He slid into the free chair and grinned, hoping it didn't look as foolish as it felt, plastered from ear to ear, because he couldn't speak, couldn't even stop grinning.

"Slogan's all you hear about Station Three these days," she went on, not dropping eye contact, although her left hand strayed briefly to her hair.

"That makes a nice change," Sakerson managed to say, making his grin rueful. He knew from the tilted smile on her lips and the sparkle in her eyes that she had heard the ghost rumor.

"Now," Rando said, breaking in, "war games are far more a test of intelligence and foresight."

"Oh, war games," she said, dismissing them with a wave of her hand and further entrancing Sakerson. "I played every war game there is when I was growing up on the MR And won!" Deftly she depressed Rando's bid. "Now Slogan stimulates the brain cells, not adrenaline." She wasn't coy, she wasn't arch, but the way she looked sideways at him made Sakerson's heart leap. "Say, didn't you dock the PV?"

"I did."

"You're smooth!"

"Watch it, Chiquita," Rando warned. "This guy's dangerous. He's single-spaced."

Ignoring Rando's thinly veiled leer, Chiquita tilted her head up to Sakerson and just smiled.

"Give over, lout," Cliona told her mate, elbowing him playfully out of the way. "Say, Chiquita, how'd you snaffle a posting like Three?"

Chiquita lifted both hands and shrugged. "I don't really know. I didn't think I was very high on the short list. And then suddenly I was handed orders, shoved toward the PV as the first available vehicle coming this way." She flashed a charming smile around the wardroom. "But it's great to be in such good space!"

"Why waste space?" Sakerson demanded, winking at her.

Even in the free and easy atmosphere of a space station, where personnel have little privacy and every new association is public knowledge, Sakerson did not rush Chiquita. She had indicated a preference for the way his mind worked, and more directly, that she liked his physical appearance. He let her get settled into the routine and waited until the next day before he asked her to the hydroponic garden. She smiled softly and winked at him before turning back to her supply texts. Like any space-bred girl, she knew perfectly well what generally happened in such facilities.

"This is a splendid hydro," she said, and paused as the path took them to the banana palm. "Well now," and she flushed delicately so that Sakerson knew she was aware of the Slogan for her name. "How... how very unusual."

"That's tactful of you," Sakerson said before he realized that his words were tantamount to an admission of the truth of the scuttlebutt.

"I think you're tactful, too," she replied and stood right in front of him. It would have taken a much more restrained man than Sakerson to resist the urge to see if he only had to bend his head. So he did.

Then, just after they had thoroughly kissed one another, easily, gracefully, with no stretching or straining, Sakerson distinctly heard a soft smug sung sound.

"What's the matter?" Chiquita asked, sensing his distraction.

"I could have sworn... no, it couldn't be..."

"We're not to have secrets from each other."

He could sense that he'd better think quickly or lose the best thing that had happened to him. Then it occurred to him that when it came time to tell her the truth, he'd have the logged-on holo program to prove it. Right now was not the appropriate moment for that. He answered the immediate question.

"Part of a slogan, I guess." But Chiquita tilted her head, prompting him. "Something like... 'the lessons are free.' "

Zulei, Grace, Nimshi, and the Damnyankees

I remember very clearly the day Zulei and her son, Nimshi, arrived at Majpoor Plantation. Papa had just finished giving me a sidesaddle jumping lesson on Dido when Mr. James, our overseer, arrived with the new slaves. Despite Mama's best efforts, there had been some deaths among the field hands from an outbreak of measles. So, when Papa heard of the auction of prime bucks being sold off in Greensboro, he'd sent the overseer, Mr. James.

"And if you should chance to find a likely lad to exercise the 'chasers..." I'd also heard Papa say, when Mr. James stopped by the office on his way out of the place. Petey, a wizened little black who looked more like the monkey Mrs. LaTouche owned, had been broken up by a bad fall at the Greensboro 'Chase, and no other black boy could measure up to Papa's high standards to ride our 'chasers.

I wasn't supposed to know that, but I did. Being the youngest of six, and the only daughter, I knew a lot more of what went on than Mama would have thought proper for a girl. She had been plain scandalized when I had informed Papa that I was perfectly willing to ride our entry in the next 'Chase. Hadn't he said I had the lightest hands and the best seat on Majpoor? My brothers had howled with laughter and I'm sure that even Papa smiled a bit behind his full beard but Mama had made me leave the table for such pertness.

"I declare Captain Langhorn, I just don't know how I'm going to raise Grace properly if you, and your sons, encourage her improper behavior."

Mama was a Womack of Virginia and had standards of behavior from her strict upbringing that sometimes clashed with Papa's. Most of the time she laid that to his being English and having lived so long in India, fighting for Queen Victoria among pagan heathens. He even treated our slaves as if they had minds of their own and opinions to be heard.

"He never has understood how to treat darkies and I don't think he ever will," she would often complain, usually when someone had made allusions to the comforts and latitude Papa allowed our people.

"Why, lands, Euphemia," Mrs. Fairclough said to Mama once during a visit I'd had to attend, though of course I said nothing at the time (that much I had learned from Mama), "I do declare that her father treats your nigras like they was human."

"Captain Langhorn believes that it's only good husbandry to keep stock in healthy surroundings." Mama had inclined toward Mrs. Fairclough in sweet reproof. I knew she agreed completely with Mrs. Fairclough, but she wouldn't be disloyal to Papa. "I do believe, Samantha, that his methods have genuine results. Majpoor certainly gets more cotton and cane per acre than most anyone else in Orange County."

But that day, as the farm wagon brought the new purchases into the yard, I saw Zulei and Nimshi arrive.

"Ah found ya that rider, Captain," were Mr. James's first words. "Stannup thar, you Nimshi boy."

As Nimshi rose to his feet, he was facing in my direction and caught my astonished look. I knew all about high yallers, quadroons, and those sorts of distinctions among the blacks, but I'd never seen a boy with coloring like Nimshi. His hair was red, curled close to his scalp but not in kinky curls: his eyes were blue and his skin a light coffee color. He was slender, with fine bones and a face that I thought far too beautiful for any boy to have. More than that, he held himself with a casual dignity that no slave should display.

"D'you ride, Nimshi?" Papa asked, looking him straight in the eye and not as if he were a piece of merchandise. (Nimshi told me much later that that was the first reason he had to be grateful to Papa.) "Yessir."

"Who'd you ride for?"

"Most lately, Mr. Bainbridge of Haw River."

"Why'd he sell you down?"

"He died and Mrs. Bainbridge sold up all the racers."

Nimshi did not speak in the pidgin speech most blacks used. He spoke as well as one of my brothers and much better than most house slaves. I'd heard Papa say once at a race meet that Mr. Bainbridge had some very unorthodox notions, coming as he did from Massachusetts. Mr. Bainbridge also had curly red hair, but I wasn't supposed to notice such things.

"What sort of a character was Nimshi given?" Papa asked Mr. James.

"Good 'un, Captain, or you kin bet yore bottom dollar I wouldn't've bought him. A well-grown fifteen years and not liable to grow too much taller. Not a mark on his back nor a word agin 'im."

Even then I was sensitive to what wasn't said, and so I looked at the others in the wagon, to see which ones did have marks on their backs or words against them. That's when I noticed Zulei. And realized that she had to he Nimshi's mammy for, despite the terrible gauntness of her face, her features were unusually fine, like Nimshi's. Her nose was particularly aquiline, unusually so for a Negress. Her hair was brown and straight, showing a few reddy glints, not blue-black ones; her eyes were gray, and she wore an expression of strange detachment that reminded me of the English porcelain doll Papa had given me for my birthday. She sat, hands limp and palm-up in her lap, unaware of her surroundings. Her wrists were badly bruised and bloody.

I don't remember what Papa and Mr. James discussed but on such occasions it was their habit to learn the names of every new slave and what he or she had done for their previous owner. I kept trying to catch Zulei's gaze and reassure her that she would never wear fetters at Majpoor, for Papa did not believe in such measures.

Then our head man, Big Josie, a gentle man for all he was twice the size of most field hands and very black, gestured for the new slaves to get down out of the wagon. I saw Nimshi go to her assistance, his expression full of concern. Papa saw the deference, too, and saw the telltale marks on her slender wrists.

"You, there," Papa said, gruff because he couldn't abide what he called sadistic treatment. He frowned, too, because he couldn't help noticing, as I did, that the bones of her shoulders poked through the flimsy fabric of a dress that seemed too ample for the slight figure it covered. "What's your name?"

"Zuleika," Nimshi replied.

Papa frowned at the boy, for he didn't tolerate impudence even if he was lenient. Then he gave Zulei an intent scrutiny.

"She can speak for herself, can't she? Your name, woman?" Papa spoke gently. Even though Nimshi was tenderly assisting her, she also had to hang on to the wagon side to descend.

"I am called Zulei, Captain Langhorn," she said in a firm, low voice.

"James, she's no field hand," he said to the overseer in a testy voice. He stared long and hard at her, puzzled. Abruptly, but still kindly, he asked, "Zulei, why were you chained? You run away from Mr. Bainbridge?"

She lifted her head, the gesture denying the suspicion. Nimshi said a single phrase to her but it didn't sound like geechee to me, much less English. She gave her head a tiny shake.

"No, Captain Langhorn, I did not run away." Her voice was still low and even, but the way she said "run" struck me as odd, for the r was guttural, the way Mrs. LaTouche said her r's.

Mr. James cleared his throat. "Now, Cap'n, Ah did deal on this female 'cos I figgered you an' Mrs. Langhorn might find a place for her now Miss Grace is growing up, like. She was trained as a lady's maid and she's well spoken, like. Then, too, Cap'n, seeing as how you never like to split up families, she's Nimshi's mammy. I didn't get no character for her, no character at all. Seems like she'd been some troublesome."

"Are you troublesome, Zulei?" Papa looked her squarely in the eye, at his most military. No one lied to my Papa when he gave them that look.

"I have never studied trouble, Captain Langhorn. Sometimes it comes where it's not wanted."

I remember Papa hmmmed deep in his throat as he does when he won't commit himself. I was then much too young to appreciate what sort of trouble might be meant: much too young to realize that Zulei's "trouble" was generated by her appearance.

"We will contrive to see it doesn't come to you here. Now, Josie" - and now Papa beckoned to him - "take Zulei up to the big house. Her injuries are to be treated. She looks half-starved. Ask Dulcie to fix her something nourishing. You are Nimshi's mother?" When she gave a brief nod, he added to Mr. James, "Then see that she is quartered with him in the mews."

The horseboys lived in quarters right in the stableyard to be close to their charges at all times, in case one got cast or became colicky at night.

"You will not regret this, Captain," Zulei said and made the oddest curtsy, clasping her hands palms together, their tips touching her forehead as she bowed her head. Papa gave her the strangest look, but when she dropped her hands she shook her head just once in a curious denial. Papa brought his riding crop down hard on his boot, then used it to point at Nimshi.

"Nimshi, you may take the pony from Miss Grace. Down you get, my dear," Papa said, and turned back to hear the rest of Mr. James report. I didn't wait for Nimshi to come to Dido's head but unhooked my leg from the sidesaddle horn and slipped to the ground, patting Dido's shoulder in appreciation. Nimshi was not much taller than I in those days but what recommended him to me was the way he held out his hand to my pony for her to get the smell of him before he so much as put a hand on her bridle. She was a spirited pony and didn't like unfamiliar hands on her.

Nimshi smiled as she blew into his hand, then, taking the reins from me, he ran the stirrup up the leather and loosened the girth expertly. I smiled in approval for he had done exactly what I was going to tell him to do. Sometimes even Bennie, who was head groom, would forget to loosen the girth of a horse that had been worked hard. Nimshi gave me a look that suggested I should never doubt his competence.

"I hope you'll be happy here at Majpoor, Nimshi. You must ride my Papa's horses to win."

"I always mean to ride winners, Miss Grace." And then he gave me a timid smile.

"That'll suit Papa down to the ground," I said, and then I decided it was time I got back to the house. Mama didn't like me lingering in the stableyard, even if that was the best part of Majpoor in my estimation and especially when new slaves were brought in. She always worried about the diseases they might have on them until they'd all had a lye bath, had their hides scrubbed with good yellow soap, and been flea-powdered.

So I had a very clear recollection of the day Zulei and Nimshi came to Majpoor. Mama wasn't as easily reconciled to Zulei's arrival ("That female's going to cause trouble, Captain, you mark my words" - which Papa did not), but somehow there never was any trouble with Zulei. Nimshi proved to be every bit as good a rider as he'd been touted. He truly loved horses and they responded to him as if they knew they could trust him. My brothers, Kenneth, David, Lachlan, Evelyn, and Robert, might complain that Papa said Nimshi this and Nimshi that, but they didn't object when Nimshi won race after race, and they collected sizable wagers from everyone in the county.

Mama reluctantly admitted that Zulei was more use than trouble, for the quadroon (that's what Mama said she was with her light skin, straight brown hair, and gray eyes) had a knowledge of herbs and remedies that was nothing short of miraculous - Mama's phrase. There were some murmurs about voodoo and obeah and conjure, superstitious twaddle like that which Mama wouldn't abide, not mutters that Zulei was different. My mammy said that Zulei wasn't one of them, not no way no how, but as Zulei was a slave, I didn't know what mammy meant. A slave was a slave. I asked Mama and she thought I was worried about all the superstitious talk. She made it quite clear to me that Zulei's understanding of simple remedies was quite unexceptional, nothing to do with black magic; only common sense.

Any resistance from the other slaves ended soon after Zulei concocted a potion that cleared up Daisy's rash and a poultice that eased old Remy's arthritis. She had a salve that made burns disappear, even those from splashings of boiling lye soap. She was a dab hand at lying-ins, though I wasn't supposed to know such things. I also heard - from Lachlan - about how Zulei's clever hands had turned the foal inside Joyra, Papa's expensive new thoroughbred mare, when it wasn't lying right to be born. Bennie had given up, but she'd brought the colt live into the world.

Zulei also made creams, which the other county ladies begged of Mama for they reduced freckles like nothing else could. She had all sorts of other female potions that Mama loved to dispense to her friends who didn't have anyone half so clever as Zulei. I do remember that Mrs. Fairclough wondered how Mama could stand to have such a frowsy slave attending her. Even Mama was surprised by that comment. Dulcie's feeding had put weight on Zulei's bones and Mama had given her one or two of her old gowns to wear, so Zulei couldn't be called "frowsy." Mama privately thought that Zulei was a shade too fastidious.

Zulei had a knack of refurbishing Mama's dresses or pinching in a bodice, altering a sleeve so that somehow the gown looked twice as elegant as it had new. She was deft at dressing Mama's lovely blond hair into the most intricate and fetching styles.

And when I was old enough to put my hair up, it was Zulei who curled it so fashionably and flatteringly.

In fact, that was one of the few times she had occasion to dress me for a ball. The year I was sixteen, the Confederacy declared war on the North. All the young men in the county, and some of those old enough to know better - like Papa - decided to teach the damnyankees - a thing or two and rode off to war.

I thought it was all very exciting, with six Langhorn men stomping about in their fine gray-and-gold uniforms: Papa had had so much experience in the British army, even if that had all been in India, that he was immediately made a colonel in the county regiment. Kenneth and David became captains and Lachlan, Evelyn, and Robert were lieutenants. And most of our beautiful horses became war steeds.

Our men rode off, handsome in their broad-brimmed hats, gold sashes around their waists and sabers and pistols on their hips. Everyone was on the front steps to wave them to victory. For it wouldn't take long for Southern gentlemen to teach those damnyankees what for.

Mr. James was left in charge of Majpoor, but no one minded that, for he was a fair man: even Zulei said so. Josie supervised the field hands, and Bennie, with Nimshi as his right hand, took care of Brass Sultan, Majpoor's stallion, and his mares and foals. I had let Lachlan, my favorite brother, have my very own Cotton as his remount so I was reduced to Dido again. That is, until Nimshi had backed a promising three-year-old flea-specked gray that Papa had promised me to replace Cotton.

Mama fretted from the moment she lost sight of Papa and the boys until the day she died of typhus three years later, despite all Zulei tried to do to break the fever. We all knew Mama wanted to die anyway once she heard that Papa had been killed in one of Jeb Stuart's cavalry charges against that damnyankee Mead, so it wasn't Zulei's fault. Though, by then, we all knew why she had had no character from the Bainbridges at Haw River.

"I know my medications, Miss Euphemia," Zulei had told Mama one time in my hearing, "I know how to reduce fevers, set broken bones, and help a woman in labor, but there was nothing I could do with snake venom. When they finally got Mr. Bainbridge home, the poison was all through him. What could I do then?" She had a very elegant way of shrugging her shoulders.

There was another reason why the Bainbridge overseer had chained Zulei up, but Nimshi told me that later, when I was much older and understood such matters better. It had had nothing to do with her nursing skills but a lot to do with why Zulei looked frowsy to some people.

When Zulei had confided in Mama, we all trusted her, having seen the near miracles she could work. But there are no miracles, near or true, to mend a heart broken by the deaths of her husband and three of her sons, and weakened by the privations that the war visited on all southern families. Zulei and I nursed Mama together and made her as comfortable as we could with what limited medicines we could find or Zulei could concoct.

We were luckier than most, I suppose, due to Majpoor's location. We suffered from the lack of supplies and things we had previously taken for granted. While battles raged in Virginia and up and down the coast of both North and South Carolina, we were not in the path of the combat nor near enough to benefit from blockade-run goods. We had trouble enough with deserters or, worse still, the cavalries of both armies that came hunting horses from Majpoor's acres.

It was Nimshi who devised the means to hide what few good horses we had reared, including my flea-specked gray gelding, Jupiter. And especially our precious stallion, Brass Sultan. He was old, twenty-five years now, brought from England by Papa to be Majpoor's foundation stud. He neither looked nor acted his age and, with the Confederacy three years into the war, any horse that could walk and trot went into the cavalry. Loyal though we were to the Confederate cause, Brass Sultan was far too valuable to be wasted as a remount.

Mind you, Sultan, a fine seventeen hands high, was not an easy horse to manage. Nimshi had an understanding with Sultan that was almost magical, and the stallion would follow Nimshi wherever he led. This became tremendously important when we had to hide Sultan.

Mr. James had piccaninnies stationed on every road and track to Majpoor, to watch for "visitors" and warn us, particularly of mounted men. When their whistle alarm was relayed across the fields to the big house, Nimshi would take Sultan and Jupiter down into the now empty wine cellar and swing a door covered by old trunks to cover the entrance.

As the war continued, Mr. James enlarged the hidey-hole to include whatever young stock we had and any barren mares. With Nimshi there to calm them, they stayed as quiet as mice no matter how fractious they'd be at other times.

That ruse worked very well for us until that morning when, with no warning at all, Yankee raiders came out of the woods from the mountains behind us. Sultan was actually covering a mare at the time. Six good strong two-year-olds were grazing in the front field, where they could be rounded up easily. The pregnant mares and those with foals at foot in the far paddocks were not vulnerable - yet - at least not to the Confederacy. You'd never know what damnyankees would do and our mares were proud, strong ones, with plenty of bone and spirit. Damnyankees might shoot the foals and take the mares although Mr. James didn't think that likely.

But this morning, we had no chance to hide Brass Sultan, or Jupiter or the two-year-olds. We could only watch in horror as the troops trotted up from the back fields, their uniforms so dusty that at first we thought they were our soldiers.

"Morning, ma'am," the captain said, saluting me as I stood on the veranda, terrified by his arrival. Zulei was at my side, for we'd just come up from the smokehouse, turning the few hams we had from this year's slaughtering. "Sorry to trouble you," he added, which was as untrue as anything any Yankee ever said. His eyes lingered briefly on Zulei, behind me, before they ranged down to the paddock and the young horses.

To my horror, Sultan bugled his success, an unmistakable sound so that, even before he swung off his tired horse, the captain signed several troopers to go investigate.

I prayed for Mr. James to come to my assistance. I felt so vulnerable with just Zulei beside me to confront such unwelcome visitors. I remembered how Mama had acted when she faced down damnyankees and I tried to emulate her calm disdain. But my knees were shaking and I felt sorely inadequate at that moment.

As the captain trudged up the veranda steps, Zulei flashed me one of her piercing looks. Usually I knew what Zulei meant but this time I couldn't interpret it. So I just stared through the captain, wondering how in God's name we were going to save my precious Jupiter and the young stock this time. "We're looking for remounts, miss. We need 'em badly," the captain said, slapping the dust from his dark blue trousers with worn leather gauntlets.

"You Yankees have been here before," I said as inhospitably as I could.

He turned his head, squinting at the youngsters in the field. Jupiter was lying down in the shadows of the live oak. Maybe he wasn't visible. There was a queer look on the captain's face as he turned back to me.

"I'll just take a gander at those in the paddock, ma'am," he said, blinking suddenly at me as if I had changed shape. "We might find something we can exchange for our lame ones."

"They're only..." Zulei pinched my arm sharply and I faltered. "... the only ones we have left," I finished lamely when he shot me another odd glance.

Zulei gave me a shove, so we followed him down to the paddock, a corporal and a private falling in behind us. My heart squeezed with fear. Surely they'd see that these horses were too young to be backed. Usually the young stock would come charging up to me, hopeful of some tidbit from my pocket, but today they stayed where they were, picking at the grass or standing hipshot and half-asleep. Jupiter hadn't moved from his shady spot.

Halfway across the field to the nearest two-year-old, a fine bay by Sultan out of one of the best 'chaser mares remaining to us, the captain stopped, pushing his hat back off his brow. He turned to his corporal, shaking his head.

"Those all you got, ma'am?"

"That's all we have left," I said, trying not to hope that they were going to leave us the two-year-olds: that for once a Yankee would leave empty-handed. Surely any horseman worth his salt could see that these youngsters hadn't grown into themselves, hindquarters higher than their withers, knees still open. "Cap'n, what we got's better'n those crowbaits," the corporal said, giving me a sympathetic glance.