They began to talk, asking about how Dertu had been born, wanting to know all the details, even the smallest, and soon they were going over the whole story in the ancient language. Dertu was struggling to describe what he didn’t know—how he had developed from the severed arm and precisely how he had come to consciousness. Derek tried to describe the little face on the palm of the hand and the mouth sucking at his nipple, and the heat in his chest, but he remembered mostly the shock and the pain, and then opening his eyes eventually to see Dertu standing there.

Memories swept over Derek as the others talked, of that first night on Earth when they had feasted with the savages. The drums, the reed pipes, and the gentle face of the headman.

And another memory came to him unbidden and fresh, of the Festival of Meats in Atalantaya, when the whole city was allowed to feast on lamb and fowl before returning to its regular diet of fruit and fish and vegetables. Six times a year came the Festival of Meats.

He remembered standing in their apartment gazing down on the streets, at all those lighted tables in courtyards and little parks and rear gardens, on all those balconies, with so many happy people gathered in the candlelight to enjoy the Pleasure of Meat, and how much he had enjoyed it when they had gathered over their meal on the rooftop, where they could see out over countless other rooftops.

Atalantaya had seemed too beautiful to be described in words that night, and through the crystal-clear dome he had seen the stars spread out over the sky in their eternal patterns, and the bright burning light of Bravenna up there, Bravenna, the satellite or the planet of the Parents.

“I feel they are looking at us right now,” Derek had said.

“But they can’t see us here because of the dome,” Kapetria had reminded him. “And surely they are becoming anxious. We’ve been in Atalantaya a month.”

All had fallen silent. Derek remembered the taste of the ice-cold beer. He remembered the juices of the lamb from the slices on the plate, such a pretty plate, translucent as was so much else. He had put his finger in the juices from the lamb and licked his finger. He could no longer remember the name of the red fruit on his plate, the fruit with all the tiny seeds.

Welf and Kapetria had spoken often of Bravenna, of the Parents in their rooms with the talking walls, walls filled with moving pictures of the jungles of Earth and the savages, the savages making love, the savages hunting, the savages feasting….

“Are you sure they can’t see us?” he’d asked then as he’d gazed up into the sky as if the dome weren’t even there.