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."
"You're the reason Mata got swapped. You." Jeri looked at Thorby with disgust.
"Me?"
"Who else? Who pairs off at spat ball? Who sits together at story films? What new relative is always seen with a girl from his own moiety? I'll give you a hint -- the name starts with 'T.' "
Thorby turned white. "Jeri, I never had the slightest idea."
"You're the only one in the ship who didn't." Jeri shrugged. "I'm not blaming you. It was her fault. She was chasing you, you stupid clown! What I can't figure out is why you didn't know. I tried to give you hints."
Thorby was as innocent of such things as a bird is of ballistics. "I don't believe it."
"It doesn't matter whether you do or don't . . . everybody else saw it. But you both could have gotten away with it, as long as you kept it open and harmless -- and I was watching too closely for anything else -- if Sis hadn't lost her head."
"Huh? How?"
"Sis did something that made Grandmother willing to part with a crack firecontrolman. She went to Grandmother and asked to be adopted across moiety line. In her simple, addled-pated way she figured that since you were adopted in the first place, it didn't really matter that she was your niece -- just shift things around and she could marry you." Jeri grunted. "If you had been adopted on the other side, she could have wangled it. But she must have been clean off her head to think that Grandmother -- Grandmother! -- would agree to anything so scandalous
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