George Foster looked at his conclusion sitting in the typewriter:

It would be easy to see the Hare at Fort Good Hope as assimilated, and their cousins at Colville as living "the original Indian lifestyle." Indeed, the Hare at Colville Lake frequently make that comparison. But that is only relatively true. Most of the residents of Colville have traveled by airplane; most of the residents of Fort Good Hope have traveled by dogsled.

He felt he'd said everything he needed to say. "I think that's it," he told his wife.

"Great," Sylvia replied. "I'll copy it over. You can read the whole thing in a week or so. If it still hangs together, we'll send it off."

No matter how pleased he'd be with a rereading, there would be changes he'd need to make. "You're too indulgent. I'd hate to make you type it all over for a few late changes. You have your own teaching to do."

"Well, I won't type the whole thing over for minor changes. Just the changed pages. You need to put your best foot forward. This is really your first paper where you did the investigation alone."

He hadn't felt alone. At Fort Good Hope, she'd collaborated every step of the way. It was the first expedition when he had been in charge; it would be the first paper for which he was the sole author -- the first one for which he was even the main author. "It is? I could have sworn there was a sexy girl with me every night. Must have dreamed her -- not the first expedition where I had wet dreams about her."

"I was in bed with you," said Sylvia. "I typed for you. You were alone in gathering the information."

"Not even that's totally true. You're an anthropologist's dream, and this time I don't mean wet dream."

"Well, you'll have to do without me next trip. Should have thought of this when we were discussing my going off the pill."

They had spoken about that. "Well, you might not take. You haven't so far. And we did think of that. A child is more important."

"I might not have taken so far."

Was she saying what he thought she was? "Darling! You think...?"

"I'm two days late. It's happened before, but I feel...."

"Oh, dearest! Oh darling. Oh Sylvia. Oh!" This was wonderful.

"Oh."

They kissed. He hugged her tight, and then -- guiltily -- raised his arms to her shoulders. He sprinkled her face with kisses.

"I warn you," she said, "I'm not sure."

"It doesn't matter. Well, it matters, matters enormously, but it doesn't affect the fact that I love you."

"It doesn't matter enormously right now. Whether I'm pregnant will matter enormously next summer."

With the income from the trust, he didn't have to look for funding before he could go somewhere to anthropologise, but the people he was competing with did. An expedition every summer was a luxury. "I don't need to go on an expedition every summer. Vrooman stayed here last summer."

"You're going! We decided. I'm not going with you."

"Well, in that case, It's time to start saying goodbye."

It was a very elaborate goodbye, involving kisses before getting in bed. Then it involved kisses all over her body with special attention to her abdomen. "You'll be disappointed if it's not true," she said.

"I might regret its not being true. I won't regret these kisses."

"Now, George, now!"

And it was now. He climbed between her legs, careful to put no weight on her abdomen. She placed him, and -- excited by her hand as well as her news -- he drove into her firmly. He was able to hold back, though, until she spasmed around him. Then he pumped his seed -- his presumably redundant seed -- into her.

Again careful of her abdomen, he rolled off her. She backed up against him, and he tucked the covers aver them both. He placed his arm so that he could hold her without oppressing her with its weight. He kissed the back of her head as they both drifted off to sleep.

He took the retyped paper to Vrooman, who liked it -- had a few suggestions, but generally liked it. He took all but one of his department chairman's suggestions. Vrooman's spoken English was excellent, but some of his preferences for writing sounded stilted. Sylvia suggested a few smoothing changes in expression herself. She typed this up, and he sent it in to American Anthropologist.

As this was happening, he got in the habit of looking questioningly at her when he got back from class -- or when she got back on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Neither would speak, but she'd give him a thumbs up. When she missed her next period also, she made a doctor's appointment to confirm her pregnancy. The tests were positive, and they had a fine dinner to celebrate.

"I'm not made of glass, you know," she said in bed that night. "That's one thing I asked the doctor. There's damn little that straight sex can do to harm the baby at any stage. Anything would cause me discomfort first, and the first trimester is even safer than the others."

"So what are you saying? We've never tried it swinging from the chandelier. Want to try before you get too heavy? Of course, we'd have to get a chandelier first."

"Just don't act as if I might break." Well, she wouldn't break. Sylvia was tougher mentally than she was physically, but she wasn't a china doll either way.

On the other hand, "I'm not treating you like you might break. I'm treating you like you're precious. And so you are. Sometimes I forget, but I'm clearer now than ever."

"Remember that when I spit up every morning. Well, if I'm precious, then you have to do what I say. Lie back."

"Careful!" he said as she straddled him.

"I'm being careful. I can't do this nine months from now." She took him in hand and fitted him to her entry. It was as sexy as it was frightening. She slowly slid down his cock until he was embedded. The slowness reduced his fright for her while it increased the voluptuous feeling.

He held her breasts in both hands as she began her movements around him. Soon, though, he brought his right hand between her moving legs. He stroked there before fingering her vulva. Since the lips were tight around his cock, he went straight to her clit. He tried to be gentle there -- if she was precious, she was most precious here. His tension rose, but he wasn't going to have an orgasm in this position.

The feeling of her moving clasp on his cock was exquisite. It got even better when she straightened and her vagina clutched around his cock. When she collapsed onto his body, he rolled them both over. That slipped him out, but not for long. He went back in and pounded in and out for less than a minute. His orgasm was explosive. "Oh, Sylvia," he said as he poured himself within her.

When he came down from that high, he remembered and moved off. Then he cuddled her and, when he'd got sufficient energy back, tucked the covers over them both.

They had another celebration when American Anthropologist accepted the paper. He told Vrooman the next day. "I'm not surprised," his department chairman and mentor told him, "it was good work -- necessary work. I was hesitant when your wife asked to go along to Colville, but she's given great assistance to you."

"That's coming to an end," George told him. "We aren't telling people yet, but she's pregnant. She can't get away next summer, and then there will be the child. I'll be sorry to go away from her myself."

"There might be another option," Vrooman said. "Urban anthropology is a legitimate field. This paper is on acculturation and more needs to be done on acculturation. The old way is disappearing, true. Actually, it has disappeared. The airplane isn't killing the aboriginal culture; the steel trap and the market for hats did that in the nineteenth -- maybe the eighteenth -- century. I don't know how partly-acculturated urban Dene lived in 1900; nobody studied them. I suspect that the compromises that partial acculturation brings are going to be more variable over time than either the dominant urban society or the more aboriginal life style. We don't know, and -- if nobody studies them -- we'll never know."

"You think I should concentrate on partly acculturated urban Amerinds?"

"I think somebody should. And they are plentiful fairly close to your home. No need to take expeditions away from your wife and children. Think about it."

"Professor Vrooman, I'll certainly think about it." More than that, he'd talk to Sylvia about it. But Vrooman was, for all he studied all kinds of societies and taught about the variety of social arrangements, fixed in the patriarchal style.

"Vrooman had a suggestion," he told Sylvia that night. "What I did in Fort Good Hope, what we did -- really -- was a study of acculturation. I could look at more acculturated Amerinds closer to home. No need to leave this place every summer. I could sleep in the same bed with you almost every night, which would make me happy. You could type up my field notes if that would make you happy. It's part of a developing sub-field called 'urban anthropology.'"

"I thought," said Sylvia, "that you guys left the current West to the sociologists."

"Well, sort of, usually.... But when you look back far enough, everything I do was originally classed as sociology. When the fields were first defined, sociologists were supposed to study societies. Anthropologists were to study people, physical anthropology, going out and applying calipers to peoples' skulls or measuring facial angles."

"Facial angles?" she asked.

He removed his glasses before holding his two hands up to his face, one on his forehead down to his cheekbone, one from his chin up to the cheekbone. "Those hands meet at an angle. The 'facial angle.' Whites happen to have the most nearly straight facial angle -- which is one reason to doubt that Neandertals interbred with Cro-magnons. But there was a whole lot of racism mixed up with physical anthropology in the beginning."

"I thought you said the term 'race' was an unscientific one."

"Well," he told her, "it depends what you are talking about. If you are talking about what people are, then 'race' is a sloppy word for 'ethnic group.' It's as sloppy when blacks use it as when whites do. If you are talking about categorization, then race is a categorization which is typical of society. In our society, anybody with recent African ancestry is black. By recent, I'm excluding those of us whose ancestors migrated from Africa before the ice age.

"Now, the people of Haiti have a much different understanding. All the pure whites got kicked out long ago. Tourists don't count as a race. So, the races in Haiti are pure blacks and people of mixed ancestry. What we'd count as one race. Categorization is a legitimate field of study."

"Is race really all a matter of categorization?"

"Basically. There are some genetic distinctions involved as well, though there is a case in Japan which might not have much. And South America, during the Spanish colonial days, distinguished between Hispanics and Criollos. The latter were pure-bloods whose ancestors had been in the new world for several generations."

"I thought Creoles were mixed blood," she said.

"Only in Louisiana, and only since the Civil War. Originally, Louisiana was a French colony, and used 'Creole' the same way the people further south used 'Criollo.' Creoles were born in America, but of French ancestry. After it was purchased by the new USA, the term was applied to the old settlers as opposed to the more recently-arrived English speakers. In those days there was a distinct class of 'free people of color.' The pretty women of that class ended up as mistresses to rich whites. Many of the men were upper class, paid, servants. The emancipation proclamation messed up their lives as much as it messed up the lives of the plantation owners. Now, all the people of color were free. So they adopted the old name of 'Creole.' Anyway...."

"Anyway, you think you could build a career in urban anthropology."

"I think there is a good chance. At least, I've done a certain minimum amount of real anthropology. That bolsters both my reputation and my skills." For being less than three years out of graduate school, he was sitting pretty. And, while he couldn't put a hell of a lot of time into it, there were Amerinds in Regina he could study during the school year. And others in Moose Jaw, although he shouldn't deal with those until he was well started with the ones closer to home.

"You're not just saying that because I'd miss you if you went off on expeditions?"

"No. I'm not even saying that 'cause I'd miss you. It's true."

"You could live without me," she claimed. "You did for a year in Chile."

"I did for more than twenty years; though most of that was before pubescence, which helped. I'm addicted now."

"I'm not sure I like being compared to an abused substance."

He couldn't resist that line. "Wait a few months; you'll be more substantial."

Her pout was obviously faked. "A few months is an awfully long time. Why don't we go to bed? You could abuse me then."

Abuse, eh? Once in bed, he kissed her torso thoroughly, ignoring her mouth. He stroked her thighs. When his fingers explored her vulva, he found her juicy. Whether it was the hormone changes of pregnancy, or merely mental, she definitely aroused more easily these days. He stroked the lips, brushing her clit only occasionally. When she began to tense, he went back to her thighs, but concentrated his kisses on her breasts.

"George," she said.

"Feeling abused?"

"Feeling deprived." She shoved him over onto his back quite forcefully. He was perfectly willing to tease, but he was too conscious of her condition to wrestle. She seemed less careful than he was. Straddling him, she reached behind her to fondle him for a moment. Then she eased herself down and around his cock. When he reached for her breasts, she said, "Wait a second."

She sounded serious, not teasing. He froze, and she eased herself back up and off him. "I don't think I'll try that again," she said.

That was serious. "Hurt?" he asked.

"Not really hurt. But I felt it enough to not want to bounce up and down on you. Think you could come in me this way?"

Well, if her being on top threatened problems, his weight threatened as many. He moved between her legs, and poised above her with his weight on his hands. "Help me." She grasped his cock again and guided it into her. He tried to ignore all the sweet sensations.

Once fully ensconced, he lowered himself on his left side. They weren't quite side-by-side, but his weight wasn't on her. He moved out, in, and out -- establishing that he could move like this. Then he slid a hand between their bodies. Touching her clit directly might be a little much; there was no way he could move his hand delicately in this position. He parted his fingers to rub the top-most portions of her lower lips.

"Oh," she said. She began bucking up against him. She couldn't move far, but what motion there was felt delightful. At the first clutch around his cock, he dropped his hand to the bed. He moved in and out through those delightful spasms until he lost it. He drove deep into her and pulsed and pulsed.

When his strength lapsed, he dropped more beside her than over her. "My leg," she said some time later. He moved away until her leg was free. Then she turned and cuddled against him.

"Love you," he said. He pulled the covers over them. It was still cold outside, and not particularly warm in the apartment.

"Love you, too."