Nilis laughed, avuncular, and spread his hands to the sky. “Why, there is a whole universe out there waiting for you—now that you don’t have to die before you grow up.” He pointed to the senior officers, to Kimmer and Seath and Marta. “They are too old to change. No doubt they hoped to die before the war ended—well, bad luck! For young people like you, the future is suddenly opened up. Perhaps some of you will come with me back to Chandra, to study that remarkable nest of transcosmic life. And perhaps some of you will go sailing beyond the bounds of the Galaxy itself. Why not? We’ve always been so busy battling to survive in this Galaxy, for twenty thousand years we haven’t so much as sent a probe out there.”

Cohl said seriously, “But the Xeelee are still out there—they are everywhere but here.”

“The Xeelee will keep for another day,” Nilis said gently. “And in the meantime you have families to build.”

Pirius was shocked. “Families?”

“Well, why not? The old machinery has always been there, even if we don’t use it anymore. And now all the rules have changed. It will do you good to have a real family, you know, to put down roots. You really don’t know how it feels.” He winked. “And I always did want to be a grandfather—honorary, at least!”

Pirius stared at Torec. Her face was flushed, but he could see generations of conditioning warring with even more ancient impulses. He hadn’t yet got over the loss of Pirius Blue, but a part of him had been glad, guiltily, that his temporal twin had gone, that his life had simplified a little. Now it looked as if it was going to get a lot more complicated again. He felt a sudden warm rush of joy.

From out of the crowd, Luru Parz approached. She was wearing a simple white robe. To Pirius, Luru Parz was a nightmare from his difficult time in Sol system. He felt unaccountably afraid. He wondered what possible justification she could have used to crash this event—but if she wasn’t shy even of a Plenipotentiary, she was powerful indeed.

“Congratulations, Pilot. Quite a feat of arms.”

Nilis said warningly, “Luru Parz, this is hardly the time for more of your antique strangeness. Let these young people enjoy their moment.”

“Their moment?” Luru Parz smiled coldly. “Their moment, yes, the moment of vivid brightness that makes a mayfly life worthwhile.” She glared up at the sky. “And we have won the Galaxy! When I was born—when mankind was restricted to a single planet, and was under the heel of an alien conqueror—nobody would have believed this day would come. For now we are briefly the biggest fish in this puddle of stars. But what is one galaxy? Out there, on scales beyond our very perception, is an ocean of wonders and dangers we can’t even imagine.”

Nilis snapped, “What do you want, Luru Parz?”