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."He nods pleasantly.I bite off the impulse to add that my honey business has made all the difference, paid for all the little extras in this house."Have you heard anymore about reassignment," I ask."No, just that they've got some sort of committee to handle it.Theresa, come out of there, we have to go.""I'm on the committee," I say, sharply."What? You are?" he says, and I feel as if I really have his attention for the first time since he walked in."Why?""I volunteered."Goats run across the kitchen floor and Theresa backs out from under the table, blue bottom appearing first.Alexi and I are looking at each other and my heart is pounding.He is looking at me and what is he thinking; what right does she have? Is he wondering if this is some sort declaration I am making? Is he angry at me? I want to look down and I can feel heat in my face."You didn't have to do that," he says."I'm running for a position on council," I say, "it will help to look as if I am involved."He looks away first, perplexed."Oh.I didn't know you wanted to be on council.""There's a lot you may not know, Alexi," I say sharply.Only afterwards do I realize that he might mistake that to mean something about my feelings for him.Which is not what I mean at all.And then suddenly I am tired of them.I want to be finished with this conversation, I want them out of my house.Theresa has gotten one of the nanny-kids to stay still and she is petting it."What's its name?" she asks."Theresa-the-goat," I answer."It's Cleopatra's baby." I meant that to be a surprise, a big deal, but it comes out matter of fact.""That's my name!" Theresa says."How many people are they sending?" he asks."The request is for five, but the committee hasn't met yet.""Is it two years? Really?""I don't know," I answer, "Philippa is going to send me the notice, but I haven't seen anything.""Come on, Theresa," Alexi says, "we have to head on to New Arizona." But the peremptory note is gone from his voice.He's off balance."Can Theresa-the-goat come with us?""No," he says, "she has to stay with Martine and Cleopatra, she's only a baby.""Can she come to the transport with us?" Theresa begs."All right," I say, "but I'll have to carry her." I scoop her up and we walk out to the transport.Goats aren't lap animals and the kid struggles on and off all the way.Theresa skips and bounces in the martian gravity.Alexi alone seems strained.He opens the hatch on the transport and lifts Theresa in and I see a big duffel bag behind the seats.I'm surprised only because I remember how little he had the first time they came; a little bag with a night gown and a change of clothes for Theresa, a change of coveralls for himself.He is looking at me oddly, and I think he is going to say something.But apparently he changes his mind and says, "Bye Martine, thanks for everything." Then he grabs the handle by the door and swings himself into the cab.Theresa waves energetically and blows me a kiss, but I see only Alexi's profile as he starts the transport and shifts into forward.Another airleak, this one comes in at about 10:30 at night and it's after 1:00 when I find it.When I first started it took me six, seven hours to find an airleak, but by now I know where to look.Still, I'm worn out when I finally get to bed.I wake up from a dream of forests and squirrels; the red fox squirrels from where I grew up, big-eyed and leaping from tree branch to tree branch.I am standing in the passageway that leads from the house to the goatyard, standing barefoot in my nightgown.I haven't been sleepwalking in years and it scares me a great deal.The Committee on the allocation of people for the water reclamation project finally meets.Cord has been unable to make time until a week before the next council meeting.He doesn't bother to hide his irritation at being on the committee.He's middle-height and stocky, an old-timer.During the height of Cleansing Winds he was publicly accused and convicted of anti-revolutionary behavior in one of the infamous 'People's Trials,' a polite euphemism for trial by unruly mob.He was badly beaten, I'm told.It explains his attitude toward the commune.We don't like each other.Cord doesn't really care for anyone, he and his wife are still married but the gossip is that their eldest son sleeps in the front room so his father can have a room away from his mother.I don't care for Cord because when the Army moved against the W.P.B.(Winds of the People Brigades) we arrested people who'd run those trials and I'd seen the Army allow them to be tried by the same mob.That eye for an eye justice doesn't seem right to me.As an officer I allowed it because it served as a kind of catharsis for the people, but Cord reminded me of decisions I'd never been proud of.Phillipa is a teacher, a newcomer; she's been here six years.She's married to an old-timer, a man twenty-five years older than she is.She's in her early thirties but her hair is graying and she wears it pulled back.It's a matronly look.I don't know her very well, our paths don't often cross.We were in the dormitory together or I wouldn't know her at all.First we discuss the requirements, or at least Phillipa and I do.Five people to be sent to the reclamation project at the pole.It's understood that landholders don't go.What would happen to my goats, or Phillipa's corn if we were gone for two years?"So it'll have to be five from the dorms," Phillipa says."And it probably should be newcomers who've been here a year or less since the others are eligible for a holding after three years."But we never have a holding ready," I point out.Phillipa shrugged."We might."We have a list of all the newcomers who've been there a year or less.There are four.Alexi's name is first on the list."Well, that's four," Phillipa says."What happens if we can only come up with four?""This man, this Dormov fellow, I know him," I say."He's been relocated four times, he's a widower and he's got a six-year-old daughter.The counselors on Earth said that all this dislocation was bad for her.""But we've only got four," Philippa says."Besides, he'll earn credit.They get hazard credit.That'll help him get started when he gets back, and we'll keep the daughter at the creche.What I'm really worried about is that there's only four.New Arizona will give us hell if we don't come up with five.""So much for equality," Cord mutters."What?" Philippa says."Send the newcomers.It's like a draft.The people like Aron Fahey never go.""Aron Fahey is a landholder," Philippa says."So whose to say he's any better than this comrade with the daughter?"Cord is an unexpected and not altogether wanted ally."So you think landholders should be considered, too?" Philippa says dryly.Cord sits up, "Yes, I do." He looks straight at her, malice glinting, "I think you, Martine, and I should be considered.And the Fahey clan and the Mannheims and everybody else.""I suspect that would be thrown right out of council," Philippa says."Perhaps it should be brought up, anyway," Cord says."Well then, why don't you make the report," Phillipa suggests."I'll do that," Cord says.And that is the committee meeting.I don't know what to do.Cord's idea is ridiculous.He'll raise it, everybody will be made uncomfortable.Aron or someone will quote 'The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.' And the four newcomers will go.We'll discuss what to do about the fifth person and what will happen if we only send four.I go home.I'm tired and I keep thinking about the look on Alexi's face the night he came alone to fix the separator.How different he turned out to be than the way I thought of him when I first met him-the hidden bitterness, and the awkwardness the last time I saw him.The bitterness doesn't surprise me, scratch the surface and it seems a lot of people are bitter.And why not?I go down and feed my goats.I spend some time down there just fussing so as to be near them.I like goats
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