"Uh—Even if you are right, it's too much. I'm drowning in marshmallows!"

"But, Oscar, you don't have to take one bit you don't want. We can live simply. In one room with bed folded into wall if it pleases you."

"That's no solution."

"Perhaps you would like bachelor digs, out in town?"

" ‘Tossing my shoes,' eh?"

She said levelly, "My husband, if your shoes are ever tossed, you must toss them. I jumped over your sword. I shall not jump back."

"Take it easy!" I said. "It was your suggestion. If I took it wrong, I'm sorry. I know you don t go back on your word. But you might be regretting it."

"I am not regretting it. Are you?"

"No, Star, no! But—"

"That's a long pause for so short a word," she said gravely. "Will you tell me?"

"Uh...that's just it. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell what, Oscar? There are so many things to tell."

"Well, a lot of things. What I was getting into. About you being the Empress of the whole works, in particular...before you let me jump over the sword with you."

Her face did not change but tears rolled down her cheeks. "I could answer that you did not ask me—"

"I didn't know what to ask!"

"That is true. I could assert, truthfully, that had you asked I would have answered. I could protest that I did not ‘let you' jump over the sword, that you overruled my protests that it was not necessary to offer me the honor of marriage by the laws of your people...that I was a wench you could tumble at will. I could point out that I am not an empress, not royal, but a working woman whose job does not permit her even the luxury of being noble. All these are true. But I will not hide behind them; I will meet your question." She slipped into Nevian. "Milord Hero, I feared sorely that if I did not bend to your will, you would leave me!"

"Milady wife, truly did you think that your champion would desert you in your peril?" I went on in English, "Well, that nails it to the barn. You married me because the Egg damned well had to be recovered and Your Wisdom told you that I was necessary to the job—and might bug out if you didn't. Well, Your Wisdom wasn't sharp on that point; I don't bug out. Stupid of me but I'm stubborn." I started to get out of bed.

"Milord love!" She was dying openly.

"Excuse me. Got to find a pair of shoes. See how far I can throw them." I was being nasty as only a man can be who has had his pride wounded.

"Please, Oscar, please! Hear me first."

I heaved a sigh. "Talk ahead."

She grabbed my hand so hard I would have lost fingers had I tried to pull loose. "Hear me out. My beloved, it was not that at all. I knew that you would not give up our quest until it was finished or we were dead. I knew! Not only had I reports reaching back years before I ever saw you but also we had shared joy and danger and hardship; I knew your mettle. But, had it been needed, I could have bound you with a net of words, persuaded you to agree to betrothal only—until the quest was over. You are a romantic, you would have agreed. But, darling, darling! I wanted to many you...bind you to me by your rules, so that"—she stopped to sniff back tears—"so that, when you saw all this, and this, and this, and the things you call ‘your toys,' you still would stay with me. It was not politics, it was low—love romantic and unreasoned, love for your own sweet self."

She dropped her face into her hands and I could barely hear her. "But I know so little of love. Love is a butterfly that lights when it listeth, leaves as it chooses; it is never bound with chains. I sinned. I tried to bind you. Unjust I knew it was, cruel to you I now see it to be." Star looked up with crooked smile. "Even Her Wisdom has no wisdom when it comes to being a woman. But, though silly wench I be, I am not too stubborn to know that I have wronged my beloved when my face is rubbed in it. Go, go, get your sword; I will jump back over it and my champion will be free of his silken cage. Go, milord Hero, while my heart is firm."

"Go fetch your own sword, wench. That paddling is long overdue."

Suddenly she grinned, all hoyden. "But, darling, my sword is in Karth-Hokesh. Don't you remember?"

"You can't avoid it this time!" I grabbed her. Star is a handful and slippery, with amazing muscles. But I'm bigger and she didn't fight as hard as she could have. Still I lost skin and picked up bruises before I got her legs pinned and one arm twisted behind her. I gave her a couple of hearty spanks, hard enough to print each finger in pink, then lost interest.

Now tell me, were those words straight from her heart—or was it acting by the smartest woman in twenty universes?

Later, Star said, "I'm glad your chest is not a scratchy rug, like some men, my beautiful."

"I was a pretty baby, too. How many chests have you checked?"

"A random sample. Darling, have you decided to keep me?"

"A while. On good behavior, you understand."

"I'd rather be kept on bad behavior. But—while you're feeling mellow—if you are—I had best tell you another thing—and take my spanking if I must."

"You're too anxious. One a day is maximum, hear me?"

"As you will, sir. Yassuh, Boss man. I'll have my sword fetched in the morning and you can spank me with it at your leisure. If you think you can catch me. But I must tell this and get it off my chest."

"There's nothing on your chest. Unless you count—"

"Please! You've been going to our therapists."

"Once a week." The first thing Star had ordered was an examination for me so complete as to make an Army physical seem perfunctory. "The Head Sawbones insists that my wounds aren't healed but I don't believe him; I've never felt better."

"He, is stalling, Oscar—by my order. You're healed, I am not unskilled, I was most careful. But—darling, I did this for selfish reasons and now you must tell me if I have been cruel and unjust to you again. I admit I was sneaky. But my intentions were good. However, I know, as the prime lesson of my profession, that good intentions are the source of more folly than all other causes put together."

"Star, what are you prattling about? Women are the source of all folly."

"Yes, dearest. Because they always have good intentions—and can prove it. Men sometimes act from rational self-interest, which is safer. But not often."

"That's because half their ancestors are female. Why have I been keeping doctor's appointments if I don t need them?"

"I didn't say you don't need them. But you may not think so. Oscar, you are far advanced with Long-Life treatments." She eyed me as if ready to parry or retreat.

"Well, I'll be damned!"

"You object? At this stage it can be reversed."

"I hadn't thought about it." I knew that Long-Life was available on Center but knew also that it was rigidly restricted. Anybody could have it—just before emigrating to a sparsely settled planet. Permanent residents must grow old and die. This was one matter in which one of Star's predecessors had interfered in local government. Center, with disease practically conquered, great prosperity, and lodestone of a myriad peoples, had grown too crowded, especially when Long-Life sent skyward the average age of death.

This stern rule had thinned the crowds. Some people took Long-Life early, went through a Gate and took their chances in wilderness. More waited until that first twinge that brings awareness of death, then decided that they weren't too old for a change. And some sat tight and died when their time came.

I knew that twinge; it had been handed to me by a bolo in a jungle. "I guess I have no objection."

She sighed with relief. "I didn't know and should not have slipped it into your coffee. Do I rate a spanking?"

"We'll add it to the list you already rate and give them to you all at once. Probably cripple you. Star, how long is ‘Long-Life'?"