Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

replaced it with garbage --”
    “Very odd garbage, when you think about it,” Ethan began slowly, but she was going on.
    “What somebody, then, and when? Not you, not me -- although I suppose you've only my word for that -- and not, obviously, Millisor, although he would have liked to.”
    “Millisor seemed to think it was this Terrence Cee -- person, or whatever he is.”
    She sighed. “Whatever-he-is had plenty of time for it. It could have been switched on Jackson's Whole, or on shipboard en route to Kline Station, or anytime before the census courier left for Athos -- ye gods, do you have any idea how many ships dock at Kline Station in the course of two months? And how many connections they in turn make? No wonder Millisor has been going around looking like his stomach hurts. I'll get a copy of the Station docking log anyway, though....” she made a note.
    Ethan used the pause to ask, “What is a wife?”
    She choked on her beer. For all that she waved it about, Ethan noticed that its level was dropping very slowly. “I keep forgetting about you.... Ah, wife. A marriage partner -- a man's female mate. The male partner is called a husband. Marriage takes many forms, but is most commonly a legal, economic, and genetic alliance to produce and raise children. Do you copy?”
    “I think so,” he said slowly. “It sounds a little like a designated alternate parent.” He tasted the words. “Husband. On Athos, to husband is a verb meaning to conserve resources. Like stewardship.” Did this imply the male maintained the female during gestation? So, this supposedly organic method had hidden costs that might make a real Rep Center seem cheap, Ethan thought with satisfaction.
    “Same root.”
    “What does it mean 'to wife, ' then?”
    “There is no parallel verb. I think the root is just some old word meaning simply, 'woman. '“
    “Oh.” He hesitated. “Did the geneticist whose house was burned and his -- his wife have any children?”
    “A little boy, who was in nursery school at the time. Strangely enough, Millisor didn't bother to torch it, too. Can't imagine how he overlooked that loose thread. The wife was pregnant.” She bit rather savagely into a protein cube.
    Ethan shook his head in frustration. “Why? Why, why, why?”
    She smiled elliptically. “There are moments when I think you might be a man after my own heart -- that was a joke,” she added as Ethan lurched, recoiling. “Yes. Why. My very own assigned question. Millisor seemed convinced that what Bharaputra's labs produced was actually intended for Athos, in spite of the subsequent diversion. Now, if nothing else, I've learned in the past few months that what Millisor thinks had better be taken into account. Why Athos? What does Athos have that nobody else does?”
    “Nothing,” said Ethan simply. “We're a small, agriculturally based society with no natural resources worth shipping. We're not on a nexus route to anywhere. We don't go around bothering anyone.”
    “'Nothing,'“ she noted. “Think of a scenario where a planet with 'nothing' would be at a premium... You have privacy, I suppose. Other than that, only your insistence upon reproducing yourselves the hard way sets you apart.” She sipped her beer. “You say Millisor was talking about attacking your Reproduction Centers. Tell me about them.”
    Ethan needed little encouragement to wax enthusiasm about his beloved job. He described Sevarin and its operations, and the dedicated cadre of men who made it work. He explained the beneficent system of social duty credits that qualified potential fathers. He ran down abruptly when he found himself describing the personal troubles that prevented him from achieving his own heart's desire for a son. This woman was getting entirely too easy to talk to -- he wondered anew what was in his beer.
    She leaned back in her chair and whistled tunelessly a moment. “Damn that diversion anyway. But for that, I'd say the cuckoo's-egg scenario had