Part 61 (1/2)

[Image: Baby placed in cradle cries Father takes him holds against ma.s.sive deerskinvested shoulder pats tiny back expertly dips fingertip in honeypot Baby suckles Father cuddles yellow-bearded ferocity smiles.

] He makes a pretty good dad.

Your unconscious thought so.

... A weird thing that and one I never would have antic.i.p.ated.

The unconscious uses what it must.

And why Mayvar for my mother figure-and not you?

She was right.

You loved her and him too power& vulnerability stature&puniness maturejudgment&childis.h.i.+mpulse. In both. In you. Their child is father of your man. You chose your parents and gave birth to yourself.

I love you too!.

Sisterly. I'm the Ice Queen remember?

[Quiet laughter. Contemplation of slowly fading image.] Funny, I haven't been interested in that sort of thing lately.

You will be. Don't worry about that.

Save my energy for the real problems! ... One piece of good news today amidst the encircling gloom: We've located Tony Wayland that metallurgist we need for the Guderian Project. Would you believe? Chief Burke and his Lowlives nabbed the guy and offered to barter him to us!

All they want in return is free pa.s.sage back to the Milieu and a fair shake for their bandito buddies. Of course I agreed. The Chief will be coming into Roniah tomorrow to work out details of the swap with Kuhal Earthshaker at the City-Lord's place.

Hm. I haven't been in touch with Peo since before young Brendan's redaction. Strange that he should be willing to deal with a fellow Lowlife as a commodity.

Tony was eager to be sold down the river. The alternative was being hanged for high crimes and misdemeanours.

Good grief.

Good night Elizabeth.

Walter Saastamoinen came onto Kyllikki's bridge punctually at midnight to relieve Patricia Castellane at the helm.

”All peaceful, I presume,” he remarked, thumbing the key pad of the course director and studying the replay of first-watch performance events. ”You're doing very well at manual for an apprentice, Pat. The director only overruled you once in the entire four-hour trick.”

”It's a relief to be able to do something besides those miserable psych-up exercises,” she said. ”My metafunctions aren't going to get much stronger through mental muscle flexing. More likely weaker, with my dirigent formation. But try to tell Jeff that.” Her mouth was taut with resentment.

Walter moved to the wheel, disengaged the autopilot, and let the soul of the great schooner come into him.

Oh, you beauty!

”Sailing Kyllikki is good for what ails both of us. I wish we could just keep going. Alter course to the south ... touch in along the coast of Africa ... round the Cape of Good Hope and go up into the Indian Ocean to see Pliocene Asia. Marc would never let us range out, after the Antarctic tragedy. But now there's no real reason why we shouldn't.”

She was making them coffee at the dispenser and now handed a mug to Walter, frowning slightly. ”I don't understand you.”

”The Milieu coppers aren't going to be able to nab us if Marc succeeds with this new d-jump thing.” He twiddled with the atmospheric a.n.a.log unit next to the binnacle. ”As I understand it, he should be able to take us all extraplanetary once he gets the thing mastered. We could cruise around until he does. Forget about fighting with the kids over the time-gate. Surely they'd be willing to delay the opening until we got safely away.”