There was no mention of Llita or Joe, and the draft was signed by this lawyer. So I called him.

He turned out to be stuffy, which did not impress me as I was a lawyer there myself, although not practicing. All he would say was that he was acting for an undisclosed client.

So I fired legalese at him, and he loosened up to the extent of informing me that he had instructions to cover the contingency that I might refuse the draft: He was then to pay the draft sum to a designated foundation and so inform me after it was paid. But he declined to tell me what foundation.

I signed off and called Estelle's Kitchen. Llita answered, then cut in video and smiled her best. "Aaron! We haven't seen you in much too long."

I agreed and added that apparently they had gone out of their silly minds while I wasn't watching. "I have here a bunch of nonsense from a lawyer, along with a ridiculous draft. If I could reach you, dear, I would paddle you. 'Better let me talk with Joe."

She smiled happily and told me that I was welcome to paddle her any time and that I could talk to Joe in a moment but that he was locking up. Then she stopped smiling and said with sober dignity, "Aaron, our oldest and dearest friend, that draft is not ridiculous. Some debts cannot be paid. So you taught me, years ago. But the money part of a debt can be paid. "This we are doing, as closely as we have been able to figure it."

I said, "God damn it, you stupid little bitch, you kids don't owe me a bloody penny!"-or words to that effect.

She answered, "Aaron, our beloved master-"

At the word "master" I blew my overloads, Minerva. I used language guaranteed to scorch the hide of the lead mules in a team of six.

She let me run down, then said softly, "Our master until you free us by letting us pay this-Captain."

Dear, I skidded to a halt.

She added, "But even then you will still be our master in my heart, Captain. And in Joe's heart, I know. Even though we stand free and proud, as you taught us. Even though- thanks always to you-our children, and the children I still will bear, will never know that we were ever anything but free...and proud."

I said, "Dear, you're making me cry."

She said, "No, no! The Captain never cries."

I said, "A lot you know about it, wench. I weep. But in my cabin-with the door locked. Dear, I won't argue. If this is what it takes to make you kids feel free, I'll take it. But just the base sum, no interest. Not from friends."

"We are more than friends, Captain. And less. Interest on a debt is always paid-you taught me. But I knew that in my heart when I was only an ignorant slave, freshly manumitted. Joseph knew it, too. I tried to pay interest, sir. But you would not have me."

I changed the subject. "What is this blinking foundation that gets the bucks if I refuse them?"

She hesitated. "We planned to leave that up to you, Aaron. But we thought it might go to orphans of spacemen. Perhaps the Harriman Memorial Refuge."

"You're both crazy. That fund is bulging, and I know it. Look, if I go to town tomorrow, can you shut down 'that ptomaine trap for a day? Or perhaps Neilsday?"

"Any day and as many days as you wish, dear Aaron"- so I said I would call back.

Minerva, I needed time to think. Joe was no problem, he never was. But Llita was stubborn. I had offered to compromise; she had not budged a millimeter. It was the interest that made it such a horrid sum, for them-two strivers who had started with a couple of thousand bucks thirteen years back and were raising three kids by then.

Compound interest is murder. The sum she claimed they owed me-the amount of that draft-was more than two and a half times the base sum...and I couldn't see how they had saved even that. But, had I been able to get her to agree on the base amount and forget compound interest, they would still have a nice chunk of capital to expand again- and if it took giving the smaller sum to orphaned spacemen or spacemen's orphans or indignant cats to make them feel proud, I could understand how it would be a bargain in their eyes. I had taught them myself, hadn't I? I once dropped ten times that amount rather than argue over whether cards had been cut-then slept that night in a graveyard.

I wondered if, in her sweetly devious mind, she was paying me back for having dragged her out of my bed one night fourteen years earlier. I wondered what she would do if I made a counteroffer to accept the base sum and let her "pay the interest" her own way. Shucks, she would probably be on her back before you could say "Contraception."

Which would solve nothing.

Since she had turned down my compromise, we were back where we had started. She was determined to pay it all-or give it away pointlessly-and I was not going to let her do either one; I can be stubborn, too.

There had to be a way to do both.

At dinner that night, after the servants withdrew, I told Laura I was going to town 'on business'-would she like to come along? Shop while I was busy, then dine wherever she liked, then any fun that appealed to her. Laura was pregnant again; I thought she might enjoy a day wasting money on clothes.

Not that I planned to have her along at the coming row with Llita; officially Joseph and Estelle Long and their oldest child had been born on Valhalla; we had become friends when they had taken passage in my ship. I had fleshed out that story and coached the kids in it on the leg to Landfall, and had them study sound-sight tapes from Torheim-ones which turned them into synthetic Valhallans unless questioned too closely by real Valhallans.

This fakery was not utterly necessary as Landfall had an open-door policy; an immigrant did not even have to register-he could sink or swim. No landing fee, no head tax, not much taxation of any sort, or much government, and New Canaveral, the third biggest city, was only a hundred thousand-Landfall was a good place to be in those days.

But I had Joe and Llita do it that way both for them and for their kids. I wanted them to forget that they had ever been slaves, never talk about it, never let their kids know it-and at the same time, bury the fact that they had been, in some odd fashion, brother and sister. There is nothing shameful in being born a slave (not for the slave!), nor was there any reason why diploid complements should not marry. But forget it-start over. Joseph Long had married Stjerne Svensdatter (name Anglicized to "Estelle," with the nickname Yeetah from babyhood); they had married when he finished apprenticeship to a chef; they had migrated after their first child. The, story was simple and unassailable, and put the polish on my only attempt at playing Pygmalion. I had seen no reason to give my new wife any but the official version. Laura knew they were my friends; she was gracious to them on my account, then had come to like them on their own account.

Laura was a good gal, Minerva good company in bed and out, and she had the Howard virtue, even on her first marriage, of not trying to smother her spouse-most Howards need at least one marriage to learn it. She knew who I was-the Senior-as our marriage and later our kids were registered with the Archives, just as had been my marriage to her grandmother, and the offspring from that. But she did not treat me as a thousand years older than she was and never quizzed me about my past lives-simply listened if I felt like talking.

I don't blame her for that lawsuit; Roger Sperling cooked that up, the greedy son of a sow:

Laura said, "If you don't mind, dear, I'll stay home. I would rather splurge on clothes after I slim down. As for dinner, there isn't a restaurant in New Canaveral that can match what Thomas does for us here. Well, Estelle's Kitchen perhaps, but that's a lunchroom, not a restaurant. Will you see them this trip? Estelle and Joe, I mean."