"You need me. You can't throw me off." Minchenko's eyes flicked infinitesimally to the solderer.

"Well, huh," Leo choked, "I can't kidnap you, either."

"Who's asking you to?"

"You are, evidently . . ." He cleared his throat. "Look, I don't think you understand. I'm taking this Habitat out, and we're not coming back, not ever. We're going out as far as we can go, beyond every inhabited world. It's a one-way ticket."

"I'm relieved. At first I thought you were going to try something stupid."

Leo found his emotions churning, a mixture of suspicion, jealousy?—and a sharp rising anticipation—what a relief it would be, not to have to carry it all alone. . . . "You sure?"

"They're my quaddies . . ." Minchenko's hands clenched, opened. "Daryl's and mine. I don't think you half understand what a job we did. What a good job, developing these people. They're finely adapted to their environment. Superior in every way. Thirty-five years' work—am I to let some total stranger drag them off across the galaxy to who-knows-what fate? Besides, GalacTech was going to retire me next year."

"You'll lose your pension," Leo pointed out. "Maybe your freedom—possibly your life."

Minchenko snorted. "Not much of that left."

Not true, Leo thought. The bio-scientist possessed enormous life, over three-quarters of a century of accumulation. When this man died, a universe of specialized knowledge would be extinguished. Angels would weep for the loss. Unless—"Could you train quaddie doctors?"

"It's a forgone conclusion you couldn't." Minchenko ran his hands through his clipped white hair in a gesture part exasperation, part pleading.

Leo glanced around at the anxiously hovering quaddies, listening in—listening in while men with legs decided their fate, again. Not right . . . the words popped out of his mouth before reasoned caution could stop them. "What do you kids think?"

A ragged but immediate chorus of assent for Minchenko—relief in their eyes, too. Minchenko's familiar authority would clearly be an immense comfort to them, as they traveled farther into the unknown. Leo was suddenly put in mind of the way the universe had changed to a stranger place the day his father had died. Just because we're adults doesn't automatically mean we can save you . . . But this was a discovery each quaddie would have to make in their own time. He took a deep breath. "All right . . ." How could one suddenly feel a hundred kilos lighter when already weightless? Placenta praevia, God.

Minchenko did not react with immediate pleasure. "There's just one thing," he began, arranging his features in a humble smile quite horribly out of place on his face.

What's he sweating for now? Leo wondered, suspicions renewed. "What?"

"Madame Minchenko."

"Who?"

"My wife. I have to get her."

"I didn't—realize you were married. Where is she?"

"Downside. On Rodeo."

"Hell . . ." Leo suppressed an urge to start tearing out the remains of his hair.

Pramod, listening, reminded him, "Tony's down there too."