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Upon graduation, Leino too had become a Chehalis employee. If anything, that was nepotism in reverse, trained professionals being in chronic short supply on Demeter. The sole possible favoritism Brodersen had shown in return was to assign him to a few projects in space—exploration, prospecting, establishment of mining bases on an asteroid and a comet—on which he, Brodersen, went along. He wouldn’t have done it if Leino weren’t competent. Humans get pretty closely acquainted under such conditions.

The captain pursued his advantage: “Neither Lis nor I feel this is any unfaith. Use your imagination. There are a million different unfaiths one monogamous spouse could practice on another, and too many of ’em do. Petty cruelty. Neglect. Shirking your share of the load. Simple, correctible, annoying slobbishness, year after year. Dishonesty, in some mighty basic ways. On and on. You’re right, your sister would not sit still for betrayal—real betrayal.

“So calm down. You’ve had a surprise, nothing worse. You’ll get over it.”

“The humiliation,” broke from Leino. “Publicly parading your mistress.”

Brodersen’s pipe was going out. He sat back, puffed the fire awake, formed a chuckle. “In this day and age? Why, I’ll agree Lis and I are exceptional. We do our best to keep our private affairs private.”

“Your affairs?” Leino flared. “How’d you like it if she did the same to you?”

Brodersen shrugged. “She’s a free adult. I don’t expect she’ll ever betray me either. Anyhow, Caitlín’s aboard on account of an emergency—we might not be under weigh without her help—and none of us, them or me, none of us is much good at being a hypocrite.”

That,
he thought,
as far as regards myself, may be my own biggest piece of hypocrisy to date. Well, a totally sincere man is a monster
.

The reflection was fleeting. It ended when Leino leaped to his feet, hands clenched on high, face contorted, and yelled, “Mean you, you swine, you’d corrupt Lis too? I give not a shit what comes of you, but before God Who shaped her, you’ll keep fingers off her soul!”

Instinct made Brodersen answer, “Silence!” at an exact loudness. “Be seated. That’s an order.”

Spacefarers learn early that a shipful of lives can depend on instant obedience. Leino folded. Save for the ventilator and his gasps, the office emptied of sound for a time which Brodersen measured, until he said evenly:

“Martti, brother of Lis, hear me. You spoke of her pride. You admire her intelligence as well. Then what in the universe makes you assume she could be corrupted? She’s simply chosen to fare a little different way from what you’d have her take.

“If you worry about her faith and morals, why didn’t you object when she divorced her first husband? She pledged him on a Bible, remember; he’s from the Holy Western Republic.”

Leino stared open-mouthed.

“Because you knew that in spite of his impressive brain, he’s an overbearing, inconsiderate, narrow-minded son of a bitch,” Brodersen went on. “If she ever decides I’m as bad, she’ll ditch me too, and you’ll cheer, won’t you? I aim to make sure she never does decide it. However, what’s divorce and remarriage except polygamy in time instead of space?”

He let his question sink in before he continued:

“Don’t get me wrong. I respect your principles. Where you come from, they work. Tried and true traditions; the family above self; the house presenting a solid front to the world—shucks, that’s what I grew up with too. I’m not saying it’s mistaken, either. For all I know, it’s the absolute truth. I’m only saying it’s not the only idea people can live by, or do. And
you, Martti—not patronizing, merely stating a fact you’ve not been much exposed to alternatives. You came to Eopolis, that calls itself cosmopolitan, straight from the backwoods. Well, Eopolis isn’t cosmopolitan. It’s a clutch of hick towns, alien to each other, huddled in the same few square kilometers. You’ve never seen Earth. Lis has. Besides, you’ve worked hard the whole time, often in space, which has limited your human contacts still more. Repeat: I’m not saying you should change your philosophy. I am saying you haven’t had a proper chance to learn tolerance real tolerance, down where it counts, about things close to people you care for. Try that, my friend.”

“God’s law—” Leino whispered.

Brodersen, who had been an agnostic since puberty, shrugged anew. “Never mind about God. Let’s settle with the Others first.” He returned to the attack. “Not prying at you, I seldom noticed you missing your sleep to make divine service after a late poker game or whatever. And I have heard you brag a bit about what you’ve done among the ladies, and seen you squiring around one or two who’ve got reputations. Not to mention those seasonal bacchanals in your home country.”

Leino flushed. “I’m still a bachelor.”

“And of course you figure you’ll marry a virgin. And it won’t harm her afterward if you step out occasionally, as long as you’re discreet.” Brodersen laughed aloud. “Martti, I’ve been in the Uplands a fair amount. I’ve told you they remind me of home. Let’s not play peek-a-boo, huh?”

—The words went back and forth for half an hour. Leino’s quieted as they did.

In the end, Brodersen summarized: “Okay, you don’t approve, and I didn’t expect you would on such short notice, but you agree our mission’s too important to hazard for the sake of a personal brannigan, and Caitlín’s important to it. Correct?”

Leino gulped—he had come close to tears—and nodded.

“Well, that’s as much as she or I could reasonably ask,” Brodersen said. “For your own sake, though, plus ours, I will make one small request. Strictly a request, you understand.”

Leino’s fingers strained together on his lap.

“If you can,” Brodersen continued, “don’t hold her at arms’ length, stiff and formal. Remember, Lis doesn’t. Be a little friendly. She’d sure like to be your friend. And I’d like for you both to be. After all, I’ve explained it’s no overnight romp between us; I’m trying to think years ahead.” He smiled. “Give
her half a chance and you’ll enjoy her company. For instance, you appreciate ballads. Well, she’s a crackling hell of a balladeer.”

“I am sure that is true,” Leino said.

“Find out for yourself,” Brodersen urged. “You’ll have lots of time, even after we start those military drills. Ninety percent of derring-do consists of waiting around for something, anything to happen. Caitlín can liven those hours no end.”

Afterward, alone, he mused around his pipe and a shot of Scotch he allowed himself:
So we make one more monkey compromise that may hang together for a short spell: in order that our undertaking—forget our daily lives
—
may go on. I wonder, I wonder, must the Others ever do likewise?

I
F YOU KNEW
precisely where to look, the T machine gleamed as the tiniest spark amidst the stars—aft, for
Chinook
had made turnover and was backing down upon it. Susanne Granville had, however, set the viewscreen in her cabin to scan Phoebus. Dimmed by the optics to mere moon brightness, so that corona and zodiacal light shone at their natural luminosities like nacre, that disc still drove most of the distant suns out of a watcher’s eye.

“A last familiar sight,” she explained to Caitlín. “The gate will be strange to me. I ’ave never guided a ship t’rough, except in training simulations. You see, we ’ad … figured?… yes, we ’ad figured on several re’earsals between ’ere and Sol before we started for anywhere new.”

“Is it needed you are at all?” Caitlín asked. “I was taught the passage pattern is exact—no dance measure, nor even a march on parade, but like a chess piece jumping from square to square—and any autopilot can conn a vessel the way of it.”

“That is true nearly always, and in fact the autopilot does. But the permissible variation is small. Exceed the tolerance, and we will enter another gate. Where we go then, God only can tell, and I do not believe in God. Quite possibly we reach some point in interstellar space, no machine on ’and, vacuum around us until we die. Certainly no probe from Sol ever came back.” Susanne shivered the least bit. “It is a wise rule that a linker must be in circuit during transit, ready to take over wiz flexibility and judgment if anything unforseen ’appens…. The tea is ready. What would you like in it?”

“Milk, if you please. No, I’m forgetting, we’ve none fresh. Plain the same as you, and my thanks.” Caitlín let her hostess pour and serve, out of ship’s ware. Her own green gaze wandered.

She found little but the grandeur in the screen. Like everybody else, Susanne had embarked in haste. Aside from the office attached to the captain’s, quarters differed merely in their color schemes, this room being rose and white. Otherwise nothing save the aroma from pot and cups distinguished it.

Double occupancy would have lent an extra touch, and it had been laid out with that capability in mind; but the computerman seemed likely to stay solitaire. Short, skinny, stoop-shouldered, long-armed, with slightly froglike features from which thin black hair was pulled back into a pony tail, she looked older than her twenty-eight Earth years. A high voice and a dowdy kimono didn’t help. One tended to concentrate on her eyes, which were beautiful: large, thick-lashed, lustrous brown.

“I would ’ave brought a better tea if I’ad the chance,” she apologized. “What you make for our table from the standard rations, I am cook enough myself to appreciate. Per’aps when I ’ave leisure you could use ’elp from me?”

“Och, doing for this few is no job,” Caitlín said. “Though if it’s the recreation you’re wishing, why, it’s glad I’d be of your companionship.”

“I t’ought we should get acquainted,” Susanne proposed timidly. She took a chair facing her guest’s. “This trip may become long or dangerous.”

“Or both. And we the two women aboard. Besides, you can tell me about the rest of our crew. Devil a chance I’ve had to know any man besides Sergei Zarubayev better than to greet or else ply him with technical questions. Dan’s kept me too busy at learning my duties.”

Susanne flushed. “’E can explain people best. ’E ’as the, the knack for them. I am not… outgoing.”

“Regardless, you can give me an extra viewpoint. Furthermore, when we are free together, himself and I do not yet squander time on briefings.”

Caitlín’s grin faded when Susanne reddened more and sipped noisily. Reaching over, she patted her hostess’ knee. “I’m sorry. Pardon my tongue. I’ll try to stay as little shameless as happiness may allow me.”

“You and ’e, you are in love, no?” The words were barely to be heard.

“Aye. Songbirds, roses, and hundred-year-old whisky. But fear not for his marriage. Never would I threaten that, for he loves her too, and she him, and a dear lady she is.”

Susanne stared from cup to the sun and back. “‘Ow did you meet?”

“Through Lis, the gods would have it. Doubtless you know she’s active in the Apollo Theater, organizing, fund-raising, smoothing ruffled feathers—especially those feathers! Well, I’ve been on the same stage once in a while, to play a minor role or sing a few songs. Lis gave a cast party at her home…. You’ve not chanced to attend a performance I was in?”

Susanne shook her head. “I do not go out much.”

Caitlín softened her tone. “They do say as linkers have interests more high than ordinary folk.”

“No, simply different, and simply when we are in linkage. Uncoupled, we are the same as anybody else—” Susanne raised a palm and met the steady regard of the other. “Veritably, the years of’ard training, the work
lui-même,
they ’ave an influence. It is often true what you ’ear about us, we are extreme introverts. The profession attracts that type.” She attempted a chuckle. “Exceptions occur. A minority of us are normal.”

“I wouldn’t be calling you anything else, I think,” Caitlín assured her. “Shy, maybe, the which I find a charm, brash hussy that I am. Your accent in English is pretty, too. You are from the south of France?”

“No, my parents are. I was born in Eopolis. You know La
‘Quincaillerie,
the big ’ardware store on Tonari Avenue? That is theirs. Well, I was the sole child, and unsociable, and all their close friends French, so—” Having by now set her cup down on the nearby table, Susanne spread her hands wide.

“Dan bespoke you as coming from Earth.”

“’E ’as seen my curriculum vitae, but of course my girldom—girl’ood—why should ’e remember? My parents did send me back to study when I was… sixteen, Terrestrial… and tests showed me ’aving talent. Demeter ’as no facilities for making linkers. I lived with my aunt and uncle, and after I ’ad graduated worked for a firm in Bordeaux, until after six years away I got ’omesick and returned. Soon Captain Brodersen ’ired me.”

Silence descended, large and clumsy. Caitlín kicked it to pieces:

“My turn, if you’re interested. [The computerman nodded, anxiously eager.] Though I’ve less to tell than you. I was born in Baile Atha Cliath—Dublin, you’d say. My father being a prosperous physician, he could send his children to famous
places on holiday, including your area, Susanne. But mostly I’d rather be tramping of the byways in Eire: a bad, rebellious colleen, I fear, who felt worse and worse put upon till at Earthside age nineteen I applied for emigration. The Irish quota was almost empty—we have half our land to fill again after the Troubles—and they snapped me right up. On Demeter I’ve been ever since.” She sighed. “Ochone, how I long to walk the green, green country once more and kiss my parents. Despite our clashes and the hurts I gave them, their letters have been wistful.”

“I am surprised you keep your
patois
this many years.”

“Well, Gaelic is our main language, you know, and then too we have the way of striving to keep our identity within the Canton of the Islands, and Europe on top of that, and the World Union on top of that.” Caitlín changed intonation. “I can talk Eopolis English when I want. Or British, don’t y’ know, or braid Scots, or daown-east Yankee, or Southe’n…. A ballad collector learns.”

“You live in Eopolis?”

“Yes, in a riverside cabin on Anyway Bank, together with a mongrel dog, a pair of scuttlemice, a tank of rainbow moths, a horny old she-cat, and a variable number of kittens. And I work as a paramedic. When I am not adrift elsewhere. Which will be enough about me, I’m sure—You’re looking at me most oddly, Susanne.”