China Mountain Zhang

JERUSALEM RIDGE (Martine)

The little girl looks at me and asks, "What's that?"

"What?" I ask. The myth that all middle-aged women like children is just that, a myth.

"That," she points.

"It's a candle," the man working on the skid says. "Come over here Theresa, I need you to hold something for me, okay?"

Clearly her father. They both have the same pale, washed out look, like faded cotton. Newcomers. Maybe whatever life they'd been living before they got here washed them out that way. The little girl looks up at me, not sure what to make of me, then obeys.

I'm walking the perimeter, checking for an air leak. I know it's here, I just don't know where it is. We use a very old fashioned way to locate leaks, whenever we get a flag that the air mixture is off somewhere in Jerusalem Ridge, I come out here and prowl around with a candle, using the flicker of the flame to find the leak.

Don't go looking for Jerusalem Ridge on your map, it's called New Changsha, or Sector 56/C-JRU, depending on whether your map is dated during or after the Cleansing Winds Campaign. It's on the northern edge of the Argyre Basin in the southern hemisphere. JRU is actually the initials of the surveyor. Aron Fahey says the name comes from the initials, but I really couldn't say. Most of the people who were here thirty years ago and would remember have been relocated. Aron would have been nine then so I'm not sure he really knows. I came when they reopened the sector seven years ago and walked into a viper's nest of back-stabbing and leftover animosities. Even now the Commune tends to break into two parts, the old people left who remember everything anybody ever did to anyone else during the Campaign, and the new ones who left our mistakes on Earth. The people who were kids during the Campaign tend to stick with the new people.

These two are real new, transports. If I didn't already know, I certainly figure it out when the father carefully jacks the little girl into his troubleshooter. Kids don't get implants that young here; I don't think she's more than six. She looks younger than that, dressed in a red top that's been stretched out too much in the neck and is too small for her and pants too big. Cast offs. He's wearing coveralls, regular issue. I find my leak and repair it. It doesn't take much to repair a leak; smear sealer on it, mark it for a structural check, although this one looks like someone slammed something into the wall-a common enough occurrence in the godown. While I'm waiting for the sealer to set, I watch the father and daughter. He's blond and sharp featured, she has thin, limp hair the color of dishwater. She stands next to him without figiting, careful on her task. She seems to be concentrating more on him than the job; she watches him raptly, mouth open a little, the way kids do.

I leave before they finish their repair job.

When I get home, my separator is on the fritz again and I completely forget about them.

When I was a little girl I once walked two miles in my sleep. I'm just the walking sort. That was when there were still communes in West Virginia. I guess that's what I miss most, walking in West Virginia. After they put the train in, it wasn't the same. Then suddenly the place was crawling with New Yorkers, all looking for a clean place to live where their families could grow up in the country while they went to their good-paying jobs in the city. It was all cadres at first, and maybe a couple of green men. Officers, of course, common soldiers don't live that well.

I guess I became a soldier because when I was a girl that was the way to insure getting the best. That was right after the beginning of the Cleansing Winds Campaign, when we were all trying to get back to the days when socialism meant something to the people. That was going terribly wrong and everywhere you looked people were getting in trouble for things that ten years earlier had been fine, like growing your own silicon chips and all the little backyard technologies. The army looked like a pretty safe deal. I had a string-my uncle was a bird colonel and he got me in. I went in at fifteen. You could do that then. At thirty-five I had my twenty years, a failed marriage and about all I could take of the army. I went looking for West Virginia but while I had been gone it had somehow transferred itself into a copy of New Jersey, and I hadn't gone back looking for New Jersey. That's how I ended up on the settlement project on Mars. Patriotic Volunteers Turn Red Desert Into Productive Land.

But I was back to walking; besides minding my plot, my goats and my bees I walked the perimeter watching for leaks. Lenin knows it was hard. I thought I'd start a new life on Jerusalem Ridge, but I hadn't counted on the fact that wherever I went I'd still be there. And I hadn't changed just by getting on a shuttle and coming to Mars. I wasn't happy. I can't say it was a mistake, I wasn't happy on Earth, either. But on Earth at least I was comfortable. For a long time I wasn't comfortable on Mars. Six months after I got here I about made up my mind to go home, but I kept putting off doing anything about it and now it's gotten to the point where it's easier to stay than to go.

I schedule my day based on what happens, sometimes I'm working at three in the morning, livestock makes it's own times and doesn't really respect yours, but by 4:30 in the afternoon I'm often in the house. It is about 4:30, a week or so after I first saw them, when they stop for a drink of water. I'm a bit off the tube, so they have had to walk, but I'm one of the last empty domes before the long stretch to New Arizona and it's not unusual for people to stop. We still don't have a surplus of drinking water. I always give, I never know when I'll be asking.

I wouldn't know him if it wasn't for the little girl. If he remembers me as the lady with the candle he doesn't say anything. Theresa, the little girl, stands half behind her father, shy in an unfamiliar place. He takes the glass, crouches a bit stiffly and offers it to her. She watches him as she drinks, as if this were something he has produced out of thin air. She hands him back half a glass, which he finishes, using her glass in that unselfconcious way parents do.

"Thank the lady," he says softly.

"Thank you," she says, and reaches for his hand.

"Going to New Arizona?" I ask.

"No," he says, "just in."

New Arizona is about nineteen hours away. Why did he take the child?

We don't know what to say to each other, and he starts to make the motions of someone getting ready to leave.

"Maybe you and the little girl would like something to eat?" It occurs to me that they're living in the dorms. What a shame to make that long trip and go back there to sleep.

He glances down at the top of her brown head, tempted I think, but shakes his head. "No, thank you."

"It's no trouble," I say, "I make soup to keep and flash and I just made a great, fresh pot. It's got to be better than dinner at the complex."

It's the little girl that decides him. She waits, neither hoping nor hopeless, just tired. "If it's no trouble then," he says softly.

The house is concrete, smooth rounded walls, like a hill. Inside it's all green and blues, probably because on Mars everything is red, a color I associate with politics. And I have plants, oxygenators. They take the strain off the recyc system. I've been here seven years, and done pretty well with my own side-business. I've nothing to do with the credit but spend it on the house. "I'm Martine Jansch," I say and stick out my hand.

"Alexi Dormov," he says. "This is my daughter, Theresa."

"Hello," she says, watching her feet.

"Hello Theresa," pleasant old-fashioned name, "are you hungry?"

"Yes," she says.

"Do you like soup?"

"What kind?" she looks up at me. Well, it was a stupid question on my part and a perfectly reasonable question on hers.

Her father doesn't know whether to be amused or embarrassed, and I like him for that. I don't like people who feel that strangers must be amused by everything that their child does.

"Bean," I say.

"I don't know," she answers honestly.

My kitchen is white and beige and blue with a wall full of plants. I pour Theresa a glass full of fruit juice and offer her father a beer, which he accepts with surprise and pleasure. I'm not showing off, I can afford fruit juice and beer.

"You live here alone?" he asks.

"Yes," I say, "but the telecom is set to open by voice and someone is always stopping by." For a moment he looms in my mind as this mentally deranged man who wanders around exposing his daughter to brutal acts of violence. Martine, I think, you have spent too much time alone. Not to mention that he's still clumsy in Martian gravity.

He looks around, admiring the cool white walls with their strip of blue tile, the beige tile floor. Aron's wife makes ceramics and she made the tiles for me, then I installed them myself. "It's a big place for someone to live alone," he says.

"It's not so big. Two bedrooms, a front room and the kitchen. Although I imagine you're accustomed to more crowded conditions." I'm thinking of the dorms, of course.

"Yes, we are, aren't we Little Heart." He ruffles his daughter's hair. "We've been living in Yorimitsu."

Yorimitsu, Yorimitsu. I've heard something about Yorimitsu. I don't pay much attention to news from home, it's always bad. "Something to do with Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, the corridor, Yorimitsu, isn't that… " I can't dredge it up.

"A resettlement camp," he says in the same soft voice he says everything.

People sent to develop the corridor near the end of the Cleansing Winds Campaign. There weren't enough resources, they had to be re-settled again, some of them spent years in resettlement camps waiting to be put somewhere. And Alexi Dormov and his daughter were put on Mars. Where is her mother? "This would seem big to you," I say.

"How did you come here?"

"Voluntarily. I retired from the army," I explain. "I wanted something unstructured."

"You were in the army?"

"Twenty years."

"I was in South Africa," he says.

Peace Keeping Force, volunteer. "Infantry?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Atmosphere skippers."

Pilot. Well, he's short enough. I have the infantry's distrust for pilots; they tend to be hot heads out to prove their righteousness by flying. I flash the soup and ladle it into blue and beige bowls. Aron's wife, Chen, makes them as well. I think they're pretty, but they probably don't look like much to someone fresh from earth.

I put tabasco on the table and when I put a few drops into my soup they carefully copy me. Not everybody likes tabasco in their bean soup but I don't say anything, I've no intention of embarrassing them. Alexi tastes carefully and then nods. "This is good. This is really good, huh Therese?"

She nods. The spoon looks too big in her hand.

"It has so much taste," he says, "I thought the food in the complex was pretty good, but this is really good."

"Thank you," I say, embarrassed. It's just bean soup with a bit of pork in it for flavor. Not even nine-bean soup like we used to have when I was young. The food in the complex is filling; mess hall food. But not what I would describe as good. Alexi has three bowls, a bit embarrassed by his own greed. He so obviously enjoys it that it's a pleasure to serve him. And Theresa eats almost all her bowl and has a biscuit with honey on it. My business is bees, the commune sells Jerusalem Honey all over the quadrant. It's how I can afford my fruit juice and beer.

Their presence wears me out. I'm not accustomed to company and I got up at a little after four this morning. The conversation wears dangerously thin, I'm not holding up my end. I take them out to see my bees. Alexi carries Theresa who is stricken motionless with fascination and terror when I pull a panel out of a hive and explain how I take out the honey. The bees, buttons of tiger fur with glass wings, crawl in glittering, ceaseless motion.

Then we go to see my fourteen goats and I tell their names; Einstein, Jellybean, Eskimo, Constantina, Miss Shapiro, Lucy, Kate-the-Shrew, Lilith (who has the heart of a whore, although I don't mention that) Hai-hong, Machina Jones, Amelia, Angela, Carmin and Cleopatra. They jostle for attention, gently butting us and trying to get into my pockets to see if I have anything. I feed them for the night, and Theresa flings handfuls of sweetfeed into their buckets, and she and they squeal with delight as they shove and rear to get their noses in first, leaping over each other. Einstein does his trick, leaping high over Carmin and pushing off the wall to vault into the middle of the pack. Goats do well in light gravity, unlike cows, poor stupid things.

When Alexi carries Theresa back through the tunnel to the house she's heavy as a sack of grain, her pale sleepy face against his shoulder. I am drunk with the pleasure of showing them my little well-organized farm and the words pop out of my mouth, "Stay the night."

"Oh now we couldn't, we've put you out enough."

I regret the offer immediately and think to myself, why'd you make it if you didn't want to? Contrary as I am I insist more. He doesn't want to bed her down in the dorm, she's so tired she needs a quiet place to sleep and he has to be tired as well. The transport will be fine parked on my pull-off. I've a sofa that opens out to make a bed and an extra bedroom. Again it's the little girl that decides him. I expect that he'll put her on the couch, but he says they can sleep together in the bedroom. I'm relieved, once he says that I realize that my offer could have been misconstrued.

He has to go out to the transport and get their little bag of things, then he sits her on the edge of the bed and pulls the shirt over her head. She is passive and limp, her head seems too heavy to support. He is matter-of-fact, helping her hands find the sleeves with an air of practice. Then he pulls the blankets over and sets the bed to keep her warm.

We go back out to the front room and have two more beers. I tell him a little about Jerusalem Ridge, find myself unexpectedly talking about what it was like when I first came here and so many people had been relocated that we had a severe labor shortage. He asks intelligent questions. He has been promised his own plot in three years, but I warn him that the way things get done around here it could be five.

He's thirty-four. I'm forty-two. Theresa is six-and-a-half.

We go to bed early. I lie awake, over-stimulated I suppose. I can't hear anything, but I feel as if I can hear them breathing. The house seems full. After awhile the breathing turns into the ocean, and at four-thirty the bed wakes me and I have been dreaming of the Pacific. In my dream, the sky was full of crows.

My separator is on the fritz again. It is because it is built and programmed to handle 5-10 cows and I have 12 nannies. It has the capacity to handle the amount of milk but I jury rigged it to handle the nannies and it just breaks down all the time. I manage to get them milked myself and to start the damn thing manually but that means that a chore that should take twenty minutes takes over an hour. I get back in at 6:30. My company isn't up yet, so I stir up biscuit batter. By 7:00 the biscuits are baking, the second batch of coffee is ready. Alexi appears dressed at a little before 7:30, followed by Theresa rubbing her eyes. I serve biscuits covered with cheese and raisins, rice stir-porridge with milk, and fruit juice. I can't pretend I eat this way every morning, usually I eat a bowl of porridge and wash it down with coffee.

"Did you sleep well?" I ask, cruelly bright-eyed.

"Terrific. I can't believe you have made all this, what time did you get up?"

"Before five," I say.

"For us?" Alexi asks, conscience stricken.

"Of course not, I have a farm to run. I hoped to get some honey ready to ship, but I'll have to call Caleb and tell him it won't be ready until tomorrow."

He asks why and I tell him about my troubles with my separator-milker manager system. While I talk I watch Theresa who has apparently never had biscuits with cheese and raisins. She eats her porridge for awhile before working up the nerve to try it. Then she puts it down and I think she doesn't like it but after a bit she tackles it again and eventually eats half.

Alexi asks me questions about the system, eats a bowl of porridge and three biscuits, then polishes off what his daughter didn't finish. "Maybe I can fix it," he says, "I'm good at fixing things."

Fine with me. Theresa is excited about going to see the goats. I send him down to the goats while I call Caleb and explain that the honey will be late. When I get down to the goats Alexi is jacked into the system and Theresa is gingerly petting Cleopatra, who is pregnant. Five of the nannies are pregnant, which is going to cut down on my income for awhile, but I've decided to go ahead and have more space added to the farm so I'll be able to expand. Alexi has the absorbed look of someone jacked in, and Theresa seems happy so I decide to do bee work.

After an hour or so Alexi comes to find me. "I can fix your program quickly and it should be all right, but have you thought about when you have the new goats?"

I have but I don't like to. "I suppose I'll have to get a new system," I say.

He shakes his head. "I can modify the system, but it would take me awhile and today I have to get back to the complex with the transport. But if you'd like I could come back and do it, maybe on Sunday. I have Sunday free."

"I could pay you," I say. "That would be great."

"No need to pay, I owe you for all your hospitality."

We argue about payment, and finally I agree, stipulating that he and Theresa come for lunch and dinner on Sunday.

Then we all go back to the house and I walk them to the pull-off. He boosts her into the cab of the transport, swings in himself and closes the door. I stand politely and watch them off. Then, freed I wander back to the house now given back to me. I strip the sheets off the guest bed and remake it, then I clean my kitchen, singing to myself. I work the rest of the day, checking my little bit of vegetables, cleaning the goat pen, and spend the bulk of the afternoon straining and cooking honey. It's good to be by myself. I listen to music I haven't listened to in years, some things I always think of as West Virginia music.

In the afternoon I find myself planning what to cook for Theresa and Alexi. I have a fancy rice and bean dish, but if I'm going to make it there are a few things I want to buy. It's a bit of work. And maybe a cake, Theresa would like that.

Sunday they come at about eleven, Theresa first, skating down the corridor the way children and martian born do, the way those of us who came to maturity on Earth never learn. Alexi comes after her, smiling. "Martine!" he says, "hello!" The cake is iced, there's a big pitcher of lemonade sitting on the table. Martine is standing in the kitchen looking at the cake with white icing and strawberries sliced to make flowers on the top. Alexi whisks her up and says, "Look at that, Little Heart."

"What are the red things?"

"Strawberries. Fresh strawberries. We used to have strawberries when I was a little boy. They're wonderful."

Theresa has never had strawberries? What were things like in a resettlement camp?

We have rice and beans and then big slices of cake. Theresa wants a flower so I cut her a piece she can never eat but she makes a pretty good sized dent. Then her father finishes it. For a little guy, Alexi Dormov can put away the food. He eats like he never knows when he'll eat again. Then he goes to work on the separator and I take Theresa out to the garden and teach her to pick beans. The dome is opened and the summer sun pours through the polarized glass. I bring Cleopatra in and ask Theresa to keep her from eating and the two of them run up and down between the rows. If Cleo drops a nannie-kid I'll name her Theresa.

I'm nervous with her; she likes me but I don't know how to act around a little girl. And I don't want to entertain her. But I don't have to, she's busy with Cleopatra.

After awhile I go to check on Alexi and bring him a fresh glass of lemonade. He's still jacked in, sitting mesmerized. He has a pad on his lap and he's scribbled some symbols down on it but he's not looking at it. I know reprogramming is complicated so I just wait until he notices me and jacks out. He grins and pushes his hair off his face.

"How's it going?" I ask.

"Okay," he says, "It's going to take me awhile. Is Theresa driving you crazy?"

"No, she's playing with one of the goats."

"Just my luck, my kid's best friend is a goat."

A world of regret in that comment, although he says it lightly enough. When his smile disappears and his face is still for a moment I assume he's thinking of Yorimitsu. I almost say, 'Kids are resilient,' even though it's one of those fallacies like middle-aged women like children. But that's not what he's thinking at all. "Martine," he says, "they're going to transfer us again, and I don't know what to do."

"What?" I say.

"They're going to transfer me again. Isn't it enough to send us to Mars?" He never raises his voice, it is easy to miss the despair in what he says.

"They're shipping you off Mars?" I ask. I can't imagine where else they would send him. Or why.

"No," he says, "not off Mars. They're talking about the water reclamation project down at the pole."

"What about Theresa?" I ask. Life down at the pole is primitive and dangerous.

"I don't know," he says. "They haven't really said we're going yet."

"What makes you think they're going to send you," I say, and realize as I say it that it sounds as if he's some sort of paranoid.

"I know. I've been through this now five times. I know when they're going to ship us off." He balls his fists and puts them together as it all boils out of him. "First Geri and I volunteered for resettlement in Nevada because they were going to send us anyway, then the water dried up and Geri got dysentery while they were shipping us to Yorimitsu and I gave her all my water and even some of the baby's but she still dehydrated and died. I volunteered for South Africa because I thought that a veteran would be treated a little better and because they were criticizing me for my attitude after Geri died-I thought I didn't want Theresa to grow up with a counter-revolutionary father and now it doesn't matter at all because everybody's just embarrassed about the whole Cleansing Winds nonsense. When I came back they put us in Buffalo. Then when we were in Buffalo they started all this nonsense about Mars. I thought, I'm a vet, Theresa's six, they won't uproot us again. But they did. And now they're talking about the water reclamation project at the pole."

"They won't send you, they couldn't send a man with a six year old daughter," I say, thinking that the commune couldn't possibly.

"You don't understand," he says, "we've no guanxi, no connection, no string. Everybody just wants to get rid of us. We're human trash. Disposable. Less useful than goatshit, because you can dump that back in the soil."

The commune won't send them, I think. How would you feel if your wife died of dehydration, I also think, and what kind of society allows that? The commune must be better than that, must be better than Earth if that's what Earth is reduced to.

I hear the sniff and look around. Theresa is standing there holding on to Cleopatra. Cleopatra looks at us with golden eyes expressionless as agates. Theresa rubs her nose with her arm and rubs her eye with her fist, crying and trying to be quiet and trapped between backing away and coming towards us. Did she hear? Or did she just fall or something?

"Baby?" Alexi says, "what's wrong?"

"Are we going to move again?"

"Oh, baby," Alexi says helplessly.

Theresa is easily consoled, but that afternoon she pesters her father. She tries to pick up Cleopatra-possibly because the gravity is weak but not probably because Cleo isn't interested. I don't think Cleo is likely to get hurt, even if dropped, but a flailing hoof could hurt Theresa so I finally have to put the nannie up. Theresa plays awhile but is clearly bored and pesters her father some more. At dinner she doesn't want soup, just cake, and bursts into angry tears when told that they can't stay the night.

"We're a little monster tonight, aren't we," Alexi says.

He carries her out to the scooter and puts her in front of him on the seat. I walk down with them, mostly because I am so eager to see them go and don't want them to know. I send them home with soup and cake.

The program on the separator isn't finished and Monday morning I milk by hand and manually start the separator. Then I check my bees. I'm creating queens to sell, feeding larvae royal jelly. I have to keep them separate, of course, no queen is going to let my royal larvae live in her hive. The little unit that controls environment has gone on the fritz. It's a cheap little unit, it wouldn't cost anything to replace on earth but we're moving away from opposition, when then Earth is closest to Mars, to conjunction when Mars is on one side of the sun and the earth is on the other side. I'll order by transmitter but it will probably be about 18 months until we start getting regular shipments. It's a 26 month cycle from opposition to opposition and the shipping window is about 8 months, we've got another month and a half, but many of those ships already left earth. And right now I'm going to lose some of my royal larvae.

I wonder if Alexi could fix it and decide to have him look at it when he comes in the evening to finish the separator.

He comes alone this evening. Forgive me, but I am relieved. "Where's Theresa?" I ask.

"At the creche," he says, "sometimes I need a little time off."

I realize that I'm alone with Alexi for the first time and I'm nervous. My hand smooths my hair. I'm ten years older than Alexi and not interested. I don't want him to think I'm interested, I want to be friends. I'm sure he's not interested either, so why am I nervous? "Have a beer," I say.

"Let me get to that separator," he says.

When he is finished he says he has to get back, has to get up early the next day and all, but he does stay for the beer, sitting in my living room with the little environment unit. "I can't fix it," he says, "it's all fused inside."

"Have you heard anything more?" I ask.

"About being reassigned? No." His voice is soft and curiously flat. "But I've talked to some of the other guys and they think that the commune probably wouldn't send Theresa to the pole."

I am relieved, I wanted to deny that anything could go so wrong, and now I learn that I was probably right. "I think that's true," I say.

"So I'd probably go on a two year assignment and she'd stay with the creche. That's not so bad, I haven't been much of a father. It's just that the separation is bad for her, she's already withdrawn and immature-at least that's what all the counselors say. She's shy, but so was her mother and after all the moving around… "

"They wouldn't send you and leave her here," I blurt out.

He shrugs. "They'll say it's temporary and that some sacrifices have to be made to open up Mars. I hate to leave her, when I came back from Africa she didn't know who I was and then she had tremendous separation anxiety." His soft voice goes on and on and I discover that the flatness is really bitterness.

I didn't ask you to come here, I am thinking. I didn't ask you and your daughter to stop for a drink of water. And at the same time I am understanding why he takes her with him when he goes to New Arizona. He talks about temper tantrums in the creche when he leaves. I think of her behavior yesterday, when she was upset, the tantrums and tears.

Finally he doesn't say anything more. The silence is thick, but I can't think of anything to say into it. He finishes his beer and says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dump my troubles on you like that." But he's only apologizing because he's supposed to, when he leaves he looks around my house, and then he looks at me as if he hates me. It's not fair, I am thinking, I worked for this. My life wasn't easy either. I don't walk him down to the pull-off where the motor scooter is parked.

When I go to bed and set the alarm for five, I realize that I forgot to thank him for re-programming my separator.

McKenzie comes Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday to pick up milk. She gossips a bit, I look forward to her coming. She helped me impregnate my nannies. (My billies are just company for my nannies, I get seed from Earth.) I tell her about Alexi reprogramming my separator.

"Would he do it for someone else?"

"Sure, he doesn't have a business. It would help him generate credit for when he's assigned a plot." Actually I have no idea if Alexi would do it.

McKenzie has wild curly hair and a stub of a nose. She brushes her hair back. "Nearly everyone who has goats has a separator programmed for cows," she says. "I bet a lot of them would love to have their system converted."

"I'll ask him and let you know," I say. Then, because the subject of the Dormovs makes me uncomfortable I ask her about the last council meeting.

"Boring. I'm stepping down, I'm sick of it. I don't know where they're going to find a land-holding newcomer to take my place." She starts the pump and my milk is drawn into her tank as we talk. "It's nothing but a headache," she says. I've told her this for years.

The council is twelve people; by common consent, six are people from before the shutdown, those who went through the Cleansing Winds (including Aron Fahey who is sort of unofficial Head) and six are from after. I'm one of the oldest newcomers, they used to ask me to be on.

"Maybe I should serve a term," I say.

McKenzie laughs, and then looks at me quizzically when I'm not laughing. "Martine," she says, "you're not serious?"

"Well, if it's not me it'll be that horse's ass Waters." Lilith butts me and I reach down and fondle her long, leaf-shaped ears. She spreads her legs to brace and lowers her head a bit in pleasure. Maybe I should get a cat, I've got a family of mice in my garden. Some things come from earth whether you want them or not. "Do you know anyone whose cat is going to have kittens?"

"Sure, I'll bring you a cat. Are you really going to run for council?"

"Maybe," I say. "Bring me a calico, if you can." Calicos are usually female. McKenzie asks me why I'd serve and I tell her I guess that I can't keep letting other people do all of the dirty work. Which isn't true, I could go the rest of my life and let them worry about who gets how much land and air and water. When she leaves I go back to the garden and check the CO2 levels in the air. I open the dome and the normally blue sky is red with the violence of a dust storm. The sand shushes softly against the dome.

Alexi Dormov, I'm doing something. That will wipe out the anger that was in your face when you left last night. I'll deny that I'm joining council to help you and Theresa, but you'll know. You'll be grateful, aware that you misjudged me. I feel a surge of self-righteous anger, how dare you have looked at me and thought that I have it soft.

At the same time I know that I'm being the perfect martyr. "You're pathetic," I say outloud. Who is this Alexi Dormov that his opinion matters so much? I'm angry all morning, and I make the mistake of working with the bees. Sure enough, I get stung.

I don't see Alexi and Theresa for awhile. I talk to him by transmitter and thank him for fixing my separator, but it's a hectic week. Two airleaks, and that means the next council meeting they'll have to decide if the problem warrants an investigation. Three of my larvae hatch into queens and I box them and send them north to Calhoun to a woman named Jessup who does a little bee-keeping. Calhoun is out of the sector so she won't compete with my honey sales. My nannies start dropping kids and that means a lot of interrupted sleep. Cleo drops a nannie-kid. So do Hai-hong and Machina Jones. Angela and Lilith drop billies. I'll get rid of the billies as soon as they're weaned; someone else can raise them for slaughter, I'm a dairy operation. McKenzie brings me a tiger-striped female kitten, and it cries all night for the first four nights. It sounds like a baby and I grit my teeth and stumble around half-awake all day while it sleeps curled up in the strawberries.

And there is the council meeting. I haven't been to a council meeting in years. They hold them in the commune cafeteria at the long hour on Thursday nights. I don't know who decided that since the martian day is 37 minutes and 23 seconds longer than the Earth day we should have the long hour from 8:00 to 9:00 last one hour 37 minutes and 23 seconds. If we're going to have a long hour I'd rather have it in the morning. But it's a bureaucrats dream, an hour and 37 minutes to have an hour meeting.

The cafeteria is red and gold. Across the back wall are the words "The force at the core of the People is the Revolution" in English and Chinese characters. At least I suppose that's what it says in Chinese but it could say "Western Barbarians Have No Revolutionary Spine" for all I know. It's been there since the days of the Cleansing Winds Campaign and nobody really likes it but nobody really has the nerve to suggest we take it out.

The meeting is opened and they discuss the problem of Aron Fahey's eldest girl who is twenty and has applied for a plot of her own. It seems to me that she should just go on the list like any newcomer but there is some question about whether the work she has done with Chen, her mother, qualifies her for any work credit or if that work goes to Aron and Chen's household. After twenty-five minutes of discussion they decide she should go on the list like any newcomer. It's almost 8:30. I usually go to bed around 8:60.

The meeting drags on, trivializing anything it touches. They talk about the two air leaks and decide not to investigate, but to put a note on the next calendar to see if there has been an unusual number between this month and next. That takes fifteen minutes.

Phillipa makes a report stating that the commune has been asked to come up with five people to send to the water reclamation project at the pole for two years. I sit up. Aron asks that a committee be formed to look into the matter and report back with a list of names for next month. He asks for volunteers. I stand.

"Martine," he says, "you wish to be recognized?"

"No Aron," I say, "I wish to volunteer."

Aron Fahey looks perplexed and strokes his brown beard. "All right. Anyone else?"

No one else volunteers. Finally Philippa says she'll be on the committee, and Aron browbeats Cord into saying he'll join.

Then he nods at McKenzie who has been frowning at me. She stands and announces that she'll be stepping down next meeting and that the seat is open. I stand again.

"Martine?" Aron says, sounding anxious.

"I would like to announce that I am interested in taking McKenzie's seat." I sit down. Then it occurs to me that this sounds peremptory so I stand, "Unless the commune finds someone who would be better suited, of course." I sit back down. My face is calm, my knees are shaking.

"Okay, it's on the record. If there's no further business?" Aron dismisses the meeting. It's 8:75.

McKenzie makes her way over to me. "Martine," she says, "Martine." And when she has my elbow, "Why this sudden interest in politics?"

"Maybe I'm tired of having no one to talk to but goats," I say.

"And whose fault is that," she says.

"Obviously I'm not going to disagree with you."

It is 4:30 in the afternoon and I'm in the kitchen weighing the kids on my kitchen scale when my transmitter clicks open and Alexi says, "Hello, anybody home?"

"Yeah," I say, "what's up?"

"Theresa and I are on our way to New Arizona on a run and we thought we'd stop and say hello."

"You're at the pull-off?"

"Right."

"Just come on in, I'm in the kitchen."

"What's that noise?"

The noise is the clatter of Theresa-the-goat and one of the billies' hooves tapping against the tiles on my kitchen floor. "Come in and see," I say.

I stay in the kitchen, but I am bursting with things to say; about the chance to start his own business adapting the programs on other people's separators, about the council meeting.

"Hello," Alexi says from the doorway, "the door was open-oh, my, Little Heart look at this."

Theresa pokes past his legs and sees the kids. I am weighing one, two are standing in the middle of the floor. They stand and the little billy waggles his head. Theresa kneels down, amazed. Then the kids wheel and bolt under the kitchen table. I take the one I have out of the bag I put them in to weigh them and put her on the floor. She scrabbles as I put her down and jets directly towards Theresa then realizes her mistake. She tries to veer, slides into the wall with a thump and bleats. The two under the table answer back and she scrambles to her feet and joins them.

"What's this?" I say, "new clothes?"

Theresa is wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of pale blue coveralls. She has barretts shaped like rabbits. The difference is amazing.

"They let me have my first draw," Alexi says.

"I didn't know you were earning credit," I say.

"Newcomers earn a luxury allowance," he says. "I finally earned enough to get something. I got them a little big, so she can grow a bit." His voice is a little questioning, looking for approval.

"That's good," I say. I've never bought clothes for a little girl in my life-ask me about goats, I know a lot about goats.

"Well, we can't stay long, we're supposed to be on the way to New Arizona. He shifts from one foot to the other. He's still in the utility coveralls the commune issues and since he's small, they're too big.

"I'm glad you came by," I say. "Listen, I was talking to McKenzie, she picks up the milk delivery, and she thinks that a lot of people would be interested in having you adapt their separator programs. It would help you earn some credit, you could use credit when you get your own place."

"Okay," he says, "'Resa, we've got to be going."

She is halfway under the table and doesn't pay much attention. I am surprised at how blase he is about my suggestion.

"I'm sure that there's more than separators that need to be adapted, you could probably get quite a little business started."

He nods pleasantly. I bite off the impulse to add that my honey business has made all the difference, paid for all the little extras in this house.

"Have you heard anymore about reassignment," I ask.

"No, just that they've got some sort of committee to handle it. Theresa, come out of there, we have to go."

"I'm on the committee," I say, sharply.

"What? You are?" he says, and I feel as if I really have his attention for the first time since he walked in. "Why?"

"I volunteered."

Goats run across the kitchen floor and Theresa backs out from under the table, blue bottom appearing first.

Alexi and I are looking at each other and my heart is pounding.

He is looking at me and what is he thinking; what right does she have? Is he wondering if this is some sort declaration I am making? Is he angry at me? I want to look down and I can feel heat in my face.

"You didn't have to do that," he says.

"I'm running for a position on council," I say, "it will help to look as if I am involved."

He looks away first, perplexed. "Oh. I didn't know you wanted to be on council."

"There's a lot you may not know, Alexi," I say sharply. Only afterwards do I realize that he might mistake that to mean something about my feelings for him. Which is not what I mean at all. And then suddenly I am tired of them. I want to be finished with this conversation, I want them out of my house. Theresa has gotten one of the nanny-kids to stay still and she is petting it.

"What's its name?" she asks.

"Theresa-the-goat," I answer. "It's Cleopatra's baby." I meant that to be a surprise, a big deal, but it comes out matter of fact."

"That's my name!" Theresa says.

"How many people are they sending?" he asks.

"The request is for five, but the committee hasn't met yet."

"Is it two years? Really?"

"I don't know," I answer, "Philippa is going to send me the notice, but I haven't seen anything."

"Come on, Theresa," Alexi says, "we have to head on to New Arizona." But the peremptory note is gone from his voice. He's off balance.

"Can Theresa-the-goat come with us?"

"No," he says, "she has to stay with Martine and Cleopatra, she's only a baby."

"Can she come to the transport with us?" Theresa begs.

"All right," I say, "but I'll have to carry her." I scoop her up and we walk out to the transport. Goats aren't lap animals and the kid struggles on and off all the way. Theresa skips and bounces in the martian gravity. Alexi alone seems strained. He opens the hatch on the transport and lifts Theresa in and I see a big duffel bag behind the seats. I'm surprised only because I remember how little he had the first time they came; a little bag with a night gown and a change of clothes for Theresa, a change of coveralls for himself.

He is looking at me oddly, and I think he is going to say something. But apparently he changes his mind and says, "Bye Martine, thanks for everything." Then he grabs the handle by the door and swings himself into the cab.

Theresa waves energetically and blows me a kiss, but I see only Alexi's profile as he starts the transport and shifts into forward.

Another airleak, this one comes in at about 10:30 at night and it's after 1:00 when I find it. When I first started it took me six, seven hours to find an airleak, but by now I know where to look. Still, I'm worn out when I finally get to bed. I wake up from a dream of forests and squirrels; the red fox squirrels from where I grew up, big-eyed and leaping from tree branch to tree branch. I am standing in the passageway that leads from the house to the goatyard, standing barefoot in my nightgown. I haven't been sleepwalking in years and it scares me a great deal.

The Committee on the allocation of people for the water reclamation project finally meets. Cord has been unable to make time until a week before the next council meeting. He doesn't bother to hide his irritation at being on the committee. He's middle-height and stocky, an old-timer. During the height of Cleansing Winds he was publicly accused and convicted of anti-revolutionary behavior in one of the infamous 'People's Trials,' a polite euphemism for trial by unruly mob. He was badly beaten, I'm told. It explains his attitude toward the commune.

We don't like each other. Cord doesn't really care for anyone, he and his wife are still married but the gossip is that their eldest son sleeps in the front room so his father can have a room away from his mother. I don't care for Cord because when the Army moved against the W.P.B. (Winds of the People Brigades) we arrested people who'd run those trials and I'd seen the Army allow them to be tried by the same mob. That eye for an eye justice doesn't seem right to me. As an officer I allowed it because it served as a kind of catharsis for the people, but Cord reminded me of decisions I'd never been proud of.

Phillipa is a teacher, a newcomer; she's been here six years. She's married to an old-timer, a man twenty-five years older than she is. She's in her early thirties but her hair is graying and she wears it pulled back. It's a matronly look. I don't know her very well, our paths don't often cross. We were in the dormitory together or I wouldn't know her at all.

First we discuss the requirements, or at least Phillipa and I do. Five people to be sent to the reclamation project at the pole. It's understood that landholders don't go. What would happen to my goats, or Phillipa's corn if we were gone for two years?

"So it'll have to be five from the dorms," Phillipa says. "And it probably should be newcomers who've been here a year or less since the others are eligible for a holding after three years.

"But we never have a holding ready," I point out.

Phillipa shrugged. "We might."

We have a list of all the newcomers who've been there a year or less. There are four. Alexi's name is first on the list.

"Well, that's four," Phillipa says. "What happens if we can only come up with four?"

"This man, this Dormov fellow, I know him," I say. "He's been relocated four times, he's a widower and he's got a six-year-old daughter. The counselors on Earth said that all this dislocation was bad for her."

"But we've only got four," Philippa says. "Besides, he'll earn credit. They get hazard credit. That'll help him get started when he gets back, and we'll keep the daughter at the creche. What I'm really worried about is that there's only four. New Arizona will give us hell if we don't come up with five."

"So much for equality," Cord mutters.

"What?" Philippa says.

"Send the newcomers. It's like a draft. The people like Aron Fahey never go."

"Aron Fahey is a landholder," Philippa says.

"So whose to say he's any better than this comrade with the daughter?"

Cord is an unexpected and not altogether wanted ally.

"So you think landholders should be considered, too?" Philippa says dryly.

Cord sits up, "Yes, I do." He looks straight at her, malice glinting, "I think you, Martine, and I should be considered. And the Fahey clan and the Mannheims and everybody else."

"I suspect that would be thrown right out of council," Philippa says.

"Perhaps it should be brought up, anyway," Cord says.

"Well then, why don't you make the report," Phillipa suggests.

"I'll do that," Cord says.

And that is the committee meeting. I don't know what to do. Cord's idea is ridiculous. He'll raise it, everybody will be made uncomfortable. Aron or someone will quote 'The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.' And the four newcomers will go. We'll discuss what to do about the fifth person and what will happen if we only send four.

I go home. I'm tired and I keep thinking about the look on Alexi's face the night he came alone to fix the separator. How different he turned out to be than the way I thought of him when I first met him-the hidden bitterness, and the awkwardness the last time I saw him.

The bitterness doesn't surprise me, scratch the surface and it seems a lot of people are bitter.

And why not?

I go down and feed my goats. I spend some time down there just fussing so as to be near them. I like goats. People have the wrong idea about goats, about how stubborn they are and all. Goats are just smart, that's all. My goats are mostly even tempered and they aren't hard to deal with. God knows, a person who can't outsmart a goat is in pretty sad shape. I am cleaning up, shoveling manure to be used to make alcohol for fuel and used as fertilizer when I think again of Alexi swinging up into the cab of his truck, the easy strength and agility in martian gravity. And I think of the duffel bag. He could probably get nearly everything they own in that duffel bag.

What if he has? What if he doesn't plan to come back?

Martine, use your head, this is Mars. Where could he go? New Arizona where my beer comes from? Then west to Wallace which would put him on the big north-south artery. Sure, he could run, but where would he get fuel? (He's a clever man with machines, but a thief?) And even if he could get fuel, there's just no place to run. There aren't more than seventeen, eighteen million people on the whole planet. He's not stupid, he wouldn't try it. When they caught him they'd take Theresa away from him, execute him if he wasn't lucky, sentence him to reform through labor if he was. That would mean mining, or the real hazardous duty on the water reclamation project for the rest of his short life.

It's foolishness to think he would run. I think about Alexi too much, I have middle-aged fancies. He's young and attractive and friendly and yes, I'm lonely and goats aren't enough.

None the less, I fret.

Tuesday he should be back from his run. Surely they'll stop on their way in. At least say hello. Tuesday comes, slides past. In the evening I call the dorms. Dormov isn't in, he's running late. Do I want to leave a message? No, I don't want to draw attention to his absence.

He could have had transport trouble. They could have stayed an extra day because he has a little money in his pocket. She has a cold, maybe, or ate something that disagreed with her. Or he did. Although the thought of him sick and them alone bothers me. I imagine him sick in a dorm and Theresa in a creche in a commune in New Arizona.

He wouldn't run, I tell myself. He knows they'd put a bullet in the back of his head. Theft of a transport, he knows.

It's hard enough to protect myself from my own stupidity, how can I be expected to protect myself from someone elses?

Wednesday evening, watching the kitten chase across the floor, batting a plastic spool across the tiles. The transmitter says, "Martine?"

"Alexi?" I say.

"Yeah."

"You came back." The words are out of my mouth.

I expect him to laugh and say something about it took them long enough, but instead he just says, "yeah." It's like a sigh. It's full of regret, it doesn't pretend that we don't both know.

"Are you at the pull-off?" My voice is so matter of fact, I'm astounded. None of my relief is in it.

"About twenty minutes out."

"Come by, you can sleep here tonight."

"Okay," he says. "Theresa's asleep."

"Okay."

And then I'm in the kitchen, digging out tofu, bread, running down to the garden for a tomato and parsley and a handful of strawberries. I cook onions, slice in the tofu, the tomato and the parsley. Basil from my kitchen plants. I slice cheese onto brown bread, slice strawberries under the cheese, put it on a plate to flash when they get in. And coffee; decaf, or I'll be awake all night. I scrub the cutting board, the sink, the counter, water the plants, clip off the dead leaves, fill twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty minutes with activity. Finally, thirty-five minutes later I hear him call, "Martine?"

"In the kitchen," I answer.

He comes to the kitchen door. Good thing it's martian gravity because he is carrying Theresa and he looks done in.

"Sit down," I say.

Theresa has her head on his shoulder and opens her eyes only when he shifts her to put her down. I put the bread in to flash, wait for the timer and then pull it out. "Theresa," I say, "have a little bread and cheese and then you can go to sleep. Careful, it's hot."

I pour him coffee and heap food on his plate, pour coffee for me and take some bread and cheese. At first he picks at it, then he eats. Theresa eats half of her bread and cheese and then I take her in to the guest bedroom and take off her shoes and socks, her coveralls and top. Tonight she can sleep in her underwear. I turn the bed up warm and tuck her in and she falls asleep as I am sitting on the bed.

When I come back, Alexi is sitting at the table, the plate pushed away from him, his hands wrapped around an empty coffee cup.

"Thank you," he says. "I don't know how to say thank you."

"What made you come back?" I ask.

"I realized I couldn't do it. I thought, maybe in New Arizona, or in Wallace, I could slip into the free market or something. But it's not like Earth, there's no where to go. I don't know what to do. And I kept thinking, you're on the committee, I know I've asked so much of you, but I thought maybe you could help."

I'm full of anger. Anger is boiling up inside me. Just looking at this man, sitting at my kitchen table, full of my food, asking me for help. I know that my anger is irrational, I know that it's the flip side of fear, but that doesn't stop me from feeling it.

"The Commune is supposed to send five people to the water reclamation project. We won't send landholders, because landholders are what make the commune work." Anger makes my word come out crisp and clear. "We'll have to send newcomers and if they've been here for more than a year and we send them, then we're making them wait longer to get their holding."

Alexi is looking at me, vulnerable in the kitchen light.

"Including you, there are four newcomers who have been here for a year. I brought up the fact that you've been relocated so many times and that it's not good for Theresa, but the committee feels that sending you will give you a chance to accumulate a good chunk of credit for when you come back and do get a holding."

He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then changes his mind.

"Right now, the committee is more interested in trying to figure out how to select the fifth person than it is in listening to why you shouldn't go, and I can't think of anything to say that will change that."

He nods. "Okay," he says.

There is a little silence.

"Okay," he says, "so that's that."

"There's still some things to try," I say. "I have an idea, but I don't think it will go. Just don't do anything until I try my idea."

"What is it?" he asks.

"There are some other people who might go," I say vaguely.

He nods tiredly. "And if that doesn't work, it's only two years." He is defeated. He says 'it is only two years' the way I imagine someone might say, 'Everybody has to die sometime.'

But if it doesn't work, I have one more idea. But I'm not ready to talk about that, because I'm not really sure I'm ready myself.

Goats, leaks, bees. Bees, leaks, goats. My life goes back to it's expected rounds. Alexi and Theresa come the following weekend. Theresa is hyper and unhappy on Saturday, but Sunday she is fine until it is time to leave. Alexi and I are pleasant to each other. We don't talk much about his reassignment but once he says, "After I come back from the pole… "

They go back to the dorm, Theresa fussing and crying. Monday is goats and bees. Tuesday is bees and goats. Wednesday I get stung twice. Well, I'll never get arthritis. I sleep badly, dream and dream but I can't remember what I dream about when I wake up. At least I don't sleepwalk. And then it is Thursday, time for the council meeting.

There is an empty chair at the front, McKenzie sits in the audience. Aron opens the meeting and says, "We can't have a meeting until we have a full council. We have one person willing to sit on council, Martine Jansch. Any other nominations or volunteers?"

Kepet Waters stands up, "I'm willing," and sits down.

McKenzie looks at her lap and frowns. Waters is a horse's ass.

I look around the hall, I have no illusions about my own popularity. Alexi, I am surprised to see, is standing next to the door.

Aron says to me, "Martine, would you like to say anything?"

I think for a moment. I can't imagine getting up and addressing all these people, even though I know most of them. "I guess everybody pretty well knows me, Aron."

"Anybody want to say anything about Martine?"

McKenzie pops up, "I think Martine would do a fine job and she's the person I'd like to follow me." She pops back down, shoves her hands in her pockets and frowns.

Aron waits to see if anyone else wants to say anything.

"Kepet?" he says.

The only thing I have going for me is that I don't think I've made many enemies. Not that Kepet has real, honest enemies, but well, he stands up and says, "I'd like to say a little, Aron," and proceeds to talk for twenty minutes about what this commune could be.

Most of us had our fill of speeches during the days of the Cleansing Wind; particularly speeches about how wonderful things are going to be. People are polite while Kepet talks, and a few clap politely when he is done, but I think most of us tend to distrust a man who talks that much.

Still, I'm nervous when everybody votes. Kepet and I don't vote. I glance back in time to see someone hand a piece of paper to Alexi, who doesn't know what to do for a moment, then takes it. Back on Earth you don't vote unless you're a party member, but here everybody on the commune votes on commune business if they're old enough to receive credit for their work. You have to be a party member to vote on anything out of New Arizona, but even many of the party members, like me, don't bother with most of that. Who cares who our representatives are at the Martian Congress, all the major decisions are made on Earth anyway.

They count the votes, it's 8:45 by the time they're finished but for once I'm not sleepy.

I'm astounded when they read off the totals. "Martine has 111, Kepet has 34." I had convinced myself I wouldn't win, that I'm too sour a woman. Kepet's speech has been more of a drawback than expected. I even more surprised that almost 150 people showed up for a council meeting. There are over 1000 people in the commune, over 200 landholding families, but council meetings are late, they're boring, and most of us have better things to do with our time.

Aron says, "Okay. When Martine decides to come up here and sit down we can start the meeting."

I stand up, embarrassed, and take my seat at the front. I don't hear much for a few minutes, it's been a long time since I had to stand in front of people, or even sit in front of them, and that was when I was Captain Jansch and had a uniform to hide behind. I can't look up for awhile, but finally, while Aron is talking about reducing our water use-a topic of council meetings for as long as I can remember, I glance up to see a little group of four or five people leaving. In fact it doesn't look like anywhere near 150 people are at the meeting.

"Okay," Aron says-it's a verbal tic of his, every sentence begins with 'okay'-"now can we have a report from the Committee on the Water Reclamation Volunteers?"

An unfortunate choice of words, that. Volunteers.

Cord stands up, "We are required to provide five people to work for at least two years on the water reclamation project. We thought that we should look first at the newcomers who have been here for less than a year, since newcomers who have been here for more than a year are less than two years from possibly having their own holding." Cord pauses for a moment. "At least officially."

There is a titter, everybody knows that it takes closer to five years to get everything together, approved and built.

"So, the problem is there are only four newcomers who have been here for less than a year. This means that we are still one person short."

I wait for the proverbial other shoe. Cord sits down and doesn't say any more and I realize he has decided not to go through with it. And that puts the burden squarely on me. There are some people who are more than two years away from having a plot of their own, who are not newcomers. I don't know how many there are, but I'm thinking of people like Aron's daughter. But Aron is going to want to think about offering Lucille Fahey a chance to earn hazard credit at the Water Reclamation Project. So I have to be careful how to introduce it. In fact, I don't have any idea how to introduce it. I must wait for that magic moment.

Leo says, "Perhaps the fifth person should be whoever has the least time here among the people who've been here for more than a year."

Philippa says, "Everybody who has been here for more than six months has been here for 32 months, at least." Of course, because we always get newcomers at the beginning of the shipping cycle from Earth. We used to get twenty, thirty people at a time, but now they go to Communes which aren't well established.

Cord stands up again.

Aron recognizes him.

"Aron," Cord says, "Is it true that we consider everybody in the Commune equal?"

Aron nods. I look a Philippa. Her mouth is set.

"Well, has anyone talked to the newcomers about whether or not they particularly want to go?"

Aron says as if talking to a child. "No one wants to go, Cord."

"So we send the newcomers? Can we consider them equal?"

Aron looks pained. After a moment Leo says, "The Council has to look at the good of the Commune. Newcomers are least likely to be irreplaceable."

Cord says, "Well, Leo, I'm intrigued to find out that you consider yourself irreplaceable."

"I don't consider myself irreplaceable," Leo says, stuttering a bit, "I mispoke, but everyone knows what I meant, that landholders are unable to leave their holdings. Not like a newcomer, who doesn't have a side business and isn't trying to keep something going. And it would give a newcomer a chance to accumulate a good chunk of credit before getting their holding. And that would be helpful. It's actually a good opportunity, better than just living in the dorms, trying to get established."

Cord nodded. "So, then landholders can't go because our pottery kilns will be empty and the rest of us won't have breakfast bowls. No one can contest the logic of that. But I've thought of another group which has more than two years until they get their holdings. Young people, like Lucille Fahey."

I see Aron's face tighten and I close my eyes. Cord has effectively ruined my chance of introducing the concept diplomatically. And when Cord says it I see Aron's face tighten and I know he'll stop this.

"Cord," he says, "the water reclamation project is hazardous duty. This commune will not send children."

I look back at the door in time to see Alexi leave.

The meeting ends fifteen minutes later with the question of who is going to the water reclamation project still unanswered. The feeling at the end of the meeting is ugly.

I leave the cafeteria and turn left towards the dorms instead of right towards home.

I haven't been in the dorms in six years, and I've forgotten how sparse they were; two bunk beds, a couple of dressers and a closet. Bathrooms down the hall. They're mostly empty, when I first came they were full. The commune had just started giving out private holdings-during the Cleansing Winds Campaign the desire for a private holding had been seen as a desire to own more than other people, to have for oneself. Now they hold mostly newcomers and a few single men who for one reason or another live there. Most people live one or two to a room that used to hold four or more.

"Alexi Dormov?" I say a couple of times, and people point. I finally knock on a door. There's no answer. I knock again and say, "Alexi?"

After a moment I hear a rustle, a foot hitting the floor. Then the door opens and Alexi is standing there.

"Martine?" he says.

"I saw you at the meeting."

He nods, "Yeah. Congratulations. You look nice."

I'm a little dressed up, a cotton blouse and slacks. I look past him into the room.

"Come in," he says.

It's painfully bare. He lives alone, there's nothing on the walls. The bottom bunk of one of the bunkbeds has sheets and a blanket on it, but it's unmade. Everything else is neat as a pin.

I sit down on the bare mattress. He sits down on the bed. "I don't have coffee or anything to offer," he says.

"I didn't expect anything," I say. "Alexi-"

"Don't worry about it," he says, "I appreciate what you've done already. I was there, I saw what it was like. They're not likely to be interested in my problems, not when the alternative is sending their own children. And I'd be the same way, if it were Theresa who was involved."

"There might be-"

"It's all right," he insists, "it's only two years. It's not going to be as bad as the army, at least they won't be shooting at me."

"There's another way," I say.

"There is no other way," Alexi says.

"We could get married," I say. I mean to present it as a business proposition, but instead my voice comes out small, a bit pleading.

"What?" he says mildly.

"We could get married. If we were married, you'd be a landholder."

"I can't ask you to do that," he says.

"It wouldn't be a real marriage, of course," I say. "There are two bedrooms, we can add a third for Theresa. And if you wanted to end it, after a couple of years, of course, that would be fine."

He shakes his head.

"Why not?" I say, in that little pleading voice I find so absurd.

"I can't," he says, "I can't. Martine, your beautiful house, all you've worked for. You're so, so self-sufficient. I'm nothing, just some refugee. Lenin and Mao Zedong, I can't believe this."

"It's getting to be a bit much for one person," I say. "And you could establish a side business, we don't have much in the way of technicians here, you'd have more work than you knew what to do with."

"This wasn't what I had in mind," he says. "Not at all."

I shrug. "Things happen. Think about it. Don't make up your mind, we'll talk about it tomorrow. But remember, we should have decided before next council meeting."

"That's only a month," he says.

I know.

"Marriage is a big thing," he adds.

"I've been married before," I say.

"I know. I asked everybody everything about you." I must look non-plussed because he explains, "I know you were a Captain. I know you're from West Virginia, I know you hated the commune when you were first here, I know you're almost never sick, you never had any children and that you're ex-husband is still in the Army and that he's stationed in California. People respect you, a lot of people came to the meeting tonight just to vote for you."

"How did you know Evan's in California?" I ask.

"Claire, one of the newcomers from two years ago, she works in transmissions. She told me you got mail forwarded from an E. Jansch from some base in Southern California."

I occasionally get stuff from Evan, not much, not often, and I usually pitch it.

"I admire you a lot," he says. "I don't want your charity, I want, well to start, I want your respect."

"It wouldn't be charity, Dormov," I say. "I get up some mornings at 3:30, 4:00 a.m., and I'd expect you to do the same."

He doesn't say anything.

"You checked up on me?" I'm not sure if I like this or not.

"Well, not exactly, I just remembered what people said about you, and then because people knew we were friends, it's a small place, people like to talk."

"I find this all a little unnerving, and I find the way Alexi is looking at me, well, I'm not sure what it means.

"Think about it," I say briskly, "I'd like to have you and Theresa." I find as I say it, I mean it. Oh, I know that the moment Theresa throws a tantrum I'm going to wonder how I ever got into this, but for right now, I really feel it. I need not to be alone, and Alexi is someone I could live with.

"We could try it," I add, "at least for Theresa's sake. If it doesn't work out, I throw you out. It's not an irrevocable decision."

He nods slowly.

I know well enough when to leave, I stand up and he stands up, too.

He opens the door and then says, "Well, how about," shyly, "I mean if we're thinking about getting married, if you wouldn't mind, a good night kiss?"

And after that he says, "How about if I walk you home?"