But, Ted, come to think of it, had seemed withdrawn, his face a careful blank. And she?
"Very pretty," she'd said, and stuffed the tag-end of fear back into the jammed, untidy mental pigeon-hole she used for all unpleasant thoughts. "Don't run too far ahead, dear."
But now she had to know what Ted knew.
"Tell me!" she said.
"These tree-things—"
"There've been other deaths! How many?"
"Sixteen. But I didn't want to tell you. Orders were to leave women and children home when we had that last Meeting, remember."
"What did they say at the Meeting? Out with it, Ted!"
"That—that the tree-things think!"
"But that's ridiculous!"