“You ought to wait until the last minute,” Carmen said. “Don’t give them time to round up a bunch of lawyers.”

“The worst they can do is shoot you down,” I said, “but I don’t think they can afford to waste a spaceship.”

Paul agreed. “They’ll fine you the expense of decontamination and the flight to Mars. But since there’s no money on Mars, all they could do is seize your assets on Earth.”

“Which aren’t much,” Karin said.

“None from us, of course,” Margit said. Hungary was part of the Cercle Socialisme.

“It would be courteous to give them enough warning, so they don’t send up an ‘uncontaminated’ Space Elevator.”

Moonboy held up a hand. He hadn’t spoken before. “Wait. You’re missing the obvious.” Everybody looked his way. “Just lie to them. Make up some story about how you were forced to come aboard ad Astra. Medical problem or something.”

“Of course,” Balasz said. “Once one was exposed to Martian- ness, we might as well all be, since we all have to go back together.”

“Could you cooperate with us in this ruse?” Margit said.

There was a general murmur of assent. “I cannot lie,” Fly- in-Amber said. “It is not a matter of choice for me. My function is to record things as they happen.”

“My function,” Snowbird said, “is to sit on you if you open your mouth. You have to record everything, but you don’t have to communicate it to everybody. Least of all to humans on Earth.”

“True enough.” He turned to the engineers. “I do not have lips. But my orifice is sealed.”

Snowbird turned to Carmen. “See? He doesn’t know.”

So we manufactured a credible medical crisis, choosing Karin because she was the pilot. We gave her severe bronchitis that didn’t respond to their ship’s primitive treatment, and so she had to spend a few days in our infirmary. Actually, she was outside most of the time, helping the other three finish battening down the hatches.

We took pleasure in their company for the eight days they remained on the iceberg, enjoying the last contact with people from outside our circle. I’m sure that Elza enjoyed more than social intercourse with Balasz, a warm and handsome man. Dustin and I exchanged a raised eyebrow or two over it. Under the circumstances, it would have been surprising if she had kept her hands to herself.

(Dustin, I think, had more than a passing interest in Margit, but would never initiate a liaison himself. I’ve told him that if Adam had waited for Eve to ask, none of us might be here. But he remains diffident.)

We said our good-byes, and they “cast off,” drifting a few kilometers behind the iceberg, well out of the line of fire. They were sending a record of our launch to Earth, and also to Paul—though if anything serious went wrong, I’m not sure what he could do.

It took all morning to secure the plants, some of which would be glad to have gravity again. Beans and peas were going totally schizophrenic in zero gee, with no up or down. Carrots had started growing beet-shaped.