A bit of clarification of the last segment. I don’t want Graf or the readers to think he has some kind of super powers, so Pai gives him a little background.

After their convo with Robert, things take a complicated turn. I have much to think about this weekend.

Only having seen pictures of him, Graf thought Robert Hartmann was in remarkable shape for a human who was a grandfather several times over, with, from what Pai said, great-grandkids on the way.

“He served as a ranker legionary, later centurion, for not quite two years,” she told him as she pushed his chair to a bank of elevators.  “Faustina knew it but allowed it, wanting to see what one of her human children could make of themselves.”

“Did, well, does she think so little of humans?” he asked.

“Yes and no.” That answer, again.  “Recall both her husbands and several of her kids are not Changed.  But she loses patience with them.  Robert, posthumously named for his father, was always trying to do more.  I don’t think to impress his mother but rather his siblings.”

I’ve never had to impress Mindy, my kid sister – and I cannot believe she’s married! – about anything, so that’s a little odd. 

“And,” he said, standing once outside as they returned to the same little park, “Robert, a bit like us, has a, uh, particular relationship?”

She laughed at that.  “Eloise Patel, who he rescued from death, became his Bound Concubine maybe two years before he married Nadia, a cousin to the Tsarina.  So his children by her are Hartmanns, Saras and Lissa.  And, of course, Saras was told to marry Anton Alvarez.  And one of theirs became Áutokrator Aris.”

“The effective dictator of Mars,” he clarified.

“She’s helped to keep the peace, Husband,” said with a tug on his arm.  “Don’t be churlish.  Ah, good.  This table is open.  Robert will be here with dinner in a few minutes.”

“First-name basis, Beloved?” he smiled.

“He is only human, after all!”

“So am I!”

“No.” A whisper.  “No, you’re not.”

Graf sat down with a sigh.  Throat hurting, he drank half a bottle of water.  “So, any reason he’s here, besides the fight on the moon?”

“Of course, as you will find out.”

“So.  It’s me.”

“Mmm!”

“Pai?  Did I really cure that woman?” he asked, fearing the answer.

“No, Beloved, you did not.”

“Dammit, Pai!  I just crushed her hopes…!” Graf yelled, hurting himself.

“Calm down, Husband.  You enabled her to heal herself, is all,” she clarified.

Another drink as we waited to be made older.

“Even before the Change,” she began in her lecture voice, “humans could work miracles on themselves and others.  We saw some of them when we were on our scouting mission, remember?  Now, that penchant toward co-creation – which most of my kind still doesn’t really understand – is greater.  In ordering her, you rewrote her mind so she healed herself.”

“I did what?” He stood slowly to move to a nearby trashcan and toss the bottle away.

“Aurie can do it, too.  And, yes, that’s very classified.  My mom has done it to humans – gifting them skill-sets, and the like – as needed.  One of the many things I love about you.”

“Oh.  I love you, too, Pai.”

“Ah.  Here he comes.”