Chapter One
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
Is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
Is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
Well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
Own were; any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
The bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
No Man is an Island by John Donne in Meditation XVII
He is not a farmer.
Although once, many years ago he might have been, were it not for his master. It has been a month since the man calling himself Ben Lars, the lost spacer cousin of Owen Lars, has taken over the Lars homestead. The neighbors are suspicious at first. It seems rather convenient to them that a man shows up claiming to be the son of the late Edern Lars on the same day the Sand People murdered the young couple.
They wonder if this Ben, with his refined Core world's accent and elegant manners, has what it takes to survive near the edge of the Jundland Wastes. By the end of the month, the farm's sixty three vaporators are working better than they ever have. Visited daily by the man in his brown cloak, a baby strapped to his chest, he performs minor miracles with his maintenance.
The moisture farmers respect hard workers and their wives coo and fuss over baby Luke. The men ask him to look at their vaporators in exchange for parts and, more valuably, information on how to run a good moisture farm. The men now see him at him as an equal and offer him Pallie wine when he visits. The women serve him ahrisa and give him their old cloth for him to make his own garments and linens. They tell him that it is a strange man who sews clothes for himself and his son.
He is not a father but he does not correct them.
A father and young son are less likely to draw attention from the Empire than a man fitting his description would by himself. When a girl gathers the courage to ask where is little Luke's mother, the expression on his face is enough to confirm their worst fears. The girl apologizes and says his wife must have been a beautiful woman to produce such a handsome boy and that he must miss her very much.
He does not correct her either.
