Or rather, after complicated calculations of how many seconds he had been in flight, and at what percentage of lightspeed, and therefore what amount of subjective time had elapsed for him, he reached the conclusion that he had passed his twentieth birthday just before the end of the voyage. This was much more relevant to him than the other pertinent fact—that four hundred and some-odd years had passed since the day he was born, back on Earth, back when the human race had not spread beyond the solar system of its birth. When Valentine emerged from the debarkation chamber—alphabetically she was always after him—Andrew greeted her with the news. “I just figured it out,” he said. “I’m twenty.” “Good,” she said. “Now you can start paying taxes like the rest of us.” Ever since the end of the War of Xenocide, Andrew had lived on a trust fund set up by a grateful world to reward the commander of the fleets that saved humanity.
