that many people. We suspect the Fleet is completely ruthless and would not have taken special precautions to avoid killing people."
"The Freedom can likewise cut another ship apart," Jamie said. "The Fleet ships are small. If we need to kill one of them, we must be very precise in computing a jump coordinate. Our envelope obviously needs to intersect them, not contain them or displace them."
"I don't doubt Jon's story about the gate sphere cutting a bowl in the ground," Iggy said, "but I'm burdened by decades of engineering work aimed at preventing starlight drive fields from going nuclear. Aren't they very close to producing gate envelopes?"
"Pan and I were properly concerned by the theoretical dangers of gates," Direk replied. "We ran tests that should have killed us, according to accepted nuclear theory. All I can say is, if you think this is magic, tell me what a cryptikon is!"
"Or a transmat, for that matter," Jon offered.
"Yes," Direk agreed. "The more controversial theory of transmat operation states that objects are disassembled and reassembled without regard to atomic and molecular structure, otherwise the information processing required to maintain entity integrity would be too vast. I haven't revisited the atomic maps of transmat structure but I'm willing to wager that among the unidentified details there are one or more tiny gates. I then must assume the gate or gates eat the target object in a pattern that allows reassembly in a simple sequence. The more intriguing function of the transmat is the reference field and beyond that, the mathematical basis for measuring and computing the destination. Now that we know something about gates, we may have learned at least one thing for researching the science of transmats."
There was a lull in the discussion as Iggy seemed to have momentarily run out of ideas that scared him.
Jamie gathered her courage. "I have a different kind of question," she said.
Direk made eye contact with her. Perhaps he was warned by the forced tone of her voice. He smiled but it was a fake smile. He raised an eyebrow in anticipation. This was a challenge he made to her: Find me out, if you dare. "What is it?" he inquired.
"How did you make the children laugh?" she asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, showing a puzzled frown.
He did know what she was talking about! She was sure of it! It was in his voice, the sound of a lie that was meant to sound like a lie. He was playing with her! The goose flesh it gave her also gave her courage. "If you think I'll abandon the subject just because we have no privacy, you're wrong!"
Jamie glanced meaningfully at Jon and Iggy.
"Uncle Iggy and I can take a hike," Horss offered.
"I need witnesses and protection," Direk said casually. "My woman may get violent."
Jamie didn't miss the possessive article - and the implied humor. "Your woman? How can you claim that?" She was just light enough of skin to show blushing. The heat in her face spread through her whole body. It was a wonderful warmth.
"You took my name, didn't you?" he noted. "I think a lawyer could make a good case for common law marriage. How long were we together?"
Jamie tried to laugh non-humorously but it was difficult. How could he keep such a calm face while his voice was now so alive with emotion and humor? It was electrifying to her, and dizzying in its implications. She tried to sound aggrieved. "Will you continue to stall, or will you tell me how you made the children laugh?"
"What children?"
"The Five Worlds!"
"When was this?"
He knew when! He seemed to be inviting her to try to embarrass him in front of Jon and Iggy. How old were they, she and Direk? At what age did one grow out of such behavior? He was acting the youthful age to which he was regressed. She wasn't acting any more maturely.
"I'm talking about you and me, a long time ago! Don't tell me you can't remember the cottage on the mountain, and the snow, and the one and only bed with a goose-down mattress!"
"If only you didn't look so beautiful-"
"I'm not beautiful! I'm a Marine!"
"Navy!" Horss corrected her.
"-and so lethal," Direk finished with mock seriousness. "I'm afraid to answer!"
"You're not afraid of anything! Tell me!"
"A bed with a goose-down mattress?" he mused. "You're sure this is a real memory?"
"Yes, I'm sure! Quit that!"
"Quit what?"
"The deadpan, quit the deadpan!"
"My face might break."
Jamie laughed. She couldn't stop herself. "Please, tell me!" She begged, exaggerating it for the sake of the humor.
"A bed with a goose-down mattress," he said with fake thoughtfulness. Direk stared off into space, making his face frown.
"Yes, the one and only bed!" she cried.
"Oh." He sighed loudly. "That one. The one I've thought about several times a day for the last century or so. Probably all of the copies remembered, so that's many more times."
Jamie took a deep breath and felt too hot now. There were tears in her eyes, threatening to escape down her cheeks. Direk was winning the battle, not that it was a fight, not that she felt there would be a loser. She was happy and she was in love, and it didn't matter if it was only due to the auxiliary memory devices.
"Would you please, please tell me how you made the children laugh?"
"Why is that moment so important to you?" he asked seriously.
"I was always waiting for the real Direk to make his appearance, and I thought he might have appeared at that moment, never to be seen again. You made the children laugh. You never made me laugh, not intentionally, anyway."
"I never knew you wanted anything from me but news of your mother," Direk said.
"You can't mean that! I stayed with you an entire lifetime! I could never have persisted so long if I didn't have feelings for you!"
"Feelings of hate? I thought the cottage on the mountain was part of a plan to make me break my silence about your past."
"But I stayed with you for another fifty years! Despite your silence! How could I hate you that long? I accepted you. I accepted your assertion that you didn't know enough to help me. I wanted to stay with you. I loved you!"
Jamie wept, briefly, smiling or grimacing, as she pushed the heel of her hand into her eyes, mashing away the tears.
"You spent so much time and effort just finding me." Direk shook his head as if befuddled. "I couldn't have given you any reason to feel good about me. I assumed you were going to wait as long as it took for me to tell you what I knew. Which, of course, wasn't enough, because we all had memory safety protocols that restricted vital information, the most important of which was your mother! But if I ever convinced you that I didn't know of your parents, then you would go away and I would be alone. I didn't want you to leave me."
The tears still flowed down her cheeks and Jamie gave up wiping them. Iggy patted her on the shoulder and she smiled happily at him. She turned back to Direk, who now stared at her with concern and perhaps something else. His eyes were not cold now.
"I did want you to be embarrassed and humiliated by our stay in the cottage," she said, recovering enough composure to speak. "And by the bed we shared. But that moment, when the children laughed at you, put doubt in my mind, and I was nearly as uncomfortable as you must have been. Did you know the local custom concerning that cottage?"
"I was warned by Phuti."
"And you still went with me?"
"The children knew we were going to the cottage," Direk said. "I asked if any of them were conceived in that cottage. They didn't seem to understand, but one of them did ask me a naughty question. I didn't answer, except to cross my eyes. Then they laughed."
"You crossed your eyes?"
"That's all! It was better than encouraging more questions!"
"I did embarrass you! I did humiliate you! I'm sorry!"
"You told me that afterward. What I couldn't tell you at the time was that I was willing to do anything, just to be near you. I loved you from the moment Direk first saw y
ou, when you were crying in his mother's office. It broke his heart to leave you with your grandparents. From that moment on, he was not just the son who was too much like the father who left his mother - he was the ultimate Essiin."
Jamie blinked her flooded eyes, puzzled by how Direk had phrased his words, speaking of himself in the third person. Her eyes were blurred by tears but she sensed the three men staring at her, as if waiting for some further reaction. They knew something that she did not, something that was wrong, something that would crush the joy she felt, steal the relief she wanted. As her tears allowed, Jamie looked at Jon Horss, then Khalanov, and finally Direk. Each of them did know something that she did not! It scared her!
"I'm sorry," Direk said, "for what we never had. For what we may never have. For what I remember. For what you don't remember. You don't remember that Direk died, because you never really knew Direk. You only knew me."
The shock sent Jamie's mind in another direction, perhaps to avoid facing a menacing truth and the decision it would require.
There was a marching band parading by the far perimeter of Jackson Square. It had two sousaphones, two tempos, and two moods. The woodwinds and percussion played a slow, sad tempo, then the brass would push the tempo fast and merry, with the sousaphones bellowing. Jamie clapped with delight, seeing the shiny brass instruments and hearing the wonderful music. Then her mother called to her and she saw the dark lady sitting next to Mama on the park bench. The dark lady wore a pretty yellow dress and smiled at her with tears on her brown face. Mama was crying, too, but she didn't notice