“Really?” Her tone was indubitably flirtatious.

“Yes. You were about so long.” He held his hands not very far apart.

“Could I talk yet?”

“You said waa, and a few other things.”

“Did I wake up everybody in the dom like Cheben’s baby?” she inquired, with a broad, gleeful smile.

“Of course.”

“When did I learn how to really talk?”

“At about one half year old,” said Takver, “and you have never shut up since. Where’s the hat, Sadiki?”

“At school. I hate the hat I wear,” she informed Shevek.

They walked the child through the windy streets to the learning-center dormitory and took her into the lobby. It was a little, shabby place too, but brightened by children’s paintings, several fine brass model engines, and a litter of toy houses and painted wooden people. Sadik kissed her mother good night, then turned to Shevek and put up her arms; he stooped to her; she kissed him matter-of-factly but firmly, and said, “Good night!” She went off with the night attendant, yawning. They heard her voice, the attendant’s mild hushing.

“She’s beautiful, Takver. Beautiful, intelligent, sturdy.”

“She’s spoiled, I’m afraid.”

“No, no. You’ve done well, fantastically well—in such a time—”

“It hasn’t been so bad here, not the way it was in the south,” she said, looking up into his face as they left the dormitory. “Children were fed, here. Not very well, but enough. A community here can grow food. If nothing else there’s the scrub holum. You can gather wild holum seeds and pound them for meal. Nobody starved here. But I did spoil Sadik. I nursed her till she was three, of course, why not when there was nothing good to wean her to! But they disapproved, at the research station at Rolny. They wanted me to put her in the nursery there full time. They said I was being propertarian about the child and not contributing full strength to the social effort in the crisis. They were right, really. But they were so righteous. None of them understood about being lonely. They were all groupers, no characters. It was the women who nagged me about nursing. Real body profiteers. I stuck it out there because the food was good—trying out the algaes to see if they were palatable, sometimes you got quite a lot over standard rations, even if it did taste like glue—until they could replace me with somebody who fitted in better. Then I went to Fresh Start for about ten decads. That was winter, two years ago, that long time the mail didn’t get through, when things were so bad where you were. At Fresh Start I saw this posting listed, and came here. Sadik stayed with me in the dom till this autumn. I still miss her. The room’s so silent.”

“Isn’t there a roommate?”

“Sherut, she’s very nice, but she works night shift at the hospital. It was time Sadik went, it’s good for her living with the other children. She was getting shy. She was very good about going there, very stoical. Little children are stoical. They cry over bumps, but they take the big things as they come, they don’t whine like so many adults.”