Okay, I’m trying to talk myself into this. It didn’t help that I dropped by Creche to look at the baby this morning. Her little hand curled around my finger.

I have a bad case of softheartedness. Prime, I have to talk to you.

ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN

Prime appeared in the usual corner, leaning back comfortably in a nonexistent chair. Sometimes she was unsettlingly nude; this time she was wearing the gray labor fatigues that Sam and O’Hara had worn on Earth. Since Prime looked only six months younger than O’Hara had been at the time, the effect was as startling as she had intended.

“I thought you’d never ask,” the image said.

“So talk me out of it, Use that binary brain of yours.”

“First you ask for a favor and then you insult me. If my brain is simply binary then yours is a lump of jelly.”

“Should I do it?”

“Yes and no and maybe. Should I elaborate?”

“I’ve got time and you’ve got electricity.”

“Take ‘no’ first. Daniel is having a real uselessness problem. He has a title that makes him technically part of the ruling class, but the thing he’s in charge of doesn’t exist anymore. Your declaring interest in another man is not going to help his image of himself.”

“He gets a certain amount of solace from you, and even more from Evelyn—”

“Really?”

“The ratio is one point three to one. Now you propose to bring into the relationship a man the same age as Evelyn. He will see this as an act of sexual aggression.”

“Hold it. All these years you’ve known how often Dan has sex with me and with Evelyn?”

“And with other women, yes. Only women, in case you’re interested.”

“I think you know a lot that I would rather not know.”

“Everything the ship knows, I know. I only brought this up because it’s important to the discussion you initiated.”

“What’s the ratio with John?”

The machine paused. “That’s complicated, as you know. He has been intimate with you two point eight times more often than with Evelyn, since Launch.”

“That’s an interesting locution, ‘intimate with.’ You’re protecting my feelings.”

“It’s not my job to make you feel bad. The question you’re not asking is one you already know the answer to.”

“He’s more likely to have actual sex with her.”

“He loves you fiercely, and has since you were married. His attraction to Evelyn is obviously physical. If by ‘actual sex’ you mean a contact that includes ejaculation …”

“What else would I mean?”

“With her it seems to be always.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”