Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"He does play chess there."

"Father plays a fine game of billiards, too. Go ahead, darling-Lazarus. I'm willing to believe. Maybe we'll find something."

"Well, I don't think I'll look up your mother; I don't think I would get along with a woman who thinks sex is something to 'put up with.'"

"I got along with Mother only by lying to her. Father reared me far more than she did. I was his favorite. He let it show, which is why I'm careful not to let it show with Wood-row. Go on, Theodore. Lazarus."

"That's all of my ancestors you are related to. Except one. Our stowaway. Maureen, I'm descended from you and Brian through Woodie."

She gasped. "Really? Oh, I hope it's true!"

"True as taxes, beloved. And it may have saved his life. I've never been closer to infanticide than I was when we found him in the back seat."

She giggled. "Darling, I felt the same way. But I won't let anger show in my voice even if I'm about to switch a child."

"I hope I didn't show anger. But I felt it. Beloved, I was so hard I ached-until we found Woodrow. Honey love, I was rarin' to go!"

"And I was just as ready! Oh, Theodore-Lazarus-it's so sweet to be open with you. Uh...yes, you're quite hard now."

"Easy there!-don't make me climb the curb. I have been ever since we left the house except when I forced it down. But the one Woodie ruined was bigger and better."

"Size isn't important, Theodore-Lazarus; a woman must fit any size. Father told me that long ago and taught me exercises for it-and I never told Brian; I let him think that was simply how I am-and accepted his compliments smugly. I still exercise regularly-because my birth canal has been stretched again and again and again by babies' skulls and if I didn't exercise those muscles I would be, in Father's salty language, 'loose as a goose.' And I do so want to stay desirable to Brian as many years as possible."

"And to the iceman and the milkman and the postman- and the boy who drives the grocery wagon."

"Tease. I'd like to stay young there till I die."

"You will, you eighteen-year-old prospective grandmother. Let's get our minds off sex and back to time travel; I'm still looking for a proof. So that you will know why I am certain that Brian came back okay. But to stop your worry it must be something that happens soon and certainly before Woodie's birthday."

"Why Woodrow's birthday?"

"Didn't I get that far? This war ends on Woodie's next birthday, the eleventh of November." He added, "I'm certain of that, it's a key date in history. But I'm racking my brain for some event between now and then-as soon as possible, to stop your worries. But-oh, shucks, dear, I made a silly mistake. I meant to arrive after this war is over. But I gave my computer one critical figure with an error in it-just a little one, but it made me arrive three years too soon. Not her fault; she accepts any data I give her, and she's as accurate a computer as ever conned a ship. Not a fatal error, either; I'm not lost in time, my ship will pick me up in 1926 exactly ten Earth years after she dropped me. But that's why I didn't study the history of the next few months; I expected to skip this war. I'm not studying Wars; histories are full of wars. I'm studying how people live."

"Theodore...I'm confused."

"I'm sorry, darling. Time travel is confusing."

"You speak of a computer, and I'm not sure what you mean...and you said 'she' conns-whatever that means-a ship that will pick you up...in 1926? And I don't understand any of it."

Lazarus sighed. "That's why I never intended to tell anyone. But I had to tell you-so that you could stop worrying. My ship is a spaceship-like Jules Verne, only more so. A starship, I live on a planet a long way off. But it is a timeship, too; she travels in both space and time and it's too complicated to explain. The computer is the ship's brain-a machine, a very complex machine. My ship is named 'Dora' and the machine, the computer, that conns it-runs it-steers it-is called Dora, too; that's the name she answers to when I speak to her. She's a very intelligent machine and can talk. Oh, there is a crew, two of my sisters-so of course they are descended from you, too, and they look like you. A crew is necessary- can't let a ship go running around by itself-except automatic freighters on precalculated runs-but Dora does the hard work, and Laz and Lor-Lapis Lazuli Long and Lorelei Lee Long-tell Dora what to do and let her do it." He squeezed Mrs. Smith's thigh and grinned. "If that air blast bad kept your skirts up two seconds longer, I would know more about how closely they resemble you-as they usually run around naked. They look like you in the face. Bodies, too, from that too-short glimpse of your lovely legs. Except that Laz and Lor are freckled all over as solidly as Marie is on her face."

"I'd be that freckled if I didn't stay out of the sun. When I was Marie's age Father called me 'Turkey Egg.' But all over? They don't wear any clothes?"

"Oh, they enjoy fancy dress for parties. Or the weather might be cold-but it rarely is; we live in a climate like southern Italy. They don't wear anything very often." Lazarus smiled and caressed her thigh. "They don't need to leave their bloomers home to be ready for lovemaking; they don't own any bloomers. They aren't a bit shy. They would be delighted to trip your father; they like older men-they're much younger than I am."

"Lazarus...how old are you?"

Lazarus hesitated. "Maureen, I don't want to answer that. I'm older than I look; Ira Howard's experiment was successful. Instead let me tell you about my family. Your family, too; we all are descended from you by one line or another. Two of my wives and one of my co-husbands are descended both from Nancy and from Woodie."

"'Wives? Co-husband?'"

"Sweetheart, marriage takes many forms. Where I live you don't need a divorce or a death to gather in someone you love. I have four wives and three co-husbands-and my sisters, Laz and Lor...and they may marry out of the family or they may stay-and don't look startled; you said you didn't fret when you thought I was your half brother-and don't worry about harm to babies; they know far more about such things at that when-&-where-than they do in the here-&-now. We don't risk harm to babies.

"Of which we have plenty. And cats and dogs and anything a child can pet and take care of. It's a real family in a house to fit a big family.

"I can't tell you about each one; we've got to get our stowaway home. But I want to tell you about one-because you've been insisting that you don't look eighteen-merely because you've been using your breasts to feed babies. Tamara. Descended from you through Nancy and her Jonathan- Want to hear about Nancy's umpty-ump granddaughter? Tamara is about two hundred and fifty years old, I think-"

"Two hundred and fifty!"

"Yes. One of my co-husbands, Ira Weatheral, also from Nancy and Jonathan but from Woodie, too-and named for your father, not for Ira Howard-is over four hundred years old. Maureen, Ira Howard's experiment worked; we have longer life-spans-inherited from you and all our Howard ancestors-but also in that when-&-where they know how to rejuvenate a person. Tamara has had two rejuvenations-one recently and looks as young as you do. Real rejuvenation- Tamara was pregnant when I left.

"But how she looks is not important; Tamara is a healer- and I suspect she gets it from you."

"Theodore-Lazarus-again I don't understand. A healer? Like a faith healer?"

"No. If Tamara has a religious faith, she has never mentioned it. Tamara is calm and happy and serene, and anyone around her feels it so strongly-just as with you, darling!- that he or she is happy, too. If people are ill, they get well faster if Tamara touches them, or talks to them, or sleeps with them.

"But Tamara was not young when I met her. She was quite old and thinking about letting it go at that, dying of old age. But I was ill, very ill, sick in my soul-and Ishtar, later my wife and the topnotch rejuvenator in all the Milky Way, went out and fetched Tamara. Tamara. Little round potbelly, breasts that were really baggy, sags under her eyes, and her chin, all the old-age things.