. The
wonders of the next generation--conquering humans marching on...." Her
voice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tingling something
which poets call love! It burned and surged from my trembling fingers
into the flesh of her forearm.

The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at the
silver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future. And she
murmured:

"A little son, cast in my own gentle image. But with the strength of his
father...."

Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with my
hand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselves joined
in a new individual--a little son, cast in his mother's gentle image and
with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it was over. A
step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko came past, his
great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword-ornament beneath it. His
bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless. He gazed at us,
swaggered past, and turned the deck corner.

Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasant to
talk with you, Mr. Haljan."

"But we'll have many more," I said. "Ten days--"

"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"

"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars. A
strange, aggressively forward-looking people."

* * * * *

An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair.

"Yes, they are," she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martians
in Great-New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she had
said that? It seemed so.

Miko was coming back. He stopped this time before us.

"Your brother would see you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his
room."

The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up, and he
towered a head over me.

Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."

I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a pleasant
half-hour."

The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck with me staring
after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank from him
in fear.

And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood talking
to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to show it
some distant object through the window.

"A