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you?"
    "We are in complete despair," Charles said simply. "And filled with self- loathing."

    Elizabeth sat in a wicker chair on the screened porch of the preserve's main house. Wrapped in a blanket woven by the women of a local tribe, a blanket they had given her and Charles in honor of the coming baby, she gazed in stark misery, unblinking, into the dense, primordial forest.
    Her auburn hair hung in unbrushed clumps around her pale cheeks. She held a Beatrix Potter book in one hand. She had bought all the classic children's books in anticipation, and every day for months she had read aloud to the child growing in her womb.
    "It was a miscarriage, my dear," Sedge said gently, sitting across from her in a stiff chair cushioned in Carnivale colors. "It could have happened under the safest circumstances. Neither you nor Charles is to blame."
    "A seven months' fetus is not a miscarriage. It is a baby. And it would have lived, had we not been so convinced we ourselves are immortal."
    "My dear ..."
    "I am forty-one years old. I am a scientist. I know the risks at my age. How could I have been so reckless? There was no need for Charles and me to visit that village personally. We could have sent help for the sick people there. But no, there we were, bumping along on horseback. I should have known better, Sedge. I killed my baby."
    Charles, standing beside her chair, clamped a hand on her shoulder in comfort and rebuke. "No, we are both responsible. I should have known better, too. I encouraged you to go. I ... God help me, I thought, `This is a tale we'll tell our child. How we took her with us on these missions, these humanitarian efforts.' God help me."
    He cried quietly, still clasping Elizabeth's shoulder. She lifted one shaking hand to cover his, and shut her eyes. "Sedge, our child is buried in the forest. Buried in the forest. We were two days from here. We had no choice. We dug a grave on the edge of the salt lick where thousands of magnificent birds gather. An extraordinary place."
    Charles got himself under control. "We intend to leave the grave where it is. No debate. That's our choice. Only we know where our child's body rests. But Father will insist on a memorial service in Connecticut. I won't deny him that honor. Nor will I deny him the right to tell me how my ideals and my foolishness have destroyed his grandchild. That's precisely what I'm telling myself."
    Sedge stood. "You called me here because you trust me."
    "Because you are more like a brother to me than a paid advisor."
    Sedge accepted the praise without reaction. "Ifyou do trust me, then take my advice. Do not tell anyone you lost this baby." Charles and Elizabeth stared at him. He went on, "Your father will never forgive you. He will be livid, and he will be vicious. You will be punished in a manner spectacularly favored by Whittenbrooks."
    "For God's sake, Sedge, I couldn't care less about losing my inheritance."
    Elizabeth moaned. "We hardly need my father-in-law's fortune to continue-"
    "Think of the consequences. William will get the lion's share, with the rest scattered to dilettante cousins, and they'll buy up more companies and build more Whittenbrook mansions, and the money shall go to no good purpose except the furthering of Whittenbrook acquisitions."
    "We're not going to lie just to guarantee my inheritance!"
    "Do you or do you not wish to `save the planet' as you are always putting it? Do you or do you not wish to be doting parents to a lovely child?"
    Sedge frowned down at Elizabeth, whose hand had formed a fist on the Beatrix Potter book. "More than anything," she confirmed. "But I doubt we'll get pregnant again. The odds are against it. We had so much trouble this time."
    "Do you want a child to whom you can leave your legacy? Some wonderful son or daughter who will be raised with your vision, your hope for this soggy old planet, your dreams? Who will receive a fair share of the Whittenbrook wealth and carry on your philanthropic use of it?