Chapter 15 VENUS

 

 

The first problem was in making the trip to Venus. We had our own Triton Project ship, and I could pilot it alone-but boarding it was another matter. There would be fanfare and a farewell party, and it would be obvious that our party consisted of one tiger and two human beings, not one and three.

I decided to call on the Prime Minister for help. I asked for a concluding meeting with her, a private one, and when this was granted I explained: “You advised me of conditions on Jupiter. My sister has gone to investigate. Will you lend us one woman of her likeness to join our party, so that we can depart without my sister’s absence being known?”

She smiled. “I am glad you took my remarks to heart, Tyrant. For how long would you require this double?”

“Just to the ship. She can debark before we take off.”

“And what of your arrival at Venus? Won’t your sister be missed then?”

“My secretary is adept at impersonation. She can play the part of my sister.”

“And who plays the part of your secretary as their car conveys your party in style to your lodging?”

Was I getting confused in my age and infirmity? I hadn’t thought of that, and of course she was right. We could no more handle the arrival at Venus than we could the departure at Earth.

She put her hand on mine. “I can see how quickly you are lost without a woman to supervise your itinerary, Tyrant,” she said. “I will lend you one for the duration.”

“I wasn’t asking that,” I protested.

“When I said that Earth supports you, that is what I meant. She will be competent and discreet, and will not interfere with your private affairs. You may park her at our embassies at Venus and Mercury during your stays there, and pick her up when you travel. She will find her way home when you have no further need of her.”

I smiled. “You are very understanding.”

“I want the Triton Project to succeed, Tyrant. You are the only one who can bring that about.”

So it was that the woman I call Doppelganger, Doppie for short, joined our party. A doppelganger is a double, a person exactly like another, often in the supernatural sense. I knew her name at the time, but have forgotten it; I always thought of her as Doppie. It seemed that on a planet with five billion persons, one who resembled my sister should exist, and indeed it was so. Doppie was of a similar age and configuration, and I would have mistaken her for Spirit had I judged by sight alone. Her signals were wrong, of course, but most people were unable to read these, so for this purpose it didn’t matter.

We boarded the shuttle with the expected fanfare, and rode to Luna to board our own ship. Doppie played her part perfectly. The Prime Minister had done me a real favor, and I would not forget.

Again we used the projection tube to cover the distance between planets, so there was no long journey. Forta remained as herself, as we did not care to advertise her other relationship to me.

We were assigned a parking orbit about Venus, and an experienced local pilot picked us up and took us down into the cloud layer. We certainly required this assistance; not only were the clouds seemingly impenetrable, the winds were about a hundred meters a second at the top, and circled the planet in four Earth-days, though the rotation of the solid part of the planet was virtually nil. In addition, the atmosphere was much thicker than anything we had had experience with, being about ninety times the pressure of Earth’s at the surface. Of course there are much higher pressures in the giant planets, but Venus is smaller than Earth. We never descended to the ninety-bar region of Jupiter or Saturn; our bubbles weren’t braced for it. Here we did.

So we came down to the surprisingly dark and quiet landscape of Venus, where the wind was only one meter a second. The vehicle that awaited us was a squat thing with wheels, braced to withstand the horrendous pressure, as was the shuttle. Our ship would have been crushed before it reached the ground. I began to experience the claustrophobia of pressure again. The vacuum outside a spaceship I could handle without significant qualm, as long as I had a good suit, but the horrendous planetary pressures unmanned me.

Doppie, evidently coached on this, did what Spirit would have done: she put her hand quietly on mine, reassuringly. I wasn’t reassured, but I appreciated the gesture. For one thing, it lent verisimilitude; the driver would not suspect she was not my sister.

The terrain, as we saw it through the phenomenally thick porthole, was rough and rocky. Venus had been settled by northern Africa, and indeed the barren desert seemed to be equivalent. Here below the clouds it was possible to see some distance; I saw that there were mountains to the side. Our vehicle traveled a road that had been cleared of boulders, and was making good time; too good, for I feared its swiftness. If anything went wrong, and we crashed . . .

The dome was a dark mass, marked only by a locater beam on the top. It was formed of bubblene, of course, but of a thickness not seen elsewhere in the System. Only beneath the liquid oceans of Earth were residences placed under similar pressure, and there were few of those on Earth because it was so much easier to utilize the land surfaces and the shallow waters. Here on Venus there was no choice.

We entered the ponderous lock, and my claustrophobia abated somewhat. It was possible to imagine that this was a normal city, spinning in the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn or Uranus, beset by less than ten bars pressure. But I remained somewhat dazed, and really was not alert. My clearest memory of that approach is our arrival at the compact suite provided, where Forta dialyzed me. It seemed that every second event in my life had become the dialysis!

Forta arranged to drop Doppie off at the Earth embassy, as she was now off duty until we departed for Mercury. I’m not sure how they managed the transfer; I was out of it, sleeping, being baby-sat by Smilo. When I woke, Doppie was gone-and so was Forta. Instead, a new woman was with me: Coral.

Coral had been my bodyguard. She was oriental-that is, of Saturn derivation-and expert in personal defense. I had always felt secure when she was with me, though of course there were threats she had not been able to protect me from. She had been young and most attractive when she came to me, and when I separated from my wife she had been among those who had taken me as lover. She was healthy and athletic, and versed in the sexual lore of the East, and her liaisons had been a delight. When I saw her, I was gratified, for I knew that there would be marvelous times coming.

Of course it was Forta in another emulation. But she was so good at it that I simply accepted this manifestation as reality, maintaining only a technical reservation in my mind. The real Coral was now in her fifties, still attractive but not of the caliber she had been in her youth. This one was closer to thirty, and she virtually shone with health and vigor.

I watched as she removed her clothing, marveling yet again at the perfection of the emulation. Height, mass, skin color and tone, mannerisms-I doubt that anyone but me could have told her from the original, and I was half unsure. The body was compact and full, not at all like Forta’s. How did she manage that? By the signals, of course; she was projecting Coral, and so I received Coral, and my mind filled in the details that I knew were there. We seldom truly see others; we see our images of them, which do not necessarily correspond closely to the realities. Never before Forta had I appreciated how thoroughly this imaging process operates. Perhaps this is what makes helmet love so realistic: it activates the images we already possess, or the capacity to accept images in lieu of realities. Sometimes we much prefer those images.

Naked, she smiled at me. Then she came to me, and undressed me in the way Coral had, efficiently yet erotically.

Smilo yawned and retreated to his nest. The games that human beings played bored him. Now, if there had been another healthy tigress available, such as the one he had courted on Earth . . .

Some of the oriental sexual positions are heroic in the performance, but in deference to my weakness Coral did not lead into any of these. She merely put me supine on the bed and straddled me, so that I could see and touch her fine breasts and the rest of her without impediment while she made love to me. I really did not have to do anything, just relax and enjoy it, but I felt as if I were participating positively. At my age, there was no swift climax, but this had the advantage of giving me greater time to appreciate the act. Age does not necessarily diminish sexual pleasure; not if a person’s partner is understanding. Intimately connected, I was enjoying this to the full.

Then the phone rang.

“Ignore it!” I rapped, afraid she would jump up and leave me stranded in mid-act.

But it was persistent. “It may be important,” she said.

“Then I’ll answer it,” I snapped. “You stay put.”

She did, but she abated her stimulation, merely containing my member in a state of stasis. I spoke to the phone, “Orient on me, head only,” I told it.

The holo pickup swung across to hover above my head. I knew that it would project only what I had defined; phones were reasonably sophisticated appliances. There would be no evidence of my other activity, or even of my nakedness. “Tyrant here,” I said. “I am resting at the moment.”

The pickup disappeared into its projected image. It was the President of Atalanta, one of the more important planetary figures. Venus did mine iron, and was one of the more important System sources of it, though not in a class with Mars. However, there were a number of other strategic metals here, too, and the project needed them. I was here to deal; it behooved me to be polite, despite my predicament of the moment. “I apologize for disturbing you, Tyrant,” the President said diffidently. There was a small pause in the words; he was speaking Egyptian, and there was an ongoing machine translation.

“Quite all right,” I said graciously. “I expected to encounter you more formally at a later hour. I would have prepared.” For my hair was mussed, and of course it was evident that I was horizontal, not vertical; the pillow framed my head.

“Indeed, you shall,” he said quickly. “I should not have bothered you at this time. Perhaps if you transfer me to your secretary, we can make the arrangements.”

Everything had to be scripted just so! We couldn’t just talk. I understood that-but this request was distinctly awkward at the moment. “I think she is on another mission now,” I said cautiously, trying to see through his image to Forta’s face, but unable. “I regret-“

“Then your sister,” he said quickly. “I do not mean to inconvenience you.”

In the process of his politeness, he was doing just that! But what excuse could I make for Spirit? Naturally if my secretary were out, my sister would be here; it was known that the women of my staff never left me alone. To demur again would be to arouse suspicion, and that we could not afford. We wanted there to be absolutely no doubt about Spirit’s presence here.

Forta tapped me on the thigh, in a signal for affirmative. I felt her body twisting, though she did not lift herself from my torso. She was changing masks! Apparently she had anticipated the possibility of interruption, so had kept her kit handy. “Let me alert her,” I said. But I stalled for time, because I did not know how fast Forta could work in a situation like this. “I certainly appreciate your consideration, Mr. President.”

Of course he had to be gracious again. He was, and we exchanged further meaningless pleasantries before Forta tapped me again as the signal she was ready.

“Switch to Spirit,” I directed the phone. “Headshot only.”

The unit switched, rotating to orient on Forta’s head. Now I was able to see her as the holo image faded. She had indeed made the change, and now was Spirit from head to shoulders. She had even donned a blouse that was typical of my sister’s taste, in case the pickup should stray slightly. “Yes, Mr. President,” she said in Spirit’s voice.

Now the President’s head re-formed, facing her on the horizontal plane. It had been on the vertical plane for me, the holo aligning with what it took to be my proper orientation, so that he had seemed to hover right above me. I was treated to the view of a cross section of his neck and shoulders, where the image cut off, as though his top had been neatly separated and suspended above my bed. Above that I saw the back of his head, for of course the holo showed the complete object. At least, it did in this case; our pickup was of a simpler nature, so it only showed him the front portions of our faces. As the humor has it: How does a holo work? With mirrors. Anyway, he was facing Spirit, who saw the front of his face. “Welcome to Venus, Iron Maiden!” he exclaimed.

Forta was startled, and I felt it in that part of her body that didn’t show on the holo: the part embracing me. The term Iron Maiden had been applied to my sister from time to time, notably by the caustic columnist Thorley, because of her toughness in organizing the Tyrancy and in dealing with problems. She had been the backbone of the Tyrancy, while I was mostly its figurehead; the average man did not realize that, but Thorley of course had known. Though Thorley had resolutely opposed our exercise of power, the appellation had not been intended maliciously, and I rather liked it. But it was a surprise to me to hear it used in this context, and it was evidently more of a surprise to Forta.

But she had a role to play, and she rallied; only I knew her momentary confusion. “Thank you, Mr. President,” she replied, sending out Spirit-signals that he would receive unconsciously. That was the way her emulations worked; the average person came to accept them on the unconscious level, and so was completely convinced. All people read signals; I just happen to read them consciously, to my considerable advantage.

They went about the arrangements, and I was left to my own devices. I was struck by the oddity of the situation, not merely the matter of receiving a phone call while engaged in the act of love, but of being erotically connected to the nether aspect of a woman whose superior aspect was now that of my sister. To see her face, and hear her talk as Spirit, and then to trace my gaze down her body until the blouse ended and her bare flesh commenced, and on the site at which my own flesh penetrated hers-it was as though I were making love to my sister.

That shocked me on two levels. Of course I knew that it was not my sister, yet it summoned a long-buried memory of the time when I may indeed have made love to Spirit. I had been fifteen, and she twelve, and I had dreamed of love with my fiancee Helse; but when I woke I had known that Helse was dead, and there had been only Spirit. I had never since been quite certain of the truth of that situation, and had not dared to inquire. Certainly there had been nothing of that nature between us since, and I hadn’t thought about it-until this moment, when the question of it resumed with sudden force. But the other shock was perhaps more fundamental. One would expect that the appearance of making love to my sister would appall me, and send my body into an emotional retreat in disarray. Instead my body responded with greater urgency, throbbing with eagerness for the culmination. This dismayed me, but I could neither doubt its reality nor escape the situation I was in. I could not disengage while the President was on the phone.

I lay there, steeped in my shame, realizing that there was an aspect to my passion that I had long suppressed. As a youth of that same age I had seen my beautiful older sister raped, and though I was appalled, I had also suffered an erection. Did that mean that I secretly wanted to rape her too? Surely not! I had recoiled against sex, and against the male reaction, ashamed of my heritage, until Helse had taken me in hand and shown me what natural, unforced sex could be. Now I was back at that early pass, caught as it were between my sisters: the one for whom I may have illicitly lusted, and the one with whom I may have completed that lust. Where was my true desire?

Now I remembered what Roulette, my Navy wife, had said to Hopie, my adopted daughter: that the one woman I had truly loved in my life had been Hopie’s mother. I had always believed that I had loved two: Helse early and Megan late. But love has many facets, and in the total picture there was indeed one I loved more. That one was my sister Spirit.

But that had been familial love, not sexual love! Love and sex are not synonymous, though oft confused. One may have sex without love, as in the Navy, and love without sex, as in the family. Where the two overlap, ideally, is in marriage. How could anyone accuse me of the wrong type of love for my sister? I would do anything for her, and she likewise for me, but sex was not an aspect of that relationship.

Yet here I was, throbbing within the body of the emulation of my sister. My mind exonerated me, but my body condemned me.

Then their conversation concluded. The holo clicked off, and the unit swung out of range. Forta smiled at me apologetically, then pried at the edges of her mask and wedged it off, revealing her natural face, gummed with the adhesive for the mask. Then she applied the Coral mask, and rearranged her hair; since she had black hair, as did both my sister and Coral, she had not used a wig this time. She drew off the blouse, her breasts popping out from under it, and changed the signals. Coral was back. It was the first time I had actually watched a complete change, with clothing and mask. I was fascinated. And my erection remained almost painfully firm within her throughout. It was as though I were having intercourse with three women in succession, without withdrawing my member. I had lived a long time, and had experienced many things, but I think this was unique!

“Where were we?” Coral asked. She looked down at our connection. “Oh, yes, now I remember.”

I had to laugh, and it was good for me to laugh now, for it dissolved much of my tension and doubt. She could not know what had been running through my head, and I hoped she would never know.

She leaned down to kiss me, and her fine breasts lengthened toward me as if drawn by my proximity. I reached up and hugged her with my arms, pulling her fiercely in to me, and as our lips met I detonated in her with a seeming force that I thought I was no longer capable of. And she joined me, her body convulsing, legs and abdomen and mouth, climaxing with that abandon that supposedly exists only in legend. We threw our essence each into the other, each drawing from the other, in a union the like of which the description “sex” seems hardly to do justice.

In due course I held the formal meeting with the President. This was by holo, as was customary, with translations, but now our dialogue was official. It went, approximately, like this:

“What is your business with us, Tyrant?” the President inquired.

“I wish to enlist the participation of Venus in the Triton Project,” I replied. “We have need of the resources of Venus.”

“I can speak only for my own nation. We have many nations here, and we do not speak with a unified thrust. Atalanta would feel privileged to join you, but we are not a rich nation.”

“Our needs are in more than materials,” I said. “We plan to project ships of colonists to many other planets, elsewhere in the galaxy. We have little way of knowing what conditions they will face there, but there is a fair statistical probability that some will be like Venus. We wish to develop a residence that can be adapted readily to any of a number of high-pressure situations, without requiring sophisticated procedures or highly trained personnel. Perhaps a technique for building such a residence from natural materials found on such a planet.”

“But nothing is better than bubblene,” the President protested.

“Some systems may not possess gas giant planets,” I reminded him. “That would make bubblene impractical to cultivate-unless it could be done in the atmosphere of smaller planets, such as this one.”

This caught him by surprise. “Bubblene-grown here?”

“We believe that the proper formula for seeding, and null-gee laboratories floating at the critical levels, could make this possible,” I said. “If Atalanta and the other nations of Venus were to cooperate in such a project, none bearing the entire expense alone, the Triton Project would be prepared to supply expert personnel. I realize that this is a great deal to ask of you-“

“If such a thing should come to pass,” he said, hardly bothering to conceal his eagerness, “to whom would the rights to that process belong?”

“To Venus, of course,” I said. “With the Triton Project guaranteed the first licensing rights for other systems. Those of the Solar System would be entirely yours.”

It was as if a calculator were clicking in his head. Bubblene, the stuff of city-bubbles, was the most precious stuff in the System. The giant planets had had a monopoly on it, because it could be grown only in their massive atmospheres. To break that monopoly, to make it possible for a small planet to produce it-that was the stuff of dreams. If successful in this, Venus would become a major economic power in the System.

“And the Triton Project would expect to pay for its right to license this technology in other systems by granting Venus appropriate colonization rights in the galaxy,” I continued after a pause.

The President licked his lips. “Tyrant, I cannot speak for other nations, but I am sure that if you approach them similarly-“

“I shall be happy to,” I said.

“But who will supervise the research? We of the planet of love tend to have certain territorial jealousies ...”

“I will supervise it, through duly appointed intermediaries,” I said.

“So it will be an aspect of the Tyrancy.”

“Of the Triton Project,” I said. “Which is under the joint auspices of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their client bodies. I merely represent their interests.”

“The Tyrancy,” he repeated as if he hadn’t heard. But our meeting was being recorded; my qualification was on the record. I was the Tyrant, but I claimed no power in my own right; I was working for others, and it was important that I maintain that distinction.

 

* * *

 

 

I traveled, bringing my tiger and my message to each of the leading nations of Venus. I never got used to the inordinate pressure of the atmosphere, and Forta had to sedate me for the longer trips across the surface. Thus my memory is hazy about the details, but I believe we traveled mostly by high-velocity rail, the train zooming along its set track with all the authority of singlemindedness. We covered the lowlands, or Planitia, of Niobe, Leda, Aino, Lavinia, Guinevere, and Sedna. We covered the highlands, or Terra, such as Ishtar, Aphrodite, and Rhea. We covered the regions between, stopping at the major city-domes. All this took time, for the land surface of Venus, being free of water, is much greater than that of Earth or Mars or any other solid planet; Venus is in fact huge when seen from the ground. Each nation required its own presentation and its own acquiescence. But in due course they did agree, and Venus, under the loose authority of the Tyrant, joined the Triton Project.

I need not relate further the problems we had concealing Spirit’s absence from our party, or my own diminished condition of health. We never had quite as close a call as that first one, but many times we had to do fancy footwork. Sometimes Forta emulated Spirit, and on occasion she even emulated me, so that I could appear healthy and vigorous when in fact I was in the middle of dialysis. She was a wonder! I was bemused to see myself as others saw me, signals and all, and not totally pleased; still, the truth is the truth. I was no longer young, or even middle-aged, and it showed unconscionably.

But privately I was in a kind of a state of shock for some time. The experience of being in a woman who looked and sounded exactly like my sister preyed upon my mind, of course. But the worst part of it was my own reaction of the time, which had been positive rather than negative. I should have become instantly impotent, easy enough physically in my weakened state, and I had not. I condemned myself for that. All these years, these decades-had I secretly lusted for Spirit?

Forta became Coral, and tempted me, but my ardor was less than it should have been. This, too, bothered me. The real Coral had been a wonderful person and a terrific lover, and no doubt remained so today, for she was alive on Jupiter, as many of my women were. The emulation-Coral was in all ways equivalent; I could fault no part of Forta’s impersonation. Why had I been potent for my sister, and not for my lover?

Actually, I reminded myself, I had been potent with Coral-but that had been in the same sequence as the manifestation of Spirit. That climax could have been a mere surrogate for the temptation just past. Who can say what is in a man’s mind as he embraces a woman, thinking of another? Was Spirit the one I truly desired? If so, how could I ever face my sister again, in reality?

Over and over I rehearsed it in my mind, trying to avoid the conclusion that threatened. I had been making love to Coral, and was already deep within her when the call had interrupted. Then Forta had changed masks, appearing as Spirit, then momentarily in her own guise, and finally, at the end, as Coral. And we had had the most emphatic culmination of all.

Then, on perhaps the tenth or the hundredth rendering of that sequence in my troubled mind, it dawned. Like sunlight striking through the impenetrable cloud cover of Venus to illuminate the surface, understanding came to me.

“It’s all right!” I exclaimed joyfully.

Forta jumped. “I should hope so,” she said, quickly re-checking the tubing. For it happened that I was amidst dialysis at the time; it is as good a time as any for reflection.

“I mean me!” I cried. “I’m not perverted!”

“Tyrant, I never suggested that you were,” she said, still troubled by my inexplicable activity. Normally I lay on the bed during dialysis, reading or thinking or sleeping.

“Come and make love to me,” I said.

Again she was taken aback. “Now?”

“This instant!”

“But you are in-“

“Woman, I know exactly where I am! Just strap down the tubing and be careful not to jog it; it won’t interfere.

Get your clothes off.” Meanwhile, I was struggling with my own as my member swelled imperatively.

“I’ll change,” she said. She meant her personality, becoming Coral.

“No! As you are!”

She gazed at me, perplexed. “Tyrant-“

“Just do it, woman! I’ll explain after!”

Hesitantly, she obliged, evidently ready at any moment for me to change my mind. Her lanky body came into view, well formed but by no means spectacular; she only became impressive when she used her supports and makeup and posture and signals to complete an emulation. Now she was doing none of this, and it showed. She was herself, and none too sure of herself.

I gestured her in. She got on the bed cautiously, on hands and knees, straddling me. I reached up and grabbed her hanging breasts in my two hands, hauling them down to my face, while her body followed to accommodate my urgency. I pressed her breasts into my cheeks on either side, and kissed the deep hollow between. Then my hands slid down and around to cup her buttocks, which were somewhat spare in this position.

Obeying my desire, she straightened out her legs and got into position to take in my member. It was the position Helse had used, when I was fifteen, but this was not Helse. Her weight settled down on me, her legs outside mine, her breasts against my chest, her face above mine, perplexed.

I stared at that deeply scarred visage. Then I took her head in my hands and brought her face down to meet mine. I kissed her savagely, my tongue forcing its way into her reluctant mouth. I bucked against her, but neither my position nor my strength was sufficient to enable me to gain the action I needed to complete the act.

Taking her cue from me, Forta began to move her torso, bringing her abdomen forward, then back, up and then down. It was the reverse of the thrusting done by a man; her downstroke was the one that gave me the deepest penetration. Working that way, she brought me to the highest pitch, and then to the culmination, our mouths still joined.

Gasping with the fulfillment, I broke the kiss but not the embrace. Her head rested lightly against my shoulder as I stroked my hands along her back. “Forta, it’s you, it’s you!” I whispered beside her right ear.

Now she lifted her head. “Me?”

I gazed at her face again. “You are beautiful, Forta,” I . said.

“Tyrant, I-“

“Call me Hope, Forta. You are my lover now. Not Coral, not Shelia, not Emerald or Juana. Not Spirit! You, Forta, you!”

“But I am not-“

“Not ugly,” I finished firmly. “I see your scars; they are as the craters on the planet of love, affecting the surface in immaterial ways, not changing the reality. Your facial structure, your bones-you have a lovely face, Forta, and for the first time I am seeing it truly. It is like a work of art, that must be viewed from a distance lest the roughness of the palette knife distort the vision. Viewed with understanding. Your face is beautiful-but even if it were not, and I not privileged to see the physical reality of it under the mask of scars, I would know you to be a beautiful woman. I am chagrined that it took me so long to perceive the obvious! You were there all the time, concealing your splendor behind a mask that should not have deceived me for a moment. But now I see, and I don’t need any of those masks anymore; you are my mistress now.”

She looked at me, still not quite accepting it.

“When we were interrupted by that call from the President of Atalanta, and you changed masks-I thought I was attracted to the simulation of my sister,” I continued. “But that wasn’t it. It was you, in your versatility, all women in one. For the first time I saw it happening, and I saw you in the middle, between masks, and my ardor was undiminished. That was what tuned me on: the realization that you in reality were more than any of the emulations. Coral was not a surrogate for Spirit; they both were surrogates for you, Forta. Now the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see you as you are.” And I hauled her face down for another kiss.

She resisted. “Hope, this is too quick,” she protested.

“You are not in the best condition. You must take time to decide whether-“

“It’s late for that,” I said. “We have already made love in the natural state.” Indeed, we were still connected, though the sexual fervor was past.

She had to laugh ruefully, and I felt that laugh all the way down. “If you are sure, Hope-“

“Just lie with me,” I said.

She put her head down again, and we lay embraced while the dialysis proceeded. It was as though this time it had cleaned not only my body but my mind.

Next day she looked askance at me, for no given reason. I kissed her. “I may be slow, but I’m sure,” I said. “Once I learn something, I don’t soon forget it. You need no more masks for me.”

She turned away, but I would not let her go. “You are crying,” I said. “Is my acceptance so hard to accept?”

“Megan told me it would be this way, but I did not let myself believe,” she said.

“That it might take me years, but that eventually I would perceive your true beauty?”

“Yes. But I am happy to use the masks. It is my specialty.”

“Use the masks, do the emulations when you wish,” I said. “I like variety, and you have given me the most. But now you are the main object, not the emulations. You may love me as yourself.” For she loved me, of course; I had long since read the signals. All my women did.

Her face turned back to me, all teary, and I kissed her again. Megan had been right: though I was partial to physical beauty, I was not entirely opaque to inner quality, and now that I had seen Forta as she was, she would never appear ugly to me again. Actually, Megan herself had been a precedent; she had been beautiful when I met her, but not young, and I had loved her in large measure for her inner qualities. Megan had proved, once again, just how well she knew me.

So, as we completed our circuit of the planet of love, returning to pick Doppie up from the Earth embassy in Atalanta so that we could proceed to Mercury, we had discovered our own kind of love, and that was worth the journey quite apart from the technical or economic mission.