He hugged her. She responded.
“Well, uh,” he said, forever the gentleman, “you must be tired.”
226
The Unicom Trade
“Silly,” she answered. “How could I sleep after this much excitement?”
“In that case,” Hermes said. There was no further speech for some while.
But when matters had reached a certain point, he recalled his debt to her. “You prayed for your lover’s return,” he said, conscious of his own punctilio and partially disentangling himself.
“I s’pose.” Vanny’s words were less distinct than her breath. “Right now I’m on the rebound.”
“I’ll ask Aphrodite to change his heart and”
“No,” she interrupted. “Do I want a zombie? I’ll have him of his own free will or not at all.”
Considering what she had earlier voiced about freedom, Hermes felt bemused. “Well, what do you want?”
Vanny re-entangled. “M-m-m,” she told him.
“I … I couldn’t stay past tonight,” he warned her.
“Okay, let’s make the most of tonight.” She chuckled. “I never imagined Greek gods were bashful.”
“Damnation, I’d like to treat you fairly! Do you know the embrace of a god is always fertile?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Vanny said, “I’ve taken my pill.”
He didn’t understand her, decided it was indeed a waste of time trying, and gathered her in.
Some weeks later, she discovered that the embrace of a god is always fertile. But that was good, because word reached Roy.
A FEAST FOR THE GODS
227
When he discovered she had become liberated, he discovered he wanted her to cease and desist forthwith. He stormed around to her place and demanded the name of the scoundrel. She told him to go to Tartarus. Then after a suitable periodthe embrace of a god confers much knowledge she relented.
They are married, officially and squarely, and live in a reconverted farmhouse. Though she has never identified the unknown, he has equal adoration for her three children. They keep her too busy to accompany him on most’of the city trips which his lucrative commissions involve. Therefore he leaves reluctantly and hastens back. The embrace of a god confers enduring loveliness .. . and, as observed, much knowledge.
They have even gotten off the pot.
But as for what comes of the alliance between old divinities and new, and as for the career of a hero (in the original sense of that world) whose first victory was over a pill, this story has yet to happen.
Poul and Karen Anderson
THEORETICAL PROGRESS
My math requires, when mesons pair; A particle that isn’t there. It isn’t there again today Please, Fermi, make it go away.
KAREN ANDERSON
INVESTIGATION OF GALACTIC ETHNOLOGY
The laws of Wolf 50 require Under threat of a punishment dire
That the few females born
Must marry King Zorn And the commomers all call him “Sire.” KAREN ANDERSON
228
LOOKUP
Look up, above the Saturn’s prow And past the sputnik-lanes
Where captains venture even now To chart new reefs and mains,
Look beyond lands of fume and stone To where the endless deep
Promises yet to be a zone Where men may sow and reap;
Look! Waiting for our empery Where stars like beacons stand
The spacious island-worlded sea, The ports of Morrowland.
KAREN ANDERSON
229
THE SKY OF SPACE
COSMIC CONCEPTS
No more a crystal sphere with nailed-up stars, Nor floor of Heaven, but a stranger thing And fitting words have not been made to bring Praise to old wonders’ newborn avatars. This is no site of grand Miltonian wars, No trophy hall of myth where beast and king Act out the lays that Homer’s kinsmen sing In Attika or Danmark, Hind or Pars. Yet even when with new-coined phrase we trace Those shapes of splendor that equations fill Or when some Rhysling sees what now we miss Even then will the balladry of space Resound with Old Olympian echoes still And ghost-gods walk in each Ephemeris.
KAREN ANDERSON
This is the science fiction story.
This is the young man full of pride, whose gadgets work the first time tried in a science fiction story.
This is the elder scientist,
every year on the honors list,
who trained the young man full of pride,
whose gadgets work the first time tried