There is so much more to tell, but I’ve got to get on with living my life, and leave this document behind. I’ve got grandchildren to think about.
    Quickly, I’ll mention that I did get that chance to return to Persiphone, to visit with my stepfather, Howard Bates, just after his 20-year term as Monarch ended. I met with him in 2520 GS, at a secluded campground, with his wife Marianne and their 20-year-old daughter Tabitha.
    I didn’t tell him everything, naturally.
    But I told him that I was done robbing banks. I described Destiny’s World to him in detail, though, explaining all the work that had gone into it, and how I was trying to landscape it to look like the ancient maps of Old Home Terra. I told him that Jason Quivers, his wife, and children were now living with us there.
    At first, he spoke little, his disappointment evident on his face. It took Marianne and Tabitha to help him come around. I think Tabitha had had a crush on me ever since she was a young teenager, seeing my pictures on the news. She and her mother convinced Howard that I was still his son, the hard-working, bright-eyed guy who’d lost his colonist parents in a bus wreck at Mike’s Supermarket.
    It was actually Marianne who suggested that they come live with us. Howard had been working as a consultant for the new Monarch of Persiphone, giving advice and writing laws, for enormous fees, but he was ready to retire. Marianne said it sure would be nice to live on a world without all the clutter — Persiphone was home to more than 40 million people by that time, and starting to feel crowded by colonial standards.
    I told them they were welcome, and Tabitha smilingly decided at once that she’d come.
    Howard was slow to decide, but finally did.
    “But no more bank-robbing?” he asked me.
    “None”, I told him. “My oldest son’s an adult now, going to college on Tuf. He’s engaged to be married. And my daughter’s 15 — she’ll be going off to college in two or three years. Both of Jason’s kids are in college on Turner’s Planet. All of them use assumed names, of course, when they’re not on Destiny’s World. They think it’s fun. But, to protect them, I’ve had to stop robbing banks.”
    After some thought, and several wonderful meals, he made up his mind.
    Maybe I shouldn’t mention it, but Tabitha tried to seduce me one night, after Howard and Marianne had gone to bed. I was sitting up on the couch in the cabin’s common room, watching late-night holovision, when she came in and sat next to me, warm and cuddly. It was quite flattering, I assure you, for a 50-year-old man to be approached sexually by an attractive 20-year-old. But I stopped her.
    “You don’t even know me”, I told her, my hands on her shoulders, pushing her back in the warm darkness. “And I would never consider betraying Destiny’s trust.
    She managed to look hurt for a moment, then smiled. “I’ve read those books about you”, she said. “You don’t really have a harem?”
    I shook my head. “Just my one true Destiny.”
    “You could have a harem”, she told me, trying to slip closer to me. She smelled good. “I could be in it.”
    I shook my head again. “No, Tabitha.” She sat back. I continued, “You’re very beautiful — obviously you take after your mother. But it’s not in the cards.”
    She looked so hurt that I hugged her. “Don’t feel bad, girl”, I told her as we embraced. “I still want you to be a friend of our family, and come with your parents to live with us. But I can’t give myself to you.”
    She nodded against my shoulder, and sniffled. “Okay.”
    Then I kissed her. That’s why I didn’t want to mention it. I don’t want anyone speculating as to whether I was fighting off a desire to cheat. I wasn’t. My head was clear the whole time — I desperately wanted to get back home, to take my wife to bed. I kissed her to make a dream come true — as I’ve said, Tabitha had been infatuated with my criminal persona for a long time.
    So I kissed her, for several minutes, and not too chastely, either. But I kept her hands from roving, and my hands stayed on her face or shoulders.
    As soon as I was home, I told Destiny about it, and she told me I was a wonderful man.
    “But why didn’t you sleep with her?” Destiny asked me later.
    That’s the way my wife was — no guile, completely innocent of jealousy.
    I don’t know that I’ll ever understand her that way. But I love her for it. I could not imagine my life without my blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty. When I try to, it’s just depressing. I might have been a career grocery man, working for Mike. Or I might have been a minor bureaucrat in Harry’s government on Persiphone. Or something else, who knows. Surely, I would not have been the galaxy’s most infamous bank robber. But I might have been worse — a druggie, or an alcoholic, like so many failed colonists. And I don’t think I would have ever been happy.

*

So Harry and his family moved in with us on Destiny’s World. It took them several months. Harry had to slowly withdraw himself from politics on Persiphone, and close down his minor business ventures. Slowly, quietly, he and Marianne sold off the property they had accumulated over the years. While they did this, Tabitha left them early, and moved into our cavern on the asteroid. She helped Jason and I build her parents’ mansion, and worked faithfully on our landscaping projects.
    Finally, all of them were there.

*

Destiny also visited her parents, in Habdes I, where her father still ran the system’s largest and most prosperous asteroid mining venture. Her brothers had all gone to college and returned with business degrees and wives. Norman had begun his own manufacturing firm, a subsidiary of his father’s larger corporation. All of the Desters were wealthy.
    But none of them wanted to hear Destiny’s excuses or any part of her story.
    She had gone alone to visit them, and she came back alone.
    “They’ve disowned me”, she said with a smile. “I guess I should have seen that coming.”
    I held her tightly as we talked, sitting on a blanket on the perfectly green grass of our cavern habitat. “I didn’t see it coming”, I whispered to her.
    “They were all thoroughly investigated”, she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “They’ve had trouble getting back into the social circles, as my mother calls them. The whole business culture in that system knows their daughter is the wife of Philipp Kaplan, the infamous bank robber. Fortunately, for them, the investigators could find nothing. They thought my parents were using their corporation to launder our money. My dad proved that it was all legal money, but he says he’ll be watched by the Federation until the day he dies, unless I’m caught.”
    She cried a little that night, but not as much as I’d cried after my parents’ death. Then she never mentioned them again. In fact, when she learned I was writing this account, she suggested leaving them out of the story completely, but I couldn’t do it.
    Just like my parents, her mother and father are an integral part of who we are. They were good people, and are not at fault for what Destiny and I accomplished. But they can’t be left out entirely.

*

In the early days of 2521, Destiny surprised me one last time.
    “Why don’t we marry Isabelle?” she asked me one night, as we walked along the park-like exterior of Destiny’s World.
    “What?” I stopped walking, my brain locking up.
    In the silence that followed, we could hear crickets chirping, and small animals bedding down for the night. Nocturnal predators were scrunching through the underbrush, readying for their night’s work.
    She grinned wildly, and embraced me, kissing me on the mouth.
    “She’s been with us for all these years, beautiful, loving, and athletic. And she’s been so good to our kids. You could give her some of her own, Philipp.”
    “But—” I was flabbergasted. “But I love you, Destiny Kaplan Bates!”
    She laughed again. “I know, baby. And you’re so cute when you’re doing it, too. She kissed me again, running a hand up my thigh. “But we love Isabelle too, right?”
    I nodded. “But not like that, Destiny. She was our child care employee, and now she’s our friend — an equal partner in this asteroid. But not a... Besides, that’s illegal.”
    Destiny’s hand found a comfortable nesting place below my belt, as she held her lips softly on mine. “You’re so dense, my husband. There isn’t one single law on this planet. You’re the government now. There’s no law against polygamy here.”
    She was right, of course. And even some of the planets that did have laws permitted multiple marriages — the oldest example being Paradise, where some marriages were known to include as many as 16 people.
    “But”, I began again, still not understanding, “I don’t think Isabelle will go for it. And I’m not attracted to her like that.”
    Destiny shook her head slightly, rubbing her face against mine. “You will be. Ask her tomorrow night. She’ll say yes.”
    I’d never willingly gone against Destiny’s wishes. When we had differences of opinion, we’d always discussed it, and I always gave in. A major exception had been when I bought my starship, and when we’d brought other accomplices in on our crimes. Those times, she’d just shut up and let me make my mistakes. But when she held her ground, I always caved in.
    The next night, after dinner, I invited Isabelle to come on a walk with Destiny and I. We talked about old times, reminiscing. Then, with the rings of the gas giant lighting up our night sky, I took one of Isabelle’s hands.
    She started in surprise, and even more when Destiny took her other hand.
    “Uh...” I started off nervously.
    “What, Philipp?” she said, looking back and forth between us.
    “We’d like you to marry us”, I said, feeling foolish. “Destiny and I want you to be my, er, our wife.”
    She paused for only the smallest of seconds. “I’d love to”, she said.
    That night, Destiny slept in Isabelle’s room while I had my second honeymoon, and became intimate for the first time in my life with someone besides Destiny Dester.
    I required several months before I was comfortable with the arrangement, but both women were much more cosmopolitan than I, and took to it right away. I realized that Destiny’s decision had made me — if possible — happier than before.
    If either of my wives should die before me, my life would be considerably more empty than I could imagine. But if I die first, I have a feeling they’ll get over it.

*

So, back to the original question. Why did I do it?
    The thrill? Certainly.
    The money? Well, it’s a nice perk.
    To sidestep the government? Yes, there’s something to be said for individual accomplishments, and no one should be dependent on that faceless, heartless mass known as government, but that was not my intention.
    For Destiny?
    They say that love will make a man do unprecedented things, and that’s certainly true in my case. Without love, the galaxy would be a dark and dreary place. And without love, I — Philipp Kaplan Bates — would be a depressed, bitter old man. Maybe I did grab that first bundle of cash out of love for Destiny. And I certainly stepped into that next bank with not much on my mind besides pleasing her.
    I suppose now that I would have been happy without the life of robbing financial institutions, as long as Destiny was by my side. I wanted nothing more than to please her.
    And I could see that she felt the same way about me.
    It only made matters more enjoyable to spread the love around a little more.
    As the famous Terran historian once said, “Love is all you need.”

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