Through Alien Eyes

Three

Ukatonen stood with Moki and Eerin as the doors of the airlock swung open. A man in an ensign’s uniform led a group of six other humans wearing privates’ uniforms through the airlock. Ukatonen found uniforms oddly comforting. They carried meaning, like skin speech. It was easy to tell the status of the people wearing them. If all humans wore uniforms, his life would be a great deal easier.

’The airlock is ready for departure, Commander.”

“Thank you, Ensign, the crew is ready to disembark,” Commander Sussman replied. Though she was trying to hide it behind a mask of formality, Sussman’s joy at their release from quarantine was obvious. Watching her, Ukatonen understood that Commander Sussman was as constrained by her rank as an enkar. He wished he had understood that earlier, he could have learned so much from her.

The ensign turned to Eerin and the Tendu. “Dr. Saari, the press is waiting to speak to you. If you and the Tendu will come with me?”

Eerin nodded. “Thank you, Ensign.”

Ukatonen picked up his small duffle bag. The crew of the Homa Darabi Maru cheered as the security escort ushered the three of them off the ship. They went down the long, brightly lit tunnel of the airlock and then onto a metal walkway that overlooked an enormous room with high ceilings and bright lights. Huge machines moved immense metal boxes around. The air rang with the whine of machinery and the heavy clang of metal. The smell of metal and hot oil was strong enough to taste.

“It’s the cargo bay,” Eerin shouted over the noisy machines. “This is where the ships are loaded and unloaded.”

Moki stared down in fascination at the enormous machines, his skin roiling with excitement and awe. Ukato-nen felt small and exposed, like a tinka in a clearing.

He was relieved when they passed through another airlock, then down a long corridor, -and out into a wide, brilliantly lit atrium. It was a huge room, full of humans. Towering over the crowd was an enormous tree. Long streamers of vines and aerial roots trailed from its branches down to the ground. Ukatonen stopped dead, all pretense at nonchalance forgotten. Under the wet-bird smell of the assembled humans, Ukatonen could smell the rich green aliveness of the tree. The rest of the room ceased to exist for him as he headed for the tree, aching to feel bark beneath his hands and feet again.

Analin stood by a pillar off to the side of the room, watching the surging press corps jockey for good camera angles on the riser under the tree. It was nice, for once, not to have to be part of that milling scrum. Instead, she kept her eyes and her head-mounted video camera trained on the double doors where Dr. Saari and the Tendu would enter the room. Analin was more interested in the aliens’ entrance than the press interview. She would have her own exclusive interview with the three of them later.

So she was one of the first to see Juna and the aliens as they came in the door, flanked by their security escort. The group stopped as they came in, giving Analin a moment to look at them.

What surprised her most was how small they were. The Tendu were tiny, barely coming up to the chest of their brawny escort. Their long, gangly limbs looked spidery and fragile. Juna, despite her humanity, seemed to partake of that same fine-boned fragility. She was small, barely five feet tall, but she carried herself with the pride and poise of a queen. Her features were striking, delicate yet determined. She had the narrow, straight nose, wide solemn eyes, and arching eyebrows of an Ethiopian, but her skin was lighter, coffee with a hint of cream.

The Tendu’s skins flared a sudden surprising hot pink as the lights of the assembled cameras flickered explosively over them, recording their images for the NetNews teams. The noise of the crowd swelled as reporters spoke into microphones. But the aliens were looking beyond the reporters.

Analin followed their gaze with her eyes. They were looking at the giant tree behind the riser. In that moment, the Tendu ran for the tree. The security escort moved to stop them, but the aliens were already beyond their reach, racing up into the tree’s massive branches with the quick fluidity of squirrels. The Tendu reached the upper branches and paused a moment, their skins turning the clear, startling blue of a summer sky, and then began leaping and swinging from branch to branch, hot-pink lightning flickering over their brilliant blue bodies.

The still pictures and her comm conversations with the Tendu had not prepared her for their nonhuman grace and agility. In the trees, their awkward gangliness vanished. They were beautiful in motion. She could have watched them for hours.

Dr. Saari strode up to the riser, and with a thunderous clatter plucked the microphone from its stand. She turned off the microphone, and stuck it in her pocket. Then she swung up into the crotch of the giant tree with the same fluid skill as the Tendu, except that her movements had a familiar human quality. She pulled the microphone out of her pocket, switched it on, and tapped it to get the attention of the rapt and wondering press corps.

“Hello,” she said, then waited until most of the cameras and microphones were trained on her. “Hello, I’m Dr. Juna Saari,” she began, “and these are the Tendu. It’s been a long time since Moki and Ukatonen have seen a tree big enough to climb in, so you’ll have to excuse them if they’re a bit distracted.”

At the sound of her voice, Moki and Ukatonen turned a darker, more somber shade of blue, and swung down to settle next to her on a branch, bright pink flickers of lightning still coursing down their bodies. Juna introduced the Tendu, then thanked the crew of the Homa Darabi Maru, Mark Manning, the union, and the Survey for their help in expediting their release from quarantine. Then she handed the microphone to Ukatonen.

“Hello,” he said, then paused in surprise at hearing his own voice magnified by the* public address speakers. “Hello, my name is Ukatonen. I am an enkar of the Three Rivers Council from the planet of Tiangi. I have come to learn more about your people so that we can learn to be in harmony with each other. I hope you will be patient and kind teachers. Thank you.” He spoke simultaneously in human Standard and in the Tendu visual language. How beautiful and strange their language was! The camera lenses whirred and spun as they focused in on him.

He handed the microphone back to Juna. Analin saw him cast a longing look up at the treetops.

Juna shook her head, and handed the microphone to Moki.

“Hello,” he said, clearly repeating what he had heard Juna and Ukatonen say. “I am Moki. Dr. Saari is my sitik. You would say that I am her adopted son. Thank you for letting us out of quarantine and giving us a chance to climb this wonderful tree.”

The reporters began shouting their names. Juna looked momentarily a little overwhelmed and frightened at the sudden clamor. Analin wondered where the Survey’s press flacks were. They should be up there, helping Juna out.

“You,” Juna said, pointing to a woman in purple down near the front. Analin winced as she recognized the enormous trademark beehive of Fay Tsui from one of the Asian music Tri-D channels. Recognizing Tsui first was an insult to all the serious journalists from the major networks. Why the hell wasn’t anybody up there with Juna?

“Dr. Saari, do you have any comment to make about your long stay in quarantine?”

Analin relaxed. At least Tsui asked an intelligent question. Maybe there really was a brain under all that hair.

“Yes, we’re glad to be out.”

Analin smiled. Juna had given them a good response.

“What’s it like being back on Earth?” another reporter shouted.

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you when we get there.” It was an old joke, but it got a laugh.

The press corps shouted more questions at Juna. She fielded them as well as she could, occasionally handing one off to the Tendu. She was handling herself well. If someone had sent her out here alone to make her look like a fool, they had failed. Although Juna was new to this, she had a great deal of grace and poise, and an instinctive ability to dodge difficult questions. None of the reporters managed to bulldoze her into answering a question that she wanted to avoid.

While Juna and Ukatonen were preoccupied with the reporters, the little one, Moki, climbed into the higher branches of the tree, and began swinging from branch to branch. The questions stopped as the cameras started tracking him. Analin smothered a grin. Moki was stealing the show.

Juna used the distraction to bring the press conference to a close. Moki and Ukatonen followed her out of the large hall with many longing looks back at the tree. Their escort fended off the reporters who tried to follow them as they led Juna and the Tendu into a security elevator. At least the security people were doing their jobs. As the doors slid closed, the reporters pulled out their comm units and began filing stories.

Analin got herself a cup of coffee and a pastry at a corridor-side cafe. She watched the reporters hustling by, their comm units pressed to their ears, and smiled. How nice not to have to rush to a deadline, she reflected. She sipped her coffee, savoring the moment. When enough time had passed for Juna to have gotten settled, Analin picked up her comm and dialed her number.

Juna answered the call. “Analin! It’s good to see you! Where are you?”

“I’m here on Broumas station. Are you up for that interview?”

“Of course,” Juna said. “We were just about to find a quiet spot with some trees to climb.”

“Why don’t you meet me in the West Atrium Park? It has some lovely big trees, and it’s just a couple of blocks from the shuttle stop. It’ll be nice and quiet at this time of day. Can you be there in twenty minutes?”

“Sure!” Juna said. “We’ll see you there.”

Analin slid a healthy tip under her coffee cup, shrugged on her backpack, and headed for the elevators.

She got off the shuttle at the West Atrium station, with its colorful tile murals, and wandered into the park. Big banyan trees arched over her, their fibrous roots dangling down. Some of them had grown all the way to the ground, thickening into muscular-looking mottled grey pillars. She wandered between them, wondering where Juna and the aliens were.

There was a rustling in the branches overhead. Dead leaves pattered to the floor around her. She looked up but saw nothing. Then one of the Tendu leaped to the ground, startling her.

“Hello, Analin!”

“Moki?” Analin asked uncertainly.

He nodded. “Juna and Ukatonen are this way.”

She followed him through the grey pillars of the banyan trees to the enormous central trunk.

“Juna said this would be the easiest route up,” Moki told her.

Analin stared up into the branches. “Um, I’m not much of a climber, Moki.”

“It’s a really easy climb. I’ll carry your equipment for you,” he offered.

“I see,” Analin said, resigning herself to the ordeal.

Moki slung her heavy satchel of recording and video gear over his shoulder as though it weighed almost nothing. Then he helped Analin up into the tree.

As long as you didn’t look down, it was an easy climb. The branches were broad, and sloped upward at a gentle incline. Moki had to steady her a time or two, but otherwise she was fine. Juna and Ukatonen were settled in a spot where the tree branched and rebranched, splitting into several large, level branches that offered a number of comfortable places to sit.

Moki sat next to Juna. Several brilliant patterns kalei-doscoped across his skin. Juna smiled, and brushed his shoulder with the backs of her fingers, the strange gesture clearly conveying her fondness for the alien youngster. Moki’s skin flared blue, and then settled to a cool shade of celadon.

Juna greeted Analin warmly. “Thank you for climbing up here. It’s been such a long time since the Tendu have had the chance to climb a tree. Besides, we won’t be disturbed here. People never think to look up.”

Analin settled herself against an upright branch. “It was a good idea,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I was surprised when you called. I didn’t see you at the press conference.”

“I was watching from the back. I knew I was going to get an exclusive interview with you, so I let the others ask the questions.”

Juna made a rueful grimace.“That press conference was a disaster,” she said. “It was completely out of control.”

“I thought you handled a difficult situation rather well,” Analin said. “Didn’t the Survey send anyone along to help out?”

“Just the security escort,” Juna said.

Analin shook her head. “Either they’re really disorganized, or someone was hoping you’d make a fool of yourself. Don’t worry, you were fine,” she reassured Juna. “Was this your first press conference?”

Juna nodded. “I hope I never have to do another one,” Juna admitted.

“You’re famous, yes?” Analin said. “You must get used to them. It will get easier.”

Juna shook her head. “I don’t know the first thing about dealing with reporters.”

“Juna, you need a press secretary, a professional who knows how to handle the press.”

“Would you do it?”

“Me?” Analin said, amazed. “B-but I’m just a journalist. I don’t have any experience as a press secretary.”

“You know the ropes,” Juna said, “and you like the Tendu without being silly about it. It would mean spending a lot of time traveling, though. And you’d have to work with Ukatonen and Moki, to teach them how to behave in front of the cameras.”

“I’ll think it over,” Analin said, hiding her excitement at the opportunity she was being offered. “But I promised the editor of the Times NetNews an exclusive interview with you and the Tendu. I need to do that before I consider any job offers.” She took out her video cameras and recorder, and started to set them up.

The interview went well. It was easy to draw Juna out. Soon she was entwined in reminiscences of her time among the Tendu. Ukatonen and especially Moki, helped fill in her account with explanations and details of village life, and life among the enkar. Analin forgot she was doing an interview, and listened raptly, until her computer chimed, signaling that its memory was full. She checked the clock on the computer and realized that they’d been talking for over two hours. Her behind had grown numb from prolonged contact with the unyielding tree limb. Only then did she remember that this was not a lengthy chat with an old friend.

“Well, I hope I said something useful amid all that chatter,” Juna said, suddenly awkward.

Analin smiled. “Juna, I could write a book from what the three of you told me tonight.”

“Oh,” Juna said, with a fleeting look of concern. Analin could tell that she was worrying that she’d said too much.

“But I won’t,” Analin reassured her. “I only have time to edit this interview for the net. Then I’ll be too busy being your press secretary.”

She looked up, eyes wide. “Really? You’ll do it?”

She nodded. “Juna, you’re offering me the chance of a lifetime.” She shook her head ruefully. “I hope I’m up to the job. You’re a very hot property.” Analin crumpled her comp up and tossed it in her knapsack. “Of course,” she added mischievously, “I do have to get down from this tree without breaking my leg before I can take the job.”

It was good to be off the ship, Ukatonen reflected, though this place was not that much of an improvement. At least there were trees to climb, and new things to do. There were many people, each of them as full of questions as a river is full of water. They all wanted to know about the Tendu and about Tiangi. After a while, the river of questions seemed to flow back into itself, repeating and repeating the same questions over and over. He lost interest in the endless questions.

But General Burnham’s hostility continued to puzzle him. Why had she fought so hard to keep them on the ship? According to Juna and Analin, she represented a group of humans who were afraid of the Tendu. The idea seemed ludicrous. Their world was far away across an ocean of nothingness and stars. The Tendu could not come here without the humans and their sky rafts. He shook his head, deeply purple in his puzzlement.

“Analin,” he said, at the end of yet another long day of interviews, “I want to talk to General Burnham. Is that possible?”

Analin looked at him, her brows raised in what Ukatonen was coming to recognize as surprise.

“Why?”

“I do not want her to be afraid. And I want to understand her. Is it possible to speak with her?”

“It is, but I am not sure that it is wise.”

“Perhaps not,” Ukatonen admitted, “but it does seem to be necessary.”

“Ukatonen, she does not mean you well,” Eerin warned him.

“I understand. She kept us prisoner on board ship. She is afraid of us. But perhaps if she knew us, she would not be afraid.”

“But if she is your enemy, Ukatonen, the more she knows about you, the more opportunity she has to hurt you,” Analin pointed out.

“Perhaps, Analin, but I must try to reach harmony with her.”

“That will be hard, en,” Eerin put in. “And you must be cautious. First we must know more about her.”

“That, at least, is easy,” Analin said. She unzipped her backpack, and took out a thick envelope. “This is a dossier on General Burnham that I had prepared when I was working on the quarantine story. It is quite thorough.”

“I see,” Eerin said. “Thank you, Analin. It will be a big help.”

Eerin went over the general’s file with Ukatonen, but almost everything in it seemed incomprehensible to the enkar. It only reminded him of how much he had to learn about humans.

At last, after most of an evening spent in explanations that clarified nothing, Ukatonen looked up at Eerin. “I think it’s time I called the general up and talked to her. There is nothing more I can learn from this file.”

“Are you sure, en?”

Ukatonen nodded.

“Then we will call her tomorrow morning, before our first interview.”

The next morning, Ukatonen sat down at the computer, the comm number for General Burnham emblazoned on one arm in Standard skin speech. He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking over what he was about to do. Burn-ham’s background was a confusing blur to him, but he could tell that the humans were scared of her. She held the responsibility for many humans in her hands, but not kindly. Best to think of the general as the leader of a pack of predators, he decided. He had to try and reassure her that he and his people were not a threat to humans or their territory. It would be hard— she was already afraid of the Tendu— but he had to try to understand her, to make her less afraid of him, to reach harmony with her.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the others.

“I’m ready,” he said, and keyed in the comm sequence.

“General Burnham’s office, may I help— ” The man’s eyes widened as he saw Ukatonen.

“That’s her secretary,” Analin whispered.

“Good morning. I am Ukatonen. I would like to speak to General Burnham. Is she busy?”

“Um-ah… please hold,” the secretary said. The screen went dark. The word “holding” flashed on the screen in blue. Ukatonen glanced up and saw that Eerin and Analin were both smiling.

“He’s flustered,” Analin said. “That’s good.”

The screen lit up again. The secretary was back, looking a bit calmer. “May I ask the purpose of your call?”

“I wish to speak to the general,” Ukatonen said.

The secretary glanced sideways, then back at the screen. “Yes, but why?”

“See how he keeps looking away? The general is there in the room with him, listening to what you’re saying,” Analin whispered. She was standing off to one side, out of range of the comm unit’s camera.

“Thank you,” Ukatonen said to Analin in skin speech, the words flowing across his back. To the secretary he replied, “I was hoping that she could explain why the Expansionists seem to be afraid of my people.”

“I see,” said the secretary, hesitating. He looked sideways again, clearly listening to someone off-screen. “The general will speak to you now.”

There was a pause, and then the screen switched to another office. General Burnham was seated behind a desk. Ukatonen recognized her from her photograph. Her face was soft and round, but there were hard lines in it.

“Good morning, General Burnham,” Ukatonen said.

“Good morning. I understand you wish a lesson in politics?”

“I wish to understand humans better, yes,” Ukatonen said. “I do not understand the nature of the Expansionists’ concerns about the Tendu. I was hoping that you could enlighten me, so that we could reach harmony in this matter. It is not good that there is fear between us.”

“I am in the military, Ukatonen,” General Burnham told him. “It is my duty to protect humanity from outside threats. You and the other alien showed up without warning. It is natural for me and those who believe as I do, to urge caution. If you had waited, Earth would have extended an invitation.”

“And Eerin would have had tg choose between her family and her child.”

“Who?” General Burnham asked.

“It is our name for Dr. Saari,” Ukatonen explained.

“I see,” she said. “Dr. Saari’s decision to adopt an alien child was a flagrant violation of our Contact Protocols. Choosing between the child and her family was a consequence of that decision,” General Burnham said. She sounded angry. It was time to back down, Ukatonen realized, but he could not let Eerin’s difficult choice go undefended.

“Our decision to come with her was a consequence of that choice also. It seemed to us to be the least harmful course. We cannot cross the great emptiness without your ships, General. There are only two of us, and Moki is not yet an elder.”

“But he’s not exactly a child, either,” General Burnham replied.

“Not as you understand it, but Moki needs Dr. Saari as much as a human child needs its mother, perhaps more. We came with Dr. Saari so that she could see her family without deserting her bami. We agreed to abide by your Contact Protocols, General Burnham. You have the word of an enkar that we will cause harm to no one.”

“I have heard that, yes,” Burnham admitted. “But I do not know how much you can be trusted. Remember,” she said, “it is my duty to protect humanity. We must be wary.”

“My promise to abide by the protocols was a formal judgment. If I fail, I must kill myself,” Ukatonen explained. This woman was as hard and seamless as the shell of a purra. There was no way in past her defenses.

“I understand that,” Burnham said, “but your people are still unknown to us.”

“As humans are to the Tendu. You possess more knowledge of us than we do of you. That is the other reason I am here, General. I wish to understand your people. How can I gain your trust? How can we reach harmony?”

Burnham shook her head. “Trust is not my job,” she said. “Caution is. Thank you for calling.”

Ukatonen inclined his head, “Thank you for speaking with me, General. I have learned much.” He felt a hollow sadness in his stomach at the general’s hostility. How could a person live in the world and think this way? How had she grown to be like this?

The general frowned, as though regretting even this short conversation. “Goodbye,” she said, and reached to touch the disconnect button.

Ukatonen stared at the blank screen for a moment, then shut down the computer. He took a long deep breath and let it out again.

“So hard,” he remarked to himself in skin speech. Aloud, he wondered, “Why is she like that? She must be very sad and lonely.”

“There are many humans like her,” Eerin told him. “Trust is not easy for us, en. We have fought among ourselves for so long. Remember how long it took me to learn to trust you.”

Ukatonen nodded. “I do not think that she trusts anyone,” he said. He felt as though he had stared too long at the empty ocean of space. How empty the general must be, barricaded within the walls of her suspicion.

Moki watched the blur of people coming and going. They all wanted to talk to Eerin about the Tendu. Some of them were important people from the Survey, which was somehow part of Juna’s atwa. The rest of them were from the press. Moki was still trying to understand what the “press” was. As far as he could determine, it was an atwa that involved telling people what was going on. But the people in the press atwa preferred to talk to Eerin or Ukatonen. They ignored him, or talked to him as though he had trouble understanding them.

Moki and Ukatonen weren’t supposed to go out without Eerin or Analin, so they spent most of the day watching the Tri-V or listening to Analin and Eerin talk about them. It was fun at first, seeing themselves on the Tri-V, but they only showed the same few pictures and words. He and Ukatonen only got to climb trees when no one was around, and it was always the same few trees.

“When are we going to meet your family, siti?” Moki asked.

“I don’t know, Moki. My request for leave hasn’t been approved yet. The Survey wants us to go to one of their research stations where they can study you. The press wants to interview us, and I just want to go home.”

“Then we should go home,” Ukatonen said.

“If only it were that simple,” Juna replied. “I can’t go until the Survey tells me I can.”

“Everyone else from the ship has gone on leave,” Ukatonen said. “Why are we still here?”

Juna shrugged. “They don’t know what to do with us, I think. There are lots of different departments who want to study us.”

Mold’s ears folded tight against his head. “Please excuse my lack of patience, siti, but I’m tired of watching people talk to you about us.”

“No, bai, you’ve been very patient. I’ve just been thoughtless. Tomorrow we’re going to cancel all our appointments and go explore the space station. The world isn’t going to fall apart if we take the day off.”

Juna watched Moki and Ukatonen swinging through the branches, their skins alive with blue and green flickers of alien laughter, and her worries lifted for a moment. She had needed this break as badly as the Tendu. She felt tired and bloated. The stress of the last few days was getting to her. She longed to be up there with Moki and Ukato-nen, but she couldn’t muster the energy to join them. But just watching the Tendu playing was enough to lift her spirits.

“Hello, Dr. Saari.”

Juna looked up. It was the union president, Mark Manning.

“Analin told me I might find you here,” he said. “May I join you?”

“Of course,” Juna said, and he sat down beside her on the bench.

“I wanted to thank Moki again for all he’s done. I feel like a new person. It’s like a miracle.”

Juna smiled proudly. “For them, such things are normal. For us …” She shrugged. “Even now, they still amaze me.”

Manning nodded. They sat for a while without saying anything, watching Ukatonen and Moki leap like gibbons from branch to branch, their skins a riot of blue happiness and pink excitement.

“I was a little surprised to hear that you were still on the station,” Manning said at last. “I had expected you to be with your family.”

“I would be, but my leave hasn’t come through yet. I think the Survey’s too busy fighting over what to do with me.” Juna ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s been five-and-a-half years since I last saw my family. I want to go home.” She looked at the pebbled concrete floor, fighting back a surge of emotion.

“Analin tells me they sent you out all by yourself for that press conference. Even the Survey isn’t usually that bad. Someone’s being petty in the home office,” Manning said. “They should have assigned someone to take care of you.”

“I’d rather have Analin than some Survey PR flack. Analin likes the Tendu, and they like her. She lets me decide what I want to say. And she works for me, so there’s no conflict of interest.” Juna was silent for a while, watching Moki and Ukatonen swing back and forth between the same two trees. It suddenly reminded her of caged tigers in the zoo. “I just want to see my family,” she said.

“Let me see what I can do for you,” Manning offered. “I think I can shake your leave loose. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this kind of harassment.”

Manning was as good as his word. Two days later, Juna’s leave was approved. Amazingly enough, there were no problems with taking the Tendu along. Clearly they were still protected by the volume of publicity surrounding their imprisonment in quarantine. Juna and the Tendu boarded the very next shuttle for Berry Station. Analin would follow in a couple of weeks.

The shuttle trip to Berry Station took several hours, most of it in zero-gee. There had been a few seconds of zero-gee on the Hotna Darabi Maru, but they had been securely strapped in then. Fortunately the shuttle was empty, and the Tendu were able to zoom around the cabin, ricocheting from viewport to viewport, their skins awash with flickering colors. Juna joined them for a while, until a sudden wave of queasiness sent her to her seat. She must be more exhausted than she realized; she hadn’t been spacesick since she was a small child. She settled back into her seat and let sleep carry her away.

She was awakened by the announcement directing passengers to strap in for arrival. Moki and Ukatonen came back to their seats. As the familiar bulk of her home station loomed into view on the forward viewscreen, Juna felt a sudden pang of anxiety. Her family had been nice enough on the comm, but how would they react to the aliens face to face? Especially now, with the harvest in full swing. And then there was Toivo. Her father had told her that Toivo had come to help with the harvest, but he refused to talk to Juna on the comm.

“He’s changed,” Aunt Netta had said, worry written on her face. “He’s pulled into himself. He reminds me of how your father acted after he brought you back from the camp.”

Juna remembered that time. Her father had found them in the refugee camp in Germany. Juna had seen him talking to a relief worker, and pushed her way through the crowd. He picked her up and held her. Juna hung on as though she would never let go.

“You’re so thin!” he had exclaimed. “Where’s your mother?”

Juna had lifted her head from his chest and just looked at her father, unable to find the words to tell him that her mother was dead. Finally she and Toivo had led him to the graveyard, to the mass grave where she had been buried.

A light had gone out of him when he realized what Juna was trying to tell him. He sat on the muddy earth and wept like a child. Juna had watched, terrified by the depth of his grief.

“I’m sorry, Isukki” she had said, resting her hand on his head. It was all her fault. She should have saved her mother, taken better care of her, not let her die. Her aunt Netta, the only other member of her father’s family to make it safely out of war-torn Finland, came to live with them on Berry Station. Her father spent months wandering around like a ghost. The whole family had seemed like walking shadows. Juna closed her eyes in pain at the thought of Toivo acting like that.

The jarring of the ship against the lock of the space station shook her out of her reverie. With a heavy, solid clang, the docking mechanisms engaged. They were home.

Moki touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

Juna smiled weakly and patted Moki’s hand. “Yes, it’s just nerves.” She unfastened the safety strap, and pushed herself toward the door. They would be in free fall until they reached the elevators mat would take them down to the inspection station.

A figure in a wheelchair was waiting for them when they emerged from the agricultural inspection station. It took Juna a second to recognize who it was.

“Toivo! How did you get up here?” she cried. She dropped her things and bounded over to hug him, moving lightly in the half gravity of this level of the station. She stopped a few steps away, uncertain how to hug someone in a wheelchair.

“Hello, older sister,” he said in Amharic as he reached up from his chair to enfold her in an embrace. “Kiroko was working security downstairs. She let me come up to meet you.”

He looked older, Juna realized, older than she expected him to, and there was a hard-bitten edge of defiant bitterness that was apparent even through his gladness at seeing her again. She looked at his wheelchair and a torrent of fear, anger, and love surged through her. She wanted to tear that chair apart with her bare hands, and raise him up on two good legs. His shoes, she noticed, were smooth and unlined from lack of use.

Fighting back her conflicting emotions, she knelt down beside Toivo so that they were eye to eye. “How are you?” she asked.

“Shorter,” he said. “But my feet don’t get tired.”

He glanced past her at the Tendu.

“Moki, Ukatonen, this is my brother, Toivo.”

Moki stuck out his hand, “I’m honored to meet you, brother of my sitik.” Moki was only a little taller than her brother, seated as he was in the wheelchair.

Toivo reached out and took Moki’s hand.

“Good to meet you, Moki,” he said.

“Moki is my adopted son,” Juna told him.

“I know,” Tovio said. “Welcome to the family, Moki.”

“And this is Ukatonen,” Juna said.

Ukatonen extended his hand. “I’m honored to meet you, Toivo. Juna has told us so much about you and the rest of your family. I’m glad that we are finally here. I’ve wanted to see what a human family was like for a long time.”

“Welcome to the zoo,” Toivo said dryly, shaking the enkar’s hand. “Cmon, Juna, let’s get your bags.” He wiped his hand on his pants leg.

Juna smiled. It took a while to get used to the cool moistness of the Tendu’s touch.

“How is everyone?” she asked in Amharic, as they headed for the elevator. Toivo’s chair moved easily in the half-gravity.

“Busy with the harvest,” he replied in the same language.

“The harvest, is it going well?”

“Bumper crop this year. Weather Control optimized for wine grapes this season. Dad bought two more vats this summer, getting ready for the new vineyard. We’ll fill all the vats and have grapes left over, if we can get them in. Wermuth’s buying the surplus this year. He has the vat space. We’ve already sold him ten tons of chardonnay grapes. He’ll take some merlot, and a bit of cabernet as well.”

The elevator doors opened, and they got in. The hammered copper paneling on the elevator walls had recently been polished, and it shone. Surrounded by the rich, textured gleam of the copper, Juna knew she was home. The copper panels were a common, recurring theme in Berry Station’s public architecture, courtesy of a rich vein of copper ore that the station’s builders had discovered as they were hollowing out the asteroid that became the station’s outer shell.

“Sounds like the winery’s doing well,” Juna said as the elevator started to descend. A riffle of excitement stirred in Juna’s stomach as the increasing gravity pulled at her. They were almost home.

Toivo shrugged. “We need a good year. Dad shelled out a lot for doctors when I got hurt. Labor’s tight, though. We need more pickers.”

“I brought two more helpers,” Juna said. “Moki and Ukatonen are pretty hard workers. The sun’11 be a problem for them, though.”

He looked up at her, brown and familiar as no one else in the world was, and he smiled.

“We’ve got hats,” he said, referring to their father’s collection of tractor hats. Poking fun at the collection was an old family joke.

Juna was suddenly overwhelmed with happiness. Wheelchair or not, Toivo was still himself. Drawn and sadder, perhaps, but still her brother. She was home. She reached down and squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s good to be back, little brother,” she said.

Toivo nodded. “With you here, it’s home again.”

Juna touched his cheek with the back of her hand, tears welling in her eyes.

The elevator doors opened onto the stone-floored concourse of the shuttle terminal. A boy stood there, waiting for them.

“Hei, Juna-Tati!”

“Danan!” Juna called. She dropped her bags and ran to embrace him. He was a beautiful boy, on the verge of becoming a handsome adolescent, with his creamy-tan skin, and large, solemn eyes that were’the clear, intense green of a freshly sliced lime.

“How did you get so big!” she exclaimed, tousling his curly chestnut hair.

“He’s taking after his mother in that,” Toivo said, wheeling up to them, with the larger of her two bags on his lap. “And he eats like a horse.”

Moki, Ukatonen, this is my nephew, Danan. He’s Toivo’s son.”

“I’m Moki, and this is Ukatonen,” Moki said.

“You’re the one my aunt adopted, aren’t you?” Danan asked Moki as he lifted Juna’s bag from his father’s lap.

Moki nodded.

“Then I suppose we’re cousins.”

Moki looked at Juna questioningly.

“I suppose you are,” Juna said, grateful for Danan’s easy acceptance of the aliens.

“I’ve never had a cousin before,” Danan remarked.

“Neither have I,” Moki replied as they emerged from the station. Moki looked up and stopped dead, bright pink with surprise. Ukatonen nearly fell over him, as he too looked upward.

Juna smiled. The station arched above them, a quilt of green and brown that made up both land and sky, delineated by the bright glare of the sun windows, brilliant lines of light running the length of the satellite. The far wall of this segment was barely visible in the distance. Beyond that wall were four other segments, each a kilometer long. It was an old design, very space-inefficient, but the view was spectacular.

“It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” Juna said.

Ukatonen nodded. “Why doesn’t it all fall down?”

Juna started to explain about centrifugal force as they followed Toivo out to the waiting truck. Danan opened the door on the passenger side for his father.

“He’s driving his old man around now,” Toivo told Juna.

“What kind of machine is that?” Moki asked, gesturing with his chin at the pickup.

“It’s a truck. We use it to carry people and stuff around. On the farm we mostly use horses, but this is easier for going to market.”

“How does it work?” Moki asked.

“I’ll show you sometime,” Danan offered. “Right now, we’ve got to get back to the farm. We’re pretty busy.”

“Juna told us you were harvesting grapes,” Moki said.

“That’s right.”

“I’ve never seen a grape. What are they like?”

Danan grinned. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to see a lot of them over the next few days.”

“Better get back to the farm,” Toivo said. “Be needing the truck this afternoon.”

Juna climbed into the back of the truck. Danan handed the bags up to her, lifting even her heaviest duffle by himself. The Tendu swung over the side of the truck and into the back with athletic grace. Danan helped Toivo lift out of his chair, and into the cab of the truck, then carefully buckled his father into the seat with a solicitousness that Juna found heartbreaking to watch. Danan folded the chair with practiced ease and handed it up to her.

Juna hesitated for a moment before taking it. Then, doing her best to hide her dislike of the thing, she grabbed hold of the chair and lifted it into the truck. The chair was surprisingly lightweight; she had expected it to be heavier. She stowed it in the front of the truck bed, then nodded to Danan, who had been watching her from the back window of the cab.

Juna settled herself against the side of the truck as it started up. She was home at last, and as always, her homecoming held pain as well as joy. The home she returned to was never the one that she had left. She had been gone twice as long as usual, and the changes were amazing. Danan had shot up from a pudgy child to a lanky youth on the verge of puberty. And Toivo had been transformed from a strong, happy, prosperous young farmer to a bitter cripple on the verge of a premature middle age. He looked ten years older than she did.

They were passing the Jadav family farm, with its neat rows of fruit trees, tall hop vines, and the stubble of the barley fields. The Jadav brothers and their wife were out with a work crew, picking apples. As the truck approached, they set down their baskets and ran to the fence, shouting a welcome. Danan slowed the truck, so that Juna could say hello. Mrs. Jadav, her stomach bulging with pregnancy, handed her a basket.

“Fresh apples, for you and your family,” she said, glancing sidelong at the Tendu. Her two sons climbed the fence and stared openly at Ukatonen and Moki.

“Thank you, Sumitra! And congratulations on your pregnancy! You were just starting to show with the first one when I left.”

“Then you haven’t met my sons. This one is Dayal, and the little one is Devi. And this one will be a girl! It’ll be nice to have a little company in the family,” she said, beaming proudly at her two husbands and their sons.

“You’ll have to come by and meet Moki and Ukatonen,” Juna said. “And thanks for the apples!” she called as the truck sped up. She and the Tendu waved at the Jadav family as they faded into the distance. Moki took an apple from the basket and bit into it. He flushed turquoise with delight.

“It’s good!” he declared, handing one to Ukatonen. “Try one, en!”

Juna picked an apple out of the basket, polished it against her thigh, and bit into it. It was sweet and still warm from the sun. Juice ran down her chin. The Jadavs’ fruit sold for premium prices in cislunar space. Back on Broumas Station, this apple would have sold for five credits, almost enough to buy a used comm unit. The Jadavs’ beer cost ten credits, and was only available at certain upscale bars. A bottle of their pear cider was even harder to find, costing almost as much as a mid-priced bottle of wine.

Farming in space was expensive, but there were no losses due to disease or pests, and you could optimize the weather for your crop. Here on Berry Station, they specialized in high-value crops that cost a lot to haul up out of a gravity well. There were a lot of wineries and breweries here, as well as orchards and truck farms. They supplied a lot of smaller stations with premium fruit and produce, some fresh, and some flash frozen. They were required by their charter to grow a certain amount of grain as well. Some, like the Jadavs, turned most of their barley into beer, others fed it to animals, raised out on the high-g outer level, where they put on muscle faster. There was still a healthy surplus that was shipped out to the stations for human consumption. It wasn’t as profitable as the higher value crops, but the price supports made it worthwhile.

Life was good here on Berry. Looking up at the station arching over her head, Juna wondered why she had ever left. But she had felt trapped and bored here, and wanted to travel far, and see alien suns rise on distant worlds. Now all she wanted was to stay home. She was tired of traveling, tired of coping with a strange universe.

The truck hit a pothole, jolting her from her worries, and throwing Ukatonen forward onto their luggage. Moki looked worried for a moment.

“Are you all right, en?” Juna asked.

Ukatonen nodded.

“The harvest traffic is a bit rough on the roads,” she explained, raising her voice so they could hear her over the puttering of the truck’s hydrogen engine. “There’ll be a few more potholes, so you should be prepared for them.”

Ukatonen settled himself more firmly into place.

They were passing the Swensen place. Hanging from the porch was a big hand-painted banner that said WELCOME BACK JUNA. Juna smiled and blinked back sudden tears. Lena Swensen had probably painted that. And gotten it hung, even in the midst of harvest. She could see the Swensens’ crew out in the back orchard, picking apples. She recognized Lars and his two brothers from their shocks of red hair. They waved at the distant truck. Juna waved back.

It was like that at all the places they passed. People working near the road stopped and ran to the fence to say hello and stare at Moki and Ukatonen. They handed Juna bags filled with produce, or preserves, or fresh-baked bread. The Tendu shook hands, waved, and shouted greetings. It felt rather like a one-truck parade.

Finally, they turned spinward at the Uenos’ farm, where tall, spreading paulownia trees arched across the road. They passed the Diversity Plot, a band of forest that stretched all the way around the circumference of the inner level of the station. Moki and Ukatonen sat up, their ears wide and quivering, their skins pink with excitement. Juna smiled. She had been looking forward to their reaction. Moki turned to her, purple with curiosity.

“Yes, you can climb the trees. But you should wait until we get settled. Then I’ll show you the forest.”

The Tendu stared at the forest as it faded into the distance, like thirsty travelers gazing longingly at an oasis.

The truck left behind the paulownias and passed under a stately row of ginkgo trees. Juna’s heart rose as she saw the slender, graceful gingkoes, their dancing fishtailed leaves just turning to gold. Beyond the trees, rows of vines heavy with grapes stretched away into the distance. They had entered her father’s land. She craned her neck for a glimpse of the farmhouse she grew up in.

Then they were passing through the gate, and down the long, cypress-lined driveway. Danan slowed as they pulled up to the house. Juna vaulted out of the truck and bounded up the steps before Danan had stopped the truck.

[["hi! Netta Tdtil"]]

“They’re out back, Juna!” her brother called.

Juna rushed through the house, and out the back door, then stopped in surprise. There, out in the tree-shaded yard, was a big table spread with a huge buffet. Her father was there, and her aunt, and half a dozen old family friends.

“Surprise! Welcome home!” they shouted.

Her father rose from his chair, a little more stiffly than he had before, Juna noted with a trace of sadness. “Hei, tytar,” he said, spreading his arms. “Welcome home!”

Juna ran to his arms, tears flooding her eyes. “Oh, Isi\” she said. “It’s good to be home, but who’s harvesting the grapes?” she asked, looking around.

“We can spare a couple of hours to welcome you back. Toivo’s family sent some people to help out. There’s just the last of the merlot, and that’s going over to Wermuth.”

The truck rounded the side of the house. Ukatonen and Moki lifted Toivo’s wheelchair over the side. Danan unfolded it, and helped his father out of the truck.

“Was she surprised?” Danan asked as they came in the gate. “We were going to pull around back, but Juna jumped out of the truck before we could stop her.”

“It was a wonderful surprise!” Juna said, ruffling Danan’s curly chestnut hair affectionately.

“Welcome home, Juna,” her aunt Anetta said, coming up to her niece and enfolding her in a warm, soft embrace. Juna could smell Netta’s familiar lavender perfume. It reminded her of all the times her aunt had been there to comfort her in the difficult years after her mother died. Fresh tears welled in Juna’s eyes.

“Thank you, Netta. I can’t believe I’m actually here. I’ve missed you all so much,” she said, wiping the tears from her face.

She glanced up from the circle of her family, and saw Moki and Ukatonen looking on, pale purple with uncertainty.

“Isi, Netta, everyone, this is my adopted son, Moki, and my friend Ukatonen.” She beckoned to them, and put her arm around Moki.

There was a long, uncertain silence.

“Hei, Moki, Ukatonen, welcome to our home,” her father said, a little too heartily. Aunt Netta shook hands with Ukatonen, looking a little startled at the cool wetness of his touch.

“Juna told us you make good apple pie, Netta Tati” Moki said. “Do you have some? It sounds delicious.”

Everyone laughed at that, and soon the party was rolling again. Anetta cut the bami a big wedge of pie. “Here you go,” she said.

Moki took a forkful and popped it into his mouth. His skin flared turquoise with delight. “It’s good! Here, Ukatonen, try some.” He handed the plate to the enkar.

Ukatonen was equally pleased. “That was wonderful,” he told Anetta, turning the same’happy shade of blue as Moki.

Anetta smiled. “Here, let me cut you a slice of your own, Ukatonen.”

“A small slice, please. There’s so much here I’ve never eaten before.”

Anetta’s eyebrows rose. “Then let me help you fill your plates.” She took charge of Moki and Ukatonen, giving them a taste of everything, watching to see what they liked. Juna smiled in relief. The two Tendu had clearly won over her aunt. It was an important step in their acceptance by her family.

Juna looked around at the familiar faces of her family, the small tree-shaded yard, and the massive, comforting presence of the house with its massive, laser-cut stone walls, and deep-bosomed porch. A fleeting breeze stirred her hair, and shifted the branches of the big chestnut trees. She took a deep breath, smelling the dusty sun-warmed earth, the hay and manure smells of the barn, the dusty, fruity smell of ripening grapes. It smelled even richer and deeper than she remembered. Home. She was home at last.

Moki watched Eerin with her family. It was uncanny, seeing so many other people with Eerin’s face. Her father was pink-skinned and white-haired, but Moki could see Eerin’s distinctive cheekbones echoed in the faces of her father, and her aunt. Eerin and her brother were even more alike, with their brown skin, long straight noses, thin eyebrows, and big eyes. Toivo was stockier, and his face was leaner, more like his father’s, but despite these differences, Eerin and Toivo were startlingly alike.

The family smelled the same, too. Even Aunt Anetta, under that strange, nose-twisting scent, smelled like Eerin. They seemed as alike as a litter of gudda pups. Moki found it simultaneously confusing and reassuring to be surrounded by so many people who smelled like his sitik.

He watched them clustering around Eerin. She looked so happy, there among her relatives. It made him glad, but he also felt a bit excluded by their closeness.

“Hei, Moki,” Danan said, touching him on the shoulder. “I need to drive the truck out to the field. You want to come with me? I can show you around the farm on the way back.”

“Thank you, Danan, I’d like that,” Moki replied.

He touched Ukatonen on the shoulder. “Danan is going to show me around the farm, en,” he told him in skin speech.

Ukatonen flickered assent.

“Okay,” Moki said. “Let’s go.”

“That’s really solar, the way you make pictures on your skin. How do you do it?” Danan asked.

“That’s skin speech,” he told Danan. “It’s how we Tendu talk.”

Danan opened the door of the truck and got in. Moki started to climb into the back of the truck.

“Hei, Moki, come sit up here, with me,” Danan said, sticking his head out of the truck.

Moki climbed through the open window into the front seat.

Danan laughed. “Moki, you’re weird.”

Blue and green ripples of laughter slid over Mold’s skin. “Of course,” he replied. “I’m a Tendu.”

They drove past a big building called a barn, where something called horses were kept, then another big building, the winery, where grapes were made into wine. Then they drove out into a big field with rows of plants draped over wires that were supported by tall metal frameworks. The vines were heavy with dark purple-black clusters of berries. Moki felt sorry for the plants, they seemed so confined.

“Those are the grapevines,” Danan informed him. “Those metal pipes are part of the irrigation system. We feed the drip lines off them during the summer. If it’s a cold rotation, we put tall sprinkler heads on top, to keep the plants from freezing.”

Moki nodded. He only understood bits and pieces of Danan’s explanation. He had seen irrigation equipment before, on the ship, but he didn^t understand how it kept plants warm. And why would you need to, anyway?

“How does the truck work?” Moki asked, hoping to get onto familiar ground. Machinery fascinated him, and he had forever been pestering the crew of the Homa Darabi to explain things to him.

“That’s kind of complicated,” Danan replied. “There’s an engine that runs on— that is, eats— hydrogen. It makes the power that turns the wheels. I’ll show you sometime. We’ll have to service the truck after the harvest.”

“Is there a fuel cell?” Moki asked. Most of the things on the ship that used hydrogen ran on fuel cells. He didn’t understand how a fuel cell worked, really, but he understood what they did.

“Kind of,” Danan said.

Up ahead, there were people in the fields, and some kind of machine with two large animals tied to it. Danan pulled the truck up to the machine, got out, and handed the keys to a woman sitting on top of the machine.

“Hi, Danan, how’s Juna?” the woman asked.

“Just fine,” Danan said. “She looks really good.”

“You see the aliens?”

Danan nodded. “Hey Moki, come on out and meet one of my mothers.”

Moki climbed out of the truck. “Hello,” he said a bit hesitantly, wondering how Danan could have more than one mother. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Hello Moki. I’m Astrid Fortunati,” the woman said. “How do you like it here?”

“It’s much nicer than the Homa Darabi Maru and Broumas Station,” he said. “There’s more room, and lots of big trees.”

“Well, I’m glad you like our home,” Danan’s mother told him. “We’re nearly done loading the wagon. If you want to wait for a few minutes, I can give you a ride back to the barn.”

“What kind of animals are those?” Moki asked, pointing at the big brown creatures tied to the wagon.

“They’re horses, Moki. The brown one’s Herman and the blue roan is Dusty,” Astrid explained. “Danan, why don’t you introduce him to the horses while we finish loading the wagon?”

“They’re so big!” Moki said as they drew close to the horses. “Is it safe to get so close?”

“Sure. They’re real gentle.” Danan reached over and rummaged in the wagon, pulling out a handful of long orange carrots. “You can give Dusty a carrot. He really likes them. Here, I’ll feed Herman so you know how it’s done.”

Danan broke off a piece of carrot and held it out flat on his palm. The big brown horse reached out with its long nose and gently took the carrot from his hand. There was a crunching sound as the big animal’s massive teeth ground the carrot to pulp.

“What’s that metal thing in the horse’s mouth?” Moki asked.

“That’s a bit. It’s how you control a horse’s speed and direction.” The other horse, whose coat had a grey frosting the color of regret in Tendu skin speech, nudged Danan with his big nose. Danan smiled. “See, Dusty wants a carrot too.” He broke off a piece of carrot and handed it to Moki. “Here, you give him one.”

Danan showed Moki how to hold his hand out. Moki cautiously reached out and gave Dusty a carrot. The horse’s big nose was surprisingly soft and gentle as it nuzzled Mold’s palm. The carrot was gone in a moment. Dusty breathed out a huge, warm puff of air, and nudged him with his nose, asking for another carrot. The horse had a reassuring smell of fermenting vegetation that reminded Moki faintly of the jungles of home. He fed the big animal another piece of carrot.

Danan stroked Herman’s nose, then reached up and scratched the horse behind the ears under the complex arrangement of straps the horse wore on his head. Even the humans’ animals seemed to wear clothes. “There, Herman. Good horse. You like that, don’t you?” Danan crooned as the horse’s head drooped, and his eyelids half closed.

“Does he talk?” Moki asked.

Danan laughed, and Dusty jerked awake. “No, Moki. Horses don’t talk, but they like-being talked to, and they respond to your tone of voice. They’re easily startled, and a scared horse is a dangerous horse. You don’t want to sneak up on a horse, especially from the rear. If they’re startled, they tend to kick. But most of the time, horses’re very calm, especially if they’ve been well treated and properly trained.”

“Danan, Moki, we’re ready to go,” Astrid called.

“How can you have more than one mother?” Moki asked as they headed for the wagon.

“Astrid’s not my biological mother, she’s just one of the other mothers in our family. She takes care of us kids, though. My real mother, the one who had me, is up at the house with Toivo. I’ll introduce you to her when we get back.”

“Oh,” Moki said, “she’s like an elder in the same village.”

“No, she’s part of my family.”

Moki turned purple in puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”

Astrid, who had been listening to this conversation laughed gently. “Go easy on him, Danan. Moki just got here, and it’s going to take him some time to figure it all out.” She picked up the reins, shook them, and made a clicking sound with her tongue. Dusty and Herman started to move, and Moki realized that the horses were pulling the wagon forward. His ears lifted and he turned deep fuchsia in amazement.

“What is it, Moki?” Astrid asked.

“The wagon! The horses are moving it!”

Astrid smiled. “That’s one of the things that horses do for us, Moki. They pull loads for us, and carry us around on their backs, and they’re good company. Before Juna found you, humanity’s only other friends were animals.”

Moki’s ears widened again in surprise. Animals as friends. Danan had talked to Dusty as though he were a friend, even though the horse couldn’t understand him. He shook his head in puzzlement. There had been tame animals in Narmolom and Lyanan, but they weren’t friends. Humans had some strange ideas.

“But you eat animals,” Moki said, confused. “How can you eat them if they’re your friends?”

“It’s kind of complicated,” Astrid said. “Maybe you should ask Juna to explain it to you.”

Danan pulled a cluster of grapes from one of the flats piled in the back of the wagon, and handed it to him. The grapes were warm from the sun and richly fragrant.

“Here, Moki, try some grapes,” he said.

Moki put one in his mouth. The skin was tart and astringent on his tongue, until he bit into it, and then sweet juice burst into his mouth. There was a hard seed in the middle that tasted bitter, and he spit it into his hand.

“Oh! It’s good! It’s wonderful!” Moki exclaimed, turning turquoise. He ate another one.

“I think he likes them,” Astrid said with an amused grin.

“Why do you make wine out of something that tastes this good? Why not just eat the grapes?”

Astrid smiled. “We like the taste of the wine, and we like getting a little drunk off the alcohol in the wine. And the wine will keep for years. The grapes last for only a few days.”

“What is ‘drunk’?”

“The alcohol in the wine relaxes us, and reduces our inhibitions,” Astrid explained. “In moderation, the sensation can be pleasurable.”

“But the alcohol is a poison,” Moki said. “One of the reasons I don’t like wine is that it’s so much work to filter out the alcohol.”

“Juna lets you drink wine?” Danan asked.

“I didn’t ask her. I just saw everyone else with some, and tried it. It didn’t taste very good,” he said, going beige with distaste.

Astrid laughed. “Oh Moki, I’m glad you’re here. I like you.”

Moki turned blue with pleasure. “Thank you,” he replied. “I like you, too.”

Moki ate grapes all the way back to the barn. Danan kept hopping off the wagon and picking new and different varieties for him to sample. They were all grapes, but each variety had startlingly different flavors.

“So many flavors from just one kind of plant,” Moki observed wonderingly. “So different, yet all the same.”

“Those vines are the product of thousands of years of careful breeding,” Astrid explained.

Mold’s ears lifted wide. They had accomplished remarkable things in such a short time. And they did it without spurs to sample the genetic taste of a plant. “That’s amazing,” he said.

Astrid drove the wagon through the broad doors of the barn and into the cool dimness of the winery, where other workers began unloading pallets of grapes.

Moki was very thirsty, and his skin felt tight and dry after so much time out in the hot, dry vineyard. A long, shallow tub full of water stood just outside the door. He climbed into it, sending a cascade of water flooding over the sides. He closed his eyes and savored the moist coolness of the water on his skin.

“Moki, what are you doing?”

He opened his eyes. Danan and Astrid were looking down at him, their faces puzzled.

“My skin was drying out,” he told them.

“But that’s the horse trough,” Danan said. “The water isn’t very clean, and besides, it isn’t good for the goldfish.” He held out his hand. Cupped in his palm was a small, plump fish, bright orange in color. “He was pushed out with all the water.”

Moki got out of the trough and helped Danan rescue the rest of the struggling fishes and return them to the water.

“They’re awfully small,” he observed as Danan turned on the water tap to refill the trough. “Are they good to eat?”

“We don’t eat goldfish, Moki. We put them in the trough because they eat the algae, and they look pretty. Look at that one,” he said, pointing to a particularly plump and awkward-looking fish with long trailing fins and huge, bubblelike cheek pouches. “Isn’t he weird? The Uenos gave that one to us. They raise goldfish and ornamental carp. I helped clean out their ponds last summer. They gave us a bunch of different goldfish for our horse troughs.”

“Don’t those cheek pouches kind of slow him down?” Moki asked, wondering how such an awkward creature could survive.

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing here that could eat him. He’s a pet. It’s his job to swim around in a tank and look pretty.” Danan reached up and turned off the water.

“Come on, let’s go back to the house and get something to drink. Netta Tdti made some lemonade this morning. You’ll like lemonade!”

Ukatonen watched Moki drive off with Danan. He felt a twinge of envy at the bami’s ability to win the humans over. It was partly due to the humans’ perception of Moki as a child, but the bami was naturally curious and outgoing. After centuries as an enkar, Ukatonen’s reserve was an ingrained part of his personality. Besides, the constantly shifting gravity on the trip over had left him feeling disoriented, which only increased his habitual reticence.

A tall blond woman approached him. “This must be a lot for you to get used to,” she said with a graceful gesture that took in the people sitting and chatting, as well as the arc of the space station. “I’m Selena, Danan’s mother.”

“You are married to Toivo?” Ukatonen inquired.

“Yes. We’re a dyad in the same group marriage, a branch of the Fortunati family. Danan is my biological son.”

“I see,” Ukatonen said. “What is a dyad?”

“We’re a monogamous couple within the larger family of our group marriage. My primary relationship is with Toivo; he’s Danan’s father.”

“So a group marriage is like a village?”

Selena shrugged. “I don’t know. What is a Tendu village like?”

“A village is a group of Tendu who share the same territory, and live in the same tree or school in the same waters. They are rarely genetically “related.”

“We’re more closely linked than a village, then. Our branch of the family has twenty-two adults and eight children. We share child care and household chores and pool our child-rights in order to have more children.”

“I’m afraid that I still don’t understand how the child-right system works. Could you explain it to me?”

“The regulations are complicated, but basically, we’re trying to reduce the population on Earth, keep it stable on the stations, and allow it to grow slowly on the Moon, Mars, and eventually, on Terra Nova. So, on Earth and the stations, each person has three-fourths of a child-right. On the Moon and Mars, where there’s room to expand, you get a bigger child-right, one full child-right per person on the Moon, and one and one-half of a child-right on Mars. When you get married, you pool your child-rights, which enables you to have one child. You can either sell the remaining fractional child-right, or purchase half a child-right in order to have a second child. If you’re part of a group marriage, you can pool the family’s child-rights. For example, a group marriage of four people can have three children without having to buy any extra child-rights.”

“How do you decide who gets the third child?”

“That depends,” Selena said. “There are all kinds of group marriages, and each one has different ways of assigning children.” She looked over at Eerin and Toivo talking earnestly in one corner of the yard, and her smile disappeared. “Toivo and I were planning to have a second child. But then he got hurt, and he can’t— ” Her voice caught for a moment. “We can’t have any more children,” she finished quietly. Ukatonen realized that she was on the edge of tears.

“I’m sorry. Is there something I can do to help?” Ukatonen asked. Humans were so fragile. They lived their lives on the edge of disaster. The Tendu were vulnerable to accident and injury too, but they either chose to die or recovered in a matter of days. There was nothing like this lifelong helplessness among his people. How could the humans stand such misery?

He looked over at Eerin’s brother, surrounded by his family. He was laughing at something someone said. His life had been torn apart, and yet, he could still laugh. Humans, for all their physical weakness, could be very strong. He had seen that strength in Eerin. Where did it come from?

Selena touched his hand. “Ukatonen, I— ”

But she was interrupted by Eerin’s aunt Anetta, who wanted to introduce Ukatonen to some neighbors, and the moment passed.

Moki and Danan came back, and the three of them sat in the shade and drank big glasses of tart, sweet lemonade as the light grew more mellow, then began to dim. The light had the warm golden color of late afternoon, and sunset, but the strange double shadows cast by the trees and the people never grew any longer. It was eerie. As the light reddened and dimmed toward sunset, the guests left, one by one, until only the family was left.

Juna said good-bye to the last group of guests, and then sat down on a stone bench near Tbivo.

“Toivo, why don’t you keep your sister company while we finish clearing up?” Anetta suggested.

“Sure, Netta,” Toivo replied. A quick, resentful frown passed across his face almost too quickly to be seen.

“Is it hard being stuck in that chair?” Juna asked in Amharic.

Toivo looked grim. “It’s been more than a year since the accident, and I still can’t get used to it. Even in zero-gee it was hard, dragging all this useless flesh around.”

“Toivo— ” Juna began, then paused, uncertain how he would react to what she wanted to tell him. “You know that Ukatonen is one of the Tendu’s finest healers. Please, let him look at you. He may be able to help you walk again.”

Toivo took one of her hands, and enfolded it in both of his. “Big sister, I know that you mean well, but the best doctors in the system have done everything they can. My spinal cord wasn’t just severed; they could have fixed that. Six inches of my spine was crushed by the impact. My pelvis was shattered, and my legs were broken in half-a-dozen places. They haven’t healed right. Even if my spine was repaired, I couldn’t walk again. I’m in this chair for the rest of my life.”

“Toivo,” Juna persisted, “I’ve seen the Tendu do amazing things. You’ve seen the pictures of how they transformed me. Please, Toivo, let him look at you.”

“Juna, it hurts too much to hope anymore.”

“Toivo, don’t turn your back on this. It will only take a few minutes. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t believe it was going to work.” She grasped his hands and gazed directly into his eyes. “Please, Toivo. We’ve come all this long way because we wanted to help you walk again. At least let him try.”

Ukatonen and Moki had come up while they were speaking. Ukatonen touched Toivo on the shoulder. “Your sister is right. What we do is different than what human doctors do. I believe that we can help you, if you’ll let us, but I won’t know until I look.”

Toivo was silent for a long time, his face carefully expressionless, his eyes guarded. Juna waited, afraid to hope.

“All right,” he said, looking up at them. “I guess it’s worth a try. What do I do?” Ukatonen sat down next to Eerin on the rough cool stone bench.

“Come closer,” Ukatonen told Toivo. “Put your arms out like this,” he said, showing Toivo how to place his arms for linking. He pierced Toivo’s skin with his spurs, and entered the link.

Toivo’s body was so much like that of his sister’s that for a brief, confusing moment, Ukatonen thought he had somehow entered Eerin’s body. If he had seen a group of villagers this closely related, he would have taken drastic action, possibly even resettling the villagers. But this close genetic relatedness was normal for humans, though he recoiled at the idea.

Although they resembled each other physically, the emotional flavor of Toivo’s presence was very different. Toivo’s injury had wounded him emotionally as well as physically. Everything was flavored with the bitter astrin-gency of deep depression. Where there should have been hope, there was only a slow, pungent fear. What sustained Toivo in the face of such profound despair?

Such deep, pervading sadness could easily drag the healer down into the same emotional morass as the patient. He gently adjusted Toivo’s emotional chemistry to lighten his despair. Toivo, enfolded in the deep reassurance of Ukatonen’s presence, didn’t seem to notice the shift in his mood.

Ukatonen turned his attention to Toivo’s injuries, tracing the healed breaks on his shoulder, collarbone, an arm, and several ribs. Most had healed cleanly, but there were a couple of breaks that needed work. Then he moved down Toivo’s back, tracing the spinal column. There was a severed nerve just above the break. Ukatonen teased the frayed fibers together, feeling the bright, tart taste as nerve impulses began to spark across the healed break. He encouraged the nerves to branch and grow toward each other again. There was a sharp upward spike of sweet hope as Toivo sensed the new nerve connection. The intensity of it made even Ukatonen’s rock-solid control waver for a moment.

He waited until Toivo’s emotional storm subsided. Then the enkar moved into the strange, subdued world below the break in Toivo’s spinal column. It was like swimming down into dark, stagnant water. It was strange to feel the cells doing their work and the blood moving through the veins without the bright aliveness of the nerves. It was hard to navigate; even the solid mineral presence of the bones was uncertain. Toivo’s pelvis was like a broken gourd. Ukatonen groped his way down past the distorted pelvis to the crookedly healed femurs, and the shattered knees. Past that, there was one cleanly healed break on the left tibia, and a couple of rougher breaks on the other leg. Several broken bones in Toivo’s right foot completed the catalog of damage. Ukatonen made his way back up to where the nerves were functioning, then broke the link, emerging from Toivo’s damaged body with a feeling of profound relief.

It would take an incredible amount of work to bring Eerin’s brother back into harmony. The work would be disquieting, and difficult, but he had never repaired anyone this badly damaged. The challenge pulled at him. He might never have another chance to perform a healing like this. Would Eerin’s brother let him try?

“I can feel my back again!” Toivo said as he awoke from the link. “I actually felt you bring it back to life!”

“Yes, I repaired a severed nerve,” Ukatonen explained.

“Can you heal him?” Eerin asked. Toivo’s jubilant face became a still, impassive mask as he waited for Ukato-nen’s answer.

“It will be difficult,” Ukatonen said. “And we may not be able to fully restore you, Toivo, but I think you will be able to walk again.”

“Really?” Toivo asked. He looked doubtful, as though he was afraid to trust this good news.

“The damage is extensive,” Ukatonen cautioned. “It will take some time.”

“Will I be in much pain?” Toivo asked.

Ukatonen turned purple and spread his ears wide in amazement. “Why would you be in pain?” he asked.

“Toivo, it will be just like what he did today, only more so,” Eerin explained. “You may feel an occasional twinge, but nothing more. Ukatonen is very good at this. It will not hurt.”

“When can we start?”

“I’m a bit tired, and in need of a bath and a meal. Would it be possible to wait until after dinner?”

Toivo laughed, his brown face creasing around the eyes. “I wasn’t expecting to start so soon!”

“Why wait?” Ukatonen said.

“Come on, let’s go tell Isi and Netta-Tati!” Eerin said, standing. “They’ll be ecstatic at the news.”

The days quickly fell into a pattern. Ukatonen woke, ate a big breakfast with Moki, Eerin, and her family. Then he went back to Toivo’s room with Moki and Eerin to work on healing Toivo. Toivo was staying with them while the Tendu healed him. They worked from the bottom up, straightening and strengthening Toivo’s poorly knitted foot and leg bones, then rebuilding the shattered pelvis and vertebrae.

Toivo remained in a coma during much of this work, allowing most of his metabolic energy to be channeled into healing. Ukatonen and Moki nourished him through their spurs, and filtered out the wastes from his body. Members of the Fortunati family took turns watching over him, though there was little to do except watch him breathe. Ukatonen found himself strangely moved by their patience, and the depth of their solicitude.

After the healing session, the enkar, Moki, and Eerin ate another quick meal. Then they donned shirts and wide-brimmed straw hats, and joined the family in the vineyard. The three of them picked grapes until the sun became too intense for them to bear. Then Moki and Ukatonen retreated to the cool shade of the forest. In the evening there was dinner, and afterwards they would check on Toivo to see how he was doing. After that, they would sit up with the family, reading, talking, or watching Tri-V.

Anetta, overhearing a discussion about Toivo’s progress at breakfast one morning, suggested that the Tendu take mineral supplements to help out. Ukatonen tried some, and found, to his delight, that the increased availability of bone-building minerals would speed up the work considerably. He and Moki began taking them by the handful at meals, and passing them along to Toivo through their allu. It was an idea that the enkar would have to take back to Tiangi. Surely there was some way they could make their own supplements to help speed healing.

It took nearly eight days to finish piecing Toivo’s pelvis together. At the end of that time, they had picked all but the late-harvest Riesling grapes. Ukatonen was concerned about Eerin. The healing on top of the hard work of harvest, had left her weak and exhausted. She was in danger of getting sick.

“We’ll take a break for the next few days,” Ukatonen announced. “We’re all tired, and I want to give Toivo’s bones some time to strengthen before we go on. Can your father spare us for a few days?”

Juna nodded. “Right now, he’s busy with fermentation and racking. We’d just be in the way. Weather Control has scheduled some hard frosts in a couple of weeks, and then we’ll be picking the late-harvest grapes, after they’ve been sweetened by the frost.”

“Good,” Ukatonen told her. “You need to eat well and rest. I have let you give too much of yourself to this healing.”

“I doubt you could have stopped me,” Juna said. “This is my brother we’re working on, and I want to do everything I can to make him better.”

“Rest then, so you will have more to give your brother when we begin again.”

Juna woke late the next morning. She lay there, grateful for the chance to rest. Every day it had gotten harder to get out of bed, and the strange nausea that had plagued her on the trip over had returned. A day in bed would be lovely.

She spent the rest of the day in bed, reading, and eating, and awoke the next morning awash in nausea. She barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up. Something was very definitely wrong. Normally, she would ask the Tendu to find the problem, but they were still tired from healing Toivo.

Besides, Juna thought with a smile, it would be a good excuse to see Dr. Engle. She could drop by on her way in to pick up Analin at the shuttle terminal. Juna had seen Dr. Engle briefly at the party, but he had been called away to see a patient, and they hadn’t gotten a chance to talk. He had been her doctor ever since she was a child.

Juna remembered how gentle Dr. Engle had been with her and with Toivo, after her father rescued her from the camps. He had come and sat with her, and talked of his own childhood. He had lost a beloved little sister to the wave of resistant typhoid that had swept through Miami during the unsuccessful Secession revolt in the waning years of the Slump. He understood her guilt, and guided her gently out of the swamp of grief she had been mired in.

In her teens, Dr. Engle had let her help out in the office, greeting patients, peering through microscopes, and studying anatomy and physiology in his old textbooks. His kindness had sparked Juna’s interest in biology, and started her down the path that led eventually to her degree in xenobiology and the Survey. She suspected that he’d always been disappointed that she hadn’t become a doctor.

She thought of her brother’s face, brown as a chrysalis in the cocoon of his bed, his bones knitting as he slept. She had become a healer of sorts. It was an irony that Dr. Engle would appreciate.

“Juna!” Howard Engle exclaimed. “It’s good to see you!” He threw his arms wide and enfolded her in a big hug.

As always, Juna was surprised by how small he seemed in person. In her childhood memories, he loomed over her.

Now she was a couple of inches taller than he was. “It’s good to see you too,” Juna told him. He held her out at arm’s length and looked her over. “You look great!” he said. “I guess the Tendu took really good care of you.”

“It was pretty hard at first, but once I got used to it— ” She shrugged.

“How’s your family?” he asked, taking her hand.

“They’re fine.”

“Your brother? How is he?”

“His spirits are good. I think he’s happy to see me. He’s staying up at the house until the end of harvest. You should come by and see him. And I want you to get to know the Tendu. You’d like them, especially Ukatonen.”

“I’ll do that,” he said, patting her hand. “Now, what brought you to see me?”

Juna described her symptoms.

“Hmm. Do you feel puffy? Bfeasts sore?”

Juna nodded.

“Well, I’ll have to run a couple of tests.” He got up and started rummaging through a cabinet. “So, what are your plans now that you’re back? You going to settle down? Start a family?”

“I’d love to, but I can’t. The Tendu need me, and I just don’t have the time.”

He sighed and shook his head. “You’re getting along in years, Juna. You don’t have that much more time.”

“I know. I guess I’m just going to have to get used to the idea of never having children. I should start thinking about what to do with my child-right.” Sudden tears of longing filled her eyes, and she found herself overwhelmed by sadness.

Dr. Engle rubbed her back, and handed her a tissue. “There,” he murmured. “There.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as her sobs subsided. “I don’t know what came over me.” The outburst had startled her; she felt shaky and uncertain.

“You okay now?”

Juna nodded.

“Good.” He handed her a plastic cup. “I need a specimen. Go pee.”

Juna did so. He took the specimen, and dipped a small strip of paper in it.

“Hmm,” he commented and took another strip of paper and dipped it in the urine.”

“Well?” Juna said.

“I’d hang onto that child-right if I were you, Juna. You’re pregnant.”

“I’m what?” Juna exclaimed in amazement.

“You’re pregnant. You’ve got a baby in there. According to the test, you’re somewhere between five to six weeks along.”

“That’s impossible. I can’t be pregnant,” Juna insisted. How could I possibly be pregnant? You gave me the contraceptive shot yourself, in this very office.”

“You haven’t done anything to undo that shot?” Dr. Engle asked.

“How could I?” Juna said. “I’ve been on board a Survey ship for the last six months. Before that I was on another planet, living among— ” She paused as the realization hit her. “Farradabenge!” she swore in Amharic. “The Tendu!”

The Tendu must have done something to reverse the contraceptive shot. But when? She racked her brain, trying to remember when it was done. She shook her head. For all she knew, Ilto had done it when they first rescued her. Anito, or Ukatonen, or any one of the dozens of Tendu she had linked with could have undone her contraceptive shot without her realizing it. Even Moki could have done it. He had known that she wanted a baby. But he would never do something like that without telling her.

“Juna, what are you talking about?”

“The Tendu. They must have done this.”

“Juna, are you saying that the Tendu got you pregnant? That’s not biologically possible, even if you did have— ” He stopped, and to her amazement, blushed.

Juna followed his train of thought, and laughed. “No they didn’t make me pregnant. One of them must have reversed my contraception. But my partner must have gotten the shot too. I mean, doesn’t everyone get them nowadays?”

“That depends,” Dr. Engle said. “Where was he from?”

“He grew up on Cummings Station. His family was part of a religious commune.”

“Hmm. There was a fairly strong pro-natalist sentiment on Cummings back then. Boys in the colonies weren’t required to get the contraceptive shot until about twenty-five years ago. It’s possible that your partner didn’t get an anti-fertility shot. Given the fact that you’re pregnant, I’d say it was extremely likely.”

She looked up at the doctor. “I should have known, after all they did to me. I should have had my status checked.”

He took her hand in his and-held it firmly. “Juna, don’t blame yourself. You did nothing wrong. If anything, the fault is with the Survey doctors. They’re the ones who should have checked your contraceptive status.” He paused. “What’s important is what you’re going to do now.”

Juna sighed. “This is all so unexpected. I-I need to think it over.”

Dr. Engle nodded. “I understand.” He got up and paced, his chin tucked into his chest. “But there are legal ramifications. I’m supposed to contact Population Control immediately when I discover an illegal pregnancy.”

Juna opened her mouth to protest, but the doctor held up his hand, forestalling her comments.

“I know, I know,” he said. “You didn’t mean to get pregnant— it was truly an accident, rare as that is these days. The difficulty will be getting the Pop Con people to believe you. It’s going to be a major scandal.” He stood, hands behind his back, bearded chin tucked, thinking hard.

“I could take care of it now, and not report it. There’d be some bleeding and cramping, worse than a normal period. I’d need to keep an eye on you, but it would be over in a day.”

“You mean kill the baby?” she asked. The realization felt like a kick in the stomach. She folded her arms protectively over her stomach. “No. I mean I— ” She stopped, wordless, and started to cry again. She was pregnant. She had wanted a child so much and now here it was, and it was impossible. She had no idea what to do.

Dr. Engle patted her on the back, but the tears continued to flow.

“I’m sorry, I— ” she sobbed. “This is so sudden. I don’t know what to do.”

“Juna,” he said, squatting down, and gently pulling her hands away from her face, and looking directly up at her. “Go home, think it over tonight. Call me in the morning.”

“But the Pop Con— ”

He shook his head. “In your case, it can wait a day. Call me tomorrow, when you’ve thought it over.” He took her hands in his again. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, Juna. I’m trusting you not to do anything foolish.”

Juna nodded, dried her tears, washed her face with the warm towel that he gave her, and headed home. It was a good thing that Dusty knew the way. Juna sat in the cart in a stupor, staring unseeingly at the horse’s rear end. A baby. A baby of her own. The idea made fountains of joy erupt inside her. She was no longer alone.

But the practicalities. It was impossible. How could she manage a bami and a baby? What about maternity leave?

At least she could afford the child-right— she had years of back pay stacked up in her account, enough to make her moderately wealthy. But she was unmarried. It would be much harder to raise a child all alone. And then there was Bruce. How would he feel about this? She liked him, but she couldn’t imagine being married to him.

“Oh, god,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. There was so much to think about. She let the horse walk on, her mind churning with possibilities and potential problems. Suddenly she realized that they were standing in the driveway in front of the barn. Dusty was switching his tail and looking back at her, ears forward in puzzlement. She had absolutely no idea how long she’d been sitting there, lost in thought.

“I’m sorry, Dusty,” she said with a rueful smile as she climbed to the ground. “Let’s get you rubbed down and turned out into the paddock.”

Ukatonen came out of the house as she began unharnessing the horse.

“Let me do that,” Ukatonen said. “You should be resting.”

“I’m pregnant,” she told Ukatonen. “I’m going to have a baby.”

“That’s why you should be resting,” Ukatonen pointed out.

“You knew?” Juna said, startled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t know?” he said, turning fuchsia in amazement.

She shook her head, “I wasn’t expecting it. I had a contraceptive shot to keep me from getting pregnant. It got undone on Tiangi without my knowing it.”

“I see,” Ukatonen said. “You were fertile when I met you. So it must have been Ilto or Anito who did it.”

“What am I going to do, Ukatonen? I can’t have a baby!”

“Why not?” he said.

“I’m all alone! There’s no one to help!”

“I don’t understand. How can you be alone? There’s your family, and you have us as well.”

“Ukatonen, a baby needs almost constant supervision for years. We’ll be traveling all the time. A baby would get in the way. And then there’s Moki. A bami doesn’t have to share its sitik with anyone. How is he going to feel about a baby?”

“He’s fascinated by your family, Juna. He sees how much you love Toivo. I think he’d like to have a sibling of his own that he could love like that.”

Juna shook her head. “It’s so complicated. There will be trouble when it gets out.”

Ukatonen turned purple in puzzlement. “I don’t understand. Why is this?”

“Ukatonen, I’m pregnant with an unlicensed child. Among our people, it is not allowed. I told you a little bit about Population Control, didn’t I?”

“Yes, I remember. The number of children that your people can have is limited. The rest seemed rather confusing.”

“Well, you’re supposed to get formal permission to have a child. You fill out an application, and Pop Con checks that you have enough child-rights, and then they send you to a doctor to turn off your contraception. Then you start trying to get pregnant. In my case, one of the Tendu undid my contraception. I got pregnant by accident. That never happens among my people. People will think that I did this on purpose.” She shook her head. “It’s going to be a mess.”

“I could undo the pregnancy,” Ukatonen offered.

“No,” Juna said. “I mean, I don’t know whether or not to keep the baby. I want to. I want to very much, but it will be so difficult.” She rubbed her face with her hands and got up to unharness the horse.

“You should be resting,” he told her.

“As soon as I’m finished with this.”

“Sit down. Let me do it.”

“But— ”

“You can tell me what to do. I need to learn.”

Dusty eyed Ukatonen curiously, ears forward, nostrils spread wide.

“What do I do first?”

“First you need to introduce yourself to the horse,” Juna told him. She got up, and took Dusty’s head. “I’ll need to help,” she insisted. “There’s a can of treats just under the seat. Open it up and hand me a couple.”

Juna told him how to unharness the horse and rub him down. Dusty sniffed Ukatonen over anxiously at first, but he settled down quickly under the enkar’s kind, firm handling.

“He likes you.”

Ukatonen shrugged. “I’ve dealt with animals for a long time,” he said.

When Dusty was unharnessed, they led him out to the paddock, and watched as the horse ambled over to an open mesh bag of hay hanging from the fence and started to eat.

“Oh, Ukatonen. What am I going to do?” Juna said as she watched Dusty eat. She felt overwhelmed.

“For now, rest, eat,” Ukatonen said. “You must take care of yourself and the young one.”

Juna shook her head. “There’s so much to worry about.” Just then Danan drove up with a truckload of supplies, and Juna remembered that she was supposed to collect Analin at the terminal. “Oh my god! Analin! I forgot to pick her up.”

“It’s all right,” Ukatonen told her. “Danan and I will go and get her. You should rest,” he said. “If you wish, I’ll help you fall asleep,” he said? holding out his arms. “You’ll think better after a good nap.”

Eerin looked at him. For once Ukatonen could see the strain on her face. “Thank you, en. I appreciate it.”

Moki was out in the barn with Danan, helping clean and oil Herman’s bridle when Ukatonen came in to talk to him.

“Your sitik has just found out that she is pregnant,” Ukatonen said in skin speech.

Moki’s ears lifted. “You mean she didn’t know about the baby?” he asked, pink with surprise. “How could that be!” He had been puzzled by his sitik’s failure to speak about the baby, but now he understood why she had said nothing.

“You know how body-blind humans are,” Ukatonen reminded him. “And without her allu, she cannot sense what her body is doing anymore. Besides, she’s had a lot on her mind, these last few weeks.”

“I wish she had her allu again,” Moki said wistfully. “Our linking isn’t as close as it was on Tiangi.”

Ukatonen brushed his shoulder in sympathy. “I wish I could make it easier for you.”

Moki shrugged. “She’s my sitik. Without her, I wouldn’t be alive now. Besides, there are compensations. We are here, seeing things that no Tendu has ever seen. And I will be the first Tendu to have a sister. That will be interesting.”

“I’m glad you’re pleased about the baby. But Eerin’s very frightened and confused. She may decide not to keep the child. You must help her understand how you feel.”

Moki looked solemn. “I will do what I can, en.”

“You must reassure Eerin,” Ukatonen told him. “It would be good if she kept the baby. We would learn a great deal about humans from watching one grow up. And we can help teach it about the Tendu.”

“I should go to Eerin now,” Moki said.

“In a while,” Ukatonen said. “She’s asleep now. But she forgot to pick up Analin, so you and Danan should go and meet her at the shuttle station.”

Moki nodded. “Danan?” he said, speaking in human sound speech. “Something’s come up, and Juna couldn’t pick up Analin. Can we go out to the shuttle station and get her in the truck?”

“Sure,” Danan said. “Isoisi isn’t going to need it for another couple of hours. Is Juna-Tati all right, Ukatonen? I saw you help her up to her room and she looked kind of upset.”

“She just needs to rest for a bit,” the enkar said. “You’d better hurry. Analin’s shuttle will be here in twenty minutes.”

“Okay, let me grab the keys and we’ll be on our way!” Danan said.

Juna awoke to find Moki perched like a gargoyle on the footboard of the bed, watching her.

“Hello, bai,” she said.

“Hello, siti,” Moki replied. “Are you feeling better?”

Juna sat up in bed. “Yes, I am.”

“Ukatonen told me that you just found out about the baby. I’m looking forward to helping you raise it. I’ve never had a sister before.”

“Moki it’s not that easy— ” Juna began and then stopped as his words sank in. “It’s a girl?” she asked.

Moki nodded. “Yes. A sister.” He left his precarious perch and came and sat on the edge of the bed. “You will not be alone, siti. Ukatonen and I will help you.”

Juna shook her head and laid a hand on her belly. “This is an unlicensed child. There will be trouble. It will tie us down, and make it harder for me to show you what my people are like.”

“Siti, every day we are here we learn more about what your people are like. Besides, watching the baby will teach us how humans learn to be humans.”

He was right, Juna realized, but building diplomatic bridges was crucial for the Tendu right now. “Yes, bai, you’re absolutely right, but as an enkar, Ukatonen needs to meet the humans who run things. I can’t help him do that with a baby under my arm.”

“Don’t important people like babies?” Moki asked.

“I suppose they do, but babies are a distraction during diplomatic functions.”

“What about your family?” Moki asked. “Won’t they help?”

^ilIsi and Anetta are getting old, bai. They will not be alive for many more years. And Toivo has a family of his own. It isn’t fair for me to ask them to help with the baby.”

“Still, they love you, siti. You should talk to them about it.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll get that,” Moki told her as she got up out of bed. Juna pulled on her robe as Analin came in.

“Analin! I’m so sorry! I meant to pick you up, but— ”

“It’s all right. Moki and Danan came and got me. What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

Juna scrubbed at her forehead. “Not exactly. I’m pregnant with an unlicensed child. I just found out a few hours ago. It was such a shock that I forgot to come pick you up.”

“How did it happen?” Analin asked.

Juna explained the situation.

“I see,” Analin said when she was done. “You’re in a pickle, aren’t you? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to keep the baby, but it’s so complicated. I haven’t told anyone yet, except for the Tendu. I don’t know how my family is going to take it. Or the Pop Con authorities.”

“You have enough money for a child-right, yes?”

“There’s plenty of money,” Juna said. “It’s everything else that I’m worried about. How can I raise a child all by myself? It isn’t fair to the child. And then there’s the Tendu, and the Survey. How can I fulfill my responsibilities to them?”

“Take one thing at a time, Juna,” Analin urged. “You can afford a child. You want a child. Now you need to plan your life so that you can have a child.”

“But— ” Juna protested.

“Talk to your family, Juna. See what they can do for you. Despite everything, they are your family.”

“But what about Population Control?”

“Let me handle them,” Analin offered. “I’ll find you a good lawyer. You tell your family.”

“Tell your family what?”

Juna and Analin looked up, startled.

“hi!” Juna said. “Come in, sit down.”

Her father settled himself on the bed. “Okay, what is it?”

Juna told him what had happened.

“You’re having a baby? Juna that’s wonderful!”

“I don’t know if I’ll get to have the baby, hi.’”

“If you need help buying a child-right, I’m happy to help.”

“Isi, it’s not the money. I can afford the child-right. It’s— ” She shook her head. “How can I have a baby all by myself, IsP. It’s not fair to the child. And I don’t want to bring the scandal of having an unlicensed child down on our family.”

“Juna,” her father said, “you know that Netta and I could care less about a scandal. That’s not important.” He grasped her hand in his weathered, rough one, and looked into her eyes. “Do you want this baby?”

Juna remembered Toivo’s finger curling around hers as a newborn, how much she had loved him, and how much she wanted a child of her own to love, to watch it grow.

She blinked back the tears. “Yes, Isukki, I do.”

“You know, Mariam and I were going through some hard times when you were born. We were barely managing to make ends meet up here. Our families were back down on Earth. There was no one but the neighbors to help us. But we wanted a family, and so we went ahead and had you. It wasn’t a perfect time, but we did it anyway. Even in those difficult times, you were a gift. You taught us so much, you brought us closer to all our neighbors. Go ahead, tytar. You’ll havcall of our love and support. Somehow, we’ll help you make it work.”

Moki touched her shoulder. “Ukatonen and I will help as well.”

“Thank you,” Juna whispered, overcome with emotion. “Thank you all.” Tears were trickling down her cheeks, despite her best efforts to stop them.

Her father fished out a big handkerchief and handed it to her.

“There now, tytar. Dry your tears. Don’t worry. Between us all, it will work out. Now, Moki, let’s get Analin settled while Juna freshens up.”

He ushered Analin and Moki out of the room, leaving Juna alone.

Juna smiled. She wasn’t alone now, she thought, resting a hand on her stomach. She wasn’t going to be alone for the next eight months, or for all the years after that.

“Hello, daughter,” she said. “Welcome and love.”

Juna sat in Dr. Engle’s office, twisting her hands together nervously.

“You should notify the Population Control officials. I’ve decided to keep the baby.”

“Are you absolutely sure, Juna?” he asked, his gaze intent and piercing.

Juna swallowed hard, and nodded, meeting his gaze. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve already contacted a broker about purchasing the fractional child-right I’ll need. My family has agreed to provide the emotional and physical support that I’ll need during pregnancy and afterward. My father is willing to sign a statement to that effect. I’ve also contacted a lawyer to defend me if they file criminal charges.”

“Good girl,” the doctor told her. “I’m glad to see you’re ready for this. Pop Con isn’t going to be easy on you. They never are. As your doctor, I’m willing to back you up on this. You’re too far along to have gotten pregnant anywhere but aboard ship. Have you contacted the father yet?”

Juna shook her head. “I tried, but he’s traveling, and he instructed the comm not to forward any messages. I don’t know how to get in touch with his family.” She rubbed her forehead worriedly. This wasn’t going to be easy for Bruce. Pop Con tended to be particularly hard on fathers. “My lawyer is trying to find him.”

“I see.” Dr. Engle looked up at her, a pained expression on his face. “I’ll call Population Control now. You should contact your lawyer as soon as I’ve made the call.”

“She’s standing by,” Juna said. “I’ll wait in the reception room while you make the call.”

“I’m sorry, Juna.”

Juna turned, her hand on the door. “It’s okay. I know you have to do this.”

Moki and Ukatonen sat with her as they waited for the sheriff to come. Moki went orange with fear each time the door opened. Finally Sheriff Hiller arrived.

“Hello, Toni,” Juna said.

“Juna, I’m afraid that I have a warrant for your arrest from the Population Control Board.” Toni’s stocky, powerful body was hunched over, as though she was trying to shrink from this task.

“I understand.” Juna held her hands out to be cuffed. Being arrested by someone she had gone to school with was a very strange experience.

“Don’t be silly, Juna, I’m not going to cuff you,” the sheriff said. She glanced at the two aliens. “These must be the Tendu.”

Juna nodded. “This is Ukatonen, and this is Moki, my adopted son.”

“I see,” Toni said. “Well, Moki, I’m going to have to take your mother away for a while. You can come and visit her in the brig later this afternoon.”

“You’ll take good care of her?” Moki asked.

“Of course I will,” Sheriff Hiller reassured him. “She’ll be out in a few days.”

The brig was spartan, and had a feeling of disuse, but Toni made her as comfortable as possible.

“It’s been six months since we had anyone in here. A couple of transient laborers got drunk and started a fight over at the Gonzaleses’ place. Tthrew them in separate cells, let them sleep it off, and kicked them off the station.”

“Well at least I’ve given you something to do,” Juna said with a smile. She wasn’t surprised by the jail’s lack of occupants. Most of the people who came here to pick, plant, or weed came for a paid break from the small, cramped stations they lived on. Morale was generally pretty high, and fights were rare.

Being in jail didn’t feel entirely real. It was as though she were on some kind of school field trip and had somehow gotten left behind.

“It feels strange locking you up, Juna,” Sheriff Hiller said as she slid the cell door closed with a heavy rumbling thud. “Is it true? Did those aliens get you pregnant?”

Juna stared at Toni incredulously for a second or two, teetering on the edge of anger. Then the silliness of the situation struck her and she laughed. “No, Toni. The Tendu didn’t get me pregnant. They undid my contraception without my knowledge. They didn’t know what they were doing at the time. The father was entirely too human,” she said with a rueful grin. “This really was an accidental pregnancy, rare as that is these days.”

“Oh,” the sheriff said, straightening in relief. “I’m sorry. It did sound kind of crazy.”

Juna shook her head, and shivered. “Can you turn the heat up a bit?” she asked. “I feel kind of cold.”

The sheriff nodded. “Shock. It happens sometimes. You’ve been through a lot today. I’ll get you an extra blanket and nudge the heat up a bit. Get under the covers and warm up.” She padded down the hall and shut the door behind her, leaving Juna alone in her cell. Juna climbed into the narrow bunk, pulling the covers up over her head. Gradually her shivering eased and she fell soundly asleep.