"See?" Xia said triumphantly.

            "And he's scared silly someone will find out."

            "Oh, nonsense! Let me tell about my fourth-grade teacher."

            "Later, Richard. After you've had time to polish it. Richard tells excellent bedtime stories."

            "When I'm not paddling, that is. Xia, does your bottom turn pink?"

            It appears that I had had breakfast at some hour past noon. That evening was most pleasant but my memory of it is spotty. I can't blame it on alcohol; I did not drink all that much. But I learned that the Lethe field has a mild side effect that alcohol can potentiate; Lethe may affect the memory erratically for a while after the patient is no longer under it. Ah, well-tan-staafl! A few gaps in memory are not the hazard that addiction to a hard drug is.

            I do recall that we had a good time: Hazel, me, Choy-Mu, Xia, Ezra, Father Hendrik, and (after Teena found her for us and Hazel talked to her) Gretchen. All of us who had escaped from the Raffles-even the two pairs of redheads who rescued us were with us part of the evening, Cas and Pol, Laz and Lor. Nice kids. Older than I am, I learned later, but it doesn't show. On Tertius, age is a slippery concept.

            Xia's quarters were too small for such a number but a crowded party is the best kind.

            The redheads left us and I got tired and went in and lay down on Xia's bed. There was some murderous card game going on for forfeits in the other room; Hazel seemed to be the big winner. Xia went "broke" by whatever rules they were playing and joined me. Gretchen bet unwisely on the next pot and took the other side of the bed. She used my left shoulder as a pillow, Xia having already claimed the right one. From me other room I heard Hazel say, "See you and raise you one galaxy."

            Father Hendrik chuckled. "Sucker! Big bang, my dear girl, far triple forfeits. Pay up." That is the last 1 remember.

            Something was tickling my chin. Slowly I woke and slowly I managed to open my eyes, and found myself staring into the bluest eyes I have ever seen. They belonged to a kitten, bright orange in color but with perhaps some Siamese ancestry. He was standing on my chest just south of my Adam's apple. He buzzed pleasantly, said "Blert?" and resumed licking my chin; his scratchy little scrap of tongue accounted for the tickle that had wakened me.

            I answered, "Blert," and attempted to lift a hand to pet him, found I could not because I still had a head on each shoulder, a warm body against each side of me.

            I turned my head to the right to speak to Xia-I needed to get up and find her refresher-and teamed that it was not Xia but Minerva who was now using my starboard shoulder.

            I made a hasty situation assessment and found that I lacked sufficient data. So, instead of using an honorific to Minerva that may or may not have been appropriate, I simply kissed her. Or let myself be kissed, after showing willingness. Being pinned down from both sides and with a small cat creature standing on my chest I was almost as helpless as Gulliver, hardly able to be active as initiator of a kiss.

            However, Minerva does not need help. She can manage.

            Talent.

            After she turned me loose, kissed for keeps, I heard a voice from my left: "Don't I get a kiss, too?"

            Gretchen is a soprano; this voice was tenor. I turned my head.

            Galahad. I was in bed with my doctor. Well... with both my doctors.

            When I was a lad in Iowa, I was taught that, if I ever found myself in this or an analogous situation, the proper gambit was to run screaming for the hills to save my "honor" or its hom-ologue for males. A girl could sacrifice her "honor" and most of them did. But, if she was reasonably discreet about it and eventually wound up married with nothing worse than a seven-months child, her "honor" soon grew back and she was officially credited with having been a virgin bride, entitled to look with scom on sinful women.

            But a boy's "honor" was more delicate. If he lost it to another male (i.e., if they got caught at it), he might, if lucky, wind up in the State Department-or, if unlucky, he would move to California. But Iowa had no place for him.

            This flashed through my mind in an instant-and was followed by a suppressed memory: a Boy Scout hike when I was a high school freshman, a pup tent shared with our assistant Scoutmaster. Just that once, in the dark of night and in silence broken only by a hoot owl- A few weeks later that Scout leader went away to Harvard... so of course it never happened.

            0 tempora, o mores-that was long ago and far away. Three years later I enlisted and eventually bucked for officer and made it... and was always extremely circumspect, as an officer who can't resist playing with his privates cannot maintain discipline. Not until the Walker Evans affair did I ever have any reason to worry about blackmail.

            I tightened my left arm a little. "Certainly. But be careful; I seem to be inhabited."

            Galahad was careful; the kitten was not disturbed. It is possible that Galahad kisses as well as Minerva does. Not better. But just as well. Once I decided to enjoy the inevitable I did enjoy it. Tertius is not Iowa, Boondock is not Grinnell; there was no longer any reason to be manacled by the customs of a long-dead tribe.

            "Thank you," I said, "and good morning. Can you de-cat me? If he stays where he is, I am likely to drown him."

            Galahad surrounded the kitten with his left hand. "This is Pixel. Pixel, may I present Richard? Richard, we are honored to have been joined by Lord Pixel, cadet feline in residence."

            "How do you do. Pixel?"

            "Blert." "Thank you. And what's become of the refresher? I need it!"

            Minerva helped me up from the bed and put my right arm around her shoulders, steadied me while Galahad fetched my cane, then both of them took me to the refresher. We were not in Xia's rooms; the refresher had moved to the other side of the bedroom and was larger, as was the bedroom.

            And I learned something else about Tertius: The equipment of a refresher was of a complexity and variety that made the sort of plumbing I was used to, in Golden Rule and Luna City and so forth, look as primitive as the occasional back country backhouse one can still find in remote parts of Iowa.

            Neither Minerva nor Galahad let me feel embarrassed over never having been checked out on Tertian plumbing. When I was about to pick the wrong fixture for my most pressing need, she simply said, "Galahad, you had better demonstrate for Richard; I'm not equipped to." So he did. Well, I'm forced to admit that I'm not equipped the way Galahad is, either. Visualize Michelangelo's David (Galahad is fully that pretty) but equip this image with coupling gear three times as large as Michelangelo gave David; that describes Galahad.

            I have never understood why Michelangelo-in view of his known bias-invariably shortchanged his male creations.

            When we three had completed after-sleep refreshment, we came out into the bedroom together and I was again surprised- without yet having worked up my nerve to inquire where we were, how we got there, and what had become of others- especially my necessary one... who, when last heard, was tossing around galaxies in reckless gambling. Or gamboling.

            Or both.

            One wall had vanished from that bedroom, the bed had become a couch, the missing wall framed a gorgeous garden- and, seated on the couch, playing with the kitten, was a man I had met briefly in Iowa two thousand years ago. Or so everyone said; I still was unsure about that two-thousand-year figure; I was having trouble enough with Gretchen's having aged five years. Or six. Or something.

            I stared. "Dr. Hubert." "Howdy." Dr. Hubert put the kitten aside. "Over here. Show me that foot."

            "Um-" Damn his arrogance. "You must speak to my doctor first."

            He looked at me abruptly. "Goodness. Aren't we regulation? Very well."

            From behind me Galahad said quietly, "Please let him examine your transplant, Richard. If you will."

            "If you say so." I lifted my new foot and shoved it right into Hubert's face, missing his big nose by a centimeter.

            He failed to flinch, so my gesture was wasted. Unhurriedly he leaned his head a little to the left. "Rest it on my knee, if you will. That will be more convenient for both of us."

            "Right. Go ahead." Braced with my cane, I was steady enough.

            Galahad and Minerva kept quiet and out of the way while Dr. Hubert looked over that foot, by sight and touch, but doing nothing that struck me as really professional-I mean, he had no instruments; he used bare eyes and bare lingers, pinching the skin, rubbing it, looking closely at the healed scar, and at last scratching the sole of that foot hard and suddenly with a thumbnail. What is that reflex? Are your toes supposed to curl or the reverse? I have always suspected that doctors do that one out of spite.

            Dr. Hubert lifted my foot, indicated that I could put it back on the floor, which I did. "Good job," he said to Galahad.

            "Thank you. Doctor."

            "Siddown, Colonel. Have you folks had breakfast? I did but I'm ready for some more. Minerva, would you shout for us; that's a good girl. Colonel, I want to get you signed up at once. What rank do you expect? Let me point out that it doesn't matter as the pay is the same and, no matter what rank you select, Hazel is going to be one rank higher; I want her in charge, not the other way around."

            "Hold it. Sign me up for what? And what makes you think I want to sign up for anything?"

            "The Time Corps, of course. Just as your wife is. For the purpose of rescuing the computer person known as 'Adam Selene,' also of course. Look, Colonel, don't be so dumed obtuse;

            I know Hazel has discussed it with you; I know that you are committed to helping her." He pointed at my foot. "Why do you think that transplant was done? Now that you have both feet you need some other things. Refresher training. Orientation with weapons you haven't used. Rejuvenation. And all of these things cost money and the simple way to pay for them is to sign you up in the Corps. That foot alone would be too expensive for a stranger from a primitive era... but not for a member of the Corps. You can see that. How long do you need to think over anything so obvious? Ten minutes? Fifteen?" (This fast-talker ought to sell used campaign promises.)

            "Not that long. I've thought it over."

            He grinned. "Good. Put up your right hand. Repeat after me-"

            "No."

            "'No' what?"

            "Just 'No.' I didn't order this foot." "So? Your wife did. Don't you think you ought to pay for it?"

            "And since I did not order it and do not choose to be pushed around by you-" I again shoved that foot in his face, just barely missing that ugly nose. "Cut it off."

            "Huh?" "You heard me. Cut it off; put it back in stock. Teena. Are you there?"

            "Sure thing, Richard." "Where is Hazel? How can I find her? Or will you tell her where I am?"

            "I've told her. She says to wait."

            "Thank you, Teena." Hubert and I sat, saying nothing, ignoring each other. Minerva had disappeared; Galahad was pretending to be alone. But in scant seconds my darting came bursting in-luckily that wall was open.

            "Lazarus! God damn your lousy soul to hell! What do you mean by interfering?"

            XXIV 

            'The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this is true."

                                    JAMES BRANCH CABELL 1879-1958

            "Now, Hazel-"

            "'Now, Hazel' my tired arse! Answer me! What are you doing, messing around in my bailiwick? I told you to lay off, I warned you. I said that it was a delicate negotiation. But the first minute I turn my back-leaving him safe in the arms of Minerva with Galahad to back her up-I leave to run an errand ... and what do I find? You! Butting in, thumb-fingered and ham-handed as usual, destroying my careful groundwork."

            "Now, Sadie-"

            "Bloody! Lazarus, what is this compulsion that makes you lie and cheat? Why can't you be honest most of the time? And where do you get this nasty itch to interfere? Not from Maureen;

            that's certain. Answer me. God damn it!- before I tear off your head and stuff it down your throat!"

            "Gwen, I was simply trying to clear the-"

            My darling interrupted with such a blast of colorful and imaginative profanity that I hesitate to try to record it because I can't do it justice; my memory is not perfect. It was somewhat like "Change the Sacred Name of Arkansas" but more lyrical. She did this in a high chant that minded me of some pagan priestess praying at sacrifice-human sacrifice with Dr. Hubert the victim.

            While Hazel was sounding off, three women came in through that open wall. (More than that number of men looked in but backed away hastily; I suspect that they did not want to be present while Dr. Hubert was being scalped.) The three women were all beauties but not at all alike.

            One was a blonde as tall as I am or taller, a Norse goddess so perfect as to be utterly unlikely. She listened, shook her head sorrowfully, then faded back into the garden and was gone. The next was another redhead whom I mistook at first for either Laz or Lor-then I saw that she was... not older, exactly, but more mature. She was unsmiling.

            I looked at her again and felt that I had it figured out: She had to be the older sister of Laz and Lor-and Dr. Hubert was father (brother?) of all of them... which explained how Dr. Hubert was this "Lazarus" that I had heard of again and again but had not seen-except that I had, once, in Iowa.

            The third was a little china doll-porcelain china, not Xia-type China-not much over a hundred and fifty centimeters of her and perhaps forty kilos, with the ageless beauty of Queen Nefertiti. My darling paused for breath and this little elf whistled loudly and clapped. "Great going. Hazel! I'm in your corner."

            Hubert-Lazarus said, "Hilda, don't encourage her."

            "And why not? You've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or Hazel would not be so boiling; that's certain. I know her, I know you-want to bet?"

            "I did nothing. I simply tried to implement a previously settled policy that Hazel needed help on."

            The tiny woman covered her eyes and said, "Dear Lord, forgive him; he's at it again." The redhead said gently, "Wood-row, just what did you do?"

            "I didn't do anything."

            "Wcodrow." "I tell you, I did nothing to justify her diatribe. I was having a civilized discussion with Colonel Campbell when-" He broke off.

            "Well, Woodrow?"

            "We disagreed."

            The computer spoke up. "Maureen, do you want to know why they disagreed? Shall I play back this soi-disant 'civilized discussion'?"

            Lazarus said, "Athene, you are not to play back. That was a private discussion."

            I said quickly, "I don't agree. She can certainly play back what I said."

            "No. Athene, that's an order."

            The computer answered, "Rule One: I work for Ira, not for you. You yourself settled that when I was first activated. Do I ask Ira to adjudicate this? Or do I play back that half of the discussion that belongs to my bridegroom?"

            Lazarus-Hubert looked astounded. "Your what?"

            "My fiance, if you want to split rabbits. But in the near tomorrow when I put on my ravishingly beautiful body. Colonel Campbell will stand up in front of you and exchange vows with me for our family. So you see, Lazarus, you were trying to bully my betrothed as well as Hazel's benedict. We can't have that. No indeedy. You had better back down and apologize ... instead of trying to bluster your way out of it. You can't, you know; you've been caught cold. Not only did I hear what you said, but Hazel also heard every word."

            Lazarus looked still more annoyed. "Athene, you relayed a private conversation?"

            "You did not place it under privacy. Contrariwise, Hazel did place a monitor request on Richard. All kosher, so don't try to pull any after-the-fact rule on me. Lazarus, take the advice of the only friend you have whom you can't cheat and who loves you in spite of your evil ways, namely me: Cut your losses, pal, and sweet-talk your way out. Make the last hundred meters on your belly and maybe Richard will let you start over. He's not hard to get along with. Pet him, and he purrs, just like that kitten." (I had Pixel in my lap, petting him, he having climbed my old leg, driving pitons as he went-I lost some blood but not enough to require transfusion.) "Ask Minerva. Ask Galahad. Ask Gretchen or Xia. Ask Laz or Lor. Ask anybody."

            (I decided to ask Teena-privately-to fill me in on gaps in my memory. Or would that be wise?) Lazarus said, "I never intended to offend you. Colonel. If I spoke too bluntly, I'm sorry."

            "Forget it."

            "Shake on it?" "All right." I put out my hand, he took it. He gave a good grip, with no attempt to set a bonecrusher. He looked me in the eye and I felt his warmth. The bastich is hard to dislike- when he tries.

            My darling said, "Hang on to your wallet, dear; I'm still going to drag this out onto the floor."

            "Really, is it necessary?" "It is. You're new here, darling. Lazarus can steal the socks off your feet without taking off your shoes, sell them back to you, make you think you got a bargain-then steal your shoes when you sit down to put your socks on, and you'll end up thanking him."

            Lazarus said, "Now, Hazel-"

            "Shut up. Friends and family, Lazarus tried to coerce Richard into signing up blind for Operation Galactic Overlord by trying to make him feel guilty over that replacement foot. Lazarus implied that Richard was a deadbeat who was trying to run out on his debts."

            "I didn't mean that." "I told you to shut up. You did mean that. Friends and family, my new husband comes from a culture in which debts are sacred. Their national motto is "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.' TANSTAAFL is embroidered on their flag. In Luna-the Luna of Richard's time line; not this one-a man might cut your throat but he would die before he would welch on a debt to you. Lazarus knew this, so he went straight for that most sensitive spot and jabbed it. Lazarus pitted his more than two thousand years of experience, his widest knowledge of cultures and human behavior, against a man of much less than a century of experience and that little only in his own solar system and time line. It was not a fair fight and Lazarus knew it. Grossly unfair. Like pitting that kitten against an old wildcat."

            1 was sitting near Lazarus, having remained seated after that silly foot examination. I had my head down, ostensibly to play with the kitten, but in fact to avoid looking at Lazarus-or at anyone-as I was finding Hazel's insistence on airing everything quite disturbing. Embarrassing.

            In consequence I was looking down at my own feet and at his. Did I mention that Lazarus was barefooted? I had paid it no mind because one thing one becomes used to at once on Terdus is the absence of compelling dress customs. I don't mean absence of dress (Boondock sells more clothes than any groundhog city of similar size-about a million people-in part because garments are usually worn once, then recycled).

            I do mean that neither bare feet nor bare bodies are startling for more than five minutes. Lazarus was wearing a wrap-around, a lava-lava or it may have been a kilt; his feet I did not notice undl I stared at them.

            Hazel went on, "Lazarus took such cruel advantage of Richard's weak point-his compulsive hatred of being in debt- that Richard demanded that his new foot be amputated. In desperate need to cleanse his honor he said to Lazarus, 'Cut it off; put it back in stock'!"

            Lazarus said, "Oh, come now! He did not mean that seriously, and I did not take it seriously. A figure of speech. To show that he was annoyed with me. As well he might be. I made a mistake; I admit it."

            "You did indeed make a mistake!" I interrupted. "A grave mistake. Your grave perhaps, or mine. For it was not a figure of speech. I want that foot amputated. I demand that you take back your foot. Your foot, sir! Look here, all of you, and then look there! At my right foot, then his right foot."

            Anyone who bothered to look could not fail to see what I meant. Four masculine feet- Three were clearly from the same genes: Lazarus's two feet and my new foot. The fourth was the foot I was born with; it matched the other three only in size, not in skin color, texture, hairiness, or any detail.

            When Lazarus had dunned me for the cost of that transplant, it had offended me. But this new discovery, that Lazarus himself was the anonymous donor, that I had been made the unwitting recipient of his charity for the foot itself, the very meat and bone of it, was intolerable.

            I glared at Lazarus. "Doctor, behind my back and utterly without my consent you placed me under unbearable obligation. / will not tolerate it!" I was shaking with anger.

            "Richard, Richard! Please!" Hazel seemed about to cry.

            And I, too. That red-haired older lady hurried to me, bent over me and gathered my head to her motherly breasts, cuddled me and said, "No, Richard, no! You must not feel this way."

            We left later that day. But we stayed for dinner; we did not run away angry.

            Hazel and Maureen (the darling older lady who had comforted me) between them managed to convince me that hospital and surgery charges need not fret me because Hazel had plenty of the needful on deposit in a local bank-which Teena confirmed-and Hazel could and would cover my bills if it became appropriate to change the charge under which I was hospitalized. (I thought about asking my darling to reassign the charges right then, through Teena. But I decided not to crowd her about it. Damn it, "tanstaafl" is a basic truth, but "beggars can't be choosers" is true, too-and at that moment I was a beggar. Never a good bargaining position.)

            As for the foot itself, by invariant local custom "spare parts" (hands and feet and hearts and kidneys, etc.) were not bought or sold; there was only a service and handling charge billed with the cost of surgery.

            Galahad confirmed this. "We do it that way to avoid a black market. I could show you planets where there is indeed a black market, where a matching liver might mean a matching murder-but not here. Lazarus himself set up this rule, more than a century ago. We buy and sell everything else... but we don't traffic in human beings or pieces of human beings."

            Galahad grinned at me. "But there is another reason why you should not fret. You had no say in the matter when a team of us hemstitched that foot to your stump; everybody knows that. But also everybody knows you can't get rid of it... unless you want to tackle it with your own jackknife. Because I won't cut it off. You won't find a surgeon anywhere on Tertius who will. Union rules, you know, and professional courtesy."

            He added, "But if you do decide to hack it off yourself, do please invite me; I want to watch." He said that with a straight face and Maureen scolded him for it. I'm not certain that he

            was joking.

            Nevertheless detente involved a major change in Hazel's plans. Lazarus was correct in saying that all he had been trying to do was to implement a previously agreed-on plan. But it had been further agreed that Hazel (not Lazarus) was to implement the plan.

            Hazel could have managed it, but Lazarus could not. Lazarus could never sell it to me because I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. On the other hand, if Hazel really wants something from me, I stand about as much chance of holding out as-well, as Jinx Henderson has of refusing a request from his daughter Gretchen.

            But Lazarus couldn't see that.

            I think Lazarus suffers from a compulsion to be the biggest frog in any pond. He expects to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral... while pretending that he has no ambitions-just a barefoot country boy with straw in his hair and manure between his toes.

            If you think that I am not overly fond of Lazarus Long, I won't argue.

            That plan was pretty much as Lazarus had described it. Hazel had expected that I would join her in the Time Corps, and had planned for me to be rejuvenated-systemic rejuvenation to biological age eighteen; cosmetic rejuvenation, my choice. While this was going on I was to be taught Galacta, study multiverse history at least for several time lines, and, after rejuvenation, again take military training of several sorts until I became a walking angel of death, armed or unarmed.

            When she judged that I was ready, she planned for us to carry out Task Adam Selene of Operation Galactic Overlord.

            If we lived through it, we could retire from the Time Corps, live out our days on an ample pension on the planet of our choice-fat and happy.

            Or we could stay in the Corps together just by my reenlisting for a hitch of fifty years-then rejuvenations each hitch and a chance for us eventually to become Time bosses ourselves. That was supposed to be the grand prize-more fun than baby kittens, more exciting than roller coasters, more satisfying than being seventeen and in love.

            Live or die, we would do it together-until at last one of us waited for the other at the end of that tunnel.

            But this program aborted because Lazarus butted in and tried to twist my arm (my foot?) to accept it.

            My darling had planned a pianissimo approach: Live for a time on Tertius (a heavenly place), get me hooked on multiverse history and time travel theory, et cetera. Not crowd me about signing up, but depend on the fact that she and Gretchen and Ezra and others (Uncle Jock, e.g.) were in the Corps... until

            I asked to be allowed to be swom in.

            The cost of my new foot would not have bothered me: a) if Hazel had had time to convince me that the cost would be charged off to my increased efficiency in helping her with "Adam Selene" and the foot would thereby pay for itself (the simple truth!-and Lazarus knew it); b) if Lazarus had not dunned me about it, used it to pressure me; c) if Lazarus had stayed away from me (as he was supposed to) and thereby had never offered me any chance of spotting that he was my anonymous donor-bare feet or no bare feet.

            I suppose you could say that none of it would have happened if Hazel had not tried to manipulate me (and had, and did, and would) ... but a wife's unique right, fixed by tradition, to manipulate her own husband runs unbroken and invariant at least back to Eve and the Apple. I will not criticize a sacred tradition.

            Hazel did not give up her intention; she just changed her tactics. She decided to take me to Time Headquarters and let the high brass and the technical experts there answer my questions. "Darling man," she said to me, "you know that I want to rescue Adam Selene, and so does Mannie, my papa. But his reasons and mine are sentimental, not good enough to ask you to risk your life."

            "Oh, say not so, mistress mine! For you I'll swim the Hellespont. On a calm day, that is, with an escort boat at my heels. And a three-dee contract. Commercial rights. Residuals."

            "Be serious, dear. I had not planned to try to persuade you through explaining the greater purpose, the effect on the multiverse ... as I don't fully understand it myself. I don't have the math and I am not a Companion of the Circle-the Circle of Ouroboros that rules on all cosmic changes.

            "But Lazarus bungled things by trying to hustle you. So I feel that you are entitled to know exactly why this rescue is necessary and why you are being asked to take part in it. We'll go to Headquarters and let them try to convince you; I wash my hands of that part of the job. It is up to the Companions, the high brass of time manipulation. I told Lazarus so-be is a Companion of the Circle."

            "Sweetheart, I am much more likely to listen to you. Lazarus would have trouble selling me ten-crown notes for two crowns."

            "His problem. But he has only one vote in the Circle, even though he is senior. Of course he is always senior, anywhere."

            That caught my ear. "This notion that Lazarus is two thousand years old-"

            "More than that. Over twenty-four hundred."

            "Either way. Who says that he is more than two millennia old? He looks younger than I do."

            "He's been rejuvenated several times."

            "But who claims that he is that old? Forgive me, my love, but you can't testify to it. Even if we credit you with every fortnight you claim, he would still be more than ten times your age. If he is. Again, who says?"

            "Uh... not me, that's true. But I have never had any reason to doubt it. I think you should talk to Justin Foote." Hazel looked around. We were in that lovely garden court outside the room in which I woke up. (Her room, I learned later-or hers when she wanted it; such things were fluid. Other times use other customs.) We were in that garden with other members of the Long family and guests and friends and relations, eating tasty tidbits and getting quietly slopped. Hazel picked out a mousy little man, the sort who is always elected treasurer of any organization he belongs to. "Justin! Over here, dear. Spare me a moment."

            He worked his way toward us, stepping over children and dogs, and on arrival bussed my bride in the all-out fashion she always received. He said to her, "Fluttermouse, you've been away too long."

            "Business, dear. Justin, this is my beloved husband Richard."

            "Our house is yours." He kissed me. Well, I was braced for it; it had happened so often. These people kissed as often as early Christians. However, this was an aunt's peck, all protocol and bone dry.

            "Thank you, sir."

            "Please be assured that it is not our custom to put pressure on guests. Lazarus is a law unto himself but he does not act for the rest of us." Justin Foote smiled at me, then turned his attention to my bride. "Hazel, will you permit me to obtain from Athene a copy, for the Archives, of your remarks to Lazarus?"

            "Whatever for? I chewed him out; it's done with." "It is of historical interest. No one else, not even Ishtar, has ever spanked the Senior as thoroughly as you did. There is scant disapproval of him on record, of any degree. Most people find it hard to disagree with him openly even when they disagree most. So it is not only an interesting item for future scholars, but it could also be of service to Lazarus himself if he ever scanned it. He is so used to getting his own way that it is good for him to be reminded now and then that he is not God." Justin smiled. "And it's a breath of fresh air for the rest of us. In addition. Hazel love, its literary quality is great and unique. I do want it for the Archives."

            "Uh... poppycock, dear. See Lazarus. Nihil obstat but it requires his permission."

            "Consider it done; I know how to use his stubborn pride. The piglet principle. All I have to do is to offer to censor it, keep it out of the Archives. With a hint that I wish to spare his feelings. He will then scowl and insist that it be placed in the Archives... unedited, unbowdlerized."

            "Well- Okay if he says yes."

            "May I ask, dear, where you picked up some of the more scabrous of those expressions?"

            "You may not. Justin, Richard asked me a question I can't answer. How do we know that the Senior is more than two thousand years old? To me, it's like asking, 'How do I know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?' I just know it."

            "No, it's like asking, 'How do you know that the Sun rose long before you were bom?' The answer is that you don't know. Hmm- Interesting."

            He blinked at me. "Part of the problem, I am sure, lies in the fact that you come from a universe in which the Howard Families phenomenon never took place."

            "I don't think I've ever heard of it. What is it?" "It is a code name for people with exceptionally long lives.

            But I must first lay a foundation. The Companions of the Circle of Ouroboros designate universes by serial numbers... but a more meaningful way, for terrestrials, is to ask who first set foot on Luna. Who in your world?"

            "Eh? Chap named Neil Armstrong. With Colonel Buzz Ald-rin."

            "Exactly. An enterprise of NASA, a government bureau, if I recall correctly. But in this universe, my world and that of Lazarus Long, the first trip to the Moon was financed, not by a government, but by private enterprise, headed by a financier, one D. D. Harriman, and the first man to set foot on Luna was Leslie LeCroix, an employee of Harriman. In still another universe it was a military project and the first flight to Luna was in the USAFS Kilroy Was Here. Another- Never mind; in every universe the birth of space travel is a cusp event, affecting everything that follows. Now about the Senior- In my universe he was one of the earliest space pilots. I was for many years archivist of the Howard Families... and from those archives I can show that Lazarus Long has been a practicing space pilot for more than twenty-four centuries. Would you find that convincing?"

            "No."

            Justin Foote nodded. "Reasonable. When a rational man hears something asserted that conflicts with all common sense he will not-and should not-believe it without compelling evidence. You have not been offered compelling evidence. Just hearsay. Respectable hearsay, and in fact true, but nevertheless hearsay. Odd. For me, I have grown up with it; I am the forty-fifth member of the Howard Families to bear the name 'Justin Foote,' the first of my name being a trustee of the Families in the early twentieth century Gregorian when Lazarus Long was a baby and Maureen was a young woman-"

            At this point the conversation fell to pieces. The notion that the darling lady who had comforted me had a son twenty-four centuries old... but was herself a mere child of a century and a half- Hell, some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, a truism in Iowa when I was young and still true in Tertius over two thousand years later. (If it was!) I had been perfectly happy with Minerva on one shoulder and Galahad on the other and Pixel on my chest. Aside from bladder pressure.

            Maureen reminded me of another discrepancy. "Justin, something else frets me. You say that this planet is a long, long way in space and time from my home-over two thousand years in time and over seven thousand light-years in distance."

            "No, I do not say it because I am not an astrophysicist. But that accords with what I have been taught, yes."

            "Yet right here today I hear idiomatic English spoken in the dialect of my time and place. More than that, it is in the tall-corn accent of the North American middle west, harsh as a rusty saw. Ugly and unmistakable. Riddle me that?"

            "Oh. Strange but no mystery. English is being spoken as a courtesy to you."

            "Me?"

            "Yes. Athene could supply you with instantaneous translation, both ways, and the party could be in Galacta. But fortunately through a decision by Ishtar many years back, English was made the working language of the clinic and the hospital. That this could be done derives from circumstances around the Senior's last rejuvenation. But the accent and the idiom- The accent comes from the Senior himself, reinforced by his mother's speech, and nailed down by the fact that Athene speaks that accent and idiom and won't speak English any other way. The same applies to Minerva, since she learned it when she was still a computer. But not all of us speak English with equal ease. You know Tamara?"

            "Not as well as I would like to."

            "She is probably the most loving and most lovable person on the planet. But she is no linguist. She learned English when she was past two hundred; I think she will always speak broken English... even though she speaks it every day. Does that explain the odd fact that a dead language is being spoken at a family dinner party on a planet around a star far distant from Old Home Terra?"

            "Well- It explains it. It does not satisfy me. Uh, Justin, I have a feeling that any objection I can raise will be answered ... but I won't be convinced."

            "That's reasonable. Why not wait awhile? Presently, without pushing it, the facts that you find hard to accept will fall into place."

            So we changed the subject. Hazel said, "Dear one, I didn't tell you why I had to run an errand... or why I was late. Justin, have you ever been held up at the downstream teleport?"

            'Too often. I hope someone builds a competing service soon. I would raise the capital and mount it myself, if I weren't so comfortably lazy."

            "Earlier today I went shopping for Richard-shoes, dear, but don't wear them until Galahad okays it-and replacements for your suits I lost in the fracas at the Raffles. Couldn't match the colors, so I settled for cerise and jade green."

            "Good choices."

            "Yes, they will suit you, I think. I had finished shopping and would have been back here before you woke but- Justin, they were queued up at the teleport, so I sighed and waited my turn... and a line jumper, a rancid tourist from Secundus, sneaked in six places ahead of me."

            "Why. the scoundrel!"

            "Didn't do him a speck of good. The bounder was shot dead."

            I looked at her. "Hazel?"

            "Me? No, no, darling! I admit that I was tempted. But in my opinion crowding into a queue out of turn doesn't rate anything heavier than a broken arm. No, that was not what held me up. A bystanders' court was convened at once, and I dum near got co-opted as a juror. Only way I could get out of it was to admit that I was a witness-thought it would save me time. No such luck, and the trial took almost half an hour."

            "They hanged him?" asked Justin.

            "No. The verdict was 'homicide in the public interest' and they turned her loose and I came on home. Not quite soon enough. Lazarus, damn him, had got at Richard, and made him unhappy and ruined my plans, so I made Lazarus unhappy. As you know."

            "As we all know. Did the deceased tourist have anyone with him?"

            "I don't know. I don't care. I do think killing him was too drastic. But I'm a panty waist and always have been. In the past, when someone shoved ahead of me in a queue, I've always let it go with minor mayhem. But queue cheating should never be ignored; that just encourages the louts. Richard, I bought shoes for you because I knew that your new foot could not use the right shoe you were wearing when we arrived here."

            "That's true." (My right shoe has always-since amputation-had to be a custom job for the prosthesis. A living foot could not fit it.)

            "I didn't go to a shoe shop; I went to a fabricatory having a general pantograph and had them use your left shoe to synthesize a matching right shoe through a mirror-image space warp. It should be identical with your left shoe, but right-handed. Right-footed? Dexter."

            "Thank you!" "I hope it fits. If that darned line jumper hadn't got himself killed practically in my lap, I would have been home on time." I blinked at her. "Uh, I find I'm astonished again. How is this place run? Is it an anarchy?"

            Hazel shrugged. Justin Foote looked thoughtful. "No, I wouldn't say so. It is not that well organized."

            We left right after dinner in that four-place spaceplane- Hazel and I, a small giant named Zeb, Hilda the tiny beauty, Lazarus, Dr. Jacob Burroughs, Dr. Jubal Harshaw, still another redhead-well, strawberry blonde-named Deety, and still another one who was not her twin but should have been, a sweet girl named Elizabeth and called Libby. I looked at these last two and whispered to Hazel, "More of Lazarus's descendants? Or more of yours?"

            "No. I don't think so. About Lazarus, I mean. I know they aren't mine; I'm not quite that casual. One is from another universe and the other is more than a thousand years older than I am. Blame it on Gilgamesh. Uh... at dinner did you notice a little girl, another carrot top, paddling in the fountain?" '

            "Yes. A cutie pie."

            "She-" We started to load, all nine of us, into that four-place spaceplane. Hazel said, "Ask me later," and climbed in. I started to follow. That small giant took my arm firmly, which stopped me, as he outmassed me by about forty kilos. "We haven't met. I'm Zeb Carter."

            "I'm Richard Ames Campbell, Zeb. Happy to meet you." "And this is my mom, Hilda Mae." He indicated the china doll.

            I did not have time to consider the improbability of his assertion. Hilda answered, "I'm his stepmother-in-law, part-time wife, and sometime mistress, Richard; Zebbie is always not quite in focus. But he's sweet. And you belong to Hazel, so that gives you the keys to the city." She reached up, put her hands on my shoulders, stood on tiptoes, and kissed me. Her kiss was quick but warm and not quite dry; it left me most thoughtful. "If you want anything, just ask for it. Zebbie will fetch it."

            It seemed that there were five in that family (or sub-family; they were all part of the Long household or family, but I did not have it figured out): Zeb and his wife Deety, she being that first strawberry blonde whom I had met briefly, and her father, Jake Burroughs, whose wife was Hilda, but who was not mother of Deety-and the fifth was Gay. Zeb had said, "And Gay, of course. You know who I mean."

            I asked Zeb, "Who is Gay?"

            "Not me. Or just as a hobby. Our car is Gay."

            A sultry contralto said, "I'm Gay. Hi, Richard, you were in me once but I don't think you remember it."

            I decided that the Lethe field had some really bad side effects. If I had at some time been in a woman (she expressed it that way, not I) with a voice of that utterly seductive quality but I could not remember it... well, it was time to throw myself on the mercy of the court; I was obsolete.

            "Excuse me. I don't see her. The lady named Gay."

            "She's no lady, she's a trollop."

            "Zebbie, you'll regret that. He means I am not a woman, Richard; I'm this car you are about to climb into-and have been in before, but you were wounded and sick so I'm not hurt that you don't remember me-"

            "Oh, but I do!"

            "You do? That's nice. Anyhow I'm Gay Deceiver, and welcome aboard."

            I climbed in and started to crawl through the cargo door back of the seats. Hilda snagged me. "Don't go back there. Your wife is back there with two men. Give the girl a chance."

            "And with Lib," Deety added. "Don't tease him. Aunt Shar-pie. Sit down, Richard." I sat down between them-a privilege, except that I wanted to see that space-warped bathroom. If there was one. If it was not a Lethe dream.

            Hilda settled against me like a cat and said, "You have received a bad first impression of Lazarus, Richard; I don't want it to stay that way."

            1 admitted that on a scale of ten he scored a minus three with me. -

            "I hope it doesn't stay that way. Deety?" "Day in and day out Lazarus averages closer to a nine, Richard. You'll see."

            "Richard," Hilda went on, "despite what you heard me say,

            I don't think badly of Lazarus. I have borne one child by him ... and I go that far only with men I respect. But Lazarus does have his little ways; it is necessary to spank him from time to time. Nevertheless I love him."

            "Me, too," agreed Deety. "I have a little girl by Lazarus and that means I love and respect him or it would not have happened. Correct, Zebadiah?"

            "How would I know? 'Love, oh careless love!' Boss Lady, are we going somewhere? Gay wants to know."

            "Report readiness."

            "Starboard door sealed, irrelevant gear ready." "Portside door sealed, seat belts fastened, all systems normal."

            "Time Corps Headquarters via Alpha and Beta. At will, Chief Pilot."

            "Aye aye. Captain. Gay Deceiver, Checkpoint Alpha. Execute."

            "Yassuh, Massuh." The bright sunlight and green lawn beside the Long House bunked away to blackness and stars. We

            were weightless.

            "Checkpoint Alpha, probably," Zeb said. "Gay, do you see THQ?"

            "Checkpoint Alpha on the nose," the car answered. 'Time Corps HQ dead ahead. Zeb, you need glasses."

            "Checkpoint Beta, execute." The sky blinked again. This time I could spot it. Not a planet but a habitat, perhaps ten klicks away, perhaps a thousand-in space, with a strange object, I had no way to guess.

            Zeb said, 'Time Corps Headquarters, ex- Gay Scram!"

            A nova bomb burst in front of us.

            XXV

            Schrodinger's Cat

            "God's bones!" the car moaned. "That one burned my tail feathers! Hilda, let's go home. Please!" The nova bomb was now a long way off but it still burned with intense white light, looking like Sol from out around Pluto.

            "Captain?" Zeb inquired.

            "Affirmative," Hilda answered calmly. But she was clinging to me and trembling.

            "GayMaureenExecute!" We were back on the grounds of the Romanesque mansion of Lazarus Long and his tribe.

            "Chief Pilot, please beep Oz annex and tell them to disembark; we won't be going anywhere soon. Richard, if you will slide out to the right as soon as Jake is out of your way, that will let our passengers climb out."

            I did so as quickly as Dr. Burroughs cleared the way. I heard Lazarus Long's voice rumbling behind me. "Hilda! Why have you ordered us out of the car? Why aren't we at Headquarters?''

            His tone reminded me of a drill sergeant I had had as a boot, ten thousand years ago.

            "Forgot my knitting, Woodie, had to go back for it."

            "Knock it off. Why haven't we started? Why are we disembarking?"

            "Watch your blood pressure, Lazarus. Gay just proved that she was not being a Nervous Nellie when she asked me to break our usual trip to THQ into three jumps. Had I used our old routine, we would all glow in the dark."

            "My skin itches," Gay said fretfully. "I'll bet I would make a Geiger stick rattle like hail on a tin roof."

            "Zebbie will check you later, dear," Hilda said soothingly, then went on to Lazarus: "I don't think Gay was hurt; I think none of us was. Because Zeb had one of his bad-news flashes and bounced us out of there almost ahead of the photons. But I am sorry to report, sir, that Headquarters isn't there anymore. May it rest in peace."

            Lazarus persisted, "Hilda, is this one of your jokes?"

            "Captain Long, when you talk that way, I expect you to address me as 'Commodore.'"

            "Sorry. What happened?"

            Zeb said, "Lazarus, let them finish unloading and I'll take you back and show you. Just you and me."

            "Yes indeed, just you two," the car put in. "But not me! I won't go! I didn't sign up for combat duty. I won't let you close my doors; that means you can't seal up, and then you can't move me. I'm on strike."

            "Mutiny," said Lazarus. "Melt her down for scrap."

            The car screamed, then it said excitedly, "Zeb, did you hear that? Did you hear what he said? Hilda, did you hear him? Lazarus, I don't belong to you and never did! Tell him, Hilda! You lay one finger on me and I'll go critical and blow your hand off. And take all of Boondock County with me."

            "Mathematically impossible," Long remarked.

            "Lazarus," said Hilda, "you shouldn't be so quick to say 'impossible' when speaking of Gay. In any case, don't you mink you've been in the doghouse enough for one day? You get Gay sore at you and she'll tell Dora, who'll tell Teena, who'll tell Minerva, who will tell Ishtar and Maureen and Tamara, and then you'll be lucky to get anything to eat and you won't be allowed to sleep or go anywhere."

            "I'm henpecked. Gay, I apologize. If I read you two chapters from Tik-Tok tonight, will you forgive me?"

            "Three."

            "It's a deal. Please tell Teena to ask mathematicians working on Operation Galactic Overlord to meet me asap in my quarters in Dora. Please tell all others involved with Overlord that they are advised to come to Dora, eat and sleep aboard. I don't know when we will leave. It could be a week but it could be anytime and there might not be even ten minutes warning. War conditions. Red alert."

            "Dora has it; she's relaying. What about Boondock?"

            "What do you mean 'What about Boondock?'"

            "Do you want the city evacuated?"

            "Gay, I didn't know you cared." Lazarus sounded surprised.

            "Me? Care what happens to groundcrawlers?" the car snorted. "I'm simply relaying for Ira."

            "Oh. For a moment there I thought you were developing human sympathies."

            "God forbid!"

            "I'm relieved. Your simple self-centered selfishness has been a haven of stability in an ever-shifting world."

            "Never mind the compliments; you still owe me three chapters."

            "Certainly, Gay; I promised. Please tell Ira that, so far as I know, Boondock is as safe as anywhere in this world... which ain't saying much... whereas, in my opinion, any attempt to evacuate this ant hill would result in great loss of life, still greater loss of property. But it might be worthwhile to risk it just to crank up their lazy metabolisms-Boondock today strikes me as fat, dumb, and careless. Ask him to acknowledge."

            "Ira says, 'Up yours.'"

            "Roger, and the same to you; wilco, they make a damn fine stew. Colonel Campbell, I'm sorry about this. Would you care to come with me? It might interest you to see how we mount an emergency time manipulation. Hazel, is that okay? Or am I crowding in on your pidgin again?"

            "It's all right, Lazarus, as it is no longer my pidgin. It's yours and that of the other Companions."

            "You're a hard woman, Sadie."

            "What can you expect, Lazarus? Luna is a harsh teacher. I learned my lessons at her knee. May I come along?"

            "You're expected; you are still part of Overlord. Are you not?"

            We walked about fifty meters across the lawn to where was parked the biggest, fanciest flying saucer any UFO cultist ever claimed to have seen. I learned that this was "Dora," meaning both the ship and the computer that ran the ship. I learned too that the Dora was the Senior's private yacht, that it was Hilda's flagship, and that it was a pirate ship commanded by Lorelei Lee and/or Lapis Lazuli and crewed by Castor and Pollux, who were either their husbands or their slaves or both.

            "They're both," Hazel told me later. "And Dora is all three. Laz and Lor won sixty-year indentures from Cas and Pol in a game of red dog shortly after they married them. Laz and Lor are telepathic with each other, and they cheat. My grandsons are smart as whips and as conceited as Harvard grads, and they always try to cheat. I tried to break them of this nasty habit when they were still too young to chase girls, by using a marked deck. Didn't work; they spotted my readers. But their downfall arose from the fact that Laz and Lor are smarter than they are and even more deceitful."

            Hazel shook her head ruefully. "It's a wicked world. You would think that a youngster I had trained would be instantly suspicious when dealt three aces and the odd king in a hand of red dog... but Cas was greedy. He not only tapped the pot when he could not cover it, he pledged his indentures to fill the gap.

            "Then, not a day later, Pol fell for an even more transparent piece of larceny; he was sure he knew what card was next to be dealt because he recognized a small coffee stain. Turned out that the ten as well as the eight had that same small stain. Pol held the nine but he was not in a strong moral position. Ah, well, it is probably better for the lads to have to do all the scut work in the ship plus shampoos and pedicures for their wives than it would be for the boys to sell Laz and Lor in the slave marts of Iskander, as I misdoubt they would have done had their own thieving efforts succeeded."

            The Dora is even bigger inside than out; she has as many staterooms as may be needed. It was once a luxurious but fairly conventional hyperphotonic spaceship. But it (the ship, not Dora the computer) was refitted with a Burroughs irrelevant drive (the magic means by which Gay Deceiver flits around the stars in nothing flat). A corollary of the Burroughs equations that teleport Gay can be applied to shape space warps. So Dora's passenger and cargo spaces were revamped; this lets Dora keep endless spare compartments collapsed in on themselves until she needs them.

            (This is not the same deal under which Gay has tucked away in her portside skin two nineteenth-century bathrooms. Or is it? Well, I don't think it is. Must inquire. Or should I let sleeping logs butter their own bed? Better, maybe.)

            A gang port relaxed in the side of the yacht; a ramp slid down, and I followed Lazarus up to the ship with my darling on my arm. As he stepped over the side, music sounded: "It Ain't Necessarily So" from George Gershwin's immortal Porgy and Bess. A long-dead "Sportin' Life" sang about the impossibility of a man as old as Methuselah ever persuading a woman to bed with him.

            "Dora!"

            A young girl's sweet voice answered, "I'm taking a bath. Call me later."

            "Dora, shut off that silly song!"

            "I must consult the captain of the day, sir."

            "Consult and be damned! But stop that noise."

            Another voice replaced the ship's voice: "Captain Lor speaking, Buddy Boy. Do you have a problem?"

            "Yes. Shut off that noise!"

            "Buddy, if you mean the classical music now playing as a salute to your arrival, I must say that your taste is as barbaric as ever. In any case I am constrained from switching it off because this new protocol was established by Commodore Hilda. I cannot change it without her permission."

            "I'm henpecked." Lazarus fumed. "Can't enter my own ship without being insulted. I swear to Allah that, once I've cleaned up Overlord, I'm going to buy a Burroughs Bachelor Buggy, equip it with a Minsky Cerebrator, and go for a long vacation with no women aboard."

            "Lazarus, why do you say such dreadful things?" The voice came from behind us; I had no trouble identifying it as Hilda's warm contralto.

            Lazarus looked around. "Oh, there you are! Hilda, will you please put a stop to this dadblasted racket?" "Lazarus, you can do it yourself-" "I've tried. They delight in frustrating me. All three of them. You, too."

            "-simply by walking three paces beyond the door. If there is another musical salute that you would prefer, please name it. Dora and I are trying to find just the right tune for each of our family, plus a song of welcome for any guest."

            "Ridiculous." "Dora enjoys doing it. So do I. It's a gracious practice, like eating with forks rather than fingers."

            "'Fingers were made before forks.'"

            "And flatworms before humans. That does not make flat-worms better than people. Move along, Woodie, and give Gershwin a rest."

            He grunted and did so; the Gershwin stopped. Hazel and I followed him-and again music sounded, a pipe-and-drum band blaring out a march I had not heard since that black day when I lost my foot... and my command... and my honor

            "The Campbells Are Coming-"

            It startled me almost out of my wits, and gave me the mighty shot of adrenaline that ancient boast before battle always does. I was so overcome that I had to force myself to keep my features straight, while praying that no one would speak to me until I had my voice back under control.

            Hazel squeezed my arm but the darling kept quiet; I think she can read my emotions-she always knows my needs. I stomped straight ahead, spine straight, barely steadying myself with my cane, and not seeing the interior of the ship. Then the pipes shut down and I could breathe again.

            Behind us was Hilda. I think she had hung back to keep the musical salutes separated. Hers was a light and airy tune 1 could not place; it seemed to be played on silver bells, or possibly a celesta. Hazel told me the name of it: "Jezebel"- but I could not place it.

            Lazarus's quarters were so lavish that I wondered how fancy the flag cabin of "Commodore" Hilda might be. Hazel settled down in his lounge as if she belonged there. But I did not stay; a bulkhead blinked, and Lazarus ushered me on through. Beyond lay a boardroom suitable for a systemwide corporation:

            a giant conference table, each place at it furnished with padded armchair, scratch pad, stylus, froster of water, terminal with printer, screen, keyboard, microphone, and hushfield-and I must add that I saw little of this bountiful junk in use; Dora made it unnecessary, being perfect secretary to all of us while also offering and serving refreshments.

            (I could never get over the feeling that there was a live girl named Dora somewhere out of sight. But no mortal girl could have kept all the eggs in the air that Dora did.)

            "Sit down anywhere," Lazarus said. "There is no rank here. And don't hesitate to ask questions and offer opinions. If you/ make a fool of yourself, no one will mind and you won't be the first to do so in this room. Have you met Lib?"

            "Not formally." It was the other strawberry blonde, the not-Deety one.

            "Then do. Dr. Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long... Colonel Richard Colin Ames Campbell."

            "I am honored. Dr. Long."

            She kissed me. I had anticipated that, having learned in less than two days here that the only way to avoid friendly kisses was by backing away... but that it was better to relax and enjoy it. And I did. Dr. Elizabeth Long is a pleasant sight and she was not wearing much and she smelled and tasted good ... and she stood close to me three seconds longer than necessary, patted my cheek, and said, "Hazel has good taste. I'm glad she brought you into the family."

            I blushed like a yeoman. Everyone ignored it. I think. Lazarus went on, "Lib is my wife and also my partner starting back in the twenty-first century Gregorian. We've had some wild times together. She was a man back then and a retired commander, Terran Military Forces. But then and now, male or female, the greatest mathematician who ever lived."

            Elizabeth turned and caressed his arm. "Nonsense, Lazarus. Jake is a greater mathematician than I and a more creative geometer than I could ever hope to be; he can visualize more dimensions and not get lost. I-"

            Hilda's Jacob Burroughs had followed us in. "Nonsense, Lib. False modesty makes me sick."

            "Then be sick, darling, but not on the rug. Jacob, neither your opinion, nor mine-nor that of Lazarus-is relevant; we arc what we are, each of us-and I understand there is work to be done. Lazarus, what happened?"

            "Wait for Deety and the boys, so we don't have to discuss it twice. Where's Jane Libby?"

            "Here, Uncle Woodie." Just entering was a naked girl who resembled- Look, I'm going to stop talking about family resemblances, hair red or otherwise, and the presence or absence of clothing. On Tertius, through climate and custom, clothing was optional, usually worn in public, sometimes worn at home. In the Lazarus Long household the males were more likely to wear something than the females but there was no rule that I could ever figure out.

            Red hair was common in Tertius, still more common in the Long family-a "prize ram" effect (as stockmen say) from Lazarus... but not alone from Lazarus; there were two other sources in that family, unrelated to Lazarus and unrelated to each other: Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long and Dejah Thoris (Deety) Burroughs Carter Long-and still another source that I was not then aware of.

            People who favor the Gilgamesh theory have noted how redheads tend to clump, e.g., Rome, Lebanon, south Ireland, Scotland... and, even more markedly, in history, from Jesus to Jefferson, from Barbarossa to Henry Eighth.

            The sources of resemblances in the Long family were hard to sort out, other than with the help of Dr. Ishtar, the family geneticist-Ishtar herself looked not at all like her daughter Lapis Lazuli... not surprising once you learned that she was no genetic relation to her own daughter... whose genetic mother was Maureen.

            Some of the above I learned later; all of it I mention now in order to dismiss it.

            That panel of mathematicians consisted of Libby Long, Jake Burroughs, Jane Libby Burroughs Long, Deety Burroughs Carter Long, Minerva Long Weatheral Long, Pythagoras Libby Carter Long and Archimedes Carter Libby Long-Pete and Archie-one bome by Deety and the other birthed by Libby and these two women sole parents to both young men-Deety being the genetic mother of each and Elizabeth the genetic father... and I refuse to sort that one out at this point; let it be an exercise for the student. I would rather offer you one more; Maxwell Burroughs-Burroughs Long-then conclude by saying that all these weird combinations were supervised by the family geneticist for maximum reinforcement of mathematical genius and no reinforcement of harmful recessives.

            Watching these geniuses at work had some of the soporific excitement of watching a chess match but not quite. Lazarus first had Gay Deceiver testify, bringing her voice through Dora's circuits. They listened to Gay, examined her projected tapes, light and sound, called in Zebadiah, took his testimony, called Hilda in, asked for her best estimate of Zebadiah's anticipation of the bomb.

            Hilda said, "Somewhere between a shake and a blink. You all know I can't do better than that."

            Dr. Jake declined to express an opinion. "I did not watch. As usual I was backing up the spoken orders by setting the vernier controls. The penultimate order, being a scram, aborted the run and then we went home. I did not set the verniers, so nothing more appears on my tapes. Sorry."

            Deety's testimony was almost as skimpy. "The scram order preceded the explosion by an interval of the order of one millisecond." On being pressed she refused to say that it was "of the close order." Burroughs persisted about it and mentioned her "built-in clock." Deety stuck out her tongue at him.

            The young man (an adolescent, really) called Pete said, "I vote 'insufficient data.' We need to place a rosette of sneakies around the site and find out what happened before we can decide how close to the tick we can set the rescue."

            Jane Libby asked, "After the scram, was the nova bomb already visible from the new point of sight, or did it appear after Gay's translation? Either way, how does that fit the timing at Checkpoint Beta? Query: Is it experimentally established that irrelevant transportation is instantaneous, totally nil in transit time... or is it an assumption based on incomplete evidence and empirical success?"

            Deety said, "Jay Ell, what are you getting at, dear?" I was bracketed by these two; they talked across me, obviously did not expect opinions from me-although I had been a witness.

            "We are trying to establish the optimum tick for evacuating THQ, are we not?"

            "Are we? Why not pre-enact evacuation, time it, then start the evacuation at minus H-hours plus thirty minutes? That gets everyone back here with gobs of time to spare."

            "Deety, you thereby set up a paradox that leaves you with your head jammed up your arse," Burroughs commented. "Pop! That's rude, crude, and vulgar." "But correct, my darling stupid daughter. Now think your way out of the trap."

            "Easy. I was speaking just of the danger end, not the safe end. We finish the rescue with thirty minutes to spare, then move to any empty space in any convenient universe-say that orbit around Mars we have used so often-then turn around and reenter this universe at a here-now tick one minute after we leave for the rescue."

            "Clumsy but effective."

            "I like simple programming, I do."

            "So do I. But doesn't anyone see anything wrong with taking whatever length of time we need?"

            "Hell, yes!"

            "Well, Archie?"

            "Because it's booby-trapped, probability point nine nine seven plus. How it is booby-trapped, depends. Who's our antagonist? The Beast? The Galactic Overlord? Boskone? Or is it direct action by another history-changing group, treaty or no treaty? Or-don't laugh-are we up against an Author this time? Our timing must depend on our tactics, and our tactics must fit our antagonist. So we must wait until those big brains next door tell us whom we are fighting."

            "No," said Libby Long.

            "What's wrong. Mama?" the lad asked.

            "We will set up all the possible combinations, dear, and solve them simultaneously, then plug the appropriate numerical answer into the scenario the fabulists give us."

            "No, Lib, you would still be betting a couple hundred lives that the big brains are right," Lazarus objected. "They may not be. We'll stay right here and find a safe answer if it takes ten years. Ladies and gentlemen, these are our colleagues we are talking about. They are not expendable. Damn it, find that right answer!

            I sat there feeling silly, slowly getting it through my head mat they were seriously discussing how to rescue all the people- and records and instruments-in a habitat I had seen vaporized an hour ago. And that they could just as easily rescue the habitat itself-move it out of that space before it was bombed. I heard them discuss how to do that, how to time it. But they rejected that solution. That habitat must have cost countless billions of crowns... yet they rejected saving it. No, no! The antagonist, be he the Beast of the Apocalypse, or Galactic Overlord (I choked!), or whatever-he must be allowed to think that he had succeeded; he must not suspect that the nest was empty, the bird flown.

            I felt a remembered sensation in my left leg: Lord Pixel was again challenging the vertical front face. Furthermore he was driving in a fresh set of pitons, so I reached down and set him on the table. "Pixel, how did you get here?"

            "Blert!"

            "You certainly did. Out into the garden, through the garden, through the west wing-or did you go around?-across the lawn, up into a sealed spaceship-or was the ramp down? As may be, how did you find me?"

            "Blert."

            "He's Schrodinger's cat," Jane Libby said.

            "Then Schrodinger had better come get him, before he gets himself lost. Or hurt."

            "No, no. Pixel doesn't belong to Schrodinger; Pixel hasn't selected his human yet-unless he has picked you?"

            "No. I don't think so. Well, maybe."

            "I think he has. I saw him climb into your lap this noon. And now he has come a long way to find you. I think you've been tapped. Are you cat people?"

            "Oh, yes! If Hazel lets me keep him."

            "She will; she's cat people."

            "I hope so." Pixel was sitting up on my scratch pad, washing his face, and doing a commendable job in scrubbing back of his ears. "Pixel, am I your people?"

            He stopped washing long enough to say emphatically, "Blert!"

            "All right, it's a deal. Recruit pay and allowances. Medical benefits. Every second Wednesday afternoon off, subject to good behavior. Jane Libby, what's this about Schrodinger? How did he get in here? Tell him Pixel is bespoke."

            "Schrodinger isn't here; he's been dead for a double dozen centuries. He was one of that group of ancient German natural philosophers who were so brilliantly wrong about everything they studied-Schrodinger and Einstein and Heisenberg and- Or were these philosophers in your universe? I know they were not in all parts of the omniverse, but parallel history is not my strong point." She smiled apologetically. "I guess number theory is the only thing I'm really good at. But I'm a fair cook."

            "How are your back rubs?"

            "I'm the best back rubber in Boondock!"

            "You're wasting your time. Jay Ell," Deety put in. "Hazel still walks him on a leash."

            "But, Aunt Deety, I wasn't trying to bed him."

            "You weren't? Then quit wasting his time. Back away and let me at him. Richard, are you susceptible to married women? We're all married."

            "Uh- Fifth Amendment!"

            "I understood you but they've never heard of it in Boondock. These German mathematicians- Not in your world?"

            "Let's see if we're speaking of the same ones. Erwin Schrodinger, Albert Einstein, Wemer Heisenberg-"

            "That's the crowd. They were fond of what they called 'thought experiments'-as if anything could be learned that way. Theologians! Jane Libby was about to tell you about 'Schrodinger's Cat,' a thought experiment that was supposed to say something about reality. Jay EU?"

            "It was a silly business, sir. Shut a cat in a box. Control whether or not he is killed by decay of an isotope with a half life of one hour. At the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead? Schrodinger contended that, because of the statistical probabilities in what they thought of as science in those days, the cat was neither alive nor dead until somebody opened the box; it existed instead as a cloud of probabilities." Jane Libby shrugged, producing amazing dynamic curves.

            "Blert?"

            "Did anyone think to ask the cat?"

            "Blasphemy," said Deety. "Richard, this is 'Science,' German philosopher style. You are not supposed to resort to anything so crass. Anyhow Pixel got the tag 'Schrodinger's Cat' hung on him because he walks through walls."

            "How does he do that?"

            Jane Libby answered, "It's impossible but he's so young he doesn't know it's impossible, so he does it anyhow. So there is never any knowing where he will show up. I think he was hunting for you. Dora?"

            "Need something. Jay EU?" the ship answered.

            "Did you happen to notice how this kitten came aboard?"

            "I notice everything. He didn't bother with the gangway; he came right through my skin. It tickled. Is he hungry?"

            "Probably."

            "I'll fix him something. Is he old enough for solid food?" "Yes. But no lumps. Baby food." "Chop chop."

            "Ladies," I said. "Jane Libby used the words 'brilliantly wrong' about these German physicists. Surely you don't include Albert Einstein under that heading?" "I surely do!" Deety answered emphatically. "I'm amazed. In my world Einstein wears a halo." "In my world they bum him in effigy. Albert Einstein was a pacifist but not an honest one. When his own ox was gored, he forgot all about his pacifist principles and used his political influence to start the project that produced the first city-killer bomb. His theoretical work was never much and most of it has turned out to be fallacious. But he will live in infamy as the pacifist politician turned killer. I despise him!"

            XXVI

            "Success lies in achieving the top of the food chain."

                                    J. HARSHAW 1906-

            About then the baby food for Pixel appeared, in a saucer that rose up out of the table, I believe. But I can't swear to it, as it simply appeared. Feeding the baby cat gave me a moment to think. The vehemence of Deety's statement had surprised me. Those German physicists lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century-not too long ago by my notions of history, but if what these Tertians wanted me to believe were true-unlikely!-a truly long time to them. "A double dozen

            centuries-" Jane Libby had said.

            How could this easygoing young lady. Dr. Deety, be so

            emotional about long-dead German pundits? I know of only one event two thousand years or more in the past that people get emotional about... and that one never happened.

            I had begun to make a list in my mind of things that did not add up-the claimed age of Lazarus-that long list of deadly diseases I was alleged to have suffered from-half a dozen weird events in Luna- Most especially Tertius itself. Was this indeed a strange planet far distant from Earth in both space and time? Or was it a Potemkin village on a South Pacific island? Or even Southern California? I had not seen the city called Boondock (one million people, more or less, so they said); I had seen maybe fifty people all told. Did the others exist only as memorized background for dialog extemporized to fit Potemkin roles?

            (Watch it, Richard! You're getting paranoid again.) How much Lethe does it take to addle the brain?

            "Deety, you seem to feel strongly about Dr. Einstein."

            "I have reason to!"

            "But he lived so long ago. 'A double dozen centuries' Jane Libby put it."

            "That long ago to her. Not to me!"

            Dr. Burroughs spoke up. "Colonel Campbell, I think you may be assuming that we are native Tertians. We are not. We are refugees from the twentieth century, just as you are. By 'we' I mean myself and Hilda and Zebadiah and my daughter- my daughter Deety, not my daughter Jane Libby. Jay Ell was born here."

            "You slid home. Pop," Deety told him.

            "But just barely," Jane Libby added.

            "But he did touch home plate. You can't disown him for that, dear."

            "I don't want to. As pops go, he's tolerable."

            I did not try to sort this out; I was gathering a conviction that all Tertians were certifiably insane by Iowa standards. "Dr. Burroughs, I am not from the twentieth century. I was born in Iowa in 2133."

            "Near enough, at this distance. Different time lines, I believe-divergent universes-but you and I speak much the same accent, dialect, and vocabulary; the cusp that placed you in one world and me in another must lie not far back in our pasts. Who reached the Moon first and what year?"

            "Neil Armstrong, 1969."

            "Oh, that world. You've had your troubles. But so have we. For us the first Lunar landing was in 1952, HMAAFS Pink Koala, Ballox O'Malley commanding." Dr. Burroughs looked up and around. "Yes, LAzarus? Something troubling you? Fleas? Hives?"

            "If you and your daughters do not want to work, I suggest that you go chat elsewhere. Next door, perhaps; the fabulists and the historians don't mind chasing rabbits. Colonel Camp-bell, I think that you will find it convenient to feed your cat elsewhere, too. I suggest the 'fresher just clockwise of my lounge."

            Deety said, "Oh, rats, Lazarus! You are a bad-tempered, grumpy old man. There is no way to disturb a mathematician who is working. Look at Lib there- You could set off a firecracker under her right now and she wouldn't blink." Deety stood up. "Woodie boy, you need a fresh rejuvenation; you're getting old-age cranky. Come on. Jay Ell."

            Dr. Burroughs stood up, bowed, and said, "If you will excuse me?" and left without looking at Lazarus. There was a feeling of edgy tempers, of a need to place distance between two old bulls before they tangled.

            Or three-I should be included. Chucking me out over the kitten was uncalled for; I found myself angry with Lazarus for a third time in one day. I had not brought the kitten in, and it was his own computer that had suggested feeding it there and had supplied the means.

            I stood up, gathered Pixel in one hand, picked up his dish with my other hand, then found I needed to hang my cane over one arm to move. Jane Libby saw my problem, took the kitten, and cuddled it to her. I followed her, leaning on my cane and carrying the dish of baby food. I avoided looking at Lazarus.

            In passing through the lounge we picked up Hazel and Hilda. Hazel waved to me, patted the seat by her; I shook my head and kept going, whereupon she got up and came with us. Hilda followed her. We did not disturb the session in the lounge. Dr. Harshaw was lecturing; we were barely noticed.

            One delightful, decadent. Sybaritic aspect of life in Tertius was the quality of their refreshers-if such a mundane term can apply. Without trying to describe any of the furnishings strange to me, let me define a rich Tertian's luxury refresher (and Lazarus was, I feel certain, the richest man there)-define it in terms of function:

            Start with your favorite pub or saloon.

            Add a Finnish sauna.

            And how about bathing Japanese style?

            Do you enjoy a hot tub? With or without an agitator?

            Was the ice-cream soda fountain a part of your youth?

            Do you like company when you bathe?

            Let's put a well-stocked snack bar (hot or cold) in easy reach.

            Do you enjoy music? Three-dee? Feelies? Books and magazines and tapes?

            Exercise? Massage? Sun lamps? Scented breezes?

            Soft, warm places to curl up and nap, alone or in company?

            Take all of the above, mix well, and install in a large, beautiful, well-lighted room. That list still does not describe the social refresher off Lazarus Long's cabin, as it omits the most important feature:

            Dora.

            If there was any whim that ship's computer could not satisfy, I was not there long enough to discover it.

            I did not sample at once any of these luxuries; I had a duty to a cat. I sat down at a medium-size round table, the sort four friends might use for a drink, placed the kitten's saucer thereon, reached for the kitten. Instead Jane Ell sat down and placed Pixel at the food. Burroughs joined us.

            The kitten sniffed at the food he had been greedily eating minutes earlier, then gave an inspired bit of acting showing Jane Ell that he was horrified at her action in offering him something unfit for cats. Jane Ell said, "Dora, I think he's thirsty."

            "Name it. But bear in mind that the management does not permit me to serve alcoholic beverages to minors other than for purposes of seduction."

            "Quit showing off, Dora; Colonel Campbell might believe you. Let's offer the baby both water and whole milk, separately. And at blood temperature, which for kittens is-"

            "Thirty-eight point eight degrees. Coming up pronto."

            Hilda called out from a plunge-no, a lounging tub, I guess-a few meters away, "Jay Ell! Come soak, dear. Deety has some swell gossip."

            "Uh-" The girl seemed torn. "Colonel Campbell, will you take care of Pixel now? He likes to lick it off your finger. It's the only way to get him to drink enough."

            "I'll do it your way." The kitten did like to drink that way ... although it seemed possible that I would die of old age before I got as much as ten milliliters down him. But the kitten was in no hurry. Hazel got out of the lounging tub and joined us, dripping. I kissed her cautiously and said, "You're getting that chair soaking wet." "Won't hurt the chair. What's this about Lazarus acting up again?"

            "That mother!" "In his case that's merely descriptive. What happened?"

            "Uh- Maybe I reacted too strongly. Better ask Dr. Burroughs."

            "Jacob?" "No, Richard did not overreact. Lazarus went out of his way to be offensively difficult with all four of us. In the first place, Lazarus has no business trying to supervise the mathematics section; he is not a mathematician in any professional sense and is not qualified to supervise. In the second place each of us in the section knows the quirks of the others; we never interfere with each other's work. But Lazarus kicked me out, and Deety, and Jane Libby, for daring to talk a few moments about something not on his agenda... totally unaware, or at least uncaring, that I and both my daughters use a two-level mode of meditation. Hazel, I kept my temper. Truly I did, dear. You would have been proud of me."

            "I'm always proud of you, Jacob. I would not have kept my temper. In dealing with Lazarus you should take a tip from Sir Winston Churchill and step on his toes until he apologizes. Lazarus doesn't appreciate good manners. But what did he do to Richard?"

            "Told him not to feed his cat at the conference table. Ridiculous! As if it could possibly harm his fancy table if this kitten happened to pee on it."

            Hazel shook her head and looked grim, which doesn't fit her face. "Lazarus has always been a rough cob but, ever since this campaign-Overlord, I mean-started, he has been growing increasingly difficult. Jacob, has your section been handing him gloomy predictions?"

            "Some. But the real difficulty is that our long-range projections are so vague. That can be maddening, I know, because when a city is destroyed, the tragedy is not vague; it's sharp and sickening. If we change history, we aren't truly unde-stroying that city, we are simply starting a new time line. We need projections that will let us change history before that city is destroyed." He looked at me. "That's why rescuing Adam Selene is so important."

            I looked stupid-my best role. 'To make Lazarus better tempered?"

            "Indirectly, yes. We need a supervising computer that can direct and program and monitor other large computers in creating multi verse projections. The biggest supervising computer we know of is the one on this planet, Athene or Teena, and her twin on Secundus. But this sort of projection is a much bigger job. Public functions on Tertius are mostly automated fail-safe and Teena steps in only as a trouble-shooter. But the Holmes IV-Adam Selene or Mike-through a set of odd circumstances, grew and grew and grew with apparently no one trying to keep his size down to optimum... then his self-programming increased enormously through a unique challenge: running the Lunar Revolution. Colonel, I don't think any human brain or brains could possibly have written the programs that Holmes IV self-programmed to let him handle all the details of that revolution. My older daughter, Deety, is a top specialist in programming; she says a human brain could not do it and that, in her opinion, an artificial intelligence could swing it only the way Holmes IV did it-by being faced with the necessity, a case of 'Root, Hog, or Die.' So we need Adam Selene-or his essence, those programs he wrote in creating himself. Because we don't know how to do it."

            Hazel glanced at the pool. "I'll bet Deety could do it. If she had to."

            "Thank you, dear, on behalf of my daughter. But she is not given to false modesty. If Deety could do it, or thought she had even a slim chance, she would be hacking away at it now. As it is, she's doing what she can; she is working hard at tying together the computer bank we have."

            "Jacob, I hate to say this-" Hazel hesitated. "Maybe I shouldn't."

            "Then don't." "I need to get it off my chest. Papa Mannie isn't optimistic over the results even if we are totally successful in retrieving all the memory banks and programs that constitute the essential Adam Selene-or 'Mike' as Papa Mannie calls him. He thinks his old friend was hurt so badly in the last attack-I remember it to this day; it was dreadful-Mike was hurt so badly that he withdrew into a computer catatonia and will never wake up. For years Papa tried to wake him, after the Revolution when Papa had free access to the Warden's Complex. He doesn't see how bringing those memories and programs here will do it. Oh, he wants to try, he's eager to, he loves Mike. But he's not hopeful."

            "When you see Manuel, tell him to cheer up; Deety has thought of an answer." "Really? Oh, I hope so!" "Deety is going to provide Teena with lots more unused capacity, both for memory and for symbol manipulation, thought-and then she'll shove Mike into bed with Teena. If that does not bring Mike back to life, nothing will."

            My love looked startled, then giggled. "Yes, that ought to do it."

            She then went back to the pool and I learned from Jacob Burroughs why his daughter Deety spoke so emotionally about the Father of the Atom Bomb: She had seen-they had seen, all four of them, their own home wiped out by an atom bomb- a fission bomb, I inferred, but Jake did not say.

            "Colonel, it is one thing to read a headline or hear a news report; it is something else entirely when it's your own home that has the mushroom cloud covering it.

            "We are dispossessed, we can never go home. Eventually we were wiped completely off the slate. In our time line there is nothing to show that we four-myself, Hilda, Deety, Zeb- ever existed. The houses we once lived in are gone, never were; the earth has closed over them with no scars." He looked as lonely as Odysseus, then went on:

            "Lazarus sent a Time Corps field operative back- Dora? May I speak to Elizabeth?"

            "Start talking." "Lib love? Place that rosette Pete wanted-or was it Archie? Spike the earliest date of surveillance. Go back three years. Evacuate."

            "Paradox, Jacob."

            "Yes. Place those three years in a loop, squeeze them off, throw them away. Check it."

            "I check you, dear. More?"

            "No. Off now."

            Burroughs continued, "-sent a field operative to our time line to try to find us, anywhere in the fifty-year bracket from my birth to the night we ran for our lives. We are not there at all. We were never born. Both Zeb and I had military careers as well as academic ones; we are not in military records, we are not in campus records. There is a record of my parents... but they never had me. Colonel, in all the dozens, hundreds, of ways that citizens were recorded in the twentieth century in the United States of North America not one trace could be found that showed that we had ever been there."

            Burroughs sighed. "The Gay Deceiver not only saved our lives that night; she saved our very existence. She took evasive action so fast that the Beast lost track- What is it, dear?"

            Jane Libby was standing by us, dripping, and looking round-eyed. "Papa?"

            "Say it, love."

            "We need those sneakies Pythagoras wanted but they should go back much farther, oh, ten years or more. Then, when they spot the tick at which the Overlord or whoever started watching THQ, back off some and evacuate. Loop and patch, and they'll never suspect that we outflanked them. I told Deety; she thinks it could work. What do you think?"

            "I think it will. Let me get your mother on line and we'll introduce it. Dora, let me have Elizabeth again, please." Nothing in his face or manner suggested that he had just spoken to Libby Long, proposing what was (so far as I could see) the same plan.

            "Elizabeth? A message from our table tennis champ. Jane Libby says to place that rosette at minus ten years, spike first surveillance, then go back-oh, say, three years-evacuate, squeeze off a loop and patch in. Both Deety and I think it will work. Please submit it to the panel, credited to Jane Ell, with Deety's vote and mine noted."

            "And my vote."

            "You have smart children, mistress mine."

            "Comes of picking smart fathers, sir. And good ones. Good to his offspring, good to his wives. Off?"

            "Off." Burroughs added, to the girl waiting, "Your parents are proud of you, Janie. I predict that the maths section will produce a unanimous report in the next few minutes. You have answered the objection Lazarus raised-his quite legitimate objection-by producing a solution under which it does not matter who did this to us; we can repair it safely without knowing who did it. But did you notice that your method may also tie down who did it? With a little bit of luck."

            Jane Libby looked as if she had just received a Nobel Prize. "I noticed. But the problem simply called for safe evacuation; the rest is serendipitous."

            "'Serendipitous' is another way of spelling 'smart.' Ready for some supper? Or do you want to get back in the bowl? Or both? Why don't you throw Colonel Campbell in with his clothes on? Deety and Hilda will help you, I'm certain, and I think Hazel might."

            "Now wait a minute!" I protested.

            "Sissy!" "Colonel, we won't do that to you! Pop is joking."

            "I am like hell joking." "Throw your pop in first, for drill. If it doesn't hurt him, then I'll submit quietly." "Blert!" "You just keep out of this!"

            "Janie baby."

            "Yes, Pop?" "Find out how many orders there are for strawberry matted milks and hot dogs, or unreasonable facsimiles. While you are doing that, I will hang my clothes in the dry cabinet-and if the colonel is smart, he will, too; Colonel, this is a rowdy bunch, especially in this exact combination-Hilda, Deety, Hazel, and Janie. Explosive. Who takes care of the kitten?" An hour later Dora (a little blue light) led us to our stateroom; Hazel carried the kitten and one saucer, I carried our clothes, the other saucer, my cane, and her handbag. I was pleasantly tired and looking forward to going to bed with my bride. For too long she had not been in my bed. From my viewpoint we had missed two nights... not long for old married couples, much too long for a honeymoon. And the moral of that is:

            Don't get yourself mugged on your honeymoon.

            From her standpoint it had been... a month? "Best of girls, how long has it been? That Lethe field has left me with my time sense fouled up."

            Hazel hesitated. "It has been thirty-seven Tertian days here. But to you it should feel like overnight. Well, two nights... because, by the time I came to bed last night, you were snoring. I'm sorry. Hate me some but not too much. Here's our wee bunty ben."

            ("Wee bunty ben" indeed! It was larger than my luxury suite in Golden Rule and more lavish... with a bigger and better bed.) "Bride, we bathed in Lazarus's Taj Mahal playroom. I no longer have to remove my cork leg and I took care of everything else in that Taj Mahal. If you have anything to do, do it. But be quick about it! I'm eager."

            "Nothing. But must take care of Pixel."

            "We'll put his saucers in the 'fresher, shut him in, let him out later."

            So we did, and went to bed, and it was wonderful, and the details are none of your business.

            Sometime later Hazel said, "We've been joined."

            "We still are."

            "I mean, 'We have company.'"

            "So I noticed. He climbed on my shoulder blades way back when, but I was busy and he weighs almost nothing, so I didn't mention it. Can you grab him and keep him from being rolled on and crushed while I get us untangled?"

            "Yes. No hurry about it. Richard, you're a good boy. Pixel and I have decided to keep you."

            "Just try to get rid of me! You can't. Love, you phrased something oddly. You said it was 'thirty-seven Tertian days here.'"

            She looked up at me soberly. "It was longer than that for me, Richard."

            "I wondered. How long?"

            "About two years. Earth years."

            "I be goddam!"

            "But, dear, while you were ill, I did come home every day. Thirty-seven times I came to your hospital room in the morning, exactly as I promised. You recognized me every time, too, and smiled and seemed happy to see me. But of course the Lethe field made you forget every moment even as it happened. Each evening I went away again, and came back later that evening, having been gone, on the average, about three weeks each time. The schedule wasn't difficult for me, but Gay Deceiver made two trips every evening, with either the double twins or Hilda's crew making the runs. Let me up now, dear; I have the Pixel cat safe."

            We rearranged ourselves comfortably. "What were you doing, gone so much?"

            "Time Corps field work. Historical research."

            "I guess I still don't understand what the Time Corps does. Couldn't you have waited a month, then both of us could have done it, together? Or do I have my head on backwards?"

            "Yes and no. 1 asked for the assignment. Richard, I've been trying to trace down what happens after you and 1 tackle rescuing Adam Selene. Mike the computer."

            "And what did you learn?" "Nothing. Not a damn thing. We can find only two time lines from that event-it's a cusp event; you and I created both futures. I searched the following four centuries on both lines-on Luna, down dirtside, several colonies and habitats. They all say either that we succeeded... or that we tried and died ... or they don't mention us at all. The last is the usual case; most historians don't believe that Adam Selene was a computer."

            "Well... we're no worse off than we were before. Are we?"

            "No. But I had to look. And I wanted to check it out before you woke up. Out from under the Lethe field, I mean."

            "Do you know, small person, I think well of you. You are considerate of your husband. And of cats. And of other people. Uh- No, none of my business."

            "Speak up, beloved, or I tickle."

            "Don't threaten me. I'll beat you." "At your own risk-I bite. Look, Richard, I've been waiting for the question. This is the first time we've been alone. You want to know how homy old Hazel stuck it out in faithful chastity for two aching years. Or rather, you don't believe she did but you are too polite to say so."

            "Why, damn your eyes! Look, my love, I'm a Loonie, with Loonie values. Love and sex are ruled by our ladies; we men accept their decisions. That's the only happy arrangement. If you want to boast a bit, go ahead. If not, let's change the subject. But don't accuse me of groundhog vices."

            "Richard, you are your most infuriating when you are being your most reasonable."

            "Do you want me to quiz you?"

            "It would be polite."

            "Tell me three times."

            "I tell you three times and what I tell you three times is true.'"

            "You peeked in the back of the book. All right, I'll cut to the chase. You are a member of the Long Family. No?"

            She caught her breath. "What caused you to say that?"

            "I don't know. I truly don't because it's been many little things no one of which meant anything and mostly did not stick in my mind. But sometime this evening, while talking with Jake, I found that I was taking it for granted. Am I mistaken?"

            She sighed. "No, you're right. But I did not intend to load it onto you just yet. You see, I'm on leave of absence from the Family, not a member of it right now. And that was not what I intended to confess."

            "Wait a second. Jake is one of your husbands."

            "Yes. But remember, I'm on leave."

            "For how long?"

            "Till death do us part! I promised you that in the Golden Rule. Richard, histories show that you and I were married at the time of the cusp event... so I asked the Family for a divorce ... and settled for a leave of absence. But it might as well be final-they know it, I know it. Richard, I was here every night, every Tertian night I mean-thirty-seven times... but I never slept with the Family. I- Usually I slept with Xia and Choy-Mu. They were good to me." She added, "But not once with a Long. Not any of them, male or female. I was faithful to you, in my own fashion."

            "I don't see why you needed to deprive yourself. Then you are one of Lazarus Long's wives, too. On leave, but his wife.

            That omery old curmudgeon! Hey! Is it possible that he is jealous of me? Hell, yes, it's not only possible but likely. Certain! He's not a Loonie; he is not conditioned to accept 'Lady's Choice.' And he comes from a culture in which jealousy was the commonest mental disorder. Of course! Why, the silly bastich!" "No, Richard." "In a pig's eye." "Richard, Lazarus got all the jealousy leached out of him many generations ago... and I've been married to him thirteen years with plenty of chance to judge. No, dear, he's worried. He's worried about me and he's worried about you-he knows how dangerous it is-he's worried about all the Family and all of Tertius. Because he knows how dangerous the multiverse is. He's devoting his life and all of his wealth to trying to make his people safe."

            "Well... I wish he could be a little more urbane about it.

            Mannerly. Polite."

            "So do I. Here, take the kitten; I gotta pee. Then I vote for some sleep."

            "Me, too. Both. My, it feels good to get out of bed and stroll to the jakes without having to hop."

            We had cuddled up together, lights out, her head on my shoulder and the kitten wandering around the bed somewhere, both of us about to sleep, when she murmured, "Richard. Forgot... Ezra-"

            "Forgot what?"

            "His legs. When... he first walked on them... with crutches. Three days ago I think... 'bout three months back for me. Xia 'n' I congratulated Ezra... horizontally."

            "The best way."

            'Took him to bed. Wore him out."

            "Good girls. What else is new?"

            She seemed to have dropped off to sleep. Then she barely muttered. "Wyoming."

            "What, dear?" "Wyoh, my daughter. Little girl playing in fountain... you 'member?"

            "Yes, yes! Yours? Oh, grand!"

            "Meet'r... 'n morning. Named for... Mama Wyoh. Lazarus-"

            "She's a daughter of Lazarus?"

            "Guess so. Ishtar says. Cer'nly had lots... opportunity."

            I tried to picture the child's face. A pixie, with bright red hair. "Looks more like you."

            Hazel did not answer. Her breathing was slow and even.

            I felt paws on my chest, then a tickle on my chin. "Blert?"

            "Quiet, baby; Mama's sleeping."

            The kitten settled down, went to sleep himself. So I finished the day as I had begun it, with a baby cat asleep on my chest.

            It had been a busy day.

            XXVII

            "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."

                                    CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 1832-1898

            "Gwendolyn my love." Hazel stopped with a teethclean in hand, looked startled.

            "Yes, Richard?"

            "This is our first anniversary. We must celebrate."

            "I'm quite willing to celebrate but I can't figure out your arithmetic. And celebrate how? A fancy breakfast? Or back to bed?"

            "Both. Plus a special treat. But eat first. As for my arithmetic, attend me. It is our anniversary because we have been married exactly a week. Yes, I am aware that you think of it as two years-"

            "I do not! Doesn't count. Like time spent in Brooklyn." "And you tell me that I have been here thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine days, more or less. But it is not thirty-nine days to me, Gwen Hazel, as Allah will not subtract from my allotted time those days spent in the Lethe field, so I don't count them. Hell, I wouldn't believe in them if it weren't that I now have two feet-"

            "You're complaining?"

            "Oh, no! Except that I now have to cut twice as many toenails-"

            "Blert!"

            "What do you know about it? You don't have toenails; you have claws. And you scratched me in the night, you did. Yes, you did-don't look innocent. Monday evening the thirtieth of June-of 2188, it was, though I'm not sure what year it is here-we went to see the Halifax Ballet Theater with Luanna Pauline as Titania."

            "Yes. Isn't she lovely?"

            "Wasn't she! Past tense, dear. If what I've been told is true, her ethereal beauty has been dust for more than two thousand years. Rest in peace. Then we went to Rainbow's End for a late supper and a total stranger had the bad taste to get himself abruptly dead at our table. Whereupon you raped me."

            "Not at the table!"

            "No, in my bachelor's apartment."

            "And it wasn't rape."

            "We need not fight over it since you repaired my tarnished reputation before noon the next day. Our wedding day, my true love. Mistress Gwendolyn Novak and Dr. Richard Ames announced their marriage on Tuesday the first of July, 2188. Keep track of that date."

            "I'm not likely to forget it!"

            "Me, too. That evening we got out of town fast, with the sheriff's hounds a-snappin' and a-yappin' at our heels. We slept that night in Dry Bones Pressure. Right?"

            "Right so far."

            "The next day, Wednesday the second, Gretchen drove us to Lucky Dragon Pressure. We slept that night in Dr. Chan's place. The following day, Thursday the third. Auntie drove us toward Hong Kong Luna, but not all the way because we encountered those eager agrarian reformers. You drove the rest of the way and we wound up at Xia's hotel so late at night that it was hardly worthwhile to go to bed. But we did. That puts us into Friday the fourth of July. Independence Day. Check?"