The genesmith's face flared with color, but he held his peace.

Maybe we've spent too long in orbit. Maybe they don't think of us as their kin any more.

"Martin had more than one chore to see to groundside," she said. "He's arranged for the construction of a second ground-to-orbit spaceplane, which will be at your exclusive disposal. You'll have that, and any royalties, present and future, from its design and technology. If we can reach an agreement, you'll also have the licensure fees from the fusion technology. Does anyone think that's likely to be a failure?"

"Al-" Bart started.

"Yes or no, Bart." Althea rose and loomed over them, hands on her hips. In the confines of the living quarters, her height and dramatic build magnified its effectiveness. "You're about to acquire a technology capable of proactively solving Hope's most worrisome problem, and of eliminating the one and only centralizing feature of Hope life. We're offering it to the clan for fixed compensation: the construction of a starship to be designed by Martin and me, whatever that might cost. Based on our preliminary designs, we estimate that it will run to about four hundred million dekas. There will be no haggling."

The patriarch of the Morelons lowered his gaze to the carpet and lapsed into laughter.

"What did you teach her about interrupting, Val?"

Althea's mother was laughing too. "Probably that you might be about to hear something you'd like."

Althea's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"You'll get your four hundred million, Al," Barton said. "And the usual share in all the revenue your breakthrough earns for the clan, just like always. I was just thinking what a departure this will be for Clan Morelon. We've been corn farmers for thirteen centuries. Now it'll be corn and watts." He straightened up and smiled broadly. "And space travel. Armand and Teresza were right, though God alone could say how they knew. There's no one on Hope to compare with you. Will fifty million cover the next year or so, or will you need more?"

Althea paled and sank back into her seat.

"That...should do it."

He nodded. "Just keep us posted."

"Bart-"

He held up a hand. "Not now, Pat. We're about to be billionaires. Each of us. Learn to win gracefully, for Rand's sake."

Barton stood back as the others exited the Relic and reboarded Freedom's Horizon. When they were aboard, he closed and sealed the outer hatch and turned to Althea. Althea's eyebrows rose.

"You're not coming back with us, are you?" he said.

Althea shook her head. "Martin has complete documentation and schematics for the fusion system. Everything you'll need to build or license it. He's agreed to remain groundside to supervise the construction of the first working reactors, all the way to completion."

He snorted gently. "Another launch, another two million. How much longer, dearest of all my kin by marriage?"

Althea grinned. "I'll have to get back to you on that, most high and beloved patriarch."

Barton nodded, but made no move toward the hatch. Althea's anxieties over affairs on the surface of Hope, well controlled up to then, moved to the front of her brain.

"Have you picked a scion yet?" she said.

Barton nodded. "Emma. The council approved." He held up a hand. "Not to worry, I asked her if she was willing first. The silly girl leaped at it. She actually thinks all the bookkeeping and organizing I do is fascinating. I wonder if she'll feel the same after she's done it for a few decades."

"How's Nora?" she said tentatively.

Barton smiled. "Glowing to outdo a Sexember sunrise. Even more beautiful than the day we married."

"And Granduncle Chuck?"

The smile became a scowl. "Not good. Recovering his balance, but he's not the Chuck of old. I get nervous when he's alone for any length of time."

Althea nodded, her anxieties undiminished.

Is something else not quite right with the family? But he wouldn't have hesitated to mention anything like that in front of the others.

How I miss being able to chat with Grandpere Armand.

"Something we forgot to cover, Bart?"

He grimaced. "Something I'd rather not cover, but it can't wait much longer, and I'd rather you started thinking about it now."

Althea tensed internally. Barton sat on a wall-anchored bench and beckoned to Althea to join him.

"You probably know the clan's history better than I do," he said. "We've made it a point of pride that we care for our own, no matter what. It's not a unique stance. Most of the other clans are scrupulous about their kindred, keeping them safe and out of harm's way. But when we say 'our own,' we mean something a little broader than what other clans mean by it."

He waved inclusively at the embarkation chamber and the adits to Althea's and Martin's tunnels. "You've done a good job making your areas safe to live and work in. Well sealed off, carefully machined, no pressure fluctuations. I saw no dangerous protrusions anywhere. I wouldn't have expected anything else from you, knowing you, and knowing that you knew you and Martin would be up here for years at a time. But the scale of your operation is about to change.

"In a few months at most, you're going to have fifty workers up here alongside you. They'll need a place to live, to eat, sleep, shower, and recreate. They won't be able to share your tunnels-"

"I couldn't have them here anyway, Bart."

He nodded. "I understand. So they'll need a habitat. We'll have to build it for them, teach them how to live in it and with it, and get itand themup to the Relic. But Al, no matter how carefully you engineer the thing, and how elaborately you instruct them in its use and maintenance, it will be a bubble of air and warmth anchored to a sterile lump of rock floating in airless, heatless space. There'll be mistakes. One or more of your workers will die.

"You know the story. Dozens of deaths occurred in the shaping of the Relic into a habitat for the Spoonerites. The survivors mourned them, one and all, but they didn't regret them. There was no alternative to accepting the risks involved if the Spoonerites were to have a stable place to live while they journeyed to their new home. This is different. This isn't about survival. It's about your curiosity."

Althea started to demur, halted herself. Barton rose, leaned against the nickel-iron wall of the chamber, and fixed his gaze on the outer hatch to the docking ring, the ultimate provision against a catastrophic blowout during a docking.

"We've been sitting here with that hatch half open and thinking nothing about it. It's unwise, we both know it's unwise, but we're casual about it because it's Martin's work on both sides of the ring. We know his work is good, that he'd never entrust your life, or the life of a kinsman, to anything shoddy."

The head of Clan Morelon straightened. His eyes sharpened as his voice acquired a hint of iron.

"Althea, from the moment those workers get here, I want you to treat them as if they were our kin, their lives just as precious as yours and mine. You will not tell yourself that they're getting paid to take risks. You will not put them to any hazardor any discomfortyou can foresee and avert. And you will not wave away any harm to any of them as unavoidable, 'just one of those things.' This entire enterprise is avoidable, and any harm or loss of life that occurs in the process is to your account." He paused and stared at the floor. "And to mine, for permitting and financing it."

Althea planted her hands on her hips. "Are we back to the 'permitting' nonsense, Bart? You of all people know the clan could never have stopped us."

The patriarch of Clan Morelon inclined his head in concession.

"Certainly not by force. But I could have refused you the financing you need. And never doubt that I could have shamed Martin out of it. Given how devoted he is to you, it would have been a challenge, but I'm confident I could have done it. He and I have a rapport you've never quite grasped. Would you have been willing to go through all this entirely alone, Althea?"

"...no..."

Barton smiled.

He's become more than any of us could ever have expected.

We're blessed to have him.

"I think you understand me," he said. "Do you agree? Patrice won't finance you and I won't recruit labor for you otherwise."

Althea rose, nodded wordlessly, and spread her arms. They embraced. Barton fastened his helmet onto the collar of his pressure suit, stepped through the outer hatch to Freedom's Horizon, waved once in farewell, and closed it behind him.

Chapter 27.

They spent four more years in orbit.

They were four years of design, of prototyping, of testing and diagnosis, redesign and retesting. Four years of experiments in materials science beyond anything ever before attempted by Man. Four years of delicate probes in highest-of-high-energy physics, seeking the safest possible design for an engine powered by the fury of suns. Four years of shift after shift of pressure-suited workmen, equipped with tools that wielded energies no groundside task would ever require, laboring to express those designs in ceramics and steel.

Four years shaping an instrument of ultimate liberation. Four years watching artisans of every sort shape the grandest of all Man's fantasies into the means for their actualization. Four years to move from a gauzy dream to its physical embodiment, fruit of the passion of heroes and the genius of a lone woman.

It was not without costs. The original estimates for the required expenditures were within eight percent of the reality. The overage derived largely from the many ground-to-orbit flights required to provision the workmen and ensure their safety. Althea spent her fortune nearly to exhaustion, preserving only her grandparents' original five million deka bequest as a nucleus for rebirth. Clan Morelon provided the balance.

There were many injuries. Fortunately, Althea had thought to subcontract the design of the habitat to Hallanson-Albermayer Corporation. HalberCorp's solution for an emergency ingress portal, a pseudo-living self-pressurizing sphincter that eliminated the need for an airlock, was instrumental in the preservation of several lives. Clan Albermayer also provided an orbital clinic, for an exceedingly stiff fee. Althea agreed to the terms without hesitation. It caused Claire Albermayer to wonder for many days whether she should have demanded even more.

There were two deaths. The first one was an accident with an X-ray-laser welder. The injury was too swiftly fatal for any emergency treatment to preserve the wielder's life. The workman's clan requested that his remains be returned to them. Martin loaded the corpse onto Freedom's Horizon with solemn reverence, flew the man home, and spoke movingly to the bereaved of his appreciation for the sacrifice.

The second death occurred when a workman was caught unaware between two moving subassemblies. The crews jockeying them into position had failed to alert others in their path. The collision severed the victim's spine at the neck. That evening, after a commemorative service among the workmen, at which Martin delivered the homily and many miscellaneous words of comfort, Althea loaded the deceased into a ballistic capsule, inserted it into the Relic's mini-mass driver, and fired it into the sun.

For four years, the work continued. Designers and artisans became one in their dedication and focus, a team that nothing could daunt. In the space around the Relic and in the tunnels within it, the team pressed on.

And one day in late September, 1322 A.H., Althea boarded the vessel, performed her final tests of its suitability and readiness, and declared that their work was finished, that her dream had been made real.

She christened it Liberty's Torch.

Chapter 28: Octember 15, 1322 A.H.

"Tonight," Barton said to the diners assembled in the Morelon hearthroom, "we celebrate the greatest achievement in the physical sciences any man of Hope has ever claimed." He nodded to Althea and Martin. They stood, holding hands and looking somewhat abashed. "It's easy to make claims, but a lot harder to make good on them. Althea and Martin have done both-and in doing so have made Hope a richer and freer society than it ever was before."

A thunder of applause erupted from the crowd. The honorees responded with smiles wide enough to threaten the integrity of their jaws. The tumult took some time to subside.

"These two," Barton continued, "are the pride of Clan Morelon. They've relieved Hope of the fear that our power stations would run out of fissionables. They've gifted Man with a power source so cheap and clean that we'll have to resist thinking of electrical power as being completely free of costs and consequences. They've crafted a vessel with which we can wander our solar system. They've even given us a step toward the transmutation of the elements. Al," he said, "you really think it's within reach?"

Althea giggled and nodded. "I'd say within five years, tops."

Barton inclined his head in acknowledgement. "After what you've already done, I can't find it in me to doubt you. Kinsmen and friends," he said, "we stand at the threshold of an abundance and ease we cannot even imagine. And the very same hands are about to give us the freedom of the galaxy."

Another cataract of applause broke forth, punctuated by cries of "Hear, hear!" and "Bravo!" Expressions of delight were uniform. Even desolated old Chuck Feigner, reaved of his love without reason or recourse, for whom life seemed no longer to be enjoyed but only endured, clapped and smiled.

After it had gone on for about a minute, Barton raised a hand, and the gathering quieted once more.

"But in the best traditions of a free people," he said, "they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it because Althea is determined to travel among the stars. She plans to search for Mankind's relatives on other worlds, and to chart new planets ripe for our colonization. Finally, she plans to visit the cradle of Mankind, old Earth itself, to see what's become of our parent stock and to extend our forgiveness to the descendants of those who drove our forebears into exile."

The attentive silence acquired an uneasy quality. The scattered fidgetings and subliminal murmur suggested that not everyone in the Morelon hearthroom was ready to forgive the peoples of Earth.

Barton swept the gathering with his gaze, nodded, and turned to his wife.

"Nora has something she'd like to say."

Nora Morelon rose, moved to her husband's side, and slipped an arm around his waist.

"Forgiving is important," she murmured. "I know it's hard. I don't think I've ever done anything harder. But that's part of what makes it important.

"The people who massacred the Spoonerites and hounded our ancestors into exile are all dead by now. Their descendants have had to live with that stain on their memory for more than eighteen hundred years. They must have wondered, some of them at least, whether the descendants of the Spoonerites would ever return to take vengeance. Such a fear must be a terrible thing to live with."

Nora paused and briefly looked down at the table.

"We want to think of ourselves as good people. Not just acceptable, but good. I don't think I could do that if I were unwilling to forgive. I've been trying to do so ever since Althea announced her space travel plans, because I knew that someday we'll send a delegation to Earth. We need to see what's developed there...whether they've outgrown their addiction to States and coercion...whether they can be our partners in the exploration of the galaxy."

She smiled tentatively and pulled Barton closer.

"Let's work on it a little. If we can forgive them, maybe we can be neighbors. Maybe we can learn to love them as we love ourselves."

She hugged Barton once more, they took their seats, and the buzz of normal conversation gradually returned.

After the other diners had departed and the hearthroom had been cleared of the banquet tables and chairs, Barton beckoned to Althea and Martin and bade them sit with him on the old masonwood sofa before the man-high hearth. Althea felt a prickle of unease as they took their seats.

"I have a request," Barton said when they'd settled. "I don't think you're going to like it much, but I'm hoping I can persuade you that it's in the clan's best interests, and maybe in yours as well." He looked back and forth between them.

"Whatever it is, Bart," Martin said, "you know we'll take it seriously."

Barton nodded. "That I do, Martin, and thanks in advance. We licensed our twelfth fusion unit last week, to Clan Cromartie. Construction is expected to start in a few days at most. I know you've trained Hugh and Gavin in the technical details of construction and operation, but it makes me nervous to contemplate not having you here as our new businesses expand. Alongside that, I know you've trained Ernie on Freedom's Promise, but to have only one qualified pilot makes it more than a little risky to fly."

Martin frowned. "In atmosphere it's just a jet. Adam Grenier's pilots could probably fly it after ten minutes' instruction."

Barton merely looked at him until he'd subsided.

"All the same," he said, "to have both of you light years away and out of communication represents a significant reduction in the expertise we've based our new ventures on. I know I could never persuade you, Al, but is there any chance I could induce you, Martin, to stay behind?"