Three days before his date of departure, Ardan finally made the short trip to their modest villa. Though dreading the scene that must follow, he knew that duty demanded this farewell. If he should not return, his parents would suffer if they had not seen him one last time.

He found Adriaan stripped to the waist, supervising the loading of grain from the fields behind the villa. The old soldier had not taken kindly to retirement. Inactivity would kill him more quickly than a laser, he had always maintained. So the elder Sortek had gone into farming with the same fervor he had applied to his military career.

As a result, his fields produced twice as much grain, his vineyards twice as many grapes, his trees twice as much fruit as those of any of his dilettante neighbors. For most of the local gentry, the farms in the countryside around the city were dedicated more to the amusement of the wealthy than the production of food.

Only his long service and the friendship of his son with the ruler had allowed Adriaan to situate himself and his family in such a wealthy neighborhood. However, he oversaw every step of the work, from the preparation of the fields in the planting season to the gathering at harvest time.

Covered with dust and sweat, he stepped down from a grain-bin as Ardan approached on foot through the orchard.

"Well," said the older man. "You are going back to active duty, I hear."

Ardan swallowed hard. "The Brigade isn't exacdy inactive," he murmured.

His father slapped him on the shoulder. "You know what I mean. Drilling without killing just doesn't accomplish all that much when it comes to keeping your skills intact. You have to draw blood to be a soldier."

Ardan had a swift interior vision of the child in the dust, but he swallowed again, and used sheer will to turn his thoughts away from that image.

"Well, I'll be back into it soon enough; we leave day after tomorrow. Hanse has all the timing worked out. I wouldn't say this to anyone else but you, but we should arrive on Dragon's Field a few hours after the last of the detachments from Ral and Hamlin. We will all jump together then, and when our DropShips land, we'll hit Stein's Folly from a number of directions, all at once. He has some air support arranged, too, which should help distract the Liao forces from our advance." His father nodded approval, and might have asked a question or two if Vela Sortek had not come out to meet them as they strolled toward the low, comfortable-looking house. Ardan waved at his mother.

"Dan! Come, let me hug you! My soul, you have grown up to be a fine-looking man. I simply cannot think why you don't find a nice girl and provide us with some grandchildren!"

He laughed affectionately at this familiar refrain, and bent to hug her tightly. Vela was still sturdy and square, her smock smelling of fresh-baked bread, sachet, and the soil of her kitchen-garden. She was a fanatic about cooking only freshly harvested vegetables. Her servants were used to her close supervision, and, unlike those of more detached mistresses, bore with her instructions patiently.

"I have a specially good meal planned for this evening, but if I'd known you were coming, I'd have invited Listessa," she said.

When Ardan looked almost as bored as he always felt when in the company of their nearest neighbor's loquacious daughter, Vela Sortek sighed with resignation. She pinched his sleeve between two fingers and shook the cloth impatiently.

"I simply do not know how you expect the race to continue when you youngsters go off on your noisy machines and leave all the girls who aren't warriors to their own devices. Where you think grandchildren are going to come from, I do not know!" She looked up at him, her round cheeks flushed beneath their tan.

"What about Felsa? She married, right enough. Her child, if and when she has one, will be just as much a grandchild as mine would be." He grinned secretly, knowing his mother watched his sister's waistline with as much attention as he paid to an approaching enemy 'Mech. So far, though, Felsa had remained as slim and lissome as ever.

His father grunted. "Six months," he said. "In just six months, your mother will get off your back. She'll have her precious grandchild and, if the Divine is merciful, well hear no more about it." He sounded gruff and careless but when Ardan looked around at Adriaan, the ex-soldier was beaming helplessly.

They went together into the house, where they were soon joined for supper by Felsa and her man. When the meal was done and cleared away, Ardan and his sister reminisced about old times when she had trained as a MechWarrior with her older brother.

Felsa had been injured when her ‘Mech's shielding failed during a fire-test, and for a long while, it looked as though she might have been blinded. When Felsa's vision did return, her mother had demanded that she leave the training.

She had not really minded, no longer being physically fit for the grueling training, much less for combat. She had soon married her Mak, whose neighboring parents had also favored the match.

Brother and sister still could talk shop, however. Felsa was eternally interested in new battle techniques being devised. "How are the ‘Mechs holding up?" she asked, as they sat in the soft twilight of the terrace.

"Fairly well," Ardan said with a shrug. "Battles don't help, of course, but the Techs keep scrounging parts, combining 'Mechs that have had severe damage. We do need to redevelop the necessary technologies," he replied.

"Hanse Davion must be attempting that very thing," Adriaan said. "I hear that NAIS is working hard to releam the old techniques and to develop fresh ones suitable for our needs."

He reached to take his wife's hand. "It occurs to me that this latest attack by the Capellans may have been motivated by the fear that we would succeed in all that After all, their weaponry and systems, like everyone else's, are wearing out and being lost from year to year."

Ardan nodded in the growing dark. "That's a possibility, but there are probably many reasons. One of which is the fact that Hanse has persisted in meddling in the affairs of other Houses."

Adriaan moved irritably. He and his son had had many arguments over this very issue. The old soldier knew what happened when weak rulers didn't know how and when to apply pressure. He had tried to make Ardan see the realities, but their two heads were equally hard.

"Time will teach you, I fear," he said. "Time and the battles to come." Adriaan sighed then, and shrugged. "It's true that the young cannot wear the heads of the old."

Ardan rose from his comfortable chair. One of New Avalon's moons was rising, filling the fields and gardens with tenuous light.

"I must go. Another hard day tomorrow when we get a battery of medical checkups and shots. I likely won't be able to come again before liftoff."

He heard his mother make a soft, despairing sound. He turned and kissed her cheek. "You take care of this old man. Make him be careful...just a little. I'd like to see the old coot again."

Felsa rose to give him a parting hug. "You take care, yourself," she said. "And when you come back, you will probably be an uncle. That should give you some incentive!"

He laughed. "It will, I'm sure. Goodbye Felsa...Mak. Goodbye all!" Ardan called, as he turned and went down the steps of the terrace to the path. This footway led along a stream into the city. An hour's walk would see him back in the ready-barracks. He needed the time alone.

Walking away, he knew that his mother was probably weeping softly now, his father stroking her hand helplessly. Felsa would be watching him go, holding tightly to Mak's hand and being grateful that her man was a farmer, not a soldier.