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“She has no willpower when it comes to any infant creature of whatever variety. She’s totally helpless.”
    “Helpless? Oh yeah?” her mother said, pretending outrage and giving her father a swat across the shoulder. He retaliated by grabbing her around the waist and tickling her until they both collapsed backwards onto the couch, where they laughed and tussled briefly like a pair of teenagers.
    “Well, in any case,” her father said, catching his breath, “it’s a fact that your mother’s the one who bartered with the ferry captain for her.” He hugged Mai to him again. “She’s a woman of many talents, your mom. We’re a lucky family to have her.” And he kissed his wife again. Longer this time, despite the fact that there were three other people right there in the room watching them.
    Growing up, Zenn had always shared her father’s sentiment. That to have someone like her mother, someone you could love so much, and who loved you back that way, was a remarkable and fortunate thing. At least, she’d felt that way until her mother was suddenly no longer with them. At that point, it became clear that to love someone that much, to love that selflessly… that was a frightening thing. So much for luck.
    Later, after her mother was gone, when she’d insisted she was old enough to start her exovet novitiate, her father had argued with her. Just like Otha, he said she was too young, it was too dangerous. But he’d already accepted the position with the colonial administration out on Enchara. They’d argued some more. And, just like Otha, she convinced him in the end, made him see what the training meant to her. The truth was, she didn’t really think he’d actually do it. But he did. He left. And she had stayed to begin her novice year; stayed and watched him board a ferry that disappeared into the Martian sky as she stood and watched him go. She’d actually managed not to cry until the ship was out of sight.
    Sometimes, she thought she understood what made him go, that he had no choice, that he couldn’t survive both his own pain and hers. At other times, she simply lost sight of this sort of understanding; as if a heavy fog had rolled in, obscuring the landmarks that had guided her at first. Then, she failed completely to see how he could have gone. And during those times, the hurt and anger would flow in with the fog that clouded her thoughts. It was then she reminded herself of the Rule: no attachments, no friends, no letting anyone in where they could maneuver close enough to deliver the blow they were certain, at some point, to deliver.
    Pretending not to notice the awkward silence that had grown between her and Otha, Zenn stooped to loop a harness strap over her shoulder and gave her uncle a look.
    “Ah, right,” Otha said, his cheerfulness now ever so slightly strained. “That hound’s eye won’t mend itself, will it? Let’s see if he’s forgiven you.”
    He helped Zenn heft the tank rig up onto her back. She winced silently as she pulled the straps tight on her bruised flesh and followed her uncle out into the sunlight. As they came to the holding pen, though, he stopped so abruptly she almost ran into him.
    “Nine Hells!” her uncle swore, whirled around and ran heavily past Zenn, back toward the infirmary. “I’ll get the tranq bow,” he shouted as he went by. “Tell Hamish. Now, girl.”
    Zenn had no idea what he was so agitated about – until she turned and saw the hound’s holding pen. It was vacant. That was bad enough. What she saw next was worse. Fifty yards beyond the pen, disappearing over the top of the compound’s east wall, was the chocolate-brown tip of the whalehound’s tail.

 
    THREE
    Zenn found Brother Hamish by himself in the garden, working manure into the soil. She was so out of breath she could hardly speak.
    “Whalehound…” she croaked, bent over, hands on knees, her aching leg forgotten. “Got loose! Went over the wall!”
    Hamish pivoted to face her,