e kept on fighting with
him and they wouldn't have been married and had any children for
positively _years_. So now she'll have the first double-Prime baby and
it ought to be _mine_. I'm older than she is--our group is 'way ahead of
theirs--we have the first and _only_ starship--and then you do _that_.
And you wouldn't give _me_ that treatment. Oh, no--just to _her_, that
bleached-blonde! I'd like to strangle you to death with my own bare
hands!"

"What a hell of a logic!" Garlock had been trying to keep his own temper
in leash, but the leash was slipping. "Assume I tried to work on
you--assume I succeeded--what would you be? What would I have? What age
do you think this is--that of the Vikings? When SOP in getting a wife
was to beat her unconscious with a club and drag her into the longboat
by her hair? Hardly! I do not want and will not have a conquered woman.
Nor a spoiled-rotten, mentally-retarded brat...."

"You unbearable, conceited, overbearing jerk! Why, I'd rather...."

"Get out! And _this_ time, _stay_ out!"

Belle got out--and if door and frame had not been built of super-steel,
both would have been wrecked by the blast of energy she loosed in
closing the door behind her.

In her own room, with Gunther blocks full on, she threw herself face
down on the bed and cried as she had not cried since she was a child.

And finally, without even taking off her clothes, she cried herself to
sleep.

CHAPTER 8

Next morning, early, Belle tapped lightly on Garlock's door.

"Come in."

She did so. "Have you had your coffee?"

"Yes."

"So have I."

Neither Belle nor Garlock had recovered; both faces showed strain and
drain.

"I think we'd better break this up," Belle said, quietly.

"Check. We'll have to, if we expect to get any work done."

Belle could not conceal her surprise.

"Oh, not for the reason you think," Garlock went on, quickly. "Your
record as a man-killer is still one hundred point zero zero zero
percent. I've been in love with you ever since we paired. Before that,
even."

"Flapdoodle!" she snorted, inelegantly. "Why, I...."

"Keep still a minute. And I'm not going to fight with you again. Ever.
I'm not going to touch you again until I can control myself a lot better
than I could last night."

"Oh? That was mostly my fault, of course. But in love? Uh-uh, I've seen
men in love. You aren't. I couldn't make you be, not with the best I
could do. Not even in bed. You aren't, Clee