I paused just outside the restroom door, pretending to adjust my belt, looking surreptitiously around the room. The two hard-eyed men who'd come in behind Amanda were still seated where I'd last seen them, now with half-full beer bottles in their hands. They were definitely eyeing Amanda as they muttered together, but neither looked interested in making any kind of move on her.

But then, they hardly needed to leave the comfort of their table for that. There was no way for her to leave without walking directly past them.

While at this end of the room we had Weldon, apparently smitten enough with this woman he'd just met to compose a song for her on the spot. A song, moreover, that would be deathless enough to endure for the next two hundred years.

If he was smitten enough to take exception to her leaving with a pair of rowdies, there could be serious trouble.

I finished adjusting my belt and started wandering back toward Weldon and Amanda. Number one on my Things-To-Do list was to make sure Amanda would be ready to move when I was. Number two would be to neutralize the men waiting for her at the door. I doubted they had any idea of Weldon's future place in history, or would care even if they did, and I had to make absolutely sure all of this whispered past without affecting him.

My first clear look at Amanda's face as I approached the table was all I needed to see that Weldon's music had again worked its magic. The tension and hopelessness she'd been carrying when she arrived had been smoothed away, leaving behind something far more like the calm and lovely young woman of those holos. Weldon was still playing her song, working his way through variations and embellishments that I knew he wouldn't include in the final published version. The music's mood was one of hope now, and triumph, and peace, and joy.

And in Weldon's own face, I could see another transformation