"I'll go with you!"

"Will you?"

"Where will we go?"

"Fargone. Not for a while yet. But I really want to be sure you're all right. Because I do love you. I love you more than I do anyone. Enough to leave you here if that's what you want, or to take you with me, or to do anything you want me to. You deserve that, after all these years. I want you to be happy."

He started to answer, hitching up on one elbow. Facile and quick, an azi's ready and sincere protest of loyalty. She stopped him with a hand on his lips.

"No. Listen to me. I'm getting older, Ollie. I'm not immortal. And they're so damn scared I won't turn Ari loose when I have to— That's coming, Ollie. Two more years. God, how fast it's gone! Sometimes I could kill her; and sometimes—sometimes I feel so damn sorry for her. Which is what they don't want. They're afraid I'll break the rules, that's at the center of it. They—Giraud and Denys, damn their hearts, have decided she's too attached to you. They want that to stop. No more contact with her. Cold and critical. That's the prescription. Sometimes I think they earnestly hope I'll drop dead on cue, just like the damn script. I had a talk with Giraud today—" She drew a deep breath and something hurt behind her eyes and around her heart. "They offered me the directorship at RESEUNESPACE. Fargone. The Ru-bin Project, with bows and ribbons on it."

"Did you take it?" he asked, finally, when breath was too choked in her to go on.

She nodded, bit her lip and got it under control. "I did. Sweet Giraud. Oh, you just withdraw to Wing One when she's seven,that was what they told me when I took this on. Now they've got the nervies about it and they want me the hell out of reach. It's not enough,Giraud says. Olga died when Ari was seven. Being over in Wing One, just walking out of her life, that's too much rejection, too attainable an object.Dammit. So they offer me the directorship. Morley's out, I'm in, dammit."

"You always said you wanted to go back to space." Another several breaths. "Ollie, I wanted to. I've wanted to for years and years. Until—somewhere I just got old. And they offered me this, and I realized I don't want to go anymore. That's a terrible thing to realize, for an old spacer brat. I've gotten old on the ground, and all the things I know are here, everything that's familiar, and I want it around me, that's all—" Another breath. "Not the way I'm going to have it, though. They can promote me. Or they can retire me. Damned if I'll take retirement. That's the trouble of doing your job and never bothering to power-grab. That upstart Giraud can fire me. That's what it comes down to. Damn his guts. So I go to Fargone. And start the whole thing over with another damn brat, this one with medical problems. Shit, Ollie. Do somebody a favor and look at what they do to you."

Ollie brushed at her hair. Stroked her shoulder. Ached his heart out for her, that was what Ollie would do, because she was his Supervisor, and god was in trouble.

"Well, hell if I want to drag you into the same mess. Think what it'll be, if you go out there. I'll die on you in not so many years—add it up, Ollie; and there you are, twenty lightyears from civilization. What kind of thing is that to do to somebody who's got less choice than I do? Huh? I don't want to put you in that kind of position. If you like it here at Reseune, I can get you that CIT tape and you can stay here where it's civilized, no take-hold drills and no Keis and fishcakes and no corridors where people walk off the ceiling ..."

"Jane, if I tell you I want to go, what will you tell me? That I'm a stupid azi who doesn't know what he wants? I know. Am I going to let you go off with some damn azi out of the Town?"

"I'm a hundred and—"

"—I don't care. I don't care. Don't make us both miserable. Don't playact with me. You want me to tell you I want to be with you, I'm telling you. But it's not fair to hold this over me. I can hear it. Dammit, Ollie, I'll leave you behind, I will—I don't want to listen to that for two years. I don't even want to think about it."

Ollie was not one to get upset. He was. She saw that finally and reached up and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. "I won't do that. I won't do it. Damn, this is too much seriousness. Damn Giraud. Damn the project. Ollie, they don't want you to touch Ari after this."

His brow furrowed in distress. "They blame me."

"It's not a question of blame. They see she likes you. It's the damn program. They wanted to take you out of here right away and I told them go to hell. I told them I'd blow it, right then. Tell the kid everything. And they'llwalk a narrow line, damn right they will. So they had a counteroffer ready. One they thought I'd jump at. And a threat. Retirement. So what could I do? I took the directorship. I get myself and you—you—out of here. I should be glad of that."

"I'm sorry if I did this."

"Dammit, no, you didn't. I didn't. No one did it. Olga never beat the kid. Thank God. But I can't stand it, Ollie. I can't stand it anymore."

"Don't cry. I can't stand that."

"I'm not about to. Shut up. Roll over. It's my turn. Do you mind?"

xii

"Of course not," he said to Petros, across the desk from him, while the Scriber ran, and he knew well enough they had a voice-stress running, that was probably reading-out to Petros on that little screen. Petros glanced from it often and sometimes smiled at him in his best bedside manner.

"You're involved in an intimate relationship with your companion," Petros said. "Don't you have any misgivings about that? You know an azi really can't defend himself against that kind of thing."

"I've really thought about that. I've talked with Grant about it. But it's the pattern we were brought up with, isn't it? And for various reasons, you know what I'm talking about, we both have problems that cut us off from the rest of the House, and we were both—let's call it—in need of support."

"Describe these problems."

"Oh, come on, Petros, you know and I know we're not on top of the social set. Political contagion. I don't have to describe it for you."

"You feel isolated."

He laughed. "My God, were you at the party? I thought you were."

"Well, yes." A glance at the monitor. "I was. She's a nice little kid. What do you think?"

He looked at Petros, raised an eyebrow at Petros' dour drollery, and gave a bitter laugh. "I think she's a bit of a brat, and what kid isn't?" He made it a quiet smile, catching Petros' eye. "Thank God Icouldn't get pregnant. You might have a kid of mine to play with. Put that in your tapes and file it. How am I doing on voice-stress?"

"Well, that was tolerably stressed."

"I thought it was. You're trying to get me to react, but do we have to be grotesque?"

"You consider the child grotesque."

"I consider the kid charming. I think her situation is grotesque. But evidently your ethics can compass it. They're holding my father at gunpoint as far as I'm concerned, so I'm damn well not going to make a move. Those are my ethics. Am I lying?"

Petros was not smiling. He was watching the monitor. "Nice. Nice reaction."

"I'm sure."

"Annoyed as hell, are you? What do you think of Giraud?"

"I love him like my own father. How's that for comparisons? True or false?"

"Don't play games with this. You can do yourself harm."