“I can’t do it alone.” Her words wavered.

“You can if you must,” he told her. “In practice you can delegate or divert much. That’s a question of proper planning. We’ll work it out as we go.”

He hesitated. Uneasiness came upon him; color actually entered his cheeks. “Ah… a matter in that connection—”

“Yes?” she said.

The door chime rescued him. He accepted the coffee tray from the bull cook and made a performance of carrying it to his desk and pouring. It enabled him to keep his back to her.

“In your position,” he said. “That is, your new position. The necessity of giving officers a special status— You needn’t hold aloof like me, entirely— but a certain limitation of, well, accessibility—”

He couldn’t see if it was actual amusement coloring her voice. “Poor Lars! You mean the first officer should not change boy friends so often, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t suggest, ah, celibacy. I myself must, of course, ah, hold back from such things hereafter. In your case— well, the experimental phase is past for most of us. Stable relationships are forming. If you could make one—”

“I can do better,” she said. “I can turn solitary.”

He could delay no further handing her a cup. “Th-that isn’t required,” he stammered.

“Thanks.” She inhaled the coffee’s fragrance. Her eyes crinkled at him over the rim. “We don’t have to be absolutely abbot and nun, we two. The captain needs a private conference once in a while with his first officer.”

“Er— no. You are sweet, Ingrid, but no.” Telander paced the narrow width of the cabin, back and forth. “In as little and cramped a community as this, how long can any secret last? I dare not risk hypocrisy. And while I… I would love to have you for a permanent partner… it can’t be. You have to be everyone else’s liaison with me: not my, my direct collaborator. Do you follow me? Reymont explained it better.”

Her humor died. “I don’t altogether like the way he’s jockeyed you.”

“He’s had experience in crisis situations. His arguments were sound. We can go over them in detail.”

“We will. They might be logical at that… whatever his motives.” Lindgren took a sip of coffee, set the cup down on her lap, and declared in a whetted voice:

“Regarding myself, all right. I’m tired of the whole childish business anyway. You’re correct, monogamy is becoming fashionable, and a girl’s choices are poxy limited. I’ve already considered stopping. Olga Sobieski feels the same. I’ll tell Kato to trade cabin halves with her. Some calm and coolness will be welcome, Lars, a chance to think about several things, now that we really have gone by that hundred-year mark.”

Leonora Christine was aimed well away from the Virgin, but not yet at the Archer. Only after she had swung almost halfway around the galaxy would the majestic spiral of her path strike toward its heart. At present the Sagittarian nebulae stood off her port bow. What lay beyond them was inferred, not known. Astromoners expected a volume of clear space, with scant dust or gas, housing a crowded population of ancient stars. But no telescope had seen past the clouds which surrounded that realm, and no one had yet gone to look.