I shut up, somewhat stung. I am a good shot and remain so by unrelenting practice at every opportunity-even on my honeymoon. No, that's not quite straight; I would have skipped practice on that occasion had it not turned out that Mary really liked to shoot. Mary is not just a good trained shot; she is the real thing, an Annie Oakley. She tried to teach me, but it can't be taught, not that sort of shooting.
I asked why she carried more than one gun. "You might need more than one," she told me. "Here-take my gun away from me."
I went through the motions of a standing, face-to-face disarm, bare hands against gun. She avoided it easily and said sharply, "What are you doing? Disarming me, or asking me to dance? Make it good."
So I made it good. I'll never be a match-medal shot but I stood at the top of my class in barroom. If she had not given in to it, I would have broken her wrist.
I had her gun. Then I realized that a second gun was pressing against my belly button. It was a lady's social gun, but perfectly capable of making two dozen widows without recharging. I looked down, saw that the safety was off, and knew that my beautiful bride had only to tense one muscle to burn a hole through me. Not a wide one, but sufficient.
"Where in the deuce did you find that?" I asked-and well I might, for neither one of us had bothered to dress when we came out. The area was very deserted and often it did not seem worthwhile to take the trouble; it was my land.
So I was much surprised as I would have sworn that the only gun Mary had with her was the one she had carried in her sweet little hand.
"It was high up on my neck, under my hair," she said demurely. "See?" I looked. I knew a phone could be hidden there but I had not thought of it for a gun-though of course I don't use a lady-size weapon and I don't wear my hair in long flame-colored curls.
Then I looked again, for she had a third gun shoved against my ribs. "Where did that one come from?" I asked.
She giggled. "Sheer misdirection; it's been in plain sight all the time." She would not tell me anything further and I never did figure it out. She should have clanked when she walked-but she did not. Oh my, no!
I found I could teach her a few things about hand-to-hand, which salved my pride. Bare hands are more useful than guns anyhow; they will save your life oftener. Not that Mary was not good at it herself; she packed sudden death in each hand and eternal sleep in her feet. However, she had the habit, whenever she lost a fall, of going limp and kissing me. Once, instead of kissing her back, I shook her and told her she was not taking it seriously. Instead of cutting out the nonsense, she continued to remain limp, let her voice go an octave lower, and said, "Don't you realize, my darling, that these are not my weapons?"
I knew that she did not mean that guns were her weapons; she meant something older and more primitive. True, she could fight like a bad-tempered Kodiak bear and I respected her for it, but she was no Amazon. An Amazon doesn't look that way with her head on a pillow. Mary's true strength lay in her other talents.
Which reminds me; from her I learned how it was that I was rescued from the slugs. Mary herself had prowled the city for days, not finding me, but reporting accurately the progress with which the city was being "secured". Had she not been able to spot a possessed man, we might have lost many agents fruitlessly-and I might never have gotten free from my master. As a result of the data she brought in, the Old Man drew back and concentrated on the entrances and exits to the city. And I was rescued, though they weren't waiting for me in particular . . . at least I don't suppose they were.
Or maybe they were. Something Mary said led me to think that the Old Man and she had worked watch on and watch off, heel-and-toe, covering the city's main launching platform, once it was evident that there was a focal point active in the city. But that could not have been correct-the Old Man would not have neglected his job to search for one agent. I must have misunderstood her.
I never got a chance to pursue the subject; Mary did not like digging into the past. I asked her once why the Old Man had relieved her as a presidential guard. She said, "I stopped being useful at it," and would not elaborate. She knew that I eventually would learn the reason: that the slugs had found out about sex, thus rendering her no longer useful as a touchstone for possessed males. But I did not know it then; she found the subject repulsive and refused to talk about it. Mary spent less time borrowing trouble than anyone I ever knew.
So little that I almost forgot, during that holiday from the world, what it was we were up against.
Although she would not talk about herself, she let me talk about myself. As I grew still more relaxed and still happier I tried to explain what had been eating me all my life. I told her about resigning from the service and the knocking around I had done before I swallowed my pride and went to work for the Old Man. "I'm a peaceable guy," I told her, "but what's the matter with me? The Old Man is the only one I've ever been able to subordinate myself to-and I still fight with him. Why, Mary? Is there something wrong with me?"
I had my head in her lap; she picked it up and kissed me. "Heavens, boy, don't you know? There's nothing really wrong with you; it's what has been done to you."
"But I've always been that way-until now."
"I know, ever since you were a child. No mother and an arrogantly brilliant father-you've been slapped around so much that you have no confidence in yourself."
Her answer surprised me so much that I reared up. Me? No confidence in myself? "Huh?" I said. "How can you say that? I'm the cockiest rooster in the yard."
"Yes. Or you used to be. Things will be better now." And there's where it stood for she took advantage of my change in position to stand up and say, "Let's go look at the sunset."
"Sunset?" I answered. "Can't be-we just finished breakfast." But she was right and I was wrong, a common occurrence.
The mix-up about the time of day jerked me back to reality. "Mary, how long have we been up here? What's the date?"
"Does it matter?"
"You're dam right it matters. It's been more than a week. I'm sure. One of these days our phones will start screaming and then it's back to the treadmill."
"In the meantime what difference does it make?"
She was right but I still wanted to know what day it was. I could have found out by switching on a stereo screen, but I would probably have bumped into a newscast-and I did not want that; I was still pretending that Mary and I were away in a different world, a safe world, where titans did not exist. "Mary," I said fretfully, "how many tempus pills have you?"
"None."
"Well-I've got enough for both of us. Let's stretch it out, make it last a long time. Suppose we have just twenty-four more hours; we could fine it down into a month, subjective time."
"No."
"Why not? Let's carpe that old diem before it gets away from us."
She put a hand on my arm and looked up into my eyes. "No, darling, it's not for me. I must live each moment as it comes and not let it be spoiled by worrying about the moment ahead." I suppose I looked stubborn for she went on, "If you want to take them, I won't mind, but please don't ask me to."
"Confound it. I'm not going on a joy ride alone." She did not answer, which is the damnedest way of winning an argument I know of.