She giggled. "No, it's these things." She propped a hand against the edge of his desk, reached down, plucked off a shoe, and showed it to him. It was a high-heeled satin pump.

"Why on Hope are you wearing your wedding shoes?"

"Caprice," she said. "I was going through our closet and saw them in the back corner. I love the reminder of our wedding day. Besides, I sort of like them, even if walking in them is a challenge." She giggled again as she replaced the shoe. "They make me feel...girly."

"Girly, huh?" He chuckled. "And what sort of girly girl wears her girly wedding shoes with a woven-flax work shirt and faded denim jeans?"

"The sort who," Nora said, edging slowly behind his desk, "struck by an entirely random and inexplicable impulse, would choose to suspend her chores at-" She glanced at his desk clock-"fifteen-eighteen on a given Randsday to interrupt her highly important husband and drag him away from his unimaginably complex and critical work for an utterly frivolous, indulgently girly session in bed." She closed on him and touched her chest to his.

"Nora..." he murmured.

"Yes, love?" She gazed up at him, wide-eyed and innocent.

"...if those shoes can make you feel that way..."

"Yes, love?" She rubbed herself sinuously against him, nipples hard against his chest.

"...maybe you should wear them more often!" He wrapped his arms around his wife, tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her, squealing gleefully, up the stairs to their little suite.

Afterward, with Nora asleep against his side, her head upon his shoulder and her breath warm upon his chest, he reflected on the unique happiness his marriage had brought him, the unprecedented blend of joy, contentment, and sense of belonging that had accompanied it.

This is the best way. The way it ought to have been from the start. The way everyone ought to live. Except for a few misanthropes and sociopaths, maybe, though it might even fix some of them.

His fingers closed on the cross pendant that was never absent from his throat.

Thank you, God. For freedom. And peace. And prosperity without guilt or shame. And a family whose members sincerely love and respect one another. And for my duties, as tedious and irritating as I find them now and then. And for Nora, always and everywhere.

And for Althea Morelon and Martin Forrestal, without whom I'd never have had any of it. Yes, I know they're crazy, but so what? Keep them safe, sound, and happy anyway. No one deserves it more. I owe them for...everything.

His reveries led him by measured steps to the vestibule of sleep. He was about to drift off, delivery schedules and accounts receivable be damned, when the tumult arose from below.

Althea was barely conscious. She could dimly sense that she was being carried, that Martin, or whoever it was, was moving as swiftly as he could with his burden, but little else.

-Time to wake up, Granddaughter.

She lacked both the will and the energy to respond.

-Rise and shine, Althea! Time's a-wastin'.

She struggled a little way back toward reality.

Let me be, Grandpere. I need to rest.

-Balderdash! At this instant you're the healthiest and most vital creature on Hope. Rouse yourself and show it.

Later, maybe. Not now.

-Now is the time, dear. Time to return to the land of the living.

The jolting sharpened abruptly, as if whoever carried her were climbing a flight of steps.

I'm exhausted, Grandpere. Let me sleep.

-Sleep is for wimps, Althea. Sleep is for people who can't heal themselves with their own telekinesis. You wouldn't want your kinsmen to think there's something wrong with you, would you?

The creak of doors opening and a final jolt as her rescuer came to a sharp halt.

"MORELONS!"

Even in her depleted state, Martin's bellow was too powerful and too urgent for her to ignore. She came back a degree further toward full awareness. Her eyelids cracked open.

She was looking directly at Martin's back. He had her over one shoulder. From around her came the thunder of many pairs of running feet.

"What the-is that Althea?" Teodor Chistyakowski was apparently first to the scene. "What happened, Martin?"

"I don't know," Martin said. "She might need medical attention. Get Tad Leschitsyn on the radio and tell him to get over here at once."

"Take her into the hearthroom and lay her on the sofa." That voice belonged to Elyse. "I'll build up the fire."

-Told you, Althea. Time to show your family that you're still among the living, just a bit weary.

All right, all right. You can stop pestering me now.

-(humor) Such ingratitude!

"Wait," she slurred out. "Calm down, everyone. I'm all right. Really. Martin, you can put me down."

He did so, disorienting her briefly as her perspective went from upside-down to right-side-up. She staggered for an instant, but Martin steadied her, and she stabilized herself. Her fatigue surged back momentarily, and she forced it down with a rough hand.

"You remember the delivery yesterday," she said, bearing down on her enunciation of each word. "Those were Hallanson-Albermayer medipods." She blinked and took in the crowd that had formed around her. It appeared that every resident in the mansion had come to Martin's summons.

No surprise there. I'd never heard him shout like that before. He probably woke a few of the dead back on Earth.

She sensed Martin close behind her, and leaned back against his chest. His arms enclosed her immediately and snugly.

"Claire Albermayer made some pretty impressive claims for them," she said. "Said they'd cure anything but a bad mood, fix anything short of death." She chuckled. "It was pretty hard for me to believe, but I was told by someone who should know that I shouldn't doubt Clan Albermayer's medical prowess, so I bought a couple. One for Martin, and one for me. Pricey gear, but I figured if they work as advertised, they'd be worth it."

The dawning realization that she had repaired her own body catapulted her to full consciousness. She began to laugh. Loudly. Joyously. Infectiously. Within seconds Morelon House was filled with laughter, from its entranceway to its roof beams, as all her kinsmen added their voices to her own.

She gasped for breath as she ran down, straightened and faced her family squarely. Their faces were unanimous in incredulous wonder and delight.

"I'm not in pain any more," she said. "Not the slightest bit. I'm back to...what I was before the stillbirth." She groped for Armand's words and parroted them. "Whole and perfect."

"Really, Al? The pain's gone for good?" Barton said, incongruously clad in a bathrobe and nothing else.

She nodded. "Really and for true. And I think it's a fitting occasion for a little revelry. Wait, strike that," she said with a frown. "Make it a lot of revelry."

Her kin closed around her as Barton raised his hands high and cried out in a voice of triumph.

"Kill the fatted calf!"

Dinner that night was next to impossible. Every Morelon resident in the mansion wanted to be with Althea, at her side if courtesy, propriety, and the laws of physics would permit it. There was no way the kitchen could accommodate all of them at once, so Barton chose a team to help him clear the hearthroom and move the Sacrifice Day tables and chairs into it, and decreed that the evening meal would take place there.

Alvah exerted himself as never before. The Morelon kitchen poured forth an embarrassment of delights. A huge ham baked in a glaze of maple syrup and orange juice. A brace of roast chickens rubbed with some piquant spice. Thin slices of tender beef thinly garnished with a horseradish paste. Broccoli and cauliflower, newly picked and gently steamed, in a bath of cheddar cheese sauce. Freshly baked bread wrapped around a garlic sausage. And of course, a great tureen of corn from the clan's own autumn crop, slathered with butter and sprinkled with salt.

Clan Morelon ate, and ate, and ate. The kin attacked their meal as if food were Man's most recent invention, perfected only that evening. For their purposes on that evening, perhaps it was so.

"I get the feeling-correct me if I'm wrong, please," Alvah said as he brought out a tray of delicate phyllo pastries for dessert, "that my kin enjoyed their supper this evening." He looked directly at Althea.

"Not bad," Althea said. "Second best thing to happen to me today." She emitted a titanic belch, delicately patted her lips with her napkin, and the clan laughed as one.

"Al?" Barton said from the other end of their table. "Could you tell us a little more about these...medipods?"

"What would you like to know?" she said.

"Well, for starters, how much do they cost, and are they a substitute for the regular longevity therapies, and what would it take to get them for the rest of us?"

"I paid eight million apiece for our two," she said. "According to Claire Albermayer, they provide all the benefits of the traditional longevity therapy and the new rejuv therapy, plus full treatment for any bodily malady caught in time to keep it from killing you. They do require regular maintenance and resupply, which Hallanson-Albermayer Corp will take care of at the appropriate intervals, for a fee. The big catch is that your pod is yours. No one else can ever use it. In fact, the attempt would be fatal. So each of us must have his own, which is probably just a leeetle beyond even our finances at the moment."

"Whoo! You certainly got that right," Patrice said. "It would consume the entire capital fund and a lot more, just for our kin under this roof."

There was a momentary silence. Althea stood, reveled afresh in her completely open, completely pain-free sensorium, and swept the gathering with her gaze.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "Filthy rich Althea and Martin can afford perpetual youth and perfect health, right in the comfort of their bedroom, but the rest of us have to limp by on quarterly visits to the Hallanson clinic. Spinal injections. Skeletal realignment. Cartilage replacement. Electrostimulus. Vascular, pulmonary, and alimentary lavage." She hunched in a parody of horror. "Arterial probes. Catheters. Enemas." She shuddered, and the clan laughed again. "I sympathize. Really. So I'm going to make you an offer."

With that, she had the absolute attention of everyone in the hearthroom.

"We've never discussed what the money in the clan's investment account is for, or who has a right to draw on it, or anything else. I'm pretty sure it's fat and healthy, though. Patrice, what's the current balance?"

Patrice looked mildly surprised at the inquiry, but answered without hesitation. "Two hundred forty-eight million dekas and change, as the equities market stands."

Althea nodded. "Divided by eight, that would cover thirty-one of you. Nine of you would be left out, and none of our more distant relatives could be accommodated at all." She scowled delicately. "We wouldn't want to drain the fund completely under any circumstances. It's the clan's protection against all sorts of possibilities and contingencies. But we might be able to justify consuming half of it: say, a hundred twenty million dekas. Patrice, do you concur?"

Patrice nodded somberly.

"That would provide three million dekas in purchasing power, near enough, for each of us. Martin and I are already taken care of, so leave us out of the equation. If," she said, "and only if, I can get the price of a pod, FOB to our front door, down to six million each, I will cover the balance of the purchase for any resident of Morelon House who wants to expend his three million on a Hallanson-Albermayer medipod." She glanced down at Martin, noted his shrug, and held up a hand before anyone else could speak. "Subject to review by the full investment committee and subsequent approval by the elders' council and our clan head." She looked directly at Barton. "Most high and beloved clan patriarch," she said, eliciting a titter from the table, "do you think you would approve?"

Barton rose from his seat, eyes as wide as saucers. "Are you kidding, Althea? Of course I'd approve!" He looked around the table, focusing on each council member in turn. Not one raised a murmur of protest. "The council approves as well."

"Then," Althea said formally, "thus shall it be..." She hesitated, looked off briefly, and smiled. "Before God and Man."

Her relatives surged from their seats to embrace her and her husband, half-smothering them in gratitude and love.

Barton, Nora, and Chuck Feigner approached them as the gathering dissolved at last. Their clan head was grinning widely.

"What's with the 'most high and beloved clan patriarch' bit?" he said. He squeezed his wife's hand. "Did you get that from Nora? She twits me like that all the time."

"Well," Feigner said, "someone ought to. You do enough self-abasing and forelock-tugging for five clan heads."

"Spooner's beard, Chuck," Barton said, "I'm not even a real Morelon."

"Hold it right there, Bart," Martin said. "Am I a real Morelon? Is Chuck?"

Barton whipped his head back and forth between them in pretended fear. "I don't dare say no, do I?"

"Let's say," Feigner rumbled, "that it might be considered imprudent in present company."

"Nora," Althea said, "would you permit me a moment's latitude with your husband, please?"

Nora nodded. "Just don't damage him."

"Not a problem." Althea reached for Barton, pulled him into her arms, grabbed his ass with both hands, pressed him full-length against her and awarded him a long, deep, juicy French kiss. He put up only token resistance before melting completely before her ardor. When she released him, he slumped bonelessly to the floor as the others laughed and applauded.

"How'd I do, Martin?"

"Let's see," her husband said, peering into the distance. "Nine point eight, nine point seven, nine point nine, nine point three from the Kosciuszko judge, and nine point nine. I don't have my calculator with me, but barring a fall during the freestyle, I'd say you've got the gold medal for this year sewn up. Just a touch abrupt on the dismount, though. Maybe we should practice later."

Althea bowed clowningly and crouched before Barton. "Welcome to the family, Bart."

"Althea," Nora said through her giggles, "you said a moment's latitude. Not the total ruination of my marriage."

Althea grinned. "Any time you want some pointers, dear, just say the word." She hoisted the stunned Barton back to his feet. "Are you okay, most high and beloved clan patriarch?"

"Uhhh..."

"Maybe you shouldn't expect too much from him tonight, Nora," she said. "His duties have been uncommonly heavy lately, after all." Her brow furrowed. "Speaking of clan heads past and present, where's Charisse this evening, Chuck? Not feeling so good?"

Feigner's grin vanished. "I was going to ask if you'd seen her. She's not in our suite, nor anywhere else in the house."

Chapter 24: Sacrifice Day, 1313 A.H.

It was a few minutes past twenty hundred when Barton rose from his seat at the head of the central table in the Morelon hearthroom, waited to be noticed by his boisterously feasting kinsmen, cleared his throat and beamed at the other attendees. The others fell silent and gave him their attention.

"Elyse has told me," he said, "that it used to be the clan's custom to have the oldest person present tell the Sacrifice Day story. The Kramniks never did it that way, as far as I know. But my memories don't go back all that far, so you shouldn't put too much stock in that.