married, of course," she added primly.
"It's an affliction sent by the gods."
"The gods would never do anything like that!" she declared confidently.
How primitive she is, he thought, and, then, angrily, how provincial I
am! He had never stopped to think about it, but he knew of no married
couple who had not at least one offspring; he and Embelsira were the
only ones. It hadn't occurred to the X-T specialists that a species
whose biological assets were roughly the same might have different
handicaps. Apparently there was no such thing as sterility on Damorlan.
"Are you really an Earthman, then, Balt?" she asked timidly.
She had spread the news around, ruined him, ruined the work Earth had
been doing, perhaps ruined even more than that--and she hadn't even
been sure to begin with. But it was too late for recriminations. He
had to salvage what little he could--time, maybe; that was all.
"Are you going to tell?" he asked.