I couldn't remember the last time I'd raised my voice to them—years ago, if I ever had.

They both shrank back. The shame from watching them do that was excruciating. My own kids, fearful. Christ.

Nathaniel rallied first, his expression hardening. «I'm not leaving Eden,» he snapped. «You can't make me. I'll divorce you if I have to. But I'm staying.» He very deliberately put his bubble cube down on a small table, then turned round and stalked off to his room.

«Oh, Daddy,» Nicolette said. It was a rebuke that was almost unbearable.

«I did ask you to wait. Was one week so difficult?»

«I know,» she said forlornly. «But there's a girl; Nat met her at the water sports centre.»

«Great. Just great.»

«She's lovely, Dad. Really pretty, and she's older than him. Sixteen.»

«Pension age.»

«Don't you see? She doesn't mind that he's a few months younger, that he's not as sophisticated as she is, she still likes him. That never happened to him before. It couldn't happen to him, not back on Earth.»

Sex, the one subject every parent dreads. I could see Corrine's face, leering knowingly. Eden teenagers use affinity to experiment. Thoroughly.

I must have groaned, because Nicolette was resting her hand on my arm, concern sculpted into her features.

«Dad, are you all right?»

«Bad day at the office, dear. And what about you? Is there a boy at the sports centre?»

Her smile became all sheepish and demure. «Some of them are quite nice, yes. No one special, not yet.»

«Don't worry, they won't leave you alone.»

She blushed, and looked at her feet. «Will you speak to Mum about the symbionts? Please, Dad?»

«I'll speak to her.»

Nicolette stood on tiptoes, and kissed me. «Thanks, Dad. And don't worry about Nat, his hormones are surging, that's all. Time of the month.» She put her bubble cube on the table next to Nathaniel's, and skipped off down the hall to her room.

Why is it that children, the most perfect gift we can ever be given, can hurt more than any physical pain?

I picked the two bubble cubes up and weighed them in my palm. Sex. Oh, Christ.

When I turned round, Jocelyn was standing in the kitchen doorway. «Did you hear all that?»

Her lips quirked in sympathy. «Poor Harvey. Yes, I heard.»

«Divorced by my own son. I wonder if he'll expect alimony?»

«I think you could do with a drink.»

«Do we have any?»

«Yes.»

«Thank Christ for that.»

I flopped down in the lounge's big mock-leather settee, and Jocelyn poured me a glass of white wine. The patio doors were open wide, letting in a balmy breeze which set the big potted angel-trumpet plants swaying.

«Now just relax,» Jocelyn said, and fixed me with a stern look. «I'll get you something to eat later.»

I tasted the wine—sweet but pleasant. Shrugged out of my uniform jacket, and undid my shirt collar. Another sip of the wine.

I fished about in the jacket for my PNC wafer, and accessed the JSKP's personnel file on Hoi Yin, or Chong's bimbo, as Caldarola had called her. I'd been curious about that ever since.