“ Lied,preciosa?” I looked at her candid fair face. In general one telepath cannot lie to another but there are levels of truth and deceit. Dio had let her hair grow; now it was long enough to tie at the back of her neck, and her eyes were that color so common in fair-haired women, which can be blue or green or gray, depending on the health, and mood, and what she is wearing. She had on a loose dress of leaf-green—her body was heavy, now—and her eyes glowed like emeralds.

“Lied,” she repeated. “You thought it was an accident— that I had become pregnant by accident or oversight. It was deliberate. I am sorry.”

“But why, Dio?” I was not angry, only perplexed. I had not wanted this to happen, at first, but now I was altogether happy about it.

“Lerrys—had threatened to take me back to Darkover for this Council season,” she said. “A pregnant woman cannot travel in space. It was the only way I could think of to make sure he would not force me to go.”

I said, “I am glad you did.” I could not, now, envision life without Dio.

“And now, I suppose, he will use the knowledge that I am married, and have a son,” I said. It was the first time I had been willing to ask myself what would become of the Alton Domain, with both my father and myself self-exiled. My brother Marius was never accepted by the Council; but if there really was no other Alton Heir, they might make the best of a bad bargain and accept him. Otherwise it would probably go to my cousin Gabriel Lanart; he had married a Hastur, after all, and he had three sons and two daughters by his Hastur wife. They had wanted to give it, and the command of the Guards, to Gabriel in the first place, and my father would have saved a lot of trouble if he had permitted it.

It would all be the same in the end anyhow, for I would never return to Darkover.

Time slid out of focus. I was kneeling in a room in a high tower, and outside the last crimson light of the red sun set across the high peaks of the Venza mountains behind Thendara. I knelt at the bedside of a little girl, five or six years old, with fair hair, and golden eyes… Marjorie’s eyes… I had knelt at Marjorie’s side like this… and we had seen her together,our child, that child… but it had never been, it would never be, Marjorie was dead… dead… a great fire blazed, surged through my brain… and Dio was beside me, her hand on the hilt of a great sword—

Shaken, I surfaced, to see Dio looking at me in shock and dismay.

“Our child, Lew—? And on Darkover—”

I gripped at the back of a chair to steady myself. After a time I said shakily, “I have heard of a laran—I thought it was only in the Ages of Chaos—which could see, not only the future, but many futures, some of which may never come to pass; all of the things which mightsomeday happen. Perhaps—perhaps, somewhere in my Alton or Aldaran heritage there is a trace of that laran, so that I see things which may never be. For I have seen that child once before—with Marjorie—and I thought it was herchild.” Dimly I realized that I had spoken Marjorie’s name aloud for the first time since her death. I would always remember her love; but she had receded very far, and I was healed of that, too. “Marjorie,” I said again. “I thought it was our child, our daughter; she had Marjorie’s eyes. But Marjorie died before she could bear me any child, and so what I thought was a true vision of the future never came to be. Yet now I see it again. What does it mean, Dio?”

She said, with a wavering smile, “Now I wish my laranwere better trained. I don’t know, Lew. I don’t know what it means.”

Nor did I; but it made me desperately uneasy. We did not talk about it any more, but I think it worked inward, coloring my mood. Later that day she said she had an appointment with one of the medics at the Terran Empire hospital; she could have found any kind of midwife or birth-woman in Vainwal, which spanned a dozen dozen cultures, but since she could not be tended as she would be on Darkover, the cool impersonality of the Terran hospital suited her best.

I went with her. Now, thinking back, it seems to me that she was very quiet, shadowed, perhaps, by some weight of foreknowledge. She came out looking troubled, and the doctor, a slight, preoccupied young man, gestured to me to come and talk with him.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said at once. “Your wife is perfectly well, and the baby’s heartbeat is strong and sound. But there are things I don’t understand. Mr. Montray-Lanart— ” my father and I both used that name on Terra, for Alton is a Domain, a title, rather than a personal name, and Lord Armidameant nothing here—“I notice your hand; is it a congenital deformity? Forgive me for asking—”

“No,” I said curtly. “It was the result of a serious accident.”

“And you did not have it regenerated or regrown?”

“No.” The word was hard and final and this time he understood that I would not talk about it. I understand there are cultures where there are religious taboos against that kind of thing, and it was all right with me if he thought I was that sort of idiot. It was better than trying to talk about it. He looked troubled, but he said, “Are there twins in your family, or other multiple births?”

“Why do you ask?”

“We checked the fetus with radiosound,” he said, “and there seems to be—some anomaly. You must prepare yourself for the fact that there might be some—minor deformity, unless it is twins and our equipment did not pick up exactly what we intended; twins or multiple births lying across one another can create rather odd images.”

I shook my head, not wanting to think about that. But my hand was nota congenital deformity, so why was I worried? If Dio was carrying twins, or something like that, it was not surprising that we could not clearly identify male or female.

Dio asked, when I came out, what the doctor had said.

“He said he thought you might be carrying twins.”

She looked troubled, too. She said, “He told me the placenta was in a difficult position—could not see the baby’s body as clearly as he could wish,” she said. “But it would be nice to have twins. A boy anda girl, perhaps.” She leaned on my arm and said, “I’m glad it won’t be long now. Not forty days, perhaps. I’m tired of carrying him, or them, around— it will be nice to let you hold him for a while!”

I took her home, but when we arrived we found a message on the communicator which was an integral part of all Empire apartments; my father was ill and asking for me. Dio offered to go with me; but she was tired after the morning’s excursion, so she sent him loving messages, and begged his pardon for not attending him, and I set off for the city alone.

I had expected to find him abed, but he was up and around, his step dragging. He motioned me to a chair, and offered me coffee or a drink, both of which I refused.

“I thought I’d find you laid up. You look as if you ought to be in bed,” I said, risking his wrath, but he only sighed. He said, “I wanted to say good-bye to you; I may have to go back to Darkover. A message has come from Dyan Ardais—”

I grimaced. Dyan had been my father’s friend since they were children together; but he has never liked me, nor I him. My father saw my expression and said sharply, “He has befriended your brother when I was not there to guard his interests, Lew. He has sent me the only news I had—”

“Don’t you throw that up at me,” I said sharply. “I never asked you to bring me here! Or to Terra, either.”

He waved that aside. “I won’t quarrel with you about that. Dyan has been a good friend to your brother—”

“If I had a son,” I said deliberately, “I would want a better friend for him than that damned sandal-wearer!”

“We’ve never agreed on that, and I doubt we ever will,” said my father, “but Dyan is an honorable man, and he has the good of the Comyn at heart. Now he tells me that they are about to pass over Marius, and formally give over the Alton Domain to Gabriel Lanart-Hastur.”