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biggest chunk of the answers. Valcarenghi listened from a cushion on the floor, one arm around Laurie, the other holding his wine glass. We were not the first Talents to visit Shkea, he told us. Nor the first to claim the Shkeen were manlike.
    “Suppose that means something,” he said. “But I don't know. They're not men, you know. No, sir. They're much more social, for one thing. Great little city builders from way back, always in towns, always surrounding themselves with others. And they're more communal than man, too. Cooperate in all sorts of things, and they're big on sharing. Trade, for instance—they see that as mutual sharing."
    Valcarenghi laughed. “You can say that again. I just spent the whole day trying to work out a trade contract with a group of farmers who hadn't dealt with us before. It's not easy, believe me. They give us as much of their stuff as we ask for, if they don't need it themselves and no one else has asked for it earlier. But then they want to get whatever they ask for in the future. They expect it, in fact. So every time we deal we've got a choice; hand them a blank check, or go through an incredible round of talks that ends with them convinced that we're totally selfish."
    Lya wasn't satisfied. “What about sex?” she demanded. “From the stuff you were translating last night, I got the impression they're monogamous."
    “They're confused about sex relationships,” Gourlay said. “It's very strange. Sex is sharing, you see, and it's good to share with everyone. But the sharing has to be real and meaningful. That creates problems."
    Laurie sat up, attentive. “I've studied the point,” she said quickly. “Shkeen morality insists they love everybody . But they can't do it, they're too human, too possessive. They wind up in monogamous relationships, because a really deep sex-sharing with one person is better than a million shallow physical things, in their culture. The ideal Shkeen would sex-share with everyone, with each of the unions being just as deep, but they can't achieve that ideal."
    I frowned. “Wasn't somebody guilty last night over betraying his wife?"
    Laurie nodded eagerly. “Yes, but the guilt was because his other relationships caused his sharing with his wife to diminish. That was the betrayal. If he'd been able to manage it without hurting his older relationship, the sex would have been meaningless. And, if all of the relationships had been real love-sharing, it would have been a plus. His wife would have been proud of him. It's quite an achievement for a Shkeen to be in a multiple union that works."
    “And one of the greatest Shkeen crimes is to leave another alone,” Gourlay said. “Emotionally alone. Without sharing."
    I mulled over that, while Gourlay went on. The Shkeen had little crime, he told us. Especially no violent crime. No murders, no beatings, no prisons, no wars in their long, empty history.
    “They're a race without murderers,” Valcarenghi said. “Which may explain something. On Old Earth, the same cultures that had the highest suicide rates often had the lowest murder rates, too. And the Shkeen suicide rate is one hundred percent."
    “They kill animals,” I said.
    “Not part of the Union,” Gourlay replied. “The Union embraces all that thinks, and its creatures may not be killed. They do not kill Shkeen, or humans, or Greeshka."
    Lya looked at me, then at Gourlay. “The Greeshka don't think,” she said. “I tried to read them this morning and got nothing but the minds of the Shkeen they rode. Not even a yes-I-live."
    “We've known that, but the point's always puzzled me,” Valcarenghi said, climbing to his feet. He went to the bar for more wine, brought out a bottle, and filled our glasses. “A truly mindless parasite, but an intelligent race like the Shkeen are enslaved by it. Why?"
    The new wine was good and chilled, a cold trail down my throat. I drank it, and nodded, remembering the flood of euphoria that had swept over us