"We're both living a lie every day we spend with this company." It was a terrible thing to say, and yet she was so desperate for change, for something to change, that she hurled at him everything that came to mind.
"Are we? Is it a very big lie?" Zdorab seemed not so much hurt as ... thoughtful. Pondering. "Hushidh mentioned to me the other day that you and I are among the very closest bondings in this caravan. We talk about everything. We have immense respect for each other. We love each other - that's what she saw, and I believe her. It is true, isn't it?"
"Yes," whispered Shedemei.
"So what is the lie? The lie is that I'm your partner in reproduction. That's all. And if that lie became the truth, and there were a child in your belly, you would be whole, wouldn't you? The lie would no longer tear at your heart, because you would be what now you only seem - a wife - and you could become a part of that net of life."
She studied his face, trying to find mockery in it, but there was none. "Can you?"
"I don't know. I was never interested enough to try, and even if I had been, I would have had no willing partner. But - if I can find some small satisfactions from my own imagining, by myself, then why couldn't I - give a gift of love to my dearest friend? Not because I desire it, but because she desires it so much?"
"Out of pity," she said.
"Out of love," he said. "More love than these other men who jump their wives every night out of a desire no deeper than the scratching of an itch, or the voiding of a bladder."
What he was offering - to father a child on her - was something she had never considered as a possibility. Wasn't his condition his destiny?
"Doesn't love show its face," he went on, "when it satisfies the need of the loved one, for that loved one's sake alone? Which of these husbands can claim that?"
"But isn't a woman's body - repulsive to you?"
"To some, perhaps. Most of us, though, are simply... indifferent. The way ordinary men are toward other men. But I can tell you things to do that can awaken desire; I can perhaps imagine other partners out of my past, if you will forgive me for such... disloyalty... in the cause of giving you a child."
"But Zdorab. I don't want you to give me a child," she said. She was uncertain how to say this, since the idea had only just come to her, but the words came out clearly enough. "I want us to have a child."
"Yes," he said. "That's what I mean, too. I'll be a father to our child - I won't have to pretend to do that. My condition is not, strictly speaking, hereditary. If we have a son, he'll not necessarily be ... like me."
"Ah, Zodya," she said, "don't you know that in so many ways I want our sons to be just like you?"
"Sons?" he said. "Don't try to net your fish before you reach the sea, my dear Shedya. We don't know if we can do this even once, let alone often enough to conceive a single child. It may be so awful for both of us that we never try again."
"But you will try the once?"
"I will try until we succeed, or until you tell me to stop trying." He leaned toward her and kissed her cheek. "The hardest thing for me may well be this: That in my heart, I think of you as my dearest sister. Coupling with you might feel like incest."
"Oh, do try not to feel that way," she said. "The only problems we'll have with that are when a child of Luet's falls in love with a child of Hushidh's - double first cousins! You and I are genetically remote."
"And yet so close to each other," he said. "Help me do this for you. If we can do it, it will bring us so much joy. And running away, stealing from our friends, parting from each other, defying the Oversoul - what joy could that ever bring? This is the best way, Shedya. Stay with me."
Nafai found the wood easily enough - the Oversoul did have a fair idea of what kinds of vegetation grew where in this area, and of course knew