She accepted it gingerly, eyes and mouth big, grasping it by the guard instead of the grip. I had to show her. Her hand was far too small for it; her hands and feet, like her waist, were ultra slender.
She spotted the inscription. "Means?"
Dum vivimus, vivamus doesn't translate well, not because they can't understand the idea but because it's water to a fish. How else would one live? But I tried. "Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh."
She nodded thoughtfully, then poked the air, wrist bent and elbow out. I couldn't stand it, so I took it from her, dropped slowly into a foil guard, lunged in high line, recovered—a move so graceful that big hairy men look good in it. It's why ballerinas study fencing.
I saluted and gave it back to her, then adjusted her right elbow and wrist and left arm—this is why ballerinas get half rates, it's fun for the swordmaster. She lunged, almost pinking a guest in his starboard ham.
I took it back, wiped the blade, sheathed it. We had gathered a solid gallery. I picked up my Dagwood from the buffet, but she wasn't done with me. "Self jump sword?"
I choked. If she understood the meaning—or if I did—I was being propositioned the most gently I had ever been, in Center. Usually it's blunt. But surely Star hadn't spread the details of our wedding ceremony? Rufo? I hadn't told him but Star might have.
When I didn't answer, she made herself clear and did not keep her voice down. "Self unvirgin unmother unpregnant fertile."
I explained as politely as the language permits, which isn't very, that I was dated up. She dropped the subject, looked at the Dagwood. "Bite touch taste?"
That was another matter; I passed it over. She took a hearty bite, chewed thoughtfully, looked pleased. "Xenic. Primitive. Robust. Strong dissonance. Good art." Then she drifted away, leaving me wondering.
Inside of ten minutes the question was put to me again. I received more propositions than at any other party in Center and I'm sure the sword accounted for the bull market. To be sure, propositions came my way at every social event; I was Her Wisdom's consort. I could have been an orangutan and offers still would have been made. Some hirsutes looked like orangutans and were socially acceptable but I could have smelled like one. And behaved worse. The truth was that many ladies were curious about what the Empress took to bed, and the fact that I was a savage, or at best a barbarian, made them more curious. There wasn't any taboo against laying it on the line and quite a few did.
But I was still on my honeymoon. Anyhow, if I had accepted all those offers, I would have gone up with the window shade. But I enjoyed hearing them once I quit cringing at the "Soda? -- or ginger ale?" bluntness; it's good for anybody's morale to be asked.
As we were undressing that night I said, "Have fun, pretty things?"
Star yawned and grinned. "I certainly did. And so did you, old Eagle Scout. Why didn't you bring that kitten home?"
"What kitten?"
"You know what kitten. The one you were teaching to fence."
"Meeow!"
"No, no, dear. You should send for her. I heard her state her profession, and there is a strong connection between good cooking and good—"
"Woman, you talk too much!"
She switched from English to Nevian. "Yes, milord husband. No sound I shall utter that does not break unbidden from love-anguished lips."
"Milady wife beloved...sprite elemental of the Singing Waters—"
Nevian is more useful than the jargon they talk on Center.
Center is a fun place and a Wisdom's consort has a cushy time. After our first visit to Star's fishing lodge, I mentioned how nice it would be to go back someday and tickle a few trout at that lovely place, the Gate where we had entered Nevia. "I wish it were on Center."
"It shall be."
"Star. You would move it? I know that some Gates, commercial ones, can handle real mass, but, even so—"
"No, no. But just as good. Let me see. It will take a day or so to have it stereoed and measured and air-typed and so forth. Water flow, those things. But meanwhile—There's nothing much beyond this wall, just a power plant and such. Say a door here and the place where we broiled the fish a hundred yards beyond. Be finished in a week, or we'll have a new architect. Suits?"
"Star, you'll do no such thing."
"Why not, darling?"
"Tear up the whole house to give me a trout stream? Fantastic!"
"I don't think so."
"Well, it is. Anyhow, sweet, the idea is not to move that stream here, but to go there. A vacation."
She sighed. "How I would love a vacation."
"You took an imprint today. Your voice is different."
"It wears off, Oscar."
"Star, you're taking them too fast. You're wearing yourself out."
"Perhaps. But I must be the judge of that, as you know."
"As I don't know! You can judge the whole goddamn creation—as you do and I know it—but I, your husband, must judge whether you are overworking—and stop it."
"Darling, darling!"
There were too many incidents like that.
I was not jealous of her. That ghost of my savage past had been laid in Nevia, I was not haunted by it again.
Nor is Center a place such ghost is likely to walk. Center has as many marriage customs as it has cultures—thousands. They cancel out. Some humans there are monogamous by instinct, as swans are said to be. So it can't be classed as "virtue." As courage is bravery in the face of fear, virtue is right conduct in the face of temptation. If there is no temptation, there can be no virtue. But these inflexible monogamists were no hazard. If someone, through ignorance, propositioned one of these chaste ladies, he risked neither a slap nor a knife; she would turn him down and go right on talking. Nor would it matter if her husband overheard; jealousy is never learned in a race automatically monogamous. Not that I ever tested it; to me they looked—and smelled—like spoiled bread dough. Where there is no temptation there is no virtue.
But I had chances to show "virtue." That kitten with the wasp waist tempted me—and I learned that she was of a culture in which females may not marry until they prove themselves pregnable, as in parts of the South Seas and certain places in Europe; she was breaking no taboos of her tribe. I was tempted more by another gal, a sweetie with a lovely figure, a delightful sense of humor, and one of the best dancers in any universe. She didn't write it on the sidewalk; she just let me know that she was neither too busy nor uninterested, using that argot with skillful indirection.
This was refreshing. Downright "American." I did inquire (elsewhere) into the customs of her tribe and found that, while they were rigid as to marriage, they were permissive otherwise. I would never do as a son-in-law but the window was open even though the door was locked.
So I chickened. I gave myself a soul-searching and admitted curiosity as morbid as that of any female who propositioned me simply because I was Star's consort. Sweet little Zhai-ee-van was one of those who didn't wear clothes. She grew them on the spot; from tip of her nose to her tiny toes she was covered in soft, sleek, gray fur, remarkably like chinchilla. Gorgeous!
I didn't have the heart, she was too nice a kid.
But this temptation I admitted to Star—and Star implied gently that I must have muscles between my ears; Zhai-ee-van was an outstanding artiste even among her own people, who were esteemed as most talented devotees of Eros.
I stayed chicken. A romp with a kid that sweet should involve love, some at least, and it wasn't love, just that beautiful fur—along with a fear that a romp with Zhai-ee-van could turn into love and she couldn't marry me even if Star turned me loose.