And then the birds, which had danced skyward when Link and the Vaqs had arrived, eating the dying suckers, but ignoring the sucker eggs which were implanted on the blades of grass, where tonight they would hatch, and the lucky ones would find food before they starved to death, find food and reproduce in a mad, one-night life.

Except for the gnawed away crotch, the child's body was intact.

The Vaqs knelt, nodded toward Link, and began cutting up the child's body. The incisions were neat, precise. Breastbone to crotch, a U-shaped cut around the breasts, a long slice down the arms, the head completely removed; all cuts were quick and deft, and in a moment the body was entirely skinned.

And then they ate.

Link watched, appalled, as they each in turn lifted a strip of raw meat toward him, as if it were a votive offering. He shook his head each time, and each time the Vaq murmured (in thanks) and ate.

And when the raw bones were left, and the skin, and the heart, the Vaqs opened the skin smoothside up and laid it before Link. They picked up the pile of bones, and held it out to him. He took them-- he was afraid, in the face of such inhumanity, to refuse. Then they waited.

What do I do now? he wondered. They were beginning to look a bit disturbed as he knelt, motionless, with the bones in his hands. And so, vaguely remembering some of his classical history, he tossed down the bones onto the blanket of skin and then stood, wiping the blood off his hands onto his trousers.

The Vaqs all looked at the bones, pointing to this one and that one, though they had landed in no pattern discernible to Link. At last, however, they began to grin, to laugh, to jump up and down and jig in delight at whatever the bones had told them.

Linkeree was more than a little glad that the portents had turned out so well. What would they have done if the bones had somehow spelled disaster?

The Vaqs decided to reward him. They picked up the head and offered it to him.

He refused.

They looked puzzled. So did he. Was he supposed to eat the head? It was ghastly-- the stump had not bled at all, looked like a laboratory specimen, reminded him of--

No, he would not.

But the Vaqs were not angry. They seemed to understand-- they only took the bones, buried each in a separate but shallow hole scrabbled out of the rich deep soil under the grass, and then took the skin and draped it over Link's bare shoulders. It occurred to him that they were signifying that he was the child. The leader's gesture confirmed that they believed that-- he kept gesturing from the skin and the head to Linkeree, and then pausing, waiting for an answer.

Linkeree didn't know how to respond. If he denied he was the child's spirit or successor or something, would they kill him? Or if he admitted that he was, would they finish their sacrifice by killing him? Either choice might end his life, and he was not feeling suicidal this morning.

And then, as he stared into the child's dead face, remembering that last night the infant had been alive, had responded to his touch, he realized that there was more truth than they realized to their belief. Yes, he was the infant, chewed and cut and eaten and cast away to be buried in a hundred tiny graves. Yes, he was dead. And he nodded in acceptance, nodded in agreement.

The Vaqs all nodded, too, and one by one they came to him and kissed him. He was unsure of whether the kiss was a prelude to leaving or to killing; but then they each kissed the child's head that he held in his hands in front of him, and as he saw their lips tenderly rest on the infant forehead or cheeks or mouth he was overcome by self-pity and grief; he wept.

And, seeing his tears, the Vaqs grew afraid, babbled quietly among themselves, and then disappeared silently into the tall grass, leaving Linkeree alone with the child's relics.

Dr. Hort went to see Mrs. Danol as soon, as he woke up in the morning. She was sitting in one of the empty private rooms, her hands folded in her lap. He knocked. She looked up, saw him through the window, nodded, and he came in.

"Good morning," he said to her.

"Is it?" she answered. "My son is dead by now, Dr. Hort."

"Perhaps not. He wouldn't be the first to survive a night in the grass, Mrs. Danol."

She only shook her head.

"I'm sorry about last night's fracas," he said. "I was tired."

"You were also too damn right," she answered. "I woke up at four this morning, sedative or no sedative. I thought and thought about it. I'm poison. I've poisoned my son just by being his mother. I wish I could be out there on the plain in his place, dying for him."

"And what the hell good would that do?"

She only cried in answer. He waited. The sobbing let up only a few moments later.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've been crying off and on all morning." Then she looked at Hort, pleading in her eyes, and said, "Help me."

He smiled-- kindly, not triumphantly-- and said, "I'll try. Why don't you just tell me what you've been thinking about?"

She laughed bitterly. "That's a rat's nest we hardly need to go into. I spent most of the time thinking about my husband."

"Whom you don't like."

"Whom I loathe. He married me because I wouldn't sleep with him otherwise. He slept with me until I got pregnant; then he moved on. When Linkeree turned out to be a boy, he was delighted, and changed his will to leave everything to the boy. Nothing to me. And then, after he had slept with every girl on this planet and half the boys, he was run over by a tractor and I gave a little cheer."

"He was well thought of on the planet."

"People always think well of money."

"They often think well of beauty, too."

And at that she cried again. Through her sobs, in a twisted, little-girl voice, she said, "All I ever wanted was to go to Capitol. To go to Capitol and meet all the famous people and be on somec so that I could live forever and be beautiful forever. It's all I had, being beautiful-- I had no money, no education, and no talent for anything, not even motherhood. Do you know what it means to have only one thing that makes other people love you?"

No, Hort thought to himself, but I can see what a tragedy it is.

"You were your son's guardian. You could have taken him to Capitol."

"No, I couldn't. It's the law, Hort. Planet money must be invested on the planet until it achieves full provincial status. It protects us from exploitation. " She spat the word. "No somec allowed until we're a province. No chance to have life!"

"There are some of us who don't want to sleep for years on end, just to stay young a few years longer," Dr. Hort said.

"Then you're the insane ones," she retorted, and he almost agreed. Eternal life didn't appeal to him. Sleeping through life seemed like a disgusting waste of time. But he knew the draw, knew that most people who came to the colonies were desperate or stupid, that the gifted ones or the rich ones or the hopeful ones stayed where somec was within reach.

"Not only that," she said, "my damnable husband entailed the entire fortune, everything. Not a penny could be taken from Pampas."

"Oh."

"So I stayed, hoping that when my son grew up we could find some way, go anyway--"

"If your son hadn't been born, the money would all have been left to you, unentailed, and you could have sold it to an offworlder and gone."

She nodded, and began to weep again.

"No wonder you hated your son."

"Chains. Chains, holding me here, stripping away my only asset as the years made hash of my face and my figure."

"You're still beautiful."

"I'm forty-five years old. It's too late. Even if I left for Capitol today, they won't let someone over forty-five go on somec at all. It's the law."

"I know. So--"