"Grandaunt," Althea said as calmly as she could manage, "I want to do it, even with the danger. I want to get up to the Relic, if only to see the ship that brought the First Settlers here. I want to see if I can break the chains of lightspeed, so we can visit other solar systems, scout out some more habitable worlds, spread our kind a little more widely...a little more safely. You were alive at the time of the Chaos, weren't you?"

Charisse's eyes widened. She nodded.

"No one knows why it happened, right? So what if it returns, but worse this time? Until Man is solidly planted on more than one world, we're risking the end of the human race!"

Martin stared at her in confusion.

-That's not a fair play, Al. We do know why the Chaos happened.

You and I know, Grandpere. No one else. And we're going to keep it that way.

-Althea...

Not now, Grandpere. I've got an argument to win.

"My responsibility," Charisse said slowly, "is to the well-being of Clan Morelon. Not to Mankind at large, or its future near or far. If I allow the two of you to risk your lives this way-"

"Allow?" Althea stood and glared down at her. "This talk of allowing and forbidding is going to stop right now. I want to do this. Martin wants to do this. And we are going to do it whether you like it or not."

She breathed deeply and fought to calm herself. "You're right about one thing, though: It doesn't matter what Grandpere Armand or Grandmere Teresza wanted. Not any more. But it doesn't matter what you want, either." She tugged on her husband's arm, and he rose beside her. "You can't stop us. You can only make it less convenient."

Charisse's face flamed with unaccustomed fury.

"I'll give you my decision tomorrow morning," she said at last.

"Fine," Althea said. "Just as long as you understand that it won't matter either way."

Althea would have headed to her office to review the critical-path charts for the trip, but Martin tugged her gently toward his workshop. She followed him without protest. He bade her be seated in his workstation chair, closed the door, leaned back against the wall and passed his hands over his eyes.

"I take it," Althea said, "that you disapprove."

"No, love," he said. "I'm just tired, and a little sad that that had to happen. But it did."

"Hm?"

He grinned tiredly and swept a hand about the many bits of malfunctioning machinery and electronics that filled his workspace.

"Do you think I argue with these things?"

She frowned. "Of course not."

"But why not?"

She peered at him through narrowed eyes.

"Al," he said, "don't bother searching for what you think I want to hear you say. Just answer the question from your best knowledge and reasoning."

His words set her back. She took a moment to compose herself.

"Machines merely obey the laws of nature," she said at last. "They aren't sentient, so they can't be persuaded. You can't argue them into doing something."

He nodded.

"What are you trying to tell me, Martin?"

He was slow to answer.

"One of the laws of nature was at work back there," he said. "Do you remember when we talked about how power changes people?"

She nodded.

"Charisse was obeying the law of power, love. All the deference and willing obedience she's received for nearly a century has made it next to impossible for her to tolerate dissent."

"How can you call power a law?" she said.

He chuckled mirthlessly. "The same way we came to call gravity a law," he said. "We can't prove the laws of physics. Generations of very smart men simply watched the way the world works, noted the patterns and the lack of exceptions, and drew their conclusions. It was all a matter of repetition."

He moved to stand before her.

"Think about it for a moment. Morelon men tend toward unusual size. Bart's as tall as you are, yet he's shorter and slenderer than any of the rest of us. Cam, Chuck, and I are giants, at least by local standards. Few of us are much smaller. Yet when Charisse gives an order, not one of us would dream of refusing her. Well," he said, "maybe I would, but I'm newer to the clan than anyone but Bart and Alvah. By our responses to her, we've conditioned Charisse to believe that she doesn't just run this place, she rules it."

He reached down and took her hands in his.

"Look at me, love," he murmured. "Big, strong, capable, and amenable to direction. Multiply that by the number of men in the clan. Then factor in ninety years of repetition. What other conclusion could Charisse draw?"

She could not speak.

"You," Martin said, "are probably the first Morelon to defy her since she arrived in the power seat. You saw how she reacted. She won't forget it. It will cost us both to follow through. Even so, in the long run you might have done her the biggest service of her life."

"How?" she said.

"By reminding her that she's not a dictator."

He released her hands, sank to his knees, and fingered the little pendant that was never absent from his neck.

"He never gave an order," he said. "He traveled, and taught, and traveled some more. Those who followed him did so by their own decision. Even the Twelve could have refused him, though he personally called them to him from their boats. Yet billions of men, men who could have resisted any mortal autocrat, chose his way. Many of them followed it unto death. It's really his ultimate lesson to us...and Charisse has failed to grasp it."

Althea slid forward, put her hands to the sides of his face, and urged him to look at her.

"Martin-"

"You took the right tack, love. I can see it now. We mustn't back down. We have to do it, as much for the clan's sake as for ours. But I don't want you to be angry with her."

"I'm...I'll try not to be," she murmured.

He nodded, rose to his feet, and took her hands again. "Do something for me, please?"

"Anything, love," she said.

"Come to worship with me this evening."

"But-"

"Please."

She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and nodded.

"Thank you."

At the approach of sundown, Charisse took a loaf of bread and a jug of table wine from the pantry and headed for the hearthroom. She arrived to find a handful of her kin already in attendance. Althea was among them. The sight froze Charisse in the archway. Althea nodded to her and immediately lowered her gaze.

Martin Forrestal stood behind the celebrant's table. As if it were in no way unusual, he approached her and made to take the items from her arms. She backed away.

"Please, Charisse," he said. "Allow me the duty. Just for this evening."

Silently, she surrendered the tokens of the ritual to him. He bowed thanks and returned to the celebrant's table. She went to stand among her slowly accumulating kinsmen.

As the last few worshippers trickled in and the sun passed below the western horizon, Martin circled the table to face the gathering and spread his arms in welcome.

"Peace be with you," he intoned.

He picked up a small leatherbound book, turned to a marked page, and read in a soft voice.

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, 'Take ye and eat; For this is my body.' And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Take ye and drink; For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins.'"

The crowd murmured faintly.

"We haven't had a lot of peace lately," he said. "These past few weeks it's seemed like one jolt after another, with the occasional celebration thrown in for seasoning. We've seen new arrangements, new conflicts, and new clan members, with barely time enough to accommodate one set of changes before we're forced to deal with another. Even the positive changes can be wearying when they come at you too thickly and too fast.

"But the Twelve knew even more tumult than we. Worse, the Master told them that he would soon be taken from them to suffer and die in their time's most ignominious manner. Despite all he had taught them, they did not understand, and they were very much afraid. Though he said to them let not your heart be troubled, still they feared and sought to resist the culmination he had foretold.

"Yet he said they would have peace, on one condition: that they love one another. And in time, they came to understand what he'd meant, and they learned to abide by it.

"Soon you will confront another change, though hopefully not a permanent one. Althea and I will be going away for a while. Far away, such that our only contact with you will be via the radio. It might be years before we see you again. The separation will be as trying for us as it will for you, because we are of you, and we love you as we love ourselves.

"But the Master said let not your heart be troubled. He promised that all would be well, if only we would love God and one another. And he asked one more thing: that we should remember him with a simple ceremony."

Martin took the loaf of bread in his hands, raised it high, said "Thank you, Father, for this blessing of bread," broke it in half, and laid it on the table before him. He took the jug of wine, poured from it into a large earthenware cup, raised the cup high, said "Thank you, Father, for this blessing of wine," and set it on the table next to the bread. When he turned to face the gathering, his gaze pierced Charisse to the heart.

"With him for our king, we need no other. With him for our guardian and guide, we need no other. For as long as we remember him, he is not gone from us. As his followers followed him across the breadth of Judea, he has followed us across the darkness between the stars. Wherever men may go, if only they will remember him, he will be with them...and those who love him will have his peace."

He stepped aside from the offerings, beckoned the crowd forward, and said "Do as he instructed the Twelve to do, and remember him."

Althea hung back as the others filed out of the hearthroom. Presently she and Martin were alone. When he'd finished returning the masonwood sofa and the table he'd used to their usual places, she went to him and threw her arms around his waist. He enveloped her in a gentle embrace.

"I didn't understand much of that," she said against his chest.

He nodded. "But you liked it anyway, didn't you? Made you feel good, didn't it?"

She looked up at him. "Well, yeah."

He grinned. "That's where it begins. With a little bread, a little wine, and a few little words."

"Well, where does it end?"

"I can't say, love. We don't all get to the same place, even with help. But I can tell you how to get to wherever it might be for you."

"How?"

He smiled and gave her a gentle squeeze.

"Read the book."

Intermezzo: Duember 22, 1305 A.H.

Althea opened the barrier between the halves of the reaction chamber, backed away, and glued her gaze to the thermometer. Martin moved up beside her and slipped an arm around her waist.

The needle on the gauge climbed swiftly. The recorder beside it scribed the advancing reading onto a strip of chart paper at an equal speed.

The temperature of the mass in the chamber reached an unprecedented maximum. Althea found herself holding her breath.

This could be it.

The needle hung at the maximum reading as she hoped against hope. She dared not look at the elapsed-time reading on the strip chart. The accumulated weight of their previous disappointments had grown nearly too heavy to bear.

When it finally, slowly descended from its peak, she turned and moved away. Martin frowned, followed her, and put his hands to her shoulders.

"What's wrong, love?"

"I'm afraid to look."

He chuckled. "Then I will."

He gave her a squeeze, went to the recorder and turned it off, and peered down at the record of the reaction.

"We've done it," he said.

Althea fainted.