"I won't," Esmay said. "That's what my father said-"

"But religion . . ." He looked thoughtful. "Religious positions usually require some actual commitment of time and effort, Lieutenant. If you aren't there-"

Esmay thought suddenly of the spring and fall Eveners, when her great-grandmother had ridden out to do something-she didn't know what-in the fields. No one had mentioned that to her, but-

"It all happened so fast," she said. "And then I came back . . ." She hated the sudden pleading tone in her voice; and stopped short.

"You need to get it straightened out, whatever it is, before you marry young Serrano," he said.

"Not just because of regulations, but because you both need to know what you're getting into. And I see here you're in double jeopardy, with your father being a sector commander."

"Yes, sir," Esmay said. "But they knew that when I went into the prep school."

"But you weren't then about to marry one of the oldest families in Fleet," he said. His tone held no rancor, but the very matter-of-factness of it set a barrier of steel between her and what she hoped for.

Esmay nodded, and withdrew. Master Chief Cattaro, after rummaging in the Admin database for the correct form, gnawed the corner of her lip. "There's a procedure, Lieutenant . . . there's always a procedure. Let me just check . . ." Another dive into the database. "Ah. What I think will work is a 7653, an Application for Exception, Unspecified, and a 78B-4, an Incident Report, Personnel Infraction, Unspecified, and then you'll need a 9245 . . . no, actually, two of them. One to accompany each of the others." Chief Cattaro grinned, looking happier with each additional form.

"And it might be just as well to file your 8813-your application for permission for permanent bond-linked to the code tag for your pre-commissioning records, because that will have your prep- school classifications, and of course you'll need . . ."

"Chief, I'm not going to have time to do all that at once."

"Best get started then," Cattaro said. She had the quiet twinkle of the senior NCO who has just been able to dump a load of work on a junior officer. "I'll just pipe it to your desk, shall I? Or would you rather work it in here?"

She could always fill in the blanks while working on something else.

"My desk, please, Chief."

"Yes, sir.

Filling out the forms to Chief Cattaro's satisfaction kept her busy the rest of that shift and part of the next, along with her other work. For reasons known only to the forms designers in Personnel, none of the forms asked for the information in the same order, or even the same format, which made it impossible to simply port data from one to the other. Family name first here, but last there. Middle name or names as initials in this form, but spelled out in that one. Planet of origin by a code from a table, or spelled out, or by a code from another table, which didn't agree with the first.

They really did not want Landbrides to marry into Fleet, Esmay decided.

Barin's message cube-when she finally had time to put it in the reader-was less informative than she'd hoped. He loved her-she couldn't hear that too often-and he was still waiting to hear from his parents. He was afraid they'd be upset by the administrative decision to make him responsible for the support of the women brought back from Our Texas. It was going to be hard to convince Personnel to approve the paperwork for a status change, when clearly he couldn't afford any more dependents.

Esmay wondered if someone in Admin had gone bonkers. Why were they demanding that Barin pay support for these women? He had included the data he thought she'd need-evidently he hadn't yet

found the sections of the application which forbade her to exist, or him to marry her. He promised to write again, but pointed out that with his entire salary going to the support of the NewTex women, he would be limited to ship-to-ship transfers within the Fleet postal system.

Esmay added his information to her paperwork, and then completed what she could of her application, along with the belated NOTICE OF RELATIONSHIP papers. It was all so silly. They'd known she was a sector commander's daughter when they accepted her into Fleet, and Altiplano had no desire to influence the Familias Grand Council anyway. It had never even tried to get a Seat in Council. Why was it on the proscribed list? And if they were going to put Landbrides on, why hadn't they done the elementary research to find out that there was no such thing as a Landgroom?

Cursing the anonymous "they" in silence, Esmay finished the forms, stamped and thumb-sealed them, and took them back to the captain's office for his clerk to make the required copies and ready them for transit.

She went back to the rest of the message cube later. The former Rangers' wives, now settled uneasily in an apartment block on Rockhouse Major, were constantly asking Barin for assurances he could not provide.

"Grandmother knows why I did it-and agrees that it was justifiable under the circumstances-but she warned me that Fleet would not be pleased, no matter what kind of report she turned in.

Headquarters feels I overstepped my authority, and created a huge financial obligation for them, not to mention a publicity nightmare. They've insisted that I contribute to their maintenance, though my whole salary won't pay the grocery bills alone. Everyone-from the women to the admirals-seems to think it's my place to come up with a solution. And I'm stumped. Those women don't seem to be capable of anything but sitting around complaining, and now the civil authorities are jumping on me because they won't send their children to school."

Esmay thought of the women she'd seen in the shuttle during the evacuation: the long-sleeved, long- skirted dresses, the headscarves, the work-worn hands. If they were as religious as the Old Believers on Altiplano, they'd be very uncomfortable on a space station, or even one of the more-her mind struggled for awhile, looking for a different word, but finally settled on the first-advanced planets.

She hadn't thought much about the women and children removed-or rescued-on that mission since leaving the task force. She'd assumed the women who had been prisoners had received medical treatment, and that "someone" had done "something" about the others.

Apparently not. Though it was hardly fair to land all the responsibility on Barin, if he was going to be held accountable, then clearly she herself had to do something. What a nuisance it was, being stuck on a different ship! They couldn't just talk it over, share ideas, come up with solutions.

She prepared queries for Barin and the Fleet library-search service, and at the next downjump sent them off.

The idea woke her out of a sound sleep some nights later, and she lay there wide-eyed, amazed at herself. The women needed a place to live and raise their children, preferably on a planet. They needed a way to earn a living. Brun had suggested the latter, with her comments about their skill in handwork. And now Esmay had herself thought of a solution to the former problem. Altiplano. As the Landbride Suiza, she could settle them on Suiza lands. In their own village, if necessary, where they could follow their own customs. Their handwork could be exported, along with the genestock, to fill out their income beyond what they could produce from the land; she would be willing to give them a start of livestock from her own personal holdings. Their children could grow up as Altiplanans; in a few generations, they'd be assimilated completely.

The more she thought about it, the better it seemed. The women might even find husbands on Altiplano, if they wanted them. Since their beliefs fit somewhere on the great branching tree of religions that had grown out of Old Earth Christianity, surely they would find the tone of Altiplano's Old Believers congenial. She tried not to think of those passages in her child's history book about the religious disputes. Her great-grandmother had insisted that they were all the result of insufficient humility and excessive arrogance. And anyway, religious freedom was now

part of the Altiplanan legal code, though Altiplano lacked the diversity of culture of Fleet or the more cosmopolitan planets.

Since she couldn't go back to sleep, she turned on her desk unit and recorded a cube for Barin with the gist of her idea, then one for Luci, telling her cousin all about the wedding plans, and Barin's problems, and asking about vacancies on Suiza lands. In her mind's eye, she saw them settled somewhere in the south, in a tidy little village of stone houses, with kitchen gardens.

Something very like what Barin had described as the households they'd come from.

By the time she'd populated their pastures with Cateri goats and cattelopes, and imagined them all cheerful and productive, with laughing children playing in the lanes, she was sleepy again. She went back to bed sure that all problems had solutions and this one had just been solved.

Next morning she was not quite as sure-she thought she remembered that they were free-birthers, or at least their men were-but she put the cubes in the outgoing mail collection anyway, and went on with her work.

ALTIPLANO, ESTANCIA SUIZA.

Luci Suiza came through the front hall on her way in from the polo fields-she needed a shower before the Vicarios family showed up for dinner, and had let Esmay's half-brother ride her pony cool. That was one reason, and the other was that she'd seen the little red mail van driving up to the house. Philip had been sending her a note every day; when she was lucky she got to them before anyone else. She picked up his note, and a message cube from Esmay, and took them up to her room.

She read the note before she showered, stripping off her sweaty clothes and tingling all over from the phrases he'd used, as well as the cooler air wafting in through the window. Tonight-tonight the parents would have their final meeting, and after that, they would be betrothed.

After her shower, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, Luci fed Esmay's cube into the reader in her room, and brushed her hair as the message came up. Esmay was fine; she hadn't heard back from Barin about his family yet; Brun had sent her gorgeous samples of embroidery and sketches for a gown; Fleet had a lot of silly rules about who could marry whom, so she was having to fill out lots of forms . . . Luci paused, pinned up her hair, and glanced at the clock. She still had time.

She made a long arm, pulled her cosmetics closer to the cube reader, and tried to do her makeup and watch the message at the same time.

Fleet didn't approve of officers marrying Landbrides. So resign, Luci thought to herself, and sure enough the next bit was a long, rambling apology and then the admission that Esmay thought she should resign. Was Luci interested?

Luci was interested; Luci heaved a sigh at her absent cousin, and applied lip color. No matter what anyone said, there was no way to play polo and end up with soft moist lips, without using cosmetics. The message continued; Luci kept an eye on the clock. She liked her cousin; she admired her intensely, but Phil would be here in twenty-five minutes.

Esmay's wonderful idea of settling the women from Our Texas and their children on Suiza lands took her by surprise; the eyeliner she'd been applying so carefully swiped up and away, a dark streak across her face before she caught herself. What?! Nineteen women, and their children-dozens of children-all to be settled on Suiza lands? Free-birthers, from a planet with a barbarous religious cult . . . she could just imagine what the priests would say about that! Esmay babbled on about their handwork skills, their experience on low-tech planets. We are not low-tech, Luci thought angrily. Idiot. Fool.

Then she caught sight of her face in the mirror, and the clock, and the anger roared in her like a brushfire. Esmay had no right! Esmay was not a proper Landbride-no one who really understood, who really cared, could have considered that for an instant . . .

Luci dashed into the bathroom, nearly trampling two of the younger children.

"Luci, what happened to your-"

"Be quiet!" she snarled at them, and scrubbed the makeup off her face, leaving streaks on the facecloth. Stupid Esmay. Ridiculous Esmay. It was a good thing she'd left, and a good thing she wanted to resign as Landbride, and Luci would pluck her hair herself if she had a chance.

When she got back to her room and looked out the window to see if the Vicarios vehicle was coming yet, the alternating blue and gold of shadow and late sun streaking the grass of the polo fields stabbed her heart. It was so beautiful, so beautiful it hurt. How could Esmay not want this? How could she care so little, that she would think of violating the land for a bunch of outlanders?

She rested her forearms on the windowsill and drank in the cool air scented with early roses and apple blossom. Somewhere in the distance, horses whinnied; the grooms would be mixing evening feeds. This was what she wanted, what she had always wanted-well, this and Philip to share it with. Land to cherish and nourish and protect, beauty to nurture, the ancient cycles of the land.

Light reflected from something moving on the road, then flashed straight in her eyes when the vehicle turned into their drive. The Vicarios, no doubt, unless it was her father returning late from the city. No time now for cosmetics, though she touched her chapped lips with color again.

The blue-and-white overtunic and white skirt of the courted maiden. After tonight, she would wear the blue skirt of the bride-to-be.