There had been other surprises though—at least they'd been surprises until he thought things through. Two days ago, Smith had called, inviting him back to the Service. Today, when she showed up at his shop in Princeton, he'd half expected the discreet security—but Sherkaner Underhill's presence had been totally unexpected. Not so surprising was the pleasure he'd felt in seeing the two again. Hrunkner Unnerby had achieved no fame for his role in truncating the Great War; it would be at least ten years before the records of their walk in the Dark were unsealed. But his share of the bounty for that mission had been twenty times his life's savings. Finally, an excuse to quit the Service, a chance to do something constructive with his engineering background.

In the first years of a New Sun, there were enormous works to be done, under conditions that could be as dangerous as combat. In some cases real combat was involved. Even in a modern civilization, this phase of the sun was one where treachery—from theft to murder to squatting—was common. Hrunkner Unnerby had done very well, so perhaps the biggest surprise was how easy it had been for Victory Smith to persuade him to accept a thirty-day enlistment. "Just long enough to learn what we're up to and decide whether you'd like to come back to longer service."

Hence this trip to Lands Command. So far, it was a welcome vacation, a meeting with old friends (and it's not often a sergeant got chauffeured by a general officer). Sherkaner Underhill was as much the unhinged genius as ever, though the nerve damage he'd suffered in their ad hoc deepness made him seem older than he was. Smith was more open and cheerful than he had ever seen her. Fifteen miles out of Princeton, beyond the temporary rowhouses and just into the foothills of the Westermost Range, the two let him in on their personal secret:

"You're what?" Unnerby had said, almost slipping off his perch. Hot rain was slamming down all around them; maybe he hadn't heard right.

"You heard me, Hrunkner. The General and I are wife and husband." Underhill was grinning like an idiot.

Victory Smith raised a pointed hand. "One correction. Don't call me General."

Unnerby was usually better at masking astonishment; even Underhill could see this had taken him by surprise, and his grin got even broader. "Surely you had guessed there was something going on between us before the Big Dark."

"Well..."Yes, though nothing could come of it, what with Sherkaner about to head off for his very uncertain walk in the Dark. Hrunkner had always felt sorry for the two because of that.

In fact, they did make a great team. Sherkaner Underhill had more bright ideas than any dozen people the Sergeant had ever known; but most of his ideas were grossly impractical, at least in terms of what could be accomplished in one person's lifetime. On the other hand, Victory Smith had an eye for workable results. Why, if she hadn't been around at just the right time that afternoon long ago, Unnerby would have booted poor Underhill all the way back to Princeton—and his mad scheme for winning the Great War would have been lost. So, yes. Except for the timing, he wasn't surprised. And if Victory Smith was now the Director of Accord Intelligence, the country itself stood to win big. An ugly thought wormed its way to his mouth, and then seemed to pop out of its own volition: "But children? Not now of course."

"Yup. The General's pregnant. I'll be carrying two baby welts on my back in less than half a year."

Hrunkner realized he was sucking on his eating hands in embarrassment. He gargled something unintelligible. They drove for half a minute in silence, the hot rain hissing back across the windshields.How could theydo this to their own children?

Finally, the General said quietly, "Do you have a problem with this, Hrunkner?"

Unnerby wanted to swallow his hands all over again. He had known Victory Smith since the day she came into Lands Command, a spanking new junior lieutenant, a lady with an unplaced name and an undisguisable youthfulness. You saw almost everything in the military, and everybody guessed straightaway. The junior lieutenant was truly new; she was born out-of-phase. Yet somehow she'd been educated well enough to get into officer school. The rumor was that Victory Smith was the get of a rich East Coast pervert, the fellow's family had finally disowned him, and the daughter who shouldn't exist. Unnerby remembered the slurs and worse that had followed her everywhere for the first quarter year or so. In fact, his first glimmer that she was destined for greatness was the way she stood up to the ostracism, her intelligence and courage in facing the shame of her time of birth.

Finally he got his voice. "Uk. Yes, ma'am. I know. I meant no disrespect. I was brought up to believe a certain way,"about how decent peopleshould live. Decent people conceived their children in the Waning years, and gave birth with the new sun.

The General didn't reply, but Underhill gave him a backhanded pat. "That's okay, Sergeant. You should have seen my cousin's reaction. But just wait; things change. When we have time, I'll explain why the old rules don't really make sense anymore." And that was the most disquieting thing about Sherkaner Underhill: he probably could explain away their behavior—and remain blissfully remote from the rage it would cause in others.

But the embarrassing moment had passed. If these two could put up with Hrunkner's straitlaced nature, he would do his best to ignore their... quirks. Heaven knew he had put up with worse during the war. Besides, Victory Smith was the sort who seemed to create her own propriety—and once created, it was as deep as any Unnerby had known.

As for Underhill...his attention was already elsewhere. His nervous tremor made him look old, but the mind was as sharp—or as flaky—as ever. It flitted from idea to idea, never quite coming to rest the way a normal person's would. The rain had stopped and the wind became hot and dry. As they entered the steep country, Unnerby took a quick look at his watch and began counting how much craziness the other might come up with in the next few minutes. (1) Pointing out at the hard-armored first growth of the forest, Underhill speculated what Spiderkind might have been like if it regrew from spores after every Dark instead of emerging full-grown and with children. (2) A crack in the cloud cover appeared ahead, fortunately several miles to the side of their path. For a few minutes, the searing whiteness of once-reflected sunlight shone down upon them, clouds so bright they had to shade that side of the car. Somewhere uphill of them, direct sunlight was frying the mountainside. And Sherkaner Underhill wondered if maybe someone could build "heat farms" on the mountaintops, using temperature differentials to generate electricity for the towns below. (3) Something green scuttled across the road, narrowly avoiding their wheels. Sherkaner had a take on that, too, something about evolution and the automobile. (And Victory commented that such evolution could work both ways.) (4) Ah, but Underhill had an idea for much safer, faster transport than autos or even aircraft. "Ten minutes from Princeton to Lands Command, twenty minutes across the continent. See, you dig these tunnels along minimum-time arcs, evacuate the air from them, and just let gravity do the work." By Unnerby's watch, there was a five-second pause. Then: "Oops, little problem there. The minimum-time solution for Princeton to Lands Command would go down kinda deep...like six hundred miles. I probably couldn't convince even the General to finance it."

"You are right about that!" And the two were off in an extended argument about less-than-optimal tunnel arcs and trade-offs against air travel. The deep tunnel idea was really dumb, it turned out.

Unnerby lost track after a while. For one thing, Sherkaner was very curious about Unnerby's construction business. The fellow was a good listener, and his questions gave Unnerby ideas he might never have had otherwise. Some of those might actually make money. Lots of money. Hmm.