at was happening and shook free of her grasp, and
with starvation violence moved toward his foe again. But the MP stood
between them.

His wife turned his numb and again lifeless form toward her, and with
tears in her eyes, said words that almost made it through to his mind.

"Olaf, please. He never touched me."

And then in a simple, childlike sob he said her name.

"Ara?"

"Yes, it's me. It's me, it's all right."

And again she embraced him, instinctively and with all the love she
could muster massaging his back, the taut muscles of his neck. He
stepped back after a time and held her arms, confused.

"Then why....."

"To be a governess for his children, and to keep me from the prison
colonies."

"To protect you? Why?"

"Because I'm pregnant."

"I thought you said he never....." It was all too much. He looked
hard at her figure, perhaps a little fuller, tried to reckon the
months. All useless. He did not understand. He did not understand.
Then it was his eyes that pleaded, and he felt himself beginning to
pass out.

"Ara?" His last hope. "What is happening?"

"I had the child, Olaf. A son. YOUR SON."

At this he let out a piteous groan, as the lance pierced his heart.
And he stumbled, then collapsed into a corner, weeping uncontrollably,
oblivious of his wife's caressing hands.

II

The next two days he spent in a hospital on Rembrandt, then moved with
his wife and baby son, to temporary quarters aboard the largely
undamaged Kythera. With the vessels of his former destroyer group
either crippled, destroyed outright, or reassigned to new contingents,
his next command remained uncertain.

He was offered, if he wanted it, a two month leave of absence. But in
his present state, and with the uncertainty of war all around him---his
own sense of duty, and the desire to find the safest haven for his
young family---he simply could not decide. Also, with the issue still
very much in doubt, and the slow realization that he was good at what
he did, he did not know if he wished to trust the future to strangers:
if his place was not, after all, on the bridge of a Coalition
destroyer.

He could not decide, and only asked for more time.

That night aboard the cruiser, the first they had spent together after
the long separation, it was understood between them without any word or
sign, that they should not yet try to make love. Instead they lay
quietly in the bed, with the newborn in th