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it.”
    “Cannibalism!”
    “You could call it that. But use it or not, your father will not live again. None of the men will. Wouldn't they prefer to see that at least their wives and children live?”
    “Yes, they would,” Spirit said. “Oh, God, I'm going to throw up!”
    “Try to stifle it,” Helse said. “You can't afford to lose it.”
    There could be two meanings there, too. Spirit managed to keep her gorge down. “But if we do that--what does that make us?”
    “Survivors,” Helse said succinctly.
    Spirit looked at Hope. “That's why he screamed! He knew--on some level.”
    “He knew,” Helse agreed. “But not consciously. Only the women understood the message, at first. Hope was merely the messenger.”
    “Not the originator,” Spirit agreed.
    “I think Hope will not like this, when he wakes.”
    “Microscopic wonder! I can't stand it.”
    “I think we will have to help him. I'm less emotionally involved, because I have no relatives on the bubble, but I'm appalled. It is worse for you--and I think will be worse yet for him. He-- feels so strongly.”
    Spirit knew what she meant. Everyone had feelings, but Hope was in a class by himself. “Yes.” Then she sniffed. “What's that smell?”
    “Fresh meat,” Helse said. “We shall have to eat it.”
    “But there's no--”
    “The women have been out to fetch it. They are preparing it. They are sparing us that.”
    This time Spirit's gorge filled her mouth. She clapped both hands over it and forced herself to control her heaves and swallow it back down. This was like rape, only at the other end. Necessary.
    Hope woke, perhaps stirred by the sounds of her struggle. Fortunately he was distracted by the sight of Helse in feminine apparel. His gaze fixed on her, while Spirit got herself back in order. “You're beautiful,”
    he murmured.
    Helse smiled, being beautiful. “Thank you.”
    Then he looked at Spirit. “You look serious.”
    Spirit forced herself to speak. “We have food now. You--you can smell it.”
    “That's great! But why aren't you eating it instead of sitting here with me?”
    How should this be broached? They couldn't express phony delight; he would see through it immediately.
    But Helse was right: they would have to eat it. So she started cautiously. “We're--we're not sure we should use it.”
    He frowned. “Where is it from?”
    Helse forced a laugh. “From your vision, Hope.”
    “You think I made that up?”
    “No,” Spirit said. “I saw our father sit up and talk to you.” That was an exaggeration. For one thing, she wasn't even sure it was their father's body he had gotten entangled with.
    “I hauled him up. He couldn't have--”
    “But I do believe you,” Spirit said. Because she knew that Hope would never make something like that up. He was honest to a fault. He had surely had a vision. “Father gave you a message, and Mother understood it.”
    He didn't want to get it. “He showed me an empty hand.”
    “He showed you his hand,” she agreed. Then, carefully, the two of them herded him into the unkind realization. He had no choice but to accept it.
    So it was that they ate the meat. The women cooked it on candle flames and on bits of wood from furniture, and served it in very small portions, so that it was impossible to tell from what part of what animal it might have come. The women ate with the same pretense of unconcern they had affected after submitting to rape, and that told Spirit a lot. She did get sick, and so did Hope, but they both returned gamely to eat again, until they were able to hold it down. After a few days the horror receded somewhat, and became a matter of course.
    But for a long time Spirit dreamed of that empty hand Hope had described. It was in its dread fashion her last memory of their father. She knew she wasn't alone; some of the other children evinced odd and ugly symptoms of the underlying guilt for the manner of their survival. But there was no alternative.
    Jupiter grew in the