Karen ran for the house. Lanier stood, brushed grass from his pants, and said, “I think I’m going to follow her and then we’ll go to sleep.”

Kanazawa nodded sagely.

Lanier walked back to the house, found the bedroom, and stood in the doorway, watching Karen undress. “I remember the first time you made love to me,” he said. “In the jumpjet. On the tuberider.”

She made a little noise, unhitching her bra.

“It took me many years to really appreciate you. Not until after we were married. After we had worked together.”

“Please shut up,” Karen said, but not angrily.

“You became like one of my arms, one of my legs,” he pursued. “I took you for granted. I thought everything I’d do, you’d do. I loved you so much I forgot you weren’t me.”

“There was work to do.”

“No excuse, even so,” he said. “I think you lost sight of me, too.”

“You’re not the only one with bad memories,” Karen said sharply. “I went back to Hunan. Remember? I saw my town, the farmlands. I smelled death, Garry, waste. Skeletons of infants by the roadside, you couldn’t tell whether they had been there for months or years, from the Death or after, when their parents dropped them there because they couldn’t feed them. We couldn’t get to everybody in time. You are not the only one with memories!”

“I know,” Lanier said, still leaning on the door frame.

“I can handle them. I can love you for a lot longer. I don’t want you to go away from me. I hate that thought.”

“I know.”

“Then come back to me,” she said. “You can still become young. There are centuries left to us. Centuries of work yet to do.”

“That’s not my way,” he said. “I wish you could accept that.”

“I wish you could accept my…fears,” she said.

“I’ll try. We’re working together now, Karen.”

She half-shivered, half-shrugged and sat on the bed. He remained standing by the door, still dressed. “What about Mirsky?” she asked. There was a look of patent wonder on her face, forehead smooth, eyes wide, lips drawn down as if in a pout. “Is he going to bring the gods down on us? Is that what he’s really saying? He’s a horrible thing, Garry.”

“I don’t think so.”

She shook her head. “A nightmare.”

“A vision,” Lanier countered. “Let’s wait and see.”

“I am afraid,” she said simply. “Will you allow me that?”

If he came forward now, he knew, and tried to hug her, she would not accept; she would push him away. But he could see that the time might come, and for now, still mildly buzzing with rum, that was enough. “Of course,” he said.

“I’m going to sleep.” She lay back on the guest bed and pulled the covers up.