"Hummph! My darling girl, you are as little and cute and pretty and harmless as a coral snake. I think Jinx has already trained Gretchen."
"More likely Ingrid. But I can still put a polish on her. As you pointed out, I'm experienced. What was that word you used? 'Ancient,' that was it."
"Ouch!"
"Oh, that didn't hurt. Sissy."
"The hell it didn't. I'm going to enter a monastery."
"Not till you've entered Gretchen. I've just decided, Richard; we're going to marry Gretchen."
I treated this ridiculous statement with the neglect it deserved-I got up and hopped into the refresher.
Shortly she followed me in. I cowered away from her. "Help! Don't hit me again!"
"Oh, spit. I haven't hit you once, as yet."
"I surrender. You're not ancient; you're just well marinated. Hazel my love, what makes you so feisty?"
"I'm not feisty. But when you're as small as I am and female, if you don't stand up for your rights, you're sure to be pushed around by big, hairy, smelly men with delusions about male superiority. Don't yelp, dear; I haven't hurt you, not once. I haven't drawn blood-now have I?"
"I'm afraid to look. Mother never warned me that married life could be like this! Sweetheart, you were about to tell me why you had to recruit me and for what purpose when we got distracted."
She was slow in answering. "Richard, you had trouble believing that I am more than twice your age."
"You convinced me. I don't understand it, but I've had to accept it."
"You're going to find other things I must tell you much harder to accept. Much!"
"Then I probably won't accept them. Hazel-Gwen honey, I'm a hard case. I don't believe in table-tapping, astrology, virgin birth-"
"Virgin birth isn't difficult."
"I mean, in the theological sense; I'm not talking about genetics laboratories. -virgin birth, numerology, a literal hell, magic, witchcraft, and campaign promises. You tell me something that runs contrary to horse sense; I'll be at least as hard to sell as I was about your ancient years. You'll need the Galactic Overlord as a confirming witness."
"Okay. Slip this one on for size. From one standpoint I'm even more ancient than you suspect. More than two centuries."
"Hold it. You won't be two hundred until Christmas Day 2263. A good many years yet, as you pointed out."
'True. I didn't tell you about these extra years even though I lived through them... because I lived them at right angles."
I answered, "Dear, the sound track suddenly went silent."
"But, Richard, that one's easy to believe. Where did I drop my pants?"
"Through most of the Solar System, according to your memoirs."
"That ain't the half of it, mister. Both inside and outside the System and even outside this universe ... and, brother, have I been transgressed against! I mean, where did I drop them today?"
"At the foot of the bed, I think. Hon, why do you bother to wear panties when you take them off so frequently?"
"Because. Only sluts run around without drawers... and I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head."
"I didn't say a word."
"I could hear what you were thinking."
"And I don't believe in telepathy, either."
"You don't, eh? My grandson Dr. Lowell Stone aka Buster used to cheat at chess by reading my mind. Thank God he lost the ability when he was about ten."
"Noted," I answered, "as hearsay concerning a highly improbable event from a reporter whose veracity has not been established. Reliability of alleged datum is therefore not higher than C-Five by military intelligence scaling."
"You'll pay for that!"
"Scale it yourself," I told her. "You've served in military intelligence. CIA, wasn't it?"
"Who sez?"
"You sez. Through several unfinished remarks."
"It was not the CIA and I've never been in McLean in my life and I was fully disguised while I was there and it wasn't me; it was the Galactic Overlord."
"And I'm Captain John Sterling."
Gwen-Hazel looked wide-eyed. "Gee, Captain, can I have your autograph? Better gimme two; I can trade two of yours for one of Rosie the Robot. Richard, will we be going near the main post office?"
"Have to. I've got to set up a mail drop for Father Schultz. Why, dear?"
"If we can swing past Macy's, I'll get Naomi's clothes and wig packed, and then I'll mail them. They've been grinding on my conscience."
"On your what?"
"On the bookkeeping system I use in place of one. Richard, you remind me more and more of my third husband. He was a fine figure of a man, just as you are. He took great care of himself and died in perfect health."
"What did he die of?"
"Of a Tuesday, as I remember. Or was it a Wednesday? Anyway, I was not there-I was a long way off, curled up with a good buck. We never did leam what did him in. Apparently he fainted in his bath and his head went under water. What are you mumbling, Richard? 'Charlotte' who?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. Hazel... I do not carry life insurance."
"Then we must be extra careful to keep you alive. Stop taking baths!"
"If I do, in three or four weeks you'll regret it."
"Oh, I'll stop, too; it will balance out. Richard, will we have time today to go out to the Authority Complex?"
"Perhaps. Why?"
'To find Adam Selene."
"Is he buried there?"
"That is something I must try to find out. Richard, is your believer in good shape?"
"It's overstrained. Several years at right angles indeed! Want to buy a space warp?"
"Thank you; I have one. In my purse. Those extra years are just a matter of geometry, my husband. If you are wedded to the conventional picture of space-time with just one time axis, then of course you find it hard to understand. But there are at least three time axes just as there are at least three space axes ... and I lived those extra years on other axes. All clear?"
"Utterly clear, my love. As self-evident as transcendentalism."
"I knew you would understand. The case of Adam Selene is more difficult. When I was twelve I heard him speak many times; he was the inspiring leader who held our Revolution together. Then he was killed-or so it was reported. It was not until years later that Mama Wyoh told me, as deepest secret, that Adam was not a man. Not a human being at all. Another sort of entity."
I most carefully said nothing.
Gwen-Hazel said, "Well? Don't you have anything to say?"
"Oh, sure. Not human. An alien. Green skin and one meter high and its flying saucer landed in Mare Crisium just outside Loonie City. Where was the Galactic Overlord?"
"You can't upset me talking that way, Richard, because I know just how such an impossible story affects one. I had the same sort of doubts when Mama Wyoh told me. Except that I had to believe her because Mama Wyoh would never lie to me. But Adam was not an alien, Richard; he was a child of mankind. But not a human child. Adam Selene was a computer. Or a complex of programs in a computer. But it was a self-programming computer, so it comes to the same thing. Well, sir?"
I took my time answering. "I like flying saucers better."
"Oh, fiddle! I'm tempted to turn you in on Marcy Choy-Mu."
"The smartest thing you could do."
"No, I'll keep you; I'm used to your foibles. But I may keep you in a cage."
"Hazel. Listen carefully. Computers do not think. They calculate with great speed in accordance with rules built into them. Since we ourselves calculate by using our brains to think, this designed-in capacity to calculate gives computers the appearance of thinking. But they do not think. They operate the way they do because they must; they were built that way. You can add 'animism' to the list of nonsense notions to which I do not subscribe."