They’d showered once they got back to the Safe Harbor, was all, for the warmth, if nothing else, and Fletcher hoped the next shift got an immense amount done that they wouldn’t have to do.

He shut his eyes… plunged into black…

… wakened to dimmest light and twelve-year-old voices telling each other not to wake Fletcher.

In the next second he saw a flash of light on the wall, moving shadows against it, and heard the door shut. He rolled over, saw nothing but black, got up, and banged his shin on a table.

“System. Light!” he ordered the robot, and, seeing the beds vacant, and hearing nothing from the bathroom: “Jeremy? Dammit!”

He flung on clothes, not bothering with the thermal shirt, just the work blues and the boots, and headed for the lift. Which didn’t come.

He took the bare metal stairs and arrived down in the lobby. Third shift was coming in, a scatter of juniors.

Chad and Connor.

“Fletcher!” Connor said.

He ignored the hail and went into the dining room, hoping for junior-juniors in the press of spacers in the breakfast line.

“Fletcher.” Connor. And Chad.

“I don’t see the kids,” he said.

“What’d they do?” Connor wasn’t being sarcastic. It was concern. “Get past you?”

“Yes,” he muttered, and went out into the lobby again, looking for twelve-year-olds in the press of spacers in dingy coveralls with non- Finity patches.

They were at the vending machines. Linda had a sealed cup in her hands.

“You got to watch them,” Connor said at his shoulder.

“I was watching them,” he retorted, wanting nothing to do with his help.

He went over to claim the kids.

“You weren’t supposed to get up yet,” Linda said, spotting him. “We were bringing you hot chocolate.”

With cup in hand. He let go a breath. “For what?”

“For breakfast.”

He looked at his watch. For the first time. It was shift-change. Alterdawn. 1823h. And kid-bodies were justifiably hungry.

“You want breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Yessir.”

He was disreputable, in yesterday’s clothes, but he marched them into the restaurant, saw them fed.

A senior came by the table. “Board call, 0l00h tomorrow. We’re moving faster than we’d hoped.”

He thanked the senior, who was stopping at every table. 0100h was in their shift’s night. They worked two shifts and then had to scramble to make board-call.

“Tonight?” Vince said, screwing up his face. Linda slumped over her synth eggs on a bridge of joined hands. Jeremy just looked worn thin.

They’d passed out painkillers in the rest-area, and they’d taken them, preventative of the soreness they might otherwise feel, but hands still hurt, feet still stung with the cold, noses were red and chapped, and as for recreation at this port, Fletcher ached for his own bed, his own things; they’d been too tired even to use the tapes when they’d gotten into the room. The vid hadn’t even tempted the junior-juniors. Showers had, and hot water produced sleep. They’d just fallen into bed it seemed to him an hour ago.

And they had one more duty to get through, and then undocking.

At a time when they’d have been ready to fall into bed, they’d be boarding.

Twenty hundred hours and they had signatures on the line and scuttlebutt flying through Voyager corridors—as if the whole station had waited, listening, for what had become the worst-kept secret on the station: Voyager was getting an agreement with its local merchanters, with Mariner, with Pell and potentially with Union. News cameras showed up outside the restricted area where they’d held the meetings, and outside the customs zones of every starship in dock. Crowds gathered. The vid was live feed whenever the reporters could get anybody on camera to comment: it was the craziest atmosphere JR had ever seen. It scared him when he considered it, as—after a hike across the besieged docks, and attended by all the public notice outside—the Voyager stationmaster, three of the captains of Finity’s End , and three of the scruffiest freighter-captains in civilized space, along with members of Voyager Station’s administration and members of the respective crews, showed up in the foyer of the fanciest restaurant on Voyager.

The maitre d’ hastened them to the reserved dining room.

JR was well aware of their own security, who had been on site inspecting the premises even before they’d confirmed the reservation. They’d gone through the kitchens down to the under-cabinet plumbing and they were standing guard over the foodstuffs allowing absolutely nothing else to be brought in unless Finity personnel brought it.

He was linked directly to Francie’s Tech 1, who was running security on station.

He was linked to Bucklin, who was shuttling between his watch over the door and their security’s watch on the kitchen.

He was linked to Lyra, who was linked to Wayne and Parton, who were back at the Safe Harbor Inn, literally sitting in the hallway to watch the rooms.

And he was linked to Finity ’s ops, which told him they were working as hard as humanly possible to clear this port while they still had something to celebrate, and to get them on toward Esperance, where things were far less sure, and where the celebration of an agreement would not be so universal.

Maybe it was an omen, however, that from no prior understanding, the party once seated in the dining room took five minutes to arrive at a completely unified menu choice, to help out the cooks, and Finity agreed to pick up the tab.

Besides providing a couple of cases of Scotch and three of Downer wine to the ecstatic restaurant owner, who provided several bottles back again, enough to make the party hazardously rowdy with the restaurant’s crystal.

“To peace,” was the toast. “And to trade!”

There was unanimous agreement.

“We may see this War finished yet,” Jacobite said.

“To the new age,” Hannibal proposed the toast, and they drank together.

“I began my life in peace,” the Old Man said then. “I began my life in peace, I helped start the War, and I want to see the War completely done with; I want to see peace again, in my lifetime. Then I can let things go.”

There was a moment of analysis. Then: “No, no,” everyone had hastened to say, the polite, and entirely sincere, wishes that Finity would continue in command of the Alliance.

“No one else can do what you’ve done,” the Voyager stationmaster said, and Hannibal added:

“Not by a damn sight, Finity .”

The Old Man shook his head, and remained serious. “That’s not the way it should be. It’s time . I’m old . That’s not a terrible thing. I never bargained for immortality, and I can tell you relative youngsters there comes a time when you aren’t afraid of that final jump. A life has to end, and I’ll tell you all, I want mine to end with peace. That’s my requirement. All loose ends tied. I want this agreement.”

There was lingering unease.

“You’ve got it, brother,” Madison said with a laugh, and got the conversation started again, simply skipping by the statement as a given.

Madison, himself almost as old.

It was a difficult, an unprecedented moment. JR drew a whole breath only after Madison had smoothed things over, and asked himself then why the Old Man had let the mood slip, or why he’d talked about his concerns.

Getting tired, he said to himself. The captain hadn’t slept but a couple of hours last night; and even the Old Man was human.

A hard effort, they’d made, to clear this port quickly, before the two ships that had gone ahead of them had had the chance to gossip or disturb the quiet atmosphere they hoped for—