He had his rituals to make her feel safe, and Jake dutifully went through the motions of kissing her on each cheek and turning the screen in the annex to a view of Lightspace. The interstellar medium that the gigantic Bruma ship had entered after leaving Earth gave off a blissful glow, and it was perfect for lighting a child's sleeping chamber. After another quick kiss goodnight, he touch-closed the fleshy wall so a stripe of light from the main cabin fell on the foot of her bunk. He found Andrea waiting for him and gave her a lingering kiss. She was three months pregnant and all kinds of beautiful. In a population of three hundred thousand colonists there would be many, many pregnancies. Life was so much more precious than any of the farm equipment or soil tenderizers or space elevator cables bound for Blue Two. But of all the future lives he would see, Jake felt the one Andrea carried was by far the most important. "Da-aa-ad!" Malia called. "It tickles." Andrea reluctantly broke free of Jake's embrace and opened the wall again.
