‘The operation was a success but the patient died.' It was almost that way. The computer was saved and is alive and well and happy in Boondock today. All of the raiding party got away without a scratch... except Colin and Hazel Campbell and the kitten, Pixel, all of whom were terribly wounded, and were left dying in a cave in Luna.

I must digress again. In that raiding party was a young officer, Gretchen Henderson, great-great-granddaughter of my sister wife, Hazel Stone. Gretchen had had a baby boy four months before this raid, which my grandson knew.

What he did not know was that he was the father of Gretchen's son.

In fact he knew beyond doubt that he had never copulated with Gretchen and knew with equal certainty that he had left no sperm in any donor bank anywhere/when.

Nevertheless Hazel, dying, had told him firmly that he was the father of Gretchen's child.

He had asked how; she had answered, ‘Paradox.'

A time paradox Colin could understand. He was a member of the Time Corps; he had been through time loops; he knew that, in a time paradox, it was possible to turn around and bite oneself in the back of one's own neck.

Therefore he now knew that he was going to inseminate Gretchen somewhere forward on his own time line; somewhere backward on her time line - the inverted loop paradox.

But ‘God helps those who help themselves'. That would happen only if he lived through this squeeze and made it happen.

When the three were rescued shortly after this revelation, Colin had piled up new corpses and had been wounded twice more - but all three were still alive. They were flashed two thousand years into the future to the greatest physicians in any universe: Ishtar and her staff. My sister wife Ishtar won't let a patient die as long as the body is warm and the brain is intact. It took some doing, Pixel especially. The baby creature was held at Kelvin nought point three for several months while Doctor Bone was fetched from another universe and a dozen of Ishtar's best including Ishtar herself were put through a crash course in feline medicine, surgery, physiology, etc. Then they raised Pixel to simple hypothermia, rebuilt him, brought him to blood temperature and wakened him. So today he is a strong, healthy tom, still travelling as he pleases and making kittens wherever he goes.

In the meantime Hazel arranged the time loop and Colin encountered and wooed and won and tumbled and impregnated a somewhat younger Gretchen. So she had her baby, and later on (by her personal time line) she joined Hazel and Colin in saving the computer Mycroft Holmes.

But why such extreme effort over a kitten? Why not give a dying kitten the release he needs to end his pain?

Because, without Pixel and his ability to walk through walls, Mycroft Holmes would not have been rescued, all of the raiding party would have died, and the future of the entire human race would have been placed at risk. The chances were so evenly balanced that in half of the futures they died, in half of them they succeeded. A few ounces of kitten made the difference. He warned them, with the only word he had mastered: ‘Blert!'

On the way back from Butler Charles had recovered from his postcoital depression; he wanted to do it again. Well, so did I, but not that day. That buggy ride over dirt roads had reminded me that what I was sitting on was just a leede tender.

But Charles was raring to go; he wanted an encore right now. ‘Mo, there is a spot lust ahead there where we can get a buggy clear off the road and out of sight. Quite safe.'

‘No, Chuck.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's not perfectly safe; anybody else could pull off there, too. We're late now and I don't want to have to answer questions today. Not this day. And we don't have another Merry Widow and that settles it because while I do plan to have children, I don't want to have them at fifteen.'

‘Oh.'

‘Quite so. Be patient, dear, and we will do it again... another day, with careful arrangements... which you might be thinking about. Now take your hand away, please; there is a rig coming down the road - see the dust?'

Mother did not scold me over being a half-hour late. But she did not press Charles when he refused her offer of lemonade, on the excuse that he had to get Ned (his gelding) home and curried and the buggy wiped down because his parents were going to need it. (A too complex lie - I'm sure he simply did not want to meet Mother's eye, or be questioned by her. I'm glad Father taught me to avoid fancy lies.)

Mother went upstairs as soon as Chuck left; I went out back.

Two years earlier Father had indulged us in a luxury many of our church members felt was sinfully wasteful: two outhouses, one for the boys and one for us girls, just like at school. In fact we truly needed them. That day I was delighted to find the girls privy empty. I flipped the bar to lock, and checked up.

Some blood, not much. No problems. Slightly sore, nothing more.

So I sighed with relief and peed and reassembled myself, and went back to the house, picking up a piece of stove wood for the kitchen as I passed the wood pile - a toll each of us paid for each trip out back.

I dropped off the wood and stopped in the wash shed adjoining the kitchen, washed my hands and sniffed them. Clean. just my guilty conscience. I went to the clinic, stopping only to tousle Lucille's strawberry hair and par her bottom. Lucy was three, I think - yes, she was born in ‘94, the year after Father and I went to Chicago. She was a little doll, always merry. I decided that I wanted one just like her... but not this year. But soon. I was feeling very female.

I reached the clinic just as Mrs Altschuler was leaving. I spoke politely; she looked at me and said, ‘Audrey, you've been out in the sun without a sunbonnet again. Don't you know any better than that?'

I thanked her for her interest in my welfare and went on in. According to Father all she suffered from was constipation and lack of exercise... but she showed up at least twice a month and had not, since the first of the year, paid a single penny. Father was a strong man, firm-minded, but not good at collecting money from people who owed it to him.

Father entered her visit in his book and looked up: ‘I'm taking your bishop, young lady.'

‘Sure you don't want to change your mind, sir?'

‘No. I may be wrong but I'm certain. Why? Have I made a mistake?'

‘I think so, sir. Mate in four moves.'

‘Eh?' Father stood up, went over to his chess table. ‘Show me.'

‘Shall we simply play it out? I may be mistaken:

‘Grrummph! You'll be the death of me, girl: He studied the board, then went back to his desk. ‘This will interest you. This morning's mail. From Mr Clemens -‘

‘Oh, my!'

I remember especially two paragraphs:

I agree with you and the Bard, sir; let's hang them. Hanging its lawyers might not correct all of this country's woes but it would be lots of fun and could do no harm to anyone.

Elsewhere I have noted that the Congress is the only distinct criminal class this country has. It cannot be mere coincidence that ninty-seven per cent of Congress are lawyers.

Mr Clemens added that his lecture agency had scheduled him for Kansas City next winter. ‘I recall that four years ago we failed to rendezvous in Chicago by a week. Is it possible that you will be in KC next January?'

‘Oh, Father! Could we?'

‘School will be in session:

‘Father, you know that I made up all time lost by going to Chicago. You know, too, that I am first among the girls in my class... and could be first including the boys if you hadn't cautioned me about the inadvisability of appearing too smart. But what you may not have noticed is that I have enough credits and could have graduated -‘

‘-with Tom's class last week. I noticed. We'll work on it. Deus volent and the crick don't rise. Did you get what you wanted in Butler?'