Martin nodded and said nothing. He glanced briefly at the medipod, then looked at the floor.

Besides, I'm a little busy trying to deal with my fear. The fear I don't dare to reveal to you.

"Al," her husband said at last, "you've been a little...ah, elusive since I got back from Kramnik House. Is there something you haven't told me that I would want to know?"

Her anxieties spiked. She fought to keep them from showing on her face.

-Tell him, Althea.

What? But Grandpere- -You must. What you planned would ruin you. No matter how it worked out, he would never trust you again.

Then why were you so supportive before?

The answer rocked her to her core.

-I wasn't.

"Al?" Martin murmured. "Why are you trembling?"

She strove to summon enough courage to speak.

"Al?" Her husband took her face between his hands. "You're frightening me."

"Freedom's Horizon is ready for space," she said in a cracking whisper. "It's tight as a bowstring, fully fueled, and loaded with all the gear we'd intended to take to the Relic...plus a medipod just like yours, but meant for me. It's time for me to start the next phase of my researches...and I was planning to take off tomorrow."

Martin's face turned ashen. His hands fell to his sides. "And leave me behind."

She nodded.

"Al-"

"And now I know I can't. Mustn't." She sniffled. "I prepared this long list of things I was going to ask you to throw at the Relic with the mass driver, so I wouldn't have to come back down and face you afterward. I'd be up there, doing weird experiments at high energies in a hard vacuum, and you'd be down here safe. I'd know that whatever might happen to me, at least you'd be alive to...to..."

"To die of grief over it," he said. His voice became hard. He jerked his head at the medipod. "Or does that contraption cure terminal emotional desolation too?"

She could not speak.

"So," he said at last, "what made you decide you couldn't go through with it? You had me where you wanted me, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"So...?"

"Nora's blessing," she whispered. "What she said about fear and faith." She forced herself to meet his eyes. "Faith isn't something reserved to religion. Neither is fear. If there's one of us who's really, truly never afraid, it isn't me."

His eyes narrowed. "What is it you fear, Althea?"

She laid her forehead carefully against his, breathed deeply, and admitted what she had tried for so long not to acknowledge even to herself.

"Losing you."

Chapter 23: November 3, 1313 A.H.

Martin ushered Althea into the cargo compartment of Freedom's Horizon, lowered the hatch behind them, lifted the lid on Althea's medipod, moved to one side, and cocked an eyebrow at his wife. Althea stood frozen in place.

"I'm not sure about this, love," she said.

"Why not?"

"Well, what if it doesn't work?"

"Then it doesn't work. Would you be any worse off than you are right now?"

You bet your ass I would be. I'd have lost my hope.

"Martin..."

He waited silently.

"There's another possibility," she said. "The pod might take that ruined nerve trunk for its normal, healthy condition. It might convert my whole nervous system to that state." She shuddered. "I don't think I could buffer off that much pain."

His gaze remained steady. "How likely is that?"

"I don't know."

"I do," he said. "A typical human nervous system has an aggregate mass of about five pounds. That one compromised nerve track might weigh a couple of ounces, total." He glanced down at the medipod. "If this contraption were stupid enough to take the exception for the rule, the Albermayers would never have sold it to you."

He waited.

-Get into the pod, Althea.

Grandpere- -Claire may teeter on the edge of insufferably arrogant, but she's not a thumb-fingered idiot. Her clan has produced medical marvels for over thirteen hundred years. That device will not harm you. You'll arise from it whole and perfect.

I don't share your certainty, Grandpere.

-That's because you haven't heard the punch line yet.

Huh? What's that?

-I'll be in there with you.

Meaning what?

-I'll show you how to guide the process.

But how?

-Confound it, Althea, are you determined to remain impenetrably thick? With your telekinesis!

It shocked her brain to a full stop.

-Think, dear. That nerve channel torments you because the myelin sheath that used to protect it has been rubbed away. If the sheath were restored, the pain would cease. So between us we'll salvage a little myelin-it won't take much-from around your spinal cord and bond it to the abraded portion of the nerve track. The pod will just be a prop, so you won't have to disclose your special abilities to Martin.

Huh? Grandpere, if we can do that- -Why haven't we done it up to now? Take a guess, dear.

She thought furiously.

I could have done it myself, couldn't I?

-Indeed, dear. You could do it right now, entirely without my assistance. You lacked the confidence even to try it, despite your special powers.

Could you have done it for me?

"Al? What's the matter?"

She held up a hand. "Give me a moment, Martin. I'm...figuring something out."

He started to reply, but remained silent.

Grandpere? Am I going to get an answer?

-Yes, you are.

And the answer is...?

-Yes, I could have done it for you.

Then why- -You will soon journey very far from here, Althea MacLachlan Morelon. You will be the first of our race to wander the stars at will. You will see things no man has ever seen, face dangers neither of us can predict...that neither of us can imagine. And you will be beyond my reach. Would it be wise for me to allow you to remain dependent upon me, when your own resources are sufficient to do anything I could do for you entirely for yourself? Or would it be better to give you reasons to learn and grow, to expand at last into the fullness of your physical, intellectual, and spiritual potential?

The voice in her head spoke with the dispassion and sobriety of a jurist.

-I've waited forty-three years for this moment, Althea. The moment when you would flower fully at last. I didn't know it would be under the stimulus of great and unrelenting pain. Had the possibility ever occurred to me, I would have prayed that chance would spare you such a pass. It was not to be. Will you embrace your potential and complete your maturation at last, or will the height to which you could rise at will remain merely a possibility, perhaps never to be attained?

She glanced at Martin.

Grandpere, if I accept this...flowering, will I still be a fit spouse for Martin?

The instant she waited for the answer seemed a eon long.

-Your husband is the finest man on Hope, the greatest of all your blessings. He deserves nothing less.

"Al? The batteries are running down."

Grandpere, if this works out badly- -Trust me, Granddaughter.

She glanced at the open compartment of the medipod, then back to her husband. Her mind had filled with a serene silence.

"Good point."

She began to strip.

Patrice strode up the stairs to the bedroom level of Morelon House, intending only to fetch a sweater from her closet, when she came upon a sight she hadn't expected to see.

Charisse Morelon stood at the head of the staircase, struggling with the weight and bulk of two large suitcases. She stared down at Patrice with an expression that could only be dismay. It stopped Patrice halfway up the stairs.

As if at the closing of a switch, Charisse's expression morphed instantly from apprehensive to wryly rueful. She dropped her bags and chuckled as if she'd been caught in a mildly naughty self-indulgence.

"Well," she said, "so much for a quiet departure."

"Are you taking a trip, Charisse?" Patrice said.

Charisse nodded. "With all the time to my own devices I've had since I resigned in favor of Barton, I've been casting about for something different and diverting to do. A friend at Dunbarton House suggested a holiday on Sulla, and I decided I liked the idea." The former matriarch's mouth quirked. "But I didn't want anyone to fret about me, so I was hoping for a quick, quiet getaway."

Patrice frowned. "Why would we worry about you? You made your arrangements carefully, didn't you?"

"Of course," Charisse said, "but it's been so long since I was away from Morelon House for any length of time that it was bound to cause a bit of talk. And even if I am one of our older kin, I'm still hale and lucid enough to go out without a minder."

"I suppose I understand," Patrice said. "But we're likely to worry about you even so. Not to have you here with us is bound to seem strange." She grinned. "Especially to Alvah and me. We've hardly gotten used to your not being matriarch anymore."

Charisse nodded. "Of course. All the same, I plan to be back before you start to miss me. So you can relax. Keep doing what you do, and tell Alvah the same. Oh, and tell him that I expect to miss his cooking."

"I'll do that," Patrice said. "I assume you've left details about how to contact you with Chuck, just in case there's a need?"

For the briefest of moments, Charisse's face went completely blank. She immediately resumed her previous expression of cheerful insouciance.

"Of course I have, dear. He'd be here to see me off, except for a prior obligation. It's a pity he felt he couldn't come along-he loves woodlands and streams, and there are some beautiful ones where I'll be staying-but he felt he couldn't spare the time away from his duties."

"A pity," Patrice said. "Well, I won't keep you any longer, then." She glanced at the heavily laden bags. "Do you have someone to drive you to Hammschedt Air?"

Charisse nodded. "The fellow I'll be traveling with. He's waiting outside right now. Be well, dear. I'll be back before you know it." She hefted her bags and headed down the stairs. Patrice moved aside to let her pass, then watched as she let herself out through the tall oaken doors of the mansion and closed them firmly behind her.

She had only a momentary hesitation-a swift doubt about whether she should confirm what Charisse had told her-shrugged it off as unimportant, and continued on to her bedroom.

Barton looked up as his office door opened. Nora slipped in mock-furtively, as if she were striving not to disturb her husband's labors. He grinned and rose from his seat. She stumbled briefly, carefully skirted the oblong coffee table in the little conversation area, and approached him slowly, with a look of unaccountable concentration on her face.

He squinted. "Hurt an ankle, love?"