Philas, wife of the dead Esk, approached Dura after the service, Waving stiffly. The two women studied each other, not speaking; Adda and the rest moved away, averting their faces.

Philas was a thin, tired-looking woman; her uneven hair was tied back with a piece of rope, making her face look skeletal. She stared at Dura, as if daring her to grieve.

The Human Beings were monogamous... but there were more adult women than men. So monogamy doesn't make sense, Dura thought wearily, and yet we practice it anyway. Or rather, we pay lip-service to it.

Esk had loved them both... at any rate, he had shown tenderness to them both. And his relationship with Dura had been no secret to Philas, or to anyone else, for that matter. It had certainly done Philas no harm.

Perhaps Philas and Dura could help each other now, Dura thought. Perhaps hold each other. But they wouldn't even speak about it.

And she, Dura, would not even be allowed to grieve openly.

At last Philas spoke. "What are we going to do, Dura? Should we rebuild the Net? What should we do?"

Staring into the woman's dull eyecups, Dura wanted to retreat into herself, to bring forward her own grief for her father, for Esk, as a shield against Philas's demands. I don't know. I don't know. How could I know?

But there was nowhere to retreat.

2

TEN HUMAN BEINGS — Dura with Farr in tow, Adda, the newly widowed Philas, and six other adults — climbed out of the site of the devastated encampment. They Waved steadily across the Magfield and toward the Crust, in search of food.