The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

'There's something you shouldknow. I meant to tell you tonight after I got home. This morning a man named Art Hunah Pukui rented an apartment in a building across the street. He claimed he wanted to live among us so he could learn our language and our mores more swiftly.

'But he's spent most of his time in this building carrying around a case which I imagine contains various devices to enable him to hear from a distance the sounds in your apartment. However, the landlord kept an eye on him, so he wasn't able to plant any of his devices.'

'Pukui is an Uzzite.'

'If you say so. Bight now he's in his apartment watching this building through a powerful telescope.'

'And he could be listening to us right now, too,' Hal said. 'His instruments are extremely sensitive. Still, the walls are heavily soundproofed. Anyway, forget about him!'

Fobo followed him into his rooms. The wog felt Jeannette's forehead and tried to lift her lid to look at her eye. It would not bend.

'Hmm! Calcification of the outer skin layer is far advanced.'

With one hand he threw the sheet from her figure and with the other he grabbed her gown by the neckline and ripped the thin cloth down the middle. The two parts fell to either side. She lay nude, as silent and pale and beautiful as a sculptor's masterpiece.

Her lover gave a little cry at what seemed like a violation. But he said nothing because he realized that Fobo's move was medical. In any case, the wog would not have been sexually interested.

Puzzled, he watched. Fobo had tapped his fingertips against her flat belly and then put his ear against it. When he stood up, he shook his head.

'I won't deceive you, Hal. Though we'll do the best we can, we may not be good enough. She'll have to go to a surgeon. If we can cut her eggs out before they hatch, that, plus the serum you gave her, may reverse the effect and pull her out.'

'Eggs?'

'I'll tell you later. Wrap her up. I'll run upstairs and phone Dr. Kuto.'

Yarrow folded a blanket around her. Then he rolled her over. She was as stiff as a show-window dummy. He covered her face. The stony look was too much for him.

His wristphone shrilled. Automatically, he reached to flick the stud and just in time drew his hand back. It shrilled loudly, insistently. After a few seconds of agony, he decided that if he didn't answer, he would stir up their suspicion far faster.

'Yarrow!'

' Shib? '

'Beport to the Archurielite. You will be given fifteen minutes.'

'Shib.