Zack was my partner then, in a loose arrangement based on mutual trust. He was young, a century and a half or such, but steady and smart-out of Phyllis Briggs-Sperling by my last marriage but two. A fine woman, Phyllis, as well as a number-one mathematician. We made seven children together and every one of them smarter than I am. She married several times-I was her fourth* (* Fifth, James Matthew Libby was her fourth. J.F. 45th) and, as I recall, the first woman to win the Ira Howard Memorial Century Medal for contributing one hundred registered offspring to the Families. Took her less than two centuries but Phyllis was a girl of simple tastes, the other being pencil and paper and time to think about geometry.

I digress. To engage in the pioneering business profitably takes a minimax of a suitable ship and two partners, both shipmasters, both qualified to mount a migration and lead it-otherwise you are taking a shipload of city folks and abandoning them in wilderness...which often- happened in the early days of the Diaspora.

Zack and I did it properly, each fully qualified as captain in space, or as leader on a strange planet-taking turns. The one who stays behind when the ship leaves really does pioneer; he can't fake it, he can't just wave the baton. He may not be political head of the colony-I preferred not to be; talk is so time consuming. What he does have to be is a survivor, a man who can force that planet to feed him, and by his example show others how-and advise them if they want it.

The first wave is a break-even; the captain unloads and goes back for more migrants; the planet offers nothing for export that soon. The trip has been paid for by fares charged the migrants; profit, if any, will come from the partner on the ground selling what else the ship has carried-mules, hardware, swine, fertile chicken eggs-to the pioneers, on credit at first. Which means the partner on the ground has to look sharp and mind his rear; it doesn't take much to convince migrants who are having a tough time that this bloke is profiteering and should be lynched.

Minerva, the six times I did this-let myself be left behind with the first wave of a colony-I never once plowed a field without weapons at hand and I was always far more cautious with my own breed than I was with any dangerous animals that planet held.

But on New Beginnings we were past most such hazards. The first wave had made it, though just barely that terrible first winter-Helen Mayberry was not the only widow who had married a widower as a result of a weather cycle that Andy Libby and I had not anticipated; the star there-called "the Sun' as always, but you can check your memories for catalog designation-New Beginnings' Sun was a variable star by about the amount that old Sol is, just enough to give "unusual" wheather-and when we arrived we hit the bad weather jackpot.

But those who made it through that winter were tough enough to stand anything; the second wave had a much easier time.

I had disposed of my farm to migrants of the second wave and was putting my attention on business and trade to build up a cargo for the Andy J. to take back after Zack unloaded the third wave-and I would go back, too. Go somewhere, that is. What and where and how would be settled after I saw Zack.

In the meantime I was bored, getting ready to wind up my on-planet affairs, and found this waif an interesting diversion.

Delightful, I should say. Dora was a baby who was born grown-up. Utterly innocent, ignorant in the fashion that a small child necessarily is but most intelligent and delighted to learn anything. There was no meanness in her anywhere, Minerva, and I found her naïve conversation more entertaining than most talk of adults-usually trivial and rarely new.

Helen Mayberry took as much interest in Dora, and we two found ourselves in loco parentis without planning it.

We consulted each other and kept the baby girl away from the burial-some charred bones, including tiny ones of the baby that had never been born-and kept her away from the memorial service, too. Some weeks later, when Dora seemed to be in good shape and after I had had time to have a gravestone cut and erected, I took her out there and let her see it. She could read, and did-names and dates of her parents, and the single date for the baby,

She looked it over solemnly, then said, "That means Mama and Daddy won't ever be coming back. Doesn't it?"

"Yes, Dora."

"That's what the kids at school said. I wasn't sure."

"I know, dear. Aunt Helen told me. So I thought you had better see for yourself."

She looked again at the headstone, then said gravely, "I see. I guess I do. Thank you, Uncle Gibbie."

She didn't cry, so I didn't have any excuse to pick her up and console her. All I could think of to say was; "Do you want to go now, dear?"

"Yes."

We had ridden out on Buck, but I had left him at the foot of the hill, there being an unwritten rule against letting mules or tamed lopers walk on graves. I asked if she wanted mc to carry her-piggyback, perhaps. She decided to walk.

Halfway down-she stopped. "Uncle Gibbie?"

"Yes, Dora?"

"Let's not tell Buck about this."

"All right, Dora."

"He might cry."

"We won't tell him, Dora."

She did not say any more until we were back at Mrs. Mayberry's school. Then she was very quiet for about two weeks, and never mentioned it again to me, nor-I think-to anyone. She never asked to go back there, although we went riding almost every afternoon and often within sight of graveyard hill.

About two Earth-years later the Andy J. arrived, and Captain Zack, my son by Phyllis, came down in the gig to make arrangements for landing the third wave of migrants. We had a drink together, and I told him I was staying over another trip, and why. He stared. "Lazarus, you are out of your mind."

I said quietly, "Don't call me 'Lazarus.' That name has had too much publicity."

He said, "All right. Although there is no one around but our hostess-Mrs. Mayberry, did you say?-and she's gone out to the kitchen. Look, uh, Gibbons, I was thinking of making a couple of trips to Secundus. Profit in it, and ways to invest our net on Secundus-safer than investing on Earth now, things being the way they are."

I agreed that he was almost certainly right.

"Yes," he said, "but here's the point. If I do, I won't be back this way for, oh, maybe ten standard years. Or longer. Oh, I will if you insist; you're majority shareholder. But you'll be wasting your money and mine, too. Look, Laz- Ernest, if you must take care of this kid-though I don't see that it's your obligation-come with me and bring her along. You could put her in school on Earth-as long as you post bond to insure that she leaves. Or perhaps she could settle on Secundus, although I don't know what the immigration rules are there now; it's been a long time since I've been there."

I shook my head. "What's ten years? I can hold my breath that long. Zack, I want to see this child grown up and able to make it on her own-married, I hope, but that's her business. But I won't uproot her; she's had one shock of that sort and shouldn't have to soak up another while she's still a child."

"On your head be it. You want me back in ten years? Is that long enough?"

"More or less but don't rush. Take time enough to show a profit. If it takes longer, you'll pick up a better cargo here next time. Something better than food and soft goods."

Zack said, "There is nothing better than food to ship to Earth these days. Sometime soon we're going to have to stop touching at Earth, just trade among the colonies."

"As bad as that?"

"Pretty bad. They won't learn. What's this about trouble over your bank? Do you need a show of force while the 'Andy J.' is overhead?"

I shook my head. "Thanks, Captain, but that's not the way to do it. Or I would have to go along with you. Force is an argument to use when nothing else will do and the issue is that important. Instead I'm going to go limp on them."