e, Mr. Sturt," said Bet.

I had to sit down before I could speak. "Of course I want you. But what
about your own family?"

"I haven't any. My mother's dead and my father's an engineer on Ganymede
and gets home on leave about once in three years. I've been living in a
youth hostel."

"But look here--" I turned to Lucy--"how on Earth can you know? Two
weeks or less is no time--"

Lucy gave me a look I recognized, the patient one of the scientist for
the layman.

"The Chow-Visalius test, dear. One day after the fertilized ovum starts
dividing--"

"And I ran it myself every day for over a week. That's one of my jobs in
the lab and it was easy to slip in another specimen. And it didn't, and
it didn't and I went nearly out of my mind--"

"Every time Hal entered the apartment, I'd look at him and he'd shake
his head," Lucy interrupted. "It meant everything to him. And it would
just have broken my heart--"

"Mine, too," Bet said softly. "And his. And today was the last chance. I
was scared to try it. This afternoon at 14:30, just before the farewell
visits, was the deadline for viz messages to any of them. If I'd had to
send mine without the word we'd agreed on that would tell him it was all
right--But it was, at last! And now he knows, even if I never--even if
we never--Excuse me, please, it's been a strain. I'm afraid I'm going to
bawl."

* * * * *

We let her alone. Kids nowadays hate to be fussed over.

Us, we'd lost our son, and that was going to stay with us forever. But
now we would have his child to love and--

An appalling thought struck me suddenly. I can't imagine why I hadn't
realized it sooner. All this emotion, I suppose.

"Good God!" I cried. "An illegal child! We can't keep it!"

"Nobody's going to know," Lucy replied calmly. "Bet's going to live with
us, and when it starts to show, she's going to take her allowed leave.
We'll take ours, too, and we'll all go on a trip--to Mars, maybe, or
Venus--one of the settled colonies where we can rent a house. Babies
don't _have_ to be born in hospitals, you know; our ancestors had them
right at home. She's strong and healthy and I know what to do. Then
we'll come back here and we'll have a baby with us that we adopted
wherever we were. Nobody will ever know."

"Look," I said in a voice I tried to keep from rising. "There are four
billion people on Earth and about 28 billion in the colonized Solar
planets. Every one of tho