STERN: Just the same the point is well taken.
PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes.
PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...?
SALLY MARINO: Don't you—now, maybe this is a foolish question—don't you have to work awfully hard—I mean, with so few technical aids? The—oh, oil lamps, the necessarily primitive—of course, you've done miracles to have as much as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time and effort that it—well, wears you down?
PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat—
MINIAAN: And drink.
PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults or more. Shelter, food—the basic needs are supplied by each family working for itself; the large family unit distributes the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of beginning industries in textiles, sugar—
MINIAAN: Wine making.
ABARA: The lady is pied.
MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their nests where—Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I love you....