"Clee!" Belle stared, almost goggle-eyed. "With your name? The tremendous splash ... I see. You"re really grown up."
"Not all the way, probably; but pretty nearly--I hope."
"But some of the ... not exactly corollaries, but...." Belle"s face, which had regained some of its color, began again to pale.
"Which one of the many?"
"The most shattering one, to me, concerns intelligence. If it is true that our vaunted mentality is only that of one blood cell compared to that of a whole brain ... and that intelligence is banked, level upon level ... well, it"s simply mind-wrecking. I"ve been trying madly not to think of that concept, at all, but I can"t put it off much longer."
"Now"s as good a time as any. I"ll hold your hand."
"You"d better hold more of me than that, I think."
"I"ll do even that, in a good cause." He put his arms around her; held her close. "Go ahead. Face it. All the way down and all the way up.
You"ve got what it takes. You"ll come back sane and it"ll never bother you again."
She closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Her every muscle went tense.
Neither of them ever knew how long they stood there, close-clasped and motionless in silence; but finally her muscles loosened. She lifted her head; raised her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes.
"All the way down?" he asked.
"To almost a geometrical point."
"And all the way up?"
"I touched the fringe of infinity."
"Intelligence all the way?"
"All the way. I couldn"t understand any of them, of course, but I looked each one squarely in the eye."
"Good girl. And you"re still sane."
"As much so as ever ... more so, maybe." She disengaged herself, sat down on the bed, lighted a cigarette, and smoked half of it. Then she stood up. "Clee, if anything in the whole universe ever knocked h.e.l.l out of anything, that did out of me. I"m going to do something that will take about ten minutes. Will you wait right here?"
"Of course. Take all the time you want."
When she came back Garlock leaped to his feet and stared speechlessly.
He could not even whistle. Belle"s hair was now its natural deep, rich chestnut, her lipstick was red, her nails were bare, and she wore a white shirt and an almost-knee-length crimson skirt.
"Here"s what I"m going to do," she said, quietly. "I"m going to be a plain, ordinary brownette. I"m going to marry you as soon as we land; registered permanent family. I"m going to have six kids and spoil them rotten. In short, I have grown up--partly up, at least--too."
"Plain?" he managed, finally. "Ordinary? You? Yes--like a super-nova going off under a man"s feet!" With a visible effort, Garlock pulled himself together. "I don"t need to tell you what a surprise this is, and can"t tell you what it means to me. But you never have said you love me.
Hadn"t you better?"
"I"m afraid to. Our next kiss will be different. I"d spoil all this nice new make-up." She tried to grin in her old-time fashion, but failed. She sobered, then, and went on with a completely new intensity. "Listen, Clee. I"m all done--forever--lying and pretending to you. I love you so much that ... well, there simply aren"t any thoughts. And when I think of how I acted, it hurts--Lord, how it hurts! I don"t see how you can love me at all. It"d take a miracle."
"Miracles happen, then." He put both arms around her, very gently. "For the first time in my life I"m cutting my screens to zero. Come in."
"What?" For a moment she was unable to believe the thought. Then, cutting her own shield, she went fully into his mind. "Oh, I didn"t dare hope you could _possibly_ feel.... Oh, this is wonderful, Clee--simply _wonderful_!"
As the two fully-opened minds met and joined she threw both arms around him and their embrace tightened as though their bodies were trying to become as nearly one as were their minds. Finally she pulled herself away and put up a solid block.
"What a mess!" she said, shakily. "Lipstick all _over_ you."
"Why words, sweetheart? That was perfect."
"Oh, it was ... but wide open, with such a mind as yours...." she paused, then came back to normal almost with a snap. "... but say; I"ll bet that"s what Therea and Alsyne were doing. That "fusion" thing. We"ll practise it tonight."
He pondered briefly. "Sure it was."
"But he said they learned it from us. How could he have, when we.... Oh, we did, of course, in moments of high stress ... but we didn"t actually _know_ it...." She paused.
"We wouldn"t admit it, you mean, even to ourselves."
"Maybe; and of course it never occurred to us--callow youngsters we were then, weren"t we?--that it could be done for more than a microsecond at a time. Or that two people could ever, possibly, _live_ that way."
"Or what a life it would be. So let"s chop this and get back to you and me."
"Uh-huh, let"s," she agreed, but in a severely practical tone. "You"ve got lipstick even on your shirt. So change it and I"ll go put on a new face and bring over some stuff and clean you up."
While she cleaned, she talked. "I told you our next kiss would be different, but I had no idea ... wow! _That_ will be as much different, too, I"m sure.... Hm-h-h-nh?" Again she pressed herself against him; this time in a somewhat different fashion.
"Stop that, you little devil, or I"ll...." His arms came up of themselves, but he forced them back down. "... No, I won"t. We"ll save that for tonight, too."
"I"ll behave myself!" She laughed, pure joy in voice, eyes, and smile.
"I bet myself you wouldn"t and I won! You"re tall, solid gold, Clee darling--the absolute top."
"Thanks, sweetheart. I wish that were true," he said, soberly. "But I can"t help wondering if two such h.e.l.lions as you and I are can make a go of marriage--no, cancel that. We"ll do it--all we have to figure out is how."
"I know what you mean. Not at first--it"ll be purely wonderful then.
After five years, say, when the glamor has worn off and I"ve had three of our six children and two of them are in bed with the epizootic and I"m all frazzled out and you"re strung up tight as a bowstring with overwork and...."
"Hold it! Uh-uh. No. If we can live together six months--or even six weeks--without killing each other, we"ll have it made. It"s at first that it"ll be rugged. No matter how rugged it gets, though, we"ll know one thing for certain sure. We _couldn"t_ live apart. That"ll give us enough leverage. Check?"
"And double check." She giggled sunnily. "I"ll take care of any and all situations, whatever they are, that arise in the first six months.
You"ll be responsible for the next sixty years. That"s a perfectly fair and equitable division of responsibility. Now kiss me and we"ll go."
When Garlock cut the Gunther blocks, however, James" thought came instantly in. "Been trying to get you for twenty minutes," and in a couple of seconds he brought Garlock and Belle up to date. "So Fatso"s been waiting in Evans" office. He"s throwing fits all over the place and Evans and Macey are going quietly mad."
"He"ll have to wait," Garlock decided instantly. "No matter how many fits he has, no such decision is going to be made until there"s enough of a Galactic Council to make it."
"Well, you"ll have to tell him that yourself. In person."