're you talking about?"

"They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture.
Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."

He waited.

"They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."

Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.

"These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between
suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."

He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long
moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What
would it do to them?"

He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know
you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started.
Which'll it be, space or Earth?"

"Michael." Her voice trembled. "I--I don't know how to say this."

He waited, frowning, watching her intently.

"I'm--going to have a child."

His face went blank.

Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the
softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were
shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been
running. And suddenly his throat was full.

"No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."

"It's true."

He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.

"Yes, I can see it is."

"I--I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."

He shook his head. "I don't know--what to--to say. It's so
incredible."

"Maybe--I got so--tired--just seeing the two of us over and over again
and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that
was it. It was just--something I felt I _had_ to do. Some--_real_ life
again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of
myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close
to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the
ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night
or morning like we'd seen on Earth--so--so long ago. And then I _had_
to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was
something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed
to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She
paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think--it would be like this."

"Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for
three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history
books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how