Robert Heinlein - The Puppet Masters

Or maybe they were. Something Mary said led me to think that the Old Man and she had worked watch on and watch off, heel-and-toe, covering the city's main launching platform, once it was evident that there was a focal point active in the city. But that could not have been correct-the Old Man would not have neglected his job to search for one agent. I must have misunderstood her.

I never got a chance to pursue the subject; Mary did not like digging into the past. I asked her once why the Old Man had relieved her as a presidential guard. She said, "I stopped being useful at it," and would not elaborate. She knew that I eventually would learn the reason: that the slugs had found out about sex, thus rendering her no longer useful as a touchstone for possessed males. But I did not know it then; she found the subject repulsive and refused to talk about it. Mary spent less time borrowing trouble than anyone I ever knew.

So little that I almost forgot, during that holiday from the world, what it was we were up against.

Although she would not talk about herself, she let me talk about myself. As I grew still more relaxed and still happier I tried to explain what had been eating me all my life. I told her about resigning from the service and the knocking around I had done before I swallowed my pride and went to work for the Old Man. "I'm a peaceable guy," I told her, "but what's the matter with me? The Old Man is the only one I've ever been able to subordinate myself to-and I still fight with him. Why, Mary? Is there something wrong with me?"

I had my head in her lap; she picked it up and kissed me. "Heavens, boy, don't you know? There's nothing really wrong with you; it's what has been done to you."

"But I've always been that way-until now."

"I know, ever since you were a child. No mother and an arrogantly brilliant father-you've been slapped around so much that you have no confidence in yourself."

Her answer surprised me so much that I reared up. Me? No confidence in myself? "Huh?" I said. "How can you say that? I'm the cockiest rooster in the yard."

"Yes. Or you used to be. Things will be better now." And there's where it stood for she took advantage of my change in position to stand up and say, "Let's go look at the sunset."

"Sunset?" I answered. "Can't be-we just finished breakfast." But she was right and I was wrong, a common occurrence.

The mix-up about the time of day jerked me back to reality. "Mary, how long have we been up here? What's the date?"

"Does it matter?"

"You're dam right it matters. It's been more than a week. I'm sure. One of these days our phones will start screaming and then it's back to the treadmill."

"In the meantime what difference does it make?"

She was right but I still wanted to know what day it was. I could have found out by switching on a stereo screen, but I would probably have bumped into a newscast-and I did not want that; I was still pretending that Mary and I were away in a different world, a safe world, where titans did not exist. "Mary," I said fretfully, "how many tempus pills have you?"

"None."

"Well-I've got enough for both of us. Let's stretch it out, make it last a long time. Suppose we have just twenty-four more hours; we could fine it down into a month, subjective time."

"No."

"Why not? Let's carpe that old diem before it gets away from us."

She put a hand on my arm and looked up into my eyes. "No, darling, it's not for me. I must live each moment as it comes and not let it be spoiled by worrying about the moment ahead." I suppose I looked stubborn for she went on, "If you want to take them, I won't mind, but please don't ask me to."

"Confound it. I'm not going on a joy ride alone." She did not answer, which is the damnedest way of winning an argument I know of.

Not that we argued. If I tried to start one-which I did, more than once-Mary would give in and somehow it would work out that I was mistaken. I did try several times to find out more about her; it seemed to me that I ought to know something about the woman I was married to. To one question she looked thoughtful and answered presently, "I sometimes wonder whether I ever did have a childhood-or was it something I dreamed last night?"

I asked her point blank what her name was. "Mary," she said tranquilly.

"Mary really is your name, then?" I had long since told her my right name, but we had agreed to go on using "Sam".

"Certainly it's my name, dear. I've been 'Mary' since you first called me that."

"Oh. All right, your name is Mary. You are my beloved Mary. But what was your name before?"

Her eyes held an odd, hurt look, but she answered steadily, "I was once known as 'Allucquere'."

"'Allucquere'," I repeated, savoring it. "Allucquere. What a strange and beautiful name. Allucquere. It has a rolling majesty about it. My darling Allucquere."

"My name is Mary, now." And that was that. Somewhere, somewhen, I was becoming convinced, Mary had been hurt, badly hurt. But it seemed unlikely that I was ever going to know about it. She had been married before, I was fairly certain; perhaps that was it.

Presently I ceased to worry about it. She was what she was, now and forever, and I was content to bask in the warm light of her presence. "Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety."

I went on calling her "Mary" since she obviously preferred it and that was how I thought of her anyhow, but the name that she had once had kept running through my mind. Allucquere... Allucquere... I rolled it around my tongue and wondered how it was spelled.

Then suddenly I knew how it was spelled. My pesky packrat memory had turned up the right tab and now was pawing away at the shelves in the back of my mind where I keep the useless junk that I don't think about for years on end and am helpless to get rid of. There bad been a community, a colony that used an artificial language, even to given names-

The Whitmanites, that was it-the anarchist-pacifist cult that got kicked out of Canada, then failed to make a go of it in Little America. There was a book, written by their prophet. The Entropy of Joy-I had not read it but I had skimmed it once; it was full of pseudomathematical formulas for achieving happiness.

Everybody is for "happiness", just as they are against "sin", but the cult's practices kept getting them in hot water. They had a curious and yet very ancient solution to their sexual problems, a solution which appeared to suit them but which produced explosive results when the Whitmanite culture touched any other pattern of behavior. Even Little America had not been far enough away for them; I had heard somewhere that the remnants had emigrated to Venus-in which case they must all be dead by now.

I put it out of my mind. If Mary were a Whitmanite, or had been reared that way, that was her business. I certainly was not going to let the cult's philosophy cause us a crisis now or ever; marriage is not ownership and wives are not property.

If that were all there was to what Mary did not want me to know about her, then I simply would not know it. I had not been looking for virginity wrapped in a sealed package; I had been looking for Mary.

The next time I mentioned tempos pills, she did not argue but suggested that we hold it down to a minimum dose. It was a fair compromise-and we could always take more.

I prepared it as injections so that it would take hold faster. Ordinarily I watch a clock after I've taken tempus; when the second hand stops I know that I'm loaded. But my shack has no clocks and neither of us was wearing ringwatches. It was just sunrise and we had been awake all night, cuddled upon a big low half-moon couch in front of the fireplace.

We continued to lie there for a long time, feeling good and dreamy, and I was half considering the idea that the drug had not worked. Then I realized that the sun had stopped rising. I watched a bird fluttering past the view window. If I stared at him long enough, I could see his wings move.