Unnerby wanted to swallow his hands all over again. He had known Victory Smith since the day she came into Lands Command, a spanking new junior lieutenant, a lady with an unplaced name and an undisguisable youthfulness. You saw almost everything in the military, and everybody guessed straightaway. The junior lieutenant was truly new; she was born out-of-phase. Yet somehow she'd been educated well enough to get into officer school. The rumor was that Victory Smith was the get of a rich East Coast pervert, the fellow's family had finally disowned him, and the daughter who shouldn't exist. Unnerby remembered the slurs and worse that had followed her everywhere for the first quarter year or so. In fact, his first glimmer that she was destined for greatness was the way she stood up to the ostracism, her intelligence and courage in facing the shame of her time of birth.
Finally he got his voice. "Uk. Yes, ma'am. I know. I meant no disrespect. I was brought up to believe a certain way,"about how decent peopleshould live. Decent people conceived their children in the Waning years, and gave birth with the new sun.
The General didn't reply, but Underhill gave him a backhanded pat. "That's okay, Sergeant. You should have seen my cousin's reaction. But just wait; things change. When we have time, I'll explain why the old rules don't really make sense anymore." And that was the most disquieting thing about Sherkaner Underhill: he probably could explain away their behavior—and remain blissfully remote from the rage it would cause in others.
But the embarrassing moment had passed. If these two could put up with Hrunkner's straitlaced nature, he would do his best to ignore their... quirks. Heaven knew he had put up with worse during the war. Besides, Victory Smith was the sort who seemed to create her own propriety—and once created, it was as deep as any Unnerby had known.
As for Underhill...his attention was already elsewhere. His nervous tremor made him look old, but the mind was as sharp—or as flaky—as ever. It flitted from idea to idea, never quite coming to rest the way a normal person's would. The rain had stopped and the wind became hot and dry. As they entered the steep country, Unnerby took a quick look at his watch and began counting how much craziness the other might come up with in the next few minutes. (1) Pointing out at the hard-armored first growth of the forest, Underhill speculated what Spiderkind might have been like if it regrew from spores after every Dark instead of emerging full-grown and with children. (2) A crack in the cloud cover appeared ahead, fortunately several miles to the side of their path. For a few minutes, the searing whiteness of once-reflected sunlight shone down upon them, clouds so bright they had to shade that side of the car. Somewhere uphill of them, direct sunlight was frying the mountainside. And Sherkaner Underhill wondered if maybe someone could build "heat farms" on the mountaintops, using temperature differentials to generate electricity for the towns below. (3) Something green scuttled across the road, narrowly avoiding their wheels. Sherkaner had a take on that, too, something about evolution and the automobile. (And Victory commented that such evolution could work both ways.) (4) Ah, but Underhill had an idea for much safer, faster transport than autos or even aircraft. "Ten minutes from Princeton to Lands Command, twenty minutes across the continent. See, you dig these tunnels along minimum-time arcs, evacuate the air from them, and just let gravity do the work." By Unnerby's watch, there was a five-second pause. Then: "Oops, little problem there. The minimum-time solution for Princeton to Lands Command would go down kinda deep...like six hundred miles. I probably couldn't convince even the General to finance it."
"You are right about that!" And the two were off in an extended argument about less-than-optimal tunnel arcs and trade-offs against air travel. The deep tunnel idea was really dumb, it turned out.
Unnerby lost track after a while. For one thing, Sherkaner was very curious about Unnerby's construction business. The fellow was a good listener, and his questions gave Unnerby ideas he might never have had otherwise. Some of those might actually make money. Lots of money. Hmm.
Smith noticed: "Hey, I need this sergeant to be poor and in need of a generous enlistment bonus. Don't lead him astray!"
"Sorry, dear." But Underhill did not seem apologetic. "It's been a long time, Hrunkner. I wish we'd seen more of you these last years. You remember back then, my big, ah—"
"Screwball idea of the moment?"
"Yes, exactly!"
"I remember just before we buttoned up in that Tiefer animal deepness, you were mumbling about this being the last Dark that civilization would ever sleep through. In the hospital afterwards, you were still going on about it. You should be a science-fiction writer, Sherkaner."
