Karal disappeared into the foliage while Minya strolled into the Commons She missed Dalton-Quinn Tuft. She'd grown almost used to

the obtrusive differences: the huge Commons, the omnipresent supervisors, hen own servility. But little things bothered her. She missed cupvines, and copter plants. Nothing grew here but the foliage and the carefully cultivated earthlife, beans and melons and corn and tobacco, as thoroughly regimented as herself.

A dozen copsiks were up and stirring. Minya looked for Jinny and spotted her at the treemouth, just her head showing above the foliage as she fed the tree.

The schedules were loose. If you arrived late, you would work late.

Beyond that, the supervisors didn't care much . . . but Minya cared!

She would do nothing badly. She would be an exemplary copsik, until

the time came to be something else.

She tried to remember nuances of Karal's speech. A citizen's accent was odd, and she had been practicing it.

It had been strange for Minya. Her instincts were at war: a conditioned reflex that resisted sexual assault as blasphemy incarnate, versus the will to live.

Survival won. She would do nothing badly!

Jinny stood up, set her poncho in order, then sprinted west.

Minya screamed. She was too far to do anything but shout and point as she ran. A pair of supervisors, much closer, saw what was happening and ran too.

Jinny plunged through a last screen of foliage, into the sky.

Minya kept running. The supervisors (Haryet and Dloris, hardfaced jungle giants of indeterminate age) had reached the edge. Dloris swung a weighted line round her head, twice and out. Haryet waited her turn, then swung her own line while Dloris pulled. The line resisted as she pulled it in, then gave abruptly. Dioris reeled back, off balance.

Minya reached the edge in time to see the stone at the end of Haryet's line spin round Jinny. Dlonis threw her line while Jinny was still fighting Haryet's. Jinny thrashed, then went limp.

Haryet pulled hen in.

Jinny huddled on her side~ face buried in her arms and knees. By now they were surrounded by copsiks. While Dlonis gestured them away, Haryet rolled Jinny on her back, groped for hen chin, and pulled her face out of the protection of her arms. Jinny's eyes stayed clenched like fists

Minya said, "Madam Supervisor, a moment of your attention."

Dionis looked around, surprised at the snap in Minya's voice. "Later," she said.

Jinny began to sob. The sobs shook her like I)alton-Quinn Tree had shaken the day it came apart. Haryet watched for a time, impassively.

Then she spread a second poncho oven the girl and sat down to watch hen.

Dlonis turned to Minya. 'What is it?"

"If Jinny tries this again and succeeds, would it reflect badly on you?"

"It might. Well?"

"Jinny's twin sister is with the women who carry guests. Jinny has to see her."

"That's forbidden," the jungle giantess said wearily.