THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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His father was wearing a black suit with a long coat, cut to the same
pattern as the one he had worn six years ago. Blackout curtain cloth. It
was fairly new, but the coat had begun to acquire a permanent wrinkle
across the right hip, over the pistol butt. His mother's dress was new,
and so was Flora's, made for the occasion. He couldn't be sure just
which of the Federation Armed Forces had provided the material, but his
father's shirt was Med Service sterilon.

Ashamed to be noticing things like that, he clasped his father's hand,
kissed his mother, embraced his sister. There were a few, but very few,
gray threads in his father's mustache; a few more squint-wrinkles around
the eyes. His mother's hair was all gray, now, and she was heavier. She
seemed shorter, but that would be because he'd grown a few inches in the
last six years. For a moment, he was surprised that Flora actually
looked younger. Then he realized that to seventeen, twenty-three is
practically middle age, but to twenty-three, twenty-nine is almost
contemporary. He noticed the glint on her left hand and caught it to