it was autumn again, the second autumn since he had landed from the city of asgard at storisende and taken the countess dorothy home to litchfield. again the fields were bare and brown; all up and down the gordon valley the melons were harvested, and the wine-pressing was ready to start.

the house was crowded today. all top-level litchfield seemed to have turned out, and there were guests from storisende, and even a few who had made the trip from koshchei to be there, simon macquarte, the president of koshchei tech; conn would always remember him in the screen threatening a whole planet with devastation. luther chen-wong, the chief executive of koshchei colony. clyde nichols, the president of koshchei airlines.

he almost bumped into yves jacquemont, coming in from the hall. jacquemont's beard had been trimmed down to a small imperial, and he was wearing the uniform of trisystem & interstellar spacelines, nothing at all like a federation[pg 188] space navy uniform. he was laughing about something; he threw an arm over conn's shoulder, and they went into the front parlor together.

"oh, gehenna of a big crop!" he heard klem zareff's voice, chuckling happily, above the babble in the room. "you wouldn't believe it. why, we had to build six new vats...."

the thin-faced, white-haired man in the chair beside him said something. mike shanlee and klem zareff, old enemies, were now fast friends. shanlee had come in from force command with conn that morning. he had stayed on poictesme as nominal head of project merlin, and intended to remain there for the rest of his life.

"oh, there aren't any more farm-tramps," zareff replied. "everybody's getting factory jobs off-planet. i have an awful time getting help, and what i can get won't work for less than ten sols a day. why, they're even organizing a union...."

there were feminine shrieks from across the room, and a stampede. the housecleaning-robot had come in, running its vacuum-cleaning hose around and brandishing its mops. he saw his mother break away from a group of older ladies and shout:

"oscar!"

the robot stopped dead. "yash'm?" a voice came out of it, sheshan-accented.

"go out!" his mother commanded. "go to kitchen. stay there."

"yash'm." the robot floated out the door to the hall.

his mother rejoined her friends. probably telling them, for the thousandth time, that her boy conn fixed up the sound receptors and voice for oscar. or harping on how conn had been telling everybody the truth, all along, and people wouldn't believe him.

sylvie came up to him and caught his arm. "come on, conn; they're going to start the rehearsal," she said.

"they've been going to start it for an hour," her father told her.

"well, they're really going to start it now."[pg 189]

"all right. you two run along," yves jacquemont said. "and you'd better start rehearsing for your own wedding before long. the genji will be ready to hyper out in another month, and i don't want to be at space when my only daughter gets married."

they pushed through the crowd, dragging conn's mother with them toward the big living room beyond. on the way, mrs. maxwell stopped to try to drag judge ledue out of a chair.

"judge, the rehearsal is starting; they can't do it without you."

ledue clung to his chair. "they daren't do it with me, mrs. maxwell. if i get into it, it won't be a rehearsal; they'll be really married, and then there won't be any point in having a wedding tomorrow."

"oh, morgan!" conn called across the room to gatworth. "you've just been appointed temporary judge for the wedding rehearsal!"

there was a big crowd around wade lucas, in the next room; he was telling them about the voyage to baldur, from which he had returned, and the one to irminsul, with a cargo of arms, machine tools and contragravity vehicles, on which he and his bride would go for their honeymoon. there was another crowd around flora; she was telling them about the new fashions on baldur, which had been brought back on the ouroboros ii.

"where's your father?" his mother was asking him. "he has to rehearse giving the bride away."

"probably in his office. i'll go get him."

"you'll get into an argument with somebody and forget to come back," his mother said. "sylvie, you go with him, and bring both of them back."

"when'll we have our wedding, sylvie?" he asked as they went off together.

"well, before dad goes to aditya with the genji. that'll have to be in a month."

"two weeks? that ought to be plenty of time to get ready, and let people recover from this one."[pg 190]

"everybody's here now. let's make it a double wedding tomorrow," she suggested.

he hadn't been prepared for that. "well, i hadn't expected.... sure! good idea!" he agreed.

there was a crowd in rodney maxwell's little office—fawzi and some others, and some storisende people. one of the latter was vociferating:

"jake vyckhoven's no good, and he never was any good!"

"well, you have to admit, if he hadn't ordered the banks and the stock exchange closed that time, we'd have had a horrible panic—"

"admit nothing of the kind! jethro, you were there, you'll bear me out. about a dozen of us were at executive palace for hours, bullying him into that. why, we almost had to twist one of his arms while he was signing the order with the other. and now he has the gall to run for re-election on the strength of his heroic actions at the time of the travis hoax!"

"i know who we want for president!" another storisende man exclaimed. "he's right here in this room!"

"yes!" rodney maxwell almost bellowed, before the other man could say anything else. "here he is!" he grabbed kurt fawzi by the arm and yanked him to his feet. "here's the man most responsible for finding merlin; the man who first suggested sending my son conn to terra to school, the man who, more than anyone else, devoted his life to the search for merlin, the man whose inextinguishable faith and indomitable courage kept that search alive through its darkest hours. everybody, get a drink; a toast to our next president, kurt fawzi!"

conn was sure he heard his father add: "ghu, what a narrow escape!"

then he and sylvie began chanting, in unison, "we want fawzi! we want fawzi!"[pg 191]