"Will you behave?" * * * * * I told him I would and he backed outside, but this time I could see his shadow across the doorway. The girl brought food and partook of it with me. I was surprised, because we Pluralists will not eat with an Onist out of choice. Well, I have said they are a strange people. Soon the girl stood up, patting her mouth daintily with a square of cloth, and in that, of course, she was trying to mime our graceful Pluralist women. "I suppose you think we are going to kill you," she said. Just like that. "To tell you the truth, I haven't given it much thought. There isn't much I can do about it." "Well, we're not. We could have done that back at your camp. We could have killed all of you. No, we want to show you something." I had a ridiculous thought that they made star-pictures, too--even those who are not lame like my brother. I said, "Well, what will happen to me after you show me?" She smiled. "You still think we're going to kill you. What's your name?" I told her, but I thought: she can't even keep a conversation going without changing the subject. "Jak," she repeated after me. "That's a common enough name. We have Jaks among our Onist people, you know." "No, I didn't. But you probably copied it." "I doubt that. We were here first, Jak. Our records say so. Probably, you once captured a man with that name, long ago, liked it, and took it for your people." "_You_ were here first!" I sneered. "Maybe that's what your records tell you, but it isn't so. Look: the Makers endowed us with life, then went away in to the sky. By mistake they left one idiot-Maker behind, and he had nothing to do. He made you Onists before he perished, and that is why you think there is only one Maker." She seemed highly insulted. "Idiot-Maker? Idiot! There was only one Maker, ever, but because your minds cannot conceive of all that glory residing in one figure, you invented a score." Now it was my turn to be indignant. "A score? Hundreds, you mean; thousands--more than there are leaves on the trees." "Well, I won't argue with you. Our war has been arguing that point well enough." I was sorry she would not argue. She looked very pretty when she argued, her breasts heaving, her eyes sparkling fire. "What's your name?" I asked. "Nari. My name is Nari. And don't tell me you had that name first!" I smiled blandly. "Of course we did. I have an aunt, my mother's sister, who goes by that name. My brother's wife's cousin, also; but she is very ugly." "And am I ugly?" Nari wanted to know. I guess in that sense at least, women are the same everywhere--Pluralist or Onist, it doesn't matter. * * * * * I looked at her. I looked at her so hard that it made her blush, and then she looked even prettier. But I didn't tell her so.