"I have no regrets. If you didn't need the EEC, we would not have met. I bless Fiona for having driven you into my arms. When you come back, we can make it permanent," Tee offered. "And more. I would love to help you raise a child of ours. Or two."

"Do you know, I always meant to have more children. Just now, the thought seems ludicrous, since my only child is in her seventh decade. I'm still young enough."

"There will be time enough, if you come back to me."

"I will," Lunzie said. "Just as soon as things are settled with Fiona, I'll come back. Dr. Root said that he'd sponsor me as a resident - that is, if he'll still speak to me after my subterfuge to get a night off!"

"If he knew the truth, he'd forgive you. Shall I make us some supper?"

"No. I'm too comfortable to move. Hold me."

Tee drew Lunzie's head onto his chest, and the two of them relaxed together. As Lunzie started to drop off to sleep, the com-unit began chuckling quietly to itself. She sat up to answer it.

"Ignore it until morning," Tee said, pulling her back into bed. "Remember, you have a family emergency. I have asked for travel brochures from all the cruise lines and merchant ships which will pass between Astris and Alpha Centauri over the next six months. We can look over them all in the morning. I do not see you off gladly, but I want you to go safely. We will choose the best of them all, for you."

Lunzie glanced at the growing heap of plastic folders sliding out of the printer, and wondered how she'd ever begin to sort through the mass. "Just the soonest. That will be good enough for me."

Tee shook his head. "None are good enough for you. But the sooner you go, the sooner you may return. Two years or three, they will seem as that many hundred until we meet again. But think about it in the morning. For once, for one night, there is only we two alone in the galaxy."

Lunzie fell asleep with the sound of Tee's heart-beat under her cheek, and felt content.

In the morning, they sat on the floor among a litter of holographic travel advertisements, sorting them into three categories: Unsuitable, Inexpensive, and Short Voyage.

The Unsuitable ones Tee immediately stuffed into the printer's return slot, where the emulsion would be wiped and the plastic melted down so it could be reused in future facsimile transmissions. Glamorous holographs, usually taken of the dining room, the entertainment complex, or the shopping arcades of each line's vessels, hung in the air, as Tee and Lunzie compared price, comfort, and schedule. Lunzie looked most closely at the ones which they designated Inexpensive, while Tee paged through those promising Short Voyages.

Of the sixty or so brochures still under consideration, Tee's favourite was the Destiny Calls, a compound liner from the Destiny Cruise Lines.

"It is the fastest of all. It makes only three ports of call between here and Alpha Centauri over five months." Lunzie took one look at the fine print on the plas-sheet under the hologram and blanched. "It's too expensive! Look at those prices. Even the least expensive inside cabin is a year's pay."

"They feed, house, and entertain you for five months," Tee said, reasonably. "Not a bad return after taxes."

"No, it won't do. How about the Caravan Voyages' Cymbeline? It's much cheaper." Lunzie pointed to another brochure decorated with more modest photography. "I don't need all those amenities the Destiny Calls has. Look, they offer you free the services of a personal psychotherapist, and your choice of a massage mattress or a trained masseuse. Ridiculous!"

"But they are so slow," Tee complained. "You did not want to wait for a merchant to make orbit because of all the stops he would make on the way; you do not want this. If you would pretend that money does not matter for just a moment, it would horrify your efficient soul to find that the Cymbeline takes thirteen months to take you where the Destiny Calls does in five. And it will not be as comfortable. Come now, think," he said in a wheedling tone. "What about your idea to work your way there on the voyage? Then the question of expense will not come up."

Lunzie was attracted by the idea of travelling on a compound liner, which had quarters for methane- and water-breathers, as well as ordinary oxygen-nitrogen breathers. "Well...."

Tee could tell by her face she was more than half persuaded already. "If you are taking a luxury cruise, why not the best? You will meet many interesting people, eat wonderful food, and have a very good time. Do not even think how much I will be missing you."

She laughed ruefully. "Well, all right then. Let's call them and see if they have room for me." Tee called the com-unit code for the Destiny Line to inquire for package deals on travels. While he was chatting with a salesclerk, he asked very casually if they needed a ship's medical officer for human passengers.

To Lunzie's delight and relief, they responded with alacrity that they did. Their previous officer had gone ashore at the ship's last port of call, and they hadn't had time to arrange for a replacement. Tee instantly transmitted a copy of Lunzie's credentials and references, which were forwarded to the personnel department. She was asked to come in that day for interviews with the cruise office, the captain of the ship and the chief medical officer by FTL comlink, which Lunzie felt went rather well. She was hired. The ship would make orbit around Astris Alexandria in less than a month to pick her up.

CHAPTER Six

"Please, gentlebeings, pay attention. This information may save your life one day."

There was a general groan throughout the opulent dining room as the human steward went through his often-recited lecture on space safety and evacuation plans. He pointed out the emergency exits which led to the lifeboats moored inside vacuum hatches along the port and starboard sides of the luxury space liner Destiny Calls. Holographic displays to his right and left demonstrated how the emergency atmosphere equipment was to be used by the numerous humanoid and non-humanoid races who were aboard the Destiny.

None of the lavishly dressed diners in the Early Seating for Oxygen-Breathers seemed to be watching him except for a clutch of frightened-looking humanoid bipeds with huge eyes and pale gray skin whom Lunzie recognized from her staff briefing as Stribans. Most were far more interested in the moving holographic centrepieces of their tables, which displayed such wonders as bouquets of flowers maturing in minutes from bud to bloom, a black-and-silver-clad being doing magic tricks, or, as at Lunzie's table, a sculptor chipping away with hammer and chisel at an alabaster statue. The steward raised his voice to be heard over the murmuring, but the murmuring just got louder. She had to admit that the young man projected well, and he had a pleasant voice, but the talk was the same, word for word, that was given on every ship that lifted, and any frequent traveller could have recited it along with him. He finished with an ironic "Thank you for your attention."

"Well, thank the stars that's over!" stated Retired Admiral Coromell, in a voice loud enough for the steward to hear. There were titters from several of the surrounding tables. "Nobody listens to the dam-fool things anyway. Only time you can get 'em together is at mealtimes. Captive audience. The ones who seek out the information on their own are the ones who ought to survive anyway. Those nitwits who wait for somebody to save them are as good as dead anyhow." He turned back to his neglected appetiser and took a spoonful of sliced fruit and sweetened grains. The young man gathered up his demonstration gear and retired to a table at the back of the room, looking harassed. "Where was I?" the old man demanded.

Lunzie put down her spoon and leaned over to shout at him. "You were in the middle of the engagement with the Green Force from the Antari civil war."

"So I was. No need to raise your voice." At great length and corresponding volume, the Admiral related his adventure to the seven fellow passengers at his table. Coromell was a large man who must have been powerfully built in his youth. His curly hair, though crisp white, was still thick. Pedantically, he tended to repeat the statistics of each manoeuvre two or three times to make sure the others understood them, whether or not they were interested in his narrative. He finished his story with a great flourish for his victory, just in time for the service of the soup course, which arrived at that moment. Lunzie was surprised to see just how much of the service was handled by individual beings, instead of by servomechanisms and food-synth hatches in the middle of the tables. Clearly, the cruise directors wanted to emphasise how special each facet of their preparations was, down to the ingredients of each course. Even if the ingredients were synthesised out of sight in the kitchen, personal service made the customers think the meals were being prepared from imported spices and produce gathered from exotic ports of call all over the galaxy. In fact, Lunzie had toured the storerooms when she first came aboard, and was more impressed than her tablemates that morel mushrooms were served as the centrepiece in the salad course, since she alone knew that they were real.

The diverse and ornamental menu was a microcosm of the ship itself. The variety of accommodation available on the huge vessel was broad, extending from tiny economy class cabins deep inside the ship, along narrow corridors, to entire suites of elegant chambers which had broad portholes looking out into space, and were served by elaborate Tri-D entertainment facilities and had their own staffs of servitors.

Lunzie found the decor in her personal cabin fantastic, all the more so because she was only a crew member, one of several physicians on board the Destiny. It was explained to her by the purser that guests might need her services when she was not on a duty shift. The illusion of endless opulence was not to be spoiled at any price, even to the cost of maintaining the doctors in a luxury surrounding, lest the rich passengers glimpse any evidence of economy. This way was cheaper than dealing with the consequences of their potential distress. Lunzie was surprised to discover that the entertainment system in her quarters was as fancy as the ones in the first-class cabins. There was a wet bar filled with genuine vintage distillations, as well as a drink synthesiser.

The computer outlet in the adjoining infirmary was preprogrammed with a constantly updating medical profile of all crew members and guests. Though she was unlikely to serve a non-humanoid guest, she was provided with a complete set of environment suits in her size, appropriate to each of the habitats provided for methane-breathers, water-breathers, or ultra cold- or hot-loving species, and language translators for each.

Dr. Root would have loved the infirmary. It had every single gadget she had seen listed in the medical supplies catalog. Her own bod bird and gimmick-kit were superfluous among the array of gadgets, so she left them in her suitcase in the cabin locker. She was filled with admiration for the state-of-the-art chemistry lab, which she shared with the other eight medical officers. The Destiny had remained in orbit for six days around Astris after taking on Lunzie and fifteen other crew, so she had had plenty of time to study the profiles of her fellow employees and guests. The files made fascinating reading. The cruise line was taking no chances on emergencies in transit, and their health questionnaires were comprehensive. As soon as a new passenger came aboard, a full profile was netted to each doctor's personal computer console.

Lunzie turned to Baraki Don, the Admiral's personal aide, a handsome man in his seventh or eighth decade whose silver hair waved above surprisingly bright blue eyes and black eyebrows. "I'm not suggesting that I should do the procedure, but shouldn't he have his inner ear rebuilt? Shouting at his listeners is usually a sign that his own hearing is failing. I believe the Admiral's file mentioned that he's over a hundred Standard years old."

Don waved away the suggestion with a look of long suffering. "Age has nothing to do with it. He's always bellowed like that. You could hear him clear down in engineering without an intercom from the bridge."

"What an old bore," one of their tablemates said, in a rare moment when the Admiral was occupied with his food. She was a Human woman with black- and green-streaked hair styled into a huge puff, and clad in a fantastic silver dress that clung to her frame.

Lunzie merely smiled. "It's fascinating what the Admiral has seen in his career."

"If any of it is true," the woman said with a sniff. She took a taste of fruit and made a face. "Ugh, how awful."

"But you've only to look at all the medals on his tunic front. I'm sure that they aren't all for good conduct and keeping his gear in order," Lunzie said and gave vent to a wicked impulse. "What's the green metal one with the double star for. Admiral?"

The Admiral aimed his keen blue gaze at Lunzie, who was all polite attention. The green-haired woman groaned unbelievingly. Coromell smiled, touching the tiny decoration in the triple line of his chest.

"Young lady, that might interest you as you're a medical specialist. I commanded a scout team ordered to deliver serum to Denby XI. Seems an explorer was grounded there, and they started one by one to come down with a joint ailment that was crippling them. Most of 'em were too weak to move when we got there. Our scientists found that trace elements were present in the dust that they were bringing in on their atmosphere suits that irritated the connective tissue, caused fever and swelling, and eventually, death. Particles were so small they sort of fell right through the skin. We, too, had a couple cases of the itch before it was all cleaned up. Nobody was that sick, but they gave us all medals. That also reminds me of the Casper mission..."

The woman turned her eyes to the ceiling in disgust and took a sniff from the carved perfume bottle at her wrist. A heady wave of scent rolled across the table, and the other patrons coughed. Lunzie gave her a pitying look. There must be something about privilege and wealth that made one bored with life. And Coromell had lived such an amazing one. If only half of what he said was true, he was a hero many times over.

The black-coated chief server appeared at the head of the dining hall and tapped a tiny silver bell with a porcelain clapper. "Gentlebeings, honoured passengers, the dessert!"

"Hey, what?" The announcement interrupted Coromell in full spate, to the relief of some of the others at the table. He waited as a server helped him to a plate of dainty cakes, and took a tentative bite. He levelled his fork at the dessert and boomed happily at his aide. "See here, Don, these are delicious."

"They have Gurnsan pastry chefs in the kitchen." Lunzie smiled at him as she took a forkful of a luscious cream pastry. He was more interesting than anyone she'd ever met or had seen on Tri-D. She realised that he was just a few years older than she was. Perhaps he had read Kipling or Service in his youth.

"Well, well, very satisfactory, I must say. Beats the black hole out of Fleet food, doesn't it, Don?"

"Yes, indeed. Admiral."

"Well, well. Well, well," the Admiral murmured to himself between bites, as their tablemates finished their meals and left.

"I should go, too," Lunzie said, excusing herself and preparing to rise. "I've got to hold after-dinner office hours."

The Admiral looked up from his plate and the corners of his eyes crinkled up wisely at her. "Tell me, young doctor. Were you listening because you were interested, or just to humour an old man? I noticed that green-haired female popinjay myself."

"I truly enjoyed hearing your experiences, Admiral," Lunzie said sincerely. "I come from a long line of Fleet career officers."

Coromell was pleased. "Do you! You must join us later. We always have a liqueur in the holo-room during second shift. You can tell us about your family."

"I'd be honoured." Lunzie smiled, and hurried away.

"That's nasty," Lunzie said, peeling away the pantsleg of a human engineer and probing at the bruised flesh above and below the knee. She poked an experimental finger at the side of the patella and frowned.

"Agh!" grunted the engineer, squirming away. "That hurt."

"It isn't dislocated, Perkin," Lunzie assured him, lowering the sonic viewscreen over the leg. "Let's see now." On the screen, the bone and tendons stood out among a dark mass of muscle. Tiny lines, veins and arteries throbbed as blood pulsed along them. Near the knee, the veins swelled and melded with one another, distended abnormally. "But if you think it's pretty now, wait a day or so. There's quite a bit of intramuscular bleeding. You didn't do that in an ordinary fall - the bone's bruised, too. How did it happen?" Lunzie reached under the screen to turn his leg for a different view, and curiously watched the muscles twist on the backs of her skeletal hands. This was state-of-the-art equipment.

"Off the record. Doctor?" Perkin asked hesitantly, looking around the examination room.

Lunzie looked around too, then stared at the man's face, trying to discern what was making him so nervous. "It shouldn't be, but if that's the only way you'll tell me..."

The man let go a deep sigh of relief. "Off the record, then. I got my leg pinched in a storage hatch door. It shut on me without warning. The thing is six meters tall and almost fifteen centimeters thick. There should have been a klaxon and flashing lights. Nothing."

"Who disconnected them?" Lunzie asked, suddenly and irrationally worried about heavyworlders. Perhaps there was a plot afoot to attack the Admiral.

"No one had to. Doctor. Don't you know about the Destiny Cruise Line? It's owned by the Paraden Company."

Lunzie shook her head. "I don't know anything about them, to be honest. I think I've heard the name before, but that's all. I'm a temporary employee, until we pull into orbit around Alpha Centauri, four months from now. Why, what's wrong with the Paraden Company?"

The engineer curled his lip. "I sure hope this room hasn't got listening devices. The Paraden Company keeps their craft in space as long as it possibly can without drydocking them. Minor maintenance gets done, but major things get put off until someone complains. And that someone always gets fired."

"That sounds horribly unfair." Lunzie was shocked.

"Not to mention hazardous to living beings, Lunzie. Well, whistle-blowing has never been a safe practice. They're Parchandris, the family who owns the company, and they want to squeeze every hundredth credit out of their assets. The Destiny Line is just a tiny part of their holdings."

Lunzie had heard of the Parchandri. They had a reputation for miserliness. "Are you suggesting that this starship isn't spaceworthy?" she asked nervously. Now she was looking for listening devices.

Perkin sighed. "It probably is. It most likely is. But it's long overdue for service. It should have stayed back on Alpha the last time we were there. The portmaster was reluctant to let us break orbit. That's been bad for morale, I can tell you. We old-timers don't usually tell the new crew our troubles - we're afraid that either they're company spies working for Lady Paraden, or they'll be too frightened to stay on board."

"Well, if anything goes wrong, you'll be sure to warn me, won't you?" She noticed that his face suddenly wore a shuttered look. "Oh, please," she appealed to him. "I'm not a spy. I'm on my way to see my daughter. We haven't seen each other since she was a youngster. I don't want anything to get in the way of that. I've already been in one space accident."

"Now, now," Perkin said soothingly. "Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place."

"Unless you're a lightning rod!"

Perkin relaxed, a little ashamed for having distrusted her. "I'll keep you informed, Lunzie. You may count on it. But what about my leg here?"

She pointed to the discolouration on his skin. "Well then, except for the aurora borealis, and no one need know about that but you and your roommate, there will be nothing to draw attention to your er, mishap," Lunzie said, reseating his magnetic seams. "There's no permanent damage of any kind. The leg will be stiff for a while until the haematoma subsides, and there might be some pain. If the pain gets too bad, take the analgesic which I'm programming into your cabin synthesiser, but no more than once a shift."

"Make me high, will it?" the engineer asked, pushing himself off the table with extra care for his sore leg.

"A little. But more importantly, it will stop up your bowels better than an oatmeal-and-banana sandwich," Lunzie answered, her eyes dancing merrily. "I never prescribe that mix for young Seti. They have enough problems with human-dominated menus as it is."

Perkin chuckled. "So they do. I had one working for me once. He was always suffering. The cooks grew senna for him. Didn't know much about him other than that. They're the most private species I've ever known."

"If you like, I'll also give you a liniment to rub in your leg following a good hot soak."

"Thank you, Lunzie." Perkin accepted the plastic packet Lunzie handed him and slipped out the door past the next patient waiting to see the doctor.

After that day, Lunzie began to notice things about the ship which weren't quite right. It was hard to tell under all the ornamentation, but the clues were there for eyes paying attention. Perkin was right about the lack of maintenance on ship's systems. There was a persistent leak in the decks around the methane environment, which made various passengers complain of the smell in the hallway near the fitness center. Perkin and the other engineers shrugged as they put one more temporary seal on the cracks, and promised to keep the problem under control until they made the next port with repair facilities, months away at Alpha Centauri.

Lunzie began to worry whether there was a chance that the ship might fail somewhere en route to Alpha Centauri. The odds of meeting with a space accident twice in a lifetime were in the millions, but it still niggled at her. It couldn't happen to her again, could it? She hoped Perkin was exaggerating his concerns. With an uncomfortable feeling that ill fate was just past the next benchmark, Lunzie started listening more intently to the evacuation instructions. True to her word, she didn't mention Perkin's confidences to anyone else, but she kept her eyes open.

Seating arrangements in the dining room had been changed over the course of the last month. Lunzie, Admiral Coromell, and Baraki Don had been given seats at the Captain's table, presided over at the early seating by the First Mate. This was a distinguished woman of colour who was probably of an age with Commander Don. First Mate Sharu was very small of stature. The top of her head was on a level with Lunzie's chin. Sharu wore a snugly cut long evening dress of the same regimental purple as her uniform. Her military bearing suggested that she had been in the service before coming to Destiny Cruise Lines. The ornate gold braid at the wrist of the single sleeve showed her rank, and hid a small, powerful communicator, which she employed to keep in touch with the ship's bridge during the meal. The other arm, which bore a brilliantly cut diamond bangle, was bare to the shoulder. To Lunzie's delight, Sharu, too, loved a good yarn, so Coromell had a responsive audience for his tales.

Not that he appeared to appreciate it. He was still grouchy at times, and occasionally snapped at them for humouring an old man. After a while, Lunzie stopped protesting her innocence and turned the tables on him.

"Maybe I am just humouring you," she told Coromell airily, who stopped in full harangue and glared at her in surprise. "I've gone to school lectures where there was more of a dialogue than you allow. We have opinions, too. Once in a while I'd like to voice one."

"Heh, heh, heh! Methinks I do protest too much, eh?" Coromell chortled approvingly. "That's Shakespeare, for all you beings too young to have read any. Well, well. Perhaps I'm at the age when I'm at the mercy of my environment, in a world for which I have insufficient say any more, and I don't like it. Rather like those poor heavyworlder creatures, wouldn't you say?"

Lunzie perked up immediately at the phrase. "What about the heavyworlders. Admiral?"

"Had a few serving under me in my last command. When was that, eight, ten years ago, Don?"

"Fourteen, Admiral." Coromell thrust his jaw out and counted the years on the ceiling. "So it was. Damn those desk jobs. They make you lose all track of intervening time. Heavyworlders! Bad idea, that. Shouldn't adapt people to worlds. You should adapt worlds to people. What God intended, after all!"

"Terraforming takes too long. Admiral," Sharu put in, reasonably. "The worlds the heavyworlders live on are good for human habitation, except for the gravity. They were created to adapt to that."

"Yes, created! Created a minority, that's what they did," the Admiral sputtered. "We have enough trouble in politics with partisanship anyway. Just when you have all the subgroups there are already getting used to each other, you throw in another one, and start the whole mess over. You've got people screaming about that Phoenix disaster, saying that the heavyworlders were dancing on the graves of the lightweights who were there before 'em, but you can bet they paid a hefty finder's fee to whoever helped them make landfall - probably a goodly percentage of their export income to boot."

"I've heard that planet pirates destroyed the first settlement," Lunzie said, angrily remembering the anguished two years she had spent believing that Fiona had been one of the dead on Phoenix.

"Doctor, you may believe it. Probably they cut off Phoenix's communications with the outside first, destroying their support system, traders and so on. Soon as a planet's population can't take care of itself, the rights go to the next group who can. My ship got the mayday from a merchant ship being chased by a pirate outside of the Eridani system. They had been damaged pretty heavily, but they were still hauling ions when we came on the scene. My communications officer kept up chatter with their bridge for three weeks until we could come to the rescue. Lose your spirit, lose the war, that's what I say!"

"Did you capture the pirate?" Lunzie asked eagerly, leaning forward.

The Admiral shook his head regretfully. "Sunspots, no. That'd have been a pretty star on my bow if we had. We engaged them as they streaked after the merchant ship, exchanging fire. That poor little merchant begged heaven's blessings down on us, and scooted! The pirate had no choice. He couldn't turn his back on me again. My ship was holed, but no lives were lost. The pirate wasn't so lucky. I saw hull plates and other debris shoot away from the body of his ship, and the frayed edges curled, imploded! Must have been an atmosphered chamber, which meant crew. I hope to heaven it didn't mean prisoners.

"Whatever they had in their engines, ours was better. We chased them outside the system into the radiation belt, we chased them past comets. Finally, my gunner struck their port engine. They spiralled in circles for a couple of turns, and got back on a steady course, but my gunner hit them again. Dead in the water. As soon as we relayed to them that we were going to board them with a prize crew, they blew themselves up!" The Admiral held out his hands before him, cupping air. "I had them like this, so close! No captain has ever succeeded in capturing a planet pirate. But I flatter myself, that if I couldn't, no man can."

"You do flatter yourself. Admiral," Sham remarked flippantly. "But most likely, you're right."

Lunzie still joined the Admiral and his aide in the holo-room during the evenings after she held infirmary call. Coromell had two favourite holos he requested in the alcove in which he and Don spent the hours before turning in. The first was the bridge of his flagship, the Federation. The second appeared when Lunzie suspected that Coromell was in a pensive mood. It was a roaring fireplace with a broad tiled hearth and an ornamented copper hood set in a stone-and-brick wall.

The quality hologram system was equipped with temperature and olfactory controls as well as visual display. She could smell the burning hardwoods and feel the heat of the flames as she took a seat in the third of the deep, cushiony armchairs furnished in the alcove. Don stood up as she approached, and signalled a server to bring her a drink. As she suspected, Coromell sat bent with one elbow on his knee and a balloon glass in the other hand, staring into the dance of shadows and lights and listening to the soft music playing in the background. He hadn't noticed her arrive. Lunzie waited a little while, watching him. He looked pensive and rather sad.

"What are you thinking of. Admiral?" Lunzie asked in a soft voice.

"Hm? Oh, Doctor. Nothing. Nothing of importance. Just thinking of my son He's in the service. Means to go far, too, and see if he doesn't."

"You miss him," she suggested, intuitively sensing that the old man wanted to talk.

"Dammit, I do. He's a fine young man. You're about his age, I'd say. You... you don't have any children, do you?"

"Just one; a daughter. I'm meeting her on Alpha Centauri."

"A little girl, eh? You look so young." Coromell coughed self-deprecatingly. "Of course, at my age, everyone looks young."

"Admiral, I'm closer to your age than to your son's." Lunzie shrugged. "It's in the ship's records; you could find out if you wanted. I've been through cold sleep. My little girl will be seventy-eight on her next birthday."

"You don't say? Well, well, that's why you understand all the ancient history I've been spouting. You've been there. We should talk about old times." The Admiral shot her a look of lonely appeal which touched Lunzie's heart. "There are so few left who remember. I'd consider it a personal favour."

"Admiral, I'd be doing it out of blatant self-interest. I've only been in this century two years."

"Hmph! I feel as though I've been on this ship that long. Where are we bound for?"

"Sybaris Planet. It's a luxury spa...."

"I know what it is," Coromell interrupted her impatiently. "Another dumping ground for the useless rich. Phah! When I get to be that helpless you can arrange for my eulogy."

Lunzie smiled. The server bowed next to her, presenting a deep balloon glass like the one the Admiral had, washed a scant half inch across the bottom with a rich, ruddy amber liquid. It was an excellent rare brandy. Delicate vapours wafted out of the glass headily as the liquid warmed in the heat from the fire. Lunzie took a very small sip and felt that heat travel down her throat. She closed her eyes.

"Like it?" Coromell rumbled.

"Very nice. I don't usually indulge in anything this strong."

"Hmph. Truth is, neither do I. Never drank on duty." Coromell cupped the glass in his big hand and swirled the brandy gently under his nose before tipping it up to drink. "But today I felt a little self-indulgent."

Lunzie became aware suddenly that the background music had changed. Under the lull of the music was a discreet jingling that could have been mistaken for a technical fault by anyone but a member of the crew. To the crew, it meant impending disaster. Lunzie set down her glass and looked around the shadows.

"Chibor!" She hailed a mate of Perkin's staff who was passing through the immense chamber. She looked up at the sound of her voice and waved. "I was looking for you, Lunzie. Perkin told me..."

"Yes! The alarm. What is it? You can speak in front of the Admiral. He doesn't scare easily."

Coromell straightened up, and set aside his glass. "No, indeed. What's in the wind?"

Chibor signalled for a more discreet tone and leaned toward her. "You know about the engine trouble we've been having. It was giving off some weird harmonics, so we had to turn it off and drop out of warp early. There's no way to get back into warp for a while until it's been tuned, and we jumped right into the path of an ion storm. It's moving toward us pretty fast. The navigator accidentally let us drift into its perimeters, and it's playing merry hell with the antimatter drives. We're heading behind the gas giant in the system to shield us until it passes."

"Will that work?" Lunzie asked, her eyes huge and worried. She fought down the clutch of fear in her guts.

"May do," Coromell answered calmly, interrupting Chibor. "May not."

"We're preparing to go to emergency systems. Perkin said you'd want to know." Chibor nodded and rushed away. Lunzie watched her go. No one else noticed her enter or leave the holo-room. They were involved in their own pursuits.

"I'd better go up and see what is going on," Lunzie said. "Excuse me, Admiral."

The gas giant of Carson's System was as huge and as spectacular as promised. The rapidly rotating planet had a solid core deep inside an envelope of swirling gases thousands of miles thick. A few of her fellow passengers had gathered on the ship's gallery to view it through the thick quartz port.

The captain of the Destiny Calls increased the ship's velocity to match the planet's two-hour period of rotation and followed a landmark in the gas layer, the starting point of a pair of horizontal black stripes, around to the sunward side of the planet, where they stood off, and held a position behind the planet's protective bulk. The green-and-yellow giant was just short of being a star, lacking only a small increase in mass or primary ignition. The planet's orbit was much closer to the system's sun than was common with most gas giants, and the sun itself burned an actinic white on the ship's screens. Telemetry warned of lashing arms of magnetic disturbance that kicked outward from the gaseous surface. This was the only formed planet in this system, and ships passing by were required to use it when aligning for their final jump through the sparsely starred region to Sybaris. Still the planet's rapid rotation and the massive magnetic field it generated meant that here gases and radiation churned constantly, even on its dark side. Lunzie suspected they were closer to the planet, which filled half the viewport, than was normal, but said nothing. Other passengers, the more well-travelled looking ones, seemed concerned as well. The captain appeared a few minutes later, a forced smile belying his attempts to calm his passengers' fears.

"Gentlebeings," Captain Wynline said, wryly, watching the giant's surface spin beneath them. "Due to technical considerations, we were forced to drop out of warp at this point. But as a result, we are able to offer you a fabulous view seen by only a few since it was discovered: Carson's Giant. This gas giant should have been a second sun, making this system a binary without planets, but it never ignited, thereby leaving us with a galactic wonder, for study and speculation. Oh... and don't anybody drop a match."

The passengers watching the huge globe revolve chuckled and whispered among themselves.

The Destiny waited behind the gas giant's rapidly spinning globe until they were sure that the particularly violent ion storm had swirled past and moved entirely out of the ecliptic. The first edges of the storm, which an unmanned monitor had warned them of the instant they had entered normal space, filled the dark sky around the giant with a dancing aurora.

"Captain!" Telemetry Officer Hord entered the gallery and stood next to the captain. "Another major solar flare on the sun's surface! That'll play havoc with the planet's magnetic field," he offered softly, and then paused, watching to see how the captain reacted. The chief officer didn't seem overly concerned. "This will combine with the effects of the ion storm, sir," he added, when no response was forth-coming.

"I'm aware of the ramifications, Hord," the captain assured him and tripped his collar mike. He spoke decisively in a low voice. Lunzie noticed the change in his hearty tone and moved closer to listen. The captain observed her, but saw only another crew member, and continued with his commands. "Helm, try to manoeuvre us away from the worst of this. Use whatever drives are ready and tuned. Telemetry, tell us when the storm's passed by enough to venture out again. I don't like this a bit. Computer systems, get the ceramic brick hard copies of our programming out of mothballs. Just in case. Inform Engineering. What's the period for magnetic disturbance reaching us from the sun, Hord?"

"Nine hours, sir. But the flame disturbances are coming pretty close together. I estimate that some are coming toward us already. There's no way to tell, too much noise to get anything meaningful from the monitor." Both officers looked worried now. The com-unit on the captain's collar bleeped. "Engineering here. Captain. We're getting magnetic interference in the drives. The antimatter bottle is becoming unstable. I'm bringing in portable units to step it up." The captain wiped his forehead. "So it's begun. We can't depend on the containment systems. Prepare to evacuate the ship. Sound the alarms, but don't launch. Gentlebeings!" Everyone on the gallery looked up expectantly. "There has been a development. Will you please return immediately to your quarters, and wait for an announcement. Now, please."

As soon as the gallery cleared, the captain ordered the Communications Officer to make the announcement over shipwide comsystems. When Lunzie turned toward the gallery's door to go back to the holochamber, everything went dark, as the ship abruptly went onto battery. The emergency lights glowed red for a brief instant in the corners and around the hatchway.

"What the hell was that?" the captain demanded as the full lights came back on.

"Overload, probably from the solar flares," Hord snapped out, monitoring his readouts on his portable remote unit. "We'll lose the computer memory if that happens again. Watch out, here it goes!"

Lunzie dashed back toward her cabin through flickering lights. Interstellar travel is safer than taking a bath, less accidents per million, she repeated the often-advertised claim to reassure herself. No one was ever in two incidents, not in this modern age. Every vessel, even one as old as the Destiny, was double-checked and had triple back-ups on every circuit.

"Attention please," announced the calm voice of the Communications Officer, cutting through the incidental music and all the video and Tri-D programs. "Attention. Please leave your present locations immediately and make your way to the lifeboat stations. Please leave your present locations and make your way to the lifeboat stations. This is not a drill. Do not use the turbovators as they may not continue to function. Repeat, do not use the turbovators." The voice was interrupted occasionally by crackling, and faded out entirely at one point.

"What was that?" A passenger noticed Lunzie's uniform and grabbed her arm. "I saw the lights go down. There's something wrong, isn't there?"

"Please, sir. Go to the lifeboat stations right now. Do you remember your team number?"

"Five B. Yes, it was Five B." The man's eyes went huge. "Do you mean there's a real emergency?"

Lunzie shuddered. "I hope not, sir. Please, go. They'll tell you what's going on when you're in your place. Hurry!" She turned around and ran with him to the dining hall level.

The message continued to repeat over the loud-speakers.

The corridor filled instantly with hundreds of humanoids, hurrying in all directions. Some seemed to have forgotten not only which stations they were assigned to, but where the dining hall was. Emergency chase lights were intermittent, but they provided a directional beacon for the terrified passengers to follow. There were cries and groans as the passengers tried to speculate on what was happening.

The crowd huddled in the gigantic holo-room near the metal double doors to the dining room, milling about, directionless, babbling among themselves in fear. The holo-room was the largest open space on the level, and could be used for illusions to entertain thousands of people. At one end of the room, several dozen humans, unaware that anything was going on around them, were fending off holographic bandits with realistic-looking swords. In a cave just next to the doors in the dining room, a knot of costumed cavedwellers huddled together over a stick fire. At that moment, the illusion projectors in the alcoves shut off, eliciting loud protests from viewers as their varied fantasies disappeared, leaving the room a bare, ghost-gray shell with a few pieces of real furniture here and there. The costumed figures stood up, looking around for ship personnel to fix the problem, and saw the crowds bearing down on them into the newly opened space. They panicked and broke for the exits. More passengers appeared, trying to shove past them into the dining hall, yelling. Fights began among them. Into the midst of this came the child-caretakers with their charges. The head of child care, a thin Human male, spoke through a portable loudspeaker, paging each parent one at a time to come and retrieve its offspring.

"Listen up!" Coromell appeared from his alcove with Don behind him. "Listen!" His deep voice cut across the screaming and the mechanical whine of overtaxed life support systems. "Now listen! Everyone calm down. Calm down, I say! You all ignored the emergency procedures in the dining hall. Those of you who know what to do, proceed to your stations, NOW! Those of you who don't know what to do, pipe down so you can hear instructions over the loudspeakers. Move it! That is all!"

"The doors are shut! We can't get through!" a large Human woman wailed.

"Just hold your water! Look! They're opening right now."

The engineers appeared in a widening gap between the huge double metal blast doors between the holo-room and the oxygen-breathers' dining hall. The crowd, considerably quieter, rushed through, grabbing oxygen equipment from crew lined up on either side of the doors. Stewards directed them to the irised-open hatchways of the escape capsules and ordered them to sit down.

Coromell, with Don's help, continued to direct the flow of traffic, pushing water-breathers in bubble-suits and frantically shapechanging Weft passengers toward the access stairway to the water environment.

"Attention, please, this is the captain," the chief officer's voice boomed over the public address system. "Please proceed calmly to your assigned evacuation pod. This will be a temporary measure. Please follow the instructions of the crew. Thank you."

In the midst of the screaming and shouting, Lunzie heard frantic cries for help. She forced her way through the press of beings to a little girl who had tripped and fallen, and was unable to get up again. She had nearly been trampled. Her face was bruised and she was crying. Shouting words of comfort, Lunzie picked her up high and handed her over the heads of the crowd to her shrieking mother. Don escorted the woman and child into the dining room and saw them onto a capsule. As the escape vehicles filled, the hatches irised closed, and the pods were sealed. It was an abrupt change from the leisurely pace of the luxury liner, and most people were not making the transition well. Lunzie hurried back and forth throughout the huge chamber with an emergency medical kit from a hatch hidden behind an ornate tapestry. She splinted the limbs of trampled victims long enough to get them through the door and slapped bandages on cuts and scrapes suffered by passengers who had had to climb out of the turbovators through accessways in the ceiling. She dispensed mild sedatives for passengers who were clearly on the edge of hysteria.

"Just enough to calm you," she explained, keeping a placid smile on her face though she too was terrified. "Everything is going to be all right. This is standard procedure." Space accident! This could not be happening to her again.

"My jewelry!" a blue-haired Human woman screamed as she was dragged toward the dining hall by a young man in formal clothing. "All of it is still in my cabin. We must go back!" She pulled her hand out of the young man's grip and made to dash back toward the cabins. "Stop her!" the man shouted. "Lady Cholder, no!"

The woman was borne back toward him on the wave of panicked passengers, but still struggled to move upstream. "I can't leave my jewelry!"

Lunzie seized her arm as soon as it was within reach and pressed the hypo to it. The woman moved her lips, trying to speak, but she collapsed between Lunzie and the young man. He looked quizzically from Lady Cholder to Lunzie.

"She'll sleep for about an hour. The sedative has no permanent effects. By then, you'll be well into space. The distress beacon is already broadcasting," Lunzie explained. "Just try to keep calm."

"Thanks," the young man said, sincerely, picking up Lady Cholder in his arms and hurrying toward an escape capsule.

Lunzie heard rumbling and tearing behind her. She spun.

"There it goes again!" Two ship's engineers leaped toward the double doors, which were sliding closed on the hysterical crowd. The lights went out again. Along the ceiling the lines of red emergency lights came on, bathing them all in shadow.

"Cut off that switch!" Perkin shouted at one of his assistants, pointing to the open control box next to the doorway. "It's only supposed to do that when the hull is breached."

"All the programming's messed up, Perkin!" The other engineer pushed and pulled at the levers on the control panel, trying to read the screen in the reduced light. "We'll have to try and keep it open manually."

"We've only got minutes. Get between 'em!" Perkin leaped between the heavy metal doors, now rolling closed, and tried to force one of them back. His men started to force their way through the crowd to help him, but they couldn't reach him before he screamed. "I'm being crushed! Help!" The doors had closed with him between them.

Lunzie was galvanised by his cries. Mustering the strength of Discipline, she shoved her way through the crowd. Perkin's face was screwed up with pain as he tried to get out from between the doors which were threatening to cut him in half lengthwise. The adrenaline rush hit her just as she reached the front of the line. She and the other engineers took hold of the doors and pulled.

Slowly, grudgingly, the metal blast doors rolled back along their tracks. The crowd, now more frantic than before, rushed into the dining hall around Perkin, who was nearly collapsing. As soon as the doors had been braced open with chocks blocking the tracks, Lunzie rushed to catch Perkin and help him out of the way. He was almost unable to walk, and out-weighed her by fifty percent, but in her Discipline trance, Lunzie could carry him easily.

She pulled open his tunic and examined his chest, hissing sympathetically at what she saw. Her fingers confirmed what her heightened perception detected: his left rib cage was crushed, endangering the lung. If she worked quickly, she could free the ribs before that lung collapsed.

"Lunzie! Where are you going?" the voice of Coromell demanded as she hurried to the access stairway leading to the upper decks.

"I've got to get some quick-cast from my office. Perkin will die if I don't brace those ribs."

"Admiral! We'd better go, too," Don shouted, urging him toward the doors.

Coromell pushed his aide's hands away. "Not a chance! I won't be shoved into one of those tiny life preservers with a hundred hysterical grand dames wailing for their money! They need all hands to keep this hulk from spinning into that planet. We can save lives. I may be old, but I can still do my part. The captain hasn't given the evacuation order yet." Suddenly he felt at his chest, and took a deep, painful breath. The colour rushed out of his face. "Dammit, not now! Where's my medication?" With shaking fingers, he undid his collar.

Don led him to a couch at the side of the room. "Sit here, sir. I'll find the doctor."

"Don't plague her, Don," Coromell snapped, as Don pushed him down into the seat. "She's busy. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm only old."

Lunzie flew up the steps. As she rounded the first landing, she found herself in the way of another crowd of frantic passengers running down, heading to the dining hall from their cabins. She tried to catch the stair rail, but was knocked off her feet and shoved underfoot. Lunzie grabbed at the legs of the passing humans, trying to pull herself to her feet, but they shook her off. Still possessed of her Discipline strength she forced her way to the wall and walked her hands upward until she was standing up. Keeping to the wall, Lunzie focused on staying balanced and pushed through the mob, paying no attention to the protests of the people in her way. Another herd of humans barrelled past her, trying to climb over one another in their panic to get to safety. She knew she was as terrified as they were, but between Discipline and duty, she didn't - wouldn't - feel it.

The next level was practically deserted. The emergency hatch to the methane environment, normally sealed, had drifted open, dissipating the nauseating atmosphere through the rest of the ship. The rescue capsules on that level were gone. Gagging and choking on the stench, Lunzie ran to her office.

The power in this section had gone on and off several times. Hatchways held in place by magnetic seals had lost their cohesiveness and fallen to the ground, denting walls and floors. Lunzie dodged past them and physically pushed open the door to the infirmary.

With the corridors clearing, she could see that there were other victims of the tragedy. With Perkin's ribs correctly strapped and braced, he was out of danger. She left him on the soft couch to rest. Tirelessly, she sought out other injured members of the crew.

"Here, Lunzie!" Don waved her over to the dark corner where the Admiral lay unconscious. "It's his heart."

As soon as she saw the old man's pinched face, Lunzie gasped. Even in the red light she could tell his skin was going from pasty to blue-tinged white. She dropped to her knees and dug through the medical bag for a hypospray, which she pressed against Coromell's arm. She and Don waited anxiously as she peered at her scanner for his vital signs to improve. The Admiral suddenly stirred and groaned, waving them away with an impatient hand.

"I'm going to give him a vitamin shot with iron," Lunzie said, reaching for a different vial. "He must rest!"

"Can't rest when people are in danger," muttered Coromell.

"You're retired, sir," Don said patiently. "I'll help you walk."

"You'd better get to the capsules," First Mate Sharu called to them.

"Not going in the capsules," Coromell wheezed.

"I'll stay and help, Sharu," Lunzie shouted back.

Sharu nodded gratefully, and signalled for the remaining capsules to close their doors. "Captain," she told her wrist communicator, "you may give the order."

"What can we do?" Don asked, as they helped the Admiral toward the stairs. "This situation will only worsen his condition. He'll want to help!"

"Let's get him to one of the cryogenic chambers. I'll give him a sedative, and he and the other critically injured crew can cold-sleep it until we're rescued." Lunzie half carried the old man toward the infirmary ward, worrying whether he would survive long enough to be given the cryogenic drug.

There was another tremor in the ship's hull, and all the lights went off. This time they stayed off for several seconds. Only the corner emergency beacons came on in the great holo-room.

"That's it, then," Chibor groaned. "No more drives. Those lights are on batteries."

A crewman battered at the side of the control screen next to the doors. "The function computers are wiped. The programs'll all have to be loaded again from ceramic. It'll take months, years to get the whole ship running again. We could lose everything, power, life support...."

"Concentrate on one section at a time, Nais, so we have partial environment to live in," Sharu ordered. "I suggest the hydroponics sections. For now there's plenty of fresh air for the few of us left. Set up mechanical circulation fans to keep it moving. Rig a mayday beacon."

"Telemetry said that we're too close to the planet. No one will be able to see us," Nais argued pugnaciously. His nerves were obviously frayed. "We're not supposed to be here anyway. The giant is only our landmark in this system. We're millions of kiloms from our proper jump mark."

"Don't you want to be found?" Sharu shot back, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. "Check with Captain Wynline, see what he wants to do. He's up on the bridge."

"Yes, Sharu," Nais gasped and dashed toward the accessway.

"It'll be dangerous here until we regain systems stabilisation," Sharu said to Lunzie, who had just returned to the holo-room. "Can I help in any way?"

"Get me a battery-powered light down here, and I can keep going." Lunzie was grateful that she hadn't become totally dependent on all the toys of modern medical technology. What would those fellow physicians of hers from Astris Alexandria do now without their electronic scalpels?

She was still working on the burst of adrenaline evoked from her Discipline training. When it wore on, she'd be almost helpless. Until then, she intended to help the wounded.

There was a sound like a muffled explosion behind her. Lunzie stood up to see what it was in the dimness. Only half visible in the gloom, the metal blast doors rolled slowly, inexorably closed on the empty dining hall.

"There go the chucks! The doors are closing!" Chibor cried. "Look out!"

A sharp-cornered weight hit Lunzie full in the chest, knocking her backwards. She slammed against the wall and slid down it to the floor, unconscious, over the body of her patient. Chibor ran to her, mopping the blood from Lunzie's cut lip, and felt for a pulse.

Sharu appeared a few minutes later, sweeping the beam of a powerful hand-held searchlight before her. "Lunzie, will this do? Lunzie?"

"Over here, Sharu," Chibor called, a formless shape in the red spotlights.

The First Mate ran toward the voice. "Krim!" She sighed. "Dammit. Put her in the cold-sleep chamber with Admiral Coromell. We'll get medical attention for her as soon as somebody rescues us. Meantime, she'll be safe in cold sleep. Then let's get back to work."

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER Seven

Lunzie opened her eyes and immediately closed them again to shut out a bright sharp light that was shining down on her.

"Sorry about that. Doctor," a dry, practical male voice said. "I was checking your pupils when you revived all of a sudden. Here" - a cloth was laid across the hand shielding her eyes - "open them gradually so you can get used to the ambient light. It isn't too strong."

"The door chock hit me in the chest," Lunzie said, remembering. "It must have broken some ribs, but then I hit the back of my head, and... I guess I was knocked unconscious." With her free hand, she felt cautiously down the length of her rib cage. "That's funny. They don't feel cracked or constricted. Am I under local anaesthetic?"

"Lunzie?" another voice asked tentatively. "How are you feeling?"

"Tee?" Lunzie snatched the cloth from her face and sat up, suddenly woozy from the change in blood pressure. Strong arms caught and steadied her. She squinted through the glaring light until the two faces became clear. The man on the left was a short, powerfully built stranger, a medical officer wearing Fleet insignia of rank. The other was Tee. He took her hand between both of his and kissed it. She hugged him, babbling in her astonishment.

"What are you doing here? We're ten light years out from Astris. Wait, where am I now?" Lunzie recovered herself suddenly and glanced around at the examination room, whose walls bore a burnished stainless steel finish. "This isn't the infirmary."

The stranger answered her. "You're on the Fleet vessel Ban Sidhe. There was a space wreck. Do you remember? You were injured and put into cold sleep."

Lunzie's face went very pale. She looked to Tee for confirmation. He nodded quietly. She noticed that his face was a little more lined than it was when she had last seen him, and his skin was pale. The changes shocked and worried her. "How long?"

"Ten point three years. Doctor," the Fleet medic said crisply. "Your First Mate was debriefed just a little while ago. She and the captain spent the whole time awake, manning the beacon. We very nearly missed the ship. It's about sixteen percent lower into the Carson's Giant's atmosphere than it was when they sent out the mayday and released the escape pods. The orbit is decaying. Looked like a piece of debris. Destiny decided it doesn't want to retrieve the hulk. In about fifty more years, it'll fall into the methane. Too bad. It's a pretty fine ship."

"No!" Lunzie breathed.

The medic was cheerful. "Just a little down time. It happens to about a fifth of Fleet personnel at one time in their careers. You should feel just fine. What's the matter?" He closed a firm, professional hand around her wrist.

"It's the second time it's happened to me," Lunzie sagged. "I didn't think it could happen to me again. Two space wrecks in one lifetime. Muhlah!"

"Twice? Good grief, you've had an excess of bad luck." He released her hand and quickly ran a scanner in front of her chest. "Normal. You've recovered quickly. You must be very strong, Doctor."

"You need exercise and food," Tee said. "Can I take her away, Harris? Good. Walk with me through the ship. We have recovered all forty-seven of the crew who stayed behind, and two passengers. It is because of one of them that we were able to come looking for you."

"What? Who stayed on board with us?"

"Admiral Coromell. Come. Walk with me to the mess hall, and I'll tell you.

"It was after you had been gone two years that I began to worry about you," Tee explained, dispensing a much-needed pepper to Lunzie. They programmed meals from the synthesiser and sat down at a table near the wall in the big room. The walls here were white. Lunzie noticed that the navy vessel ran to two styles of decoration in its common rooms, burnished steel or flat ceramic white. She hoped the bunkrooms were more inviting. Tedium caused its own kinds of space sickness. "I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what it could be. You had only written to me once. I found out from the AT&T operator that it was the only communication charged to your access code number in all that time."

Lunzie was feeling more lively after drinking the mild stimulant. "How did you do that? Astris Telecommunication and Transmission is notoriously uncooperative in giving out information like that."

Tee smiled, his dark eyes warm. "Shof and I became friends after you left. He and Pomayla knew how lonely I was without you, as they were. I taught him much about the practical application of laser technology, and in exchange he gave me insight to computer tricks he and his friends nosed out. He was very pleased to learn from me. I think he made some points with his technology teacher, being able to give detailed reports on the earliest prototypes of the system. Oh, he wanted me to let you know that he graduated with honours." He sighed. "That was eight years ago, of course. He gave me a ticket for the graduation. I went with the rest of the Gang who were still at the University, and we had a party later on, where your name was toasted in good wine. I did miss you so much."

Lunzie noticed the slight emphasis on "did," but let it pass. There seemed to be a distance between them, but that was to be expected, after all the time that had passed. Ten years didn't pack the same shock value as sixty-two, but at least she could picture the passage of that interval of time. "I'm happy to hear about Shof. Thank you for letting me know. But how did you get here?"

"It was the video you sent me, and the fact that you sent no more, which made me go looking for answers. You seemed to be very happy. You told of many things which you had observed on the ship already. The cabin in which you were living was the daydream of a rich man. The other physicians were good people, and all dedicated professionals. You had just delivered a baby to a dolphin couple under-water in the salt-water environment. You missed me. That was all. If you had meant to tell me that you had found someone else, and it was all over between us, you would have sent a second message. You were sometimes very mysterious, my Lunzie, but never less than polite."

"Well," Lunzie said, taking a forkful of potatoes gratinee, "I do hate being cubbyholed like that, but you're right. So my manners saved my life? Whew, this meal is a shock after the Destiny's cooking. It isn't bad, you understand."

"Not bad, just uninteresting. How I miss the apartment's cooking facilities!" Tee looked ceilingward. "So long as I live, I will never be entirely happy with synth-swill. Fresh vegetables are issued sparingly to us from the hydroponics pod up top. I never know when I will next see something that was actually grown, not formed from carbohydrate molecules."

"To us?" It registered with Lunzie for the first time that Tee was dressed in a uniform. "Are you stationed on the Ban Sidhe, Tee?"

"I am temporarily, yes, but that comes at the end of the story, not the beginning. Let me tell you what happened:

"I was not informed when the space liner first went missing. Whenever I asked the cruise line why I was not receiving messages from you, I was told that interstellar mail was slow, and perhaps you were too busy to send any. That I could accept for a time. It could take a long while for a message brick to reach Astris from Alpha. But surely, after more than two years, I should have heard from you about your meeting with Fiona. Even," Tee added self-consciously, "if it was no more than a thank you to me as your caseworker."

"Surely, if anyone does, you had a right to a full narration of our reunion. I owe you much more than that. Oh, I have missed you. Tee. Great heavens!" Lunzie clutched her head. "Another ten years gone! They were expecting me - Fiona might have had to leave again for Eridani! I must get to touch with Lars."

Tee patted her hand. "I have already sent a communication to him. You should hear back very soon."

"Thank you." Lunzie rubbed her eyes. "My head isn't very clear yet. I probably did have a concussion when they put me in the freezer. I should have your doctor scan my skull."

"Would you like another pepper?" Tee asked solicitously.

"Oh, no. No, thank you. One of those is always enough. So the cruise line said everything was fine, and it was just the post which was going astray. I smell a very nasty rat." Tee disposed of their trays and brought a steaming carafe of herb tea to the table. "Yes. So did I, but I had no proof. I believed them until I saw on the Tri-D that Destiny Calls was supposed to have been lost in an ion storm. The Destiny Line had recovered the passengers, who were sent out in escape capsules. Some of them gave interviews to Tri-D. Even after that, I still hadn't heard from you. Then, I began to move planets and moons to find out what had happened. Like you with Fiona, I ran into the one block in my path. No one knew what had happened after the Destiny Calls left its first stop after Astris. The Destiny Line was eager to help, they said, but never did I get any real answers from them. I insisted that they pay for a search to recover the vessel. I told them that you must still be aboard."

"In fact I was. There were a lot of crew wounded when everything began to fall apart, and I couldn't leave them." Tee was nodding. "You know about it already?" Lunzie asked.

"The First Mate had kept a handwritten log on plas-sheets from the moment the power failed, then kept files in a word processing program as soon as the terminals were reprogrammed. When we reached the Destiny, they had the most vital systems up and running, but the interface between engineering and the drives had been destroyed. I examined it myself. Even to me, the system was primitive."

"How did the Destiny Line get a military vessel involved in looking for a commercial liner?" Lunzie asked curiously, blowing on her cup to cool the tea.

"They didn't. I felt there was something false about the assurances they gave out that the search was progressing well. Using some of my own contacts - plus a few of Shof's tricks - I discovered that the Paraden Company had put in claims on the insurance on the Destiny Calls, using the testimony of recovered passengers to prove that the ship had met with an accident. The search was no more than a token, to satisfy the claims adjuster! The company had already written off the lives of the people still on board, you among them. I was angry. I went to the offices myself, on the other side of Astris, to break bones and windows until they should make the search real. I stayed there all day, growling at everyone who walked into the office to book cruises. I'm sure I drove away dozens of potential passengers. They wanted to have me removed because I was hurting business, but I told them I would not go. If they called for a peace officer, I would tell the whole story in my statement, and it would be all over the streets - and that would hurt their business far more!

"I was not the only one who had the idea to confront them personally. I met Commander Coromell there the next morning."

"Commander Coromell. The Admiral's son! I had no idea he was on Astris."

"It was the nearest Destiny Lines office when he got the news. He and I occupied seats at opposite ends of the reception room, waiting silently for one of the company lackeys to tell us more lies. Around midday, we began to converse and compare notes. Our missing persons were on the same ship. The day passed and it was clear that the Destiny Lines manager would not see us. We joined forces, and decided to start a legal action against the company.

"It was too late, you see. They had already been paid by the insurance company, and were uninterested in expending the cost of a search vessel. They were willing to pay the maximum their policy allowed for loss of life to each of us, but no more. Coromell was upset. He used political clout, based on his father's heroic service record, and his own reputation, to urge the Fleet to get involved. They commissioned the Ban Sidhe to make the search. Admiral Coromell is a great hero, and they did not like the idea of losing him."

"Bravo to that. You should hear some of his stories. How did you get aboard her? I thought you were still restricted from outer-space posts."

"More clout. Commander Coromell is a very influential man, in a family with a long, distinguished history in the FSP Fleet. He reopened my service file, and arranged for my commission. Commander Coromell gave me a chance to get back into space. It is the chance I was dreaming of, but I thought out of my reach for so much longer. I am very grateful to him."

"So am I. I never hoped to see you so soon," Lunzie said, touching Tee's hand.

"It isn't so soon," Tee answered sadly. "We made many jumps through this system, following the route Destiny Calls should have taken. It was my friend Naomi who noticed the magnesium flare near the dark side of Carson's Giant, and led us to investigate the planet. You should not have been there," Tee chided.

Lunzie raised an outraged eyebrow at him. "We were running from an ion storm, as I think you know," she retorted. "It was a calculated risk. If we'd jumped to this system only a little earlier or a little later, we wouldn't have been in the storm's path."

"It was the worst of bad luck, but you are safe now," Tee said, gently, rising to his feet and extending a hand to her. "Come, let's reunite you with the rest of the Destiny's crew."

"Well, she's as good as scrap. Without a program dump from another Destiny Lines mainframe, we can't get the hulk to tell us all the places where it hurts, let alone fix them," Engineer Perkin explained, ruefully.

"Do rights of salvage apply?" One of the younger Fleet officers spoke up, then looked ashamed of himself as everyone turned to look at him. "Sorry. Don't mean to sound greedy."

"Hell, Destiny Lines had already abandoned us for dead," First Mate Sharu said, waving the gaffe away. "Take whatever you want, but please leave us our personal belongings. We've also laid claim to the insured valuables left behind by some of our passengers."

"I... I was thinking of fresh foodstuffs," the lieutenant stammered. "That's all."

"Oh," Sharu grinned. "The hydroponic section is alive and well. Lieutenant. There's enough growing there to feed thousands. The grapefruits are just ripe. So are the ompoyas, cacceri leaf, groatberries, marsh peas, yellow grapes, artichokes, five kinds of tomatoes, about a hundred lands of herbs, and more things ripening every day. We ate well in exile. Help yourselves."

The younger officers at the table cheered and one threw his hat in the air. The older officers just smiled.

"We'll take advantage of your kindly offer. First Mate," the Fleet captain said, smiling on her genially. "Like any vessel whose primary aim is never to carry unnecessary loads, our hydro section is limited to what is considered vital for healthy organisms, and no more."

"Captain Aelock, we owe you much more than a puny load of groceries. I'm sure when Captain Wynline comes back from the Destiny's hulk with your men, he'll tell you the same. He may even help you strip equipment out personally. To say he's bitter about our abandonment is a pitiful understatement. Ah, Lunzie! Feeling better?" Sharu smiled as Lunzie and Tee entered, and gestured to the medic to sit by her.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"It seems we owe our rescue to the persuasiveness of Ensign Janos, is that correct?"

"In part," Tee said, modestly. "It is actually Commander Coromell that we all must thank."

"I'm grateful to everyone. I've set aside some of the salvage goods for both of you. Lunzie, do you fancy Lady Cholder's jewels? It's a poor bonus for losing ten years, but they're yours. I would say they're worth something between half a million and a million credits."

"Thank you, Sharu, that's more than generous. Am I the last awake?" Lunzie asked.

"No. The Commander's father and his father's aide were the last," Aelock answered. "I've asked them to join us here when they've finished in the Communications Center."

"I should have been consulted," Lunzie said, with some asperity. "The Admiral has a heart condition."

"We had that information from his son," Aelock said apologetically. "Besides, his health records are in the Fleet computer banks."

"Ah, there you are. Doctor," the senior Coromell said in a booming voice, striding into the room, followed by his aide. "If there is ever anything that I or my descendants can do for you, consider it a sacred trust. This young lady saved my life. Captain. I just told my son so." Lunzie blushed. The Admiral smiled on her and continued. "He's very grateful that I'm alive, but no more so than I. He spent a lot of air time ticking off his old man for heroics, and then said he'd probably have done the same thing himself. I'm to meet him on Tau Ceti. I'll take responsibility if anyone asks why the transmission on a secure channel was so lengthy."

"I have discretion in this matter. Admiral, but thank you," Aelock said graciously. "Now, what is to be done with all of you? Since Destiny Lines seems to have washed its hands of you. At least temporarily, that is. I shall be preferring charges in FSP court against them for reckless abandonment of a space vessel."

"With your permission," Sharu asked, "may I communicate with the head office? Since I have managed to live in spite of their efforts, I may be able to shame them into paying for our retrieval and continuing travel to our destination from wherever you may drop us off."

Captain Aelock nodded. "Of course."

"Oh, and Doctor, there was a transmission for you on the FTL link, too," the Admiral told her when the meeting broke up. "You might want to take it in private." It was the softest voice she'd ever heard him use.

"Thank you. Admiral." Lunzie was puzzled by his uncommon solicitousness. He smiled and marched off down the corridor with Captain Aelock, with Don and Aelock's officers trailing behind.

"Come," Tee said. "It is easy to find. You should begin to learn the layout of the ship." They stood outside the meeting room in a corridor about two and a half meters wide. "This is the main thoroughfare of the ship. It runs from the bridge straight back to the access to engineering. It was considered unwise," he added humorously, "to have the engineering section directly behind the bridge. An explosion there would send a fireball straight through the control panels directing the ship."

"I can't argue with that logic," Lunzie agreed.

"I will give you the full tour later. For now, let's see what Lars has to say."

There was a small commotion when Tee led Lunzie into the Communications Center.

"So, this is the lady who launched a thousand rescuers, eh?" winked a Human officer, twirling the ends of his black moustache.

"This is Lunzie, Stawrt," Tee acknowledged, uncomfortably.

"A pleasure," Lunzie said, shaking hands around. There were three officers on duty, the communications chief, Stawrt, and two Wefts, Ensigns Hull and Vaer. Hull, instead of wearing the standard humanoid form so widely used by Wefts in the presence of humans, had extruded eight or ten tentaclelike arms with two fingers each, with which he played the complicated board before him.

Hull tapped her with one of the attenuated digits on his fifth hand. "You would like to view your message? Would you care to step into that privacy booth?" Another hand snaked over to point at a door on an interior wall.

"Tee, would you come and listen, too?" Lunzie asked quietly, suddenly uneasy.

The privacy booth was a very small compartment with thick beige soundproofing on all walls, floor and ceiling. Any words spoken seemed to be swallowed up by the pierced panels. In the centre of the room was a standard holofield projector, with chairs arranged around it. Lunzie took a chair, and Tee settled down beside her. She half expected him to take her hand but he didn't touch her. In fact, except for when she'd practically fainted into his arms when she woke up, he hadn't touched her at all.

"Press this red button to start," Tee said, pointing to a small keypad on the arm of her chair. 'The black stops transmission, the yellow freezes the action in place, and the blue restarts the transmission from the beginning."

Lunzie touched the red button, feeling very nervous.

In the holofield, the image of Lars appeared. He, like Tee, had aged slightly. His hair was thinner, he was getting thicker around the middle, and the pursed lines at the side of his mouth were deeper.

"Ancestress," Lars began, bowing. "I'm happy to hear that you have been recovered safely. When you didn't arrive on schedule, we were very concerned. Ensign Janos was kind enough to tell me the whole story. "I am very sorry to tell you that Mother isn't here any more. She arrived, as scheduled, two years after we heard from you." The dour face smiled at his memories. "She was so delighted when we sent a message to her that you were expected. Ancestress, she waited eighteen months more for you. Since we had not heard further from you, we were forced to conclude that you had changed your mind. I know now that was an erroneous judgment. I am sorry. You will still be more than welcome if you come to Alpha Centauri. My grandchildren have been nagging me to make sure I remember to extend the invitation. Well, consider it extended.

"Before she left for Eridani, she recorded the following holo for you." Lars hastily blinked out, to be replaced by a larger image of Fiona's head and shoulders, which meant that the recording had been made on a communications console. Now, more clearly than before, Lunzie could see the resemblance in the older Fiona to the child. Age had only softened the beautiful lines other face, not marred them. The hooded eyes were full of experience and confidence and a deep, welling grief that tore at Lunzie's heart. Her eyes filled with tears as Fiona began to speak.

"Lunzie, I guess that you aren't coming. What made you change your mind?

"I wanted to see you. Truly, I did. I resented like hell having you go away from me when I was a girl. I mean, I understood why you went, but it didn't make it any easier. Uncle Edgard came to get me after the shipwreck, and took me to MarsBase. It was nice. I roomed with cousins Yonata and Immethy, his two daughters. I worried so much about you, but then time went by, and I had to stop worrying, and get on with my life. You know by now I went into medicine," the image grinned, and Lunzie smiled back. "The family vocation. I worked hard at it, got good grades, and I think I earned the respect of my professors. I would have given anything to hear you tell me you were proud of me. In the end, I had to be proud of myself." Fiona seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. Her eyes were bright with tears, too.

"I was proud of you, baby," Lunzie whispered, her mouth dry. "Muhlah, I wish you knew that."

"I got to be pretty good at what I did," Fiona continued. "I joined the EEC and racked up a respectable service record. Your mother's brother Jermold hired me; I think he's still working the same desk job in Personnel, even at his advanced age. I've been all over the galaxy in the service, though I've seen mostly new colony worlds in their worst possible condition-suffering from disease epidemics! - but I have had a great time, and I loved it. They think they're rewarding me by assigning me to a desk job.

"Lunzie, there are a thousand things I want to tell you, all the things I thought about when you went away. Most of them were the resentful mutterings of a child. I won't trouble you with those. Some were beautiful things that I discovered that I wanted so to share with you. I wish you could have met Garmol, my husband. You and he would have gotten along so well, though we've always had itchy feet, and he was the original ground-bounder. But the most important thing I wanted to let you know is that I love you. I always did, and always will.

"I have to leave for Eridani now, and assume the duties of my office as Surgeon General. I've made them wait for me as long as I've dared, but now I must go.

"Lunzie..." Fiona's voice became very hoarse, and she stopped to swallow. She cleared her throat and raised her chin decisively, the image of her eyes meeting Lunzie's across the light years. "Mother, goodbye."

Lunzie was quiet for a long time, staring at the empty holofield long after the image faded. She shut her eyes with a deep-chested sigh, and shook her head. She turned to Tee, almost blindly, lost in her own thoughts.

"What should I do now?"

He had been studying her. She could tell that he, too, was moved by Fiona's message, but his expression changed immediately.

"What should you do?" Tee repeated quizzically. "I am not in charge of your life. You must decide."

Lunzie rubbed her temples. "For the first time in my life, I haven't got an immediate goal to work toward. I've left school. Fiona's given up on me. Who could blame her? But it leaves me adrift."

Tee's face softened. "I'm sorry. You must feel terrible."

Lunzie wrinkled her forehead, thinking deeply. "I should, you know. But I don't. I'm grieved, certainly, but I don't feel as devastated as I... think that I should."

"You should go and see your grandchildren. Did you hear? They want to see you."

"Tee, how will I get there now?" Lunzie asked in a small voice. "Where is the Ban Sidhe dropping us?"

"We are waiting for orders. As soon as I know, you will know."

Captain Aelock had already received the Ban Sidhe's flight orders, and was happy to share the details with Lunzie. "We've been transferred to the Central Sector for the duration, Lunzie. Partly because of the Admiral's influence but also because it is convenient to our mission, we're going to Alpha Centauri, then toward Sol. Would you mind if we set you down there? It'll be our first port of call."

Lunzie's eyes shone with gratitude. "Thank you, sir. It takes a great load off my mind. I must admit I've been worrying about it."

"Worry no longer. The Admiral was quite insistent that you should have whatever you needed. He's very impressed with your skill, claims you saved his life. You can assist our medical officers while we're en route. 'No idle hands' is our motto."

"So I've heard."

"With all the Destiny refugees aboard, things will be somewhat cramped, but I have discretion with regard to officers. You and Sharu will share a cabin in officer country. If there are any problems," Aelock smiled down on her paternally, "my door is always open."

"I was never so glad in my life to see anything as this destroyer popping out of warp just as we rounded the dark side of the planet," Sharu said, sipping fresh juice the next morning at mess with a tableful of the Ban Sidhe's junior officers. Lunzie sat between the First Mate and Captain Wynline. Tee was on duty that shift. "We had a magnesium bonfire all ready to go behind the quartz observation desk port. I lit it and jumped back, and it roared up into silver flames like a nova. The ship was sunk into the gravity well of the planet and was following its orbit instead of staying stationary. Because Carson's Giant spins so fast, our window of opportunity was very small. Our signal had to be dramatic."

"Magnesium?" declared Ensign Riaman. "No wonder that deck was slagged. It was probably red hot for hours afterward."

"It was. I got bums on my arms and face. They're only just healing now," Sharu said, displaying her wrists. "See?"

"It was worth it," Captain Wynline said positively. "It worked, didn't it? You saw it."

"We certainly did," added Lieutenant Naomi, a blond woman in her early thirties. "A tiny spark on the planet's surface where nothing should have been. You were lucky."

"Oh, I know," Sharu acknowledged. "There has never been a prettier sight than that of your ship homing in on us. We have seen so many ships go by without seeing us. We did everything but jump up and down and wave our arms to get their attention. We were very lucky that you were looking the right way at the right time."

"We could have been planet pirates," Ensign Tob suggested.

He was shouted down by his fellows. "Shut up, Tob."

"Who'd be stupid enough to mistake us for them?"

"It'd be an insult to the Fleet."

"You were wounded when the ship was first evacuated," Ensign Riaman asked Lunzie, who was spreading jam on a slice of toast. "Was it a shock to wake up and find you had been in cold sleep?"

"Not really. I've been in cold sleep before," Lunzie explained.

"Really? For what? An experiment? An operation?" Riaman asked eagerly. "My aunt was put in cryo sleep for two years until a replacement for a bum heart valve could be grown. My family has a rare antibody system. She couldn't take a transplant."

"No, nothing like that," Lunzie said. "My family is disgustingly ordinary when it comes to organ or anti- body compatibility. I was in another space wreck once, on the way to take a job on a mining platform for the Descartes Company."

To her surprise, the young ensign goggled at her and hastily went back to his meal. She looked around at the others seated at the table. A couple of them stared at her, and quickly looked away. The rest were paying deep attention to their breakfasts. Dismayed and confused, she bent to her meal.

"Jonah," she heard someone whisper. "She must be a Jonah." Out of the comer of her eye, Lunzie tried to spot the speaker. Jonah? What was that?

"Lunzie," Sharu said, speaking to break the silence. "Our personal belongings are being brought aboard in the next few hours. Would you care to come with me and help me sort out the valuables that were left in the purser's safe? We'll package up what we aren't claiming for shipment to their owners when we make orbit again."

"Of course, Sharu. I'll go get freshened up, and wait for you." Hoping she didn't sound as uncomfortable as she felt, Lunzie blotted her lips with her napkin and hurried toward the door.

"Bad luck comes in threes," a voice said behind her as she went out of the door, but when she turned, no one was looking at her.

"It's my fault. I should have warned you to keep quiet about the other wreck," Sharu apologised when she and Lunzie were alone. Before them were dozens of sealed boxes from the purser's strongroom and a hundred empty security cartons for shipping. "I've been in the Fleet so I remember what it was like. One space accident is within the realm of possibility. Two looks like disastrously bad luck. No one's more superstitious than a sailor."

"Sharu, what is a Jonah?"

"You heard that? Jonah was a character in the Old Earth Bible. Whenever he sailed on a ship, it ran into technical difficulties. Some sank. Some were becalmed. One of the sailors decided Jonah had offended Yahweh, their God, so he was being visited with bad luck that was endangering the whole ship. They threw him overboard into the sea to save themselves. He was swallowed by a sea leviathan."

"Ulp!" Lunzie swallowed nervously, pouring a string of priceless glow pearls into a bubblepack envelope. "But they wouldn't throw me overboard? Space me?"

"I doubt it," Sharu frowned as she sorted jewelry. "But they won't go out of their way to rub elbows with you, either. Don't mention it again, and maybe it'll pass." Lunzie put the bubblepack into a carton and sealed it, labelling the carton Fragile - Do Not Expose To Extremes of Temperature, which made her think of Illin Romsey, the Descartes crystal miner who rescued her, and the Thek that accompanied him. She hadn't thought of that Thek in months. It was still a mystery to Lunzie why a Thek should take an interest in her.

"Of course, Sharu. I never knowingly stick my head into a lion's mouth. You can't tell when it might sneeze."

Among the jewels and other fragile valuables, she found her translucent hologram of Fiona. Lunzie was shocked to find that she was now used to the image of the grown woman Fiona, and this dear, smiling child was a stranger, a long-ago memory. With deliberate care, she sealed it in a bubblepack and put it aside.

Three days later, Lunzie waited outside the bridge until the silver door slid noiselessly aside into its niche. Captain Aelock had left word for her in her cabin that he wished to speak with her. Before she stepped over the threshold, she heard her name, and stopped.

"... She'll bring bad luck to the ship, sir. We ought to put her planetside long before Alpha Centauri. We might never make it if we don't." The voice was Ensign Riaman's. The young officer had been ignoring her pointedly at mealtimes and muttering behind her back when they passed in the corridors.

"Nonsense," Captain Aelock snapped. It sounded as though this was the end of a lengthy argument, and his patience had been worn thin. "Besides, we've got orders, and we will obey them. You don't have to associate with her if she makes you nervous, but for myself I find her charming company. Is that all?"

"Yes, sir," Riaman replied in a submissive murmur that did nothing to disguise his resentment. "Dismiss, then."

Riaman threw the captain a snappy salute, but by then Aelock had already turned back toward the viewscreen. Smarting from the reproach, the ensign marched off the bridge past Lunzie, who had decided that she'd rather be obvious than be caught eavesdropping. When their eyes met, he turned scarlet to his collar, and shot out of the room as if he'd been launched. Lunzie straightened her shoulders defiantly and approached the captain. He met her with a friendly smile, and offered her a seat near the command chair in the rear center of the bridge.

"This Jonah nonsense is a lot of spacedust, of course," Aelock told Lunzie firmly. "You're to pay no attention to it."

"I understand, sir," Lunzie said. The captain appeared to be embarrassed that she had been affected by the opinion of one of his officers, so she gave him a sincere smile to put him at his ease. He nodded.

"We've been out on manoeuvres trying to catch up with planet pirates, and they still haven't come down from the adrenaline high. After a while we were seeing radar shadows behind every asteroid. It was time we had a more pedestrian assignment. Perhaps even a little shore leave," Aelock sighed, shrugging toward the door by which the ensign had just left, "though Alpha Centauri wouldn't be my first choice. It's a little too industrialized for my tastes. I like to visit the nature preserves of Earth myself, but my lads consider it tame."

"Have the pirates struck again?" Lunzie asked, horrified. "The last raid I heard of was on Phoenix. I once thought my daughter had been killed by the raiders."

"What, Doctor Fiona?" Aelock demanded, smiling, watching Lunzie's mouth drop open. "It may surprise you to know. Dr. Mespil, that we had the pleasure of hosting the lady and her dog act fifteen Standard years ago. As charming as yourself, I must say. I can see the family resemblance."

"The galaxy is shrinking," Lunzie said, shaking her head. "This is too much of a coincidence."

"Not at all, when you consider that she and I serve the same segment of the FSP population. We're both needed chiefly by the new colonies that are just past the threshold of viability, and hence under FSP protection. The emergency medical staff like her use our ships because we're the only kind of vehicle that can convey help there quickly enough."

"Such as against planet pirates?"

Aelock looked troubled. "Well, it's been very quiet lately. Too quiet. There hasn't been a peep out of them in months - almost a year since the last incident. I think they're planning another strike, but I haven't a clue where. By the time we reach Alpha, I'm expecting to hear from one of my contacts, a friend of a friend of a friend of a supplier who sells to the pirates. We still don't know who they are, or who is providing them with bases and repair facilities, drydocks and that kind of thing. I'm hoping that I can make a breakthrough before someone follows the line of inquiry back to me. People who stick their noses into the pirates' business frequently end up dead."

Lunzie gulped, thinking of Jonahs and the airlock. The captain seemed to divine her thoughts and chuckled.

"Ignore the finger-crossers among my crew. They're good souls, and they'll make you comfortable while you're aboard. We'll have you safe and sound, breathing smoggy Alpha Centauri air before you know it."

CHAPTER Eight

She didn't have time to worry about her new label of Jonah on the brief trip to Alpha Centauri. A number of the crew from the Destiny Calls broke out in raging symptoms of space traumatic stress. There was a lot of fighting and name-calling among them, which the ship's chief medical officer diagnosed as pure reaction to danger. In order to prevent violence, Dr. Harris assigned Lunzie to organise therapy for them. On her records, he had noticed the mention of Lunzie's training in treating space-induced mental disorders and put the patients' care in her hands.

"Now that it's all over, they're remembering to react," Harris noted, privately to Lunzie, during a briefing. "Not uncommon after great efforts. I won't interfere in the sessions. I'll just be an observer. They know and trust you, whereas they would not open up well to me. Perhaps I can pick up pointers on technique from you."

Lunzie held mass encounter sessions with the Destiny crew. Nearly all the survivors attended the daily meetings, where they discussed their feelings of anxiety and resentment toward the company with a good deal of fire. Lunzie listened more than she talked, making notes, and throwing in a question or a statement when the conversation lagged or went off on a tangent; and observed which employees might need private or more extensive therapy.

Lunzie found that the group therapy sessions did her as much good as they did for the other crew members. Her own anxieties and concerns were addressed and discussed thoroughly. To her relief, no one seemed to lose respect for her as a therapist when she talked about her feelings. They sympathised with her, and they appreciated that she cared about their mental well-being, not clinically distant, but as one of them.

The mainframe and drives engineers were the most stressed out, but the worst afflicted with paranoid disorders were the service staff. They complained of helplessness throughout the time they'd spent awake helping to clean up the Destiny Calls, since they could do nothing to better the situation for themselves or anyone else. For the mental health of the crew at large. Captain Wynline had ordered stressed employees to be put into cold sleep. In order to continue working efficiently on the systems which would preserve their lives, the technicians had to be shielded from additional tension.

"But there we were on the job, and all of a sudden, we'd been rescued while we were asleep," Voor, one of the Gurnsan cooks, complained in her gentle voice. "There was no time for us to get used to the new circumstances."

"No interval of adjustment, do you mean?" Lunzie asked.

"That's right," a human chef put in. "To be knocked out and stored like unwanted baggage - it isn't the way to treat sentient beings."

Perkin and the other heads of Engineering defended the captain's actions.

"Not at all. For the sake of general peace of mind, hysteria had to be stifled," Perkin insisted. "I wouldn't have been able to concentrate. At least cryo-sleep isn't fatal."

"It might as well have been! Life and death - my life and death - taken out of my hands."

Lunzie pounced on that remark. "It sounds like you don't resent the cold sleep as much as you do the order to take it."

"Well..." The chef pondered the suggestion. "I suppose if the captain had asked for volunteers, I probably would have offered. I like to get along."

Captain Wynline cleared his throat. "In that case, Koberly, I apologise. I'm only human, and I was under a good deal of strain, too. I ask for your forgiveness."

There was a general outburst of protest. Many of the others shouted Koberly down, but a few agreed pugnaciously that Wynline owed them an apology.

"Does that satisfy you, Koberly?" Lunzie asked, encouragingly.

The chef shrugged and looked down at the floor. "I guess so. Next time, let me volunteer first, huh?"

Wynline nodded gravely. "You have my word."

"Now, what's this about our not getting paid for our down time?" Chibor asked the captain.

Wynline was almost automatically on the defensive. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but since the ship was treated as lost, the Paraden Company feels that the employees aboard her were needlessly risking their lives. Only the crew who were picked up with the escape pods were given compensatory pay. Our employment was terminated on the day the insurance company paid off the Destiny Calls."

There was a loud outcry over that. "They can't do that to us!" Koberly protested. "We should be getting ten years back pay!"

"Where's justice when you need it?"

Dr. Harris cleared his throat. "The captain is planning to press charges against the Paraden Company to recover the cost of the deepspace search. You can all sign on as co-plaintiffs against them. We'll give statements to the court recorder when we reach Alpha Centauri."

Lunzie and a handful of the Destiny's crew watched from a remote video pickup in the rec room as the Ban Sidhe pulled into a stable orbit around Alpha Centauri. It was the first time that she'd been this close to the centre of the settled galaxy. The infrared view of the night side of the planet showed almost continuous heat trace across all the land masses and even some under the seas, indicating population centres. She'd never seen such a crowded planet in her life. And somewhere down on that world was her family. Lunzie couldn't wait to meet them.

Two unimaginably long shifts later, she received permission to go dirtside in the landing shuttle. She took a small duffle with some of her clothes and toiletries and Fiona's hologram. After checking her new short haircut hastily in the lavatory mirror, she hurried to the airlock. Some of the Destiny's kitchen staff were already waiting there for the shuttle, surrounded by all of their belongings.

"I'm staying," Koberly declared, "until I can get the Tribunal to hear my case against Destiny Lines. Those unsanctioned progeny of a human union won't get away with shoving me into a freezer for ten years, and then cheating me out of my rights."

"I'm just staying," said Voor, clasping her utensil case to her astounding double bosom. "There are always plenty of jobs on settled worlds for good cooks. I plan to apply to the biggest and best hotels in Alpha City. They'd be eager to snap up a pastry chef who can cook for ten thousand on short notice."

Koberly shook his head pityingly at the Gurnsan's complacent attitude. "Don't be dumb. You're an artist, cowgirl. You shouldn't apply for a job just because you're fast, or because you supply your own milk. Let 'em give you an audition. Once they taste your desserts they will give you anything to keep you from leaving their establishment without saying yes. Anything."

"You're too kind," Voor protested gently, shaking her broad head.

"I agree with him," Lunzie put in sincerely. "Perhaps you should hold an auction and sell your services to the highest bidder."

"If you like, I will handle the business arrangements for you," said a voice behind Lunzie. "May I join you while you wait? It is my turn to go on shore leave as well." It was Tee, glowing like a nova in his white dress uniform. Lunzie and the others greeted him warmly.

"Delighted, Ensign," Voor said. "You saved my life. I will always be happy to see you."

"I haven't seen much of you the last few days," Lunzie told him, hoping it didn't sound like a reproach.

Tee grinned, showing his white teeth. "But I have seen you! Playing the therapy sessions like a master conductor. I have stood in the back of the chamber listening, as first one speaks up, then another speaks up, and you solve all their problems. You are so wise."

Lunzie laughed. "In this case the complaint was easy to diagnose. I'm a sufferer, too."

Behind the burnished steel door came a hissing, and the booming of metal on metal. Around the edge of the doorway, red lights began flashing, and a siren whooped. Lunzie and the others automatically jumped back, alarmed.

"It is only the airlock in use," Tee explained apologetically. "If there had been an actual emergency, we would be too close to it to be safe anyway."

With a hiss, the door slid back, and the shuttle pilot appeared inside the hollow chamber, and gestured the passengers inside. "Ten hundred hours. Is everyone ready?"

"Yes!" The pilot dived aside as his cargo rushed past him eagerly.

"Unrecirculated air!" Lunzie stepped out of the spaceport in Alpha City and felt the caress of a natural wind for the first time since leaving Astris. She held her face up to the sun and took a deep breath of air. And expelled it immediately in a fit of coughing.

"Wha-what's the matter with the air?" she asked, sniffing cautiously and wrinkling her nose at the odour. It was laden with chemical fumes and the smell of spoiling vegetation. She looked up at the sky and saw the sun ringed with a grayish haze that shimmered over the surrounding city.

"Some good news, and some bad news. Doctor Lunzie," a Fleet ensign explained. "The good news is it's natural, and it hasn't been reoxygenated by machines a million times. The bad news is what the humans who live on Alpha have been throwing into it for thousands of years. Airborne garbage."

"Ough! How could they do this to themselves? The very air they breathe!" Lunzie moaned, dabbing her streaming eyes with a handkerchief.

Tee picked up her bags and hailed a groundcar. "It shouldn't be as bad further from the spaceport. Come on." He hurried her down the concrete ramp and into the sealed car.

"Where are you going?" Lunzie demanded when she could speak. She blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief.

"With you. I would not miss your family reunion for the world. I have an invitation from Melanie."

"What is your destination?" the robotic voice of the groundcar demanded. "With or without travel guide?" Tee reeled off an address. "What do you think, Lunzie? Do you want it to tell you about the sights we pass?"

Lunzie peered through the windows at the unending panorama of gray buildings, gray streets, and gray air. The only colour was the clothing of the few pedestrians they passed. "I don't think so. It all looks the same, for kilometers in every direction, and it's so gloomy. I just want to get there and meet them. I wonder how they've all changed in ten years. Do you suppose there are new babies?"

"Why not? No travel guide," Tee ordered.

"Acknowledged."

Tee chatted brightly with her as they sailed along the superhighways toward Melanie's. Once they had disembarked from the Ban Sidhe, he was his old self, expansive and affectionate. Lunzie decided that it must be the military atmosphere of the Fleet ship which squashed his usually sunny nature. She was relieved that he was feeling better.

It was twilight when they finally arrived. The groundcar disgorged them in suburban Shaygo, only two hundred kilometers from Alpha City. Lunzie couldn't tell by watching when one city left off and the second one began. They had obviously grown together over the years. There was no open space, no parks, no havens for vegetation, just intertwining thoroughfares with thousands of similar podlike groundcars hurtling along them. The trail of air transports penned on the gray sky in white between the tall buildings. Lunzie found the sight depressing.

The house, one of an attached row, sat at the top of a small yard with trees on either side of the walk leading to the door. A twinkling bunch of tiny lights next to the door read "Ingrich." Except for the gardens, every house was identical. Melanie's was a riot of colourful flowers and tall herbs spilling out of their beds on the trim lawn, a burst of individuality on a street of bland repetition.

"Muhlah, I'd hate to come home drunk," Lunzie said, looking up and down the endless row. The other side of the street was the same. Three floors of curtained windows stared blankly down on them.

"The robot taxi would get you safely home," Tee assured her.

She heard noises coming from inside the house as they approached, and the door irised open suddenly. A plump woman with soft brown hair bustled out and seized each of them by the hand. Lunzie recognized her instantly. It was her granddaughter.

"You are Lunzie, aren't you?" The woman beamed. "I'm Melanie. Welcome, welcome, at last! And Citizen Janos. I'm so glad to see you at last."

"Tee," Tee insisted, accepting a hug in his turn.

"How wonderful to meet you at last," Lunzie exclaimed. "I'm grateful you wanted to extend the invitation to me, after I stood you up last time."

"Oh, of course. We wanted to meet you. Come in. Everyone has been waiting for you." Melanie wrapped an arm warmly around Lunzie's waist and led her inside. Tee trailed behind, looking amused. "Mother was so disappointed that you didn't come to our last reunion. But when we heard about the accident, we were devastated that she had left with the wrong impression. I sent a message to Eridani to let her know what happened and that you're all right, but it's so far away she may still be on her way there. I just have no idea! Only the gods of chaos know when the message will reach her. There's been a lot of service interruptions lately. And no explanation from the company!"

She led them into a well-lit room with white walls and carpets, decorated with colourful wall hangings in good artistic taste, and set about with cushiony furniture. In the middle of one wall was an electronic hearth, and in the middle of the other was a Tri-D viewing platform, surrounded by teenaged children watching a sports event. Lunzie noticed that the holographic image was purer and sharper than anything she'd ever seen before. There had obviously been strides made in image projection since she went into cold sleep.

Two slightly built men with dark, curly hair, identical twins, and two women, all of early middle age, who had been chatting when Lunzie entered, rose from their seats and came forward.

"Oh, what a lovely home you have," Lunzie said, looking around approvingly. "Is this your mate?"

The tall man sprawled on a couch set aside his personal reader and stood up to offer them a hand. "Now and forever. Dalton is my name. How do you do, ancestress?"

"Very well, thank you," she said, shaking hands. Dalton had a firm, smooth grip, but not at all bonecrushing, as she feared it might be after noticing the prominent tendons on his wrists. "But please, call me Lunzie."

"I'll tell everyone your wishes, but Lars might not comply. He can be very stuffy and proper."

"I communicated with them as soon as you let us know you were here. They'll arrive in a little while," Melanie said busily, urging them into the middle of the common room. "Now, may I get you anything before I show you where you're going to stay? Something to drink?"

"Juice would be welcome. The air is... rather thick if you're not used to it," Lunzie said, diplomatically.

"Mmm. There was a smog alert today. I should have said something when you communicated with us. But we're all used to it." Melanie hurried away.

"Just like her to forget the rest of the introductions," Dalton said indulgently as his mate left the room. He embraced Lunzie, and waved a hand at the others in the room. "Everyone! This is Lunzie, here at last!" The children watching the Tri-D stood up to greet her. Lunzie smiled at them in turn, trying to identify them from the ten-year-old holos. She could account for all but two. Dalton explained, "Not all of this crowd is ours, but we get the grandchildren a lot because our house is the largest. Lunzie, please meet my sons Jai and Thad, and their mates, lonia and Chirli." The women, one with short red tresses and one with shining pale blond hair, smiled at her. "Drew is still at work, but he'll be joining us for dinner."

The twins shook hands gravely. "You look more like a sister to us than what? A great-grandmother?" one of them said.

"You'll have to forgive us if we occasionally slip up and don't show the respect due your age," the other said playfully.

"I'll understand," Lunzie said, hugging them, and pulling the two women closer to include them in the embrace. The children pressed in to take their turns. There were nine of them, four girls and five boys. Lunzie could see resemblances to herself or Fiona in all of them. She was so overwhelmed with joy, she was nearly bursting inside.

"How old are you?" asked the youngest child, a boy who seemed to be eleven or twelve Standard years of age.

"Pedder, that's not a polite question," Jai's red-headed wife said sternly,

"Drew's youngest," Dalton explained in his deep voice over the heads of the throng clustered around her.

"Sorry, Aunt lonia. I 'pologize," the boy muttered in a sulky voice.

"I'm not offended," Lunzie insisted, winning the boy's admiration immediately. "I was born in 2755, if that's what you mean." "Wo-ow," Pedder said, impressed. "That's old. I mean, you don't look like it."

"Brend and Corrin," Dalton pointed, "are Pedder's older brothers, and possessed, I hope, of more tact, or at least less curiosity. The eldest, Evan, isn't here. He's at work. Dierdre's youngest, Anthea, is at school."

"Oh, I'm delighted to meet you all," Lunzie said happily. "I've been replaying the holos over and over again." She squeezed Brend's hand and ruffled Corrin's hair. The boys blushed red, and drew back to let the other cousins through.

"I'm Capella," said an attractive girl with black hair styled in fantastic waves and loops all over her head. In Lunzie's opinion, the girl wore too much makeup, and the LED-studded earrings on her ear-lobes were almost blinding.

"You've changed since the last picture I saw of you," Lunzie said diplomatically.

"Oh, really," Capella giggled. "It has to be ten years, right? I was just a microsquirt then." Tee, standing behind Capella, smiled widely and raised his eyes heavenward. Lunzie returned his grin.

Pedder became distracted by the Tri-D program, where it appeared that one team was about to drive a bright scarlet ball into a net past the other team's defense. "Give it to 'em good, Centauri! Plasmic!"

A slim young woman with long hair in a ribbon-bound plait rose from the other side of the viewing field and made her way awkwardly over to Lunzie, holding out a hand. She was several months pregnant. "How do you do, Lunzie? I'm Rudi."

Lunzie greeted her warmly. "Lars's first granddaughter. I'm delighted to meet you. When is the baby due?"

"Oh, not soon enough," Rudi smiled. "Two and a half months. Since it'll be the first great-grandchild, everyone's helping me count the days. This is Gordon. He's shy, but he'll get over it, since you're family." Lars's only grandson was a stocky boy of eighteen whose short, spiky mouse-brown hair stuck straight out all over his fair scalp.

Lunzie took his hand and drew him toward her to give him a kiss on the cheek. "I'm pleased to meet you, Gordon." The boy reddened and withdrew his hand, grinning self-consciously.

With the last goal, the game appeared to be over. Dalton leaned across the crowd and turned off the Tri-D field under the disappointed noses of the boys. "Enough! No more holovision. We have guests."

Cassia and Deram, cousins born within two days of each other, claimed the seats on either side of Lunzie, as she was settled down into the deep couch with a tall glass of fruit juice.

"It almost makes us twins, you see, just like our fathers," stated Deram proudly. In fact, he and Cassia did look as remarkably alike as a young man and woman could.

"We've always been best friends, from birth onward," Cassia added.

"Ugh!" Lona, Deram's younger sister, a lanky seventeen, settled at their feet, and shook back her long, straight black hair. "How phony. Lie, why don't you? You fight like Tokme birds all the time."

"Lona, that's not nice to say," Cassia chided, looking nervously at Lunzie, but the teenager regarded her with unrepentant scorn.

Of all the grandchildren, Lona looked the most like Fiona. Lunzie found herself drawn to the girl over the course of the evening feeling as though she was talking to her own long-lost daughter. It became a point of contention among the other cousins, who felt that Lona should fairly share the attention of the prized new relative.

Lunzie overheard the whispered arguments and realized that she was near to starting off a family war. She neatly changed the subject, directing her conversation to each cousin in turn. Everyone was smiling in satisfaction when the adults arrived.

Lars greeted her and Tee with great ceremony. "Five generations in the same house!" he exclaimed to the assembled. "Ancestress Lunzie, we are very pleased to have you among us. Welcome!"

Lars was a stocky man who had inherited Fiona's jaw and a smaller version of her eyes, which wore a familiar obdurate expression that Lunzie recognized as a family trait. His hair was thinning, and Lunzie estimated that he would enter into his eighth decade completely bald. His wife, Dierdre, was fashionably thin, but with a scrawny neck. She had not changed much since the first holo Lunzie had seen. Drew, Melanie's third son, was a stockier version of his cheerful older brothers. He greeted Lunzie with a smacking kiss on the cheek.

"We've also got a surprise for you," Lars added, standing aside from the doorway to let one more man in. "Our brother Dougal arrived home for shore leave only last week."

Dougal was handsome. He had inherited all of Fiona's good looks plus a gene or two from Lunzie's maternal grandfather, who had also been tall and slim with broad shoulders. His colouring was similar to Lunzie's: medium brown hair and green-hazel eyes, and he had her short, straight nose. His Fleet uniform was a pristine white, like Tee's, but it bore more wrist braid, and there was a line of medals on his left breast.

"Welcome, Lunzie. Fiona told me a lot about you. I hope this is the beginning of a long visit, and the first of many more."

Lunzie glanced back at Tee, who shrugged. "Well, I don't know. There're a few matters I might have to take care of. But I'll stay as long as I can."

"Good!" Dougal wrapped her up in an embrace that made her squeak. "I've been looking forward to exchanging stories with you."

Lars started to reproach his brother, when Melanie stepped between them.

"Dinner, boys." She gave them a look which Lunzie could only describe as significant, and led the way to the dining room.

"Melanie, I must say, you've inherited my mother's cooking arm. That was absolutely delicious," Lunzie said. She and Tee sat across from each other on either side of Dalton at one end of the long table. Lars sat at the other end and nodded paternally over the wine. "What spice was that in the carrot mousse? And the celeriac and herb soup was just delightful."

Melanie glowed at Lunzie's praise. "I usually say the recipes are a family secret but I couldn't keep them from you, could I?"

"I hope not. Truly, I'd love to take a look at your recipe file. I can offer some of my inventions in return."

"Take her up on the offer," Tee put in, gesturing with his spoon. "Do not let her change her mind, Melanie. Lunzie is a superb cook. As for me, I have been eating synthetic Fleet food for many years now, and this is like a divine blessing."

"I know what you mean, brother," Dougal said, noisily scraping the last of the spiced cheese and bean dish out onto his plate. "Depending on how long a ship is in space, the crew forget first the love they left behind them, then fresh air, then food. Between crises, I dream about good meals, especially my sister's cooking."

"Thank you, Dougal," Melanie acknowledged prettily. "It's always nice to have you home."

"I made dessert," Lona answered, getting up to clear the plates. "Is anyone ready for it yet?"

Pedder and his brothers chorused, "Yes," and sat up straight hopefully, but their mother shook her head at them. They sighed deeply, and relaxed back into their seats.

"We'll have dessert in the common room, shall we, Lona?" Melanie suggested, getting up to clear away the dishes.

"All right. Good idea," Lona agreed. "That way I can display everything artistically."

"Aw, who cares?" Corrin said rudely, pushing back. "It all gets chewed up and swallowed anyway."

"Fall into a black hole!" Lona swung at him with an empty casserole dish, but he evaded her, and fled into the common room. Lona threw a sneer after him and continued stacking plates. Lunzie automatically got up and began helping to clear away.

"Oh, no, Lunzie," Lars reproved her. "Please. You're a guest. Come with me and sit down. Let the hosts clean up. I've been waiting to hear about your adventures." He tucked Lunzie's arm under his own and propelled her into the common room.

"Dessert!" Lona called, pushing a hover-tray into the middle of the room.

The supports of the cart hung six inches above the carpet until Lona hit a control, when it lowered itself gently to the ground.

"There." Melanie hurried around the tray, setting serving utensils and stacks of napkins along the sides. "It's beautiful, darling."

Rescued from Lars's relentless interrogation, Lunzie immediately stood up to inspect the contents of the tray. Lona had prepared tiny fruit tarts in a rainbow of colours. They were arranged in a spray which was half-curled around three dishes of rich creams. "Good heavens, what gracious bounty. It looks like Carmen Miranda's hat!"

"Who?" Melanie asked blankly.

"Why, uh..." Lunzie had to stop herself from saying someone your age would surely remember Carmen Miranda. "Oh, ancient history. A woman who became famous for wearing fruit on her head. She was in the old two-D pictures that Fiona and I used to watch together."

"That's dumb," opined Pedder. "Wearing fruit on your head."

"Oh, we don't watch two-D. Flatscreen pictures don't have enough life in them," Melanie explained. "I prefer holovision every time."

"There are some great classics in two-D. I always felt it was like reading a book with pictures substituted for words," Lunzie said. "Especially the very ancient monochrome two-Ds. Easy once you get used to it."

"Oh, I see. Well, I don't read much, either. I don't have time for it," Melanie laughed lightly. "I have such a busy schedule. Here, everyone gather around, and I'll serve. Lunzie, you must try this green fruit. The toppings are sweet apricot, sour cherry, and chocolate. Lona made the pastry cream herself. It is marvellous."

The dessert was indeed delicious, and the boys made sure that leftovers wouldn't be a problem. They were looking for more when the empty cart was driven back to the food preparation room. Lona was given a round of applause by her happily sated cousins.

"Truly artistic, in every sense of the word," Dougal praised her. "That will fuel food dreams for me for the entire next tour. You're getting to be as good a cook as your grandmother."

Lona preened, looking pleased. "Thanks, Uncle Dougal."

"Oh, don't call me a grandmother," Melanie pleaded, brushing at invisible crumbs on her skirt. "It makes me feel so old."

"And think of how it would make Lunzie feel," Lars said, with more truth than tact. Lunzie shot him a sharp look, but he seemed oblivious. "How are things at the factory?" Drew asked Lars, settling back with a glass of wine.

"Oh, the same, the same. We've got a contingent from Alien Council for Liberty and Unity protesting before the gates right now."

"The ACLU?" Drew echoed, shocked. "Can they close you down?"

"They can try. But we'll demonstrate substantial losses far beyond accounts receivable for the products, and all they can do is accept what we offer."

"What are they protesting?" Lunzie asked, alarmed.

Lars waved it away as unimportant. "They're representing the Ssli we fired last month from the underwater hydraulics assembly line. Unsuitable for the job."

"But the Ssli are a marine race. Why, what makes them unsuitable?"

"You wouldn't understand. They're too different. They don't mix well with the other employees. And there's problems in providing them with insurance. We have to buy a rider for every mobile tank they bring onto the premises to live in. And that's another thing: they live right on the factory grounds. We almost lost our insurance because of them."

"Well, they can not commute from the sea every day," Tee quipped.

"So they say." Lars dismissed the Ssli with a frown, entirely missing Tee's sarcasm. "We'll settle the matter within a few days. If they don't leave, we'll have to shut the line down entirely anyway. There's other work they can do. We've offered to extend our placement service to them."

"Oh, I see," Lunzie said, heavily. "Very generous of you." It was not so much that she thought the company should drive itself into bankruptcy for the sake of equity as that Lars seemed quite oblivious to the moral dimension of the situation. Lars levelled a benevolent eye at her. "Why, ancestress, how good of you to say so."

Melanie and Lars's wife beamed at her approval, also entirely missing her cynical emphasis.

"Is it considered backwards to read books nowadays?" Lunzie asked Tee later when they were alone in the guest room. "I've only been on the Platform and Astris since I came out of cold sleep the first time. I haven't any idea what society at large has been doing."

"Has that been bothering you?" Tee asked, as he pulled his tunic over his head. "No. Reading has not gone out of fashion in the last number of years, nor in the years you were awake before, nor in the ones while you slept in the asteroid belt. Your relatives do not wish to expose themselves to deep thought, lest they be affected by it."

Lunzie pulled off her boots and dropped them on the floor. "What do you think of them?"

"Your relatives? Very nice. A trifle pretentious, very conservative, I would say. Conservative in every way except that they seem to have put us together in this guest room, instead of at opposite ends of the house. I'm glad they did, though. I would find it cold and lonely with only those dreary moralisers."

"Me, too. I don't know whether to say I'm delighted with them or disappointed. They show so little spirit. Everything they do has such petty motives. Shallow. Born dirtsiders, all of them."

"Except the girl, I think," Tee said, meditatively, sitting down on a fluffy seat next to the bed.

"Oh, yes, Lona. I apologise to her from afar for lumping her with the rest of these... these closed- minded warts on a log. She's the only one with any gumption. And I hope she shows sense and gets out of here as soon as she can."

"So should we." Tee moved over behind Lunzie and began to rub her neck. Lunzie sighed and relaxed her spine, leaning back against his crossed legs. He circled an arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair while his other hand kneaded the muscles in her back. "I don't think I can be polite for very long. We should stay a couple of days, and then let's find an excuse to go."

"As you wish," Tee offered quietly, feeling the tense cords in her back relax. "I would not mind escaping from here, either."

Lunzie tiptoed down the ramp from the sleeping rooms into the common room and the dining room. There was no sound except the far-off humming of the air-recirculation system. "Hello?" she called softly. "Melanie?"

Lona popped up the ramp from the lower level of the house. "Nope, just me. Good morning!"

"Good morning. Shouldn't you be in school?" Lunzie asked, smiling at the girl's eagerness. Lona was both pretty and lively, she looked like a throwback to Lunzie's own family, instead of a member of Melanie's conservative Alphan brood.

"No classes today," Lona explained, plumping down beside her on the couch. "I'm in a communications technology discipline, remember? Our courses are every other day, alternating with work experience either at a factory or a broadcast facility. I've got the day off."

"Good," Lunzie said, looking around. "I was wondering where everyone was."

"I'm your reception committee. Melanie's just gone shopping, and Dalton normally works at home, but he's got a meeting this morning. Where's Tee?"

"Still asleep. His circadian rhythm is set for a duty shift that begins later on."

Lona shook her head. "Please. Don't bother giving me the details. I flunked biology. I'm majoring in communications engineering. Oh, Melanie left you something to look at." Lona produced a package sealed in a black plastic pouch. Curious, Lunzie pulled open the wrapping, and discovered a plastic case with her name printed on the lid.

"They're Fiona's. She left them behind when she went away," Lona explained, peering over Lunzie's shoulder as Lunzie opened the box. It was full of two-D and three-D images on wafers.

"It's all of her baby pictures," Lunzie breathed, "and mine, too. Oh, I thought these were lost!" She picked up one, and then another, exclaiming over them happily.

"Not lost. Melanie said that Fiona brought all of that stuff to MarsBase with her. We don't know who most of these people are. Would you mind identifying them?"

"They're your ancestors, and some friends of ours from long ago. Sit down and I'll show you. Oh, Muhlah, look at that! That's me at four years of age." Lunzie peered at a small two-D image, as they sat down on the couch with the box on their knees.

"Your hair stuck out just like Gordon's does," Lona pointed out, snickering.

"His looks better," Lunzie put that picture back in the box and took out the next one. "This is my mother. She was a doctor, too. She was born in England on Old Earth, as true a Sassenach as ever wandered the Yorkshire Dales."

"What's a Sassenach?" Lona asked, peering at the image of the petite fair-haired woman.

"An old dialect word for a contentious Englishman. Mother was what you'd call strong-minded. She introduced me to the works of Rudyard Kipling, who has always been my favourite author."

"Did you ever get to meet him?"

Lunzie laughed. "Oh, no, child. Let's see, what is this year?"

" 'Sixty-four." "Well, then, next year will be the thousandth anniversary of his birth."

Lona was impressed. "Oh. Very ancient."

"Don't let that put you off reading him," Lunzie cautioned her. "He's too good to miss out on all your life. Kipling was a wise man, and a fine writer. He wrote adventures and children's stories and poetry, but what I loved most of all was his keen way of looking at a situation and seeing the truth of it."

"I'll look for some of Kipling in the library," Lona promised. "Who's this man?" she asked, pointing.

"This is my father. He was a teacher."

"They look nice. I wish I could have known them, like I'm getting to know you."

Lunzie put an arm around Lona. "You'd have liked them. And they would have been crazy about you."

They went through the box of pictures. Lunzie lingered over pictures of Fiona as a small child, and studied the images of the girl as she grew to womanhood. There were pictures of Fiona's late mate and all the babies. Even as an infant, Lars had a solemn, self-important expression, which made them both giggle. Lona turned out the bottom compartment of the box and held out Lunzie's university diploma.

"Why is your name Lunzie Mespil, instead of just Lunzie?" Lona asked, reading the ornate characters on the plastic-coated parchment.

"What's wrong with Mespil?" Lunzie wanted to know.

Lona turned up her lips scornfully. "Surnames are barbaric. They let people judge you by your ancestry or your profession, instead of by your behaviour."

"Do you want the true answer, or the one your uncle Lars would prefer?"

Lona grinned wickedly. She obviously shared Lunzie's opinion of Lars as a pompous old fogy. "What's the truth?"

"The truth is that when I was a student, I contracted to a term marriage with Sion Mespil. He was an angelically handsome charmer attending medical school at the same time I was. I loved him dearly, and I think he felt the same about me. We didn't want a permanent marriage at that time because neither of us knew where we would end up after school. I was in the mental sciences, and he was in genetics and reproductive sciences. We might go to opposite ends of the galaxy - and in fact, we did. If we had stayed together, of course, we might have made it permanent. I kept his last name and gave it to our baby, Fiona, to help her avoid marrying one of her half-brothers at some time in the future." Lunzie chuckled. "I swear Sion was majoring in gynaecology just so he could deliver his own offspring. With the exception of the time we were married, I've never see a man with such an active love life in all my days."

"Didn't you want him to help raise Fiona?" Lona asked.

"I felt perfectly capable of taking care of her on my own. I loved her dearly, and truth be told, Sion Mespil was far better at the engendering of children than the raising. He was just as happy to leave it to me. Besides, my specialty required that I travel a lot. I couldn't ask him to keep up with us as we moved. It would be hard enough on Fiona."

Lona was taking in Lunzie's story through every pore, as if it was a Tri-D adventure. "Did you ever hear from him again after medical school?" she demanded.

"Oh, yes, of course," Lunzie assured her, smiling. "Fiona was his child. He sent us ten K of data or so every time he heard of a message batch being compiled for our system. We did the same. Of course, I had to edit his letters for Fiona. I don't think at her age it was good for her to hear details of her father's sex life, but his genetics work was interesting. He did work on the heavyworld mutation, you know. I think he influenced her to go into medicine as much as I did."

"Is that him?" Lona pointed to one of the men in Lunzie's medical school graduation picture. "He's handsome."

"No. That one." Lunzie cupped her hand behind Sion's holo, to make it stand out. "He had the face of a benevolent spirit, but his heart was as black as his hair. The galaxy's worst practical joker, bar none. He played a nasty trick with a cadaver once in Anatomy... um, never mind." Lunzie recoiled from the memory.

"Tell me!" Lona begged.

"That story is too sick to tell anyone. I'm surprised I remember it."

"Please!"

Remembering the nauseating details more and more clearly, Lunzie held firm. "No, not that one. I've got lots of others I could tell you. When do you have to go home?"

Lona waved a dismissive hand. "No one expects me home. I'm always hanging around here. They're used to it. Melanie and Dalton are the only interesting people. The other cousins are so dull, and as for the parents..." Lona let the sentence trail off, rolling her eyes expressively.

"That's not very tolerant of you. They are your family," Lunzie observed in a neutral voice, though she privately agreed with Lona.

"They may be family to you, but they're just relatives to me. Whenever I talk about taking a job off-planet, you would think I was going to commit piracy and a public indecency! What an uproar. No one from our family ever goes into space, except Uncle Dougal. He doesn't listen to Uncle Lars's rules."

Lunzie nodded wisely. "You've got the family complaint. Itchy feet. Well, you don't have to stay in one place if you don't want to. Otherwise, it'll drive you mad. You live your own life." Lunzie punctuated her sentence with jabs in the air, ignoring the intrusive conscience which told her she was meddling in affairs that didn't concern her.

"Why did you leave Fiona?" Lona asked suddenly, laying a hand on her arm. "I've always wondered. I think that's why everyone else is allergic to relatives going out into space. They never come back."

It was the question that had lain unspoken between her and the others all the last evening. Unsurprised at Lona's honest assessment of her family situation, Lunzie stopped to think.

"I have wished and wished again that I hadn't done it," she answered after a time, squeezing the girl's fingers. "I couldn't take her with me. Life on a Platform or any beginning colony is dangerous. But they pay desperation wages for good, qualified employees and we needed money. I had never intended to be gone longer than five years at the outside."

"I've heard the pay is good. I'm going to join a mining colony as soon as I've graduated," Lona said, accepting Lunzie's words with a sharp nod. "My boyfriend is a biotechnologist with a specialty in botany. The original green thumb, if you'll forgive such an archaic expression. What am I saying?" Lona went wide-eyed in mock shame and Lunzie laughed. "Well, I can fix nearly anything. We'd qualify easily. They say you can get rich in a new colony. If you survive. Fiona used to say it was a half-and-half chance." Lona wrinkled her nose as she sorted the pictures and put them away. "Of course, there's the Oh-Two money. Neither of us has a credit to our names."

Lunzie considered deeply for a few minutes before she spoke. "Lona, I think you should do what you want to do. I'll give you the money."

"Oh, I couldn't ask it," Lona gasped. "It's too much money. A good stake would be hundreds of thousands of credits." But her eyes held a lively spark of hope.

Lunzie noticed it. She was suddenly aware of the generations which lay between them. She had slept through so many that this girl, who could have been her own daughter, was her granddaughter's grand-daughter. She peered closely at Lona, noticing the resemblance between her and Fiona. This child was the same age Fiona would have been if all had gone well on Descartes, and she had returned on time. "If that's the only thing standing in your way, if you're independent enough to ignore family opinion and unwanted advice, that's good enough for me. It won't beggar me, I promise you. Far from it. I got sixty years back pay from Descartes, and I hardly know what to do with it. Do me the favour of accepting this gift - er, loan, to pass on to future generations."

"Well, if it means that much to you..." Lona began solemnly. Unable to maintain the formal expressions for another moment more, she broke into laughter, and Lunzie joined in.

"Your parents will undoubtedly tell me to mind my own business," Lunzie sighed, "and they'd be within their rights. I'm no better than a stranger to all of you."

"What if they do?" Lona declared defiantly. "I'm legally an adult. They can't live my life for me. It's a bargain, Lunzie. I accept. I promise to pass it on at least one more generation. And thank you. I'll never, never forget it."

"A cheery good morning!" Tee said, as he clumped down the ramp into the common room toward them. He kissed Lunzie and bowed over Lona's hand. "I heard laughter. Everyone is in a good mood today? Is there any hope of breakfast? If you show me the food synthesiser, I will serve myself."

"Not a chance!" Lona scolded him. "Melanie would have my eyelashes if I gave you synth food in her house. Come on, I'll cook something for you."

Lona's parents were not pleased that their remote ancestress was taking a personal interest in their daughter's future. "You shouldn't encourage instability like that," Jai complained. "She wants to go gallivanting off, without a thought for the future."

"There's nothing unstable about wanting to take a job in space," Lunzie retorted. "That's the basic of galactic enterprise."

"Well, we won't hear of it. And with the greatest of respect, Lunzie, let us raise our child our way, please?"

Lunzie simmered silently at the reproval, but Lona gave her the thumbs up behind her father's back. Evidently, the girl was not going to mention Lunzie's gift. Neither would she. It would be a surprise to all of them when she left one day, but Lunzie refused to feel guilty. It wasn't as though the signs weren't pointed out to them.

After three days more, Lunzie had had enough of her descendants. She announced at dinner that night that she would be leaving.

"I thought you would stay," Melanie wailed. "We've got plenty of room, Lunzie. Don't go. We've hardly had a chance to get acquainted. Stay at least a few more days."

"Oh, I can't, Melanie. Tee's got to get back to the Ban Sidhe, and so do I. I do appreciate your offer, though," Lunzie assured her. "I promise to visit whenever I'm in the vicinity. Thank you so much for your hospitality. I'll carry the memories of your family with me always."

CHAPTER Nine

As they rode back into Alpha City in a robot groundcar the next morning. Tee patted Lunzie on the hand. "Let us not go back to the ship just yet. Shall we do some sightseeing? I was talking to Dougal. He says there is a fine museum of antiquities here, with controlled atmosphere. And it is connected to a large shopping mall. We could make an afternoon of it."

Lunzie came back from the far reaches and smiled. She had been staring out the window at the gray expanse of city and thinking. "I'd love it. Walking might help clear my head."

"What is cluttering it?" Tee asked, lightly. "I thought we had left the clutter behind."

"I've been examining my life. My original goal, when I woke up the first time, to find Fiona and make sure she was happy and well, was really accomplished long ago, even before I set out for Alpha Centauri. I think I came here just to see Fiona again, to ask her to forgive me. Well, that was for me, not for her. She's moved on and made a life - quite a successful one - without me. It's time I learned to let go of her. There are three generations more already, whose upbringing is so different from mine we have nothing to say to one another."

"They are shallow. You have met interesting people of this generation," Tee pointed out.

"Yes, but it's a sorry note when it's your own descendants you're disappointed in," Lunzie said ruefully. "But I don't know where to go next."

"Why don't we brainstorm while we walk?" Tee pleaded. "I am getting cramped sitting in this car. Museum of Galactic History, please," he ordered the groundcar's robot brain.

"Acknowledged," said the mechanical voice. "Working." The groundcar slowed down and made a sharp right off the highway onto a small side street.

"You could join the service," Tee suggested as they strolled through the cool halls of the museum past rows of plexiglas cases. "They have treated me very well."

"I'm not sure I want to do that. I know my family has a history in the Fleet, but I'm not sure I could stand being under orders all the time, or staying in just one place. I'm too independent."

Tee shrugged. "It's your life."

"If it is my life, why can't I spend two years running without someone throwing me into deepsleep?" She sighed, stepping closer to the wall to let a herd of shouting children run by. "Oh, I wish we could go back to Astris, Tee. We were so happy there. Your beautiful apartment, and our collection of book plaques. Coming home evenings and seeing who could get to the food-prep area first." Lunzie smiled up at him fondly. "Just before I left, we were talking about children of our own."

Tee squinted into the distance, avoiding her eyes. "It was so long ago, Lunzie. I gave up that apartment when I left Astris. I have been on the Ban Sidhe for more than six years. You remember it well because for you it has been only months. For me, it is the beloved past." His tone made that clear.

Lunzie felt very sad. "You're happy being back in space again, aren't you? You came to rescue me, but it's more than that now. I couldn't ask you to give it up."

"I have my career, yes," Tee agreed softly. "But there is also something else." He paused. "You've met Naomi, yes?"

"Yes, I've met Naomi. She treats me with great respect," Lunzie said aggrievedly. "It drives me half mad, and I haven't been able to break her of it. What about her?" she asked, guessing the answer before he spoke.

Tee glanced at her, and gazed down at the floor, abashed.

"I am responsible for the respect she holds for you. I have talked much of you in the years I've been on board. How can she fail to have a high opinion of you? She is the chief telemetry officer on the Ban Sidhe. The commander let me go on the rescue mission on the condition that I signed on to work. He would allow no idle hands, for who knew how long it would take to find the ship and rescue all aboard her? Naomi took me as her apprentice. I learned quickly, I worked hard, and I came to be expert at my job. I found also that I care for her. Captain Aelock offered me a permanent commission if I wish to stay, and I do. I never want to go back to a planet-bound job. Naomi confesses that she cares for me, too, so there is a double attraction. We both mean to spend the rest of our careers in space." He stopped walking and took both of her hands between his. "Lunzie, I feel terrible. I feel as though I have betrayed you by falling in love with someone else before I could see you, but the emotion is strong." He shrugged expressively. "It has been ten years, Lunzie."

She watched him sadly, feeling another part of her life crumble into dust. "I know." She forced herself to smile. "I should have understood that. I don't blame you, my dear, and I couldn't expect you to remain celibate so long. I'm grateful you stayed with me as long as you did."

Tee was still upset. "I am sorry. I wish I could be more supporting."

Lunzie inhaled and let out a deep breath. She was aching to reach out to him. "Thank you. Tee, but you've done all that I really needed, you know. You were by me when I woke up, and you let me talk my head off just so I could reorient myself in time. And if I hadn't had someone to talk to while I was in Melanie's house, I think I would have jetted through the roof! But that's over, now. It's all over, now," Lunzie said, bitterly. "Time has run past me and I never saw it go by. I thought that ten years of cold sleep would have been easier to accept than sixty, but it's worse. My family is gone and you've moved on. I accept that, I really do. Let's go back to the ship before I decide to let them put me in one of those glass cases as an antiquarian object of curiosity."

They arrived just in time for Tee to resume his usual duty shift, and Lunzie went back to her compartment to move the rest of her things down to the BOQ at the base down on Alpha. No matter what she let Tee believe, she had lost a lot of the underpinnings of her self-esteem in the last few days, and it hurt.

Sharu wasn't here, so Lunzie allowed herself fifteen minutes for a good cry, and then sat up to reassess her situation. Self-pity was all very well, but it wouldn't keep her busy or put oxygen in the air tanks. The shuttle was empty except for her and the pilot. Thankfully, he didn't feel like talking. Lunzie was able to be alone with her thoughts.

The base consisted of perfectly even rows of huge, boxlike buildings that all looked exactly alike to Lunzie. A human officer jogging by with a handful of document cubes was able to direct her to the Bachelor Officers' Quarters, where the stranded employees of the Destiny Lines would stay until after they gave their statements to the court. When she reached the BOQ, she took her bags to quarters assigned for her use, and left them there. The nearest computer facilities, she was told, were in the recreation hall.

Using an unoccupied console in the rec room, she called up the current want ads network and began to page through suitable entry headings.

By the middle of the afternoon, Lunzie was feeling much better. She was resolute that she would no longer depend on another single person for her happiness. She added a "reminder" into her daily Discipline meditation to help increase her confidence. The wounds of loss would hurt for a while. That was natural. But in time, they would heal and leave little trace.

She realised all of a sudden that she had had nothing to eat since morning, and now it was nearly time for the evening meal. Her bout of introspection, not to mention the taxing Discipline workout, had left her feeling hollow in the middle. Surely the serving hatches in the mess hall would be open by now. She went back to her quarters, put on fresh garments and pulled on boots to go check.

"Lunzie! The very person. Lunzie, may I speak to you?" Captain Aelock hurried up to her as she stepped out into the main corridor of the building.

"Of course. Captain. I was just on the way to get myself some supper. Would you care to sit with me?"

"Well, er," he smiled a trifle sheepishly, "supper was exactly what I had planned to offer you, but not here. I was hoping to have a chance to chat with you before the Ban Sidhe departed. I am very grateful for the help you've given Dr. Harris since you came aboard. In fact, he is reluctant to let you go. So am I. I don't suppose I can persuade you to join us? We could use more level-headed personnel with your qualifications."

Aelock would be a fine commander to serve under. Lunzie almost opened her mouth to say yes, but remembered Tee and Naomi. "I'm sorry. Captain, but no, thank you."

The captain looked genuinely disappointed. "Ah, well. At any rate, I had in mind to offer you a farewell dinner here on Alpha. I know some splendid local places."

Lunzie was flattered. "That's very kind of you, Captain, but I was only doing my job. A cliche, but still true."

"I would still find it pleasant to stand you a meal, but I must admit that I have a more pressing reason to ask you to dine with me tonight." The captain pulled her around a corner as a handful of crew members walked by along the corridor.

"You have my entire attention," Lunzie assured him, returning the friendly but curious gazes shot toward her by the passing officers.

Aelock tucked her arm under his and started walking in the opposite direction. "I remember when I mentioned planet pirates to you, you were very interested. Am I wrong?"

"No. You said that one of the reasons you were here was to get information as to their whereabouts." Lunzie kept her voice low. "I have very personal reasons for wanting to see them stopped. Personal motives for vengeance, in fact. How can I help?"

"I suspect that one operation might be based out of Alpha's own spaceport, but I haven't got proof!" Lunzie looked shocked and Aelock nodded sadly. "One of my, er, snitches sent me a place and a time when he will contact me, to give me that information. Have dinner with me at that place. If I'm seen dining alone, they'll know something is up. My contact is already under observation, and in terror of his life. You're not in the Fleet computers; you'll look like a local date. That may throw off the pirates' spies. Will you come?"

"Willingly," she said firmly. "And able to do anything to stop the pirates. How shall I dress?"

Aelock glanced over the casual trousers and tunic and polymer exercise boots Lunzie was wearing.

"You'll do just as you are, Lunzie. The food is quite good, but this restaurant is rather on the informal side. It isn't where I should like to entertain you, you may be sure, but my contact won't be entirely out of place there."

"No complaint from me. Captain, so long as supper's soon," Lunzie told him. "I'm starving."

The host of Colchie's Cabana seated Lunzie and Aelock in the shadow of an artificial cliff. The restaurant, a moderately priced supper club, had overdone itself in displaying a tropical motif. All the fruit drinks, sweet or not, had kebabs of fresh fruit skewered on little plastic swords floating in them. Lunzie nibbled on the fruit and took handfuls of salty nut snacks from the baskets in the centre of their table to cut the sugary taste.

Lunzie examined the holo-menu with pleasure. The array of dishes on offer was extensive and appetising. In spite of the kitschy decor and the gaudy costumes of the human help, the food being served to other diners smelled wonderful. Lunzie hoped the rumbling in her stomach wasn't audible. The restaurant was packed with locals chatting while live music added to the clamour.

"Have you had a good look at the corner band?" Lunzie asked, unable to restrain a giggle as she leaned toward Aelock, hiding her face behind the plas-sheet menu. "The percussionist seems to be playing a tree-stump with two handfuls of broccoli! That does, of course, fit in with the general decor very well."

"I know," Aelock said with an apologetic shudder. "Let me reassure you that the food is an improvement on the ambience. Well cooked and, with some exceptions, spiced with restraint."

Despite the casual clothes he was wearing, the captain's bearing still marked him for what he was, making him stand out from the rest of the clientele. Lunzie had a moment's anxiety over that, but surely off-duty officers might dine here without causing great comment.

"That's a relief," Lunzie replied drily, watching the facial contortions of a diner who had just taken a bite of a dish with a very red sauce.

The man gulped water and hurriedly reached for his bowl of rice. Aelock followed her eyes and smiled.

"Probably not a regular, or too daring for his stomach's good. The menu tells you which dishes are hot and which aren't. And ask if you want the milder ones. He's obviously overestimated his tolerance for Chiki peppers."

"Will you have more drinks, or will you order?" A humanoid server stood over them, bowing deferentially, keypad in hand. His costume consisted of a colourful knee-length tunic over baggy trousers with a soft silk cape draped over one shoulder. On his head was a loose turban pinned at the center with a huge jewelled clip. He turned a pleasant expression of inquiry toward Lunzie who managed to keep her countenance. The man had large, liquid black eyes but his face was a chalky white with colourless lips, a jarring lack in the frame of his gaudy uniform. Except for the vivid eyes, the doubtless perfectly healthy alien looked like a human cadaver. Diners here had to have strong stomachs for more than the food.

"I'm ready," Lunzie announced. "Shall I begin? I'd like the mushroom samosas, salad with house dressing, and special number five."

"That one's hot, Lunzie. Are you sure you'd like to try it?" Aelock asked. "It has a lot of tiny red and green capsica peppers. They're nearly rocket fuel."

"Oh, yes. Good heavens, I used to grow LED peppers."

"Good, just checking. I'll have the tomato and cheese salad, and number nine."

"Thank you, gracious citizens," the server said, bowing himself away from the table.

Lunzie and Aelock fed the menus back into the dispenser slots.

"You know, I'm surprised at the amount of sentient labour on Alpha," Lunzie observed as the human server stopped to take drink orders from another table. "There were live tour guides at the museum this morning, and the customs service is only half-automated turnstiles at the spaceport."

"Alpha Centauri has an enormous population, all of whom need jobs," Aelock explained. "It is mostly human. This was one of the first of Earth's outposts, considered a human Homeworld. The non-humanoid population is larger than the entire census of most colonies, but on Alpha, it is still a very small minority. In the outlying cities, most children grow up never having seen an outworlder."

"Sounds like an open field for prejudice," Lunzie remarked, remembering Lars.