Barry developed an unwillingness to spend the remainder of his life hiding behind Xintel's skirt. With increasing boldness, but conscious always of the menace of the Chosen, he began to leave the house and observe the Venusian way of life.
The undersea people bore him no grudge for killing Czerki, he discovered. In fact the Chosen One's death was not mourned even by his three women. But neither were the Venusians openly friendly toward this strange outlander who spoke haltingly and killed without weapons. They regarded him with mingled suspicion and awe.
Xintel's position in the community, he soon decided, was extremely odd.
Marriage relationships in Tana were informal, continuing only as long as mutually satisfactory. Polygamy was an accepted institution. It was customary for the girls of Tana to enter marriage relationships, on a temporary basis at least, almost as soon as they developed the curves of maturity.
Xintel was as beautiful as any female of Tana, and in addition she owned a house and tools and weapons representing considerable wealth. Nevertheless she was the only grown woman who did not have a mate or ex-mate or who was not a widow.
One day he asked her outright about it, and she burst into tears.
For a minute Barry stared, nonplussed. He put one arm around her bare shoulders.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said gently.
She snuggled closer in the curve of his arm.
"Don't talk about it if you don't want to," Barry urged.