“Was a man involved too?” Chi-Yuen asked. “I’ll tell you, because it’s no secret— he and I were engaged, and everything about this crew that was ever on public record went into the dossiers— there was for me.”

“A fellow student,” Glassgold said humbly. “I loved him. I still do. He hardly knew I existed.”

“Not uncommon,” Chi-Yuen answered. “One gets over it, or else turns it into a sickness. You’re healthy in the head, Emma. What you need is to come out of your shell. Mix with your shipmates. Care about them. Get out of your cabin for a while and into a man’s.”

Glassgold flushed. “I don’t hold with those practices.”

Chi-Yuen’s brows lifted. “Are you a virgin? We can’t afford that, if we’re to start a new race on Beta Three. The genetic material is scarce at best.”

“I want a decent marriage,” Glassgold said with a flick of anger, “and as many children as God gives me. But they will know who their father is. It doesn’t hurt if I don’t play any ridiculous game of musical beds while we travel. We have enough girls aboard who do.”

“Like me.” Chi-Yuen was unruffled. “No doubt stable relationships will evolve. Meanwhile, now and then, why not give and get a few moments of pleasure?”

“I’m sorry,” Glassgold said. “I shouldn’t criticize private matters. Especially when lives have been as different as yours and mine.”

“True. I don’t agree that mine was less fortunate than yours. On the contrary.”

“What?” Glassgold’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious!”

Chi-Yuen smiled. “You have only learned the surface of my past, Emma, if that. I can guess what you’re thinking. My country divided, impoverished, spastic from the aftermath of revolutions and civil wars. My family cultured and tradition-minded but poor with the desperate poverty that none except aristocrats fallen on evil times know. Their sacrifices to keep me in the Sorbonne, when the chance came. After I got my degree, the hard work and sacrifice I made in return, helping them get back on their feet.” She turned her face to the ebbing light of Sol and added most quietly: “About my man. We, too, were students together, in Paris. Later, as I said, I must often be away from him because of work. Finally he went to visit my parents in Peking, I was to join him as soon as possible, and we would be married, in law and sacrament as well as in fact. A riot happened. He was killed.”

“Oh, my dear—” Glassgold began.

“That’s the surface,” Chi-Yuen interrupted. “The surface. Don’t you see, I also had a loving home, perhaps more than you did, because at the end they understood me so well that they didn’t resist my leaving them forever. I saw a lot of the world, more than can be seen traveling carefully by first class. I had my Jacques. And others, before, afterward, as he would have wanted. I’m outward bound with no regrets and no pain that won’t heal. The luck is mine, Emma.”