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and chattered like a child.
    Five minutes
later they reached the apartment.
    She proudly
swiped the lock and swung open the door, almost dragging him inside.
"Well, what do you think, Jeff?"
    The first thing
that struck him was the cascade of sunlight that slanted in through
the west-facing wall-to-ceiling viewscreen. He gazed around the
lounge, open-mouthed. It was vast, perhaps ten metres long by five,
plush cream carpet, sunken sofas, a holo-unit in the corner. The
sheer view over the sea increased the apparent area of the room to
agoraphobic-inducing proportions.
    She took his
hand and tugged him into a bedroom perhaps half the size, and then a
small bedroom. Both had en suite bathrooms. "This one is for
Li," Sukara pronounced.
    Finally she
showed him the kitchen. "I'll be able to create feasts here,
Jeff. Just look at all the space!"
    They returned to
the lounge. "What do you think?"
    "This is
the one. I don't even want to see the other." He held her. "Well
done."
    She lodged her
hands on the jut of her belly. "We'll be happy here, won't we?"
she said, tears in her eyes.
    He kissed her
forehead, where the scar began. "We'll be ecstatic," he
said.
    For the next
hour Su was on her handset, arranging the lease of the apartment and
hiring a company to move their possessions from Level Ten. She had
packed their few belongings yesterday, and they would be delivered
first thing in the morning.
    Vaughan sat in a
sunken sofa, staring out through the viewscreen. They were not far
from the 'port here—and close to Kapinsky's office, too—and
he found the sight of the voidships, coming and going like so many
bees at a hive, reassuring. Below, a variety of boats from lowly
fishing dhows to oceangoing hydrofoils cut feathered wakes across the
blue expanse of the sea.
    While Sukara was
still busy on her handset, he slipped a penknife from the pocket of
his jacket, laid the jacket over his knees, and sliced at the lapel.
    He withdrew the
silver oval of the mind-shield, turning it in his palm.
    Sukara finished
and joined him.
    "What's
that?"
    "A present,
from me to you." He handed her the shield.
    "Great.
It's what I've always wanted. But what is it?"
    He told her.
    She stuck out
her bottom lip and nodded, staring at the silver oval in her hand.
    After due
consideration, she passed it back to him. "I don't need it,
Jeff. I've got no secrets from you. When I married you, I told you
everything. The good and the bad. Everything. If you read my mind,
then that's fine by me."
    He smiled at
her, wondering if she were offended.
    He had never
read Sukara, even when he had tele-ability two years ago. He'd picked
up, when not scanning, the background miasma of her thoughts, and he
knew from these that she was a good person.
    But the notion
of invading her private thoughts now disturbed him. For all she said
that she had no secrets, what she could not apprehend was that
everyone, often unbeknown to themselves, harboured subconscious
desires and longings, prejudices and petty jealousies, that no one
should pry upon, not even loving husbands.
    His relationship
with Sukara was damned near perfect. He feared reading things deep in
her mind that might spoil that.
    He passed the
shield back to her. "Su, the chances are that I'll never read
you—I can switch the implant off—but other telepaths
might. For security reasons, you'd better keep it. If I told you
about a case, and a rival telepath scanned you... See what I mean?"
    She nodded, then
slipped the shield into her shirt pocket and looked around the lounge
like a child on Christmas day.
    As the sun set
over distant India in a blazing panoply of saffron banners, Sukara
said she'd treat him to a takeaway. She'd scouted out a couple of
interesting Rajastani restaurants in the area. She left the apartment
promising to return with a feast.
    Vaughan sat in
the silence of the lounge, watching the sun go down, then stood and
approached the viewscreen.
    A narrow balcony
ran the length