Dyall's was not as soul-stirring a success as Shortmire's--he did not inspire cheering crowds and parades--but a more enduringly popular one. The Shortmire engines carried humanity to the stars, but it was the Dyall machines that cooked humanity's dinners and kept its houses clean. So humanity respected Jan Shortmire and took Nicholas Dyall to its collective heart. Emrys awakened, remembering all this and rigid with loathing for Nicholas Dyall, and for the world which had allowed Nicholas Dyall to take from him something he had wanted. Something which had, as soon as he'd known for sure he'd lost it forever, become what he wanted most. And also he hated the world which had given Alissa Embel to Dyall and had then proceeded to heap on him in addition every honor Jan Shortmire himself had won in an effort to make up for what he'd lost. Jan Shortmire had risked his life in space; Nicholas Dyall had sat comfortably in his chair--and both were equally honored. Then Emrys--as Emrys--caught hold of himself. It was true that originally there had been injustice. But it had been righted and so there was no more reason to hate Dyall. _I have a second chance, but he will have none. I will live out another full lifetime, and I will have Megan, too, and he'll die in a few years. And as for the world, I have already revenged myself on it in advance._ He got up and pulled a spun-metal robe about him, amethyst and sable--a gift from Morethis. There was always a costly gift on his birthday, either out of kindness or cruelty, together with a vial of the golden capsules. What a pity, he thought, as he went downstairs, that Dyall and the world both would never know the truth: that Jan Shortmire had no son, that Emrys and Jan Shortmire were one. * * * * * The Morethans first came to Jan Shortmire when, approaching his natural old age, he had traveled as a visitor to their planet--largely because old men did not go to Morethis--and they had made him their offer. He had laughed in their dark and exquisite faces. "My own government will give me fifty years more of life," he said, for he had heard, during the voyage out, that he would be on the next honors list. "What need do I have of you?" "We can give you far more than fifty years," they'd told him. "And youth, besides." At that, he had stopped laughing, but still he had not accepted their offer, for many reasons ... doubt and fear, perhaps some shreds of honor, and certainly, since he was a man of science, skepticism.