Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis

front of the door. Most of them stand empty.”
    Carson stomped back, his mustache quaking. “He says we can’t cross here either.”
    “The other break’s been repaired, too?” I said.
    “No. Now he says there’s something in the water. Tssi mitss.”
    I looked over at the Tongue. It was flowing over quartzite sand here and was clear as glass. “What’s that?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. It translates as not there.’ I asked him how much farther we have to go, and all he’ll say is ‘sahhth.’”
    Sahhth apparently meant halfway to the Ponypiles because he didn’t even glance at the Tongue again once we had the ponies up and moving, and he didn’t even bother to lead. He motioned Ev and me ahead, and went back to ride with Carson.
    Not that we could get lost. We’d charted all this territory before, and all we had to do was keep close to the Tongue. The Wall dipped away from the water and off toward a line of mesas, and we went up a hill through a herd of luggage, grazing on dirt, and came out at another Scenic Point.
    The thing about these long vistas is that you’re not going to see anything else for a while, and we’d already catalogued the f-and-f along here. There weren’t any, anyway—a lot of luggage, some tinder grass, an occasional roadkill. I ran geological contours and double-checked the topographicals, and then, since Ev was busy gawking at the scenery, ran the whereabouts.
    Wulfmeier was on Starting Gate after all. He’d been picked up by Big Brother for removing ore samples. So he wasn’t in Sector 248-76, and we could’ve spent another day at King’s X, eating C.J.’s cooking and catching up on reports.
    Speaking of which, I figured I might as well finish them up now. I asked for Bult’s purchase orders.
    He must’ve worked fast while we were at King’s X. He’d spent all his fines and then some. I wondered if that was why we were heading south, because he’d tchopped himself into a hole.
    I went through the list, weeding out weapons and artificial building materials and trying to figure out what he was going to do with three dozen dictionaries and a chandelier.
    “What are you doing?” Ev said, leaning across to look at the log.
    “Screening out contraband,” I said. “Bult’s not allowed to order anything with weapon potential, which in his case should have included umbrellas. It’s hard to catch everything.”
    He leaned farther across. “You’re marking them ‘out of stock.’”
    “Yeah. If we tell him he can’t order them, he fines us for discrimination, and he hasn’t figured out yet that he doesn’t have to pay for out-of-stock items, which keeps him from ordering even more stuff.”
    He looked like he was going to keep asking questions, so I called up the topographical instead and said, “Tell me some more about these mating customs you’re an expert on. Are there any species who give their girlfriends dictionaries?”
    He grinned. “Not that I’ve run across so far. Gift-giving is a major part of a majority of species’ courtship rituals, though, including Homo sapiens. Engagement rings, and the traditional candy and flowers.”
    “Mink coats. Condos. Islands in the Tobo Sea.”
    “There are several theories about its significance,” Ev said. “Most zoologists think the bestowing of a gift proves the male’s ability to obtain and defend territory. Some socioexozoologists believe gift-giving is a symbolic enactment of the sex act itself.”
    “Romantic,” I said.
    “One study found gift-giving triggered pheromones in the female, which in turn produced chemical changes in the male that led to the next phase of the courtship ritual. It’s hardwired into the brain. Sexual instincts pretty much override rational thought.”
    Which is why females’ll run off with the first male who smiles at them, I thought, and why C.J. had been acting like an idiot at the landing. Speaking of which, here she was calling on the transmitter. “Home Base to