"You have Jane," Jesse said.

"I don't know what Jane is to me yet," I said. "But I know what you are to me. You're my family now. Jesse, Harry. You're my family. Don't be angry with me for wanting to keep you safe. Just be safe. For me. Please."

FIFTEEN

Sparrowhawk was a quiet ship. Your average troopship is filled with the sounds of people talking, laughing, yelling and going through the verbal motions of their lives. Special Forces soldiers don't do any of that crap.

As was explained to me by the Sparrowhawk's CO when I came on board. "Don't expect people to talk to you," Major Crick said as I presented myself.

"Sir?" I said.

"The Special Forces soldiers," he said. "It's not anything personal, it's just we're not much for talking. When we're by ourselves, we communicate almost exclusively by BrainPal. It's faster, and we don't have a bias toward talking, like you do. We're born with BrainPals. The first time anyone ever talks to us, it's with one of them. So it's the way we talk most of the time. Don't be offended. Anyway, I've ordered the troops to speak to you if they have something they need to get across."

"That's not necessary, sir," I said. "I can use my BrainPal."

"You wouldn't be able to keep up," Major Crick said. "Your brain is set to communicate at one speed, and ours at another. Talking to realborn is like talking at half speed. If you've talked to any of us for a great deal of time, you might notice we seem abrupt and curt. It's a side effect of feeling like you're talking to a slow child. No offense."

"None taken, sir," I said. "You seem to communicate well."

"Well, as a CO, I spend a lot of time with non-Special Forces," Crick said. "Also, I'm older than most of my troops. I've picked up a few social graces."

"How old are you, sir?" I asked.

"I'll be fourteen next week," he said. "Now, I'll be having a staff meeting tomorrow at 0600. Until then, get yourself set up and comfortable, have some chow, and get a little rest. We'll talk more in the morning." He saluted and I was dismissed.

Jane was waiting in my quarters.

"You again," I said, smiling.

"Me again," she said, simply. "I wanted to know how you're getting along."

"Fine," I said. "Considering I've been on the ship for fifteen minutes."

"We're all talking about you," Jane said.

"Yes, I can tell by the endless chatter," I said. Jane opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my hand. "That was a joke," I said. "Major Crick told me about the BrainPal thing."

"It's why I like talking to you like this," Jane said. "It's not like talking to anyone else."

"I seem to remember you talking when you rescued me," I said.

"We were worried about being tracked then," Jane said. "Speaking was more secure. We also speak when we're out in public. We don't like to draw attention to ourselves when we don't have to."

"Why did you arrange this?" I asked her. "Getting me stationed here on the Sparrowhawk."

"You're useful to us," Jane said. "You have experience that may be useful, both on Coral and for another element of our preparation."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Major Crick will talk about it tomorrow at the briefing," Jane said. "I'll be there, too. I command a platoon and do intelligence work."

"Is that the only reason?" I asked. "That I'm useful?"

"No," Jane said, "but it's the reason that got you onto the ship. Listen, I won't be spending too much time with you. I have too many things to do preparing for our mission. But I want to know about her. About Kathy. Who she was. What she was like. I want you to tell me."

"I'll tell you about her," I said. "On one condition."

"What?" Jane asked.

"You have to tell me about you," I said.

"Why?"

"Because for nine years I've been living with the fact my wife is dead, and now you're here and it's messing me up inside," I said. "The more I know about you, the more I can get used to the idea that you're not her."

"I'm not that interesting," Jane said. "And I'm only six. That's hardly any time to have done anything."

"I've done more things in the last year than I did in all the years leading up to it," I said. "Trust me. Six years is enough."

"Sir, want company?" the nice young (probably four-year-old) Special Forces soldier said as he and four of his buddies held their meal trays at attention.

"The table's empty," I said.

"Some people prefer to eat alone," the soldier said.

"I'm not one of them," I said. "Please, sit, all of you."

"Thank you, sir," the soldier said, putting his tray on the table ."I'm Corporal Sam Mendel. These are Privates George Linnaeus, Will Hegel, Jim Bohr, and Jan Fermi."

"Lieutenant John Perry," I said.

"So, what do you think of the Sparrowhawk, sir?" Mendel asked.

"It's nice and quiet," I said.

"That it is, sir," Mendel said. "I was just mentioning to Linnaeus that I don't think I've spoken more than ten words in about a month."

"You've just broken your record, then," I said.

"Would you mind settling a bet for us, sir?" Mendel said.

"Does it involve me doing anything strenuous?" I asked.

"No, sir," Mendel said. "We just want to know how old you are. You see, Hegel here is betting your age is older than twice the combined ages of our entire squad."

"How old are you all?" I asked.

"The squad has ten soldiers in it including myself," Mendel said, "and I'm the oldest. I'm five and a half. The rest are between two and five years old. Total age is thirty-seven years and about two months."

"I'm seventy-six," I said. "So he's right. Although any CDF recruit would have let him win his bet. We don't even enlist until we're seventy-five. And let me just say, there's something profoundly disturbing about being twice as old as your entire squad, combined."

"Yes, sir," Mendel said. "But on the other hand, we've all been in this life at least twice as long as you. So it comes out about even."

"I suppose it does at that," I said.

"It must be interesting, sir," Bohr said, a little down the table. "You had an entire life before this one. What was it like?"

"What was what like?" I said. "My life, or just having a life before this one?"

"Either," Bohr said.

I suddenly realized that none of the five other members of the table had even picked up their forks to eat. The rest of the mess hall, which had been alive with the telegraph-tapping sounds of utensils hitting trays, had also gone largely quiet. I recalled Jane's comment about everyone being interested in me. Apparently, she was right.

"I liked my life," I said. "I don't know that it was exciting or even interesting to anyone who didn't live it. But for me, it was a good life. As for the idea of having a life before this one, I didn't really think about it at the time. I never really thought about what this life would be like before I was in it."

"Why did you choose it, then?" Bohr asked. "You had to have some idea of what it was like."

"No, I didn't," I said. "I don't think any of us did. Most of us had never been in a war or in the military. None of us knew that they would take who we were and put it into a new body that was only partially what we were before."

"That seems kind of stupid, sir," Bohr said, and I was reminded that being two or whatever age he was, was not conducive to tact. "I don't know why anyone would choose to sign up for something when he really had no idea of what he was getting into."

"Well," I said, "you've also never been old. An unmodified person at seventy-five is a lot more willing to take a leap of faith than you might be."

"How different can it be?" Bohr asked.

"Spoken like a two-year-old who will never age," I said.