"Bet's going to live with us and be our daughter, Frank," Lucy explained. "Hal and she and I worked it out in these two weeks, after they came to me and told me how they felt about each other. We couldn't tell you till we were sure; I couldn't bear to have you hope and then be disappointed--it would be enough for me to have to suffer that." "That is, I'll come if you want me here, Mr. Sturt," said Bet. I had to sit down before I could speak. "Of course I want you. But what about your own family?" "I haven't any. My mother's dead and my father's an engineer on Ganymede and gets home on leave about once in three years. I've been living in a youth hostel." "But look here--" I turned to Lucy--"how on Earth can you know? Two weeks or less is no time--" Lucy gave me a look I recognized, the patient one of the scientist for the layman. "The Chow-Visalius test, dear. One day after the fertilized ovum starts dividing--" "And I ran it myself every day for over a week. That's one of my jobs in the lab and it was easy to slip in another specimen. And it didn't, and it didn't and I went nearly out of my mind--" "Every time Hal entered the apartment, I'd look at him and he'd shake his head," Lucy interrupted. "It meant everything to him. And it would just have broken my heart--" "Mine, too," Bet said softly. "And his. And today was the last chance. I was scared to try it. This afternoon at 14:30, just before the farewell visits, was the deadline for viz messages to any of them. If I'd had to send mine without the word we'd agreed on that would tell him it was all right--But it was, at last! And now he knows, even if I never--even if we never--Excuse me, please, it's been a strain. I'm afraid I'm going to bawl." * * * * * We let her alone. Kids nowadays hate to be fussed over. Us, we'd lost our son, and that was going to stay with us forever. But now we would have his child to love and-- An appalling thought struck me suddenly. I can't imagine why I hadn't realized it sooner. All this emotion, I suppose. "Good God!" I cried. "An illegal child! We can't keep it!" "Nobody's going to know," Lucy replied calmly. "Bet's going to live with us, and when it starts to show, she's going to take her allowed leave. We'll take ours, too, and we'll all go on a trip--to Mars, maybe, or Venus--one of the settled colonies where we can rent a house. Babies don't _have_ to be born in hospitals, you know; our ancestors had them right at home. She's strong and healthy and I know what to do. Then we'll come back here and we'll have a baby with us that we adopted wherever we were. Nobody will ever know."