To Father a Sohn   
by Pat Cirone
     
     Silivera walked, black robed, amidst the swirling colors others wore. While not the only southerner who had moved up here, to the mushrooming town of Khed-deride, jhe was probably the only one who persisted in wearing the black, day in and day out. It was easy to ignore the occasional surprised comments.
     
     With a bound, Silivera leapt up the last two stairs to the narrow level where the shops for their section were cut into the cliff. A mischievous smile flickered around the edges of jhes mouth and jhe entered the produce shop.
     
     "Ah, Belder! I'll have some kuai fruit, a nice large portion of sketer root, and maybe some zircot grain." Belder leaned massive arms, clothed in filmy pink, on the bare counter and looked with Silivera at the colorful paintings of fruits, grains, and vegetables that lined the walls and provided such a stark contrast to the dusty, empty shelves.
     
     "Would you like some puli-puli, too?" the grocer inquired genially, nodding to a picture of an exotic fruit difficult to obtain, even in the south.
     
     "Yes!" Silivera exclaimed, enchanted.
     
     The grocer leaned back, chuckling, and began to measure out the ubiquitous kwaicarat. It was the only crop that grew close enough to the edge of the desert to be delivered regularly. Everyone was sick of the black-and-white-striped grain, and Silivera was no exception. It was kwaicarat bread for morning, cold kwaicarat for midday, and fried kwaicarat for evening. And lucky to get that. If the population continued to outrun the transport, they'd have to start using a Gate to import food, and that was against the Code, which demanded that communities be self-reliant. Silivera put the ration books down on the counter and began to slap at the pale dust clinging to the bottom of jhes knee-length black robe. "When are you going to start wearing some sensible clothes?" Belder asked. Silivera looked up with a rueful grin. "These do show the dust, don't they? But I just don't feel comfortable in colors. In the south, colors are never worn for anything but night-clothes."
     
     "What do they do to you southerners to make you so rigid? You're what? Nineteen? Twenty? And already you're too old to change. Let go of all those petty rules you grew up with!"
     
     "Next you'll be wanting me to forswear the Code!" Silivera retorted in mock horror. "You don't wear the Code on your skin. I walk in as much honor as any crow-decked southerner!"
     
     "I know, I know. Just call me eccentric." Silivera tried to soothe the grocer, who was starting to take this too personally. Sometimes jhe wondered if it wouldn't be easier to change to colors, make everyone more comfortable. But it wouldn't be honest. Jhe'd still be a southerner, no matter 'what jhe wore. Wearing colors wouldn't be right; it would be a deception. Jhe'd rather struggle through misunderstandings like this than be dishonest in the way jhe met life. "Ah, you. I think you just want to stand out. Maybe you're young, after all."
     
     "It doesn't hurt to stand out sometimes," Silivera replied, glad that the conversation had bounced back to a lighter tone. "You need something to be noticed in this sea of strange faces."
     
     "Oh, I don't think you'd have a problem. But speaking of strangers ..." Belder reached beneath the counter and pulled a large sketer root up from the depths. Jhe plunked it down and waited for Silivera's reaction.
     
     Silivera stared at it as if it were an off-world animal, before snatching the dusty tuber up and hugging it to jhes breast. "To think 1 used to take these for granted!"
     
     The grocer chuckled. "Time brings a glow to all memories?"
     
     "Rationing brings a glow to anything. Even sketer roots!"
     
     "I've heard we might get some tapier grain in next week. Do you want me to set some aside for you?"
     
     "Yes! I'll even give you the ration coupons now. Anything for a change from kwaicarat."
     
     "No, no, keep your coupons until it comes in," the grocer said, handing jhe the bag of striped grain and subtracting just the day's allotment of coupons for a family of three from the ration books. Chimes rang and more customers came into the store, their boots swishing against the wooden floor. Silivera said good-bye to the grocer and left, plunging back into the sun.
     
     The narrow sideway was hard beneath jhes feet; like all the paths in Khedderide, it had been carved right out of the cliff. Siliveia angled across to the open side, leaned against the wall, and looked out over the city.
     
     Khedderide always reminded jher of a jewel, basking under the sun, each tier one more carved facet. Facets that clung to the cliffs, narrow and rocky, with heartstopping drops between. Silivera loved it: its beauty, its newness, its row upon row of identical white houses with gleaming blue roof tiles that seemed to capture and hold bits of the vivid sky. It was hard to believe that just ten years ago there had been nothing here, nothing but a few halauks, circling, trying to wrest a meal from the barren desert.
     
     That had been before kerillian ore, needed to maintain the busy Gates between all the worlds of the Sectors, had been discovered in these cliffs. Now dusty roads snaked in across the Kassian desert and Khedderide had sprung from nothing. Silivera leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of government center, wondering if jhe might spot Ricel's blond head.
     
     But the angle was wrong, and jhe couldn't see even a corner of the large buildings hurriedly built to accommodate the citizenship needs of nearly seventy thousand people. Silivera pushed back from the wall, grimaced at the streaks of white it had left on jhes robe, and started walking home. Little Dafire would be waiting. The thought speeded jher up. "Vera!" The call spun Silivera around. Ricel was hurrying toward jher. Silivera's heart tripped into an extra beat. Laughing, Ricel caught up and gave Silivera a quick hug. Silivera savored the moment, acknowledging to jherself the ridiculousness of feeling so breathless over someone jhe'd lived with for a year and a half. It had been that way from the first sight of that blond head, back when jhe had thought blond hair was foreign and might even mean its possessor was male or female, from one of the dual-sexed worlds. Even that had not stopped Silivera from moving forward to meet the stranger. Silivera had since learned that such blond-haired, tan-skinned beauty was common in the far north, where Ricel came from, and that Ricel was as androgynous as the rest of the natives of the planet Rocque. But the heady rash of that first meeting was still with jher. "What are you doing here? And where's Dafire?" Ricel was asking. "I left Dafire next door, with Soel. I was called for a job interview. And I got the job! A permanent one, not a temp, like I've been working!"
     
     "Great. Where?"
     
     "Up at Blue Shaft."
     
     "Not in the mines!"
     
     "No, no. Paperwork. Their supply manager left to lay the groundwork for the new shaft. They needed a replacement. The coordinator wasn't too happy that I was so young, but jhe said my credentials were the best of those that applied, so I got the job."
     
     "Now you'll have a niche of your own."
     
     "Ummm. I've been so frustrated, seeing everyone else working to build this city, while all I could get was fiddling temps. Thank God I've had Dafire to look after these last six months. That's one drawback-even though it's an office job, there's too much dust from the mine for a baby. I'll miss not having Dafire with me every second of the day. Perhaps Soel would be willing to watch Dafire for us, as long as jhe's out with that leg injury. By the time jhe's ready to go back to work, we'll have had the time to link up with a good trade-time group. But just think of all Dafire's 'firsts' I'll miss!" moaned Silivera.
     
     "Like me. I've already missed more than I've seen," Ricel replied. Silivera nodded, but inside jhe was thinking that it wasn't the same. For all that Ricel had borne the baby, jhe didn't love jher as much as Silivera did.
     
     When they picked up Dafire from Soel's, the baby was so anxious to nurse that jhe nearly squirmed out of Ricel's arms.
     
     "Hey, watch that!" Ricel exclaimed breathlessly, laughing as jhe tried to juggle the baby. Silivera dropped the bag of kwaicarat and thrust a quick hand against the baby's bottom, until Ricel could rearrange jhes grip.
     
     "Thanks, Vera."
     
     "Quick, let's get in before the monster squirms loose again!" Silivera laughed. Jhe palmed open their door and they struggled in. Ricel quickly shed jhes working clothes, stepped into a nursing robe, and sank into a chair to nurse Dafire. Silivera memorized the sight, as jhe did every night, of the two blond heads nestled so near each other. Then jhe turned to the wall that passed as a kitchen, rinsed the dust off the grain jhe'd dropped, and threw it into a frying pan.
     
     Silivera talked as jhe stirred the grain. "I think my blacks stood me in good stead today. The shaft coordinator was a southerner. I think the only reason jhe took a chance on someone so young was jhe felt I would be imbued with the ethic of doing things with grace and formality rather than the slapdash way you northerners operate."
     
     Ricel laughed. "You and your 'southern traditions.' Did you explain your parents shunted you up here because they thought you were too much of a rebel?"
     
     "No." Silivera grinned.
     
     "A big mistake when it comes to you: judging by the black, instead of the mischief in your eye."
     
     "Maybe not. Otherwise, why can't I switch to colors like other southerners do?"
     
     "Because you know you look stunning in black." Ricel got up and nuzzled the back of Silivera's neck. Dafire gave an indignant snort, and stopped nursing long enough to push at Silivera's back with a chubby fist. Ricel laughed and sat down again. Dafire fixed an indignant blue stare on jhes parent's face, before the nursing made jhes eyes sink blissfully shut again. "Seriously, though," Silivera continued, "sometimes it's disgusting just how much I have absorbed my parents' attitudes."
     
     "I wouldn't worry, if I were you," Ricel laughed. "You're the least conventional person I know. Even your wearing of the black is a sign of it: no one else wears clothes because they're a sign of inner convictions! Only you, Vera, only you." Ricel shifted to start burping Dafire, and watched Silivera's quick, precise movements as jhe set the table. "You're just an interesting collection of odd quirks." Silivera slid the steaming mixture of grain and sketer root down onto the table. "As long as you keep the word 'interesting' in there." Jhe glanced up. The laughter stilled, and they exchanged a long look. Silivera glowed as they sat down to eat. After dinner, Ricel pushed up from the table and slowly started to stack the dishes, while Silivera mashed some of the food to feed Dafire. "How soon do you start work?" Ricel asked. "Next week. I don't suppose ... do you think you could get some time off before then? Once I start work, it will be even harder to get together to sign contracts."
     
     "Oh, Vera. You know the hours I keep. It's hopeless. Is it really so necessary to do it right now? I mean, we've signed intentions, I'm not avoiding marriage, but time off this week? When we've just started surveying a new tract? Impossible."
     
     "Yes, I thought so," Silivera sighed. "I know, Vera. You want to be married: contracts written and signed. I want to, too. It's just..." Silivera looked as cheerful as possible. "Don't worry, Ricel, we'll get to it eventually. This will just have to be one of my 'southern traditions' I'll have to change." Jhe scooped the dishes out of Ricel's hands and headed for the sink, missing the baffled, wistful look on Ricel's face.
     
     After a short period of silence, Ricel spoke. "Did you hear they finished paving the road in from the north today?"
     
     "So that's why Belder is expecting tapier grain next week!"
     
     Ricel snorted. "I bet more people arrive before enough food does. I wish they'd put a limit on immigration here, at least until my department gets a chance to take care of the housing shortage."
     
     "Forget it. Kerillian's too important. The more people they have, the more shafts they can open up," Silivera countered practically. "There's four already, and a fifth opening up. How greedy can you get?"
     
     "With the deposits on Thuneau, Ridelle, and Actue mined out? Pretty greedy. Every transport gate and every transport bracelet made needs kerillian. And every newly joined planet wants to be on Sectors' net as fully and as quickly as possible. Especially those who don't follow the Arian way, and want a Gate every few blocks, so they don't have to do anything for themselves. No, the deposits here will be mined to the last inch, regardless of the cost."
     
     Ricel sighed and sank into a chair. "I suppose you're right. I'll just have to get used to the pace."
     
     Silivera leaned against the chair and passed a hand through Ricel's blond hair. "Rough day, hmmm?"
     
     "God, yes. Norill came in screaming that Rylie placed half jhes markers wrong-you know Norill's pleasant manner- and Rylie swore jhe'd sunk them correctly, and by the end of the day no one in the department was speaking to anyone else, for fear of setting off more explosions."
     
     Ricel shook jhes head and closed jhes eyes tiredly. Silivera gave jher an extra caress and sunk down onto the floor to play with Dafire. Ricel leaned over to pick up a half-made crawlie for Dafire that needed hemming.
     
     "Look at that!" Silivera exclaimed a few moments later. "Dafire's stacked three of them together!" Jhe looked up, but Ricel's blond head had fallen against the side of the chair.
     
     Silivera smiled ruefully. "Wait here, Daf," jhe said, patting the baby on the back. Silivera went over to Ricel's chair and, quietly maneuvering the sleeper into jhes arms, carried jher into the bedroom they shared. Ricel never stirred. Silivera stood there for a moment, looking at the tousled blond hair which had seemed so exotic to jhes southern eyes when they had first met. Then Silivera swung back through the door and walked over to where Dafire had stopped playing with blocks in favor of gnawing on them. Silivera idly removed the block from the small mouth and watched with a slight smile as the baby promptly stuck a different one in. Jhes sohn. Precious, lovable, and half jhes and not jhes at all. Only if there was a marriage contract could a parent claim a child jhe'd fathered. In the south it would have been a scandal to conceive, let alone bear, a child out of contract. But here, mores were less rigid. Ricel didn't see anything wrong, as long as they got married eventually. So they remained a couple living together, with a child born between them, and no marriage contract. It bothered Silivera to the depths. It seemed ridiculous to put so much stock into a piece of paper, but it was the way jhe'd been brought up. Jhe'd never forget the shock when Ricel announced jhe had gotten pregnant without that paper. And every time someone asked if Dafire was jhes sohn, jhe choked on the yes, knowing that, under the Code that was the law of all of Rocque, both north and south, jhe had no legal right to call Dafire jhes without that piece of paper. With a sigh, Silivera picked up the crawlie Ricel had dropped and finished hemming it. Silivera waited outside the Records Hall for over an hour. Ricel had said jhe'd be able to get off early. Silivera had put in for an hour off and hurried over. They'd have the contracts drawn up, and arrange for a signing date. But Ricel never showed. When the whisper of the evening breeze began, Silivera gave up and headed home. Ricel dragged home, dusty, later than usual, and discouraged. "I tried, Vera."
     
     "What happened?"
     
     "Norill blew up. Said the last set of sites I'd surveyed were all crooked. I had to go out and do them all over again. I swear, Vera, I know I'm tired, but I'm not so tired I'm careless. They were so off you could tell by just looking at the flags marking the corners. Someone must have moved them."
     
     "But that's beyond mischief! What if it hadn't been caught and the houses had been built wrong on the cliff? It could have endangered people's lives! That's a gross breach of the Code!"
     
     Ricel looked as grim as Silivera felt. "It isn't the first time markers have moved mysteriously. I can't see how ... it can't be kids. Those flags have to be drilled into the rock. And there weren't any other holes." Ricel shrugged. "Oh, maybe I am getting so tired I can't see straight. The only other explanation is the cliff moved. And that's impossible; this area is stable. If it isn't, we're in trouble. All those mine shafts." Ricel shuddered.
     
     "Don't be so fast to dismiss kids. They can be pretty clever. And they don't always think too far ahead.... Still, they must have known they were going too far, even if they didn't realize their actions could be breaking the Code." Silivera shook jhes head. The Code was something learned from birth on; to break it was to say you disdained the rights of others. You walked outside of them.
     
     Weeks passed. There never seemed to be a second opportunity to meet at the Records Hall to draw up the contracts, let alone sign them. Silivera didn't have time to let it depress jher; jhe was busy proving to the Blue Shaft coordinator that jhe had been right to hire a seventeen-year-old with only temporary jobs for experience. Despite the satisfaction the job gave, the best part of the day was going home, to Dafire and Ricel. That was the center of existence. When the evening breezes sighed along the cliffs, Silivera would plunge down from the cliffs into the fairy-tale tapestry of twinkling lights. Silivera's hours were almost as long as Ricel's now. It was pitch dark when jhe'd arrive at Soel's to pick up Dafire. Still, Silivera never seemed as tired as Ricel, so jhe kept the burden of most of Dafire's care, as well as the larger portion of the housework. Ricel objected, but Silivera just laughed and told jher to rest while jhe could, because jhe planned to be the next one to bear a baby and then jhe'd be the one exhausted with nursing and working and child care. Truthfully, Silivera enjoyed having the excuse to hog the care of Dafire. As the youngest in jhes family, jhe'd never had the care of an infant before. Silivera was astonished at how much jhe enjoyed it, and was eager for more children, even if jhe had to do it without a marriage contract. One night Ricel came home late, almost at Dafire's bedtime, but jhe looked happy. "I wrestled a promise from Norill for the afternoon off tomorrow! No matter what happens, I'll meet you at the Records Hall; we'll draw up the contracts and sign them then and there." Silivera looked up from cleaning the table and smiled all the way from the toes. Ricel threw jherself into a chair and motioned for Silivera to come over. Silivera stopped to scoop up Dafire, plumped the two of them into the chair beside Ricel, and grinned at Ricel's blond-topped face. "What?"
     
     "Let's celebrate!"
     
     "Celebrate? It's almost Dafire's bedtime. We can't go out now."
     
     "There's more than one way of celebrating. We hardly ever save any time for ourselves. Either I'm asleep or at work, or you're busy with the house and Dafire."
     
     "I know. But we're together." Silivera's smile began to dance. "And we had a nice courtship."
     
     "That was a year and a half ago. And it didn't last long enough," Ricel murmured, freeing Silivera's hair from Dafire's grasp to run jhes own fingers through it. "So let's celebrate the last night we'll be unmarried. Silivera lingered under Ricel's touch for a moment before murmuring: "Let me settle Dafire down for the night." Ricel smiled and followed. Jhe watched, lazy eyed, as Silivera changed Dafire and tucked jher into the crib. Then Ricel closed the door softly and the two walked arm in arm into their own bedroom.
     
     Dasday was clear and beautiful, the sky a blue so molten it was deeper than the tiles on the roofs. Silivera worked swiftly, sparking with the knowledge jhe'd be meeting Ricel at the Hall of Records in just four hours. They'd have to skip wearing the red: there was no time to shop for wedding robes. But Soel had promised to bring Dafire to greet them outside the private chambers after they had traced the ritual marriage signs on each other's faces. Silivera wished jhes parents could be there for the celebration feast-but of course then jhe'd have to explain the existence of Dafire, pre-contract. ... It would be nice being just Ricel, Dafire, and Soel, too. Silivera smiled, imagining.
     
     The ground moved beneath jhes feet, pressing against the soles, then fading away. Silivera looked up startled.
     
     A low rumble built, became a thudding roar that shook both skull and chest. Silivera tried to stand. The ground jerked and bobbed.
     
     Silivera staggered against the room. Made it to the doorway. A cloud of pale-gray dust was rising from the city below, obscuring the view. In a slow dance, it started to eddy, then settle with the breezes. Silivera's breath caught. Jhe clung to the door and stared, horrified, at the tumbled swaths of blue roof tiles and broken walls.
     
     Another rumble. Silivera watched as the cliff face below Red Shaft shrugged and parted from the rocks behind, carrying houses and streets into dusty oblivion.
     
     Silivera stood, in a state that felt like calm, and waited for the rumble that would carry Blue Shaft, and jher, away.
     
     It didn't come. At last jhe left the door and walked back to the desk. Moving delicately, jhe gathered scattered paperwork into neat piles and filed it in the trays. Picked up the drinking glass that had fallen. Straightened the chart on the wall.
     
     When there was nothing left to tidy, jhe had to let the knowledge seep in. Trembling slightly, jhe started the climb down to the city. The staircase from Blue Shaft was littered with rocks and cracked in places, but it was passable. Below was different. Silivera had to scramble. The sideways were more rubble than street. In several places, slides had wiped out any trace of habitation. The rocks were quiet now, except for an occasional trickle of sand. Cries filled the air. A figure erupted from the broken rocks beside Silivera, shook the dust from shock-blinded eyes, and stared at the scene; then turned and started scrabbling at the chaos behind, calling a name. Others were doing the same, up and down what had been the sideway. Silivera threaded a way through them. The closer to home, the swifter jhe hurried, breath rasping painfully, tearing jagged rents in the blanket of shock. One last featureless slide. Silivera scrambled across, then stood and looked for landmarks. A shop sign was sticking out of the debris. Oh Honor! It was Belder's, all that was left of the produce shop. Silivera looked for the staircase that had wound down to their level. It was gone; covered or swept away, Silivera couldn't tell which. Bracing feet as best as possible, jhe slid down. A number painted on a jagged portion of a wall gave some bearings. Silivera turned right and counted along the heaps of rubble to Soel's number. Hands tore quickly on the gritty, sharp-edged pieces. Silivera's began to leave a bloody trail. Jhe stopped, ripped off a piece of tunic and wrapped them. The hands became black flags moving among the rocks. Muffled crying spurred jher to frantic activity. Silivera called and called to Dafire as jhe scrambled and heaved. Jhes voice grew harsh; sobs came unbidden. Unknown hands began to help as jhe fought and  wiggled and pushed a way through. First Dafire's foot was uncovered. Then a hand. Gently Silivera pulled the wildly sobbing baby from a miraculously protective triangle of broken walls. No blood. No injuries that jhe could see. Silivera hugged Dafire so close, the baby started to cry harder. Silivera sat, shook, kept sobbing over Dafire while the others went on searching for Soel. A warden came by, passing out colored construction flags. Houses were marked: blue for those already searched or whose occupants were accounted for, red for all the rest. Silivera stuck a blue in the rubble that had been their home. Ricel wouldn't have been there, and jhe and Dafire were accounted for. Jhe went back to the seat on the sunny rock by Soel's home and hunched protectively over Dafire. Soel's body was found an hour later. Only then did Silivera feel free to walk to government center to find Ricel.
     
     Silivera walked unhearing through a confused babble of sobs, hurried talk and cries for loved ones, doctors, help. Dafire took jhes head out of Silivera's shoulder and peered with interest at the milling crowds. Silivera tried to stop the tremors that still shook through jher. Jhe had the baby. Dafire was alive and unhurt. The tremors came anyway, as jhes sandaled feet traced their way over the rubble.
     
     Silivera approached government center by the back of the Records Hall without even remembering this was to have been their marriage day. That special day seemed years ago. Silivera rounded the side of the building and dug sandals into the ground in a sudden stop. Jhes hand wavered as it reached for the wall beside jher, for support. A gaping wound of scoured rock met jhes eyes. The cliff had sheared completely away at this point, carrying half the Records Hall and the rest of government center with it. Silivera drifted forward to peer down at the featureless jumble of gray rocks and dust that spread to the valley floor. Tears choked throat and eyes: never to see Ricel's blond hair again! Without a sound jhe turned around and started heading up the cliffs to where the warden had said tents for the homeless were being erected.
     
     Hope returned after food and rest. Maybe Ricel had been out surveying a site, maybe jhe had already left to get ready for the ceremony at the Records Hall. Silivera changed the flag on their house from blue to red and entered Ricel's name among the thousands of missing, opposite their own location in case Ricel was seeking them. Then jhe joined one of the search teams. Silivera knew jhes skills would be better suited to organizing relief efforts or helping Records in their efforts to reunite families and establish order among the lost and scattered vital records. But there was something numbing in the hard physical labor that satisfied a driving need. Jhe kept quiet and spent the days heaving aside the rubble of the red-flagged buildings, searching for victims, living or dead. Each night Silivera arrived back at the tent, shaky with exhaustion. Jhe'd scan the message board hopefully, and then quietly strip off the grimy dust mask, rinse filthy, scratched hands in the shallow bucket of communal water, and pick up Dafire from those who had volunteered to care for the children, to free the more physically able. Carrying Dafire, Silivera would go over to their own small partition, feed the baby, then hold Dafire close. Silivera lost track of the gray days. Numb surprise greeted the realization, upon asking the day, that a week had passed since the quake. That day Silivera found it hard to believe Ricel might still be alive. The ache of that knowledge so filled Silivera that jhe barely heard what the caregiver was saying when jhe entered the tent that night. At first. "I think you should stay in tomorrow and rest, dear. Your milk supply must be down, the way your baby has been taking it from the bottle during the day. I don't mean to complain, but we're so short of even the powdered milk, we want to save it for those babies who no longer have mothers to nurse them."
     
     "Yes, of course," Silivera mumbled as Dafire was handed over. Jhe walked away swiftly. Once behind their private partition, Silivera trembled. Dafire. Jhe would lose Dafire. Without a marriage contract there was no way jhe could claim the baby as jhes sohn. Wasn't it enough that she had lost Ricel? Now Dafire would be sent to Ricel's family. A family that had never seen or wanted to see the child. A family whose shock at Ricel's desire to marry someone they didn't know, and a southerner, had led them to cut off all relations with their sohn. It just wasn't fair! Tears blurred Silivera's vision as Dafire squirmed free of a too tight grip and began to crawl around the cot. Poor Dafire. Mother gone, only a father left. Silivera wondered if the baby noticed what a drastic change had occurred. Dafire had been quieter, had clung to Silivera more in the evenings. Of course, Dafire had been missing the mother that had nursed jher! Silivera had been numb. Now the thought pierced. How could jhe have been so blind? How would Dafire react to losing Silivera, too? Silivera, the one who had loved and cared for jher from the minute jhe had left Ricel's womb.
     
     When would jhe bring jherself to notify the officials of Dafire's position? Jhe'd wait for the bureaucracy to catch up with the fact that jhe wasn't the baby's mother.
     
     For the next two weeks Silivera walked with but one refrain: jhe was going to lose Dafire. The tears that spattered the dust weren't just for Ricel now, they were for Dafire also.
     
     The day came that Silivera was assigned to help clear the Records Hall.
     
     Silivera learned that the birth records had been held in the section which had been sheared away. For the adults, like Silivera, it was no more than an inconvenience; another copy could be obtained from the place of birth. But Dafire had been born here. There had never been any reason to file a copy elsewhere. Silivera asked casually what was being done in such cases and was told new certificates were being made as fast as possible; parents, or the nearest surviving relative, gave the information.
     
     Silivera returned to the tent that evening, and as jhe rinsed face and hands in the tent's gritty bucket of water, there was a whisper in jhes head. It would be easy. All jhe'd have to do was state Dafire was jhes born child instead of fathered child....
     
     No! That went against the Code. It even had a name and number all its own: kidnapping. Dafire belonged to Ricel's family and to Ricel's family jhe would go. In fact, to resist temptation, Silivera would go, first thing tomorrow, to the tent serving as a temporary shelter for the Hall of Records and start the proceedings.
     
     The next morning Silivera reported to the regular work crew. The rescue work was more important, jhe argued to jherself. Even though it had been eight days since anyone had been found alive, there might still be someone clinging to life below the rubble . . . shame coiled inside Silivera's breast. Jhe knew that wasn't the reason jhe was sifting through dust and rocks instead of filling out paperwork. That night Silivera had a headache from the thoughts that fought in jhes head. Honor, love, loneliness, and fear vying with each other, leaving only confusion. Was Right always right? One part of Silivera shuddered at the wrongness of what jhe was toying with; another part shouted it was not wrong at all. Silivera shook jhes head. It was impossible, so why even consider it? But the whisper kept coming back. Was it so impossible? Was it? Jhe and Ricel had been too wrapped up in each other to have many friends-there were few who could be certain which had borne the babe. Soel, of course, but jhe was dead. Probably several of Ricel's coworkers had at least known jhe was pregnant. But could they swear that Dafire was the baby? Simultaneous pregnancies were rare, but not impossible, and Ricel had never taken Dafire in to work with jher.... They were probably all dead with Ricel, anyway. And jhe had been too ashamed to write and tell jhes parents jhe had fathered a child without contract. Jhe could just switch to the equal shame of having borne a child pre-contract. But, even if jhe managed, somehow, to fool all these people, would jhe be able to live with jherself? To go against the Code? To walk outcast? Even if no one else knew it, jhe would always know. Kidnapping. It had an ugly ring. Under the Code it didn't matter that jhe loved the babe: other unwedded fathers had surely loved their children before. This did not change the law that said children belonged to those that bore them, unless a contract said otherwise. The hand of anyone who had ever borne a child, loved it, and guarded it from harm, would be against jher. Would Ricel's family bother to trace jher? Silivera wasn't even sure if they knew of Dafire's existence. They had returned all of Ricel's letters after that one telling them Ricel had filed intentions with someone here. Without ever a meeting, they had condemned Silivera simply because jhe was not one of the few they had already picked as suitable for Ricel. Honor had probably demanded they forget Silivera's name!
     
     Umbrage turned to thoughtfulness. There was a good chance they didn't know Silivera's name. Ricel had so hated the name Silivera, jhe had always called jher "Vera." And if Silivera remembered right, Ricel had deliberately omitted Silivera's last name from that letter, wanting them to accept Silivera for jherself, and not for jhes family connection. So, even if they knew Ricel had had a sohn, they would be seeking a Dafire Tojer, sohn of Ricel Tojer and some unknown Vera. Not Daffy Aubochon, sohn of Silivera.
     
     Silivera looked at the sleeping Dafire. If jhe walked outside the Code and took the baby, jhe would never be able to marry: it would be easy to notice that jhes body carried no trace of having borne a child. Besides, jhe would never ask someone jhe loved to step outside the Code for jher. Bad enough jhe was doing it to jherself. That was the question: could jhe spend jhes entire life alone, with just Dafire: no lifemate, no family, no more children? And always with the knowledge that jhe walked outside the Code, eating at jher?
     

     Jhe stared again at Dafire's blond head and jhes heart wrenched. Jhe would never be whole, or at peace, again. Which was it to be: Love? Or Honor?
     
     On Dasday, exactly four weeks after the quake, Silivera strapped Dafire to jhes back, gathered up their few belongings, and walked to where government center had stood. Jhe picked a desert aloene which had struggled up from a crack, maybe from what had been someone's garden, and tossed it down. A wildflower, like Khedderide itself, sprung from desert and dust and a bit of magic. And just as quick to die, thought Silivera.
     
     Jhe stared down at the spot of color on the dusty gray rocks. Jhe wondered, if Ricel had lived, would they have stayed and worked for Khedderide's rebirth? Or would they have fled, as so many already had? Jhe watched the silent flower for a while. Not even a body to bury. The rocks had taken care of that.
     
     Silivera turned and, still with some misgivings, walked to the Records tent. Jhe requested a new certificate, for jhes sohn Dafire Aubochon. With one extra copy to carry. Then jhe headed south. Back to the lands of black-clad formality, green fields, and old cities. To where the shame would be greater but the chance of exposure less. Jhe would go to jhes parents for a while, until jhe chose somewhere else, as jhe had chosen Khedderide. Jhe would not tell them Dafire's true lineage; even Dafire must never know jhe was father, not mother. Somewhere on the long journey south, between the steady pace of walking and the intimacy of fending for just the two of them, Silivera found peace, and the conviction jhe had chosen rightly. Together, a mother and jhes sohn, they arrived at Aubochon. Nonar answered the door. "Hello, Mother," Silivera said. Tears sprang to Nonar's eyes, tears that pride held, unshed, at the corners. Silivera knew these unshed tears were the closest Nonar would ever come to showing jhes joy that Silivera had returned alive from Khedderide. Nonar's gaze traveled over all of Silivera's figure, over the dust-covered robes, the unexplained baby on the hip. Jhes eyes flickered, saying that some things would have to be discussed soon. "So. You still wear the black. I'm glad to see you're not so lost to Honor that you've adopted northern ways." I've fallen much farther than that, Silivera thought. "No," jhe replied simply. 


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About Pat Cirone and "To Father a Sohn"
     
     I've published stories by Pat Cirone more than once in the Darkover anthologies and in Sword and Sorceress, and I've met her at more conventions than once. I remember once hitching a ride with her after Darkover Con in Baltimore, into Manhattan and the Plaza Hotel. Pat called this story by this name; but when we published it in issue three, we published it under the name of "A Flower From the Dust of Khedderide." I can't remember why; I usually don't change titles, although it was standard practice when I started writing for a living. Back then, editors would arbitrarily change titles, make cuts, etc., without so much as a by-your-leave to the writer. Nor did any of us ever as much as see a proof. No, not even of novels, far less of shorts before we saw them in print. This story won second place in the Cauldron vote. I liked it because it takes a good hard look at social and sexual stereotypes, in an alien society, causing us to think about ours. If science fiction has any reason for existence-and I think it has-it should be to examine our own social taboos and hang-ups. I seldom print or write science fiction anymore; but this was in an early issue when we had not drawn clear lines as to what we wanted. Despite being one of the most clearly science fictional stories we ever printed, it's still a favorite of mine.