; its telltale was
glowing a steady red like a nice little home fire amid the tight cluster
of dials that included all the controls except the lonely and
frightening Introversion switch that was never touched. Then Maud's
couch curtains winked out and there were she and the Roman sitting
quietly side by side.

He looked down at his shiny boots and the rest of his black duds like he
was just waking up and couldn't believe it all, and he said, "_Omnia
mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_," and I raised my eyebrows at Beau,
who was taking the tray back, and he did proud by old Vicksburg by
translating: "All things change and we change with them."

Then Mark slowly looked around at us, and I can testify that a Roman
smile is just as warm as any other nationality, and he finally said, "We
are nine, the proper number for a party. The couches, too. It is good."

Maud chuckled proudly and Erich shouted, "Welcome back from the Void,
_Kamerad_," and then, because he's German and thinks all parties have to
be noisy and satirically pompous, he jumped on a couch and announced,
"_Herren und Damen_, permit me to introduce the noblest Roman of them
all, Marcus Vipsaius Niger, legate to Nero Claudius (called Germanicus
in a former time stream) and who in 763 A.U.C. (Correct, Mark? It means
10 A.D., you meatheads!) died bravely fighting the Parthians and the
Snakes in the Battle of Alexandria. _Hoch, hoch, hoch!_"

* * * * *

We all swung our glasses and cheered with him and Sid yelled at Erich,
"Keep your feet off the furniture, you unschooled rogue," and grinned
and boomed at all three hussars, "Take your ease, Recuperees," and Maud
and Mark got their drinks, the Roman paining Beau by refusing Falernian
wine in favor of scotch and soda, and right away everyone was talking a
mile a minute.

We had a lot to catch up on. There was the usual yak about the war--"The
Snakes are laying mine fields in the Void," "I don't believe it, how can
you mine nothing?"--and the shortages--bourbon, bobby pins, and the
stabilitin that would have brought Mark out of it faster--and what had
become of people--"Marcia? Oh, she's not around any more," (She'd been
caught in a Change Gale and green and stinking in five seconds, but I
wasn't going to say that)--and Mark had to be told about Bruce's glove,
which convulsed us all over again, and the Roman remembered a legionary
who had carried a gripe all the way to Octavius becau