For two days Josh directed his officers and crew in dry runs of ship's operation. Only when he was certain that each man knew his station and his duty did he activate the flux drive. The Erin Kenner lifted smoothly from her construction cradle. She wafted upward through atmosphere, accelerating, and then the black of space claimed her. There, in her element, with the latest model of blink generator humming smoothly, she lay poised while captain and crew ran dozens of final checks.

On an order from Josh the navigator engaged the drive. The ship blinked out of existence to materialize light-years away near a beacon marking the lanes toward the galactic core. For some time the routes were well traveled. As the mass of the core brightened on the optic viewers, as the big emptiness that was space became relatively more crowded, the blink beacons were closer together, the blink lanes less traveled. The last few jumps, before the Erin Kenner fluxed down to a newly constructed spaceport on the wilderness world where Sheba Webster's holofilm company was at work, were marked by temporary exploration beacons that had not yet been replaced by permanent fixtures.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sarah Webster de Conde was a small-boned, petite woman. She wore her shoulder length hair in a ponytail because there simply were not enough hours in the day for visits to the salons. For everyday matters she favored a conservative but elegant simplicity of dress. For the monthly meeting of the Parents' Panel of the Tigian City Educational Oversight Board she had selected a classic little business suit in pale mauve Selbelese silk. When she was recognized by the chairman she stood, ran her hands over her small but shapely rump to make her skirt hang properly, donned her black-rimmed reading glasses and confidently stepped to the speaker's stand with the notes for her speech in her hand.

Her voice was strong, and so were her opinions. Her subject was the lack of discipline in the Tigian City school system. "I am Sarah de Conde," she began modestly, although she knew that everyone there was aware of her identity, and not just because her husband, Pete, was a member of the T-Town Board of Governors and a man of substance in the business community.

"I'm afraid that I'm as guilty as the rest of you," she said, looking not at the members of the Board but at the parents and teachers in the audience.

"We went to sleep, you and I, during the last election. Things had been going so well that we were lulled into complacency."

Several members of the Board were glaring at Sarah.

"The price of good government, at any level," Sarah said, "is eternal vigilance, and we neglected our duty. As a result the forces of liberal permissiveness are, once again, in control of our school system."

"Mrs. de Conde," said the chairman.

"I think, Mr. Chairman, that I have the floor," Sarah said.

"Yes, you do," the chairman said, "but I see no reason, Mrs. de Conde, for you to be abusive and to try deliberately to create ill feelings between the members of your Board and the parents."

"Mr. Chairman," Sarah said, her brown eyes snapping, her delicatechin jutting, "ill feeling already exists between the Board and the parents of Tigian City, and it was not I who created it."

The parents in the audience applauded. Thus encouraged, Sarah stated her case. "The purpose of discipline," she explained, "is not punishment.

Discipline is an expression of love. Discipline tells our children that we care. Young people require and desire guidance."

She spoke for half an hour, often interrupted by frenzied applause. She outlined a system of discipline that put the responsibility for disruptive behavior on the student perpetrator and that student's parents. She spoke heatedly but logically. At the end of her explanation of the system of control that she and the concerned parents present at the meeting were recommending, she made the announcement that she intended to register to run for the position on the Board occupied by the chairman. The applause followed her back to her seat.

Sarah didn't trust Central Control. Her big aircar carried, after all, precious cargo. She had the car's controls on manual. She sat at the wheel with her back straight, her head high. Petey and Cyd, her two youngest, were strapped securely into their seats behind her. Petey was teasing his sister about her ballet skirt. Sarah was thinking about the meeting of the Educational Oversight Board and wondering if she'd made the right decision in announcing her candidacy.

"Mom," Cyd said, "you'd better start slowing down."

She'd been about to pass the turn to the dance studio. She checked traffic, lowered the car to street level, hovered six inches off the ground while Cyd gathered her paraphernalia and ran into the studio.

Then it was twenty miles across town to Petey's Space Scout meeting.

Before returning to the dance studio to pick up Cyd, she had just enough time to stop by the sporting good shop to pick up the camping equipment she'd ordered for her oldest daughter's excursion to Terra II at the end of the school term. She had to go all the way down to ground level in the parking garage before finding a space and that made her late at the studio. Cyd was standing outside, her long, young legs exposed to a chill breeze by the ballet skirt.

Frenc, the oldest, was at the dentist's office. Sarah was late there, too.

"Mother," Frenc complained, "I'm going to be late for my Explorers'

meeting."

Everyone was at home but Pete when dinner was delivered by the airvan from Seven Worlds Cuisine. Sarah had a meeting of the Library Improvement Committee, so there'd been no time to cook. Neither she nor Pete wanted servants, although they could have afforded any number of them. Pete came in just as she was getting ready to leave.

"Dad," Frenc said, "Marcia wants me to spend the night, but—"

"Enough," Sarah said. "I have told you, Frenc, not on a school night."

"But—"

Pete de Conde patted his teenaged daughter on the shoulder. "You know the rules, love," he said.

Sarah pecked him on the cheek. "Gotta run."

"I hope this won't be a long meeting," he said.

"Shouldn't be."

But a couple of the old hardheads had their dander up because the more progressive members of the Improvement Committee wanted to increase the number of holofilm viewers in the library. The argument continued for over an hour. It was after ten when Sarah dropped the aircar swiftly from the local airlane to the entrance of her garage, entered on the fly, pushed the close and lock switch that buttoned car and garage up for the night while the flux engine was still revving down. The two younger children were asleep, Cyd with a stuffed Tigian tiger in her arms, Petey sprawled half-under, half-out of his coverings. She kissed them both on the forehead, adjusted Petey's cover, stuck her head in Frenc's door after knocking. Frenc was watching a music holo.

"Don't stay up too late," Sarah said.

"I won't."

"Goodnight."

"Night, Mom."

Pete was propped up on pillows, his briefcase at his side spreading its contents over the bed. "Hi," he said.

"You look so comfortable."

"How was the meeting?"

She shrugged tiredly. "Same old stuff."

"Coming to bed?"

She recognized the look in his eyes. Her first response was negative, but then she smiled. "I thought I'd have a quick bath."

"I like dirty girls," he said, grinning.

"I'll be quick."

He had cleared away his papers and his briefcase when she came out of the bath smelling of scents and powders. When he threw back the sheet to allow her to enter he was nude. She felt the good, solid surge of her libido.