‘The logical thing. Marlene and I are going out of the Dome, and out upon Erythro's surface.’

‘No!’

‘We'll take precautions. I've been out there before.’

‘You, perhaps,’ said Insigna stubbornly. ‘Not she. Never she.’

Genarr sighed. He whirled in his chair, looking at the false window in the wall of his office as though he were trying to penetrate it and look out upon the redness beyond. Then he looked back at Insigna.

‘Out there is a huge brand-new world,’ he said, ‘one that belongs to no-one and nothing except ourselves. We can take that world and develop it with all the lessons we've learned from our foolish mismanagement of our original world. We can build a good world this time, a clean world, a decent world. We can get used to the redness. We can bring it to life with our own plants and animals. We can make sea and land flourish and start the planet on its own course of evolution.’

‘And the Plague? What of that?’

‘We might eliminate the Plague, and make Erythro ideal for us.’

‘If we eliminate the heat and the gravity, and alter the chemical composition, we can make Megas ideal for us, too.’

‘Yes, Eugenia, but you must admit that the Plague is in a different category from heat, gravity and global chemistry.’

‘But the Plague is just as deadly in its own way.’

‘Eugenia, I think I've told you that Marlene is the most important person we have.’

‘She certainly is to me.’

‘To you, she's important simply because she is your daughter. To the rest of us, she is important for what she can do.’

‘What can she do? Interpret our body language? Play tricks?’

‘She is convinced she is immune to the Plague. If she is, that might teach us-’

‘If she is. It's childish fantasy and you know it. Don't grasp at cobwebs.’

‘There's a world out there, and I want it.’

‘You sound like Pitt after all. For that world, will you risk my daughter?’

‘In human history, much more has been risked for much less.’

‘More shame to human history. And in any case, it's up to me to decide. She's my daughter.’

And Genarr said in a low voice that seemed to contain infinite sorrow, ‘I love you, Eugenia, but I lost you once. I have had this feeble dream of perhaps trying to undo that loss. But now I'm afraid I must lose you again, and permanently. Because, you see, I'm going to tell you that it's not up to you to decide. It is not even up to me to decide. It is up to Marlene. Whatever she decides, she will do, somehow. And because she may well have the ability to win humanity a world, I am going to help her do what she wants to do, despite you . Please, you must accept that, Eugenia.’