"For me and Martin, yes, but...never mind." A gaggle of Morelon kin had massed in the corridor behind her. "If you have the time and the patience, we'll set up mine-that will be the one at Grenier Air-first. Martin's will go in our bedroom for the moment." She shrugged an apology. "He's out on a service call just now. Could you come back later today for his setup?"

Albermayer grinned. "No need, Althea. Initialization doesn't require the user to be present. After I've provisioned it, all he'll have to do is take off his clothes and lie down in it for a few minutes. Anyway, for sixteen million dekas, I'd set it up on the Relic."

Althea started to speak, but was stopped by the tingle of a telepathic alert.

-Careful, Al. It would be unwise to say what you were about to say.

As you say, Grandpere.

She nodded, told one quartet of workmen to rest their burden in the hearthroom, and led Albermayer and the other team up the stairs to her bedroom.

"Just set it against the long wall, guys," Althea said. She glanced at Claire Albermayer. "Unless it has to have a certain amount of clearance on all sides?"

The bioengineer shook her head. "Just make sure the power cord will reach an outlet."

"No problem there."

Barton had followed them. "What is it, Al?"

"Something every Morelon will have eventually...I hope."

"For longevity?"

"And other things, Bart. I'll explain later."

Althea led her visitors back to the entranceway. Albermayer bade the other team resume their load once more, and directed them to put it back on the workbed of the hovertruck. They made their way to the Grenier airstrip with Althea in the front passenger seat.

"I thought all Morelons went into agriculture," Albermayer said as she drove.

"Nope," Althea said. "We have a spread of affinities and talents. A good thing, too. Some of my kin can't even keep a houseplant alive. Why?"

"I'm just a bit surprised that you're a pilot."

You'll be even more surprised when you get a look at what I fly. "Not commercial. Strictly private. But it's not what I do for a living, or I wouldn't have been able to afford your pods. Would there be any problem with relocating an already initialized pod, Claire?"

The bioengineer looked off briefly. "I can't think of any. However, I suggest that you have one of our crews do any such relocation, just in case of something unfortunate."

"What sort of something unfortunate?"

Albermayer smirked. "Dropping it, for example."

"Oh. Gotcha."

"Why do you ask?"

Althea smiled. "You'll see."

Albermayer shrugged and guided the hovertruck around the bend to the hangar section of the airstrip. Althea pointed out the Morelon hangar; the bioengineer steered toward it and came to a halt before the doorway. Althea leaped down from the cab, pressed the button to open the hangar door, and watched Claire Albermayer's face as it rose. Albermayer went from puzzlement to the purest astonishment. She descended from the cab hesitantly, as if the thing in the hangar might choose to attack at any instant.

"It's going into...that?"

Althea grinned and nodded.

Outwaiting Claire Albermayer and her unconcealed desire to see the medipod tested on its first customer proved a considerable trial of Althea's patience. Albermayer's half-horrified, half-admiring fascination with Freedom's Horizon provided her with a perfect excuse for hanging around to watch Althea disrobe and lie down in the pod. It took a protest of extreme personal modesty to win Althea's privacy back. Her relief was palpable when the bioengineer and her work crew finally mounted up and drove off. She watched as the hovertruck glided away and disappeared around the curve to the main access, fearing to the last instant that it might swerve and return to her hangar.

Rothbard, Rand, and Ringer! I understand pride of achievement and the desire for appreciation, but there are some limits.

-Not everyone agrees on those limits, Al.

Oh, hi, Grandpere. That's plain enough. All the same, I didn't want to get into a discussion of my...little problem with Claire. She's too bloody full of advice.

-And of herself. She was that way at Gallatin, too.

(humor) Even after a century and some, Grandpere?

-Most people don't change much over the course of their lives, dear. No matter how long they live, they end as they began. Age only improves cheeses and wines, and not even all of those.

If she knew that you're still around, she'd probably wet her panties.

-(humor) Don't test that hypothesis any time soon, please, dear?

Althea broke into a convulsive fit of laughter. It went on for quite a while.

-Do you plan to test your hopes today, Althea?

That brought her up short.

I was...going to. I really don't want to go to space unable to feel pain. It's way, way too dangerous. Do you foresee a problem?

-Not as such, but the hour is growing a bit late. As your perceptual control remains uncompromised, you might want to hustle on home for now, so Martin won't be introduced to your gift in your absence.

Hm. Good point.

She popped the hatch, swung herself down onto a wing, hopped lightly to the floor of the hangar, and trotted away toward Morelon House.

It was late afternoon when Martin returned to Morelon House. Rather than go to his workshop to busy himself until dinner, he went directly to the small suite he shared with Althea. He found her waiting there, seated on their bed and wearing a quizzical expression. He entered, barked his shin on the medipod Claire Albermayer and her workmen had deposited there, and swore gently.

Martin squatted to examine the medipod, put a hand out to touch it, apparently thought better of it and pulled it back. He rose and addressed Althea, who'd restrained herself from standing or speaking by an unimaginable exertion of will.

"What is it, love?" Martin said.

She smirked. "Your future."

"Hm?"

"Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that we were talking about starting Hallanson-Albermayer therapy? Maybe with the rejuv sequence folded in?"

He frowned. "Well, yes."

She rose and gestured at the medipod. "That's both of them right there, and a lot more besides. All we have to do is calibrate it to you personally, and it will become a guarantee of perpetual, unending youth and health. Always assuming you don't get hit by a meteorite, of course."

He peered at her in evident disbelief. "Are you serious?"

She nodded, bounced up off the bed, and wrapped her arms around him.

"Serious as a heart attack, love. It's a Hallanson-Albermayer medipod, for you and you alone. Once you've acquainted it with your most excellent body, occasionally lying down in it for a spell will fix anything that ails you and reset you to as good as the day you...well, to about age twenty-five." She giggled. "Stay out of the way of trains, harvesters, and jealous husbands, and you might just live forever. Unbent and unwrinkled. No aches, pains, or liver stains. How does that grab you?"

Martin didn't reply. He stared at the medipod for a long moment, shook his head, and sat on the bed. Althea squatted before him and took his hands.

"What's wrong, love?"

He grimaced. "I don't know what to say. I hadn't planned on being young and hale forever."

It was Althea's turn to be confused. "Does the idea bother you?"

"It's...new. Even Hallanson-Albermayer therapy won't keep you alive indefinitely."

She scowled. "Alain Morelon made it to nearly thirteen hundred. Think you'd be satisfied with that? Anyway, these pods are supposed to be a big improvement. New nanotech, new drugs and hormones, and new diagnostic and reconstructive hardware and software." Her smirk returned. "And the warranty is terrific. Why, Claire Albermayer promised me that if it kills you, she'll give me a full refund."

He snorted, glanced at the medipod, then back at her. "So where's yours?"

"Hm?"

"Do you seriously think I'd have any interest in living even one more day if you were no longer with me?"

Althea opened her mouth to reply, closed it without speaking.

I'm an ass and a heel. I have to mislead him-the man I love-to keep him safe. Safe from me and my insanity.

-You made that decision some time ago, Althea.

Oh, hi, Grandpere. Yeah, I did. But I didn't expect a reaction like this.

-Silly girl. Martin loves you. He'd lay down his life to protect you. You were aware of that, weren't you?

Indeed I was, Grandpere. Which is exactly why I have to do...what I have to do.

-Then stop whining about it and do it.

I don't whine!

-We differ on that, Granddaughter.

"Mine will be along in due course, love." She forced a grin. "Yours is the first Claire's delivered to anyone outside Clan Albermayer."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Did she say how long 'due course' is likely to be?"

"It will get here," she said primly, "when it gets here, and not a moment before. They're not exactly easy to make, Martin. Expensive, too."

He glanced at the pod again. "How much?"

She leveled a flat look at him. "Martin Kan-Hsing Forrestal, are you asking the price of a gift?"

He winced. "Sorry. You're right, it's gauche to do that." His face lit with wry humor. "So tell me: How much will yours cost?"

Althea laughed helplessly. Her husband joined her.

Much to Althea's surprise, Nora gave the blessing that evening. She and Barton entered the hearthroom together. At the celebrant's table, Barton handed his wife the bread, kissed her on the cheek, and moved to stand at the side of the assembly. Nora set the items down on the table, picked up the little book that lay there, and turned its pages with obvious confidence.

"This is the first time I've been the celebrant," she said, smiling gently. "I'll bet you're wondering what to expect. Relax, kinsmen. It's the same book as always, and the same Jesus speaking to us from its pages. But I'll admit the passage I chose is a little different from the usual."

She bent over the book and read in a steady voice.

"Beware of men, for they will hand you over to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought for how or what ye shall speak, for it will be given to you in that same hour. For it is not ye that will speak, but the Spirit of your Father that will speak through you."

Nora closed the book and looked up. "Pretty grim, eh? But that was Judea in Jesus's time. A conquered and occupied province of the greatest empire of the day. A place where religion was a political subject. A place divided against itself so many ways no one among the Jews could feel safe about expressing his personal opinions, even to a member of his own clan. Yet he came to them in their darkness and fear and proclaimed his covenant openly.

"He paid for it, of course. He expected to. He told his disciples so. It was part of his reason for being. He paid for everything Man had ever done in defiance of the natural law. And despite all that, he returned to his disciples and sent them forth to 'teach all nations.' And he told them, who mostly were to suffer the same sort of painful, humiliating death he had suffered, to be not afraid."

Nora looked off and nodded, as if in confirmation of something she'd just proved to her own satisfaction.

"That's the sort of advice you get from the Son of God...the one and only being who could be perfectly certain of life after death, of salvation, and of his father's infinite love and compassion for Mankind." Nora smiled. "That's what convinced me that there is a God worthy of worship, and a religion fit for human consumption."

She turned back to the assembly, her expression maximally serious. "But the advice itself...how can ordinary mortals not be afraid? The Jews certainly had lots to be afraid of. Jesus's early followers were hounded, persecuted, and often tortured to death just for being Christians. If the histories tell it straight, men killed one another in enormous numbers, often over religious differences, right up to the day the Spoonerites left Earth. With so much to fear, how could anyone manage not to be afraid just about all the time?

"Even here on our beautiful, peaceful Hope, we've had reasons to fear. We don't have States with their laws and armies and wars, but there's still evil in the world. There are still predators to be prepared for, or why would we always go armed? And that's not all. I'm too young to have experienced the Chaos, but I've talked to others who lived through it...and what they remember most vividly is the fear.

"I think that passage is more important than we know. With all the reasons any human being has for fear, to do as Jesus told us-to be not afraid-is the ultimate test of faith. Some night when you find yourself wondering about all this-Jesus's commandments, his passion and resurrection, whether it's all just a big put-up job-ask yourself only this: Am I afraid? Because if you're not, you have his greatest gift...and nothing to worry about in this world or the next."

Nora took up the loaf of bread, raised it high and broke it, and the communion ceremony began.

Althea and Martin dined in a deep, thoughtful silence. Though Alvah's entree for the evening, a pastry of many layers filled with cheese and vegetables, was unique and delicious, it failed to elicit conversation. Afterward, they eschewed the usual socializing in the hearthroom and went straight to their bedroom.

As Althea closed the door behind her, Martin said "Why do you suppose Nora picked that passage?"

"Don't you think she gave us her reason?" Althea said.

"Well...maybe." Martin sat on the bed and unlaced his boots. "It just seemed very personal. How did it sound to you?"

She frowned and sat beside him. "Why ask me? I'm still not all the way convinced yet." Her mouth tightened. "I have trouble believing that a being who created the whole universe, assuming he really exists, would care about us at all."