"Send all the clothes to the flag cabin, please."

"Yes, Ma'am. They should be appearing in your delivery cupboard now. Do you know where that is?"

"I'll find it. What are you and your sister wearing tonight? Or is it a secret?"

"It's not a secret; we just haven't decided. But there is still an hour and thirty-one minutes till dinner."

"Time enough to pick out pretty clothes. Or will you wear formal skin tonight? That takes anywhere from two seconds to two hours, does it not? Off."

Sharpie used an unusually rough expression of disgust, which told me that she now included Lib and Lazarus in her inner circle. "Woodie, do you know any exceptionally strong cuss words? I detest the thought of wasting time pretending to be festive when we have so much to settle, especially our procedures for Maureen."

Deety looked at Libby. "You and I are kind o' stuck with a promise, too. How about some new cuss words from you, too?"

"Deety, I have no literary talent. But I would like to hear some soul-soothing cussing. We ought to stick with this, with snacks to keep going and sleep when we must, until it's perfect. Three hours or three days or three weeks."

I said, "We shall!"

Sharpie shook her head. "Zebbie, you can skip dinner. I can't. Lazarus should appear, too."

He agreed. "I'm afraid I must. But, Commodore, I must advise you that your flag chief of staff should be present, too, for esprit de corps." He cleared his throat noisily. "Libby and Jacob, being passengers, could skip."

Lib shook her head. "Deety and I made a reckless promise."

Not being a genius myself, it's kind of fun to make a roomful of 'em look silly. I stood up. "No! We will not let a dinner party interfere! We can settle it within three days. But if you all are going to chase rabbits- What's the matter with you, Sharpie? Getting stupid in your old age?"

"Apparently I am, Zebbie." She said to Lazarus, "Please issue orders cancelling dinner. We'll stay with this until we finish it. There are beds and lounges whenever anyone needs to nap. But we won't adjourn. Three hours or three weeks. Or longer."

"Don't cancel dinner, Sharpie."

"Zebbie, you have me confused."

"Beulahland is on a different time axis."

Five minutes later we were in our old farmhouse. We hadn't stopped for clothes as we would have wasted twenty minutes, whereas the idea was to save time on that axis, use time on this axis. We stuck Lazarus and Libby back in the after space, with the bulkhead door dogged open, so they could see and hear, but required them to use the web straps, and cautioned them that the lumps under them were loaded firearms.

The only thing not routine was that we would be making rendezvous later with a moving ship, something we had done before only from bounce range in the same space-time. So I had asked Gay whether she was sure she could do it. She assured me that she could, because she wasn't concerned with the ship's vector; she would return the instant she left.

I turned to Commodore-now-Captain Sharpie. "Ready for space, Captain."

"Thank you, Astrogator. Gay Deceiver. Beulahland. Execute. Gay Deceiver, open your doors. All hands, unbelt. Disembark. Gay, it's sleepy time. Over."

"Goodnight, Hilda. Roger and out."

Our passengers were dazed-they all are, first time. They stood outside our barn, looking at the setting sun, acting like zombies, until I shooed them inside. Although Beulahland does not have body taboos, they wear clothes most of the time, and six naked people outdoors in a clump as the chill of the evening was coming on was odd. I like a low profile.

Once inside, Libby said, "Feels like Arkansaw."

Lazarus replied. "Feels like Mizzoura."

"Neither," I told them. "It would be the St ate of \Va~h I n~ton if' it weren't Beulahiand, and what ought to be Puget Sound is about a kilometer over that way."

"It still feels like home. Lazarus, I'm happy here."

At that moment I decided we would never give up New Harbor. Apparently we were going to be citizens of Tertius, or maybe New Rome on Secundus, or both (commuting is no problem when light-years mean nothing), on another time axis. We could take a rest from city life anytime and have it cost not one day's work on Tertius. Contrariwise, only such time would pass on New World as we spent there.

Hmm- Maybe we could sell vacations. Or extra study time for that student who has his big exam, the one he must pass, tomorrow morning. Sell him room and board and transportation and three weeks not in the calendar. At a slight markup, of course.

I built a cheerful fire in the fireplace, and Lazarus washed dishes, while Libby insisted on proving that she could cook on a wood range, even though she had learned centuries ago by her time scale, as a gangling boy. Yes, Elizabeth can cook.

We ate and sat around and ta~ ked, puiz~io~ ho~ Ia ba ~uI a at ~laureen Not make that one tiny mista ke, It was then thaI Deetv bl'I)ught up the root ter of the dead body, \ouve seen how ocr urate (day can be But Icn~r' do we get a freshly-dead corpse to replace Maureen?

Lazarus told her to forget it, "I provide the corpse."

"That's not a good answer, Lazarus."

"Deety, don't worry. It'll be dead and I will dump it." I said, "Lazarus, I don't like that answer a damn bit." "Nor do I," Jake seconded.

"Nor I," agreed Sharpie. "Woodie, you're asking us to make a snatch-a hanging offense many places, bad trouble anywhere. We don't mind the technicality; saving an old woman's life isn't the sin kidnapping is. But what about this freshly-dead corpse? We don't deal in murder."

Lazarus glowered.

Libby said hastily, "If I assure you that it is all right, will you let it go at that?"

"No," pronounced Sharpie, Woodie must come clean."

"All right, all right! I own this corpse. No murder or any other crime involved. Now will you quit riding me about it?"

"Jake?"

"I don't like it, Zeb."

"I don't, either. But we needn't do anything. We go limp. He may not last long in a culture that 'balances,"

"Possible. But that's his problem."

Sharpie said quickly, "Did either of you promise him a ride back to my ship?"

'~Whose ship?"

"Mv ship. Woodie. Gentlemen?"

"I didn't promise him. Did you. Jake'?"

No. Did you, Deety'? Hilda'?"

'Not me, Pop."

"Nor me, Jacob. Woodie, earlier today I thought you had seen the light. Conceded, 'I am but indifferent honest' myself. But even pirates need to feel safe with their shipmates. You and I shook hands as partners. You don't seem to understand what that means. However I'm not going to abandon you here. You'd be balanced in a week. Dead. Or worse. So we'll take you back. By the way, it is impossible to steal Gay Deceiver. Yes, I know you once stole a ship enormously bigger than Gay. But not as well protected."

"Lazarus! Tell them."

"Lib, I was waiting for the Commodore to finish. That corpse wasn't murdered because it was never alive other than as a vegetable." Lazarus looked embarrassed.

"About thirty years ago we started a medical school on Tertius. A one-horse deal, more of a branch of the clinic. But genetic engineering is taught, and student genetic surgeons must practice. Ordinarily a clone that goes bad is 1'f!led and frozen and its tissues studied. A clone that takes-shows no fault.

deviation--is either cared foi' and allowed to develop if~ its genetic source rots a spare body and will pay for it, Or, more likely, a healthy clone is aui'el\' a laboratory exercise~ an ethical medical school requires supervised destruction during the first pseudo trimester. befoi'e quickening shows in the 'ave form,

"Neither student nor tissue donor is likely to be upset by this quasi-abortion.

as the student is almost always herself the donor-if it bothers her, she's in the wrong vocation.

"If the student is not the donor, emotional upset is hardly possible. The student thinks of the clone as a quasi-living histological specimen the usefulness of which is at end-and the tissue donor can't be upset, being unaware of it."

"Why so, Lazarus? If anybody is tinkering with my cells, I want to know about it, I do!"

"Deety, that tissue may be years, even centuries, old; the donor may be parsecs away. Or still warm and the donor just leaving the building. Or anything in between. A sperm-and-ova bank insures the future of the race; a tissue bank insures the future of the individual. But somebody has to pick up the check; it's a tanstaafl situation. A few of the very wealthy-and neurotic- always have a quickened but unawakened clone in stasis. I'm wealthy but not neurotic; I don't have a reserve clone."

I caught sight of Libby's face as Lazarus made that last statement-her mouth twitched in a half smile about to become (I think) a snicker, had she not suppressed all expression. No one but I caught it.

I made note to ask her about it later-then I remembered what the mouse told the cat and decided not to.

"But I do what any prudent Howard does; I have tissue on deposit. One may do this either of two ways: Pay high... or pay much lower and sign a release on half the donation for research and instruction." He grinned. "I'm stingy. My tissue is available to medical students."

He went on, "Not all medical schools are ethical. I can think of at least three planets where-" Lazarus looked directly at my wife. "Deety, you raised this issue. While I can think of three planets where one can buy any sort of monster, I can think of at least thirty where, for a much lower fee, I could simply say, 'I want that one' "-he pointed at Sharpie-"and the answer would be, 'It's a deal, Mac. How freshly dead and when do you want delivery?"

Sharpie looked around behind herself as if to see at whom Lazarus had pointed.

"That's the cheapest way-"

"Then you weren't pointing at me!" Sharpie interrupted. "Woodie, it's not polite to point. For a moment you had me worried. I'm never cheap-highpriced, always."

"So I found out, Commodore. Deety, that's cheapest, and safe for the buyer in the places I have in mind. But how can I convince you that I never gave even a moment's consideration to that method? You seem to know a lot about me-more than I know about any of you. Is there anything that you have ever read or heard, anything that I've said or done, that would cause you to think that I would murder or contract for a murder-same but nastier-in order to further my own ends? I'm not saying that I have never killed. A man who has lived even half as long as I have has found himself more than once in a killor-be-killed situation. But the best way to deal with such a situation is not to get into it. Anticipate it. Avoid it."

Lazarus Long stopped and looked sad, and for the only time of my acquaintance with him, looked his age. I do not mean he suddenly looked decrepit. But he had an aura of ancient sorrow. "Professor Burroughs, if it would do any good, I would junk all my plans, accept being forever stranded here, for the privilege of taking a twenty-pound sledge and smashing your space-time twister."

I was shocked (damn it, I like good machinery). Jake looked hurt, Deety and Sharpie looked stunned.

Jake said tightly, "Lazarus. .. why?"

"Not to hurt you, Professor; you have my highest respect. You are one of three: the man who invented the wheel, the man who discovered how to use fire-and you. But, in making this supreme discovery, you have accomplished something I had thought impossible. You have made interstellar war logistically practical. Interstellar? Intergalactic-interuniversal !"

Lazarus suddenly straightened up, threw off his gloom, grinned. "All the King's horses and all the King's men can't close Pandora's Box again. Once it hits the fan, the only thing to do is sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. Hilda has plans along that line. But I'm going to have to start thinking in military terms again. Figure out how to defend my home place against what appears to be that Ultimate Weapon much talked about but never achieved. I am glad to say that Hilda plans to keep it a close-held secret as long as possible; that may buy us time."

He turned his attention back to my wife. "Deety, I have never murdered,

I never will. The nearest I ever came to it was once being sorely tempted to

strangle a five-year-old boy. I admit that the thought has often passed through

my mind that this character or that would look his best as the centerpiece of

a funeral. But can I convince you that I have never acted on such thoughts?

Think hard, please-all that you know of me. Am I capable of murder?"

Deety doesn't dither. (Remember how we got married?) She jumped up, hurried around our kitchen table, and kissed Lazarus-and stopped hurrying. It was a kiss that calls for a bed, or even a pile of coal-had there not been urgent business before the house.

Deety broke from it, sat down beside him, and said, "Tell us how we get this unmurdered fresh corpse. It's clear that we're going to have to go pick it up-in Gay. So we must know."

Libby said gently, "Lazarus, this is what you have been avoiding. May I tell it?"

"Thanks, Lib. No, you would pretty it up. I-"

"Pipe down!" said Deety. "Elizabeth, give us the straight word. Briefly."

"Very well. The medical school of B.I.T. is as ethical as you will find. My sister-wife Ishtar is director of the rejuvenation clinic and chairman of the board of the medical school, and still finds time to teach. I have never seen Maureen Johnson as I was born about two centuries after she was. But she iS Supposed to resemble Laz and Lor-unsurprising; she is their genetic mother, Since they were cloned from Lazarus."

"Oh! I see. There is still a third clone from Lazarus. Female?"

"A spoiled one, Deety. Ishtar tells me that it is difficult, rather than otherwise, to get a bad clone from Lazarene tissue... so it is especially suitable for induced mutation experiments. She orders the destruction of these experiments when they have served their purpose."

"Deety said to make it brief," growled Lazarus.

Lib ignored him. "But, while Ishtar checks on the students, no one checks on her. For twenty years Ishtar watched for a clone that would look human but not be human. So deficient in forebrain that it could never be anything but a vegetable, unaware. She told me that her students had unknowingly provided her with dozens to work on. Usually they died too soon, or never developed human appearance, or had some other fault that made them unusable. But several years ago she succeeded. I testify that this thing looked like Laz and Lor as it passed through the stage of its forced development... and also that it looked like an older version, wrinkled and hair streaked with gray, when it died two Tertian years ago-"

"Huh? Fresh corpse'!"

"-and was quick-frozen at once. I testify to something else. Friends, in becoming a woman I acquired an interest in biology that I had not had, as a male. While I teach math at B.I.T., I am also staff mathematician to the clinic and have studied a bit of human biology. When I say that this spoiled clone was never alive in any real sense I speak as the mathematical biologist who checked its monitors' records daily. It always required full metabolic support; we monitored everything. The surprising thing is that Ishtar could keep it alive long enough to let it appear to age. But Ishtar is very skillful." Libby added, "Lazarus would not only have become upset in telling this, but he could not have told it first hand as Ishtar refused to permit Lazarus to see this spoiled clone or any records on it."