Starplex

I'm a biologist, thought Rissa, and Keith's a sociologist. How did I ever end up a politician's wife, with him, me, and our marriage under the microscope?

She opened her mouth, about to tell Boxcar that it was nothing, nothing at all, that PHANTOM had mistaken fatigue or perhaps disappointment in the latest experiment's results for irony.

But then she thought, why the hell not? Why not discuss it with the Ib?

Gossiping was a failing of individual life-forms, not of gestalt beings.

And it would feel good — oh so very good — to get it off her chest, to be able to share it with someone.

"Well," she said — an articulated pause, giving herself one last chance to rein in her words. But then she pressed on: "Keith is getting old."

A slight ripple of lights on Boxcar's web.

"Oh, I know," said Rissa, lifting a hand. "He's young by Ibese standards, but, well, he is becoming middle-aged for a human. When that happens to a human female, we undergo chemical changes associated with the end of our childbearing years. Menopause, it's called."

Lights playing up the web; an Ibese nod.

"But for male humans, it isn't so cut-and-dried. As they feel their youth slipping away, they begin to question themselves, their accomplishments, their status in life, their career choices, and . . . well, whether they are still attractive to the opposite sex."

"And is Keith still attractive to you?"

Rissa was surprised by the question. "Well, I didn't marry him for his looks." That hadn't come out the way she'd intended. "Yes, yes, he's still attractive to me."

"It is doubtless wrong for me to remark upon this, and for that I apologize, but he is losing his hair."

Rissa laughed. "I'm surprised you would notice something like that."

"Without intending offense, please know that telling one human from another is difficult for us, especially when they are standing close by and so are visible to only part of our webs. We're attentive to individual details. We know how upsetting it is to humans to not be recognized by someone they think should know them. I have noticed both his loss of hair and its change of color. I have learned that such changes can signal a reduction in attractiveness."

"I suppose they can, for some women," said Rissa. But then she thought, this is silly. Dissembling to an alien. "Yes, I liked his looks better when he had a full head of hair. But it's such a minor point, really."

"But if Keith is still attractive to you, then — forgive my boundless ignorance — I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is that he doesn't care if he's still attractive to me.

Appealing to one's mate is taken as a given. I suppose that's why men in the past often put on weight after they'd gotten married. No, the question running through Keith's mind these days, I'm sure, is whether he's attractive to other women."

"And is he?"

Rissa was about to respond with a reflex "of course," but then paused to really consider the question — something she hadn't done before.

"Yes, I suppose he is. Power, they say, is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and Keith is the most powerful man in — in our space-going community."

"Then, begging forgiveness, what is the difficulty? It sounds as though he should have the answer to his question."

"The difficulty is that he may have to prove it to himself — prove that he's still attractive."

"He could conduct a poll. I know how much you humans rely on such information."

Rissa laughed. "Keith is more of… more of an empiricist," she said.

Her tone sobered. "He may wish to conduct experiments."

Two lights winking. "Oh?"

Rissa looked at a point high up on the wall. "Whenever we're in a social situation with other humans, he spends too much time with the other women present."

"How much is too much?"

Rissa frowned, then said, "More than he spends with me.

And often, he's off talking to women who are half his age — half my age."

"And this bothers you."

"I guess so."

Boxcar considered for a moment, then: "But is this not all natural? Something all men go through?"

"I suppose."

"One cannot fight nature, Rissa."

She gestured at the monitor, with the negative results of the last Hayflick-limit study still displayed on it. "So I'm beginning to find out."

Chapter V

"Get me a sample of the material those spheres are made of," barked Jag, standing up at his bridge station and looking at the director. Keith gritted his teeth, and thought, as he often did, of asking PHANTOM to translate Jag's words less directly, inserting the human niceties of "please" and "thank you."

"Should we send a probe?" Keith asked, looking at the Waldahud's four-eyed face. "Or do you want to go out yourself?" If the latter, thought Keith, I'd be glad to show you the airlock door.

"A standard atmospheric-sampling probe," said Jag. "The gravitational interplay between that many large bodies so close together must be complex. Whatever we send out might end up crashing into one of them."