In the spring the cherry blossoms are heavy in the air over the campus
of Solarian Institute of Science and Humanities. On a small slope that
rims the park area, Cameron Wilder lay on his back squinting through the
cloud of pink-white petals to the sky beyond. Beside him, Joyce Farquhar
drew her jacket closer with an irritated gesture. It was still too cold
to be sitting on the grass, but Cameron didn't seem to notice it--or
anything else, Joyce thought.
"If you don't submit a subject for your thesis now," she said, "you'll
take another full six months getting your doctorate. Sometimes I think
you don't really want it!"
Cameron stirred. He shifted his squinting gaze from the sky to Joyce and
finally sat up. But he was staring ahead through the trees again as he
took his pipe from his pocket and began filling it slowly.
"I _don't_ want it if it's not going to mean anything after I get it,"
he said belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some
silly subject like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to
the Martian Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the butt of
enough ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your
life you get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the
specialty you worked in and threatens to read your thesis."
"Nobody's asking you to do anything you don't want to. But _you_ picked
the field of sociology to work in. Now I don't see why you have to act
such a purist that it takes months to find a research project for your
degree. Pick something--anything!--I don't care what it is. But if you
don't get a degree and an appointment out of the next session I don't
think we'll ever get married--not ever."
Cameron removed his pipe from his mouth with a precise grip and
considered it intently as it cupped in his hands. "I'm glad you
mentioned marriage," he said. "I was just about to speak of it myself."
"Well, don't!" said Joyce. "After three years--Three years!"
He turned to face her and smiled for the first time. He liked to lead
her along occasionally just to watch her explode, but he was not always
sure when he had gone too far. Joyce had a mind like a snapping, random
matching calculator while he operated more on a slow, carefully shaping
analogue basis, knowing things were never quite what they seemed but
trying to get as close an approximation of the true picture as possible.
"Will you marry me now?" he said.
The question did not seem to startle her. "No degree, no
appointment--and no chance of getting one--we couldn't even get a
license. I hope you aren't suggesting we try to get along without one,
or on a forgery!"
Cameron shook his head. "No, darling, this is a perfectly bona fide
proposal, complete with license, appointment, the works--what do you
say?"
"I say this spring sun is too much for you." She touched the dark mass
of his hair, warmed by the sun's rays, and put her head on his shoulder.
She started to cry. "Don't tease me like that, Cameron. It seems like
we've been waiting forever--and there's still forever ahead of us. You
can't do anything you want to--"
Cameron put his arms about her, not caring if the whole Institute
faculty leaned out the windows to watch. "That's why you should
appreciate being about to marry such a resourceful fellow," he said more
gently. And now he dropped all banter. "I've been thinking about how
long it's been, too. That's why I decided to try to kill a couple of
sparrows with one pebble."