“And make you sick while I’m doing it!”
She shook her head. “Not if I take my histamine blockers. We tested that out, remember? They even—” She hesitated. “They even said that it was possible you could father a child.”
He gave her a look of proud scorn. “That’s impossible!”
She said steadfastly, “No. Only, maybe, a little difficult.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said fiercely. “Why does everyone lie to me? Even MyThara did, all those years!” He put a hand to his face and felt something hot and wet. He looked at his hand, and found himself laughing. “At least I’m human enough to cry,” he said, his voice unsteady.
“You’re human enough for me,” Marguery told him. He shook his head despondently. She thought for a moment, and then said, “Sandy? Do you remember on the jet you said you were going to write a poem?”
He looked perplexed for a moment, then fumbled in his pocket. “I’ve got it here. You might as well see it, I suppose,” he said.
“Yes, I certainly want to, but what I was going to say was—”
He wasn’t listening. He had already pulled the scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. It was folded and almost torn, but when she opened it up she was startled at what she saw. “Is that supposed to be a coffin?” she asked.
“It’s supposed to be a poem,” he said somberly. “Do you know what a poem is? It’s how you feel, put on paper. And that was how I felt.”
“Yes, I understand that, but Sandy dear—”
“You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to,” he said gloomily. “I don’t know if it’s any good, anyway.”
Marguery gave up. She straightened out the paper and read the poem over carefully:
Am I womanborn
or of some strange
mating in empty space?
Was I born at all or made?
Perhaps it is better if I
never know for what I do
know of the egg-hatched
or born does not cause
me to envy them, even
less to admire; evil
they do, unthinking
but wicked. Shame
I say & plague on
both your houses
& I really hope
you both lose!
She looked down at him, half-angry, almost amused. “Lysander, that’s dreary. What kind of person would write something like that?”
“Any person who took a good, hard look around him would! It’s a dreary world. Haven’t you noticed? Marguery, look at those people!” He waved a condemning hand at the soundlessly gesticulating figures on the screen.
Marguery looked, but what she saw was puzzling. Boyle was waving his arms across his face. He looked like a baseball fan trying to attract the attention of the grandstand peanut vendor. “What’s he doing? Maybe he wants to talk to you,” she offered.
Lysander shook his head. “What for? There’s no point in talking to me; they need to talk to each other. But they won’t.” The ship lurched slightly, and then they were floating free. Lysander took a quick look at the board. “We’re in coasting orbit,” he said. “That’ll last for about an hour, but you’d better be in your seat before that. Just before the power goes on again the lander’s going to reverse so we can turn around to decelerate.” Marguery made a faint noise. He looked up at her, frowning. “What’s the matter?”
She said, “I thought you were going to ram the Hakh’hli ship.”
He studied her face incredulously for a moment, then laughed. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “We’d get killed.”
“Sandy dear,” she said sincerely, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you say that. But then why did you steal the lander?”
“To keep you people from doing it, of course,” he said in surprise. “Then I thought I’d just go back to the ship and try to reason with the Major Seniors.”
“With me?”
“I didn’t plan on taking you along, Marguery,” he pointed out. “But you came.”
She began to feel apprehensive. “And now?”
“What else is there to do?” he demanded. “Maybe the two of us can beat some sense into them. And—it would be an adventure for you, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to be the first Earth human—the first native Earthborn human—to visit the Hakh’hli interstellar ship?”
Marguery thought it over. “It’s—frightening,” she said. “But I think I would—with you, Sandy.”
He blinked at her. She went on. “See, I wasn’t asking to see your poem a minute ago, dear Lysander. I was trying to tell you that I’d written a poem of my own.”
“But you never said you wrote poems.”
She laughed at him. “Maybe I haven’t written one yet. Read it. Then you tell me.”
He looked at the piece of paper she was holding out incredulously, then he looked up at her. “Oh, my God,” he said.
“Read it, God damn it!”
He obeyed.
Sweet Sandy
the brick shithouse
torso & the quick, kind
heart. You say that you
love me. I think that
I love you as well.
If you invite me
to marry you
I’ll say
Yes!
“Are you sure?” he gasped.
“You fool,” she said fondly. “Don’t ask questions. Just kiss me.”
And it wasn’t until he had done it, and done it half a dozen times more, that Marguery caught sight of the communications screen out of the corner of her eye. The people on the screen didn’t seem to be arguing any more. Hamilton Boyle was holding up both thumbs. ChinTekki-tho was weeping amiably, and Demetrius and Bottom, giggling, were acting out shaking hands.
“Sandy,” she said shakily. “Do you see what I see? Is it possible that they’re trying to tell us that they’ve agreed on what to do?”
He didn’t let go of her, but he craned his neck to see, frowning in bewilderment. “I don’t believe it,” he said. But his voice was uncertain.
“What else can it be? They’re certainly trying to tell us something.”
He said sincerely, “It is impossible that two such good things could happen to me in a single day. I don’t believe that they’ve decided to cooperate.”
“Dummy,” she said lovingly. “Maybe they have. Why don’t you find out?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe they have,” he said stubbornly; but then he turned on the sound . . .
And they had.
Chapter 25
At this time John William Washington, often called Lysander, and his wife, Marguery Phyllis Darp, no longer called a “lieutenant,” are two of the fifty-four representatives of the human race aboard the big Hakh’hli ship as it orbits the planet Mars. The first settlement is taking shape down on the surface of the planet. The first twelve dozen dozen frozen eggs have been thawed and hatched; as a favor to the Earth representatives, six of them were fathered by Oberon. Marguery and Lysander have been back to the surface of the Earth twice. The first time was a quickie just long enough for Marguery to get her divorce and the two of them to get married. The second time was partly to close up Marguery’s old apartment and get rid of her major possessions, because they will not be back on Earth again for many years, and partly to give them a chance to receive some assistance in a breeding project of their own. (It did require a bit of biophysical help, but the results, they are sure, will be worth it.) On Earth, the first two railguns are already in operation, and the project of deorbiting the most threatening lumps of cosmic junk is well along; the next step will be to launch orbiting vehicles equipped with Hakh’hli-type magnetic repellers to sweep up as many as possible of the smaller ones. It is still not easy for humans or Hakh’hli to traverse the old garbage belt in space; the polar windows are still the only safe places for fragile living beings, but with the railguns everything else can be catapulted past the barrier. The time is in sight when the human-imposed quarantine on space travel will be only an unhappy memory. And as for Lysander and Marguery themselves, they are many things. They are busy. They are useful. They are hopeful. They are expectant; and there is one thing more they are. They are happy.