After the Ythrian craft whipped around the globe into weirdness, Nadi had no way of knowing what she did, how she moved. He could not foretell where she would be when she again became detectable. And thus he could plan no interception pattern.

  He could do nothing but hope she would never reappear. A ship flying so close, not simply orbiting but flying, would be seized, torn apart, and hauled into the star, unless the pilot and his computers knew exactly what they did.

  Or almost exactly. That was a crazily chancy ride. When Coya could glance from her desk, she saw blaze in the screens, Hirharouk clutching his perch with both hands while his wings thundered and he yelled for joy, van Rijn on his knees in prayer. Then they ran into a meteoroid swarm (she supposed) which rebounded off their shield-fields and sent them careening off trajectory; and the man shook his fist, commenced on a mighty oath, glimpsed her and turned it into a Biblical “Damask rose and shittah tree!” Later, when something else went wrong—some interaction with a plasma cloud—he came to her, bent over and kissed her brow.

  They won past reef and riptide, lined out for deep space, switched back into hyperdrive and ran on homeward.

  Coincidences do happen. The life would be freakish which held none of them.

  Muddlin’ Through, bound for Eka-World in response to Coya’s letter, passed within detection range of Dewfall, made contact, and laid alongside. The pioneers boarded.

  This was less than a day after the brush with oblivion. And under no circumstances do Ythrians go in for tumultuous greetings. Apart from Hirharouk, who felt he must represent his choth, the crew stayed at rest. Coya, roused by van Rijn, swallowed a stimpill, dressed, and hastened to the flying hold—the sole chamber aboard which would comfortably accommodate Adzel. In its echoing dim space she threw her arms partway around him, took Chee Lan into her embrace, kissed David Falkayn and wept and kissed him and kissed him.

  Van Rijn cleared his throat. “A-hem!” he grumbled. “Also bgr-rrm. I been sitting here hours on end, till my end is sore, wondering when everybody elses would come awake and make celebrations by me; and I get word about you three mosquito-ears is coming in, and by my own self I hustle stuff for a party.” He waved at the table he had laid, bottles and glasses, platesful of breads, cheeses, sausage, lox, caviar, kanuba, from somewhere a vaseful of flowers. Mozart liked in the background. “Well, ha, poets tell us love is enduring, but I tell us good food is not, so we take our funs in the right order, nie?”

  Formerly Falkayn would have laughed and tossed off the first icy muglet of akvavit; he would have followed it with a beer chaser and an invitation to Coya that they see what they could dance to this music. Now she felt sinews tighten in the fingers that enclosed hers; across her shoulder he said carefully: “Sir, before we relax, could you let me know what’s happened to you?”

  Van Rijn got busy with a cigar. Coya looked a plea at Adzel, stroked Chee’s fur where the Cynthian crouched on a chair, and found no voice. Hirharouk told the story in a few sharp words.

  “A-a-ah,” Falkayn breathed. “Judas priest. Coya, they ran you that close to that hellkettle—” His right hand let go of hers to clasp her waist. She felt the grip tremble and grew dizzy with joy.

  “Well,” van Rijn huffed. “I didn’t want she should come, my dear tender little bellybird, ja, tender like tool steel—”

  Coya had a sense of being put behind Falkayn, as a man puts a woman when menace draws near. “Sir,” he said most levelly, “I know, or can guess, about that. We can discuss it later if you want. What I’d like to know immediately, please, is what you propose to do about the Supermetals consortium.”

  Van Rijn kindled his cigar and twirled a mustache.

  “You understand,” he said, “I am not angry if they keep things under the posies. By damn, though, they tried to make me a prisoner or else shoot me to bits of lard what would go into the next generation of planets. And Coya, too, Davy boy, don’t forget Coya, except she would make those planets prettier. For that, they going to pay.”

  “What have you in mind?”

  “Oh…a cut. Not the most unkindest, neither. Maybe like ten percent of gross.”

  The creases deepened which a hundred suns had weathered into Falkayn’s countenance. “Sir, you don’t need the money. You stopped needing more money a long while back. To you it’s nothing but a counter in a game. Maybe, for you, the only game in town. Those beings aft of us, however—they are not playing.”

  “What do they do, then?”

  Surprisingly, Hirharouk spoke. “Freeman, you know the answer. They seek to win that which will let their peoples fly free.” Standing on his wings, he could not spread gold-bronze plumes; but his head rose high. “In the end, God the Hunter strikes every being and everything which beings have made. Upon your way of life I see His shadow. Let the new come to birth in peace.”

  From Falkayn’s hands, Coya begged: “Gunung Tuan, all you have to do is do nothing. Say nothing. You’ve won your victory. Tell them that’s enough for you, that you too are their friend.”

  She had often watched van Rijn turn red—never before white. His shout came ragged: “Ja! Ja! Friend! So nice, so kind, maybe so farsighted—Who, what I thought of like a son, broke his oath of fealty to me? Who broke kinship?”

  He suspected. Coya realized sickly, but he wouldn’t admit it to himself till this minute, when I let out the truth. She held Falkayn sufficiently hard for everyone to see.

  Chee Lan arched her back. Adzel grew altogether still.

  Falkayn forgot Coya—she could feel how he did—and looked straight at his chief while he said, word by word like blows of a hammer: “Do you want a response? I deem best we let what is past stay dead.”

  Their gazes drew apart. Falkayn’s dropped to Coya.

  The merchant watched them standing together for a soundless minute. And upon him were the eyes of Adzel, Chee, and Hirharouk the sky dweller.

  He shook his head. “Hokay,” said Nicholas van Rijn, well-nigh too low to hear. “I keep my mouth shut. Always. Now can we sit down and have our party for making you welcome?” He moved to pour from a bottle; and Coya saw that he was indeed old.

  THE BITTER BREAD

  Seven years have gone since last we on Earth had news of Uriel in heaven; and I do not think we ever shall again. Whether they died or triumphed or their wild hunt still runs between the stars, yon crew has eternally left us. Should they after all return, it will surely be only briefly, with word and image for mankind and maybe, maybe a smile recorded for me.

  That smile must then travel here, first in a shipboard tape, then in a code beamed through the sky, the censor, the global comweb to my house on Hoy. I shall never more see space. Three years ago the directors required me to retire. I am not unhappy. Steep red and yellow cliffs, sea green in sunlight or gray under clouds until it breaks in whiteness and thunder, gulls riding a cold loud wind, inland the heather and a few gnarly trees across hills where sheep still graze, a hamlet of rough and gentle Orkney folk an hour’s walk away, my cat, my books, my rememberings—these things are good. They are well worth being often chilled, damp, a wee bit hungry. It may even be for the best that the weather seldom gives me a clear look at the stars.

  Also, eccentric though I was to spend my savings on this place, rather than enter a Church lodge for senior spacemen, nobody will trouble to come here and examine my scribblings. Are they found after I am dead, they should not hurt my sons in their own careers. For one thing, I have always been openly kittle. The Protectorate must needs allow, yes, expect a measure of oddness among its top-rank technos. Of course, my papers would be deemed subversive and whiffed. So I put them each night in a box under a flagstone I have loosened, wondering if some archeologist someday may read them…and smile?

  In the main, though, you archeologist, I write for myself, to bring back years and loves: today, Daphne.

  When she sought me out, I had lately been appointed head of the Uriel relief mission. To organize this, I had taken an office in New Jerusalem, high up in Armstrong Center where my view swept across city roofs and towers, on over the Cimarron to the wheat-bronze Kansas plain beyond. That day was hard, hot, cloudless. The cross on the topmost spire of the Supreme Church blazed as if its gold had gone incandescent, and flitfighters on guard above the armored bulk of the Capitol gleamed like dragonflies. Though the room was air-conditioned, I could almost feel the weather beyond my window, a seethe or crackle amongst steady murmurs of traffic.

  My intercom announced, “Mrs. Asklund, sir.” I muttered a heartfelt “Damn!” and laid down the manifest I’d been working on. I’d forgotten that, somehow, the wife of Uriel’s navigator had obtained a personal appointment. Hadn’t I overmuch to do, in ghastly short time, without soothing distraught females? Eidophone conversations with two other crewmen’s wives had been difficult—when at least they were accepting God’s will in Christian fortitude, and wanted only to ask about sending messages or gifts to the men they would never remeet in this life. “Aweel, remind her I’ve but a few minutes to spill, and let her in,” I ordered.

  Then Daphne came through the door, and everything was suddenly a bright surprise.

  She was tall. A gown of standard dark modesty did not hide a fine figure. The skirt swished around her ankles with the sea-wind vigor of her stride. Green-eyed, curve-nosed, full-mouthed, framed in coils of mahogany hair, her face wasn’t pretty, it was beautiful. I saw there not sorrow but determination. When she stopped before my desk, folded her hands and bowed her head above them to me, the salutation had scant meekness. Yet her voice was low and mild, the English bearing a slight accent: “Captain Sinclair, I am Daphne Asklund. You are kind to receive me.”

  We both knew I did so because she had pulled wires. However, I could say no less than, “Please sit down, sister. I’d call this a pleasure were the occasion not sad. How can I be of help to you?”

  She settled herself and spent a few seconds studying my grizzle-topped lankiness, almost like a friendly challenge, before she curved her lips upward a very little and answered, “You can hear me out, sir. What I’ll propose isn’t quite as fantastic as it will sound.”

  “The whole business is fantastic.” I leaned back in my own chair and reached for my pipe. “Uh, I do sympathize. I’m affected too. Matthew King was my classmate at the Academy, and we were always close friends afterward.”

  “But you don’t know Valdemar?”

  “Your husband? Not really, I fear. The Astronautic Corps is small enough that we have occasionally been at the same conference or the same refresher training session; but it’s big enough that we didn’t get truly acquainted. He did…does impress me well, Mrs. Asklund.”

  “Uriel’s skipper is your friend. Its navigator is my husband. I hope you can imagine the difference,” she said: no hint of self-pity, simply remarking on a fact.

  I am not sure why, already then, I let go my reserve and told her, “Yes. My wife died only last year.”

  Her look softened. “I’m sorry. My apologies. Captain Sinclair. I’ve been too snarled in my personal troubles to—Well.” She straightened. “Val is not departed, though. He…they all face years, decades of…endless trial.” Exile, imprisoned in a metal shell ahurtle among the stars—perhaps at last madness, murder, horror beyond guessing, till a lone man squatted among dead bones—she did not mention these things either.

  I gathered myself to speak bluntly. “We’ll do what we can for them. That’s the duty I’m on, and you will forgive me if it leaves scant attention to spare for anybody Earthbound. I—I am told clergy are counseling the wives to—Well, they expect the Pastorate will soon permit, aye, encourage dissolution of any unions involved, and the ladies be free to remarry. Has not your minister spoken to you of this?”

  She met my plainness with hers. “No. I am not a Christian. My maiden name was Greenbaum.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not a good Jewess either, I admit. Haven’t been to temple in years—that would have handicapped Val too much, professionally—but I could never bring myself to convert. Nor did he want me to.” She left tacit the obvious, that his faith was probably mostly on his lips. Reading history, I have seen how tolerance has grown in the World Protectorate since its early days after the Armageddon War. But the time will be long yet before a professed non-Christian, not to mention an outright unbeliever, gets a spaceman’s berth.

  Daphne Asklund’s background did help explain why her husband was aboard Uriel. The Corps doesn’t exactly have a policy of giving its deviant members the most hazardous assignments. But they tend to volunteer for these, in the hope of advancement despite their social disadvantages or for deeper personality reasons. And then the tendency is to choose them from among qualified applicants, in compassion or a silent hope they may be more original and resourceful than average, or (I suppose) now and again a less honorable motive. Matt King, for instance, when young and foolish, had fathered a bastard. Or—I, commanding the relief mission, did not belong to the Absolute Christian Church but to a remnant of the old Kirk of Scotland; and kinfolk of mine, before I was born, were involved in the European Insurrection.

  “Well,” I said. “Well.” My pipe and tobacco busied my hands. “Best we come to business. What do you want of me that lower echelons can’t arrange for you? And why this visit, instead of a message or a phone call?”

  “Only you can give me what I am after,” she replied, “and you would not do it for a stranger. I don’t expect you to say yes the first time.”

  You take for granted there will be more times, I thought. “Go on.”

  She drew breath. “Let me first describe myself. I hold full North American citizenship”—which had opened the ears of men who could grant access to me, a client national—“but was born and raised in Caribbea. My father was stationed there as an engineer for the Oceanic Power Authority. I grew up swimming, diving, sailing, hiking; or we’d hop to the Andes and mountaineer. I still do such things—did, with Val. My father got me entry to the University of Mexico, where I took a degree in microbiotics. Afterward I was an assistant to Sancho Dominguez—yes, I helped him develop his improvements in balanced life-support systems for spacecraft. That was how I met Val. He was on the team that tested them, and came to the laboratory for conferences. After we married, I had to resign my job—you know how spacemen get moved around, also on Earth—but Dr. Dominguez keeps me on retainer as a consultant and has called me in on several problems. That’s the main reason we put off having children, social stigma be damned.”

  An oath on a woman’s tongue seemed not altogether wrong; when tears glimmered forth on her eyelashes. Did the golden cross throw too harsh a light, or had she all at once felt that now they would have no children ever? She blinked, lifted her head, and went on defiantly:

  “A peculiar life, hasn’t it been? Almost like a female’s before Armageddon.” She flushed, though her tone stayed crisp. “Except for their moral looseness, of course. But please understand, sir—check me out later on—in spite of my sex, I’m athletic, used to handling emergencies, scientifically skilled, a specialist in the very thing your expedition is chiefly concerned with—

  “Captain Sinclair, I want to go along.”

  It happened that our propaganda department had completed the official film on this task, and screened it that afternoon for me and my staff prior to release. I invited Daphne to join us. “Frankly, the reaction of a wife may show us changes we ought to make,” I said. Hesitating: “You may prefer to wait, and watch at home when it’s ’cast. They’ve doubtless included shots of your husband.”

  “Could I wish not to see those?” she answered.

  On our way to the auditorium, I explained the need for a dramatic presentation. Spiritual relations were no great problem. The Church could scarcely object to an errand of mercy. A few canons had expressed fear that men spending a lifetime shipbound, no chaplain among them, might fall into despair, curse God, yes, commit the sin against nature. But unless we let them starve, or slaughtered them, that risk must be taken. And in truth, the temptation was their opportunity: to smite Satan, bear witness, win sainthood.

  As for temporal authorities, the Protector himself had approved our undertaking. He had more interest in science than Enoch IV before him or, for that matter, David III today. Out of disaster we could pluck a farther-ranging exploration of the galaxy than anyone had awaited for generations. We might even find that long-sought dream, New Eden, the planet so like a virgin Earth that full-scale colonization is possible. Rumors reaching me said some of the Council had warned against that. Start men moving freely outward, and what heresies, what libertinisms and rebellions, might they soon spawn? However, at present the opposition didn’t appear too strong.

  The public was what we must convince, at any rate a sufficient minority. “Every special interest protests resources going to space research instead of it,” I remarked. “You can’t imagine the pressure. I didn’t myself, in spite of being in the Corps, until I got this administrative post. The journalistic media don’t report major disputes. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

  “But if our rulers—” Hastily: “If most of the government endorses what we do, who cares about mobs?” she asked. I was to learn that she didn’t lack charity for the humble of Earth, save when they threatened her man. And then her anger blasted mainly at their ignorance. (“Can’t they listen? Why, just what’s been learned out there about repairing radiation damage should have each soul of the millions that crater dust has blown across, down on his knees in thanks.”)

  I shrugged. “The Protectorate is only total in theory. In practice, it rests as much on being the compromise maker, the broker, between nations, races, classes, faiths, as it does on military force.”