The Death of Sleep

"My wife's camera shy, and won't stand still for an image." In the background, Lunzie could hear a high-pitched shriek. "Oh, Lars! Really!"

Lunzie grinned. "He has the family sense of humour anyway."

The image changed. "My daughter Dierdre, born 2825. Her husband Moykol, and their three girls. I call them the Fates. Here we have Rudi, born 2843, Capella, 2844, and Anthea Rose, 2845.

"My other girl, Georgia, 2828. One son, Gordon, 2846. Smart lad, if his own grandfather does have to say so.

"Melanie, daughter of Fiona, born Standard year 2803." This was a stunningly lovely woman with medium brown hair like Lunzie's own, and Fiona's jaw and eyes. She had a comfortably motherly figure, soft in outline without seeming overweight for her slender bones. She stood with one arm firmly around the waist of a very tall man with a sharp, narrow, hawklike face which looked incongruous under his mop of soft blond hair. "Husband, Dalton Ingrich."

"Their third son. Drew, 2827. Drew has two boys, who are away at Centauri Institute of Technology. I don't have a current holo.

"Melanie's older boys Jai and Thad are identical twins, born 2821. Thad, and daughter Cassia, born 2842.

"This is Jai and his wife and two imps, Deram, 2842, and Lona, 2847."

There was an interruption of Lars's narration as the image of Melanie reappeared. She stepped forward in the holofield to speak, extending her hands welcomingly. "We'll be delighted to meet you, ancestress. Please come."

The image faded. Lunzie sat staring at the empty console-head as the computer whirred and expelled the datacube.

Lunzie let out her breath in a rush. "Well. A moment ago I was an orphan in the great galaxy. Now I'm the mother of a population explosion!" She shook her head is disbelief. "Do you know, I believe I've missed having a family to belong to."

"You must go," Tee said softly. He was watching her tenderly, careful not to touch her before she needed him to.

"Why didn't they tell me where she is?" Lunzie asked. Tee didn't have to ask which "she."

"They can't. They don't know. Because her assignments deal with planet-decimating disease, who knows when a curiosity seeker might land, perhaps to get a story to sell to Tri-D."

Lunzie recalled the holo-story about Phoenix. "That is so true. He might spread the plague farther than his story might ever reach. But it is just so frustrating!"

"Well, you will see her now. She will arrive home from the distant edge of the galaxy within two years." Tee looked pleased with himself. "You can be there waiting for her, to celebrate your reunion, and her new appointment, which, was made public. That is how I found her at last, I confess, though it was because I was looking that I noticed the articles of commission. For long and meritorious service to the FSP, Dr. Fiona is appointed Surgeon General of the Eridani system. A great honour."

"Did you notice? A couple of the children look just like her." Lunzie chuckled. "One or two of them look like me. Not that these looks bear repeating."

"You insult yourself, my Lunzie. You are beautiful." Tee smiled warmly at her. "Your face is not what cosmetic models have, but what they wish they had."

Lunzie wasn't listening. "To think that all this… this frustration could have been avoided, if Phoenix could simply have transmitted word that Fiona'd left when she did. It was the one blocked path I couldn't find my way around, no matter what I did. The planet pirates are responsible for that, for two, almost three years I've spent - in anger, never knowing if I was hunting for a… a ghost. I think - I think if I had someone I knew was a pirate on my examination table with a bullet near his heart that only I could remove… Well, I might just forget my Hippocratic oath." Lunzie set her jaw, furiously contemplating revenge.

"But you wouldn't," Tee said, firmly, squeezing her hand. "I know you."

"I wouldn't," she agreed, resignedly, letting the hot images fade. "But I'd have to wrangle it out with the devil. And I'll never forget the sorrow or the frustration. Or the loneliness." She shot Tee a look of gratitude and love. "Though I'm not alone now."

Tee persisted. "But you will go, of course? To Alpha Centauri."

"It would cost a planetary ransom!"

"What is money? You have spent money only seeking Fiona over the last many months, even though you are well off. You have saved every hundredth credit else. What else is it for?" Lunzie bit her lip and stared at a comer of the room, thinking. She was almost afraid to see Fiona after all this time, because what would she say to her? All the time when she'd been searching for her, she played many scenes in her mind, of happy, tearful reconciliations. But now it was a reality: she was going to see Fiona again. What would the real one say to her? Fiona had told her when she left that she feared her mother would never come back. Once resentment faded, she must long ago have given up hope, believing her mother dead. Lunzie worried about the hurt she had caused Fiona. She imagined an angry Fiona, her jaw locked and nose red as they had been the last. morning on Tau Ceti. Lunzie blanched defensively. It wasn't her fault that the space carrier had met with an accident, but did she have to leave Fiona at all? She could have taken a less distant post, one that was less dangerous though it paid less. But, no: for all her self-doubts and newly acquired hindsight, she had to admit that at the time she left Tau Ceti, the job with Descartes seemed the best possible path for her to take. She couldn't have foreseen what would happen.