"Neither have I." She pulled her pants off, then didn't have a spike to tether them. Gavving saw the problem and grinned.. He pounded a spike into the bark and added two tethers. One he tied to Minya's pants, then to his own pants and tunic. The other he tied around his waist.

"I've watched," he confided.

"That's a relief. I never did." She reached to touch what his pants had covered. A man bad put his male member into her hand once, against her will, and it hadn't looked like this . . . except that it was changing before her eyes. Yes.

She had thought she could just let it happen. It wasn't like that. But she was used to using her feet as auxiliary hands, and thus she pulled him against her. She'd been warned against the pain; some of the Triunes had not joined while they were still virgins. She had known far worse.

Then Gavving seemed to go mad, as if he were trying to make two people one. She held him and let it happen . . . but now it was happening to her! She'd made this decision in the cool aftermath of disaster, but now it was changing her, yes she wanted them joined forever, she could pull them closer yet with her heels and her hands . . . no, they were coming apart . . . it was ending . . . ending.

When she had her breath back she said, "They never told me thaL"

Gavving heaved a vast sigh. "They told me. They were righL Hey,

didn't you hurt?" He pulled away from her, a little, and looked down.

"There's blood. Not a lot."

"It hurt. I'm tough. Gavving, I was so afraid. I didn't want to die a virgin."

"Me too," he said soberly.

A hand shook the Grad's ankle and pulled him out of a nightmare.

"Uh! What . . . ?"

"Grad. Can you think of any reason Gavving shouldn't make a baby with a woman?"

"What then, a musrum?" His head felt muzzy. He looked around.

"Who is it, the prisoner?"

Merril said, "Yes. Now, I don't see any reason to stop it, unless she's got something else in mind. I just want to keep an eye on them. But someone has to be on watch."

"Why me?"

"You were closest."

The Grad stretched. "Okay. You're on watch. I'll keep track of the prisoner."

Merril's glare lost out to a smile. "All right, that's fair."

The Grad heard voices as he poked his head around the edge of the bark. Gavving and Minya floated at the end of a tether, quite naked, talking. "A hundred and seventy-two of us," Minya was saying. "Twice as many as you?"

"About that."

"Enough to crowd the tuft, anyway. The Triune Squad isn't a punishment. It's a refuge. We shouldn't be having children any faster than we are. And I was good, you know. I fight like a demon."

"You need a refuge from . . . uh, this?"