Enders In Exile

between
us."
    "That's your problem."
    "What if I tell them
that you got me pregnant?"
    "You're definitely
fired. Right now. Irrevocably."
    "I was kidding!"
    "Get your brain back
inside your head. There'll be a paternity test. DNA. Meanwhile, your
husband will be made a figure of ridicule, and every other man will
look at his wife, wondering if she's offering herself to someone else
to put a cuckoo in the nest. So you're out. For the sake of everyone."
    "If you make it that
obvious, then it'll do the same damage to people's trust in marriage as
if we'd actually done it!"
    Sel sat down on the
greenhouse floor and buried his face in his hands.
    "I'm sorry," said
Afraima. "I only half meant it."
    "You mean that if I had
said yes, you'd have told me you were just kidding and left
me
humiliated for having agreed to adultery?"
    "No," she said. "I'd do
it. Sel, you're the smartest, everyone knows it. And
you shouldn't be cut off without having children. It's not right. We
need your genes in the pool."
    "That's the genetic
argument," said Sel. "Then there's the social argument. Monogamy has
been proven, over and over, to be the optimum social arrangement. It's
not about genes, it's about children—they have to grow up
into the society we want them to maintain. We
voted
on this."
    "And I vote to carry
one baby of yours. Just one."
    "Please leave," said
Sel.
    "I'm the logical one,
since I'm Jewish and so are you."
    "Please go. Close the
door behind you. I have work to do."
    "You can't turn me
away," she said. "It would hurt the colony."
    "So would killing you,"
said Sel, "but you're making that more and more tempting the longer you
stay here to torture me."
    "It's only torture
because you want me."
    "My body is human and
male," said Sel, "and so of course I want to engage in mating behavior
regardless of consequences. My logical functions are being suppressed
already so it's a good thing I made the decision irrevocably. Don't
make me turn my decision into a painful reality by cutting the little
suckers off."
    "So that's it? You
castrate yourself, one way or the other. Well, I'm a human female, and
I hunger for the mate that will give me the best offspring."
    "Then look for somebody
big and strong and healthy if you want to commit adultery, and don't
let me catch you because I'll turn you in."
    "Brain. I want your
brain."
    "Well, the kid would
probably have your brain and my face. Now go and get the reports on the
D-4 treatment and take it over to chem."
    "I'm not fired?"
    "No," said Sel. "I'm
resigning. I'm going out into the fields and leaving you here."
    "I'm just the backup
XB. I can't do the work."
    "You should have
thought of that before you made it impossible for us to work together."
    "Who ever heard of a
man who didn't want a little roll in the hay on the side?"
    "This colony is my life
now, Afraima. Yours too. You don't shit in your own soup. Can I put it
any plainer than that?"
    She began to cry.
    "What have I done that
God would punish me like this?" said Sel. "What comes next?
Interpreting dreams for Pharaoh's baker and butler?"
    "I'm sorry," she said.
"You have to stay on as the XB, you really are a genius at it. I
wouldn't even know where to start. Now I've ruined everything."
    "Yes, you have indeed,"
said Sel. "But you're right about all my solutions, too. They'd be
almost as damaging as your original idea. So here's what we'll do."
    She waited, the tears
still coming out of her eyes.
    "Nothing," he said.
"You will never mention this again. Never. You won't touch me. You'll
dress with perfect modesty around me. Your communication with me will
be work only. Scientific language, as formal as possible. People will
think you and I detest each other. Because I can't afford to drug down
my libido and still try to do this work. Get it?"
    "Yes."
    "Forty years till the
colony ship arrives with a new XB and I can quit this lousy job."
    "I didn't mean to make
you miserable. I thought you'd be happy."
    "My hormones were
thrilled. They thought it was the best idea they'd ever heard."
    "Well, then I feel
better," she said.
    "You feel
better
because I'm going to be going through hell for the next forty years?"
    "Don't be stupid," she
said. "As soon as I'm having babies, I'll get fat and unattractive and
way too busy to come here to help. Child production is everything,
right? And soon the next generation will provide you with an apprentice
to train. The most it will bother you is a few months. Maybe a year."
    "Easy for you to