reached out and silenced
it, and lay looking at the early sunlight in the windows, and found
that he was wishing himself back in his dorm room at the University.
No, back in this room, ten years ago, before any of this had started.
For a while, he imagined himself thirteen years old and knowing
everything he knew now, and he began mapping a campaign to establish
himself as Litchfield's Juvenile Delinquent Number One, to the end
that Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton and the rest of them would never
dream of sending him to school on Terra to find out where Merlin was.

But he couldn't even go back to yesterday afternoon in Kurt Fawzi's
office and tell them the truth. All he could do was go ahead. It had
seemed so easy, when he and his father had been talking on the Mall;
just get a ship built, and get out to Koshchei, and open some of the
shipyards and engine works there, and build a hypership. Sure;
easy--once he got started.

He climbed out of bed, knuckled the sleep-sand out of his eyes, threw
his robe around him, and started across the room to the bath cubicle.

They had decided to have breakfast together his first morning home.
The party had broken up late, and then there had been the excitement
of opening the presents he had brought back from Terra. Nobody had had
a chance to talk about Merlin, or about what he was going to do, now
that he was home. That, and his career of mendacity, would start at
breakfast. He wanted to let his father get to the table first, to run
interference for him; he took his time with his toilet and dressed
carefully and slowly. Finally, he zipped up the short waist-length
jacket and went out.

His father and mother and Flora were at the table, and the
serving-robot was floating around a few inches off the floor, steam
trailing from its coffee urn and its tray lid up to offer food. He
greeted everybody and sat down at his place, and the robot came around
to him. His mother had selected all the things he'd been most fond of
six years ago: shovel-snout bacon, hotcakes, starberry jam, things he
hadn't tasted since he had gone away. He filled his plate and poured a
cup of coffee.

"You don't want to bother coming out to the dig with me this morning,
do you?" his father was saying. "I'll be back here for lunch, and
we'll go to the meeting in the afternoon."

"Meeting?" Flora asked. "What meeting?"

"Oh, we didn't have time to tell you," Rodney Maxwell said. "You know,
Conn brought back a lo