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."
Thorby had encountered sympathetic magic all his life and its wild, almost reasonable logic he understood. He felt a burst of pride that he was now part of the ship.
The Captain's wife slapped a plaster over the cut. Then Thorby exchanged food and kisses with her, after which he had to do it right around the room, every table, his brothers and his uncles, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. Instead of kissing him, the men and boys grasped his hands and then clapped him across the shoulders. When he came to the table of unmarried females he hesitated -- and discovered that they did not kiss him; they giggled and squealed and blushed and hastily touched forefingers to his forehead.
Close behind him, girls with the serving duty cleared away the bowls of mush -- purely ritualistic food symbolizing the meager rations on which the People could cross space if necessary -- and were serving a feast. Thorby would have been clogged to his ears with mush had he not caught onto the trick: don't eat it, just dip the spoon, then barely taste it. But when at last he was seated, an accepted member of the Family, at the starboard bachelors' table, he had no appetite for the banquet in his honor. Eighty-odd new relatives were too much. He felt tired, nervous, and let down.
But he tried to eat. Presently he heard a remark in which he understood only the word "fraki." He looked up and saw a youth across the table grinning unpleasantly
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