Shassa, and you have no name."

Grady did not say anything, because a Kya cannot hear the words of a man without a name; besides, there was nothing to say, though a great deal to think about. The Berenice was due in four days. Four days during which a man without a name would have to avoid the custom which decreed that such a man must be killed. Killed as soon as possible, because each day he continued to live was a day which must be removed from the calendar, a day on which no man's birth date might be celebrated, or any animal killed for food, or any root taken from a garden.

Grady turned, and walked slowly, with a stiff back, down the path away from the Chief's house. To run, or to show fear, would be fatal; the Kya were themselves in a state of shock at the thing which had happened, and it would be an hour or more before they began to prepare for what they had to do. Therefore, Grady held his spine straight, feeling a cold spot between his shoulderblades where the first iron-headed arrow might strike in.

Ahead of him, through the village, the silent children ran on light feet, darting into the houses and out again—the children, who were the bearers of news. He saw three of them dash toward the agency, and enter it; and in a moment, as he came up the path, Shallra came out on the porch, carrying a clay pot in her hands.

"You who were Kotasa," she said, "take this, and drink it to free me of your name."

It was the standard form of divorce among the Kya, and if the eyes of Shallra had not been bright with tears, Grady might have slipped. He took the clay pot, but he did not drink, because he could smell the faint and bitter odor about it, which was not the odor of the fruit wine that it should have held.

"Why?" he asked her, quietly.

"Because it is an easier death than the knife and the arrow," she said, and added, "When you were Kotasa, you were—a good man for me. Drink the wine." She said it pleadingly. He shook his head.

"I am sorry," Shallra said, and there is nothing harder for a Kya to say. But she added something even harder for a Kya woman to say; his name, his proper name, which she had always known but could never use. Then she walked away, and out of Grady's life, because he was now a man without a name.

He set the pot down carefully on the agency's steps and went inside. As he closed the door, there was a high, 

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