The town began as a district in a small city. Humans tend to cluster together, the more so when their way of life makes them ever more foreign to everybody else. As time passed, the district became a community in its own right. And it abided, while change swept to and fro around it like seas around a rock.

On this day, descending, Michael Shaughnessy saw it as roofs and sun-domes nestled among trees. A powermast reared from their midst as if pointing at the clouds that drifted by, billowy white against blue. Otherwise grass rippled boundless. Sunflowers lifted huge yellow eyes out of its silvery green. A herd of neobison grazed some distance to the south, unafraid; only wild dogs and master-class men hunted them, not very much. Crows flocked about, black, noisy, and hopeful. Northward a long, high mound and a few broken walls were the last remembrances of Santa Verdad. Grass hid scattered slabs and shards, as it had hidden the remnants of earlier farmsteads. This region of central North America was now a vicarial preserve.

Shaughnessy set his rented vehicle down in a lot on the edge of settlement and got out. Air blew mild, full of odors the sun had baked from the soil. There was no guard, but neither was there any call for it. He walked on into town.

The street he took was immobile, with antique sidewalks. Its indurate was beginning to show the wear of feet and wheels through centuries. The trees that shaded it were younger, replaced as they grew old and died. Behind their susurrant leafage, homes stood in rows, each on its patch of lawn and garden. The houses were ancient, too, but not the same age. Most were half underground, topside curving in soft hues up to a dome: a style archaic enough. Some, though, harked further back, even to times when forms still more outmoded were enjoying revivals — a rambling ivy-grown bungalow or a peaked roof on two stories of brick, with windows and a chimney. Most displayed a token of the family who held it — a nameplate, a mon, an ancestral portrait, a line of calligraphy, a stone from a far planet — and the crests of ships on which members had served. Nevertheless, perhaps because they were all of modest size, perhaps because they were all in one way or another marked by time, they engendered no disharmony; they belonged together.

Not many people were about at midafternoon in this residential section. A few children sped past, a whirl of color, shouts, and laughter. A few adults walked or rode purring motorboards. Here among their own kind, they were generally in traditional groundside garb, which ran to flamboyancy. The headbands of men glittered, their tunics were of shimmering metalloid mesh, colorful trousers banded with gold went into soft half-boots. Women's coronets were gemmed or plumed, filmy cloaks fluttered from shoulders, lustrous biofabric shaped and reshaped itself to them as they moved. None of them knew Shaughnessy, but they greeted him with an upraised palm, a gesture he returned.

A young woman who came striding toward him stood out amidst them. She was in uniform, an opalescent sheathsuit with a comet emblem on the left breast, beret slanted across the black curls. Doubtless she was bound for a rendezvous with other officers of her ship, a business meeting or a party. Although her outfit was new to him, he realized what the ship must be.

Seeing him, she broke step. Her hand snapped to her brow, a formal salute that had not changed. He stopped and reciprocated, enjoying the sight. She was short and dark — as more and more starfarers seemed to be — and comely. He smiled. "That was kind of you, Ensign," he said.

Her eyes searched him. He stood gaunt, tall, and gray; his own uniform, which he had donned on impulse, was blue with red trim. "You are ... a captain, aren't you?" she asked.

Her accent was not too strong for him to follow. Spacefolk's English was apparently stabilizing — especially after English ceased to be the main language spoken on this continent.

"I am that by rank, though not a shipmaster," he replied. "How did you know?" The bars on her shoulders were the same as they had been when he wore them, but his present sunburst was quite unlike the spiral nebula that identified a captain nowadays. No doubt emblems will also eventually stabilize, he thought.

"We learn the history in school, sir."

"You do? I am happy to hear that. We did in my youth, but a lot has happened since then." Yet what are we without our history?

"You must be newly back from a long voyage, sir," she said. "That would be the Our Lady."

"Indeed she is, home again from Aerie and Aurora."

"I'm leaving soon," she said eagerly.

"And that would be the Estrella Linda, for a longer circuit than ours was. May the passage be easy, the worlds welcoming, and your return gladsome."

Her eyelashes vibrated. "Thank you, sir."

She'd like to talk more, he thought, and I would, too, but we're bound on our separate ways. Later? Yes. "A good day and evening to you, Ensign."

Both of them proceeded.

Shaughnessy's route took him past a number of shops and service enterprises. Some were family-owned, operated by hirelings or retirees. Others belonged to outsiders: who might, though, have lived here for generations. All were antiquated. Well, when you are gone for twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred years, you had better have something familiar waiting for you.

He came to a house on another street of homes. A veranda fronted its stucco walls. He had called ahead from his aircar and the occupant stood in front. "Greeting, Captain," Ramil Shauny hailed. He waved the visitor ahead, onto the porch. "Please have a seat. What may I offer you?"

Stooped and white-haired in a plain brown robe, he somehow kept the bearing of an officer. His aspect was not a shock; Michael Shaughnessy recalled the young Ramil Shauny, but you had to expect that decades would do their work, and anyhow, they had met again, not long before. What felt odd was that Ramil, a hundred and ten biological years of age and the mayor of the town, should defer to another who was just seventy. But then, Ramil was Michael's great-grandson.

They settled into formchairs, side by side. A neochimp servant — a type of creature new to Michael, and the idea a bit repugnant — took their orders for drinks. For a while they sat unspeaking in the shade and breeze, looking out at the street. One girl who walked by carried a batcat on her wrist. Michael wondered what provision she'd make for it when she grew up and shipped out. If she did, of course. Maybe she would rather forsake the kith of the starfarers. Theirs wasn't an easy life. Maybe she, being smart as kithfolk usually were, could get a well-paid position in a guild or in the vicarial bureaucracy. Or maybe she, being pretty, could become a mistress of a local magnate and ride forth in twilight to fly her batcat at homing crows. Or maybe she would choose the stars.

She passed on out of sight.

"And how did your travels around Earth go?" Ramil asked.

Michael grimaced. "Not well. I thought something of Ireland would be left. I was away less than a century."

A swing around by two suns with a planet apiece where humans can live. I should be grateful for the few such we've found. Without them, would any starships besides Envoy be running yet? It is the colonies and their need, their need less for material goods than for human contact, novelty, more word than a laser beam can bring — and, rarely, a passenger or two — it is they and what trade they carry on among each other that keeps us going.

Oh, yes, we make our occasional exploratory ventures, and sometimes one of them reaps a great profit, but most do not. I think the only reason for them, or for any starfaring, is that some people still wonder about what there may be beyond their skies.

May they keep on wondering. The voyages, the discoveries, the adventures!

But meanwhile, at the heart of it all, is Earth growing old?

"I have no more wish to settle there," Michael said.

"Well, it's been a hard century," Ramil conceded.

"So I gather."

The servant brought the drinks, whiskey and soda for Michael, wine of Maian skyberries for Ramil, together with kelp crackers and garlic nuggets. Ramil gazed into the air. "In many ways I envy you," he said. "I wish I could have gone back to where you've been. But Juana would never have been happy aboard a ship. And now it's too late for me."

"She was worth giving up space for, though, wasn't she?" Michael replied softly.

Ramil nodded. "Oh, yes. You remember her."

Michael did — her, and the wedding, for it chanced to be when he was last on Earth. From time to time starfarers were bound to marry outside their kith. And Ramil's earlier voyages had been rather short. He was not too alien for her.

Yes, Juana was a darling. But my Eileen — your great-grandmother, Ramil — who died in my arms while the light of Delta Pavonis streamed through the ports — I had the better luck.

"Don't mistake me," Ramil added. "I am not sorry for myself. There's still fight and fun to be had."

"Keeping our autonomy here?" Michael asked, partly for the sake of tact, partly because he didn't know. He hadn't yet caught up with events. When he left, the Greatman of Mongku had been Earth's ruler, not a figurehead for whatever cabal had most recently seized power.

"No, that isn't in any danger," Ramil said, obviously relieved to get away from matters too close to him. "Not so far. Our ships, our cargoes give us leverage. Nothing critical, you know, but the pure chemical elements, the special feedstocks, the new data — yes, above all, the new information, for science or industry or sparking fresh, saleable ideas — those pay off."

"As always." Does always mean forever?

Ramil's tone harshened. "The Vicar of Isen, though, the overlord hereabouts — he's a greedy sod. Unless we can keep playing him and his fellows off against each other, the taxes will eat us."

Michael frowned. "Why can't you be getting help, pressure on your behalf, from the Lunarites, the Martians, or the Outerfolk?"

"None of them have any strong incentive to give it. They do help indirectly, just by being. I've lately been hinting that if we're pushed too hard and drained too dry, we can take our business elsewhere in the Solar System."

"Why not? From what I've heard about the current situation, mightn't we be more comfortable?"

"It would not be Earth," Ramil said.

No, Michael thought, Luna, the asteroids, the moons of the giant planets, even Mars can never be, no matter what humans have done for them. Earth is our mother, no matter what humans do to her.... Oh, the colony worlds at other suns may beckon, but they're changing their people still more than happens here. We starfarers — our starfaring keeps us changeless.

"I understand," he said low. "Without this much of a tie between us, a home port, we'd drift away from what we are. Earth is where we meet."

And marry. Those who love space will marry into us, those who can't stand the hardships will leave us, and so as genetics and usage work onward, we evolve from a handful of crews to a people, a kith.

Ramil smiled wistfully. "Besides," he said, "they'd be sad aboard Envoy if they came back and found nobody like ourselves to greet them."

Michael sighed. "I am not sure they will, whatever we do. Ten thousand years is an unholy stretch of time." And they are only — what? — 750 years into their journey. To them, less than two months, hasn't it been?. . . Nonsense, sheer malarkey. Under these conditions, "simultaneity" is an empty noise.

Ramil glanced at him. "You knew Ricardo Nansen, didn't you?"

Michael nodded. "I did. We were on the first Epsilon Eridani expedition. He saved my life on that grim world."

Ramil took a goodly swallow from his tumbler. "Well," he said, "this has wandered from the subject."

Michael chuckled. "Do you mean we had one?"

"I'm sorry your visit has disappointed you."

Michael's humor faded. "You did not tell me the Ireland I knew is gone."

"But it isn't," Ramil protested. "They've kept part of it, at least, green and beautiful."

"For the pleasure of its vicar," Michael spat. "Oh, common folk may nest in their villages if they choose, like us given leave to stay in this burg of ours, but they are not my folk anymore."

"I'm sorry. I would have told you, if I'd understood what you had in mind." Their histories had flowed too far apart. "Well, if not there, why not here? We would be honored to have you in Kith Town, and a man like you would never lack for work. In fact, brokerage —"

Michael shook his head. "I thank you," he interrupted, "but for now I have given up the idea of settling on Earth."

Ramil gave him a startled look. "What? But —"

"I've queried. Estrella Linda could use another experienced officer."

"But . . . but she's leaving soon and — you've only been here a few weeks. Surely, if you must go, you can take your ease for a year or two first, till Our Lady heads out again."

"Ordinarily I would," Michael said. "But Estrella Linda is off on a wide sweep. As far as I can find out, nothing else like that is planned for the next several decades, just twenty- or thirty-year shuttlings. I'll snatch the chance and —" His gray head lifted. He laughed. "Greatmen, vicars, I'll outlive the bastards."