"Am I?" The boy smiled. "I never knew him. Of course, I know I look like the pictures, but pictures never tell much, do they?"
He had many papers to give Peter Hubbard. Too many; no honest man had his life so well in order. But then Emrys' honesty was not the issue, only his identity. The birth certificate said he had been born on Clergal fifty-five years before, so he was ten years older than Hubbard's wildest estimate. A young man, but not a boy—a man of full maturity, but still too young to be, normally, Jan Shortmire's son. Then Hubbard opened Emrys Shortmire's passport and received another shock.
He tried to sound calm. "I see you were on Morethis the same time your father was!"
Emrys' smile widened. "Curious coincidence, wasn't it?"
A surge of almost physical dislike filled the lawyer. "Is that all it was—a coincidence?"
"Are you suggesting that I pushed my father into the Ekkan?" Emrys asked pleasantly.
"Certainly not!" Hubbard was indignant at the thought that he, as a lawyer, would have voiced such a suspicion, even if it had occurred to him. "I thought you two might have arranged to meet on Morethis."
"I told you I'd never seen my father," Emrys reminded him. "As for what I was doing on Morethis—that's my business."
"All I'm concerned with is whether or not you are Emrys Shortmire." Distaste was almost tangible on Hubbard's tongue. "It does seem surprising that, since you were on Morethis at the time your father died, you should not have come to claim your inheritance sooner."
"I had affairs of my own to wind up," Emrys said flatly.