'The housewombs gestate them,' Calandrinia said simply.
'House...?' He looked at the dumpy buildings that made up the village. 'You mean your homes contain some kind of artificial womb?'
'Do you listen to anything? There is nothing artificial about a housewomb, it is perfectly natural. Our houses were the last stage in bridging the gap from what we were to what we are. Tell me, do your files have fastrocks in them?'
'Yeah.' His Skin AS was retrieving the information. Fastrocks were essentially a polyp-type plant that grew quite slowly by Santa Chico's standards. They resembled ocher stones that grew clustered together in vast colonies and were completely fireproof. Their shells were also tough enough to resist being split open by the jaws of anything smaller than a macrorex.
Calandrinia gestured at the houses. 'Our ancestors modified those small plants into the sturdy buildings you see today, a true and grand amalgamation of the genes from two planets. Now we live in living houses. Their roots grow deep to collect water and nutrients, while their shells harvest the sunlight. Within our houses we are nurtured without violating the planet as you do. Their organs provide for us in the way your machines do for you, although our bond is closer and more appreciative.'
'You mean symbiotic.'
'Ah, you are listening. Yes, our houses are a part of our family. Once I have a fertilized ovum, I place it in a housewomb to gestate.'
'Did you give them sentience as well?'
'Of course. How could you marry an entity devoid of thought?'
'Good point,' Lawrence retorted sarcastically. 'Surely you've made yourselves overdependent on these constructs? Do they grow your food for you as well? Our satellites didn't see any working protein cell refineries.'
Calandrinia reached up and pulled a cluster of small red berries from the tree. 'Modifying Santa Chico's plants to fruit terrestrial food was the first and hardest task facing our ancestors. Once they understood how to merge the two different genetic molecules in a successful union, then everything we are today became possible. It took decades of effort before anything so complex was achieved, which is why we had to involve ourselves with commerce. So much of our respective biochemistries was incompatible, as it is on every world humans colonize. The old ways of life, your markets and machines, had to be sustained for that whole time while the problems were solved. Now, as you can see, we have left them far behind.'
'And left yourself in debt,' Ntoko said.
'Only on your planet, Earthman. Here there is no such thing. Here we are one.'
'Claiming you are above such things as money is a very convenient way to duck the issue,' Lawrence said. 'But I know you understand economics and technology. You still have spaceplanes and orbital systems. They have to be maintained, spare parts manufactured, fuel produced. House-wombs can't do that for you.'
'We had such machines until you arrived and destroyed them,' Calandrinia said. 'Some among us have the kind of dream you have, Lawrence Newton, that of spreading out through space. They are involved with ideas of modifying our cells to live up there in the desert beyond the sky. Our space enthusiasts want what we are to blossom on the comets and moons that share our star. It is a pleasant dream, I think. But they are a minority. And your arrival has put an end to their aspirations. They have agreed to turn their minds back toward Santa Chico. They will help to seal the sky and prevent you from returning.'
'How did you know my name?'
'I'm sorry,' Calandrinia said. 'I didn't know it was a secret'
Lawrence didn't like how casual she was being. If they'd decrypted the communication links, which he acknowledged as a strong possibility, then they might have heard his name being used, as well as his conversation with Nic. But to identify individual Skin suits would be difficult. There were too many things here that the new- natives made light of. He still didn't even know how they communicated over long distances.
'What do you mean seal the sky?' Ntoko asked.
'You said you are leaving, which is what we want,' Calandrinia said. 'What we need to do after that is to make sure you do not return. At least, not while your present society is the dominant culture on Earth. To do that we must seal the sky.' She exposed her tusks again.
'Come on,' Ntoko said to Lawrence on the secure communication link. 'This is wasting our time. We're outta here. If they had anything that could knock us down they would have used it by now. We just gotta watch our backs, and kill anything that moves out there.'
'Right.'
'Okay, we're going now,' Ntoko told the new-natives. 'You-all make sure you don't follow us. That way there's no misunderstandings, and nobody gets hurt.'
'Such wise advice, Sergeant,' Calandrinia said. 'We will try to make use of it'
'Motherfucking smartmouths,' Ntoko grumbled. 'I wish we could nuke every fucking one of them.'
The platoon tramped away, the soles of their Skin kicking up huge clouds of powdered ash. They crossed over from the island of tigergrass and trees around the village onto the black wasteland scoured by the wildfires. The ash rain had stopped falling around them, allowing them to see out across the countryside. Flames were still burning in the distance ahead of them, sending thick columns of smoke and ash soaring hundreds of meters into the deep-indigo sky. But it was no longer a solid wall; the wildfire had split around rivers and gullies, breaking into dozens of small blazes that raced onward.
'What the hell did you make of all that?' Ntoko asked.
'I'm not sure,' Lawrence admitted. 'It could just be a whole load of bullshit she made up to scare us. Or it could be true, in which case it's even scarier. There's a lot of things around here that don't add up.'
'Jesus, smart animals for one. Maybe that part's true.'
'Some of it has to be wrong. They used everything they've got to strike the starships when we were on our way in. They can't close off this planet from space.'
'Damn, I wish we had some kind of contact with the captain. We should be telling people this.'
'Satellite relay's still down.'
'Yeah, I know. Let's hope the governor is still holding on at Roseport.'
Lawrence was on edge for the rest of the march. If Calandrinia had been telling the truth, there was no way of telling what represented a danger to them.
By late afternoon the wildfires seemed to have died down. Smoke and ash hazed the air, darkening the sky to a sullen gray blue. They didn't see any more animals, large or small. Several times Lawrence thought he caught sight of wind-shrikes in the distance. But it could have just been dense swirls amid the lingering smoke. Underfoot, the tigergrass clumps started to weep, gooey sap leaking out of the burned blades. Their roots had obviously survived the fire, but then it had been so quick that it probably didn't heat the soil below a few centimeters. It wouldn't be long before the first new shoots were poking up through the mantle of ash.
The burnout zone ended along a narrow, deep gully with a brook of reddish water gurgling along its rocky floor. The land on both sides was covered in stones and boulders; there was little vegetation growing out of the cracks between them, which had reduced the fire's intensity. As he walked up to the gully, Lawrence
