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were mere flatcars on which towered cargoes of nuance and expression.
    Kin looked down at the table again.
    ‘It’s familiar,’ she said. ‘Uh, I’m trying to remember—’
    ‘One hundred and thirty years ago. We got married, remember? On Tynewalde. There was that mad religion—’
    ‘Icarus Risen,’ said Kin suddenly. ‘Hell, I’m sorry. And you even remembered the menu. How romantic.’
    ‘Actually I had to look it up in my diary,’ he said, pouring the wine. ‘Were you my fifth wife? I neglected to make a note.’
    ‘Third, wasn’t it? You were my fifth husband.’
    They looked at one another and burst out laughing.
    ‘Good times, Kin, good times. Three happy years.’
    ‘Two.’
    ‘All right, two. Good grief! That time on Plershoorr, wasn’t it, when we—’
    ‘Don’t dodge. Why a Watcher?’
    The temperature fell like collapsium. Beyond the cabin windows Kingdom was turning from a landscape to a disc, sunlight driving the terminator ahead of it.
    ‘Uh. Life gets a bit stale. On treatment alone I’d never live as long as a Watcher: nice to see a new world grow; see what the future holds; it’ll be as good as visiting a new universe—’
    ‘You’re gabbling, Joel. I know you, remember? I’ve never known you bored. I recall you spending two years learning how to make a woodencartwheel. You said you’d never rest till you had mastered every skill. You said you’d never learned to spear a seal, or cast copper. You said you were going to write the definitive work on robot pornography. You haven’t, yet.’
    ‘Okay. I’m ducking out because I’m a coward. Is that good enough? Things are going to happen soon, best place’ll be in a freeze box.’
    ‘Things?’
    ‘Trouble.’
    ‘Tro—’ She paused. ‘Chang said that.’
    ‘The big pioneer? I talked to him yesterday, when they were all in orbit. He’s getting out before the storm breaks too.’
    ‘
What are you talking about?
’
    He told her. Kin had reported the visit of Jalo. She had also reported his ability to produce high-denomination Day notes.
    ‘The Company examined that methuselah bill you sent in, Kin.’
    ‘A forgery.’
    He shook his head slowly. ‘Wish it had been. It was – sort of genuine. Only we didn’t print it. The numbers were all wrong. All the codes were wrong. Not inaccurate, you understand. It was just that they aren’t our numbers. We haven’t issued those numbers yet.
    ‘Now think about it. There’s a process for duplicating Company currency. Think what that means, Kin.’
    She thought about it.
    Company scrip was subject to so many hidden checks and codes that any forgery would
have
to be a duplication. And you couldn’t duplicate a Day bill even by running it through the works of a strata machine, because the Company owned all the machines and one hidden key in every thick plastic note would fuse the whole thing.
No one
could duplicate Company currency. But if they could—
    Multiple-centenarians would be the first to suffer. Company scrip was so reliable it was a wealth in its own right. But if Day bills were just bits of plastic, if the market was flooded with ten or twenty times the real amount – the Company wouldn’t exist. Its wealth was its credibility, and its credibility was the hardness of its currency.
    Gene surgery merely stopped you dying. You could go on living without the additional treatments that Days would buy, but you would grow old. Immortal, but senile.
    No wonder they were hiding out. Joel was grabbing a sort of immortality, Chang was at least escaping the crash. Probably the less levelheaded were doing things like taking a space walk without a suit.
    There must be millions of us, Kin thought. We complain about never eating a dish we haven’t eaten before and the colours slowly draining out of life. We wonder if the short-lifers live more vividly, and dread learning that they do, because we gave up the chance of children. Itwould be so unfair. As if a man has only a