3 x T

Je

Neither of the humans just out of cold sleep had recognized the metal knife for what it was?they were used to tools of bone and stone. But they caught on quickly. The man grunted in wonder as the keen blade slid through the meat. He grunted again, this time happily, when the first bite went into his mouth. Je

The primitives made the steaks vanish in short order. They inhaled the strawberries and ate the apples cores, stems and all. When they saw that Greenberg and Je

"Hunter-gatherers can't afford to waste any amount of food, no matter how small," the anthropologist said.

The man kept trying the edge of the knife with his thumb. The woman said something to him, rather sharply. With obvious reluctance, he held out the knife to Je

Je

When the primitives realized what she meant, they whooped with glee and pummeled her as they had Greenberg. The man also reached under her synthetic fur and squeezed her left breast. She knocked his hand away. He didn't try twice. She gave him points for getting the idea in a hurry.

She pointed to herself. "Je

"Bernard." Greenberg did the same thing.

The man's eyes lit up. He thumped his own chest. "Nangar," he declared.

He spoke to the woman. "Loto," she said, touching herself.

"I wonder if those are names or if they just mean 'man' and 'woman,'" an anthropologist radioed to Je

Language lessons went on from there, with parts of the body and the names of things close by. Nangar seemed to have an easier time picking up Spanglish words than Loto did.

"Maybe the tribe next door spoke a different language," the anthropologist suggested. "We think men traveled more widely through a tribal range than women, so he could be more used to using different words than she is."

After a while, Nangar pointed to the distant herds, which were actually holovid projections on a not-so-distant wall. With his own speech and many gestures, he got across the idea of hunting and then feasting. He gazed confidently at Greenberg all the while. Je

Greenberg gri

A few seconds later, a couple of the scientists came out from behind a boulder. They wore modern cold-weather gear. Nangar and Loto drew back in alarm. "Friends," Je

The primitives remained dubious until one of the anthropologists reached into her backpack and took out several pieces of roasted chicken. When she passed them to Loto and Nangar, she found that the way to their hearts lay through their stomachs. Although they'd eaten a good-sized meal not long before, they devoured the chicken and gnawed clean the bones the anthropologists discarded.

The woman who'd given them the treat looked faintly appalled. "The way they eat, it's a wonder they aren't two hundred kilos each."

"The fact that they aren't tells you how often?or rather, how seldom?they get the chance to eat like this," her male companion answered. She thought it over and nodded.

Seeing that friendly relations had been established between the primitives and the people whose job it would be to guide them into the modern worlds, Greenberg and Je

Je

She shook her head. "Do you?"

"No, not really," he said. "They do want us to stay on call for a few days, though, in case they run into trouble and need our familiar faces."

"I suppose that's fair enough." Je

"Normal life? What's that? I gave it up when I decided to become a trader. But I will say that the time I spent in the Foitani sphere turned out to be even farther from normal than I was quite braced for myself." Greenberg smiled and set his hand on her waist. "Not that all of it was bad, not by a long shot."

Her hand covered his. "No, not all of it was bad. We wouldn't have ended up together if they hadn't kidnapped me, and I'm glad we did. But I'm a whole lot gladder to be back on a human world again and to feel fairly sure no one's going to shoot at me or fire a missile at my ship in the next twenty minutes."

"Amen to that," he said. "All the same, I can't help wondering whether the kwopillot and the vodranet decided to talk things over or just slug it out."

"I wonder, too," Je

"Hello, dear," Ella Metchnikova said as her path crossed Je

"Set you up for a liver transplant?" Je

Ella laughed heartily. Despite mixological experiments too numerous to remember, her liver was still intact?unless, of course, this was her second or third by now. She said, "They're not as bad as all that. And bring your Bernard by. Perhaps he'd be interested in the recipe as something he could trade to, ah, aliens."

To unsuspecting aliens, Je

"Really? What an?interesting?arrangement. Do you plan on, ah, consoling yourself with someone else while he's off being primitive?" Ella's eyes went big and round.

"No," Je