_ you, then, if I asked you to?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Answer that yourself."

"And it was 'nothing much,' it says here in fine print. But I think I
know just about what it was. Don't I?"

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"You knocked hell out of yourself, didn't you?"

"I lied to her about that. I'm still trying to."

"So I've got to do it to myself. And I haven't started yet?"

"Check. But you're several years younger than I am, you know."

* * *

Belle thought it over for a minute, then stubbed out her cigarette and
shrugged her shoulders. "No sale. Put it back on the shelf. I like me
better the way I am. That is, I _think_ I do.... In a way, though, I'm
sorry, Clee darling."

"Darling? Something new has been added. I wish you really meant that,
ace."

"I'm still 'ace' after what I just said? I'm glad, Clee. 'Ace' is ever
so much nicer than 'chum.'"

"Ace. The top of the deck. You are, and always will be."

"As for meaning it, I wish I didn't." Ready for bed, Belle was much more
completely and much less revealingly dressed than during her working
hours. She slid into bed beside him, pulled the covers up to her chin,
and turned off the light by glancing at the switch. "If I thought
anything could ever come of it, though, I'd do it if I had to pound
myself unconscious with a club. But I wouldn't be here, then,
either--I'd scoot into my own room so fast my head would spin."

"You wouldn't have to. You wouldn't be here."

"I wouldn't, at that. That's one of the things I like so much about you.
But honestly, Clee--seriously, screens-down honestly--can you see any
possible future in it?"

"No. Neither of us would give that much. Neither of us can. And there's
nothing one-sided about it; I'm no more fit to be a husband than you are
to be a wife. And God help our children--they'd certainly need it."

"We'd never have any. I can't picture us living in marriage for nine
months without committing at least mayhem. Why, in just the little time
we've been paired, how many times have you thrown me out of this very
room, with the fervent hope that I'd drown in deep space before you ever
saw me again?"

"At a guess, about the same number of times as you have stormed out
under your own power, slamming the door so hard it sprung half the seams
of the ship and swearing you'd slice me up into sandwich meat if I ever
so much as looked at you again."

"That's what I mean. But how come we go