The next morning brought another visitor from the academy, as did the next day, and the next. Each time they pleaded their case on the belief that they had finally found Jim alive in a hospital on the planet Bedua, and each time they had been maliciously turned away by the runner of the Inn.

Eventually, Silver had concluded that he would have to try and reason with Sarah.

Perhaps it was the fact that it tore him to pieces every time he had to fall asleep listening to her cry in the room across from his. Maybe it was simply because he wanted her to do what she could to finally make these men stop coming to the Benbow. Perhaps he had regained his desire for closure on a case he had come to believe would never fully receive a just answer, and maybe, just maybe, there was some hope left within Silver's heart that lead him to believe that perhaps Jim might still be alive, awaiting rescue from his internal, torturous prison of pain.

It was not until the final night of their long and gruesome week of badgering that Silver sat down with her in hopes that they might bring about a solution to this affair. With a long face, he addressed her as kindly as possible, in the most informal sense and the gentlest of tones which tenderly expressed his respect toward her as a single working woman, and his love for her as a close and generous friend. The topic was not easy, and the minuscule likelihood that Sarah would understand Silver's heartfelt intentions seemed scarce at best. Although his throat tightening by the minute and his mouth robbed of all moisture, Silver reasoned that if nothing was done about this, they would forever be haunted by the ghost of a memory, and the consistent badgering of the Interstellar Academy, until at last this young man, whoever he was, passed from existence and they were left once again asking answerless questions concerning themselves, their decisions, and most of all, Jim.

Yet before Silver could utter a single syllable, before he could even fully form a statement to introduce his plans to her...Sarah beat him to it.

"You're going to ask me to go to the Academy, aren't you?"

To Silver's great relief, there was no sharpness in her voice. Nor was there any sense of irritation or fury. It was a simple question that demanded a simple answer, yet despite the supposed simplicity the situation presented itself with, Silver found that he had once again fallen short of himself, for all of his words were lost before they reached his parched tongue. All he could do was nod his head and hope that that answer would be enough.

Sarah herself sighed. "John, if I could, I would."

Silver looked up, a whole new world of questions birthing in his mind.

"The truth is, John, if I had the courage and the strength as a mother to go to Bedua and see for myself whether or not this young man is or is not my son, I would. But...I don't. I don't have that strength left in me anymore. I can't bear another near miss. I can't bear to be disappointed." She paused for a moment to lean forward. Her face rested neatly in her hands, and for the first time in, Silver saw the effects of grief and age upon her beautiful face, and it saddened his heart. "And if it is Jim..." she started again, "I don't know if I could bear to see him in pain. And...it would kill me, John, if I had to watch him die." She shook her head mechanically, and her eyes had a distant glaze about them, as if she were suddenly lost in a very far away place. "When my husband left, Jim was all that I had. Without him, I don't know what I'd do. He was the only man that ever made me feel whole...does that sound strange?"

She lifted her heavy gaze up onto Silver and blinked. A tender smile caressed her face, and immediately the age lifted from her countenance. But there was still a small hint of that anguish hidden away in her eyes, and Silver knew that it would be kept there forever, no matter what came to pass from this day forward. That anguish, no matter how long she held it in, would never be erased.

"No," Silver admitted without a second thought to the idea. "No, it doesn't."

Sarah crossed her arms and pulled them up close to her chest as her eyes fell once again to the table before her. "It's so much easier, John, just to pretend that he's missing. To believe that he's still alive, somewhere, if not here. It's easier for me to go on."

Silver's gaze had also fallen, though for a different purpose. It seemed as though there would be no convincing her otherwise. Unless...

"Sarah?"

Sarah looked up. "Yes, John?"

"What if I went?"

The woman's countenance changed suddenly into a look of questioning and confusion. "What do you mean?"

He cleared his throat and shifted his weight forward. Silver felt he only had one chance to make this shot, and if he didn't aim just right the first time, he'd never get an opportunity at his objective again. "What if I went to Bedua? You know, to see if it was really Jim?"

Silver could already tell by the wrinkling of Sarah's nose that she was not eager to hear more about this plan. "I don't know John..." she started. "I know you care about Jim, but leading yourself on with this-"

"Just let me try!" he pleaded. "I know where Bedua is! If it's Jim, I'll know it in an instant! I can stay with him till he's well and then I can bring him home."

"And if he dies there, John?" cried Sarah in a sudden surge of fury. Her eyes were now brimming with tears, and Silver immediately began to feel guilty at ever having mentioned this. "What will you do? Idly sit at his bedside and watch as the pain and the poison and his injuries overcome him? Will you watch Jim succumb to that?"

A stream of air blew from Silver's nose as he considered this. "At least we would know, Sarah!"

Sarah rose from her seat, and for the first time, silenced Silver with a very intrusive glare. Jim had told him about that glare once, long ago. 'Boy was right,' he thought as he desperately battled with this woman's withering gaze. 'She could curdle milk with them eyes.'

"If you must, John," She stated at long last. "You're a grown man. You may do what you please." And with that cold note, she left him alone in the main dining room to file through his thoughts in a very unpleasant silence.

The sun had already risen by the time Silver was fully packed and prepared to leave.

He had made up his mind the moment he'd thought of it, really. But there was still a trace of doubt that lingered in his mind, like a wayward shadow that refused to depart. It gnawed away at his heart and soul, desperately attempting to crack his confidence and chain him here to the inn where he knew that disappointment beyond that which his heart could bear did not exist. The idea was more than tempting, and he feared that as he grabbed up his traveling bag that both his knees might give way at the dread of what he would find, or even what he would not find out there. Yet, for all his questioning, Silver had set himself in the belief that Jim was out there somewhere, and if his mother could not find him, for whatever reasons, he owed it to the lad to at least try himself.

Setting his hat firmly upon his head, Silver stepped out of his bedroom door. He stopped only once to knock upon Sarah's, but was disappointed when she did not answer. Sighing, Silver continued on down the stairs where B.E.N. sat waiting for him.

"What do yeh want?" he barked at the useless pile of tin. He did not spare the robot his own withering glare.

"I'm to give this to you," said B.E.N. with a quaking voice. He stepped forward and handed Silver a small envelope. "It's from Mrs. H!" he declared before stepping swiftly out of Silver's path. "She went to the Academy early this morning before you woke up. Told them that a man of your description would be going to Bedua to see if it was really Jimmy that they were holding at their hospital." He stopped, watching Silver's expression widen at this news. "She didn't give them your name."

Silver looked up at B.E.N. in amazement. "Miss Sarah did all that?"

The robot nodded briskly. "Probably why she didn't answer her door. She went out after you went to bed and just got back before you got up. She's mighty tired, Mr. Silver, sir."

Silver's jaw went slack at this information, and he drifted somewhere between anger and amazement at these words, mainly for Sarah's sudden hypocrisy, but at the same time he could not complain. She had bought him unquestioned passage to Bedua where he would hopefully find her son and perhaps even bring him home if his health allowed.

"Tell her I said thank you."

B.E.N nodded and watched as Silver exited the inn. Morph cooed questioningly behind him. B.E.N. merely shrugged.

It wasn't Silver's best interest to be traveling on one of the Interstellar Space ships, but his purse wasn't full enough to buy passage onto a Royal Steamer, and he had more sense then to take faith in an overcrowded tourist trailer: those small little box carts that were only slightly larger than a longboat, and could easily carry at least twenty passengers, though not comfortably; and if someone hadn't bathed in weeks it was unfortunately made known rather swiftly to those who shared the compartment with him.

Since he had only signed on as a temporary passenger, Silver was granted his own quarters. A meal schedule was given to him upon arrival, and the captain callously informed him that if he missed a meal, they would not compensate. Silver frowned at this. Whenever he'd been working as a cook, he'd always compensated for his sailors, even if he'd said that he wouldn't. But then Silver painfully remembered that this wasn't his ship. His rules didn't count for anything here, and he would have to take it as it was given to him. Unfortunately.

Sighing, Silver lazily waved away the captain's words as he continued to ramble on and on about arbitrary rules and punishments, and then something about pirates and yadda yadda yadda. He shut the door of his cabin behind him and meticulously unpacked a few of this things, and hiding the rest under his bed where he hoped no one would think to look carefully. As an old space dog himself, he knew that sometimes passengers and even the less respectable crew often took to plundering the cabins of passengers when they were out. Or perhaps, maybe Silver was just too used to working with the wrong kinds of people.

Not that it mattered anyway, he reminded himself. Silver wasn't here for the ride or the luxury. He was here because he needed to get to Bedua, and this had been the only ship leaving the Montressor space port for the next week that would be docking there. Silver had had no choice but to take it. Of course, right now Silver was wishing he had kept the longboat he'd commandeered from the Legacy those few years back. It would have made the trip much more enjoyable, if not faster. Not to mention less expensive.

Again he sighed and settled down on his bed, which Silver grudgingly discovered was rock hard. After a moment, he calmed his mind. Pressing his fingers together, he mulled over his plan once more. It would take two days for the ship to get to Bedua, in which time he would have to make due with his own nagging concerns. He would arrive at the planet and hopefully find this young man with no problem, where he would confront him on his claims of being Jim. After a day of probably checking out all that Bedua had to offer, he would head home and resume his life at Montressor.

Home? Silver frowned quizzically. Since when had he ever considered Montressor home? 'Come to think of it,' Silver thought, 'When have I ever considered anything home?'

Of course, he hadn't. Not even home had been home, really. Silver had had a mother and a father, and probably more than Jim had ever been given in his young life, but it had never really felt the way home was supposed to. His father had done a lot for him, and his mother had been a respectable woman who loved her son, but the truth was that he had felt it all to be a farce. Nothing seemed real, and so he had left, never to come back, and he never did. From that day on he had run away from himself and his home, working on ships and at inns much like the Benbow, earning a living however he could. Eventually he'd been lured into the call of piracy, and had stuck to it.

Now, after meeting Jim and his mother and living at the Benbow, Silver suddenly discovered what he'd been missing all along. And, just as suddenly, he'd labeled somewhere in the universe 'home'. It seemed so strange, and yet so natural. Happiness to Silver had once been defined by material possessions and comfortable lifestyles. The past few months had taught him the true side of happiness, but he had also discovered the true and painful measures of grief. The loss of life, the loss of family, the loss of dear and precious friends. And, of course, the true meaning of strength: the ability to continue on with life and recover from such losses. Such were the most important things in life, not gold and silver, but love and strength.

Yes, Silver realized that Montressor had indeed become home. He'd seen and felt so much there, and had unknowingly learned many important things. But most of all, he had found people that cared for him, and that unsubstitutable air of love that every proper home manifested, almost like magic.

'Yeah,' thought Silver as he lay down on his mercilessly stiff bed. He immediately missed his room back at the Benbow. 'if there was ever a place I could call home, that'd be it.'