"I think Evon will be here," the girl said too casually as they entered the forest and turned into a path that led to the glade where the elders had assembled.
He took her arm suddenly, and stopped in the pathway.
"Letha--you have worked for me many months."
She smiled very slowly, and lifted her hands to his face. He kissed her quietly, hating himself.
"It is ... _forbidden_ ... _verboten_...." There was no word in the tongue.
He swallowed hard. For the girl, "love" automatically settled everything, and consummation must follow. How could he explain.
"Letha--in your culture, 'life' is the highest value."
"How could it be otherwise? Love me, Meikl."
He took a deep breath and straightened. "You understand 'drama', Letha. I have watched your people. Their lives are continuous conscious play-acting. Your lives are a dance, but you know you are dancing, and you dance as you will. Have you watched our people?"
She nodded slowly. "You dance a different dance--act a different play."
"It's not a play, Letha. We act an _unconscious_ drama, and thus the drama becomes more important than living. And death takes precedence over life."
She shuddered slightly and stared into his eyes, unbelieving.
"Can you understand?--that I love you, and yet my ... my...." He groped for a word for "duty". "My death-allegiance to the ship-people takes precedence? I can neither take you nor remain with you."
Something went dead in her eyes. "Let us go to the glade," she said in a monotone. "It's growing late."
"_And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear, Edward, Edward? And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear, My dear son, now tell me, O?" "The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear, Mither, mither; The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear; Sic counsels ye gave to me, O!_"
The trouble had begun on the eighteenth day of the ninth month. A party of unidentified men had stolen into the occupied zone during the night. Without warning, they killed three guards, seized control of the dispensary, raided the pharmacy, taking the entire supply of fungus immunization serum, together with a supply of the deadly phials and needles. They stole a flyer and departed to the south, skimming low over the forest to avoid fire from the grounded fleet. The following day, a leaflet appeared, circulating among the fleet personnel.