More time, thought Don. That’s what it was all about, suddenly having more time.

"So, so he’s talking about, what, rejuvenating you thirty-eight years, so you’ll still be around when the next reply is received?"

"Rejuvenating us," said Sarah, firmly — or, at least, in what he knew was supposed to be a firm tone; the quaver never quite left her voice these days. "And, really, there’s no need to stop at that. That would only take us back to being fifty or so, after all."

She paused, took a moment to gather her thoughts. "I remember reading about this.

They say they can regress you to any point after your body stopped growing. You can’t go back before puberty, and you probably shouldn’t go back much earlier than twenty-five, before wisdom teeth have erupted and the bones of the skull have totally fused."

"Twenty-five," said Don, tasting the number, imagining it. "And then you’d age forward again, at the normal rate?"

She nodded. "Which would give us enough time to receive two more replies from…"

She lowered her voice, perhaps surprised to find herself adopting McGavin’s term.

"From my pen pal."

He was about to object that Sarah would be over a hundred and sixty by the time two more replies could be received — but, then again, that would only be her chronological age; she’d be just a hundred physically. He shook his head, feeling woozy, disoriented. Just a hundred!

"You seem to know a lot about this," he said.

She tipped her head to one side. "I read a few of the articles when the procedure was announced. Idle curiosity."

He narrowed his eyes. "Was that all?"

"Sure. Of course."

"I’ve never even thought about living to be over a hundred," he said.

"Of course not. Why would you? The idea of being ancient, withered, worn out, infirm, for years on end — who would fantasize about that? But this is different."

He looked at her, studying her face in a way he hadn’t for some time. It was an old woman’s face, just as his face, he knew, was that of an old man, with wrinkles, creases, and folds.

It came to him, with a start, that their very first date all those years ago had ended in a restaurant with a fireplace, after he’d dragged her to see the premiere of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He recalled how beautiful her smooth features had looked, how her lustrous brown hair had shone in the dancing light, how he’d wanted to stare at her forever. Age had come up then, too, with Sarah asking how old he was. He’d told her he was twenty-six.

"Hey, me, too!" she’d said, sounding pleased. "When’s your birthday?"

"October fifteenth."

"Mine was in May."

"Ah," he’d replied, a mischievous tone in his voice, "an older woman."

That had been so very long ago. And to go back to that age! It was madness. "But… but what would you — would we — do with all that time?" he asked.

"Travel," said Sarah at once. "Garden. Read great books. Take courses."

"Hmmmph," said Don.

Sarah nodded, apparently conceding that she hadn’t enticed him. But then she rummaged in her purse and pulled out her datacom, tapped a couple of keys, and handed him the slim device. The screen was showing a picture of little Cassie, wearing a blue dress, her blond hair in pigtails. "Watch our grandchildren grow up," she said. "Get to play with our great-grandchildren, when they come along."

He blew out air. To get to attend his grandchildren’s college graduations, to be at their weddings. That was tempting. And to do all that in robust good health, but…

"But do you really want to attend the funerals of your own children?" he said.

"Because that’s what this would mean, you know. Oh, I’m sure the procedure will come down in price eventually, but not in time for Carl or Emily to afford it." He thought about adding, "We might even end up burying our grandchildren," but found he couldn’t even give voice to that notion.

"Who knows how fast the cost will come down?" Sarah said. "But the idea of having decades more with my kids and grand-kids is very appealing… no matter what happens in the end."

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe. I — I’m just…"

She reached across the dark polished wood of the table and touched his hand.

"Scared?"

It wasn’t an accusation from Sarah; it was loving concern. "Yeah, I suppose. A bit."

"Me, too," she said. "But we’ll be going through it together."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Are you sure you could stand to have me around for another few decades?"

"I wouldn’t have it any other way."

To be young again. It was a heady thought, and, yes, it was scary, too. But it was also, he had to admit, intriguing. He’d never liked taking charity, though. If the procedure had been something they could have even remotely afforded, he might have been more enthusiastic. But even if they sold their house, sold every stock and bond they owned, liquidated all their assets, they couldn’t begin to pay for the treatment for even one of them, let alone for them both. Hell, even Cody McGavin had had to think twice about spending so much money.

This stuff about Sarah being the one and only person who could communicate with the aliens struck Don as silly. But it wasn’t as though the rejuvenation could be taken back; once done, it was done. If it turned out that McGavin was wrong about her being pivotal, they’d still have all those extra decades.

"We’d need money to live on," he said. "I mean, we didn’t plan for fifty years of retirement."

"True. I’d ask McGavin to endow a position for me back at U of T, or provide some sort of retainer."

"And what will our kids think? We’ll be physically younger than them."

"There is that."

"And we’ll be doing them out of their inheritance," he added.

"Which was hardly going to make them rich anyway," replied Sarah, smiling. "I’m sure they’ll be delighted for us."

The waiter returned, looking perhaps a bit wary of the possibility that he was going to be rebuffed again. "Have we made up our minds ?"

Don looked over at Sarah. She’d always been beautiful to him. She was beautiful now, she’d been beautiful in her fifties, she’d been beautiful in her twenties. And, as her features shifted in the light of the dancing flames, he could see her face as it had been at those ages — all those stages of life they’d spent together.

"Yes," said Sarah, smiling at her husband. "Yes, I think we have."

Don nodded, and turned to the menu. He’d pick something quickly. He did find it disconcerting, though, to see the item descriptions but no accompanying dollar values. Everything has a price, he thought, even if you can’t see it.

Don and Sarah had had another discussion about SETI, a year before the original Sigma Draconis signal had been detected. They’d been in their late forties then, and Sarah, depressed about the failure to detect any message, had been worried that she’d devoted her life to something pointless.

"Maybe they are out there," Don had said, while they went for a walk one evening.

He’d gotten religious about his weight a few years before, and they now did a half-hour walk every evening during the good weather, and he used a treadmill in the basement in winter. "But maybe they’re just keeping quiet. You know, so as not to contaminate our culture. The Prime Directive, and all that."

Sarah had shaken her head. "No, no. The aliens have an obligation to let us know they’re there."

"Why?"

"Because they’d be an existence proof that it’s possible to survive technological adolescence — you know, the period during which you have tools that could destroy your entire species but no mechanism in place yet to prevent them from ever being used. We developed radio in 1895, and we developed nuclear weapons just fifty years later, in 1945. Is it possible for a civilization to survive for centuries, or millennia, once you know how to make nuclear weapons? And if those don’t kill you, rampaging AI or nanotech or genetically engineered weapons might — unless you find some way to survive all that. Well, any civilization whose signals we pick up is almost certainly going to be much older than we are; receiving a signal would tell us that it’s possible to survive."