“You can call the ship, it can pick us up early, you know that. Don’t lie to me.”

“Only for an emergency. And we don’t have one of those. Why the hell did you ever marry me?”

“I don’t know…now.”

“You thought I was going up in the Rank, didn’t you? You took a gamble, and it didn’t payoff, did it? Jesus Margret, Jesus Christ, what kind of a wom—”

She turned and walked away from him. Her back was very straight. The day suddenly grew cold. The Saquettes trembled toward the unheard sound of the buried machinery. Zagaramendo sat down in the grass, his head slumping forward, his thoughts tumbling and twisting.

“Jesus,” he said, softly.

In the ninth week he witnessed a reincarnation, and he understood why the number of Saquettes was stable. He also saw another attack by molloks, but the Saquettes burrowed into the soil and were safe. The only time they were caught was near the antenna of the buried machinery. There were now seven locations of buried machinery, and every week when he trekked out to check them, he found the locations littered with crushed and popped Saquettes. He ignored it.

And that week he tried to make love to his wife. Out of spite. And she pushed him away. His face flamed and he grabbed her by the hair, throwing her down on the floor of the cabin. They struggled back and forth across the floor, and then he yanked her up and hit her, very hard, just below the left ear. She lolled against his grip, gasping for air, her eyes glazed, and when he saw what he had done he dropped her and ran out into the grassland.

They needed a reading from the place he called Polo Valley. But there was a large colony of Saquettes living there, and he knew what would happen if he planted ecology machinery there.

Molloks lived in the caves on the crags above.

After the fight in the cabin, he coded the squid to carry the machinery, and he took it out to Polo Valley, and he planted it.