Bible. Aaron and Kazunzumi sang on in the heathen tongue about weather, beasts, and field-crops.

The Sarki leaned forward to examine Aaron's beard and shaven upper lip, once; and smiled. The Murnan does not wear such. He looked at Martha more casually now, seeing that the husband was not disgraced by his wife's naked face; and remarked on the whiteness of her skin in the same tones he'd mentioned Wutzchen's remarkable girth.

Aaron asked when the snows would cease, when the earth would thaw. The Sarki told him, and said that the land here was as rich as manure. Gradually the talk worked round to problems involving carpenters, nails, lumber, hinges—and money. Aaron was pleased to discover that the natives thought nothing of digging a cellar and raising a barn in midwinter, and that workers could be easily hired.

Suddenly Sarki Kazunzumi stood and slapped his palms together. The tent flap was shoved open. Bowed servants, who'd shivered outside for over an hour, placed their master's presents on the sack table, on the twig floor, even beside Martha on the bed. There were iron knives, a roast kid, a basket of peanuts, a sack of roasted coffee beans, a string of dried fruit, and a tiny earthware flask of perfume. There was even a woolen riga for Aaron, black, suggesting that the Survey had said a bit to the natives about Amish custom; and there were bolts of bright-patterned cloth too worldly for aught but quilts and infant-dresses, brightening Martha's eyes.

Aaron stood to accept the guest gifts with elaborate thanks. Sarki Kazunzumi as elaborately bemeaned his offerings. "Musa the carpenter will appear on tomorrow's tomorrow," he said. "You will, the Mother willing, visit me in Datura tomorrow. We will together purchase lumber worthy of my friend-neighbor's barn-making. May the Mother give you strength to farm, Haruna! May the Mother grant you the light of understanding!"

"Sannu, sannu!" Stoltzfoos responded. He stood at the door of his tent, holding his lantern high to watch the Sarki and his servants ride off into the darkness.

"Er iss en groesie Fisch, nee?" Martha asked.

"The biggest fish in these parts," Aaron agreed. "Did you understand our talk?"

"The heathen speech is hard for me to learn, Stoltz," Martha admitted, speaking in the dialect they'd both been reared to. "While you had only the alien speech to study, I spent my time learning to grow the buglets and tell the various sorts apart. Besides, unser 

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