STEP IV

By ROSEL GEORGE BROWN

ILLUSTRATOR VARGA

he first time Juba saw him, she couldn't help recalling the description of Ariovistus in Julius Caesar: Hominem esse barbarum, iracundum, temerarium.

She unpinned the delicate laesa from her hair, for Terran spacemen are educated, and if they have a choice, or seem to have, prefer seduction to rape.

Step. I. A soft answer turneth away wrath, leaving time for making plans.

He caught the flower, pleased with himself, Juba saw, for not fumbling, pleased with his manhood, pleased with his morality in deciding not to rape her.

Rule a—A man pleased with himself is off guard.

He was big, even for a Man, and all hair, and in his heavy arms the veins were knotted and very blue. He had taken off his shirt, letting the air blow shamelessly over him.

It was true he was wonderful to see. And Juba knew that such is the nature of our violences, if she had been born into such a body, she too, would be a thing of wars and cruelty, a burner of cities, a carrier of death and desolation.

His face softened, as though the hand of Juno had passed over it. Softly he gazed at the flower, softly at Juba.

Rule b—This is the only time they are tractable.

"Vene mecum," she bade him, retreating into the glade—what was left of it after his ship burned a scar into it. She ran lightly, so as to give the impression that if he turned, only so far as to pick up the weapon on the ground by his shirt, she would disappear.

"I follow," he said in her own language, and she stopped, surprise tangling her like a net. For she had been taught that Men speak only New-language in our time, all soft tongues having been scorned to death.

She should not have stopped. He looked back toward his gun. "Wait a moment," he said. His "a"'s were flat and harsh, his words awkwardly sequenced.

"Come with me," she said, and ran off again. She had been caught off guard.

Would he follow her? "Wait!" he cried, hesitated, and came after her again. "I want to get my gun." He reached for Juba's hand.

She shrank back from him. "Mulier enim sum." Would he get the force of the particle? What could he fear from a mere woman?

When he had followed her far enough, when he had gone as far as he would, for fear of losing his way from his ship, she let him take her hand.

"Terran sum," he said. And then, with meaning, "Homino sum."

"Then you are, naturally, hungry," Juba said. "You have no need to come armed. Let me take you to my home. There are only my sisters and I and the mother."

"Yes," he said, and took her other hand.

She blushed, because he was strangely attractive, and because the thought came to her that his ways were gentle, and that if he spoke a soft tongue, perhaps he was not like other Men.

Rule c—They are all alike.

"Come," Juba said, turning, "We are not far from the cottages."

She watched, during the meal, to see how he impressed the sisters and the mother. The little sisters—all bouncy blond curls and silly with laughter—their reaction to everything was excitement. And the mother—how could she seem so different from her daughters when they were so completely of her? They had no genes but her genes. And yet, there she sat, so dignified, offering a generous hospitality, but so cold Juba could feel it at the other end of the table. So cold—but the Man would not know, could not read the thin line of her taut lips and the faint lift at the edges of her eyes.

Juba brought him back to the ship that night, knowing he would not leave the planet.

"Mother," Juba said, kneeling before the mother and clasping her knees in supplication. "Mother