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Brodersen noticed Caitlín had not responded. Perturbed, he glanced at her and saw she remained serious, her eyes on the horizon and the blue depths beyond.
No! Please! “I’m
sorry,” his voice groped. “Did I say something wrong? I wouldn’t make you sad again for every planet in the plenum. But I seem to have.”

“Not really, dear.” She patted his back. “You only reminded me.”

“Blast me for an idiot! I, well, I was describing how you were before, to try and explain how you are were—your old self. I shouldn’t have raised ghosts for you. I didn’t know. Can you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I
have
won beyond the longing, the hopeless trying to regain; in truth I have.” Her fingers closed around his. They halted in the middle of the road and turned to each other. A cloud shadow swept over them, then sunlight spilled anew.

“Honestly, Dan, my love. What memories are left lie deep and quiet, beyond either grief or joy. It is I must beg your pardon, for blindness to how you needed to speak of this.”

“Well, I’m not awfully good at giving signals, Pegeen, macushla.”

—After the kiss, walking once more, she told him, “You did say a thing that frets me, that you would have died to bring me back to what I was.”

“I meant it.”

“Did you indeed? You should not have. What about Lis and the children?”

He winced. “Yes, them. Right. I wasn’t thinking. When a person loves another the way I love you—” He couldn’t go on.

“Dan,” she said, “I’ve told you before, I know a single reason why I would ever leave you: if I came between you and Lis. That would turn what was good and happy into a thing evil and sorrowful; and how could I abide myself?”

“No fears,” he promised. “You may need to warn me occasionally, but… well, I honor my contracts; and besides, I love her too.”

She smiled with her entire face. “Ah, that’s my skipper speaking.”

Presently: “But, my life, you’re troubled in your turn. Why?”

As she had earlier, he looked into the distances. “I got to feeling—not the first time—feeling how unfair this is to you.”

“How?”

“I do have a home and family and they do mean the world to me. You rate the same. Am I keeping you from them? I’m afraid I am.”

She laughed aloud, which startled him enough that he caught his toe in a rut and almost fell. When he had recovered, she said, “Dan, Dan, can you really imagine me languishing in a situation I have not freely chosen, aye, purposely brought about? It took the Others to cause that, and then it wasn’t permanent.”

“But, uh, a free choice can be unwise.”

“I always know what I want, however that may change. It may in time be a husband, if he’s the right kind of man, the which includes understanding why I’ll not give you up. Or it may never be, and is that tragic? I do think at last I’ll want a child or two, who could well be yours. Let us see what happens. We’ve a whole cosmos before us.”

After a minute in which the lark sang, Caitlín went on: “Already I’ve changes in mind—going to medical school, so I can ship out on some of the expeditions that will be off to the stars.”

“What?” He stopped in his tracks.

“Don’t worry, my heart.” She got them started onward. “I’ll return to you, as I promised in that song of mine. Or could be we’ll fare together. Not on each trip. You’ve no right and I hope no wish to be overmuch gone from Demeter. But you do have
the right and I believe the wish to stay entirely alive till you die.”

He considered her. “Is this just go-fever in you, after the experience we’ve had?”

She answered frankly: “No. That might have been true were I what I was. You bespoke a child in me you dreaded was dead. Well, she was only sleeping, but the sleep was long and she’s awakened older. I’ve need in me to discover and learn, to use myself to the utmost. And, yes, serve; for what our explorers do will change lives beyond reckoning. Should we not seek to make those changes harmless, or even benign? Before all else, is there not the freedom of every sentient being to uphold? I want to be where I can help, however little and mistakenly, toward those ends.”

“I see.” Brodersen paused. “And I’ve got a notion your help won’t be little nor very much mistaken.”

“Thank you, dear love,” she murmured.

They walked. The day strengthened, brighter, warmer, greener, more full of scents. From behind a ridge, a hawk swung to hover where the sun turned its wings golden. They could feel how the land rose toward the heights.

Suddenly Caitlín cried, “Och, what are we doing instead of being happy?” She unslung the sonador from her shoulder. It was programmed for guitar. She strummed a few chords. In a short while she was singing, while her feet went blithe in the measure.

The T machine is not entirely a figment of my imagination. Its basic principle was described by F. J. Tipler in
Physical Review,
vol. D–9, no. 8 (15 April 1974), pp. 2203–1;
Physical Review Letters,
vol. 37, no. 14 (4 October 1976), pp. 879–82; and his thesis
Causality Violation in General Relativity
(University of Maryland, 1976). He is in no way responsible for my use of his idea, especially since I have departed considerably from his mathematical model.

Likewise, the concept of life on a pulsar is from an interview with Frank Drake in
Astronomy
magazine, December 1973, pp. 5–8, as well as a lecture he gave at the 1974 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He too is a reputable scientist; he does not advance the notion as anything but highly speculative, at best; moreover, I may have committed grievous technical errors for which he has no responsibility.

My thanks to both these gentlemen for permission to borrow their thoughts. I can but hope that these are herewith returned in not too badly battered a condition.

Parts of Chapters II and XXIII appeared, in slightly different form, in the Fall 1977 issue of
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine,
in a story entitled “Joelle,” copyright © 1977 by Davis Publications, Inc.

The quotation in Chapter IV is from the poem “Sussex,” by Rudyard Kipling, in
Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, Definitive Edition,
published by Doubleday & Co., and is used by agreement.

For suggestions, information, and general helpfulness I am especially indebted to Karen Anderson, Mildred Downey Broxon, Victor Fernández-Dávid, Robert L. Forward, Larry J. Friesen, and David G. Hartwell. Several good things in the book are due to them. The bad things are all my own invention.

P
OUL
A
NDERSON

Poul Anderson (1926–2001)grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1978 by Trigonier Trust

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4976-9425-5

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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