"May I come in?" she called out.

"Sure, sure!" I said, "Plenty of room." I opened the door and looked at her. She looked good. For a moment she stood there, letting me look but with a sweet shyness on her face that I had never seen before.

I put on an expression of utter surprise and said, "Honey! What's the matter? Are you sick?"

She looked startled out of her wits and said, "Me? What do you mean?"

"There's not a gun on you anywhere."

She giggled and came at me. "Idiot!" she squealed and started to tickle me. I got her left arm in a bonebreaker but she countered with one of the nastiest judo tricks that ever came out of Japan. Fortunately I knew the answer to it and then we were both on the bottom of the shower and she was yelling, "Let me up! You're getting my hair all wet."

"Does it matter?" I asked, not moving. I liked it there.

"I guess not," she answered softly and kissed me. So I let her up and we rubbed each other's bruises and giggled. It was quite the nicest shower I have ever had.

Mary and I slipped into domesticity as if we had been married for twenty years. Oh, not that our honeymoon was humdrum, far from it, nor that there weren't a thousand things we still had to learn about each other-the point was that we already seemed to know the necessary things about each other that made us married. Especially Mary.

I don't remember those days too clearly, yet I remember every second of them. I went around feeling gay and a bit confused. My Uncle Egbert used to achieve much the same effect with a jug of corn liquor, but we did not even take tempus pills, not then. I was happy; I had forgotten what it was like to be happy, had not known that I was not happy. Interested, I used to be-yes. Diverted, entertained, amused-but not happy.

We did not turn on a stereo, we did not read a book-except that Mary read aloud some Oz books that I had. Priceless items, they were, left to me by my great-grandfather; she had never seen any. But that did not take us back into the world; it took us farther out.

The second day we did go down to the village; I wanted to show Mary off. Down there they think I am a writer and I encourage the notion, so I stopped to buy a couple of tubes and a condenser for my typer and a roll of copy tape, though I certainly had no intention of doing any writing, not this trip. I got to talking with the storekeeper about the slugs and Schedule Bare Back-sticking to my public persona of course. There had been a local false alarm and a native in the next town had been shot by a trigger-happy constable for absent-mindedly showing up in public in a shirt. The storekeeper was indignant. I suggested that it was his own fault; these were war conditions.

He shook his head. "The way I see it we would have had no trouble at all if we had tended to our own business. The Lord never intended men to go out into space. We should junk the space stations and stay home; then we would be all right."

I pointed out that the slugs came here in their own ships; we did not go after them-and got a warning signal from Mary not to talk too much.

The storekeeper placed both hands on the counter and leaned toward me. "We had no trouble before space travel; you'll grant that?"

I conceded the point. "Well?" he said triumphantly.

I shut up. How can you argue?

We did not go into town after that and saw no one and spoke to no one. On the way home (we were on foot) we passed close to the shack of John the Goat, our local hermit. Some say that John used to keep goats; I know he smelled like one. He did what little caretaking I required and we respected each other, that is, we saw each other only when strictly necessary and then as briefly as possible. But, seeing him, I waved.

He waved back. He was dressed as usual, stocking cap, an old army blouse, shorts, and sandals. I thought of warning him that a man had been shot nearby for not complying with the bare-to-the-waist order, but decided against it. John was the perfect anarchist; advice would have made him only more stubborn. Instead I cupped my hands and shouted, "Send up the Pirate!" He waved again and we went on without coming within two hundred feet of him, which was about right unless he was downwind.

"Who's the Pirate, darling?" Mary asked.

"You'll see."

Which she did; as soon as we got back the Pirate came in, for I had his little door keyed to his own meow so that he could let himself in and out-the Pirate being a large and rakish torn cat, half red Persian and half travelling salesman. He came in strutting, told me what he thought of people who stayed away so long, then headbumped my ankle in forgiveness. I reached down and roughed him up, then he inspected Mary.

I was watching Mary. She had dropped to her knees and was making the sounds used by people who understand cat protocol, but the Pirate was looking her over suspiciously. Suddenly he jumped into her arms and commenced to buzz like a faulty fuel meter, while bumping her under the chin.

I sighed loudly. "That's a relief," I announced. "For a moment I didn't think I was going to be allowed to keep you."

Mary looked up and smiled. "You need not have worried; I get along with cats. I'm two-thirds cat myself."

"What's the other third?"

She made a face at me. "You'll find out." She was scratching the Pirate under the chin; he was stretching his neck and accepting it, with an expression of indecent and lascivious pleasure. I noticed that her hair just matched his fur.

"Old John takes care of him while I'm away," I explained, "but the Pirate belongs to me-or vice versa."

"I figured that out," Mary answered, "and now I belong to the Pirate, too; don't I, Pirate?"

The cat did not answer but continued his shameless lallygagging-but it was clear that she was right. Truthfully I was relieved; aelurophobes cannot understand why cats matter to aelurophiles, but if Mary had turned out not to be one of the lodge it would have fretted me.

From then on the cat was with us-or with Mary-almost all the time, except when I shut him out of our bedroom. That I would not stand for, though both Mary and the Pirate thought it small of me. We even took him with us when we went down the canyon for target practice. I suggested to Mary that it was safer to leave him behind but she said, "See to it that you don't shoot him. I won't."

I shut up, somewhat stung. I am a good shot and remain so by unrelenting practice at every opportunity-even on my honeymoon. No, that's not quite straight; I would have skipped practice on that occasion had it not turned out that Mary really liked to shoot. Mary is not just a good trained shot; she is the real thing, an Annie Oakley. She tried to teach me, but it can't be taught, not that sort of shooting.

I asked why she carried more than one gun. "You might need more than one," she told me. "Here-take my gun away from me."

I went through the motions of a standing, face-to-face disarm, bare hands against gun. She avoided it easily and said sharply, "What are you doing? Disarming me, or asking me to dance? Make it good."

So I made it good. I'll never be a match-medal shot but I stood at the top of my class in barroom. If she had not given in to it, I would have broken her wrist.

I had her gun. Then I realized that a second gun was pressing against my belly button. It was a lady's social gun, but perfectly capable of making two dozen widows without recharging. I looked down, saw that the safety was off, and knew that my beautiful bride had only to tense one muscle to burn a hole through me. Not a wide one, but sufficient.

"Where in the deuce did you find that?" I asked-and well I might, for neither one of us had bothered to dress when we came out. The area was very deserted and often it did not seem worthwhile to take the trouble; it was my land.

So I was much surprised as I would have sworn that the only gun Mary had with her was the one she had carried in her sweet little hand.

"It was high up on my neck, under my hair," she said demurely. "See?" I looked. I knew a phone could be hidden there but I had not thought of it for a gun-though of course I don't use a lady-size weapon and I don't wear my hair in long flame-colored curls.

Then I looked again, for she had a third gun shoved against my ribs. "Where did that one come from?" I asked.

She giggled. "Sheer misdirection; it's been in plain sight all the time." She would not tell me anything further and I never did figure it out. She should have clanked when she walked-but she did not. Oh my, no!

I found I could teach her a few things about hand-to-hand, which salved my pride. Bare hands are more useful than guns anyhow; they will save your life oftener. Not that Mary was not good at it herself; she packed sudden death in each hand and eternal sleep in her feet. However, she had the habit, whenever she lost a fall, of going limp and kissing me. Once, instead of kissing her back, I shook her and told her she was not taking it seriously. Instead of cutting out the nonsense, she continued to remain limp, let her voice go an octave lower, and said, "Don't you realize, my darling, that these are not my weapons?"

I knew that she did not mean that guns were her weapons; she meant something older and more primitive. True, she could fight like a bad-tempered Kodiak bear and I respected her for it, but she was no Amazon. An Amazon doesn't look that way with her head on a pillow. Mary's true strength lay in her other talents.

Which reminds me; from her I learned how it was that I was rescued from the slugs. Mary herself had prowled the city for days, not finding me, but reporting accurately the progress with which the city was being "secured". Had she not been able to spot a possessed man, we might have lost many agents fruitlessly-and I might never have gotten free from my master. As a result of the data she brought in, the Old Man drew back and concentrated on the entrances and exits to the city. And I was rescued, though they weren't waiting for me in particular . . . at least I don't suppose they were.

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.