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because she was using words which were not in the limited vocabulary she had learned from the disks. It was not the words which startled her as much as the rhythm of them which seemed to come so easily to her lips now.
    After a few minutes, Margaret realized that she had more of a vocabulary than could be explained by living on Darkover for her first five years. This was not a child’s lexicon, but that of an adult. At last, she understood that she must have heard Dio and the Old Man talking in the night—the walls of Thetis homes are thin and light, to let the breezes rush through them—while she slept, and learned the sweet rhythm of the language. It seemed likely that if she had had occasion to use it before, she would have been chattering like a magpie. Magpie. That was one of Ivor’s names for her, a way he teased her out of her solemnity when she was in the dumps.
    All these thoughts dashed across her mind as she spoke of Thetis, of the University world of Coronis, where she had gone to school, of Rigel Nine, and the Congress of the Confederation, where her father helped make the laws governing the Terran Federation. She told them about Relegan, the last planet she and Ivor had visited, and about anything else that rose in her tired brain.
    The boy was so serious Margaret was not even tempted to “yarn” him. He fired questions at her concerning metals and mechanics, and she was glad for the first time that “Basic Technology of the Big Ships” was a required first-year course everywhere. Enlightened self-interest, of course. The entire Federation staffed its ships by feeding the curiosity of children like Ethan. She did not tell him that he could never leave his world without the tools of reading and writing which the simple signs outside shops led her to suspect would never be available to him.
    The streets seemed a little wider here, the structures made of roughcut stone. Wooden doors were painted brightly, and there was a smell of damp stone and animal droppings and garbage. They passed an eating house, and the smell of the food was tantalizing. Margaret realized that she was now very hungry. The smell was familiar, too. She could almost name the dish, though she had not eaten it since she was tiny. Oh, well, they said the mid-brain—and the sense of smell was a very primitive part of that—never forgot anything. Perhaps it was true.
    She ignored her hunger and her tiredness and forced herself to go on amusing, or instructing, the boy. Professor Davidson stumbled along beside her, listening mutely. Geremy had somehow managed to get him to surrender his precious guitar, and now also lent him his arm.
    “Margaret, are we going much farther? I seem to be a bit short of breath.”
    “I don’t know. Ethan, how close are we to Music Street?”
    “Only one more street, vai domna. ” This was a new honorific. She vaguely knew it meant something like “Highly Honored Lady” and was the same one that would be used to a Princess or a Keeper. What the devil is a Keeper? She felt as if the answer were just on the edge of her consciousness, something vitally important which she could not seize in her near exhaustion.
    “Just a little farther, Ivor.” She spoke in Standard for the professor’s benefit, then turned back to Geremy and spoke in her much improved Darkovan. “It will be good to be out of the cold and rain,” she added, for an icy drizzle had begun in the last few minutes. “We just spent the last year on a very warm world, and it is hard for him, you see.” This place seems colder than Zandru’s hells . . . He has whips or something, doesn’t he?
    The half memories were maddening now. Margaret could no longer tell what she was remembering and what she had picked up from the language and culture disk. She gave it up and wished her mind would let go until she had had some good food and sleep. “It seems very late. Will your parents be worried?” The lads looked young to her, and the dark