“Uh, well, uh, I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll do something about it!” She eased her body leaning back against the rubbery muscles of his chest Her face turned upward, with a slow smile. “You’re good at doing things, Bors.”

“Oh, Elva—”

Later: “You know one thing I want to do? As soon as I’m well established in the governorship? I want to marry you. Properly and openly. Let ’em be shocked. I won’t care. I want to be your husband, and the father of your kids, Elva. How’s that sound? Mistress Governor General Elva Golyev of Vaynamo Planetary Province. Never thought you’d get that far in life, did you?”

584 A.C.C.

As they neared the end of the journey, he sent her to his cabin. An escape suit—an armored cylinder with propulsors, air regenerator, food and water supplies, which she could enter in sixty seconds—occupied most of the room. “Not that I expect any trouble,” he said. “But if something should happen…I hope you can make it down to the surface. He paused. The officers on the bridge moved quietly about their tasks; the engines droned; the distorted stars of near-light velocity framed his hard brown face. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his skin; not fear but an effort to say something.

“I love you, you know,” he finished. Quickly, he turned back to his duties. Elva went below.

Clad in a spaceman’s uniform, seated on the bunk, enclosed in toning metal, she felt the inward wrench as the agoratron went off and speed was converted back to atomic mass. The cabin’s private viewscreen showed stars in their proper constellations again, needle-sharp against blackness. Vaynamo was tiny and blue, still several hundred thousand kilometers remote. Elva ran fingers through her hair. The scalp beneath felt tight, and her lips were dry. A person couldn’t help being afraid, she thought. Just a little afraid.

She called up the memory of Karlavi’s land, where he had now lain for sixty-two years. Reeds whispered along the shores of Rovaniemi, the wind made a rippling in long grass, and it was time again for the lampflowers to blow, all down the valley. Dreamlike at the edge of vision, the snowpeaks of the High Mikkela floated in an utter blue.

I’m coming back, Karlavi, she thought.

In her screen, the nearer vessels were glinting toys, plunging through emptiness. The further ones were not visible at this low magnification. Only the senses of radar, gravpulse, and less familiar creations, analyzed by whirling electrons in a computer bank, gave any approach to reality. But she could listen in on the main intercom line to the bridge if she chose, and hear those data spoken. She flipped the switch. Nothing yet, only routine reports. Had the planet’s disc grown a trifle?

Have I been wrong all the time? she thought. Her heart stopped for a second.

Then: “Alert! Condition red! Alert! Condition red! Objects detected, approaching nine-thirty o’clock, fifteen degrees high. Neutrino emissions indicate nuclear engines.”