What madness, this clumsy brash talk! I choked it off.
But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks were mantled deeper red, but she laughed.
“That is true.” She turned abruptly serious. “I should not laugh. 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?”