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Eron Osa had faced the ultimate penalty. Not death, but the removal of his fam. Without the augmentation of his brain by his electronic familiar, he can barely function amidst the bewildering complexities of everyday life on Splendid Wisdom.

Here, on the capital world of the galaxy's Second Empire, everyone from the meanest citizen to the ruling Pscholars has depended upon a fam since childhood. Without one, simply navigating the streets and levels of the planetary megalopolis is a paralyzing challenge. Lost along with such everyday survival skills were many of Eron's memories and his professional knowledge. The crime he committed must have been terrible to warrant such a dreadful punishment. If only he could remember what it was...

The late-1980s launching of a mammoth, full-scale Soviet space station prompts the United States to a crash program that, by 2010, surpasses all Soviet endeavors, results in an unprecedented economic boom, and catapults humankind fully into space.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, December 1979. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year #2 (1980), edited by Terry Carr, The Endless Frontier, Vol. II (1982), edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr. and Baker's Dozen: 13 Short Science Fiction Novels (1985) edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. It was later expanded to the full novel The Moon Goddess and the Son (1986).

The planet of Geta is a harsh and unforgiving world where only one source of meat exists: man. Cyclical famines have made a distinct, ritualistic form of cannibalism a necessity, and intricate rituals involving courtship, love, death, and multiple marriages are the rule. Gaet, Hoemei and Joesai are three sons of the old Prime Predictor, Tae ran-Kaiel of the Kaiel clan. They are bound to each other, as well as their two wives, Noe and Teenae. They hope to soon complete their most-desirable Six-marriage with Kathein, a scientist. But the new Prime Predictor, Aesoe, has other plans.... In order to gain an outlet to the sea, Aesoe orders the brothers to marry Oelita, the Clanless One.

The Gentle Heretic has a legion of followers that would give the Kaiel allies against their powerful opponents, and a foothold in the coastal lands. The brothers choose to court Oelita - and have her prove her worth - through a complicated Death Ritual. Oelita has the audacity to question the existence of the God of the Sky - who has begun to speak. Pestilence, plague and conflict are brewing across the land. Now the courted and her suitors find themselves in the center of a violent storm where destiny and death walk hand-in-hand with the secrets of an ancient past....

This novelette originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, April 1978. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year #1 (1979), edited by Terry Carr, and Republic and Empire (1987), edited by John F. Carr and Jerry Pournelle.