By the time I finished my meal I probably wore the same foolish smile as I had seen on Mac’s face before Limperis cut the video. Neither or us could see beyond the coming ceremony to a grimmer future.

The next few days were too busy for much introspection. The Penrose Institute had been in free orbit, half a million miles out, but to make it more convenient for Tallboy’s visit Limperis moved us back to the old L-4 position. In a general planning meeting we decided what we would show off, and how much time could be spared for each research activity. I’d never heard such squabbling. The concentration of brain power found at the Institute meant that a dozen or more important advances were competing for Tallboy’s time. Limperis was as impartial and diplomatic as ever, but there was no way he could smooth Macedo’s feelings when she learned that she would have less than ten minutes to show off three years of effort on electromagnetic coupling systems. And Wenig was even worse — he wanted to be in on all the presentations, and still have time to promote his own work on ultra-dense matter.

At the same time McAndrew was having problems of quite a different kind with Sven Wicklund. That young physicist was still out on Triton Station, where he had gone complaining that the Inner System was all far too crowded and cluttered and he needed some peace and quiet.

“What the devil’s he up to out there?” grumbled McAndrew. “I need to know for the Tallboy briefing, but a one-way radio signal out to Neptune takes four hours — even if he wanted to talk, and he doesn’t. And I’m sure he’s on to something new and important. Blast him, what am I supposed to report?”

I wasn’t sympathetic. To me it seemed no more than poetic justice. McAndrew had annoyed me and others often enough in the past, when he refused to talk about his own ideas while they were in development — “half-cooked,” to use his phrase. Apparently Sven Wicklund was just the same, and it served Mac right.

But the Institute needed all the impressive material they could find, so Mac continued to send long and futile messages needling Wicklund to tell him something — anything — about his latest work. He got nowhere.

“And he’s the brightest of the lot of us,” said McAndrew. Coming from him that was a real compliment. His colleagues were less convinced.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Wenig when I asked him. “Anyway, it’s a meaningless question. The two of them are quite different. Imagine that Newton and Einstein had lived at the same time. McAndrew’s like Newton, as much at home with experiment as theory. And Wicklund’s all theory, he needs help to change his pants. But it’s still a fool question. Which is better, food or drink? — that makes as much sense. The main thing is that they’re contemporaries, and they can talk to each other about what they’re doing.” Except that Wicklund refused to do so, at least at this stage of his work.

McAndrew finally gave up the effort to draw him out and concentrated on matters closer to home.

My own part in planning the show for Tallboy was a minor one. It had to be. My degrees in Gravitational Engineering and Electrical Engineering wouldn’t get me in as janitor at the Institute. My job was to concentrate on the Hoatzin. Until we started work (budget permitting) on a more advanced model, this ship carried the best available version of the McAndrew drive. It could manage a hundred gee acceleration for months, and a hundred and ten gee for as long as the crew were willing to forego kitchen and toilet facilities.

The Office of External Affairs officially owned the Hoatzin and the Institute operated her, but I secretly thought of the ship as mine. No one else had ever flown her.

I had faint hopes that Tallboy might like a demonstration flight, maybe a short run out to Saturn. We could be there and back in a couple of days. The ship was all ready, for that and more — if he approved it, we were all set for the Alpha Centauri probe (forty-four days of shipboard time; not bad, when you remember that the first manned trip to Mars had taken more than nine months). We could be on our interstellar journey in a week or two.

All right, I wasn’t being realistic; but I think everyone at the Institute nourished the secret dream that their project would be the one that caught Tallboy’s imagination, occupied his time, and won his approval. Certainly the amount of work that went into preparation supported my idea.

The timing was tight but manageable. Jan would arrive at the Institute at 09:00, with the official parental assignment to take place at 09:50. Tallboy’s grand show-and-tell began at 10:45 and went on for as long as he was willing to look and listen. Jan was scheduled to leave again at 19:50, so I had mixed feelings about Tallboy’s tour. The longer he stayed, the more impressed he was likely to be, and we wanted that. But we also wanted to spend time with Jan before she had to dash back to Luna for graduation and sign-out.

In the final analysis everything went off as well — and as badly — as it could have. At 09:00 exactly Jan’s ship docked at the Institute. I was pleased to see that it was one of the new five-gee mini-versions of the McAndrew Drive, coming into use at last in the Inner System. My bet was that Jan had picked it just to please him. You don’t need the drive at all for pond-hopping from Luna to L-4.

The parental assignment ceremony is traditionally conducted with a lot of formality. It was against custom to step out of the docking area as soon as the doors were opened, march up to the father-to-be, and grab him in a huge and affectionate hug. McAndrew looked startled for a moment, then swelled red as a turkeycock with pleasure. I got the same shock treatment a few moments later. Then instead of letting go Jan and I held each other at arm’s length and took stock.

She was going to be taller than me — already we were eye to eye. In three years she had changed from a super-smart child to an attractive woman, whose bright grey eyes told me something else: if I didn’t take a hand, Jan would twist McAndrew round her little finger. And she knew I knew it. We stood smiling at each other, while a dozen messages passed between us: affection, pride, anticipation, sheer happiness — and challenge. Mac and I were getting a handful.

We gave each other a final hug, then she took my hand and Mac’s and we went on through to meet with Limperis and the others. The official ceremony would not begin for another half hour, but we three knew that the important part was already completed.

“So what about your graduation present?” asked McAndrew, as we were waiting to begin. I had wondered about it myself. It was the first thing that most new children wanted to talk about.

“Nothing expensive,” said Jan. “I think it would be nice just to make a trip — I’ve seen too much of Luna.” Her tone was casual, but the quick sideways look at me told another story.

“Is that all?” said Mac. “Och, that doesn’t sound like much of a present. We thought you’d be wanting a cruise pod, at the very least.”

“What sort of trip?” I asked.

“I’d like to visit Triton Station. I’ve heard about it all my life, but apart from you, Jeanie, I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been there. And you never talk about it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea at all,” I said. The words popped out before I could stop them.

“Why not?”

“It’s too far out — too isolated. And there’ll be nothing at all for you to do there. It’s a long way away.” I had reacted before I had rational arguments, and now I was waffling.

Jan knew it. “A long way away! When the two of you have been light-years out. You’ve been on trips thousands of times as far as Triton Station.”

I hesitated and she bore in again. “You’re the one who told me that most people stick around like moles in their own backyard, when the Halo’s waiting for them and there’s a whole Universe to be explored.”