All Vyrko's pent-up boredom and irritation erupted. "You're beautiful,
Lavra, or you were a few months ago, but you're an idiot. I am not in
the habit of loving idiots."
"But you...."
"I tried to assure the perpetuation of the race--questionable though
the desirability of such a project seems at the moment. It was not an
unpleasant task, but I'm damned if it gives you the right in perpetuity
to pester me."
She moaned a little as he slammed out of the room. He felt oddly
better. Adrenalin is a fine thing for the system. He settled into a
chair and resolutely read, his eyes bugging like a cover-monster's with
amazed disbelief. When he reached the verbatim account of the quarrel
he had just enjoyed, he dropped the magazine.
It sounded so petty in print. Such stupid inane bickering in the face
of.... He left the magazine lying there and went back to the hydroponic
room.
Lavra was crying--noiselessly this time, which somehow made it worse.
One hand had automatically plucked a ripe grape, but she was not eating
it. He went up behind her and slipped his hand under her long hair and
began stroking the nape of her neck. The soundless sobs diminished
gradually. When his fingers moved tenderly behind her ears, she turned
to him with parted lips. The grape fell from her hand.
"I'm sorry," he heard himself saying. "It's me that's the idiot. Which,
I repeat, I am not in the habit of loving. And you're the mother of my
twins and I do love you...." And he realized that the statement was
quite possibly, if absurdly, true.
"I don't want anything now," Lavra said when words were again in order.
She stretched contentedly, and she was still beautiful even in the
ungainly distortion which might preserve a race. "Now what were you
trying to tell me?"
* * * * *
He explained. "And this Holt is always right," he ended. "And now he's
writing about us!"
"Oh! Oh, then we'll know--"
"We'll know everything. We'll know what the yellow bands are and what
becomes of them and what happens to mankind and--"
"--and we'll know," said Lavra, "whether it's a boy or a girl."
Vyrko smiled. "Twins, I told you. It runs in my family--no less than
one pair to a generation. And I think that's it--Holt's already planted
the fact of my having a twin named Vrist, even though he doesn't come
into the action."
"Twins.... That _would_ be nice. They wouldn't be lonely until we
could.... But get it quick, dear. Read it to me; I can't wait!"
So he read Norbert Holt's story to her--too excited and too oddly
affectionate to point out that her long-standing aversion for print
persisted even when she herself was a character. He read on past the
quarrel. He read a printable version of the past hour. He read about
himself reading the story to her.
"Now!" she cried. "We're up to _now_. What happens next?"
Vyrko read:
The emotional release of anger and love had set Vyrko almost at
peace with himself again; but a small restlessness still nibbled
at his brain.
Irrelevantly he remembered Kirth-Labbery's cryptic hint of escape.
Escape for the two of them, happy now; for the two of them and for
their ... it had to be, according to the odds, their twins.
He sauntered curiously into the laboratory, Lavra following him. He
drew back the curtain and stared at the chair of metal rods. It was
hard to see the control board that seemed to control nothing. He
sat in the chair for a better look.
He made puzzled grunting noises. Lavra, her curiosity finally
stirred by something inedible, reached over his shoulder and poked
at the green button.
* * * * *
"I don't like that last thing he says about me," Lavra objected. "I
don't like anything he says about me. I think your Mr. Holt is a very
nasty person."
"He says you're beautiful."
"And he says you love me. Or does he? It's all mixed up."
"It is all mixed up ... and I do love you."