The most shocking revelation came on the day she discussed marriage with her parents. It had recently dawned on her that eventually the children would all grow up and pair off with each other and have babies and start the whole cycle all over again—this because of some vile remark by Toya about what Proya really wanted to do to Dazya. Toya had meant it to be an obscene horror, but Chveya realized that, far from being a horror, it was probably a prophecy. Wouldn't Proya and Dazya be the perfect pair? Proya would be just like Elemak, and Dazya would probably smile at Proya with complete devotion the way Eiadh did with Elemak. Or would Dazya be like her mother Hushidh, so much stronger than her husband Issib that she even carried him around and bathed him like a baby? Or would Proya and Dazya continue their struggle for supremacy all through their lives, trying to turn their own babies against each other?

That thought led Chveya to wonder which of the boys she would marry. Would it be one of the boys of the first year, her own age? That would mean either Proya or Okya, and the thought of either one repelled her. Then what about boys of the second year? Dazya's little brother Xodhya, Proya's little brother Nadya, or the "adult" Yaya—what a proud selection! And the children of the third year were the same age as her revolting brother Motya—how could she dream of marrying someone that young?

So she broached the subject with her parents as they were eating breakfast on a morning when Father was not going hunting, so they could eat together. "Will I have to marry Xodhya, do you think?" she asked—for she had decided that Xodhya was the least disgusting of all the alternatives.

"Definitely not," said Mother, without a moment's hesitation.

"In fact," said Father, "we would forbid it."

"Well, who then? Okya? Yaya?"

"Almost as bad," said Father. "What is this, are you planning to start a family anytime soon?"

"Of course she's thinking about it, Nyef," said Mother. "Girls think about such things at this age."

"Well, then, she might keep in mind that she isn't going to marry a full uncle and certainly not a full double first cousin."

These words meant absolutely nothing to Chveya, but they hinted at dark mysteries. What unspeakable thing had Xodhya done to become a "full double first cousin"? So she asked.

"It's not what he did," said Mother. "It's just that his mother, Hushidh, is my full sister—we both have the same mother and the same father. And Zaxodh's father, Issib, is your father's full brother—they both have the same mother and father, who happen to be Grandmother and Grandfather. That means that you have all your ancestors in common—it's the closest blood relation among all the children, and marriage between you is out of the question."

"If we can possibly avoid it," added Father.

"We can avoid that one, anyway," said Mother. "And I feel almost as strongly about Oykib and Yasai, because they are also sons of both Rasa and Volemak."

Chveya took all this in with outward calm, but inwardly she was in turmoil. Hushidh and Mother were full sisters, but not daughters of Grandmother and Grandfather! And Father and Issib were full brothers, as were Oykib and Yasai, and this fullness of their brotherhood was because they all were sons of Grandmother and Grandfather. Yet the very use of the word full implied that there were some here who were not full brothers, and therefore not sons of both Volemak and Rasa. How could that be?

"What's wrong?" asked Father.

"I just… who is it that I can marry?"

"Isn't it a little early…" began Father.

Mother intervened. "The boys who disgust you today will look far more interesting to you as you get older. Take that on faith, my dear Veya, because you won't believe that particular prophecy until it comes true. But when that wonderful day comes…"

"Dreadful day, you mean," muttered Father.

"… you can certainly cast your gaze on Padarok, for instance, because he's not related to anybody at all except his baby sister Dabrota and his parents, Zdorab and Shedemei."

That was the first time Chveya realized that Zdorab and Shedemei weren't kin to the others, but now she remembered that she had long disliked Padarok because he always referred to Grandmother and Grandfather as Rasa and Volemak, which seemed disrespectful; but it was not disrespectful at all, because they really weren't his grandmother or grandfather. Did everybody else understand this all along?

"And," added Father, "because there's only one Rokya to service the nubile young girls of Dostatok…"

"Nyef!" said Mother sharply.

"…you'll have no choice but to also—how did you say it, my dear Waterseer?- oh yes, cast your gaze upon Protchnu or Nadezhny, because their mother, Eiadh, is no kin of anybody else here, and their father, Elemak, is only my half-brother. Likewise with Umene, whose father, Vas, is not kin of ours, and whose mother, Sevet, is only my half-sister."

Never mind about Proya and Nadya and Umya. "How can Sevet be only half your sister?" Chveya asked. "Is that because you have so many brothers that she can't be a whole sister to you?"

"Oh, this is a nightmare," said Mother. "Did it have to be this morning?"

Father, however, went ahead and explained about how Volemak had been married to two other women in Basilica, who gave birth to Elemak and Mebbekew, and then had married Rasa long enough to have Issib; and then Lady Rasa "didn't renew" the marriage and instead married a man named Gaballufix, who was also Elemak's half-brother because his mother had been one of Volemak's earlier wives, and it was with Gaballufix that Lady Rasa had given birth to Sevet and Kokor, and then she didn't renew him and returned to marry Volemak permanently and then they had Nafai and, more recently, Okya and Yaya.

"Did you understand that?"

Chveya could only give a stupefied nod. Her entire world had been turned upside down. Not just by the confusion of who was really kin to whom after all, but by the whole idea that the same people didn't have to stay married all their lives—that somebody's mother and father might end up being married to completely different people and have children who thought of only one of them as Mother and the other one as a complete stranger! It was terrifying, and that night she had a terrible dream in which giant rats came into their house and carried off Father in his sleep, and when Mother woke up she didn't even notice he was gone, she simply brought in little Proya—only full-sized now, because this was a dream—and said, "This is your new father, till the rats take him."

She woke up sobbing.

"What was the dream?" asked Mother, as she comforted her. "Tell me, Veya, why do you cry?"

So she told her.

Mother carried her into Father's and her room and woke Father and made Chveya tell him the dream, too. He didn't even seem interested in the most horrible thing, which was Proya coming into their house and taking his place. All he wanted to know about were the giant rats. He made her describe them again and again, even though she couldn't think of anything to say about them except that they were rats and they were very large and they seemed to be chuckling to each other about how clever they were as they carried Father away.

"Still," said Father, "it's the first time in the new generation. And not from the Oversoul, but from the Keeper."

"It might mean nothing," said Mother. "Maybe she heard of one of the other dreams."

But when they asked her whether she had heard stories of giant rats before this dream, Chveya had no idea of what they were talking about. The only rats she had heard about were the ones that were constantly trying to steal food from the barns. Did other people dream of giant rats, too? Adults were so strange—they thought nothing of families being torn apart and children having half-brothers and half-sisters and other monstrosities like that, but a dream of a giant rat, now, that was important to them. Father even said, "If you ever dream of giant rats again—or other strange animals—you must tell us at once. It can be very important."