Smet, "you know better what we might want than
we do ourselves. That, sir, is the kind of arrogance we hoped to escape.
No man has the right to suppress any information bearing on public
affairs."

A low voice, with a touch of laughter, said through a hood: "And you
accuse Captain Coffin of preaching!"

The New Englander's eyes were drawn to her. Not that he could see
through the shapeless gown and mask, such as hid all the waking women;
but he had met Teresa Zeleny on Earth. Hearing her now was somehow like
remembering Indian summer on a wooded hilltop, a century ago.

An involuntary smile quirked his lips. "Thank you," he said. "Do you,
Mr. de Smet, know what the sleeping colonists might want? Have you any
right to decide for _them_? And yet we can't wake them, even the adults,
to vote. There simply isn't room; if nothing else, the air regenerators
couldn't supply that much oxygen. That's why I felt it best to tell no
one, until we were actually at Rustum. Then those who wished could
return with the fleet, I suppose."

"We could rouse them a few at a time, let them vote, and put them back
to sleep," suggested Teresa Zeleny.

"It would take weeks," said Coffin. "You, of all people, should know
metabolism isn't lightly stopped, or easily restored."

"If you could see my face," she said, again with a chuckle, "I would
grimace amen. I'm so sick of tending inert human flesh that ... well,
I'm glad they're only women and girls, because if I also had to massage
and inject men I'd take a vow of chastity!"

Coffin blushed, cursed himself for blushing, and hoped she couldn't see
it over the telecircuit. He noticed Kivi grin.

* * * * *

Kivi provided the merciful interruption. "Your few-at-a-time proposal is
pointless anyhow," he said. "In the course of those weeks, we would pass
the critical date."

"What's that?" asked a young girl's voice.

"You don't know?" said Coffin, surprised.

"Let it pass for now," broke in Teresa. Once again, as several times
before, Coffin admired her decisiveness. She cut through nonsense with a
man's speed and a woman's practicality. "Take our word for it, June, if
we don't turn about within two months, we'll do better to go on to
Rustum. So, voting is out. We could wake a few sleepers, but those
already conscious are really as adequate a statistical sample."

Coffin nodded. She spoke for five women on her ship, who stood a
year-watch caring for two