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'?"
"That's hard to answer. Very few who have had it have died in bed. If you live as active a life as I know you will—from your temperament—you are most unlikely to die of old age. Nor of disease."
"And I never grow old?" It takes getting used to.
"Oh, yes, you can grow old. Worse yet, senility stretches in proportion. If you let it. If those around you allow it. However—Darling, how old do I look? Don't tell me with your heart, tell me with your eyes. By Earth standards. Be truthful, I know the answer."
It was ever a joy to look at Star but I tried to look at her freshly, for hints of autumn—outer corners of eyes, her hands, for tiny changes in skin—hell, not even a stretch mark, yet I knew she had a grandchild.
"Star, when I first saw you, I guessed eighteen. You turned around and I upped the ante a little. Now, looking closely and not giving you any breaks—not over twenty-five. And that is because your features seem mature. When you laugh, you're a teen-ager; when you wheedle, or look awestruck, or suddenly delighted with a puppy or kitten or something, you're about twelve. From the chin up, I mean; from the chin down you can't pass for less than eighteen."
"A buxom eighteen," she added. "Twenty-five Earth years—by rates of growth on Earth—is right on the mark I was shooting at. The age when a woman stops growing and starts aging. Oscar, your apparent age under Long-Life is a matter of choice. Take my Uncle Joseph—the one who sometimes calls himself ‘Count Cagliostro.' He set himself at thirty-five, because he says that anything younger is a boy. Rufo prefers to look older. He says it gets him respectful treatment, keeps him out of brawls with lounger men—and still lets him give a younger man a shock if one does pick a fight because, as you know, Rufo's older age is mostly from chin up."
"Or the shock he can give younger women," I suggested.
"With Rufo one never knows. Dearest, I didn't finish telling you. Part of it is teaching the body to repair itself. Your language lessons here—there hasn't been a one but what a hypno-therapist was waiting to give your body a lesson through your sleeping mind, after your language lesson. Part of apparent age is cosmetic therapy—Rufo need not be bald—but more is controlled by the mind. When you decide what age you like, they can start imprinting it."
"I'll think about it. I don't want to look too much older than you."
Star looked delighted. "Thank you, dear! You see how selfish I've been."
"How? I missed that point."
She put a hand over mine. "I didn't want you to grow old—and die! -- while I stayed young."
I blinked at her. "Gosh, lady, that was selfish of you, wasn't it? But you could varnish me and keep me in the bedroom. Like your aunt."
She made a face. "You're a nasty man. She didn't varnish them."
"Star, I haven't seen any of those keepsake corpses around here."
She looked surprised. "But that's on the planet where I was born. This universe, another star. Very pretty place. Didn't I ever say?"
"Star, my darling, mostly you've never said."
"I'm sorry. Oscar, I don't want to hand you surprises. Ask me. Tonight. Anything."
I considered it. One thing I had wondered about, a certain lack. Or perhaps the women of her part of the race had another rhythm. But I had been stopped by the fact that I had married a grandmother—how old? "Star, are you pregnant?"
"Why, no, dear. Oh! Do you want me to be? You want us to have children?"
I stumbled, trying to explain that I hadn't been sure it was possible—or maybe she was. Star looked troubled. "I'm going to upset you again. I had best tell it all. Oscar, I was no more brought up to luxury than you were. A pleasant childhood, my people were ranchers. I married young and was a simple mathematics teacher, with a hobby research in conjectural and optional geometries. Magic, I mean. Three children. My husband and I got along well...until I was nominated. Not selected, just named for examination and possible training. He knew I was a genetic candidate when he married me—but so many millions are. It didn't seem important.
"He wanted me to refuse. I almost did. But when I accepted, he—well, he ‘tossed my shoes.' We do it formally there; he published a notice that I was no longer his wife."
"He did, eh? Mind if I look him up and break his arms?"
"Dear, dear! That was many years ago and far away; he is long dead. It doesn't matter."
"In any case he's dead. Your three kids—one of them is Rufo's father? Or mother?"
"Oh, no! That was later."
"Well?"
Star took a deep breath. "Oscar, I have about fifty children."