Although I could not tell her everything, I did find a sympathetic soul in Magali. From our first meeting, when I had dissolved the reserve between newcomer and veteran with my apparent candor, Magali had warmed to me, and we were soon chatting guardedly each day. She had worked twenty years at Aranyi, had risen to the top of the chain of command, above the rest of the servants but below the ’Graven masters. Our cases were not so dissimilar. Caught in the middle, neither all one thing nor the other, we were natural allies. I revealed my age without thinking as we compared our different lives. Magali, like most Eclipsians, had married young, had given birth to ten children, six of them living, and had two grandchildren. She was incredulous to learn that, at thirty-six, I had never been married, never had a child. “Is it true what they say?” she asked, looking for an explanation. “Terran men are sterile? Or impotent?” She indicated limpness with her middle finger. “Oh, they’re fertile enough,”
