Chapter 31

The next morning it was evident that Zo's exit with Hill had also not gone unnoticed among the troops. The five of them were at breakfast together when Igwanda and his wife and son emerged, with a somewhat red-faced Hill sitting there listening to the sergeant take a thorough razzing.

"Uh, Colonel, sir," Edmundson called out.

"Good morning," Igwanda said, including them all in the greeting.

"Good morning, sir," the trooper said, going on with scarcely a pause. "Colonel, were you aware that Sgt. Zo has a girlfriend?"

"No!" said the colonel in mock astonishment, watching with amusement as Hill turned even ruddier. "Why, Sergeant, is such a thing indeed true?"

Zo simply sputtered, while Hill looked completely embarrassed.

"Sergeant, you are aware of course that if the Army had wished you to have a girlfriend it would have issued you one?" Igwanda said sternly.

"Uh... ," was all Zo could find to say.

"However, " Igwanda continued emphatically after the tiniest of pauses, "inasmuch as the Quartermaster Corps appears to have shirked its responsibilities, I commend you on your initiative." The entire table burst out laughing.

"Carlos!" Meiersdottir said in mock chastisement. She turned to Hill. "Come on, Rory, come sit with me and let the little boys play. Tell him bad daddy, bad daddy, Meier." Hill looked around and suddenly stuck out her tongue and offered the table a truly impressive raspberry.

"Carry on, ladies and gentlemen," said Igwanda smoothly, and walked over to join his family. Hill, after her display, gave a satisfied smile and didn't move from Zo's side.

"Is he always like this?" Accorda asked the sergeant in a bemused tone.

"The colonel? Don't even think of crossing him," Zo answered. "He'll rip your head off and shit down your neck. But other than that, yeah, he is, especially since he and Amanda, Dr. Meiersdottir, got together. Best officer I ever served under. Trust him, the man has your back."

"Told you, he's a real stud hoss," Edmundson contributed. "What a difference from the major!" There were murmurs of agreement all around.

The leavening effect of Igwanda's light touch was soon apparent. The troopers greeted their Edenite counterparts in a much more friendly fashion when the native contingent appeared, and Igwanda saw they were circulating well. Josephs had joined Zo in discussions with the alien herdmasters, and they were continuing the work Zo had begun of taming and bridling some of the penned hexapods. Inasmuch as none of them, the Edenites included, were familiar with the beasts' touchpoints it was something of a hit-or-miss proposition, but progress seemed to be being made.

Edmundson and Connaught seemed more at loose ends, moving from group to group, but the colonel saw that Accorda was in deep conversation with her assigned native. Meiersdottir soon noticed it as well and, alerted by her husband's mention of the trooper's feminist bent, in time walked over to listen in. It was quickly clear to her that a meeting of the minds had not been achieved.

"It simply seems unfair to me that your women, your females, are always stuck in your nests taking care of the children," Accorda was telling the native with some vehemence. "They're no less than you are, you males, are they? Why don't you allow them the same freedom you have?"

"We think you do not understand us," the native replied. "Nest is place for mothers, it is where they must stay."

"Why?" demanded the trooper. "Because you, you men, you males, say so? Because you're afraid of them competing with you? Because you—"

"Whoa, dear," Meiersdottir broke in. "You're going off just a little at half-cock here, I'm afraid."

"How can you say that, ma'am?" asked Accorda indignantly. "I mean, look at you, you've got a career, you've got more than that, you're famous for what you do. How would you like it if the colonel told you, no, you can't have that any more, you have to stay home and take care of the baby"—she gestured over at Meier, who was playing with Joe nearby—"and that's all? That you stopped being a real person the minute you became a wife and a mother, and a wife and a mother was all you could be?"

"It's not exactly the same," Meiersdottir told her gently.

"Sure it is! I mean, they're treating their females like— the same way that—"

"Just hush for a minute," the sociologist said firmly. "Dear, what's your name?"

"Accorda, ma'am."

Meiersdottir shot her a sidelong look. "No, dear, the other one. Your first name," she added as Accorda looked momentarily puzzled.

"It's Simone."

"All right, Simone. And I'm Amanda when we're out here, you can save 'ma'am' for formal occasions when I'm officially your colonel's wife. If there ever are any. Simone, I'm afraid you led a pretty sheltered existence with Maj. Miller. Let me tell you some of the facts of life here that the major must have left out."

Patiently Meiersdottir took her through the physical metamorphosis that Edenite females underwent when they began to bear eggs—the rapid and unequal growth that left them with vast­ly oversized torsos and unchanged legs that were now disproportionately small.

"Their upper body strength also increases along with size," she said. She'd realized that much when Ajukakhing had returned her embrace in the outpost nest. "But the legs don't get stronger at all, yet they have all that extra weight to bear. So an Edenite mother can move only very short distances, a few meters or so at most. They don't stay in the nests out of compulsion, they stay there because they physically must, and they'll likely die if they try to leave the nest, it'll be too much for them. In fact, they probably couldn't even fit through the bottlenecks of the entry tunnels, much less make it up to the surface."