Charisse nodded. "Their commons girdle is about the prettiest on Alta," Charisse said. "Have you seen it, Al?"

"No," Althea said, "but it sounds like it's worth a weekend trip. What was the substance, Martin?"

Althea's husband didn't speak at once. Lines of tension formed on his face. He was plainly reluctant to continue.

"Martin?" Althea reached into his lap and took his hand in a soft clasp. "We do need to know. Charisse especially."

"A bunch of the retail businesses that use the commons wanted to expand it," he said. "It would have meant breaching the girdle, or compelling it to expand. The garden society wouldn't cooperate, so the retailers called a meeting of the whole neighborhood and tried to marshal popular approval behind their agenda. They claimed an immovable barrier against expanding the commons was against the greater community interest."

"The whole point of the girdle is to prevent exactly that," Charisse said. She caught his gaze and locked it with her own. "What did the neighbors say?"

Althea fought down the impulse to crush the hand she held.

"Most of them sneered it away," Martin said. "There's a lot of local pride tied up in those flowers and shrubs. But..." He looked briefly away. "About twenty percent of them thought it was a good idea. A bigger commons would mean more trade, more profit. They were willing to have the garden society's registration canceled by fiat."

His gaze descended to the table as he ran down.

"Martin?" Althea murmured. "You weren't involved in any of that, were you?"

"No," he said, "but my family was." He let out a long, sorrowful sigh. "On the wrong side."

Althea fought to suppress her reaction.

So that's why I've never met any other Forrestals.

Charisse nodded. "I'm not really surprised, Al. Principles are a hard master. There'll always be some in any crowd who find them too burdensome. Give them an excuse and they'll fling them aside without a second thought."

"Grandaunt?" Althea murmured. "Is this how a State gets started?"

Charisse folded her arms across her breasts and turned to gaze out the kitchen window, to the sweep of the Morelon cornfields that lay beyond.

"One of the ways. Al," she said at last. "There are others, plenty of them, but this is one."

After that night's lovemaking, Martin gently rearranged them with Althea on top, her body cushioned and supported full-length by his, and pulled the coverlet over them. She settled her cheek against his shoulder with a faint sigh as his arms closed around her.

"I'm going to have to go to that meeting," she murmured.

"I know," Martin said. "Do you want me there with you?"

"Of course." She smiled in the darkness. "I always want you with me."

"Good to know. Do you have a strategy yet?"

"No. I was hoping you might have an idea."

He snorted. "Not yet. I can tell you how it went in Sun Tzu, but that's about it."

"As good a place to start as any, love."

There was a brief silence.

"The garden society immediately asserted their rights," he said. "They'd invested enormous effort in their plot, which established their ownership of the registered grounds according to precedent and beyond any dispute. The only way, without shattering their property right, to expel them was to buy the plot from them-and they flatly refused to sell."

"Did the neighborhood buy the argument straight off?" Althea murmured.

"Yes, except for about one in five who were fixated on the extra commerce a larger commons might bring. I doubt that any pitch could have brought them around."

She pondered it for a long moment.

"I don't think we can use that approach effectively," she said at last. "All we've done with our parcel is register it and plant surveyor's stakes at the corners." She felt the muscles in her chest and shoulders tighten. "Our sole claim to ownership lies in that registration and those stakes."

"We could try to rush construction," he said, "get the building up before anyone could interfere. The claim would be a lot less assailable that way."

"The meeting is next Tuckerday," she said. "I don't see how we could even get the foundation laid by then."

There was another period of silence.

Presently Martin said, "The whole thing turns on precedent and tradition, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Well, is there another clan in Jacksonville that has an equal stake in maintaining those precedents?"

Althea started to demur, stopped herself.

Why assume we have to play defense?

"There might be," she said, "but there might be a better response to this attack on the precedent than just to insist on it."

"Hm?"

She lifted her head from his shoulder and gazed down at him. "Invite them to define their 'community interest,' train a Spacehawk laser on it, and blast it into oblivion."

"But how?" Martin said. "The flier, at least, said nothing about what issues they intend to raise."

"That does make it chancy," Althea said. "But maybe if we couple it to another sort of 'community interest'..."

She peered down at him as currents of thought passed over his face.

"The mass driver?" he said.

"It could be put to work commercially, you know."

He squinted up at her. "That's one hell of a commitment to lay on a device that's at least two years away."

"Well, yeah. But if we could get a promise of cooperation from-"

"Stop right there," he said. "You just used a very powerful word."

She frowned. "Cooperation?"

"No," he replied. "If."

"Well, I can't walk into the meeting with nothing in my hands but four surveyor's stakes and a week-old registration!"

"That might be all we can offer, Al. This caught us flat-footed. The Kramniks or whoever is behind it was just waiting to pounce."

Her body tensed to a flood of adrenalin. Try as she might, she could not quell the fight-or-flight imperative surging through her.

It had to be the Kramniks. It had to be Bart. He must have convinced Douglas that for me to reject him with prejudice and marry a complete outsider was an unacceptable blow to their clan pride.

"I'm afraid, Martin," she said. "For the first time in my life, I'm afraid of our neighbors."

"I know," Martin murmured. "Al?"

"Hm?"

"At the meeting...do you think you could leave it to me?"

She squinted down at him. "Do you have an approach?"

"I do, but...never mind," he said. "Better that I keep it to myself until it congeals the whole way. Just tell me if you trust me that far."

It would be easier if I knew what you were planning.

She reflected for a moment on his gift for spotting flaws.

Maybe it will work on this sort of thing as well it does as on an autotiller.

"All right."

He smiled and pulled her down against him. He stroked her back and shoulders carefully, tracing out the knots and ridges that had formed in her muscles and teasing them back to softness, palpably but gently urging her to calm. Presently she relaxed and laid her head against him.

"You have magic hands," she murmured.

"The magic," he replied, "isn't in the hands, love."

"Oh? Where, then?"

"It's in you." He squeezed her gently. "In us together. Now let's get some sleep."

They did.

Chapter 3: Quintember 10, 1303 A.H.

Half an hour before the time appointed for the meeting, Althea and Martin filed away their drawings and planning tables and set forth for Jacksonville's Spacehawk installation. They found a substantial fraction of their neighbors, several hundred at the least, clustered around the front of the anti-spacecraft battery. The reaction to their arrival was all but unanimous: a glance, a flash of recognition, and a determined swerve of the eyes away from them and toward the front of the battery.

They saw no one from Clan Kramnik.

They have to show up.

-They will, Al. Just not early enough to provoke a scene. Or allow you to provoke one.

They think as little of us as anyone ever did of them, don't they, Grandpere?

-It would seem that way. It doesn't matter. They'd never dare to stand against Clan Morelon without the rest of the neighborhood behind them.

Does the rest of the family know that?

-Hard to say. Charisse, surely. Chuck, probably. The rest? You'd have to poll them.

Hm. Maybe later.

A modest podium about eighteen inches high had been erected before the battery entrance. Martin halted them at a spot near its forward edge, wrapped an arm around Althea's waist and pulled her close. Those near to them on either side stared rigidly ahead.

"I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have discouraged the others from coming with us," she murmured.

Martin smirked down at her. "Chuck and Cam at least, eh?"

"Well, their size does have a certain pacifying effect." She grinned. "Like yours."

He chuckled. "I'll try to be sufficient."

Grandpere?

-Yes, dear?

Could I persuade you to, ah, reincarnate yourself? Just for this meeting? You have a certain mystique among our neighbors, you know.

-(humor) I would if I could, Al, but I'm afraid I can't. Some things remain beyond my powers.

Damn. I could really use the support.

A channel through the crowd formed to their right. Douglas Kramnik strode through it. All eyes turned toward him as he hopped onto the podium. The Kramnik patriarch swiftly scanned the throng, smiling at most and scowling at Althea and Martin, then cleared his throat and clapped once smartly.

"I trust you all know why we're here," he said. "The Morelons have proposed to establish a laboratory for engine and propulsion research here in Jacksonville. They've registered a large parcel about three miles to the north and have staked it out, but as of yet they've undertaken no construction. As such a facility will impose both hazards and nuisances upon the entire community, I called this meeting to discuss with you whether we can and should tolerate it."

"No, you didn't" Martin boomed.