es
to meet his. Kurt Fawzi, Dolf Kellton, Colonel Zareff, Tom Brangwyn.
He didn't see his mother, or his sister. Flora he had hardly counted
on, but he was disappointed that his mother wasn't there to meet him.

Sylvie was embracing her father as he shook hands with his; then she
threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Conn, I'm so happy! I was watching everything I could on-screen,
everything you saw, and all the places you were, and everything you
were doing...."

The scow--pardon, ceremonial barge--gave a slight lurch, throwing
them together. Over her shoulder, he saw his father and Yves
Jacquemont exchanging grins. Then they had to break it up while he
shook hands with Fawzi and Judge Ledue and the others, and by the time
that was over, the barge was letting down in front of the stand at the
end of the dock, and the band was still deafening Heaven with "Genji
Gartner's Body," and they all started up the stairs to be greeted by
Planetary President Vyckhoven; he looked like an elderly bear who has
been too well fed for too long in a zoo. And by Minister-General
Murchison, who represented the Terran Federation on Poictesme. He was
thin and balding, and he looked as though he had just mistaken the
vinegar cruet for the wine decanter. Genji Gartner's soul stopped
marching on, but the speeches started, and that was worse. And after
the speeches, there was the parade, everybody riding in
transparent-bodied aircars, and the _Lester Dawes_ and the two ships
of the new Planetary Air Navy and a swarm of gunboats in column five
hundred feet above, all firing salutes.

In spite of what wasn't, but might just as well have been, a concerted
conspiracy to keep them apart, he managed to get a few words privately
with Sylvie.

"My mother; she didn't get here. Is anything wrong?"

"Is anything anything else? I've been in the middle of it ever since
you went away. Your mother's still moaning about all these companies
your father's promoting--he never used to do anything like that, and
it's all too big, and it's going to end in a big smash. And then she
gets onto Merlin. You know, she won't say Merlin, she always calls it,
'that thing.'"

"I've noticed that."

"Then she begins talking about all the horrible things that'll happen
when it's found, and that sets Flora off. Flora says Merlin's a big
fake, and you and your father are using it to rob thousands of widows
and orphans of their life savings, and that sets your mother off