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So sound, and crashed away They’d heard it before often enough that they both ignored it Alex finished off the last of his beer and tucked the empty bottle back in his satchel He levered hi like soht

“I should get these things hooked up,” he said, hefting the dead batteries “I said I’d have them back tomorrow I’ll probably take a sleep shift in town after that, if you’re all right solo?”

“That’s fine,” she said “Bobbie senton that I wouldn’t be much company anyway”

“Should I douse the fire?”

Naoo in I think I overate I need to just sit for a little while”

“Right,” Alex said, and trudged over to the airlock He lifted hiain until the door closed behind him She lay back

Everything changed, and it went right on changing A terrible thought when things were good, a co one now Whatever happened, she could be certain that things wouldn’t stay the way they were now And if she stayed smart and clever and lucky, she’d be able to affect how the next change caain, if she could just be patient enough

One of the vines broke loose froh breeze that she didn’t feel She watched it blunder away to the southwest, catching on another vine for aon Where it had been, there was a new spray of stars now, glittering fro to fall on her here and now

She wondered if one of them was Laconia

Epilogue: Duarte

Winston Duarte watched his daughter playing at the fountain’s edge Teresa was ten now, and al with a clay boat, discovering the relationship between buoyancy and displace the little craft of her own design Finding not only as the most efficient but also as theWhat would float and also steer and also be beautiful in its own right Her tutor, Colonel Ilich, sat on the edge of the fountain as well, talking with her Guiding her thoughts through the process, and helping her to connect the work of her hands to the lessons in mathematics and history and art

He didn’t knohether she are how loneso had facilities for the children of the government to live and work and attend lessons while their parents saw to the mechanisms of the empire, but most of the classrooeneration that was still just beginning The ti for Teresa Soether in the streets and parks of Laconia, but by then Teresa would be grown

She leaned forward, lowered her latest design into the water Ilich asked her so, and she replied Duarte couldn’t hear what they were saying froe in the way she held the little boat And e

That had started more recently, and he wasn’t certain what toaround her head when she was thinking strongly As she worked the clay, it infused her hands as well Ilich had it too, though not as intensely Of all the ways his changes affected his senses, this new one was theHe had the suspicion that he was, in soht

Teresa glanced over, and the whatever-it-was shifted just before she raised her hand He waved back, returning her s to let her continue her studies undistracted He loved his daughter profoundly, and the joy of watching her learn was better than anything else he had scheduled, but his presence wouldn’t help her or the empire Duty called