Danan stroked Herman’s nose, then reached up and scratched the horse behind the ears under the complex arrangement of straps the horse wore on his head. Even the humans’ animals seemed to wear clothes. “There, Herman. Good horse. You like that, don’t you?” Danan crooned as the horse’s head drooped, and his eyelids half closed.
“Does he talk?” Moki asked.
Danan laughed, and Dusty jerked awake. “No, Moki. Horses don’t talk, but they like-being talked to, and they respond to your tone of voice. They’re easily startled, and a scared horse is a dangerous horse. You don’t want to sneak up on a horse, especially from the rear. If they’re startled, they tend to kick. But most of the time, horses’re very calm, especially if they’ve been well treated and properly trained.”
“Danan, Moki, we’re ready to go,” Astrid called.
“How can you have more than one mother?” Moki asked as they headed for the wagon.
“Astrid’s not my biological mother, she’s just one of the other mothers in our family. She takes care of us kids, though. My real mother, the one who had me, is up at the house with Toivo. I’ll introduce you to her when we get back.”
“Oh,” Moki said, “she’s like an elder in the same village.”
“No, she’s part of my family.”
Moki turned purple in puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
Astrid, who had been listening to this conversation laughed gently. “Go easy on him, Danan. Moki just got here, and it’s going to take him some time to figure it all out.” She picked up the reins, shook them, and made a clicking sound with her tongue. Dusty and Herman started to move, and Moki realized that the horses were pulling the wagon forward. His ears lifted and he turned deep fuchsia in amazement.
“What is it, Moki?” Astrid asked.
“The wagon! The horses are moving it!”
Astrid smiled. “That’s one of the things that horses do for us, Moki. They pull loads for us, and carry us around on their backs, and they’re good company. Before Juna found you, humanity’s only other friends were animals.”
Moki’s ears widened again in surprise. Animals as friends. Danan had talked to Dusty as though he were a friend, even though the horse couldn’t understand him. He shook his head in puzzlement. There had been tame animals in Narmolom and Lyanan, but they weren’t friends. Humans had some strange ideas.
“But you eat animals,” Moki said, confused. “How can you eat them if they’re your friends?”
“It’s kind of complicated,” Astrid said. “Maybe you should ask Juna to explain it to you.”
Danan pulled a cluster of grapes from one of the flats piled in the back of the wagon, and handed it to him. The grapes were warm from the sun and richly fragrant.
“Here, Moki, try some grapes,” he said.
Moki put one in his mouth. The skin was tart and astringent on his tongue, until he bit into it, and then sweet juice burst into his mouth. There was a hard seed in the middle that tasted bitter, and he spit it into his hand.
“Oh! It’s good! It’s wonderful!” Moki exclaimed, turning turquoise. He ate another one.
“I think he likes them,” Astrid said with an amused grin.
“Why do you make wine out of something that tastes this good? Why not just eat the grapes?”
Astrid smiled. “We like the taste of the wine, and we like getting a little drunk off the alcohol in the wine. And the wine will keep for years. The grapes last for only a few days.”
“What is ‘drunk’?”
“The alcohol in the wine relaxes us, and reduces our inhibitions,” Astrid explained. “In moderation, the sensation can be pleasurable.”
“But the alcohol is a poison,” Moki said. “One of the reasons I don’t like wine is that it’s so much work to filter out the alcohol.”
“Juna lets you drink wine?” Danan asked.
“I didn’t ask her. I just saw everyone else with some, and tried it. It didn’t taste very good,” he said, going beige with distaste.
Astrid laughed. “Oh Moki, I’m glad you’re here. I like you.”
Moki turned blue with pleasure. “Thank you,” he replied. “I like you, too.”
Moki ate grapes all the way back to the barn. Danan kept hopping off the wagon and picking new and different varieties for him to sample. They were all grapes, but each variety had startlingly different flavors.
“So many flavors from just one kind of plant,” Moki observed wonderingly. “So different, yet all the same.”
“Those vines are the product of thousands of years of careful breeding,” Astrid explained.
Mold’s ears lifted wide. They had accomplished remarkable things in such a short time. And they did it without spurs to sample the genetic taste of a plant. “That’s amazing,” he said.
Astrid drove the wagon through the broad doors of the barn and into the cool dimness of the winery, where other workers began unloading pallets of grapes.
Moki was very thirsty, and his skin felt tight and dry after so much time out in the hot, dry vineyard. A long, shallow tub full of water stood just outside the door. He climbed into it, sending a cascade of water flooding over the sides. He closed his eyes and savored the moist coolness of the water on his skin.
“Moki, what are you doing?”
He opened his eyes. Danan and Astrid were looking down at him, their faces puzzled.
“My skin was drying out,” he told them.
“But that’s the horse trough,” Danan said. “The water isn’t very clean, and besides, it isn’t good for the goldfish.” He held out his hand. Cupped in his palm was a small, plump fish, bright orange in color. “He was pushed out with all the water.”
Moki got out of the trough and helped Danan rescue the rest of the struggling fishes and return them to the water.
“They’re awfully small,” he observed as Danan turned on the water tap to refill the trough. “Are they good to eat?”
“We don’t eat goldfish, Moki. We put them in the trough because they eat the algae, and they look pretty. Look at that one,” he said, pointing to a particularly plump and awkward-looking fish with long trailing fins and huge, bubblelike cheek pouches. “Isn’t he weird? The Uenos gave that one to us. They raise goldfish and ornamental carp. I helped clean out their ponds last summer. They gave us a bunch of different goldfish for our horse troughs.”
“Don’t those cheek pouches kind of slow him down?” Moki asked, wondering how such an awkward creature could survive.
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing here that could eat him. He’s a pet. It’s his job to swim around in a tank and look pretty.” Danan reached up and turned off the water.
“Come on, let’s go back to the house and get something to drink. Netta Tdti made some lemonade this morning. You’ll like lemonade!”
Ukatonen watched Moki drive off with Danan. He felt a twinge of envy at the bami’s ability to win the humans over. It was partly due to the humans’ perception of Moki as a child, but the bami was naturally curious and outgoing. After centuries as an enkar, Ukatonen’s reserve was an ingrained part of his personality. Besides, the constantly shifting gravity on the trip over had left him feeling disoriented, which only increased his habitual reticence.
A tall blond woman approached him. “This must be a lot for you to get used to,” she said with a graceful gesture that took in the people sitting and chatting, as well as the arc of the space station. “I’m Selena, Danan’s mother.”
“You are married to Toivo?” Ukatonen inquired.
“Yes. We’re a dyad in the same group marriage, a branch of the Fortunati family. Danan is my biological son.”
“I see,” Ukatonen said. “What is a dyad?”