"Like the others I have brought it is not expensive," Roberto said. "The stone is a common one on Nyx. But it is very beautiful and when I found it I thought of you." * * * * * A bell-light flashed on the kitchen console. Mrs. Sanchez went to it as a shallow dish slid from the oven. She set it, sizzling softly, on the table. "And a present for you," she said. "Your favorite, quinquaños. Fresh from Venus yesterday, or so the vendor tells me." She shrugged dubiously. "In this sinful age even the machines lie." "But, Mama, the money I send is not to be wasted on me! These are so expensive." "And small," Mrs. Sanchez said. "Why is there not a garden manufactured that can be programmed for quinquaños so that I might grow my own?" "Because five fortunes could not pay for it," Mr. Sanchez said. "Try as they might, such delicacies come only through the grace of God and not General Electric." He set aside his newspaper and accepted another coffee. "Does this not complete your collection?" he asked his wife. "Roberto has brought for you a stone from every planet he has touched. Even the moon and the grand asteroids." "I know not how many worlds there are in the sun's family. But if it is done, then it is done." She tried to make her words unconcerned but there was a shadow of regret across them. "The stones are beautiful. But they are frivolous and the end to them is not to be mourned." "Ha!" Mr. Sanchez snorted. "She pretends, the sly one, she does not care. But I know how she delights in them, these gifts from her son. I have seen her in a stolen moment open the box and gaze with pleasure upon them. And when we go to the opera in Mexico City it is one of your single-stoned necklaces which adorns her simple black dress. She will have no other ornament." "I no longer have a husband in this house," Mrs. Sanchez said, "only an old woman whose mouth talks away the day." "Old woman, eh?" Mr. Sanchez leered and playfully slapped his wife on her backside. She pretended to be shocked. "In front of the child! But what can one expect from an evil old lecher?" The three of them laughed and basked in the warmth of their blood bonds. Mr. Sanchez resumed his coffee. "Is it really done, Roberto? Have you taken cargoes from all twelve planets?" "Yes." "Even the one just beyond Pluto? Is it Oceanus or Atlas? I can never remember which it is ... but for a long while you were missing one of them." "I have them all. I am still a young man and yet I have taken my ship to all the planets in many voyages. But of course that is not unusual," he lectured, for he knew that was what they wanted, "for in the thousand years since man first stepped forth on the moon the solar commerce has so increased that there are hardly enough suitable men for the ships that bridge the now familiar worlds. So familiar, I could fly to the rings of Saturn or to dark Nyx in my slumber."