"I'm not."

Peri wondered if the journey would ever end, for having gone up the side of the mountain, they came down on the other, around a second and third. She was also incredibly relieved that she had not been required to make such a long trip her first time on a real horse.

"Is there a reason the station is so far from your head-quarters?" Peri asked.

"It's not as if we have the heli in service, but one of the vanes has crazed. I picked up the replacement from the cargo bay." He pumped a thumb toward the roof. "The primitive contributes to the sophisticated from time to time." He grinned at her and pointed to a bright tangle of lights some distance ahead of them. "We're nearly there."

As they neared their destination, the orange of the main illumination surrounding the crippled heli also lit up some of the other buildings in the complex. Several were familiar to her from her reading - large barns, feedstores, the stark rails and posts of pastures, and long low buildings, some showing lighted windows.

"I'll drop you off first," Monty said as if conferring a favor.

Peri did not take offense. If the Preserve had only the one airborne vehicle, naturally its repair would take priority over a lowly recruit.

But she was pleasantly surprised when the vehicle stopped at the door of what was obviously a row of individual accommodations.

"We may work rough and hard, but you got your own pad and the chow's top quality," Monty said. "Get your sleep. You'll rise and shine with the rest of us in the morning."

Peri unbuckled the safety harness and got out stiffly, grabbing her pak. Reaching across her vacated seat, Monty hauled the door shut, leaving her standing in the roadway, coughing in the dust the tires churned up. She walked up the three steps onto the long covered porch and felt around for the door's thumb plate. She couldn't find one in the dark and was beginning to be irritated when she noticed a knob on the left-hand side of the door. With nothing to lose, she turned it and the door swung in, To her surprise, lights came up immediately. Compared to her family's quarters in Jerhattan, this was palatial. Two big rooms, three by four meters each, separated by a small food dispensary and a sanitary unit. The first room was clearly a living space, complete with a communications center in one wall, and the second was for sleeping with all its amenities clearly displayed. No wall units here. The bed looked terribly inviting. Peri made short work of her necessary ablutions, removed her footgear, pulled up the covering, and laid herself down with a grateful sigh on the bed.

In what seemed the shortest possible space of time, a klaxon startled her into full wakefulness.

"Wakey-wakey-wakey! All hands ready at oh-six-thirty at the barn." The voice was inescapable and shock had Peri stumbling out of the bed, pawing through her pack to find work clothing.

An odd noise and appetizing odor made her inspect the food dispenser to discover a mug of dark brown liquid. The liquid was scaldingly hot and rather bitter, but she recognized and welcomed the caffeine jolt it contained.

As she stepped out of her quarters, she was even more surprised to see only the faintest tinge of light in the eastern sky. Lights were on all over the complex, figures purposefully heading toward the biggest barn. The air chilled her through the light fabric of her shirt. Why had she not realized this place would not be element-protected? Shivering, she took time to retrieve the only outer garment she possessed and then ran, for the warmth, slightly out of breath as she joined the others.

"Okay, folks," said a big man, jumping to a crate, holding up his hands. "Monty says there's fencin' down on the station road and there's buffaloes loose. Josh, take a team an' check it out. Main job today is rounding up beef stock for the Centauri shipment. We'll work the north two hundred. Before the heli vane cracked, Barty spotted most of what we need in Crooked Canyon." A groan rippled through the twenty or so facing him. "Tam, Peri arrived last night so she's yours. You others can meet the pretty li'l gal later. Right now, roll 'em"

To Peri's shock, no one went into the barn for a horse. They moved to the right as lights came up over extensive parking racks for two- and three-wheeled vehicles, some with sidecars already loaded with fencing and other equipment. Helmets and goggles were donned and the vehicles revved up, spoiling the air with exhaust fumes as the bikes - yes, the archaic name popped into Peri's mind - crisscrossed each other's paths with seeming disregard for safety before they split into two groups: one going down the right-hand road and the other straight across the grassy land that headed north.

"I'm Tambor," a voice said beside her, and a hand, gloved as they all seemed to be on this Preserve, was jutted at her.

She took the hand, steeling herself for another viselike grip, and gave as good as she received. Tambor was a wizened man, his face grooved with lines so that his age could not be determined. He wore the same worn workgarb as the others, the broad-brimmed hat, and the gloves.

"You look a strong young 'un," he said, appraising her with shrewd if bloodshot eyes. "Let's see if you're worth your salt."

Did everyone use ungrammatic speech, well sprinkled with archaic idioms? Considering the strong scientific background required by the Preserve, she had not expected the vernacular to be so conspicuous.

"You're lucky," he added, gesturing for her to accompany him to the barn. "We've only one more passel of mares to ship out. Just got this one lot left to be conditioned for their ride to Centauri. Cattle are put in coldsleep, but the bosses ride first class. With a li'l help from us."

They entered the barn now by the inset door. Simultaneously lights came up along the aisle and the odor, long remembered, of horse and manure assailed Peri's olfactory senses. Then she stared, for her recollection of stabling facilities from textbooks did not match with those she now beheld.

There were fifteen very narrow straight stalls on either side of the main aisle, which was not more than a meter wide. She had assumed that the Preserve would follow the traditional ways of stable management: big loose boxes filled with straw, high ceilings, and wide corridors. In confusion, she turned to Tambor, who had been waiting for some reaction from her.

"This is a conditioning barn, gal," he said. "So we gotta get these critters used to the shipboard facilities, hygiene, and exercise. This is where they lam how. C'mon."

He beckoned for her to follow him up a narrow steel ladder to an open control facility. There was one chair at the console and a stool, which he motioned for her to pull up beside him. Below, the horses were nickering.

"They know what's up. Okay down there, gals? Time for your dance step."

He initiated a program and as Peri watched, astounded, jets of water sprayed over the rubber matting under the animals. Then from the front of each stall a bar began a slow passage to the aisle, pausing briefly as it touched the front hooves, which the horses dutifully lifted - just like a dance step, in fact. The bars continued sweeping toward the aisle where flaps suddenly opened to receive both droppings and soiled water. The bars retracted, the horses politely lifting their feet over it. The flaps closed and Peri could hear the faint rumbling of conveyor belts.

"On the ship the muck is processed, moisture recycled and the roughage compressed into cubes about so big" - he encompassed the appropriate space between thumb and forefinger -"and stored to introduce Terran bacteria into the new soil. We just compress it and use it as fertilizer in the spring. Now," he went on as the nickering below became insistent, "they get their reward."

His gnarled fingers ran over the keys and initiated another rumbling, this time over the horses' heads. They looked up expectantly. Feed cascaded into mangers and the horses began eating with stampings of pleasure and much shifting of their haunches.

"Now we gotta do the same in the sheep and goat house. Then, by the time we're finished, it'll be time for a snack fer us. After that, we exercise 'em."

"We do?" Peri caught her breath at the prospect of riding a real live horse. She also began to psych herself up again, to prove that her surrogate training would suffice.

However, after she nearly gagged on the concentrated stench of goat and sheep in their conditioning barn, Tambor marched her back to the horse barn and up the steps, where he dialed for the snack of more hot coffee and hot muffins, which must have been freshly baked. No programmed breadstuff matched this light texture or enticing odor.

"Now we exercise our beauties. Where d'you think you're going, li'l gal?" Tambor demanded when she jumped to her feet. "We exercise them" - and his gloved forefinger emphatically indicated the mares below them - "just where they stand. Watch!" He tapped out a sequence, folded his arms across his chest, and followed his own advice.

To her amazement, each of the horses was beginning to move, first at a walk, then gradually into trot, and finally, into the canter gait... all in place on the rubber floor mats, which were also treadmills.

Peri sat down, totally deflated. How naive of her to assume that horses would be exercised by humans. If fencing was done from bikes, and stock was rounded up by heli, why did anyone need to ride the poor beasts just to conform to historical precedents!

"Now, doan look so glum, li'l gal," Tambor said, reaching across to pat her hand. "This is special conditioning for this extra-special shipment. The mares gotta get used to this sort of carry-on until they finally get to the meadows of Centauri. We want them, and the foals they carry, to come through the long journey fit as a fiddle and rarin' to go. This lot is about ready to graduate. They done real good. They won't suffer from a long period of inactivity. They won't spook from the sounds of a spaceship or go bananas. If you'll notice, the halters give accurate readings of their vital signs." He pointed to the display on the monitor, which she'd been too stunned to notice. "Now they got twenty minutes on the treadmill. Then" - and he presented this option as a reward to her - "we go down and give each mare a lot of TLC."

"TLC?".

"Tender loving care: a lot of stroking, petting, making much of 'em, and just generally making them feel pretty good. Horses like human contact. The grooms going along will do that, two-three times a day to keep 'em jollied along. Machines don't do all the work that's necessary to keep a horse happy. Not by a long shot, they don't."

That part of the morning routine Peri really did like, once she got over feeling sorry for the horses stuck in such cramped conditions. They had, as Tambor pointed out, enough space to lie down if the urge. took them.

"Horses spend a lot of time on their feet. They don't really need to take the weight off 'em, but they'll want a change of position now and again and we've allowed for it. Mind you, we had to reject some of the bigger-boned mares." He chuckled. "Can't have 'em castin' themselves in outer space, now can we? Did yer books tell ya how to groom a hoss?" Tambor abruptly became more rustic. "They did? Well, here's your kit. Give 'em a good grooming. You take one side of the barn, and I'll take the other. Slap 'em on the rump and tell 'em you're coming in. They like to hear voices."

Dutifully Peri slapped a rusty red rump.

"Nah, gal, not like that. These ain't fragile shrinking violets. They's hosses, with thick hides that won't feel no fly tap!" He demonstrated with a hearty whack and the brown mare moved to one side.

Peri slapped with more vigor and now the chestnut took notice of her. But knowing how to groom a horse properly did not explain how tiring the process was. By the second side of the chestnut. Peri was panting with her exertions. By the fourth mare, she was dripping with sweat and her shoulders, back, and ribs ached. Her strokes got slower and slower until she saw that she was three horses behind Tambor.

"I'll just lend you a hand this morning, being as how you're new at all this," he said, moving in beside the gray mare.

She redoubled her efforts and finished two in the same time it took him to do two. But by then she was exhausted.

Just then the noon bell rang and Tambor guided her to the quaintly named mess hall. There was a cuttingly cold wind sweeping down from the mountains and she hugged her arms around her.

"Just you, me, and Cookie t'day," Tambor said with obvious satisfaction as they burst into the big room, a huge fireplace throwing out additional warmth. "Admin crew eat up at the main house noontimes, stallion barn crew are busy up there today, and everyone else is out. Cookie knows what I like so you're in for a treat, gal"

Cookie was an incredibly thin tall man with a hooked nose (which. Peri thought in surprise, anyone else in this world would have had modified), a wide smile, and a cheerful disposition.

"Stew and dumplings, as ordered. Tam ol' buddy," he said as they entered. "Hi there, Peri, glad to meetcha. Just belly up to the table and pitch in!"

"Apple pie too?" Tambor asked, his expression like an expectant juvenile's.

"You got it." Then Cookie affected a solemn expression. "Poor gal. Havin' to eat what this here human disposal unit wants."

"The aroma is very appetizing," Peri remarked politely, determined not to judge the food by its color and lumpy texture. She could not recall ever having eaten "stew and dumplings" or anything that resembled this.

"Hey, gal, yore hands is sure in a state!" Cookie said, grabbing her right hand halfway to her mouth with her first forkful. "Git over there and put 'em into that there box! Why'nt you say somethin' 'bout 'em? Tambor, you ain't takin' good care of the help!"

"Lordee, I plumb forgot she'd need skinning. She didn't say a thing." That last was added in a tone of approval.

Tambor dragged her off the bench and propelled her into the small treatment room off the kitchen facility. He flicked a switch as he entered and then hauled Peri by her Shirt-sleeve to the familiar sight of an extremities-treatment rectangle. He shoved her hands in, glaring at her so fiercely that she grinned, recognizing his look as paternal. She rotated her hands and felt the healing vibrations rejuvenating the abused tissue, smoothing away the blisters raised by the grooming tools.

"Yore hands'll toughen but you better get yoreself some gloves right smart. Come to think of it, gal, you need a few more clothes. You ain't ever lived outside a weather-regulated facility, have you?"

When Peri sat down again to eat, the stew had cooled sufficiently and, even if the textures were unfamiliar to tongue and tooth, she found it delicious. The apple pie - and she had eaten fresh apples as a special treat from time to time - was an experience for her. She expressed her pleasure to Cookie, who beamed with fatuous pride.

Tambor ate two more slices of pie before he left the table. He gestured for her to follow him to the appropriate slot that would cleanse their dishes. Evidently one did not take a long luncheon respite, but the meal had revived Peri. Tambor then took her to the Commissary outlet, just off the mess hall, where she was outfitted with real leather gloves ("nothin's better than real leather") and fleece-lined waist- length jacket ("we grow our own, y'know"), and a long weatherized coat, with straps to secure her legs ("we get all kinds of weather up here; you'll need this soon enough").

"That about takes care of your first week's wage," Tambor said as they left the Commissary booth. "Lib'ry, rec facilities, lounge are down this hall. You can meander down there later. Now we gotta get those animals tested, hoof, blood, and hide! They're serial tested until the day we lead 'em on board."

While Peri was familiar with the necessary laboratory tests required for any animals to be shipped off planet, she found it odd to be working at this task with Tambor. When he was discussing the procedures and going over the results of blood, skin, saliva, feces, and urine tests with her, he seemed to slip into another personality entirely: methodical, precise, and quite professional. He gave her a satisfied nod when she had finished her lab work.

Then they went back to the conditioning barn for another session of mucking out and TLCing the mares. This time she asked Tambor for their names.

"Don't get too fond of these, gal. We spin 'em out in job lots. You could break your heart getting fond o' one or another."

"But you said 'tender loving care'..."

"Of the objective kind, gal. Be objective with this bunch."

By the end of the day, when the fencing and roundup crews returned, she was so tired, it required an effort to respond to the pleasantries. She counted about forty people seated at the rough tables in the mess hall - all dressed in utilitarian gear, with weathered faces and jaunty, self-confident attitudes. Her immediate neighbors asked her to join them in some of the recreational activities, but she was too tired to accept.

"First day's the roughest," the long-legged brunette, Chelsea, agreed. " 'Specially if you're working with Tam. He's fair but he's tough."

Chelsea was correct on all counts. Tam was tough, he kept moving every minute of the day, and never mind if she had to run to keep up. She would or die trying. Her hands hardened, she grew to enjoy that early-morning grooming, as much for the olfactory gratification that had lured her into this in the first place. The unique fragrance of horse, the tactile sensations of warm flesh under her hands, her growing realization of the individual personalities of the various animals was the reward she had anticipated. And yet... she became increasingly dissatisfied. Horses, horses all around, and not a one for her to ride.

The hands were sent here and there, on the bikes, in the big trucks, on horseback to perform the necessary tasks of the Preserve. She began to resent her very basic duties and was mollified only by the fact that Tambor was treated with great respect by everyone, including the administrators. Not even that trio were called by any titles that she ever heard in the relaxed and informal atmosphere that pervaded the Preserve. Even the exercise facilities in her Residential, where everyone worked to achieve the same goal of physical fitness, were not as casual.

By the first week, Peri had had a chance to orient herself, calling up the Preserve "spread" on the computer in her quarters and memorizing the various areas and the twists and turns of the access roads and track. The Preserve extended over an impressive sector of mountain range and valleys, a bastion of the natural, three hundred square kilometers that were not quite squared, having to take into account the vagaries of mountain contours. She noticed where the base camps and forestry stations and the educational farm were located, separate from the headquarters so that ponderous tour-helis did not disrupt the daily routine or disturb the animals in pasture. She was amazed that some ten thousand horses, cows, sheep, goats, and a small herd of buffalo were resident on the Preserve as well as other small animals and fowl whose natural habitat was this mountainous area.

The main base had once been a dude ranch, Tambor told her, where people would vacation in natural beauty and ride out on long treks. Her quarters had originally been one of the guest accommodations. The mess hall was original, and the barn by the corral as well as the paddock complex. The conditioning barns, the stallion quarters, lab, storage and garage facilities, heli hangar, and the other smaller buildings had been added as need arose.

She had been there two weeks when Monty borrowed her from Tam and started to teach her the fundamentals of bike riding, an experience she found wildly exhilarating and unnerving. Imagine a vehicle that was not voice-activated! Why, it could be dangerous with no single command safeguards for speed, direction, and braking.

"Wal, it's true hosses listen to you, and you tell 'em a lot with your tone of voice," Monty agreed, "but all your experience is closer to mechanical things. Learn to ride this bucking bronco first. You can't do it much harm."

She fell off the mechanical thing several times, stalling, forgetting to shift gears, forgetting to brake in time, although she caught on to steering easily enough. She scraped her elbows and the calves of her legs but she finally managed to put the bike around the obstacle course behind the garage.

"Not bad," Monty said with faint praise as she stripped off the protective helmet and mopped her sweaty face. "Larn the tracks and roads now from the main map. You gotta be able to get anywhere on the spread in an emergency." She was borrowed frequently then, generally about the time she should have been having a brief respite from her work with Tambor. One day she took some tools to one base camp; another, additional lab supplies to the men up at Crooked Canyon who were scoping this year's crop of calves. She fell off twice on the rough roads until she got the knack of watching the terrain ahead of her. She boxed herself when she got back and so no one noticed her new bruises or scrapes.

But her greatest desire - to ride a live horse - seemed as distant as ever.

Whenever she could, she would spend a few moments, hanging over the corral rail, watching the mounts used by the teams: Monty's big Appie, with its spectacular blanket of cream and roan splotches; Chelsea's paint; Barty's dun; Pedro's dappled blue roan. It occurred to her that most of the hands had chosen the sport colors. There were three palominos, two pintos, a leopard spot, three grays - flea-specked, dappled, and iron - two more roans, and the very elegant bright sorrel chestnut she'd seen Tambor on from time to time. Was there some kind of competition to choose the unusual from the breeding herd? They were certainly easily identifiable as they grazed. It was then she noticed that they moved among animals with the more traditional colors, bay, chestnut, brown... and one so dark it was nearly black. She liked it best - for no reason she could have explained.

"Does anyone ever ride these mares?" she asked Tambor as casually as she could when she had been two weeks at the Preserve. She hoped the little quaver in her voice was not too obvious.

"Yup. We break 'em all in case they'd be needed where they're going. Reckon we say hasta la vista to this lot to- morrow!"

"Tomorrow?" She couldn't suppress her surprised and regretful tone.

"Told ya not to get attached to the critters."

Peri swallowed the lump in her throat, patting the neck of the bay mare she'd been grooming.

"There'll be another set in here soon's they rig the stalls," he added. "Git used to it. This's what we're here to do, and do well." Somehow Tambor implied that she, too, had done well, and that eased the pang. "We'll just give 'em a bath 's afternoon on account there won't be no water available fer such nonsense on board." Then he snorted. "Not that they'll like it much 'cause we gotta use debuggers and that stuff stinks."

It did. Halfway through washing twenty mares, Peri could no longer bear the stench and put on a filter mask. Tambor didn't say anything but she felt she had lost his good opinion. She couldn't quite rid herself of the odor even after a long shower and much lather.

"Pugh! Stink! Goldurnit, Tambor, you and Peri sit down at the far end" was the order from the other diners.

"If that's the way you feel about it, we'll raise you one," Tambor said and, with a broad wink for Peri to join him, they moved to the bar to eat their dinner.

"We really do stink," Peri said as she settled herself with her back to the dining room. "I washed real good and I can still smell myself."

"Doesn't last long but I gotta admit it is a powerful stench. But then, it's efficient. Most colonies prefer to leave the parasites back here. Ever think of shipping out?"

"You mean, as a groom?" Peri glanced at him but his expression gave no hint of any ulterior motive for the question.

"Nah, as a settler. Purty li'l gal like you'd do well out there."

"If there were horses," she began tentatively. Tambor grinned at her. "Yore shore gone on horseflesh, ain't you?"

Peri nodded slowly, not able to confide the depth of that fascination to anyone, even to someone like Tambor, who had evidently spent his life with the creatures.

The next day, while Peri did feel the wrench of watching animals she had cared for and grown fond of being shipped out, she was also fascinated by the process. The entire unit of stalls, complete with treadmill and cleansing bars (which would be reattached to appropriate outlets in the cargo hold of the spaceship), were slipped out on well-oiled runners into the maw of the transport.

She, Tambor, and the three handlers who would be traveling with the mares to their new world stood on the center aisle, ready to go to any animal that showed distress. But the mechanical noises had been part of the conditioning and the transfer was so smoothly made that none of the horses demonstrated any strong reaction.

"A nice healthy bunch, Tambor," the head groom said, passing over the consignment note for his signature. "You do yourself proud. This your new offsider?" Peri was given a broad grin.

"This is Peri. Good li'l worker."

Peri felt herself blush with pride at Tambor's unexpected praise. She had an errant urge to wave good-bye as the immense cargo-heli lifted. She did watch it until it was out of sight over the foothills, and only then realized that Tambor had, too. He gave a sigh but she didn't hear exactly what he muttered under his breath.

"Yore on the main workforce tomorrow, Peri. Take the rest of the day off." Tambor strode quickly away, followed by her burble of thanks. His shoulders were slumped and his head down; he kicked a rock out of his way and suddenly Peri realized that Tambor should listen to his own advice. Behind her was the empty shell of the conditioning barn, all cables and rollers, a strangely gutted organism. With aimless steps she wandered over to the pasture where stock were having a rest day. Her little blackie was racing, head up and tail carried high, with two bays. She'd never seen anyone riding the little black, but maybe it hadn't been broken yet. She'd heard enough now to know that horses were broken and backed at four or five, depending on the need for them. Most of the animals used by the teams were mares expected to breed foals at some time in their lives. Sperm from stallions of all breeds had been preserved against need, and only if a colony required an entire horse was one bred.

Working so closely with the stalled animals had given Peri confidence. Now, prompted by that still-unsatisfied desire to ride a horse, she ducked in between the rails and walked down to the nearest group. They lifted their heads, eyeing her. Monty's big Appie softly nickered what she translated as a query.

"No, you're not needed. Splodge," she replied, and moved on a zigzag course toward the black mare who was standing, hipshot, head to tail with one of the yearlings, each tail whisking flies from the other's head. "Easy there, gal," Peri said as she approached, holding one hand out, palm up.