"So Cas and Pol took me back to Luna-our Luna; not the Luna on this time line-and Deety went with me. Back to Dry Bones, that is, early on the afternoon of July fifth, less than an hour after I left in Cyrus Thorn's jumpbug. Startled everybody. It was a good thing I had Deety with me to explain things, although our p-suits convinced Papa as much as anything. Have you seen the sort of pressure suits they have here?" "Gretchen, I have seen one hospital room and one drop tube and this swimming pool. I don't even know my way to the post office."
"Mmm, yes. Anyhow, pressure suits here are two thousand years more advanced than those we use in Luna. Which isn't surprising... but surely surprised Papa. Eventually Deety made a deal for me. I could stay on Tertius... but visit back home every year or two if I could find someone to bring me. And Deety promised to help with that. Mama made Papa agree to it. After all, almost anyone in Luna would emigrate to a planet like Tertius if he could... except those who just have to have low gravity. Speaking of that, sir, how do you like your new foot?"
"I'm just now getting used to it. But two feet are eight hundred and ninety-seven times better than one foot."
"I guess that means you like it. So I came back and enlisted in the Time Corps-"
"Slow down! I keep hearing 'Time Corps.' Rabbi Ezra says that he has joined it. This baggage with the streaky red hair claims to be a major in it. And now you say you enlisted in it. At thirteen? Or at your present age? I'm confused."
"Grandma? I mean, 'Hazel?'"
"She was allowed to enroll as a cadet in W.E.N.C.H.E.S. auxiliary because I said she was old enough. That got her sent to school on Paradox. When she graduated, she transferred to the Second Harpies and went through basic training followed by advanced combat school-"
"And when we dropped at Solis Lacus on time line four to change the outcome there-then, and that's where I picked up this scar on my ribs-see?-and was made corporal in the field. And now I'm nineteen but officially twenty to let me be promoted to sergeant-after we fought at New Brunswick. Not this time line," she added.
"Gretchen is a natural for a military career," Hazel said quietly. "I knew she would be."
"And I've been ordered to officer's school but that's been placed on hold until I have this baby and-"
"What baby?" I looked at her belly. Baby fat all gone- not plumped the way it was four days ago by my reckoning ... six years ago by the wild tale I was hearing. Not pregnant so far as I could see. Then I looked at her eyes and under her eyes. Well, maybe. Probably.
"Doesn't it show? Hazel spotted it at once. So did Xia."
"Not to me, it doesn't." (Richard old son, time to bite the bullet; you're going to have to change your plans. She's knocked up and, while you didn't do it, your presence changed her life. Skewed her Karma. So get with it. No matter how stiff-lipped and brave a youngster appears to be, when she's going to have a baby she needs a husband in sight, or she can't be relaxed about it. Can't be happy. A young mother must be happy. Hell, man, you've written this plot for the confession books dozens of times; you know what you have to do. So do it.)
I went on, "Now look here, Gretchen, you can't get away from me that easily. Last Wednesday night in Lucky Dragon- well, it was last Wednesday night to me, but you've been gallivanting around strange time lines-and kicking up your heels, apparently. Last Wednesday night, by my calendar, in Dr. Chan's Quiet Dreams in Lucky Dragon Pressure, you promised to marry me... and if Hazel had stayed asleep, we would have started that baby right then. As we both know. But Hazel woke up and made me get back on her other side." I looked at Hazel. "Spoilsport."
I went on, "But don't think for one second that you can get out of marrying me merely by getting yourself knocked up while I'm sick-abed. You can't. Tell her. Hazel. She can't get out of it. Can she?"
"No, she can't. Gretchen, you are going to marry Richard."
"But, Grandma, I didn't promise to marry him. I didn't!" "Richard says you did. One thing I'm sure of: When I woke up, you two were about to start a baby. Perhaps I should have played possum." Hazel went on, "But why the fuss, darling girl? I've already told Richard how you proposed to me for him... and how I agreed, and now he has confirmed it. Why do you refuse Richard now?"
"Uh-" Gretchen took a grip on herself. "That was back when I was thirteen years old. At that time I did not know that you were my great great grandmother- I called you 'Gwen,' remember? And I still thought like a Loonie then, too-a most conservative mob. But here on Tertius if a woman has a baby but no husband, nobody pays it any mind. Why, in the Second Harpies most of the birds have chicks but only a few of them are married. Three months ago we fought at Thermopylae to make sure the Greeks won this time and our reserve colonel led us because our regular colonel was about to hatch one. That's the way we old pros do things-no itch. We have our own creche on Barrelhouse, Richard, and we take care of our own; truly we do."
Hazel said stiffly, "Gretchen, my great great great granddaughter will not be raised in a creche. Damn it, daughter, I was raised in a creche; I won't let you do that to this child. If you won't marry us, you must at least let us adopt your baby."
"No!"
Hazel set her mouth. "Then I must discuss it with Ingrid."
"No! Ingrid is not my boss ... and neither are you. Grandma Hazel, when I left home I was a child and a virgin and timid and knew nothing of the world. But now I am no longer a child and I have not been virgin for years and I am a combat veteran who cannot be frightened by anything." She looked squarely into my eyes. "I will not use a baby to trap Richard into marriage."
"But, Gretchen, you are not trapping me; I like babies. I want to marry you."
"You do? Why?" She sounded sad.
Things were too solemn; we needed some skid. "Why do I want to marry you, dear? To paddle your bottom and watch it turn pink."
Gretchen's mouth dropped open, then she grinned and dimpled. "That's ridiculous!"
"It is, eh? Possibly having a baby doesn't call for marriage in these parts, but spanking is another matter. If I spank some other man's wife, he might get annoyed or she might or both. Chancy. Likely to get me talked about. Or worse. If I spank a single girl, she might use it to trap me when I don't love her and don't want to marry her but was simply spanking her pour Ie sport. Better to marry you; you're used to it, you like it. And you have a solid bottom that can take it. A good thing, too-because I spank hard. Brutal."
"Oh, pooh! Where did you get this silly notion that I like it?" (Why are your areolae so crinkled, dear?) "Hazel, does he really spank hard?"
"I don't know, dear. I would break his arm and he knows it."
"See what I'm up against, Gretchen? No innocent little pleasures; I'm underprivileged. Unless you marry me."
"But I-" Gretchen suddenly stood up, almost swamping the float table, turned away and swarmed out of the pool, started running south, out of the garden court.
I stood and watched her until I lost sight of her. I don't think I could have caught her even if I had not been breaking in a new foot; she ran like a frightened ghost.
I sat back down and sighed. "Well, Maw, I tried-they were too big for roe."
"Another time, dear. She wants to. She'll come around."
Xia said, "Richard, you left out just one word. Love."
"What is 'love.' Xia?"
"It's what a woman wants to hear about when she gets married."
"That still doesn't tell me what it is."