inch's daughter someday, there would be hell to pay.

So as long as the restrictions had been bound around him, there was no
reason to go just half-way. George was not an ordinary boy. He did
things in extreme. He was now in love with a Venusian girl, and his
family was already starting to make him pay.

* * * * *

George turned off the path, just beyond an arch of thick purple-green
vines that always reminded him of a gate to a garden. There was a quiet
simplicity to this small clearing where he and Gistla met. There was an
aloneness to it, and only the sound of the flat shiny leaves sliding
together and the high, trilling sound of the small Venusian birds broke
the peaceful silence. They had always met here, nowhere else.

Now, as George found himself in the clearing, he began to wonder what
Gistla would say or do when he told her he was taking her home to meet
his family. It had been a sudden decision, brought out of anger and
indignation.

George sat down upon the flat hollow of a large vine. The sky was murky
as usual, but the soft warm feel and smell of the growth around him,
with its color and brightness, made up for a sunless sky.

As he waited, he remembered what his mother had said:

"Oh, George, you're really not serious about bringing a _Venusian_ into
our home!"

And his sister, Mari, had said, "My God!" Mari, who was eighteen, said
this to most anything.

But his father, eyes bright and alert, had said, "No, now if George
wants to bring one of these, ah, Venusians home with him, that's his
privilege. I think it would be very interesting."

George knew what his father meant by interesting.

Exposing Gistla to his family would result in deliberate sarcasm and
eye-squinting and barely hidden smiles. There would be pointed remarks
and direct insults. And when it was over, George knew, he would be
expected to see the error of his ways. He would then be expected to
forget about this odd creature and find himself a nice ignorant little
Colony girl, whose father was a member of the Governing circle.

"And to hell with that, too," George said.

"What?" George heard Gistla say. He turned quickly. She was standing at
the edge of the clearing, her round green eyes looking soft and serious.
She wore the usual gray cape that reached her ankles. Her voice was a
deep round sound, and there was hardly any accent in the words she had
learned so quickly since the Colony had begun