Althea's gaze went at once to Martin's face.

Is Bart going to pull off what I could never accomplish?

"You're asking more of Al than of me," Martin rumbled. "If I stay here, she spends a minimum of three years in interstellar space alone. No company. No relief at the controls. No help if something goes badly wrong." He peered dubiously at the patriarch from under lowered brows. "Are you quite sure you want to ask that of her?"

Barton grinned ruefully. "I did have to think about it for a while. But yes, I do. And yes, I realize how big a sacrifice I'm asking of her. If you say no, I won't press the issue any further, I promise you." He frowned. "Three years, Al?"

Althea nodded. "I don't have power enough to force Liberty's Torch past Michelson eight, and the first target star is twelve lights away." She shrugged. "I'll need to do some work on the power system to get to Earth and back before you've forgotten my name."

"Hm." Barton looked at his knees. "I wasn't aware."

Martin said, "Then-"

"Wait, love." Althea put a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Not so fast. Let's take it upstairs and toss it back and forth in private."

Martin turned a look of pure incredulity on her, as if she'd asked him to do something utterly unthinkable. She fought down the urge to flinch and backtrack.

"Really?" he murmured.

Althea nodded, and the three of them rose from the sofa.

"Thank you," Barton said, "for at least considering it."

There was a desperate quality to their embrace that night. Martin's lovemaking was as tender and thorough as ever, yet Althea could practically read his thoughts from the tremors in his muscles. As she clung to him in the darkness, it became clear to her that his anxieties would not easily abate.

I wonder whether he'll regard my pitch as a betrayal.

-Never, Al. He knows you far too well for that. But you can be sure he won't like it.

Hi, Grandpere. It's hard to be confident about that when so much has changed.

-What are you thinking of, dear?

How about seven years in space beating ourselves half to death over my, pardon the phrase, insane obsession?

-You've both been through that. Why should it affect him more than you?

Grandpere! Because it's my obsession!

-Hm. Your obsession, his devotion. Good point. It would seem wise to tread carefully.

Gee, I thought you planetary intelligences were all needle-sharp?

-(humor) Whatever gave you that impression, Al? Besides, this isn't abstract rational stuff. It's people stuff, and people are infinitely variable.

Are we really? I'd have thought we're all pretty much the same, underneath.

-That could not be further from the truth. Take it from your friendly neighborhood planetary intelligence.

Who was once a people himself.

-(humor) Well, yes.

Her mouth curved into a grin against Martin's cheek.

"Something funny, love?" he said.

"Hm? Oh, no, not really. Just...luxuriating."

He turned in her arms and faced her. His eyes sought hers through the darkness. She struggled not to look away.

"Did you...seriously want me to consider Bart's request?" he said.

She hesitated, then nodded.

"Why, love? I can't imagine that you'll enjoy being alone for three years running."

She snorted. "You can disabuse yourself of that notion right away. Three years alone? I can barely stand to be away from you for three minutes."

A look that compounded surprise, delight, and confusion spread over his face.

"Then why? I can't fathom it."

She paused to marshal her forces, then pulled him firmly against her.

"Because everything else about this adventure is about me. Bart pinned it in only eight words: 'Althea is determined to travel among the stars.' I've been working toward it since I was eighteen years old. Everything I've ever done, except for loving and marrying you, has been part of that effort. We've spent eighty percent of what we'd accumulated on it. We've put two years in Thule and seven years in space into it. We've taken chances with our kinsmen's affections and our clan's standing in the community. And I have an ugly suspicion that the reason Charisse has abandoned the clan is my...my obsession with interstellar travel and the way it's shaped the clan's policies these past twenty years. Well," she said after a moment's reflection, "one of the reasons, anyway.

"It doesn't have to be all about me, Martin. It shouldn't. It's time I considered the clan's interests and well being. If we both hare off to Eridanus, we're stripping our kin of more than ninety-nine percent of the physics, chemistry, and engineering savvy that made the spaceplanes and the fusion reactors possible. Yet they're just about guaranteed to need support on one or the other of those things. Maybe both."

"Then why," he murmured, looking directly into her eyes, "should either of us go at all? Why do you have to go?"

She drew a sharp, frightened breath.

I can't remember that he's ever asked before.

Do I dare to tell him?

-The time has come, Al.

Grandpere? Are you sure? He might think- -It doesn't matter any longer. Either he knows you well enough to take you at your word, or he doesn't. Either way, waiting won't improve the odds.

Odds of what?

-That he'll doubt your sanity.

"Althea?"

"Martin..."

His arms tightened around her. "What is it, love?" His gentle brown eyes had taken on the contours of alarm.

She pushed him a little away, reached behind her and pressed the light switch, and their bedroom flared with illumination.

"You're going to think I've gone crazy."

Her revelations took them well past midnight. She unearthed the heirloom box she'd never dared to show him, extracted Teresza's note, and handed it to him. He read it and handed it back to her without comment, and she commenced to disclose the rest of her most closely kept secrets. He listened with unflagging attention, never betraying for an instant his evaluation of her tale. When she ran down at last, he nodded, rose from his seat on the bed, and paced irregularly about the room. She waited silently, but in a firestorm of anxiety. Finally, he propped himself against the edge of their dresser, folded his arms over his chest, and fixed her with a gaze of sober assessment.

"If anyone but you had shown me that note," he said at last, "I'd have dismissed it as a forgery composed to support an obvious fantasy. If anyone but you had told me of a thirty-year exchange with a dead man whose personality has somehow merged with a planetary overmind, I'd say he was insane and refuse to listen to any more. But it's coming from the woman I love. The note, the necromancy, all of it! How am I to reject any of it without rejecting you?"

She held her tongue.

"The problem," he continued, "is that not one word of it is consistent with the reality I've lived in for fifty years. I can't accept it on your say-so. Especially not this business about having a unique set of mental powers that allow you to converse with the dead-"

"Not with the dead generally, Martin."

He nodded. "Sorry. Only with this one, unique dead person whose soul somehow got blended into the overmind of Hope and resides there today, keeping watch over the planet's crust. Making sure its chemistry remains friendly to human life." He shook his head as if to clear it. "If our positions were reversed-if I were to tell you the story you've just told me-would you accept it without question?"

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, then rose to face him as levelly as possible.

This is it, girl. Showtime.

"If our positions were reversed," she said, "I'd be asking myself whether I have any reason to believe that the man I've loved for nearly twenty years would have any reason to lie to me. I'd be asking myself whether he was showing any other signs of schizophrenia or megalomania. And I'd be asking myself, 'How could Martin provide me with a little evidence of his claims? What could he tell me, or show me, that would make it all come together?'"

His brows knitted, but he said nothing.

"Martin, she said tonelessly, "I want you to uncross your arms and fold your hands. Fingers interlaced. Hold tight."

"Why?" he said.

"You want a demonstration, don't you?"

His eyes narrowed, but he complied.

"Now keep them together as long as you can."

She summoned her telekinetic power and put it to the task of separating his hands against his own considerable strength.

His eyes widened in alarm. He stared down at his folded hands, their grip on one another loosening against his will, and struggled to keep them together. She bore down, and his hands flew apart with such force that his arms were jerked horizontal, as if straining to leave their sockets.

She relaxed her telekinetic grip at once. Martin's arms returned to his sides, but the fright remained in his face.

"How-how?" he whispered.

"A gift from my grandfather," she said casually. "The day we met, you caught me exercising another of his gifts: my unusual speed. It seemed to unsettle you, so I made a point of not letting you see me do it again. There are other facets to it, Martin. I'm far stronger than a woman my size should be. My endurance is off the charts. My vision and hearing are twice as acute as the nominal human optimum. And I'm a telepath, a telekine, a clairvoyant, and an all-around pain in the ass."

She folded her arms and waited.

"And a high genius of physics," he murmured at last. "And a financial wizard. And a master negotiator. And a lover of such passion that comparisons fail me. Al," he said, "what on Hope did you want with me?"

It rocked her momentarily. She recentered herself with an effort.

"You, Martin Kan-Hsing Forrestal," she said, "are the finest specimen of Mankind on Hope today. Grandpere Armand says so. On the basis of extensive exposure, I find that I concur. I had no choice about loving you, any more than Grandmere Teresza could help loving Grandpere Armand." She bared her teeth. "Do you regret it?"

His face fell. "Of course not!"

She smirked. "I was hoping you'd say that. Now that we've established that I'm not crazy, that I am a psi, and that my marching orders come from an authoritative if unusual source which it would be at the least ungrateful of me to ignore, can I persuade you to consider remaining here on Hope with the clan for a few years, while I pursue my mad passion for space travel and see if I can bring home a few new bits of knowledge about life elsewhere in the Milky Way?"

Chapter 29: Octember 28, 1322 A.H.

As the last of the hovertrucks turned and pulled away, Althea checked the charge level of the power capacitors on the mass driver, assured herself that the launch azimuth remained correct, and punched the firing button. The huge ferroceram electromagnets emitted a cannonaded whine-and-crackle as they shot the payload into the heavens.

It was her seventeenth launch of the day. The remotes that controlled the magnetic catchbasket on the Relic and reported on its status had already registered the safe arrival and offloading of the previous sixteen. The mountings had proved even stabler than she'd hoped. She hadn't had to adjust the driver's orientation since they'd begun that morning.

The deliveries were complete. Only six payloads, all of food and soft goods, remained to be wrapped in shock-and-guidance harnesses, loaded into the mass driver, and fired up to the Relic. Yet Martin's gaze remained fixed on the access road. He stared at the blind curve that led away toward the residential region of Jacksonville as if he expected still more trucks to round that curve, bearing still more cargo to be delivered to orbit. It unsettled Althea in a way she could not define.

-Don't let it trouble you, dear.

Hi, Grandpere. It doesn't exactly trouble me.

-What, then?

I've just never seen him look that wistful before.

-He's never had to anticipate three solid years without you before. Without even the hope of hearing your voice on the radio.

Hm. Good point.

She moved up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He looked back over his shoulder, smiled, and went back to gazing down the access road.

I hope he isn't rethinking his decision.

-Why not, dear?

Because I don't dare rethink mine.

-Ah. I understand perfectly. But you can take some comfort in this, at least.