She smiled, leaned toward me, and placed a hand on my knee under water. "That's why I insisted on privacy-for Dora's sake. She's self-aware and seems quite vulnerable. Lazarus, I don't mind anyone in this ship hearing anything I've been saying. But I don't discuss surgery when it is likely to upset the patient." She leaned forward. "Scratch between my shoulder blades-pretty please?"

I welcomed time to think, while requiring her to coach me-higher, lower, a little to the left, ah, right there. .

"Hilda, I'm not sure it can be done. I did reprogram Dora so that her loyalty in crisis is to Laz-Lor. But it took me years and was not done by circuitry or by programming Dora is so thoroughly a self-aware personality that it is necessary to win her love in order to aain her lovaltv"

"I find that believable. Lazarus, let's see you pull a hat out of the rabbit."

"You mean-"

"I meant what I said. Any second-rate magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat. Can Lazarus Long pull a hat out of a rabbit? Watch this space next week. It's your problem, Lazarus; you created it. I won't make a second contract with a man in default on his first. Do you want your back scratched while you think? You scratched mine deliciously."

I accepted by leaning forward. Hilda is telepathic though perhaps not in words. She knew which spots and how hard and how long.

And when to stop. She dropped her hand as I straightened up... and her hand brushed against me and stopped. "Well! Truly I did not intend to be provocative, old dear."

I put an arm around her; she did not pull away but continued, "I won't refuse you. I have not given a man reasonable cause to call me a tease since I was twelve. But wouldn't it be sensible to table this until after we have rescued your mother and set up our business structure? If you find-then- that you are interested, you will let me know. If you do, I ask that you cooperate with me in saving my husband's feelings and face. And... I am... having trouble saying this- Damn it! Please stop and tell me the plans for rescuing your mother."

I stopped, allowed a hand's width to separate us. "Have you forgotten the hat and the rabbit?"

"I'm afraid I did. Very well, you've won this round; we attempt to rescue your mother. I waive the broken contract-but we do no further business. Just the rescue, then we leave,"

"I thought you promised me a second chance-later?"

"What? Lazarus, you're a bastard."

"I'm not but the term has no meaning on Tertius. Here's the 'hat.' You designate me your flunky-any title-for this ship. My sole function will be to be in earshot-through Dora or otherwise-to insure that your slightest wish is carried out. Night or day."

"Making me a privileged figurehead, still vulnerable to your whim. The hat won't fit."

"Very well-second hat. We ground on Tertius; I move Dora into another ship-she accepts that; it has happened before. I sign this ship over to you with a new computer of the same capacity, programmed for ship's routine but unawakened. You let it awaken to your personality. You'll be its mother."

"That's better. Close but not on. Lazarus, you and I are going to be in business together a long time. I won't take your ship. Instead you're going to build me a ship, a tender for Gay Deceiver but moved by a Burroughs continua device-the first such ship built by Burroughs & Long, Ltd., a subsidiary of Carter Engineering Company. Another subsidiary is Carter Computers, which may assemble computers but primarily will build Burroughs Time-Space twisters under some innocuous name, and sell them only inside our complex setup- much more complex; we'll work on it together. But our biggest subsidiary will be Libby & Smith, Real Estate. That one rebuilds solar systems."

"What!!"

"Talk to Zebbie and Jacob. We'll organize Black Hat Safaris, Pty., too, but it may be a dummy for a while. We'll have an emporium in New Rome, imports from many universes. Uh... The Pawnshop, of course, with the Hook Joint above it. Ultra expensive imported styles up there, modelled by New Rome's most beautiful hetaerae. Private rooms for private viewings. This one is a gift to Laz-Lor, save for the ten percent that is voting stock of which I vote my usual control, through you. The twins can do as they please with it; our leash will be slack. Probably they will do their own importing, with a resident manager. But they might work in it some, just to know the business."

"Which business?"

"Both. They are grown women, Lazarus; you must not try to run their lives. The overall holding company, run by you and me, usual split with my one percent advantage, is a nonprofit corporation supporting Ishtar's clinic. We funnel whatever is needed into the clinic, holding down the book profits elsewhere, but paying whopping salaries and consulting fees. My husband is chief scientist in one part while consultant by fee elsewhere, with Elizabeth-Lib- his mirror image elsewhere. Lazarus, we must have Deety work on it; she has the finest head in our family for manipulation of this sort-I'm just her awed pupil."

"And I'm just your awed pupil!"

"Piffle again. Lazarus, from what I've read of you, your sole weakness lies in a delight in cheating for its own sake; Deety treats it as an intellectual art. One thing more- No, two things. Can you persuade Dora, as a favor to 01' Buddy Boy, to go along with the hoax until we deliver your mother to Ishtar? Make it a mammoth joke, under which she takes orders from me because she wants to be in on the fun. Take you out of arrest, of course; wipe it from her memory."

"It was never in her memory; Lor put her in nonrecording mode while the hooraw was on."

"Good! Can you persuade her to call me 'Commodore' while you use some fancy title?"

"Hilda, I'm your chief of staff for this ship; Zeb is chief of staff, flagship. Dora doesn't really understand ranks; I can tell her that 'chief of staff is one notch senior to God. No problem. As long as she can see that you and I are buddy-buddy,"

"And we are!"

"It's reassuring to hear that. Hilda, I underestimated you so badly that I'm still in a state of shock. What's the last item?"

"Rejuvenation for all of us for as long as you-Ishtar-can stretch nonHowards"

"I can promise that; I'm Board Chairman of the Clinic. But-Ishtar is not a magician. What's the average age of death for your parents, grandparents, any ancestors you know about?"

"My family, both sides, are considered long-lived-although I lost my parents in a car crash. The others I don't know about except that Deety's mother died of cancer, much too young."

"We can handle that."

"Is longevity on Earth-our Earth, not yours-of interest? Same length of year as Old-Home-Terra; Deety and Lor checked."

"Of course!"

"These figures apply to North America. Some other places are higher, some lower, some no data. Females. Menarche at thirteen plus-or-minus nine percent. Menopause at fifty-six to sixty-seven plus-or-minu-"

"Stop there! Average age of death, female?"

"One hundred seventeen. But males average eight years less. Sad. My own family averages higher, but only a few years. I don't know about Jacob but he mentioned once that his great-grandfather got himself killed, in an odd fashion, at ninety-seven. He-"

"Enough. I must report this. By definition, all of you are 'Missing Howards."

"But, Lazarus, that's simply the average on Earth-our Earth, now that I know that there are thousands of analogs."

"Doesn't matter. Different universe, different time line-not my problem. Here you are a Howard. You four and all your descendants."

Hilda smiled happily. "That's cheerful news to a woman six weeks pregnant."

"You?"

"And Deety. Same time and doesn't show yet. Lazarus, I was tempted a while ago to tell you... because I was tempted. Now, now! Down, Rover! Outline to me how we rescue a woman dead for many centuries."