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Ma
"So do I. Here, take the kitten; I gotta pee. Then I vote for some sleep."
"Me, too. Both. My, it feels good to get out of bed and stroll to the jakes without having to hop."
We had cuddled up together, lights out, her head on my shoulder and the kitten wandering around the bed somewhere, both of us about to sleep, when she murmured, "Richard.
Forgot... Ezra-"
"Forgot what?" "His legs. When... he first walked on them... with crutches.
Three days ago I think... 'bout three months back for me. Xia 'n' I congratulated Ezra... horizontally."
"The best way."
'Took him to bed. Wore him out."
"Good girls. What else is new?"
She seemed to have dropped off to sleep. Then she barely muttered. "Wyoming."
"What, dear?" "Wyoh, my daughter. Little girl playing in fountain... you
'member?"
"Yes, yes! Yours? Oh, grand!"
"Meet'r... 'n morning. Named for... Mama Wyoh. Lazarus-"
"She's a daughter of Lazarus?"
"Guess so. Ishtar says. Cer'nly had lots... opportunity."
I tried to picture the child's face. A pixie, with bright red hair. "Looks more like you."
Hazel did not answer. Her breathing was slow and even.
I felt paws on my chest, then a tickle on my chin. "Blert?"
"Quiet, baby; Mama's sleeping."
The kitten settled down, went to sleep himself. So I finished the day as I had begun it, with a baby cat asleep on my chest.
It had been a busy day.
XXVII
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."
CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 1832-1898
"Gwendolyn my love." Hazel stopped with a teethclean in hand, looked startled.
"Yes, Richard?"
"This is our first a
"Both. Plus a special treat. But eat first. As for my arithmetic, attend me. It is our a
"I do not! Doesn't count. Like time spent in Brooklyn." "And you tell me that I have been here thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine days, more or less. But it is not thirty-nine days to me, Gwen Hazel, as Allah will not subtract from my allotted time those days spent in the Lethe field, so I don't count them. Hell, I wouldn't believe in them if it weren't that I now have two feet-"
"You're complaining?"
"Oh, no! Except that I now have to cut twice as many toenails-"
"Blert!"
"What do you know about it? You don't have toenails; you have claws. And you scratched me in the night, you did. Yes, you did-don't look i
"Yes. Isn't she lovely?"
"Wasn't she! Past tense, dear. If what I've been told is true, her ethereal beauty has been dust for more than two thousand years. Rest in peace. Then we went to Rainbow's End for a late supper and a total stranger had the bad taste to get himself abruptly dead at our table. Whereupon you raped me."
"Not at the table!"
"No, in my bachelor's apartment."
"And it wasn't rape."
"We need not fight over it since you repaired my tarnished reputation before noon the next day. Our wedding day, my true love. Mistress Gwendolyn Novak and Dr. Richard Ames a
"I'm not likely to forget it!"
"Me, too. That evening we got out of town fast, with the sheriff's hounds a-snappin' and a-yappin' at our heels. We slept that night in Dry Bones Pressure. Right?"
"Right so far."
"The next day, Wednesday the second, Gretchen drove us to Lucky Dragon Pressure. We slept that night in Dr. Chan's place. The following day, Thursday the third. Auntie drove us toward Hong Kong Luna, but not all the way because we encountered those eager agrarian reformers. You drove the rest of the way and we wound up at Xia's hotel so late at night that it was hardly worthwhile to go to bed. But we did. That puts us into Friday the fourth of July. Independence Day. Check?"
"Check."
"We were roused out-I was roused out; you were already up-I was roused out too soon late Friday morning.., and learned that City Hall did not like me. But you and Auntie sprung me-sprang me?-sprung me ... and we left for Luna City so fast I left my toupee hanging in the air."
"You don't wear a toupee." "Not anymore, I don't; it's still hanging there. We arrived L-City circa sixteen hundred that same Friday. You and I had a difference of opinion-"
"Richard! Please don't dig up my past sins." "-which was soon cleared up as I saw the error of my ways and craved pardon. We slept that night at the Raffles; it was still Friday the fourth of July when we went to bed. We had started that day many klicks west of there, with freedom fighters getting gay with guns. Still with me?"
"Yes. Somehow in my memory it feels much longer." "A honeymoon is never long enough and we're having a busy one. The next morning, Saturday the fifth, we retained Ezra, then we went to the Warden's Complex... came back and were waylaid at the entrance to the Raffles. So we left the Raffles hurriedly, in a cloud of corpses, escaping by courtesy of Gay Deceiver and the Time Corps. Most briefly we were in the land of my i
"That 'Sunday' night I slept with Xia, Gretchen, Minerva, Galahad, Pixel, and possibly Tom, Dick, and Harry and their sheilas Agnes, Mabel, and Becky."
"Who are they? The girls, I mean; I know those boys. Too well."
"You poor, sweet, i
"You are welcome, sirrah. But the pleasure was shared. I now see how you arrived at that date. Both by dirtside calendar and your biological clock-the basic clock, as every timejump-er knows-today is Tuesday the eighth of July. Happy A
We stopped to swap some spit and Hazel cried and my eyes got watery.
Breakfast was swell. That's all the description I can give it because Gwen Hazel decided to treat me to Tertian cooking and consulted with Dora under a hushfield, and I et what was sot before me, as the Iowa farmer had carved on his tombstone. And so did Pixel, who had some specials that looked like garbage to me but tasted like ambrosia to him, as proved by his behavior.
We had just finished our second cups of-no, it was not coffee-and were about to slip over to the Long mansion for my "special treat," i.e., for me to meet my new daughter, Wyoming Long... when Dora spoke up: