"Mere R. & D., Jake. Calculate pressures and temperatures; beef up the vehicle accordingly-spherical, save for exterior anchors-then apply a jigger factor of four. With automatic controls quintuply redundant. Catch it when it comes out and steady it down in Earth's orbit, sixty degrees trailing-and start selling subdivisions the size of old Spanish Land Grants. Jake, we should gather enough mass to create new earths at all Trojan points, a hexagon around the Sun. Five brand-new earths would give the race room enough to. breed. On this maiden voyage let's keep our eyes open."

Aunt Hilda looked at Zebadiah with horror. "Zebbie! Creating planets in~ deed! Who do you think you are? Jesus Christ?"

"I'm not that junior. That's the Holy Ghost over there, scratching his belly., The Supreme Inseminator. I'm the other one, the Maker and Shaper. But ii~ setting up a pantheon for the Celestial Age, we're going to respect women'S rights, Hilda. Deety is Earth Mother; she's perfect for the job. You are Moofl Goddess, Selene. Good job, dear-more moons than earths. It fits you. You'r~ little and silvery and you wax and wane and you're beautiful in all your phaseS~ How about it? Us four and no more."

"Quit pulling my leg!"

My husband answered, "I haven't been pulling your leg. Come closer and I will; you have pretty legs, Step-Mother-in-Law. These things Jake and I have been discussing are practical-once we thought about the fact that the spacetime twister uses no power. Move anything anywhere-all spaces, all times. I add the plural because at first I could not see what Jake had in mind when he spoke of forced aging of a planet. Rotate Venus into the Tau axis, fetch it back along Teh axis, reinsert it centuries-or millennia-older at this point in 't' axis. Perhaps translate it a year or so into the future-our future-so as to be ready for it when it returns, all sweet and green and beautiful and ready to grow children and puppies and butterflies. Terraformed but virginal."

Aunt Hilda looked frightened. "Jacob? Would one highball do any harm to this peanut inside me? I need a bracer."

"I don't think so. Jane often had a drink with me while she was pregnant. Her doctor did not have her stop until her third trimester. Can't see that it hurt Deety. Deety was so healthy she drove Jane home from the hospital."

"Pop, that's a fib. I didn't learn to drive until I was three months old. But I need one, too," I added. "Zebadiah?"

"Certainly, Princess. A medicinal drink should be by body mass. That's half a jigger for you, Sharpie dear, a jigger for Deety, a jigger and a half for Jake- two jiggers for me."

"Oh, how unfair!"

"It certainly is," I agreed. "I outweigh Pop-he's been losing, I've been gaining. Pick us up and see!"

My husband took us each around the waist, crouched, then straightened and lifted us.

"Close to a standoff," he announced. "Pop may be a trifle heavier, but you're more cuddly"-kissed me and put us down.

"There is no one more cuddly than Jacob!"

"Hilda, you're prejudiced. Let's each mix our own drinks, at the strength required for our emotional and physical conditions."

So we did-it wound up with Hilda and me each taking a jigger with soda, Pop taking a jigger and a half over ice-and Zebadiah taking a half jigger of vodka and drowning it with Coke.

While we were sipping our "medicine," Zebadiah, sprawled out, looked up over the fireplace. "Pop, you were in the Navy?"

"No-Army. If you count 'chair-borne infantry.' They handed me a commission for having a doctorate in mathematics, told me they needed me for ballistics. Then I spent my whole tour as a personnel officer, signing papers."

"Standard Operating Procedure. That's a Navy sword and belt up there. Thought it might be yours."

"It's Deety's-belonged to Jane's Grandfather Rodgers. I have a dress saber. Belonged to my Dad, who gave it to me when the Army took me. Dress blues, too. I took them with me, never had occasion to wear either." Pop got up and went into his-their bedroom, calling back, "I'll show you the saber."

My husband said to me, "Deety, would you mind my handling your sword?"

"My Captain, that sword is yours."

"Heavens, dear, I can't accept an heirloom."

"If my warlord will not permit his princess to gift him with a sword, he can leave it where it is! I've been wanting to give you a wedding present-and did not realize that I had the perfect gift for Captain John Carter."

"My apologies, Dejah Thoris. I accept and will keep it bright. I will defend my princess with it against all enemies."

"Helium is proud to accept. If you make a cradle of your hands, I can stand in them and reach it down."

Zebadiah grasped me, a hand above each knee, and I was suddenly three meters tall. Sword and belt were on hooks; I lifted them down, and myself was placed down. My husband stood straight while I buckled it around him-then he dropped to one knee and kissed my hand.

My husband is mad north-northwest but his madness suits me. I got tears in my eyes which Deety doesn't do much but Dejah Thoris seems prone to, since John Carter made her his.

Pop and Aunt Hilda watched-then imitated, including (I saw!) tears in Hilda's eyes after she buckled on Pop's saber, when he knelt and kissed her hand.

Zebadiah drew sword, tried its balance, sighted along its blade. "Handmade and balanced close to the hilt. Deety, your great-grandfather paid a pretty penny for this. It's an honest weapon."

"I don't think he knew what it cost. It was presented to him."

"For good reason, I feel certain." Zebadiah stood back, went into hanging guard, made fast moulinets vertically, left and right, then horizontally clockwise and counterclockwise-suddenly dropped into swordsman's guard- lunged and recovered, fast as a striking cat.

I said softly to Pop, "Did you notice?"

Pop answered quietly. "Know saber. Sword, too."

Hilda said loudly, "Zebbie! You never told me you went to Heidelberg."

"You never asked, Sharpie. Around the Red Ox they called me 'The Scourge of the Neckar."

"What happened to your scars?"

"Never got any, dear. I hung around an extra year, hoping for one. But no one got through my guard-ever. Hate to think about how many German faces I carved into checkerboards."

"Zebadiah, was that where you took your doctorate?"

My husband grinned and sat down, still wearing sword. "No, another school ."

"M.I.T.?" inquired Pop.

"Hardly. Pop, this should stay in the family. I undertook to prove that a man can get a doctorate from a major university without knowing anything and without adding anything whatever to human knowledge."

"1 think you have a degree in aerospace engineering," Pop said flatly.

"I'll concede that I have the requisite hours. I hold two degrees-a bacca

laureate in humane arts... meaning I squeaked through... and a doctorate from an old and prestigious school-a Ph.D. in education."

"Zebadiah! You wouldn't!" (I was horrified.)

"But I did, Deety. To prove that degrees per se are worthless. Often they are honorifics of true scientists or learned scholars or inspired teachers. Much more frequently they are false faces for overeducated jackasses."

Pop said, "You'll get no argument from me, Zeb. A doctorate is a union card to get a tenured job. It does not mean that the holder thereof is wise or learned."

"Yes, sir. I was taught it at my grandfather's knee-my Grandfather Zachariah, the man responsible for the initial 'Z' in the names of his male descendants. Deety, his influence on me was so strong that I must explain him- no, that's impossible; I must tell about him in order to explain me... and how I happened to take a worthless degree."

Hilda said, "Deety, he's pulling a long bow again."

"Quiet, woman. 'Get thee to a nunnery, go!"