When the afternoon was cold, she would creep beneath his blanket and, because he couldn't bear her shocked expression when he shoved her out, he would turn his face to the wall and review navigation problems. It was true, the way the farm was going, he'd probably end back with the space bums never knowing which vector series was correct.

When the seventh month passed, he began to worry. The _Doric_ couldn't go much longer without supplies. If they'd hit it rich, they'd still have to send the ship back, they would have to add water on his planet; then they would take the girl to Earth and he could breathe again.

Now when she ran suddenly and threw her arms about him, it was quite plain she was not motivated by childish affection. He began to take long walks, to try hiding from her, for she pestered him continually. He would run away until his lungs were bursting and hear a little chirp and she would be peering around a tree, without her dress of course.

"You're like a deer through the woods," he'd laugh, for she would smile so prettily that all the anger drained out of him. Then she would crawl forward pretending she was stalking a mouse and he would jump up and start walking again.

She learned nothing these days, in fact he thought she was less capable than a month ago. She helped him gather seeds as usual and then, when he sent her to feed the chickens, he discovered she was chewing the seeds herself, although he fed her whenever she patted her stomach. One morning his favorite young rooster was gone, but he found its feet on top of the empty freezers and the woods were adrift with feathers.

He asked her and she nodded and covered her face with her skirt. "Why?" he asked, "Hungry?" She shrugged; all of her gestures were his. He saw himself in them. Suddenly he realized he had not thought of his brother Harry and the flaming heat exchanger room for months. I've traded one pain for another, he mused, and did not have the heart to slap her for killing the rooster.

Another thing that amazed him: he had never given her a name. "Harriet," he said, pointing at her, but she shook her hair in a swirl about her head; she was nameless as the tree was nameless; it had cling peach characteristics but there were non-Earthly shapes to its leaves and the ripening fruits were blue. He didn't press the matter; with the two of them, names were unnecessary. When one called it was for the other.

He learned she behaved in cycles. For several weeks she 

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