“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a biochemist.”

“I was with you a week in Soebo.”

“You were with my se-Tufi sister.”

“All right. I won’t insist. But you won’t change my mind. Comfort, whoever she was, saved Joesai’s life in her own strange way and I love that man. She was somehow in harmony with Hoemei for she did much to promote his predictions. Such manipulation weakened Aesoe considerably and made Hoemei ascendant. I think you helped us at the Palace. Did Aesoe ever suspect?”

“I am fond of your family,” said Humility, moved.

“Where are you staying?”

“My room at the inn.”

“Come with me.”

“No,” said the Liethe.

“I’m looking for Hoemei,” Noe tempted.

“All right.”

The wedding revelry was dispersing. Noe found her family in a tub in one of the tower rooms, scrubbing off their make-up. There was water all over the floor and they were splashing each other and shrieking. They were slightly drunk. “There she is!” shouted Gaet. “Get in the tub!”

“Not on your life!” said a grinning Noe.

“Get her in the tub!” Gaet ordered his family. A great naked Joesai and a little naked Teenae began to chase her.

She retreated down the hall, pulling her Liethe se-Tufi with her, and bolted the door of an apartment she had taken for herself. She was laughing. “I’m sitting this one out! I know what comes next! I’ve been to maran weddings before! I married those maniacs when there was only one of me!”

“Shall I give you your bath?”

“I’m a woman,” said Noe, surprised that a Liethe would offer to bathe a woman.

“You’re a priest, too.”

Noe lit the fire for the hot water and sank down on the pillows.

Humility began to undo her priest friend’s elaborate hairdo. Noe stared at her in the mirror. “What a wife you’d make!”

“Would you like another wife?” Humility asked mischievously.

“God forbid!”

“What is it like to be married?”

“Well now,” mused Noe, “if you are a single wife with three husbands…” She went into reverie. “They were always bringing home a new woman for the pillows on the excuse that they were looking to fill the empty wife slots. I think they had a great time. It made me sulk. How can you bring a new man home when you already have three of them? Now that the numbers are reversed with four of us and only three men, I think the situation will be interesting. How do you suppose the brothers will react when I bring home a nubile youth without a brain in his head and tell them so casually that he is a candidate for four-husband and don’t bother me tonight while I try him out.” She laughed. “I can’t wait!”

“You’re naughty!”

“I always was a spoiled brat.”

Noe tried to draw out the real woman in her Liethe but found Honey opaque. She could talk music and art and dance, speak of philosophy, writings, politics, even science — but she was never personal. What kind of a childhood had she lived? She never said. She was as evasive verbally as she was quick on her feet. Noe decided to try a new tack against the same soft breeze. When the tub water was warm and Honey was bathing her with massaging hands she got her chance.

“Do you like my touch?” Humility was asking, while she gentled Noe’s neck to relax it.

“I’d give anything to be able to do what you are doing right now,” said Noe. “Then my husbands would never leave me.”

“It’s a secret. I can’t tell you. Then they’d never need to come see me.”

“Let me offer you a Kaiel bargain. Teach me how to be a Liethe and I’ll make you an honorary maran wife.”

Honey hugged her briefly. “If you are a spoiled brat, you’d hate it. You have to be able to sleep on a hard floor. One night in my cell at the hive and you’d quit.”

“And if I didn’t?”

“Then I’d teach you more — like how to sit all day without moving a muscle either in tension or relaxation.”

“That sounds like a fair exchange for giving you Hoemei when he comes home from a hard day at the Palace!” Noe laughed. She splashed out of the tub and wouldn’t let Honey towel her. “Now it’s your turn. Get in the tub and I’ll scrub you!”

“No. I’ll do it myself. You’re a priest and I’m a priest’s servant.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I scrub Teenae all the time. Here; right now we’ll do the ritual of making you an honorary wife and get it over with. Quick. Desert style.” Abruptly Noe made the sign of loyalty.

Humility timidly returned the sign.

Noe took one of her small silver combs. “Here.”

“I haven’t any honeycake for you,” said Humility, bewildered.

“I smuggled up some honeycomb. That will have to do.” She rummaged around in a bag and brought out a sticky piece and gave it to her honorary wife. She opened her mouth. Humility put the fragment of honeycomb on Noe’s tongue.

Noe then took a few strands of her hair and a few strands of Liethe hair. “You have to help me braid them.” When they were finished she fixed the ends with bee’s wax from her mouth. “Now get in the tub!”

Humility obeyed. “Do you tease your husbands, too?”

“All the time.” She soaped Honey. “I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain. We’re married. What do I have to do to become Liethe?”

“First you have to have a secret name.”

Noe thought while she was busy with her friend’s breasts. Wanderer popped into her head. “I’ve got one. Shall I tell you?”

“No. Then it wouldn’t be a secret.”

“You sound like Teenae! What fun are secrets if you can’t share them!”

“Your secret name tells everything there is to know about you. It would give me too much power if I knew.”

“And you have a secret name?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t tell me?”

“Even my sisters don’t know it. Even my favorite crones don’t know it. To be Liethe you have to have a secret name.”

“You’re all secret. I don’t know anything about you. Why were you so sad during the wedding?”

“Nothing. I was thinking about growing old.”

“What happens to a Liethe when she grows old?”

“She gets to raise the young ones.” Humility laughed and looked sidewise at Noe with her seducing glance. “Young children — like me.” Then she added soberly, “The crones aren’t any different from old men. They play politics and get the young ones to do their dirty work.”

Ah, thought Noe, she really said something. That was somehow so important that she dared not speak again. Noe waited, mutely, until Honey was dry before pulling down the iron-reed blinds so that they might have some darkness to sleep by. Wordlessly she lay herself on the pillows, anticipating something, not knowing what she was expecting. Honey dropped close beside her, but did not let their bodies touch.

“Are you happy?” asked Noe.

“Why shouldn’t I be happy? It’s my very first wedding night,” replied Humility whimsically.

“Night? It’s dawn.”

“What are they doing in the other room?”

Noe punched her. “You know what they’re doing! And we’d better get some sleep in case they decide to visit us!”

“They really wouldn’t do that, would they?”

“You hope. I’ll be generous and give you Hoemei,” she teased.

They fell silent. Noe slept. Humility did not want Noe to sleep and touched her shoulder and woke her. “I was reading one of Oelita’s books. I felt very close to her. I like her. I don’t like to see people die either.”

Noe took her strange Liethe in a comforting embrace. “Some of us make our Contribution to the Race through Death, and others of us make our Contribution to the Race through Life. That’s the way it has always been. Now go to sleep, little one.”