“Well, he didn’t roll over and play dead. The transfer might stretch out for a year. Tom and I can live with that, though; we’d been ready to cope with outright rejection.”

“It wouldn’t come to that. I could’ve done something.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He stiffened and I went back to massaging. “Really. Purcell is right. I have to tread lightly for a couple of years.”

He stretched hard and something in his shoulder made a loud pop. “I wouldn’t worry overmuch about it. Harry’s a good administrator, but he’s too calculating.”

“He is that.” I started to knuckle the vertebrae, gently, down one side and up the other. It was painful for him, but recommended by the “Massage for Scoliosis” article Evy had found. He suffered in silence until it was over; then sighed and mumbled something about how good it felt when it stopped. I worked on his scalp and arms for a few minutes and left him to sleep.

I was worried about John. I knew he was trying to reduce his dependence on the pills, but he was paying for it doubly, in loss of sleep and restricted mobility.

Dan’s lack of sleep was adding up, too. Maybe they’d both collapse on the same day. Then Evy and I could hand them over to the professionals and get some rest ourselves.

Still a couple of hours until the meeting with the net games people. Feeling a little guilty, I went down to the music rooms instead of the office, and checked out a clarinet and a practice room. Still thinking of Chul’ and the harpsichord, I punched up Mozart’s Concerto in A—so profoundly sad you can hardly believe it’s in a major key—and played until my cheeks were wet and I could taste salt blood from my lips.

YEAR 1.00

ABOUT TIME

PRIME

The first year aboard ’Home was fairly uneventful. For a month or two, people who derive satisfaction out of expecting the worst did walk around braced for disaster. Their anxieties, it turned out, were not unfounded. Just premature.

Harry Purcell died, but not until after he had successfully orchestrated his retirement. O’Hara pursued the meek and Machiavellian course he had mapped out for her. Dan went on his binge on schedule, and recovered on schedule. John’s decline stabilized. Evy fought being transferred from Geriatrics to Emergency, and lost.

New New faded in importance as they accelerated away from it. Partly this was the result of increasing confidence in their own institutions and methods; partly it was the increasing difficulty in communication. Every three hundred thousand kilometers meant another second of time lag between New New and ’Home. By the time they were ready to celebrate their first year in flight, New New was forty-four hours behind them.