" she mumbled with satisfaction. "Assuming
the responsibilities of domesticity has not made you forget what you
learned."

But the danger of fixing recessives into dominants through inbreeding
was even less with half-brothers and sisters. Now daughters by
one--er--sire could be bred to another sire to get only a quarter
relationship to a similar cross from the other father--er--sire. She
must work it out with a stylus in smooth clay. The boys had preempted
every scrap of paper for their pointless calculations. But she could
remember it, and it would be valuable in breeding up a desirable
barnyard stock.

Yet it was odd that she assumed two males and only one female!

* * * * *

Then and there, standing ankle deep in the bog of wild rice, muddy to
her knees in her torn coveralls, slapping at persistent mosquitoes, she
came to terms with herself. In the back of her mind she had known it all
the time. All this was without meaning unless there was Man--and a
continuity of Man. Even so little as this gathering of wild rice, before
the migrating ducks got it, was without meaning, if it were merely to
stave off death from a purposeless existence. If there were no other
fate for them than eventually to die, without posterity, then they might
as well die tomorrow, today, now.

The men were still living in a dream of getting back. No doubt their
lusting appetites were driving them to get back to their brazen,
heavy-breasted, languorous-eyed hussies who pandered to all comers
without shame! Miss Kitty was astonished at her sudden vehemence, the
red wave of fury which swept over her.

But of course she was right. That was their urgent drive. "A male human
is nothing more than a sex machine!" Wasn't that what her roommate at
college had once said? Or was it her maiden aunt who had dominated her
widowed mother and herself through all the years she was growing up?
What did it matter who said it? She knew it was true. No wonder they
were so anxious to get back to Old Earth! Her lip lifted in cynical
scorn.

"You don't dare leave a young girl alone with a boy for five minutes,"
her aunt had once complained bitterly. "All they ever think about
is...." her voice had dropped to a whisper and she had given that
significant look to Katheryn's mother. But Katheryn had known what she
meant, of course.

And it was true of all men.

Women, back on Old Earth, had looked at her with pity and a little
con