“He is not a well man, is he?” Chi-Yuen inquired low.

The humor flickered out in Lindgren. “No. I assume I can trust you not to blab that around. Even if everybody does suspect it.” She rested elbow on desk, forehead on hand. “His responsibility is destroying him.”

“How can he blame himself? What choice has he except to let the robots move us onward?”

“He cares.” Lindgren sighed. “Also, mis latest dispute. In his condition, that was more than he could take. He’s not nervously prostrated, understand. Not quite. But he’s no longer able to buck people.”

“Are we wise to hold a ceremony?” Chi-Yuen wondered.

“I don’t know,” Lindgren said in a worn-out voice. “I simply don’t. Now when— we aren’t announcing it, but we can’t prevent computation and talk— when we’re somewhere around the five-or six-billion-year mark…” Her head lifted, her hand fell. “To celebrate something as purely Earth as Midsummer Day, now when we have to start thinking of Earth as gone —”

She seized both arms of her chair. For a moment the blue eyes were wild and blind. Then the straining body eased, muscle by muscle; she leaned into the seat until its swivel joint tilted with a creak; she said flatly: “The constable persuaded me to go ahead with our rituals. Defiance. Reunification, after the past quarrel. Rededication, especially to that unborn baby. New Earth: We’ll snatch it from God’s grip yet. If God means anything, even emotionally, any more. Maybe I should lay off religion altogether. Carl didn’t give me any details. Only the general idea. I’m supposed to be its best spokesman. Me. That tells you a good deal about our condition, doesn’t it?”

She blinked, returning to herself. “Apologies,” she said. “I oughtn’t to have dropped my problems on you.”

“They are everyone’s problems. First Officer,” Chi-Yuen replied.

“Please. My name is Ingrid. Thanks, though. If I haven’t told you before, let me say now, in your quiet way you’re one of the key people aboard. A garden of calm— Well.” Lindgren bridged her fingers. “What can I do for you?”

Chi-Yuen’s glance fluttered to the desk. “It’s about Charles.”

The ends of Lindgren’s nails whitened.

“He needs help,” Chi-Yuen said.

“He has his deputies,” Lindgren answered tonelessly.

“Who keeps them going except him? Who keeps us all going? You too, Ingrid. You depend on him.”

“Certainly.” Lindgren intertwined her fingers and strained them. “You must realize— perhaps he never mentioned it to you in words, any more than to me or I to him; but it’s obvious— there’s no quarrel left between him and me. We eroded that away, working together. I wish him everything good.”

“Can you give him some of it, then?”

Lindgren’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”

“He is tired. More tired than you imagine, Ingrid. And more alone.”

“His nature.”

“Maybe. Still, that was never any of the inhuman things he’s had to be: afire, a whip, a weapon, an engine. I’ve come to know him a little. I’ve watched him lately, how he sleeps, what few times he can. His defenses are used up. I hear him talk sometimes, in his dreams, when they aren’t simply nightmares.”