She hadn't thought she could still laugh, but she did. 'Maybe it was the way I looked. But they all…bothered me, and the only way out was the Triunes.'
He waited.
'And now I'm twenty-two and I want to change my mind and I can 't. Nobody changes her mind once she's in the Triune Squad. I could be killed for even asking, and I did ask—' She caught her voice rising. This wasn't going as planned. She whispered, 'He told me I should be ashamed of myself. Maybe he'll tell. I don't care. I'm not going back.'
He reached as if to pat her shoulder and changed his mind. 'Don't worry about it. We can't move anyway. If we could, well, an empty tree would still be a better bet.'
'And I want to make babies,' she said and waited.
He must have understood. He didn't move. 'With me? Why me?'
'Oh, treefodder, why can't you just…all right, who else? The Grad lives all in his head. Alfin's afraid of falling. Clave? I'm glad he's here, he's a good leader. But Clave's…type pushed me into the Triunes in the first place! He scares me, Gavving. I saw you kill Sal and Smitta, but you still don't scare me. I think you had to do that.' She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing.
He started to tremble. 'I didn't hate them. Minya, they were killing us! Without a word. They were your friends, weren't they?'
She nodded. 'It's been a bad, bad waketime. But I'm not going back.'
'All for a fan fungus.'
'Gavving, don't turn me down. I…couldn't stand it.'
'I'm not turning you down. I've just never done this before.'
'Neither have I.' She pulled her pants off, then didn't have a spike to tether them. Gavving saw the problem and grinned… He pounded a spike into the bark and added two tethers. One he tied to Minya's pants, then to his own pants and tunic. The other he tied around his waist.
'I've watched,' he confided.
'That's a relief. I never did.' She reached to touch what his pants had covered. A man bad put his male member into her hand once, against her will, and it hadn't looked like this…except that it was changing before her eyes. Yes.
She had thought she could just let it happen. It wasn't like that. But she was used to using her feet as auxiliary hands, and thus she pulled him against her. She'd been warned against the pain; some of the Triunes had not joined while they were still virgins. She had known far worse.
Then Gavving seemed to go mad, as if he were trying to make two people one. She held him and let it happen…but now it was happening to her! She'd made this decision in the cool aftermath of disaster, but now it was changing her, yes she wanted them joined forever, she could pull them closer yet with her heels and her hands…no, they were coming apart…it was ending…ending.
When she had her breath back she said, 'They never told me thaL'
Gavving heaved a vast sigh. 'They told me. They were right. Hey, didn't you hurt?' He pulled away from her, a little, and looked down.
'There's blood. Not a lot.'
'It hurt. I'm tough. Gavving, I was so afraid. I didn't want to die a virgin.'
'Me too,' he said soberly.
A hand shook the Grad's ankle and pulled him out of a nightmare.
'Uh! What…?'
'Grad. Can you think of any reason Gavving shouldn't make a baby with a woman?'
'What then, a musrum?' His head felt muzzy. He looked around.
'Who is it, the prisoner?'
Merril said, 'Yes. Now, I don't see any reason to stop it, unless she's got something else in mind. I just want to keep an eye on them. But someone has to be on watch.'
'Why me?'
'You were closest.'
The Grad stretched. 'Okay. You're on watch. I'll keep track of the prisoner.'
Merril's glare lost out to a smile. 'All right, that's fair.'
The Grad heard voices as he poked his head around the edge of the bark. Gavving and Minya floated at the end of a tether, quite naked, talking. 'A hundred and seventy-two of us,' Minya was saying. 'Twice as many as you?'
'About that.'
'Enough to crowd the tuft, anyway. The Triune Squad isn't a punishment. It's a refuge. We shouldn't be having children any faster than we are. And I was good, you know. I fight like a demon.'
'You need a refuge from…uh, this?'
A laugh. 'This, and being pregnant. My mother died of her fourth pregnancy, and that was me.'
'Aren't you afraid now?'
'Sure. Are you volunteering to carry it for me?'
'Sure.'
'Good enough.' They moved together. The Grad was intrigued and embarrassed. His eyes shifted…and the sky had opened a mouth.
The shock only lasted a moment. A great empty mouth closed and opened again. It was rotating slowly. An eye bulged above one jaw; something like a skeletal hand was folded below the other. It was a klomter away and still big.
The beast turned, ponderously, still maintaining its axial rotation. Its body was short, its wings wide and gauzy. No illusion: it really was mostly mouth and fins, and big enough to swallow their entire bark raft. Sunlight showed through its cheeks.
It was cruising the clouds of bugs left in the wake of the disaster. Not a hunting carnivore. Good. But wasn't there such a beast in the Scientist's records? With a funny name Merril touched the Grad's shoulder, and he jumped. 'I'm a little worried about the bug-eater,' she said. 'We're embedded in bugs, have you noticed?'
'Noticed! How could I not?' But in fact he had learned to ignore them. The bugs weren't stinging creatures, but they were all around the bark raft, millions and millions of winged creatures varying from the size of a finger down to dots barely big enough to see. 'We're a little big to be eaten up by accident.'
'Maybe. What's happening with-?'
'I would say Gavving is in no danger. I'll keep an eye open, though.'
'Good of you.'
'We're being watched.'
Minya's whole body convulsed in reflex terror. Gavving said, 'Easy! Easy! It's only the Grad.'
She relaxed. 'Will they think we're doing wrong?'
'Not really. Anyway, I could marry you.'
He heard an incipient stutter when she said, 'Are you sure you want to do that?'
For a fact, he was not. His mind lurched and spun. The destruction of the tree had been no more disorienting than this first act of love. He loved Minya now, and feared her, for the pleasure she could give or withhold. Would she think she owned him? The lesson of Clave's marriage, what he knew of it, was not lost on him. Like Mayrin, she would be older than her mate.
And none of that mattered. There were four women in Quinn Tribe. Jayan and Jinny were with Clave; that left Merril and Minya. Gavving said, 'I'm sure. Shall we go make an announcement?'
'Let them sleep,' she said and snuggled close. Her eyes tracked a moving mouth sweeping through the clouds of bugs. It was closer now. It didn't have teeth, just lips, and a tongue like a restlessly questing snake. It rotated slowly: a way of watching the entire sky for danger.
'I wonder if it's edible,' Gavving said.
'Me, I'm thirsty.'
'There has to be a way to reach that pond.'
