"It's open. Time already?"

In she bounced, charmingly dressed as a southern belle, in lots of pink and petticoats. "Been going good? You've got papers everywhere." She had a Confederate uniform over one arm, and swords and things under the other.

"Smoking."

"I borrowed some things... What's the matter?"

For an instant he had seen her as Alyce. His past hit him like a tsunami.

Her smile persisted, but did not ride her voice as she asked, "Moyshe, what's behind you?"

"Nothing. That costume for me? Give it here and I'll change."

"I've been watching you, Moyshe, Something's eating you. Don't let it. Puke it up. Get it out where you can stomp on it, chop it up, and kill it."

That was the difference between Amy and Alyce. Alyce would never have asked. She would have waited till he wanted to talk.

"What about you?" he demanded. "Want to tell me what's behind you?" Best defense is a good offense, he thought, mocking himself.

She ignored it. "Tell me something." She spoke softly, with concern, just as she had done that day on the shuttle.

"Czyzewski," she observed. "Yes. I read too. It's from Sister Love. They say he wrote it before he went into space and lost his mind—if a guy who brags about a love affair with his sister isn't crazy already. What do you mean by it, Moyshe? Is an old love affair bothering you? That's silly. You're not fifteen... "

"I'm perfectly aware of that. Intellectually. ‘I was then, stark in the gardens of the moon,' " he quoted out of context. "Now I'm a tired old man, far from home, futureless, with no friend but a chess-mad Archaicist triggerman I never see except during working hours... " Hold it, he thought. The mouth is playing traitor here.

"Give me that costume. Let me get ready. Please?"

"All right." She put a lot into those two words. It reminded him of the professional mother who had taken care of him occasionally while his natural mother had chased ghosts of vanished Earths. She had been able to say the same words the same way, implying that nothing good could possibly come of whatever he planned. She had been able to say almost anything in a way that made it sound like he was condemning himself to the clutches of the Devil, or some equally nasty fate.

"Well. You make a striking officer," Amy said when he returned from the bathroom. "If you had a beard you'd look a little like Robert E. Lee."

"Yeah? Can you do something about this damned sword? How the hell did they get around without falling on their faces all the time?"

She giggled as she made adjustments. "What?"

"Just wondering how many Jewish generals there were in the Confederate Army."

"There're a lot... Oh, you mean that Confederation. I don't get it. Why should that be funny?"

"You have to know the period."

"Well, you've lost me. I only know it from military history at Academy. I can tell you why Longstreet did what he didn't do at Gettysburg, but not what religion he was. Anyway, I'm not Jewish. And you know it."

"What are you, then? Do you believe in anything, Moyshe?"

Poking again. Prying. For her own sake, he guessed. Fisher Security probably would not care about his religion.

He wanted to make a snappy comeback, but she had struck too close to the core of his dissatisfaction. At the moment he did not believe in anything, and himself least of all. And that, he thought, was curious, because he had not had these kinds of feelings since coming out of the line. Not till this mission had begun. "The Prophet Murphy," he said.

"Murphy? I don't get it. Who the hell is Murphy? I expected death and taxes."

"The Prophet Murphy. The guy who said, ‘If anything can possibly go wrong, it will.' My life has been a testimonial."

She stepped back, shook her head slowly. "I don't know what to make of you, Moyshe. Yes I do. Maybe. Maybe I'll just make you happy in spite of yourself."

"Blood from a turnip, Lady." He had had enough talk. Taking her arm, he headed for the ball, for the moment forgetting that he did not know where he was going. Then he saw that she had brought an electric scooter. The Seiners used them whenever they had to travel any distance. There were places in Danion that were literally days away by foot.

Red-faced, he settled onto the passenger seat, facing backward.

They did not exchange a word during the trip. Moyshe suffered irrational surges of anger, alternating with images of the gun. That thing scared the hell out of him. He was no triggerman. It seemed to have less contact with reality than did his wanting.

He had become, on a low-key, reflexively suppressed level, convinced that he was going insane.

Time seemed to telescope. The unwanted thoughts would not go away. His hands grew cold and clammy. His mood sank...

Amy swung to the passage wall, parked, plugged the scooter into a charger circuit. It became one of a small herd of orange beasts nursing electrical teats. "Good crowd," he said inanely, taking a clumsy poke at the silence.

"Uhm." She paused to straighten his collar and sword. "Come on." Her face remained studiedly blank, landside style. It was a bit of home for which he was ungrateful.

The ball seemed a repeat of the morning's get-together. The same people were there. Only a hundred or so were in appropriate costume. Twice as many wore every get-up from Babylon to tomorrow, and as many again wore everyday jumpsuits.

Moyshe froze just inside the doorway.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"I'm not sure. I don't have the right, but... I feel like something's been taken away from me." Had all those Vikings and Puritans and Marie Antoinettes stolen his moment of glory? Had he been bitten by the Archaicist bug?

"It's our history, too, remember?" Amy countered, misunderstanding. "You said everybody's roots go back to Old Earth."

A hand took Moyshe's left elbow. "Mint julep, sir?"

BenRabi turned to face Jarl Kindervoort, who wore buckskins and coonskin cap. Dan'l Deathshead, he thought. Scair 'em injuns right out'n Kaintuck.

"The damn thing fits you better than it does me," Kindervoort observed.

"It's your costume?"

"Yeah. Let's see what they've got at the bar, Moyshe."

Amy had disappeared. And Kindervoort's tone implied business. Feeling put-upon, benRabi allowed himself to be led to the bar.

That was another unpleasantness. The setup was Wild West, with a dozen rowdy black hat types attached, busy making asses of themselves with brags and mock gunfights. Acrid gunsmoke floated around in grey-blue streamers.

Of all the period crap that Archaicists bought, Moyshe felt Wild West was the worst. It was all made-up history, a consensus fantasy with virtually no foundation in actual history.

His mother's first Archaicist flier had been Wild West. It had come during his difficulties at Academy, when he had desperately needed an anchor somewhere. She had not given him what he had needed. She had not had the time.

To top it off, the Sangaree woman was there. She had assumed the guise of The Lady Who Goes Upstairs.

"Appropriate," benRabi muttered. Her awesome sexual appetites had grown since The Broken Wings.

She was watching him with Jarl. Was she getting a little worried? Wondering when he would turn her in? He smiled at her. Let her sweat.

There was a stir at the door. "Jesus," benRabi said. "Will you look at this."

Mouse the attention-grabber and most popular boy in class, with no less than six beauties attached, had just swept in outfitted as a diminutive Henry VIII.