He wondered what she was feeling. This strange, cold woman from Earth had been on her own journey, he supposed. He said, “I couldn’t have done it without you, Pila. I won’t forget that.” He turned to Nilis and said formally, “Commissary—I was glad to have taken part in the final experiment that proved your theories.”

That took Nilis by surprise. “Oh, my boy, my boy. Thank you! And you validated my faith in you, in spades. You have come a long way from that mixed-up child on Port Sol and Venus, my boy, a long, long way. You are a man—you poor wretch!

“And of course it has been a great technical achievement.” He smiled, his rheumy eyes wet. “Who would have thought, when we were limping around in Sol system, that we could have brought it off? Well, I always had faith in you, Pirius; I knew you could do it, if anybody could.”

“And we made history today.”

“Oh, yes, there’s that too. How remarkable to think that of all the galaxies we see in the sky, only ours is clear of the Xeelee—and all thanks to human endeavor! And it is a historic moment in other ways. It’s a fallacy, you know, that communication is always possible between alien cultures. The dismal records of the Assimilation prove that. Sometimes perceptions of our common universe simply diverge too much. In an awful lot of first contacts, ‘communication’ is primal: only to be ignored, eaten, or attacked. And there is no record of the Xeelee attempting any form of communication with any lesser species, save extreme violence. But in this incident they did respond. We threatened Chandra, they withdrew, we did not attack; information, of a sort, passed between us, and a kind of agreement was reached.” He sighed. “If only it were possible to build on this breakthrough! Perhaps the perpetual war could be ended. But I fear that may be utopian.”

Pirius knew how important this sort of philosophical stuff was to the Commissary. “A triumph in many ways, then.”

“Yes.” But Nilis’s face crumpled. “But too many people were lost—too many young lives rubbed out because of me and my dreams. Those moments when the first two runs failed, and I thought that despite the sacrifices I had demanded, I had failed, were almost more than I could bear.”

Pirius tried to find words about the proportionality of the losses compared to what had been gained. But Nilis, he saw, was inconsolable for now. After a time he left him to his work.

In their barracks, Torec was already asleep. She hadn’t even taken off the coverall given her by the medics after they peeled her out of her skinsuit. Pirius crawled in with her. She stirred, mumbled, and turned into his arms, a bundle of soft warm humanity.

He had thought he would be too agitated to sleep. Besides, he felt guilty about lying down to sleep when others had died, or were still out there. If he slept, this long day would finally end, and he would somehow lose it, lose them.