Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!"
The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage.
Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size."
Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!"
The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily:
"You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?"
Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking.
"Maybe there'd be less trouble for us."
Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light.
She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields."