certainly.
Finally he seized the note-pad and wrote, "Do not understand monstrous,
please forgive. They do for more change, so not to make each other have
tiredness."

Weaver frowned and wrote, "Does not your religion forbid this?"

Mark consulted in his own piping tongue with the other two. Finally he
surrendered the note-pad to Luke, who wrote: "Do not understand religion
to forbid, please excuse. With us many religion, some say spirits in
flower, some say in wind and sun, some say in ground. Not say to do
this, not to do that. With us all people the same, no one tell other
what to do."

Weaver added another mental note to his already lengthy list: "Build
churches."

He wrote: "Tell them this must stop."

Mark turned without hesitation to the silently attentive group, and
translated. He turned back to Weaver and wrote, "They ask please, what
to do now instead of the way they do?"

Weaver told him, "They must mate only one to one, and for life."

To his surprise, the translation of this was greeted by unmistakable
twitterings of gladness. The members of the adulterous group turned to
each other with excited gestures, and Weaver saw a pairing-off process
begin, with much discussion.

He asked Mark about it later, as they were leaving the village. "How is
it that they did this thing before--for more variety, as you say--and
yet seem so glad to stop?"

Mark's answer was: "They very glad to do whatever thing you say. You
bring them new thing, they very happy."

Weaver mused on this, contentedly on the whole, but with a small
undigested kernel of uneasiness, until they reached the next village.
Here he found a crowd of Terranovans of both sexes and all ages at a
feast of something with a fearful stench. He asked what it was; Mark's
answer had better not be revealed. Feeling genuinely sick with
revulsion, Weaver demanded, "Why do they do such an awful thing? This is
ten times worse than the other."

This time Mark answered without hesitation. "They do this like the
other, for more change. Is not easy to learn to like, but they do, so
not to make themselves have tiredness."

* * * * *

There were three more such incidents before they reached the village
where they were to sleep that night; and Weaver lay awake in his downy
bed, staring at the faint shimmer of reflected starlight on the carved
roof-beams, and meditating soberly on the unexpected, the appalling
magnitude of the t