::Note: this chapter is not quite finished, but I thought I would post it as it is and invite comments.::

We were still holding hands when we got to our camp, which caused not a few eyes to glance our way. One set of which belonged to Bethany. “Carl!” she said, coming over to me, giving me a perfunctory kiss, and then looking down at the girl. “And you must be Drendida?”

“Yes. And thank you so much for hosting me.”

“Well you’re welcome,” Bethany said, in a tone of voice that the most tone deaf of people would have known was fake. “Come, let me show you our tent.”

Luckily for everyone concerned Adelphe was at the tent. “Drendida?” she asked, as the trio came up, Carl dragging miserably behind the two girls.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’m Aliyah Tome, head medical officer here,” Aliyah said, in a cold tone. “Please put your bags in the tent and come with me.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Drendida said, sounding excited.

“I can’t believe you did this to me!” Bethany said, a minute later, dragging me into the tent.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“I know!” she said. “I can see the whole thing. But you better make it up to me!”

“How?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she said, sitting down on her bed. “What’s she like, anyway?”

“I dunno,” I answered, making her laugh. “She’s Newtonian… but I think she’s really trying to get it right. Give her a chance!”

“I will…” Bethany said, pouting in fun. “I was so enjoying having you all to myself, though.”

“Hardly that,” I said, stroking her stomach.

She laughed, and we talked about other things as she helped me get my armor off.

—

“Oh, Mr….” Drendida started, hours later, as she came up to Bethany and I by the fire.

“Call me Uncle Carl,” I said, waving her to a seat next to me.

‘Oh, Uncle Carl,” she said, in an almost human tone of voice. “I can’t thank you enough for what you have done. Mrs… Aunt Aliyah set me up with half a dozen appointments already this afternoon, and they all went so well.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said. “What did you do?”

“All, all the standard checks. One woman has twins!” she said. “That is so good for my experience. Twins are rare, you know.”

“I figured,” I said, “Because of their being so few of them.”

“That’s what rare means…!” she started to object and then, seeing my look, “Oh. Humor. I’m sorry, that is not the type we would usually use.”

“Oh? How would your father say it?” I asked.

She cocked her head and then said, in a dry, deep, voice, “It is always gratifying to recieve new information.”

It took me a second, but then I guffawed, and Bethany laughed. Several kids came over, and I told them the whole story and had Drendida repeat her bit, and most of them laughed, too.

“What are we doing here?” Drendida asked, after they had gone back to their place.

“Socializing. Talking. Eating. Having fun.”

“Oh,” she said. “Do we talk about anything in particular?”

“Life?” Bethany said. “Tell us about your family.”

“My Dad works in biochemical engineering. He has degrees in…”

“No, silly. Not that kind of thing. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

“Oh, yes. There are five of us. I am the oldest. My oldest brother is studying…” She stopped as Bethany shook her head. But I said,

“Oh, come on Bethany, we might tell each other what a kid was studying in school, and how they’re doing!”

“Ok,” she said, looking at Drendida, “Go ahead, tell us.”

Her oldest brother was, apparently, interested in the physics of faster than light travel, as well as drawing. Her sister had no real career plans as yet, but was doing very well in mathmatics and painting.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Math and painting? Seems a strange combination.”

“Right and left brain,” Drendida said, almost smugly. “Everyone knows that you need to develop both sides of one’s brain, so all Newtonian children are encouraged to have a specialty on both sides. I, personally, do singing. I specialize in Opera. Would you like to hear some?”

“Not right now,” I hastily said, trying to imagine how this campfire crowd would react to ‘opera’.

 

“So, you were assigned? Did that upset you, when you were expecting to know they boy you were going to be partners with?”

“Oh, no,” Bethany said, while I watched her, nervously. “I’m glad I was assigned.”

“What? Why?” I asked, shocked.

“Well, first of all because I got you, of course,” she said, patting me on the thigh. “But it really was better. I mean, think about it. A boy comes to me. I like him, or I don’t. Or I don’t know him. But either way I have to say yes, or no.”

“If I say yes then, for the rest of my life, I’m stuck with my choice… second guessing myself… did I make the right choice? Could I have made a better choice?”

“Or if I say no. The poor boy, first of all. Works himself all up to come to me, thinks I am the best thing since syrup on pancakes… and I just tell him ‘no’? How could I do that. And then I have to double guess myself. Should I have accepted him? Will the next boy be better?”

“No, this was much better. Aliyah picked me a great partner, Daddy said I should partner with him since Aliyah picked him, I got to leave some great bonuses.”

“The only thing I really regret was the boy I left behind…”

“What?!” I said.

“Poor guy,” she said, grinning at Drendida. “Can you imagine? I could see him, day after day, screwing up his courage to ask me and then one day, whoosh, I’m headed off to space.”

‘Were you upset at having to go to space?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I wasn’t going to with that other boy, but I didn’t mind that. It seems like half of the boys in my class were signing up. We are very patriotic, we New Texans.”

I looked at her. “Patriotic?” I asked her. It wasn’t a word I had heard before, not that I remembered.

“You know, flags waving, bands playing, Dulce et decorum est, all that kind of thing.”

I shook my head, and she looked confused, and amused. “Why are you here then? Why are you fighting?”

“Because I am a soldier, and that’s what soldiers do.”

“But why are you a soldier?”

“Because my dad was a soldier.”

“But why was he a soldier?”

“Because we are at war, and he was good at it.” I start myself start to tear up and I wished she would stop. But she had a right to know why she was a soldier.

“Sounds like patriotism to me,” she said.

“But I still don’t know what patriotism is,” I complained.

“Patriotism,” Drendida said, “Is a group emotion.”

We both turned to look at her. “Human beings operate frequently as groups,” she said, almost as if she was quoting. “When the group is threatened by some outside force, it is to the advantage of the group if some members of the group face the danger in order to protect the remainder of the group. Human culture and biology, in great similarity to many other mammalian cultures in particular, chooses the males to be particularly vulnerable to this emotion. A younger male, in particular, whose ‘group’ is threatened, particularly his intimate family group: his mate and offspring, will turn to face the danger, while encouraging the others in his group to hide or flee.”

I must have looked very confused, because Bethany said to me, “If we were attacked, me and the baby, you would rush out and kill them, while we hid.”

“Of course,” I said.

“That’s what she said,” Bethany said.

“Oh,” I said. “Want to go for a swim?”