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He said “No!” and drew away from her, but her hands, small and strong, drew him down close to her. She smiled at him and said, “I told Callista to tell you that I am willing, as it was told in the ballad of Hastur and Cassilda.” He looked around, and he could see Callista, looking at them and smiling…

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And he woke with a start of shock and shame, sitting up in bed and staring wildly around to reassurehimself that nothing had happened, nothing. It was daylight, and Ellemir, with a sleepy yawn, slid from thebed, standing there in her thin nightgown. Andrew quickly looked away from her.

She did not even notice—he was not a man to her at all— but would continue to walk around in front ofhim half dressed or undressed, keeping him continually on edge with a low-keyed frustration that was notreally sexual at all… He reminded himself that he was on
 
their
 
world, and it was for him to get used to
their
 
customs, not force his own on them. It was only his own state of frustration, and the shamingrealism of the dream, which made him almost painfully aware of her. But as the thought clarified in hismind, she turned slowly and looked full at him. Her eyes were grave, but she smiled, and suddenly heremembered the dream, and
 
knew
 
that she had shared it somehow, that his thoughts, his desire, hadwoven into
 
her
 
dreams.

What the hell kind of man am I, anyhow? My wife’s lying there sick enough to die, and I’m goingaround with a lech for her twin sister
.… He tried to turn away, hoping Ellemir would not pick up thethought.
 
My best friend’s wife
 
.

Yet the memory of the words in the dream hung in his mind:
 
I told Callista to tell you that I am willing

.…

She smiled at him, but she looked troubled. He felt that he ought to blurt out an apology for his thoughts. Instead she said, very gently, “It’s all right, Andrew.” For a moment he could not believe that she hadactually spoken the words aloud. He blinked, but before he thought what to say, she had gathered up herclothes and gone away into the bath.

He went quietly to the window and looked at the dying storm. As far as he could see, everything laywhite, faintly reddened with the light of the great red sun, peering faintly through the stained edges of theclouds. The winds had whipped the snow into ice-cream ridges, lying like waves of some hard whiteocean, sweeping back all the way to the distant blurring hills. It seemed to Andrew that the weatherreflected his mood: gray, bleak, insufferable.

How fragile a tie, after all, bound him to Callista! And yet he knew he could never go back. He haddiscovered too many depths within himself, too many alien strangenesses. The old Carr, the Andrew Carr of the Terran Empire, had wholly ceased to exist on that faraway day when Damon placed them allin rapport through the matrix. He closed his fingers on it, hard and chill in the little insulated bag aroundhis neck, and knew it was a Darkovan gesture, one he had seen Damon make a hundred times. In thatautomatic gesture, he knew again the strangeness of his new world.

He could never go back. He must make a new life for himself here, or go through what years remainedto him as a ghost, a nothingness, a nonentity.

Until a few nights ago he had believed himself well on the way to building his new life. He hadworthwhile work to do, a family, friends, a brother and sister, a second father, a loving and beloved wife. And then, in a blast of unseen lightning, his whole new world had crumbled around him and all thealienness had closed over him again. He was drowning in it, sinking in it… Even Damon, usually so closeand friendly, his brother, had turned cold and strange.

Or was it Andrew himself who now saw strangeness in everything and everyone?

He saw Callista stir, and, suddenly apprehensive lest his thoughts should disturb her, gathered up hisclothes and went away to bathe and dress.

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When he came back, Callista had been wakened, and Ellemir had readied her for the day, dressing herin a clean nightgown, washing her, braiding her hair. Breakfast had been brought, and Damon and Ellemirwere there, waiting for him around the table where the four of them had taken their meals during

Callista’s illness.

But Ellemir was still standing over Callista, troubled. As Andrew came in, she said, and her voice helddeep disquiet, “Callista, I wish you would let Ferrika look at you. I know she is young, but she wastrained in the Amazon’s Guild-house, and she is the best midwife we have ever had at Armida. She—”

“The services of a midwife,” said Callista, with a trace of wry amusement, “are of all things the last I

need, or am likely to need!”

“All the same, Callista, she is skilled in all manner of women’s troubles. She could certainly do more for

you than I. Damon,” she appealed, “what do you think?”

He was standing at the window, looking out into the snow. He turned and looked at them, frowning alittle. “No one has more respect than I for Ferrika’s talents and training, Elli. But I do not know if shewould have the experience to deal with this. It is not commonplace, even in the Towers.”

Andrew said, “I don’t understand this at all! Is it still only the onset of menstruation? If it is as serious asthis, perhaps,” and he appealed directly to Callista, “could it do any harm for Ferrika to look you over?”

Callista shook her head. “No, that has ended, a few days ago. I think”—she looked up at Damon,laughing—“I am simply lazy, taking advantage of a woman’s weakness.”

“I wish it were that, Callista,” Damon said, and he came and sat down at the table. “I wish I thought you would be able to get up today.” He watched her slowly, with lagging fingers, buttering a piece of the hot nut-bread. She put it to her mouth and chewed it, but Andrew did not see her swallow.

Ellemir broke a piece of bread. She said, “We have a dozen kitchen maids, and if I am out of the kitchenfor a day or two, the bread is not fit to eat!”

Andrew thought the bread was much as usual: hot, fragrant, coarse-textured, the flour extended with theground nut-meal which was the common staple food on Darkover. It was fragrant with herbs, and tastedgood, but Andrew found himself resenting the strange coarse texture, the unfamiliar spices. Callista wasnot eating either, and Ellemir seemed troubled. She said, “Can I send for something else for you, Callista?”

Callista shook her head. “No, truly, I can’t, Elli. I am not hungry—”

She had eaten almost nothing in days. In God’s name, Andrew thought, what ails her?

Damon said, with sudden roughness, “You see, Callista? It is what I told you! You have been a matrixworker how long—nine years? You know what it means when you cannot eat!”

Her eyes looked frightened. She said, “I’ll try, Damon. Really I will,” and took a spoonful of the stewedfruit on her plate, choking it down reluctantly. Damon watched her, troubled, thinking that this was notwhat he had intended, to force her to pretend hunger when she had none. He said, staring out over thewhipped-cream ridges of snow, purpling with the light, “If the weather would clear, I would send to Neskaya. Perhaps the
 
leronis
 
could come to look after you.”

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“It looks like clearing now,” Andrew said, but Damon shook his head.

“It will be snowing harder than ever by tonight. I know the weather in these hills. Anyone setting forth

this morning would be weathered in by midday.”

And indeed, soon after midday the snow began to drift down from the sky again in huge white flakes,slowly at first, then more and more heavily, in a resistless flood that blotted out the landscape and theridge of hills. Andrew watched it, as he went from barn-tunnels to greenhouses, going through themotions of supervising stewards and handymen, with outrage and disbelief. How could any sky hold somuch snow?

He came up again in late afternoon, as soon as he had completed the minimal work which was all thatcould be done these days. As always when he had been away from Callista for a little while, he wasdismayed. It seemed that even since this morning she had grown whiter and thinner, that she looked tenyears older than her twin. But her eyes blazed at him with welcome, and when he took her fingertips inhis, she closed them over his hand, hungrily.

He said, “Are you alone, Callista? Where is Ellemir?”

“She has gone to spend a little time with Damon. Poor things, they have had so little time together lately, one or the other of them is always with me.” She shifted her body with that twinge of pain which seemed never to leave her. “Avarra’s mercy, but I am weary of lying in bed.”

He stooped over her, lifted her in his arms. “Then I will hold you for a little while in my arms,” he said,carrying her to a chair near the window. She felt like a child in his arms, loose and limp and light. Herhead leaned wearily against his shoulder. He felt an aching tenderness, without desire—how could anyman trouble this sick girl with desire? He rocked her back and forth, gently.

“Tell me what is going on, Andrew. I have been so isolated; the world could have come to an end and I

would hardly have known.”

He gestured at the white featureless world of snow beyond the window. “Nothing much has beenhappening, as you can see. There is nothing to tell, unless you are interested in knowing how many fruitsare ripening in the greenhouse.”

“Well, it is good to know that they have not yet been destroyed by the storm. Sometimes the windows break, and the plants are killed, but it would be early in the year for that,” she said, and leaned wearily back against him, as if the effort of talking had been too much for her.

Andrew sat holding her, content that she did not draw away from him, that she seemed now to cravecontact with him as much as she had feared it before. Perhaps she was right: now that her normal maturecycles had begun again, with time and patience, the conditioning of the Tower could be overcome. Hereyes were closed, and she seemed asleep.

They sat there for some time, until Damon, abruptly coming into the room, stopped, in dismay andshock. He opened his mouth to speak, and Andrew caught directly from his mind the frightened urgency:

Andrew! Put her down, quickly, get away from her!

Andrew raised his head angrily, but at the very real distress in Damon’s thought he acted quickly, rising

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and carrying Callista to her bed. She lay still, unconscious, unmoving.

“How long,” Damon said evenly, “has she been like this?”

“Only a few minutes. We were talking,” Andrew said defensively.

Damon sighed. He said, “I thought I could trust you, I thought you understood!”

“She is not afraid of me, Damon, she
 
wanted
 
me to hold her!”

Callista’s eyes flickered open. In the room’s pale snowlight they looked colorless. “Don’t scold him, Damon, I was weary of lying in bed. Truly, I am better. I thought tonight I would send for my harp andplay a little. I am so tired of having nothing to do.”

Damon looked at her skeptically. But he said, “I will send for it, if you ask.”

“Let me go for it,” Andrew said. Surely, if she felt well enough to play her harp, she must be better indeed! He went down into the Great Hall, found a steward and asked for the Lady Callista’s harp. The man brought the small instrument, not much larger than a Terran guitar, in its carved wood case.

“Shall I carry it up for you,
Dom
 
Ann’dra?”

“No, I will take it”

One of the woman servants, behind the steward, said, “Bear our congratulations to the lady, and say thatwe hope she will soon be well enough to accept them in person.”

Andrew swore, unable to stop himself. Quickly he apologized—the woman had meant no harm. Andwhat else could they have thought? She had been abed for ten days, and no one had been asked to comeand nurse her, only her twin sister being allowed near. Could anyone blame them if they thought that

Callista was pregnant, and that her sister and her husband were taking great care that her child did notmeet the fate of Ellemir’s? At last he said, and knew his voice was unsteady, “I thank you for your…your kind wishes, but my wife has no such good fortune…” and he couldn’t go on. He accepted theirmurmured sympathy, and escaped quickly upstairs.

In the outer room of the suite, he stopped, hearing Damon’s voice raised in anger.

“It’s no good, Callista, and you know it. You can’t eat, you don’t sleep unless I drug you. I hoped it

would all sort itself out, after your cycles came on of their own accord. But look at you!”

Callista murmured something Andrew could not hear the words, only the protest in them.

“Be honest, Callista. You were
 
leronis
 
at Arilinn. If someone had been brought to you in this state, what

would you do?” A brief pause. “Then you know what I must do, and quickly.”

“Damon, no!” It was a cry of despair.

“
 
Breda
, I promise you, I will try—”

“Oh, Damon, give me a little more time!” Andrew heard her sobbing. “I’ll try to eat, I promise you. I
 
am