"Lazarus...how old are you?"

Lazarus hesitated. "Maureen, I don't want to answer that. I'm older than I look; Ira Howard's experiment was successful. Instead let me tell you about my family. Your family, too; we all are descended from you by one line or another. Two of my wives and one of my co-husbands are descended both from Nancy and from Woodie."

"'Wives? Co-husband?'"

"Sweetheart, marriage takes many forms. Where I live you don't need a divorce or a death to gather in someone you love. I have four wives and three co-husbands-and my sisters, Laz and Lor...and they may marry out of the family or they may stay-and don't look startled; you said you didn't fret when you thought I was your half brother-and don't worry about harm to babies; they know far more about such things at that when-&-where-than they do in the here-&-now. We don't risk harm to babies.

"Of which we have plenty. And cats and dogs and anything a child can pet and take care of. It's a real family in a house to fit a big family.

"I can't tell you about each one; we've got to get our stowaway home. But I want to tell you about one-because you've been insisting that you don't look eighteen-merely because you've been using your breasts to feed babies. Tamara. Descended from you through Nancy and her Jonathan- Want to hear about Nancy's umpty-ump granddaughter? Tamara is about two hundred and fifty years old, I think-"

"Two hundred and fifty!"

"Yes. One of my co-husbands, Ira Weatheral, also from Nancy and Jonathan but from Woodie, too-and named for your father, not for Ira Howard-is over four hundred years old. Maureen, Ira Howard's experiment worked; we have longer life-spans-inherited from you and all our Howard ancestors-but also in that when-&-where they know how to rejuvenate a person. Tamara has had two rejuvenations-one recently and looks as young as you do. Real rejuvenation- Tamara was pregnant when I left.

"But how she looks is not important; Tamara is a healer- and I suspect she gets it from you."

"Theodore-Lazarus-again I don't understand. A healer? Like a faith healer?"

"No. If Tamara has a religious faith, she has never mentioned it. Tamara is calm and happy and serene, and anyone around her feels it so strongly-just as with you, darling!- that he or she is happy, too. If people are ill, they get well faster if Tamara touches them, or talks to them, or sleeps with them.

"But Tamara was not young when I met her. She was quite old and thinking about letting it go at that, dying of old age. But I was ill, very ill, sick in my soul-and Ishtar, later my wife and the topnotch rejuvenator in all the Milky Way, went out and fetched Tamara. Tamara. Little round potbelly, breasts that were really baggy, sags under her eyes, and her chin, all the old-age things.

"Tamara healed the sickness in my soul, just by being with me...and somehow this renewed her own interest in life, and she took another rejuvenation and is young again and has already added another baby to the Maureen-Nancy line and is pregnant still again. You and Tamara are so much alike, Maureen; she's just love with some skin around it- and so are you. But-" Lazarus paused and frowned.

"Maureen, I don't know how to convince you that I'm telling the truth. You'll know it when Woodie's sixth birthday comes around and they blow every whistle and ring every bell and the newsboys shout: 'Extra! Extra! Germany surrenders!' But that'll be too late to help you. I want to stop your worries now!"

"I've stopped worrying, dear one. It sounds wonderful and impossible...and I believe you."

"Do you? I've offered no proof; I've told you a tale impossible on the face of it."

"Nevertheless, I believe it. When Woodrow is six on the seventh of November-"

"No, the eleventh!"

"Yes, Lazarus. But how did you know that his birthday is the eleventh?"

"Why, you told me yourself."

"Dear, I said be was born in November; I did not say what day. Then I deliberately misstated it-and you corrected me at once."

"Well, maybe Ira told me. Or one of the children. Most likely Woodie himself."

"Woodrow does not know the date of his birthday. Wake him and ask him."

"I'd rather not wake him until we get home."

"What is my birthday, dear one?"

"The Fourth of July, 1882."

"What is Marie's birthday?"

"I think she is nine. I don't know the date."

"The other children?"

"I'm not sure."

"My father's birthday?"

"Maureen, is there some point to this? August second, 1852."

"Beloved Lazarus who calls himself 'Theodore,' I have a firm rule with my children. I keep each one from knowing the date of his birth as long as possible so that he won't advertise it and thereby blackmail people for presents. When one is old -enough for school and needs to know the date, he is old enough to be told why, and I make it bluntly plain that if he drops hints ahead of time-no birthday cake, no birthday party. I haven't had to use that penalty; they are all intelligent.

"Last year Woodrow was too young for it to be a problem; his birthday came as a surprise to him. He still does not know the exact date-so I strongly believe. Lazarus, you know the birthdays of your direct ancestors...because you looked them up in the Foundation records. Since you can't tell me the birthdays of my other children, I assume that I've found that proof."

"You know I have had access to the records. I could have looked up any birthday last year."

"Pooh. Why did you bother with the birth date of one child and skip the other seven? How would you know my father's birthday if he had not been of special interest to you? It won't wash, Beloved. You intended to seek out your ancestors and you came prepared for it. I no longer think that you showed up at our church by accident; you went there to find me- and I'm flattered. You probably did the same with Father- at his pool-hall 'chess club.' How did you do it? Private detectives? I doubt that our church or that pool hall can be looked up in the Foundation records."

"Something like that. Yes, gentle ancestress, I looked for an acceptable way to meet you. I would have spent years on it had it been necessary...because I couldn't twist your doorbell and say, 'Hi there! I'm descended from you. May I come in?' You would have called the police."

"I hope I would not have, darling-but thank you for finding a gentler way. Oh, Lazarus, I love you so!-and believe every word and I'm no longer worried -about Brian; I know he'll come back to me! Uh...I'm feeling very brazen again and more passionate than ever and I want to know something. About your family."

"I'm delighted to talk about them. I love them."

"I was most flattered to be compared with your wife Tamara. Darling, you don't have to tell me this: Does it ever happen that two husbands sleep with one wife?"

"Oh, certainly. But it's more likely to be one husband-Galahad-another of your descendants, Grandmother-Galahad and two of our wives; Galahad is the original tireless tomcat."

"That sounds like fun, but it's the other combination that intrigued me. Beloved, my idea of heaven would be to take both you and Brian to bed at once-and do my best to make you both happy. Not that I ever can. But I can dream about it...and will."

"Why not out in the woods and strip down for both of us, just to your 'French postcard' costume? As long as you're dreaming."

"Ooooh! Yes, I'll put that into my dream-and now I'm about to go off like a firecracker!"

"I'd better take you home."

"I think you had better. I'm terribly happy and quite unworried-and will stay so-and very passionate. For you. For Brian. For being a French postcard in the woods. In daylight."

"Maureen, if you can sell the idea to Brian...well, I'll be around until the second of August, l926."

"Well...we'll see. I want to!" She added, "Am I permitted to tell him? Who you are and where you're from-the future-and your prediction that he won't be hurt?"