on the excuse that she had to prepare dinner, though I knew of her theory that the proper psychodevelopment of children required a balance of paternal and maternal influence. Since I was away so much of the time, out in space or with one of the exploring parties which were slowly mapping our planet, she made me occupy the center of the screen whenever I was home.
Einar, who was nine years old and getting interested in the microbooks we had from the Traveler—and so, ultimately, from Earth—looked at her and said: “Back at Sol you wouldn't have to make food, Mother. You'd just set the au ... autochef, and come out with us.”
“I like to cook,” she smiled. “I suppose we could make autochefs, now that the more important semi-robot machinery has been produced, but it'd take a lot of fun out of life for me.”
Her eyes went past the house, down to the beach and out over the restless sun-sparked water. The sea breeze ruffled her red hair, it was like a flame in the cool shade of the trees. “I think they must miss a lot in the Solar System,” she said. “They have so much there that, somehow, they can't have what we've got—room to move about, lands that never saw a man before, the fun of making something ourselves.”
“You might like it if you went there,” I said. “After all, sweetheart, however wisely we may talk about Sol we know it only by hearsay.”
“I know I like what we have here,” she answered. I thought there was a faint note of defiance in her voice. “If Sol is just a legend, I can't be sure I'd like the reality. Certainly it could be no better than Harbor.”
"All redheads are chauvinists,” I laughed, turning down toward the beach.
“All Swedes make unfounded generalizations,” she replied cheerfully. “I should'a known better than to marry a Thorkild.”
“Fortunately, Mrs. Thorkild, you didn't,” I bowed.
The boys and I got out the sailboat. There was a spanking breeze, and in minutes we were scudding northward, along the woods and fields and tumbling surf of the coast.
“We should put a motor on the Naughty Nancy, Dad,” said Einar. “Suppose this wind don't hold.”
“I like to sail,” I said. “The chance of having to man the sweeps is part of the fun.”
“Me too,” said Mike, a little ambiguously.
“Do they have sailboats on Earth?” asked Einar.
“They must,” I said, “since I designed the Nancy after a book about them. But I don't think it'd ever be quite the same, Einar. The sea must always be full of boats, most of them powered, and there'd be aircraft overhead and some sort of building wherever you made landfall. You wouldn't have the sea to yourself.”
“Then why'd you want to keep looking for Earth when ever'body
