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“I can dry myself!” she answered, clutching at the towel. “You’re being very bold with your hands and your eyes.”

“Something that’s come over me lately.”

“The sweet flatteries of a Liethe to swell your manly ego?” suggested Oelita coyly.

“God’s Teeth, you’re as bad a tease as Noe!”

Noe returned with fresh clothes. For Gaet she carried an aery robe, embossed with vines, for Oelita a shimmeringly silken garment, white. “This is a favorite of Gaet’s. Come. I’ll take you upstairs. I have everything a woman needs.”

“Meet us in my room,” said Hoemei. “It’s the cleanest. Gaet and I will put together a snack.”

Amidst green bottles of oil and boxes of perfume sticks and piles of stitching for a quilt, Noe did Oelita’s hair and dressed her. “How can I wear this?” exclaimed Oelita. She adored the ruffles, but the gown was split up the sides, all the way, and split down the back and the front, all the way. It hid nothing. She would have felt more comfortable had she been nude.

“I’ve worn it in the street,” said Noe.

“You didn’t!”

“At night,” Noe admitted, grinning.

“If I’m going to wear this, you have to wear something provocative too.”

“No. I’m too lazy to change. And it’s too late. The food is ready.”

Oelita hesitated. “Noe, tell me. Am I in danger here?”

“For your life? No. For your soul? Yes.”

“If I ever offend you, tell me first before you act, please.”

“I’m known to be blunt.”

“Am I intruding on you? I mean with Gaet?”

“Little barbarian, we’re looking for a new woman. We had one but these things sometimes are poured into a cracked cup. You’re very welcome to share whatever I have as long as you feel the same with me.” She kissed Oelita on the cheek and took her hand.

And so the evening went, with a wild game of kol that had the men screeching and Noe laughing at Oelita’s unorthodox play. No one could understand why she was beating them. Gael sat beside her on the pillows, affectionately caressing her from time to time through the convenient slits. She accused him of trying to throw her play. They talked about art in the city, and Noe promised to take her to the Chanting for which Kaiel-hontokae was famous. When the candles were near to burning out, Noe began to undo a few of the clasps that held Oelita’s garment together so that Gaet could fondle her more easily.

So, she’s going to give him to me tonight. Oelita wanted him. He was the only security she had against a rising panic. She had to have him, so knowing she was going to get him relaxed her, and her erotic warmth began to grow. But Noe took Gaet with her and they said goodnight at the door, leaving Oelita half undressed on Hoemei’s bed.

“We could go to your room,” he said ambiguously, implying both that he was willing to abide by her rules and that he desired to be with her.

She trembled. She did not want to be alone and she did not want to stay with a stranger. She tried to read the soul of Gaet’s co-husband, searching his face.

“You’re welcome to stay,” he said.

“For a little while. You have a cozy room.”

“It’s strange to meet you,” he said.

“I’m all disarrayed,” she replied. Hoemei was handsome in the candlelight. Was he being shy now? He had been so bold earlier. I should do it, she thought. If she just pretended she was part of a Four, and that what was happening, happened every sleep cycle, what could go wrong? She was extraordinarily curious about marriage. In any event, she needed to bond Hoemei to her, if what Gaet said about him was true.

He sat beside her and touched her shoulder. She could feel the affection. He spoke. “It takes time to know another. There’s no hurry.”

She could love a man who created no pressure. “I’ll stay.” He was undressing, putting things away neatly, a compulsive man. “Hoemei? Do you love Noe?”

“Of course.”

“Do you love your Liethe creature?”

“Now that you mention it.”

“Do you like me a little?”

“I was smitten at first sight.”

“Help me off with this lethal recessive of a dress, but remember I’m not ready for anything.” She knew she was both pushing him away and pulling him toward her. His hands came to her aid but she did most of the work herself with such haste that she tore a clasp. And so they lay beside each other, naked, not touching. It was curious. The flame made great leaps and flickers and died. The silence upset her in this city far from the comfort of any friend. She needed contact and she was afraid of touch. “Hoemei, what is your price for helping us on the coast?” Words, even intellectual words of great moment, were touches — in a way.

“Do you know our form of government?”

“The Kaiel are the hereditary leaders. The usual. I don’t approve. I think other clans should have political duties, too.”

“It is not as simple among us. When we go to the coast we won’t be distributing food through the Stgal. We’ll send in priests. Whoever of your people likes an individual priest pledges to him and the priest contracts to help him.”

“The Stgal will object.”

“The Stgal will have no say, having been bypassed. Suppose I sign up your people and supply them with food. Then they are no longer in the kalothi chain of the Stgal temples; they are in the kalothi chain of my temple.”

“And the price?”

“It is an exchange. We are problem-solvers. What is the solution of your problems worth to you?”

“I’ll give you a problem to solve.”

“Women are good at that.” He brought his face close to hers in the dark until they could feel each other’s breath.

“Cannibalism!” She bit his nose gently, just so he didn’t get too close.

“Ouch. That’s not the problem.”

“It is!”

“Meat is the solution to a problem and you don’t like the solution. It is said that you are anti-tradition.”

“I hate ritual!”

“Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was. Geta is a harsh planet. It kills us. We do better when ritual is in control of Death.”

“Rock in the Sky! I’m tired of hearing that!”

“The Kavidie priests were vegetarians.”

“You fling myth at me to prove your point!”

“The Kavidie are myth only because they are long dead. They lived among the Red Death Hills of the Far Side and commanded twice as much territory as the Kaiel do today. I’ve seen their flaking books in the library. They were real.”

“We’re just talking because we are afraid of each other. Why don’t we just shut up and you can hug me and I’ll hug you.” She put an arm across his neck, and shoved his head until their noses touched.

“Where did you learn to win arguments?” he asked.

“No last words!” And she was hugging him. “You have such big ears. I could get lost in them. What does a wife whisper in a husband’s ear?”

“Usually she tells him to shut up!”

She kissed him, wondering about the trace of restraint she felt from him. “In case you didn’t know, I’m ovaet,” she whispered to reassure him.

“Ah,” he said, reassured. The ovaet was a genetic trait possessed by four out of five Getan women that allowed a woman to self-abort if she did not wish a conception to take.

“When I’m on the pillows with a gentle man like you, being ovaet makes it easier to keep my vow never to be a mother again. I would have difficulty being celibate.” She rubbed her cheek against his. “I can feel your concern. It’s nice.”

“Aesoe never told me that they taught barbarians how to flatter a man.”

“Barbarian! We call you people The Hill Barbarians,” she retaliated. “Do you want to hear a Kaiel joke?”

“I’ve heard it.”

“Why does a Kaiel take his sandals off before entering his house?”

“You got me.”