He seemed not to notice the strain I was under. "They have told her she is to be married to a young man whom they have chosen for her. She is unhappy, but cannot tell them. Now they are making many preparations. Maria Dolores spends her time with her mother, sewing dresses and packing them away. Then her mother speaks to her of things that frighten her and me, things that seem to happen when men and women are alone at night. She does not understand and lies awake when her mother has gone, afraid and wondering. We are uneasy, Maria Dolores and I." Here, Novna, I must attempt to explain the marriage of Earth people. While with us marriage is the spiritualized union of masculine and feminine natures in one soul, it is to them a more concrete thing. Their junction is not only one of minds, but one of bodies as well. The union seems not to be unpleasant for those who take part in it, but for us, who so jealously guard our bodies from another's touch, the marriage of Earth people is difficult to contemplate without revulsion. I was rescued from having to answer Gven by the laughter of Corven, who had overheard the last of the poet's words. "Well then, poet, if she is unhappy, you must take her away, mustn't you? That's what you want, it seems, to take her away to Hainos and make her your Gvna." Gven stood up and glared angrily at Corven. "Would it be so bad a thing to carry back one person of Earth? Why shouldn't we?" he flung at the other man. Corven turned away in disgust. "You know we have no authority to intervene in their affairs. This is what comes of letting a poet-priest meddle in the concerns of science." A sullenness came over Gven's face, and he withdrew from us again, turning back to the panels. I knew he was with Maria Dolores. Though I was uneasy over his ignorance, I could not help feeling relieved that I had not been forced to enlighten him. My anxiety proved to be well-founded. It was only a few weeks later that we reaped the results of our long-cultivated conspiracy of silence against the poet-priest. We were deeply engrossed in our work at the computing tables when our nerves were shattered by a cry of anguish from the mind of Gven. In a moment we were standing around him, avoiding each other's eyes and scarcely daring to look at the man shuddering before us, his face in his hands. "It is done." Gven cast his anger at us like a stone. "It is as though she had been killed. Why couldn't you tell me? You, Noven, I asked you. Why couldn't you have spared me this?" The men looked uneasily at me and back at Gven. Shaken, they drifted away, back to their work, still ashamed to meet each other's eyes. Gven sat there, grinding his fist into his palm, staring straight ahead.