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own screens. "There was always the risk that you wouldn't be able to accept another Cynaptic interface. There's only so much nerve splicing they can do. Would you want to end up a quivering pile of flesh?"
    "Some men would probably find that attractive." Mary turned back to the screen.
    "Men can find anything attractive if they try hard enough."
    "Thank you so much." Mary laughed briefly. Tartoa had an answer for everything. "I've not been doing well."
    Tartoa slid over next to her again. "How so?"
    Mary sighed, her shoulders falling as she leaned back in the chair. "Life. Love. Everything. Hell, I couldn't even make a baby."
    "Procreation isn't a measure for success in life. You're one of the warmest and most well-balanced people I've met—I'd call that a success."
    "I've had two lives and screwed up both." Mary looked at the people swarming past on the screen. "Those people risk their lives to colonize a new planet, to create a new life for them and their families. Me? I was so scared of growing old I convinced myself, and Ben, that the best thing was avoid it."
    "He didn't want to?"
    "It was all my idea." Mary said. "I didn't want to get old and lose his love. I wanted to lock him to me, so he'd never want to leave. All very selfish."
    "You loved him. Most people probably feel the same way."
    "But they don't act on that feeling. I did." Mary examined the bulkhead between her feet. "I deserved what happened. Ben was right to do what he did."
    "Tsshhh! Excuse me while I get my violin. I better withdraw my earlier compliment, that's not 'well-balanced'." Tartoa slid back a little. "Ben was an adult when he decided to become a CySap with you. You didn't force him to do that. He made his own choice for his own reasons. In my experience, no-one does anything they don't want, despite what they say. Ben wanted this, just as much as you did. If he claimed otherwise, it was a lie."
    "As for you deserving what happened? I'm disgusted to hear you blame yourself for that. You risked your life for him and he betrayed you without a backward glance. Has he checked on how you are? Of course not. He even tried to have your joint assets assigned to him and Jennar." Tartoa glowered. "I blocked it when you didn't."
    Mary looked up sharply. "You knew?"
    "They're operating out of the Song-Jiang station now and you've been tracking him. Discretely I know. But I'm tied into everything on the station. Nothing gets by me if I'm interested."
    "You probably think I'm stupid. And I am." Mary thumped the control panel, wincing as her knuckles skinned on the cold metal.
    "Just human. We all want things we can't have. No matter how futile." Tartoa slid to the far end of the room, his words softening with the distance. "What would be stupid is if you wasted your new life obsessing over your past. Life has to be lived—joyously, exuberantly. Anything else is a waste of people."
     
    ****
     
    Mary watched the hordes shuffling around the dispatch office, not entirely sure why she was there. Perhaps it was because they were going to "her" world and she felt some kind of kinship with them, despite the massive differences in their backgrounds. People pushed by on all sides, buffeting her uncomfortably in different directions and she was glad she no longer needed canes—she'd have been knocked over in minutes. It was almost the definition of chaos and she found herself a little repulsed as the warm bodies pressed against her.
    She waded over to one side of the throng, then an elbow caught her solidly in the back. She stumbled forward, half falling against one of the usher's tables and a bored man looked up from his computer screens.
    "Name?"
    "Sorry. I'm not here for-"
    "Name?"
    "Mary Reyes. But I'm not here for boarding."
    "Reyes, Mary. B6D7-679CDC70F131." The man ignored her and checked his lists. "Unmarried. Un-virgin. No children. It says you have a cardio unit."
    "Yes, that's true, but…"
    Mary thoughts whirled like a cyclotron. How was she in the