What's this?

Two personal postcards? The kind you send to friends and are wide open in the mails for anyone to read. Who could this be? I didn't have any friends.

I looked at the signature and gaped. The Widow Tayl!

The first card said:

Soltan Gris Section 451 Please Forward.

Yoo-Hoo. Wherever you are. I'm just coming along great.

What shall we name it? Why don't you write?

The lovey-dovey woman you heartlessly abandoned,

Pratia

Return to Pratia Tayl

Minx Estate

Pausch Hills

Oh, my Gods! Open like that right through the office for anyone to read! You could be cashiered for knocking somebody up and not marrying them! The law was all on her side.

The second card was worse! It said:

Soltan Gris

Officer of the Apparatus still, unless his commanding officer finds out he didn't marry me if he didn't the next time I see him.

Yoo-Hoo! Wherever you are.

He is just coming along fine. It is too soon to feel him kick yet. What schools shall we send him to when he is born? How about the Academy like his father? And maybe buy him a commission in the Fleet. Please waste no time in writing me quickly so as to save all the tedious trouble of hiring lawyers which is so time wasting when one could be so nicely busy doing other things.

The loving pregnant girl you left behind,

Pratia Tayl

Minx Estate

Turn right off the main road at the

Inn of the Rutting Beast.

Pausch Hills

PS: Young officers are always welcome, in or out of uniform, to look into this case. (You can also use the landing pad day or night.)

(Bleep) her!

She was trying to get me into trouble! The one thing I had vowed from earliest youth was never, never, NEVER to get married! Who wanted cooking utensils sizzling through the air around one's head? Who wanted all the killings that followed digging brother officers out of your wife's bed?

And, curse it all, Prahd said he had certified and registered her pregnancy before he left Voltar!

(Bleep), (bleep), (BLEEP) Prahd! It was a good thing he was legally dead. Otherwise, I would have shot him out of hand!

Bad off as I might be for women, it could never include the Widow Tayl! She murdered husbands at the slightest pretext. But I had to be honest. That wasn't the real reason.

I could just plain never, never forgive her for her fixation on Heller. The nerve of her, with me right there, having automatic (bleeps) just at the thought of that (bleeped) Heller! And even when she had only seen him just once for less than a minute. Never even talked to him!

Oh, the Widow Tayl was not for me! I might be hard up but not THAT hard up!

Let her go on dreaming of Heller all she liked. I was safely twenty-two and more light-years away!

But it served to cool my ardor off a bit. I almost stopped aching in the place where it hurt. To Hells with her and to Hells with Heller!

And then I thought of having rooted Heller out of the Gracious Palms. To deprive him of those women was rare punishment. I had the upper hand when all was said. I laughed.

I thought I had better take the blanket off his viewer and enjoy his discomfiture.

He was standing in a park, looking out across the East River. A wintry wind was putting small whitecaps on the water and gulls were flying low.

He turned and his eyes rested for a moment on the Statue of Peace and then, passing on, looked down the Esplanade where the flags of many nations streamed and whipped.

Heller was at the United Nations!

A chill of premonition that had nothing to do with the stormy cold he saw swept across me. What business could he possibly have there?

His gaze was watchful on the broad walkway before the doors of the General Assembly Building, looking often down East 46th Street. I knew the area well: He was expecting someone from the city to arrive here in the United Nations area.

A group caught his attention. There were five in it.

They were caped and hooded in furs. It was possible that he did not expect them to see him as he moved forward into plainer view.

The group stopped. One of them pointed at the distant Heller. They all looked.

Then they began to run toward him. They were calling out glad cries. "Pretty boy!" "Oh, you darling!"

They were running toward him and he was running toward them.

They met in a gladly shouting turmoil!

They were trying to kiss his cheeks and seize his hands.

They were women from the Gracious Palms! I recognized Margie and Minette and the tall high-yellow!

"Oh, pretty boy! We have been so lonesome without you!" cried one.

"We missed you so!" cried another.

"Eet 'as bean a zentury!" cried Minette.

My Gods, they were beautiful women! All bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. What right did he have to such glorious creatures? He had never even slept with any of them!

"We didn't think you'd come," said the tall high-yellow.

"And miss this day?" said Heller.

"I can't think how you would," said Margie. "After all, it was your idea."

"No, no," said Heller. "It was Vantagio's. He's the political expert. And you girls did all the work."

Minette said, "Oh, an' 'ow we 'ave work'! So veree, veree 'ard! We 'ave lobby an' lobby, night after night, up and down. All ze girls 'ave really put eet to ze delegates: eef zey don' pass ze bill, we knock zem up! An' we boycott zere pantings."

"I think these UN delegates got the point," said

Margie. "Any delegate that doesn't vote a loud 'aye' on this bill knows he'll be under sanctions at the Gracious Palms."

"We really put our backs into it," said the high-yellow. "This is one thing they can't take lying down!" "Oh, I think the bill will pass the General Assembly," he said.

I was stunned. I had heard one or two of them mention to Heller, when he sat in the Gracious Palms lobby of evenings, that they were "working on something" with the UN delegate customers. But I didn't have a clue what chicanery had been going on in the dark of those whores' rooms. What was this bill?

"We had better go in," said Heller. "It's coming up on the time for their final vote."

They rushed in a happy mob through the doors of the General Assembly Building and up to the information desk in the lobby. A uniformed girl there looked up in some disapproval at their laughter and bustle.

"You have special tickets for us," said the high-yellow. "The Delegate of Maysabongo said they would be here."

"Ah, yes," said the clerk. "Five passes to the public gallery."

"Six," said the high-yellow.

The clerk had the envelope out and open. She counted five.

"I weel zit on pretty boy's lap," said Minette.

"No, I will," said Margie with decision.

The high-yellow was reaching across the clerk to the passes in their boxes. She picked up one. "Nobody will," she said.

"You can't do that!" said the clerk. "We are supposed to hand these out on a first come, first served basis. But this is a special session and we are expecting the wife of the president of the United States and a whole party from the Women's Liberation League...."

"First come, first served," said the high-yellow, "is exactly the system we use, too."

The clerk grabbed for the purloined ticket. "You can't!"

"Can," said the high-yellow. "This is our bill that's being voted on! But if you're going to be that way about it, why don't you call the president of the General Assembly and tell him you are preventing Beulah from attending!"

A guard came over. "I must caution you against unseemly noise here in the lobby and also if you are attending a meeting of the General Assembly, there must be neither noise nor applause in the public galleries. I think it might be best if you were to give the tickets back and..."