"How did you come here?"

"Voluntarily. I retired from the army," I explain. "I wanted something unstructured."

"You were in the army?"

"Twenty years."

"I was in South Africa," he says.

Peace Keeping Force, volunteer. "Infantry?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Atmosphere skippers."

Pilot. Well, he's short enough. I have the infantry's distrust for pilots; they tend to be hot heads out to prove their righteousness by flying. I flash the soup and ladle it into blue and beige bowls. Aron's wife, Chen, makes them as well. I think they're pretty, but they probably don't look like much to someone fresh from earth.

I put tabasco on the table and when I put a few drops into my soup they carefully copy me. Not everybody likes tabasco in their bean soup but I don't say anything, I've no intention of embarrassing them. Alexi tastes carefully and then nods. "This is good. This is really good, huh Therese?"

She nods. The spoon looks too big in her hand.

"It has so much taste," he says, "I thought the food in the complex was pretty good, but this is really good."

"Thank you," I say, embarrassed. It's just bean soup with a bit of pork in it for flavor. Not even nine-bean soup like we used to have when I was young. The food in the complex is filling; mess hall food. But not what I would describe as good. Alexi has three bowls, a bit embarrassed by his own greed. He so obviously enjoys it that it's a pleasure to serve him. And Theresa eats almost all her bowl and has a biscuit with honey on it. My business is bees, the commune sells Jerusalem Honey all over the quadrant. It's how I can afford my fruit juice and beer.

Their presence wears me out. I'm not accustomed to company and I got up at a little after four this morning. The conversation wears dangerously thin, I'm not holding up my end. I take them out to see my bees. Alexi carries Theresa who is stricken motionless with fascination and terror when I pull a panel out of a hive and explain how I take out the honey. The bees, buttons of tiger fur with glass wings, crawl in glittering, ceaseless motion.

Then we go to see my fourteen goats and I tell their names; Einstein, Jellybean, Eskimo, Constantina, Miss Shapiro, Lucy, Kate-the-Shrew, Lilith (who has the heart of a whore, although I don't mention that) Hai-hong, Machina Jones, Amelia, Angela, Carmin and Cleopatra. They jostle for attention, gently butting us and trying to get into my pockets to see if I have anything. I feed them for the night, and Theresa flings handfuls of sweetfeed into their buckets, and she and they squeal with delight as they shove and rear to get their noses in first, leaping over each other. Einstein does his trick, leaping high over Carmin and pushing off the wall to vault into the middle of the pack. Goats do well in light gravity, unlike cows, poor stupid things.

When Alexi carries Theresa back through the tunnel to the house she's heavy as a sack of grain, her pale sleepy face against his shoulder. I am drunk with the pleasure of showing them my little well-organized farm and the words pop out of my mouth, "Stay the night."

"Oh now we couldn't, we've put you out enough."

I regret the offer immediately and think to myself, why'd you make it if you didn't want to? Contrary as I am I insist more. He doesn't want to bed her down in the dorm, she's so tired she needs a quiet place to sleep and he has to be tired as well. The transport will be fine parked on my pull-off. I've a sofa that opens out to make a bed and an extra bedroom. Again it's the little girl that decides him. I expect that he'll put her on the couch, but he says they can sleep together in the bedroom. I'm relieved, once he says that I realize that my offer could have been misconstrued.

He has to go out to the transport and get their little bag of things, then he sits her on the edge of the bed and pulls the shirt over her head. She is passive and limp, her head seems too heavy to support. He is matter-of-fact, helping her hands find the sleeves with an air of practice. Then he pulls the blankets over and sets the bed to keep her warm.

We go back out to the front room and have two more beers. I tell him a little about Jerusalem Ridge, find myself unexpectedly talking about what it was like when I first came here and so many people had been relocated that we had a severe labor shortage. He asks intelligent questions. He has been promised his own plot in three years, but I warn him that the way things get done around here it could be five.

He's thirty-four. I'm forty-two. Theresa is six-and-a-half.

We go to bed early. I lie awake, over-stimulated I suppose. I can't hear anything, but I feel as if I can hear them breathing. The house seems full. After awhile the breathing turns into the ocean, and at four-thirty the bed wakes me and I have been dreaming of the Pacific. In my dream, the sky was full of crows.

My separator is on the fritz again. It is because it is built and programmed to handle 5-10 cows and I have 12 nannies. It has the capacity to handle the amount of milk but I jury rigged it to handle the nannies and it just breaks down all the time. I manage to get them milked myself and to start the damn thing manually but that means that a chore that should take twenty minutes takes over an hour. I get back in at 6:30. My company isn't up yet, so I stir up biscuit batter. By 7:00 the biscuits are baking, the second batch of coffee is ready. Alexi appears dressed at a little before 7:30, followed by Theresa rubbing her eyes. I serve biscuits covered with cheese and raisins, rice stir-porridge with milk, and fruit juice. I can't pretend I eat this way every morning, usually I eat a bowl of porridge and wash it down with coffee.

"Did you sleep well?" I ask, cruelly bright-eyed.

"Terrific. I can't believe you have made all this, what time did you get up?"

"Before five," I say.

"For us?" Alexi asks, conscience stricken.

"Of course not, I have a farm to run. I hoped to get some honey ready to ship, but I'll have to call Caleb and tell him it won't be ready until tomorrow."

He asks why and I tell him about my troubles with my separator-milker manager system. While I talk I watch Theresa who has apparently never had biscuits with cheese and raisins. She eats her porridge for awhile before working up the nerve to try it. Then she puts it down and I think she doesn't like it but after a bit she tackles it again and eventually eats half.

Alexi asks me questions about the system, eats a bowl of porridge and three biscuits, then polishes off what his daughter didn't finish. "Maybe I can fix it," he says, "I'm good at fixing things."

Fine with me. Theresa is excited about going to see the goats. I send him down to the goats while I call Caleb and explain that the honey will be late. When I get down to the goats Alexi is jacked into the system and Theresa is gingerly petting Cleopatra, who is pregnant. Five of the nannies are pregnant, which is going to cut down on my income for awhile, but I've decided to go ahead and have more space added to the farm so I'll be able to expand. Alexi has the absorbed look of someone jacked in, and Theresa seems happy so I decide to do bee work.

After an hour or so Alexi comes to find me. "I can fix your program quickly and it should be all right, but have you thought about when you have the new goats?"

I have but I don't like to. "I suppose I'll have to get a new system," I say.

He shakes his head. "I can modify the system, but it would take me awhile and today I have to get back to the complex with the transport. But if you'd like I could come back and do it, maybe on Sunday. I have Sunday free."

"I could pay you," I say. "That would be great."

"No need to pay, I owe you for all your hospitality."

We argue about payment, and finally I agree, stipulating that he and Theresa come for lunch and dinner on Sunday.