I cannot say that I was much surprised. But I admit that I was dreadfully disappointed. Being homeless is somewhat like being hungry. Maybe worse.

Gwen behaved as if she had not heard that dismal announcement. She said to me, "Sit down on the duffel bag, Richard, and take it easy. I don't think I'll be long."

She opened her purse, dug into it, came up with a nail file and a bit of wire, a paper clip, I believe. Humming a monotonous little tune she started to work on the compartment's door.

I helped by not offering advice. Not a word. It was difficult but I managed it.

Gwen stopped humming and straightened up. "There!" she announced. The door opened wide.

She picked up my bonsai maple-our bonsai maple. "Come in, dear. Better leave the duffel bag across the threshold for now, so that the door won't pucker up. It's dark inside."

I followed her in. The only light inside was from the screen on her terminal: ALL SERVICES SUSPENDED

She ignored it and dug into her purse, brought out a finger torch, then used its light to get into a drawer in her buttery, took out a long, slender screwdriver, a pair ofAutoloc tweezers, a nameless tool that may have been homemade, and a pair of high-pot gloves in her slender size. "Richard, will you hold the light for me, pretty please?"

The access plate she wished to reach was high up over her microwaver and was locked and decorated with the usual signs warning tenants against even looking cross-eyed at it, much less touching it, with incantations of "Danger! Do Not Tamper- Call Maintenance," etc. Gwen climbed up, sat on the oven top, and opened the access plate with just a touch; the lock apparently had been disabled earlier.

Then she worked very quietly save for that monotonous little hum, plus an occasional request for me to move the torch light. Once she produced a really spectacular fireworks display which caused her to cluck reprovingly and murmur, "Naughty, naughty. Mustn't do that to Gwen." She then worked most slowly for a few more moments. The compartment's lights came on, accompanied by that gentle purr of a live room- air, micromotors, etc.

She closed the access plate. "Will you help me down, dear?"

I lifted her down with both hands, held on to her, claimed a kiss for payment. She smiled up at me. "Thank you, sir! My, my, I had forgotten how nice it is to be married. We should get married more often."

"Now?"

"No. Lunchtime now. Breakfast was hearty but it is now past fourteen. Feel like eating?"

"It's good exercise," I assented. "How about the Sloppy Joe on Appian Way near ring one-oh-five? Or do you want haute cuisine?"

"A Sloppy Joe is okay; I'm not a fussy eater, dear. But I don't think we should go outside for lunch; we might not be able to get back in."

"Why not? You do a slick job of bypassing a change in a door combo."

"Richard, it might not be that easy again. They simply haven't noticed, as yet, that locking me out didn't work. But when they do- They can weld a steel plate across the doorway if that is what it takes. Not that it will, as I shan't fight being moved any more than you did. Let's eat lunch; then I'll pack. What would you like?"

It turned out that Gwen had salvaged from my buttery gourmet items I had in freeze or in sterile pack. I do stock unusual viands. How can you know ahead of time, when working on a story in the middle of the night, that you are going to suffer a craving for a clam sundae? It is merely prudent to have materials on hand. Otherwise you could be tempted to stop work and leave your monastic seclusion in order to find an item you must have-and that way lies bankruptcy.

Gwen laid out a buffet of her supplies and mine-ours, I should say-and we ate while discussing our next move... for move we must. I told her that I intended to call dear Mr. Middlegaff as soon as we finished lunch.

She looked thoughtful. "I had better pack first."

"If you wish. But why?"

"Richard, we have leprosy; that's evident. I think it must be connected with the killing of Schultz. But we don't know. Whatever the cause, when we stick our heads outside, I had better have my things ready just as yours are; we may not get back in." She nodded at her terminal, still shining with the message: ALL SERVICES SUSPENDED. "Putting that terminal back into service would be more than a matter of wheedling a few solenoids, since the computer itself is elsewhere. So we can't beard Mr. Middlegaff from this compartment. Therefore we must do everything we need to do here before we go out that door."

"While you pack, I can duck out to call him."

"Over my dead body!"

"Huh? Gwen, be reasonable."

"Reasonable I emphatically am. Richard Colin, you are my brand-new bridegroom; I intend to get years and years of wear out of you. While this trouble is going on, I am not letting you out of my sight. You might disappear like Mr. Schultz. Beloved, if they shoot you, they are going to have to shoot me first."

I attempted to reason with her; she put her hands over her ears. "I won't argue it, I can't hear you, I'm not listening!" She uncovered her ears. "Come help me pack. Please."

"Yes, dear."

Gwen packed in less time than I had taken, yet my help consisted mostly of keeping out of her way. I'm not too used to living with females; military service is not conducive to homelife and I had tended to avoid marriage, aside from short-term contracts with Amazon comrades-contracts automatically canceled by orders for change of duty. After I reached field grade I had had female orderlies a couple or six times- but I don't suppose that relationship is much like civilian marriage, either.

What I'm trying to say is that, despite having written many thousands of words of love-confession stories under a hundred-odd female pen names, I don't know much about women. When I was learning the writing scam, I pointed this out to the editor who bought from me these sin, suffer, and repent stories. The editor was Evelyn Fingerhut, a glum middle-aged man with a bald spot, a tic, and a permanent cigar.

He grunted. "Don't try to leam anything about women; it would handicap you."

"But these are supposed to be true stories," I objected.

"They are true stories; every one of them is accompanied by a sworn statement: "This story is based on fact.'" He jerked a thumb at the manuscript I had just brought in. "You've got a 'Fact' slip clipped to that one. Are you trying to tell me it ain't so? Don't you want to get paid?"

Yes, I wanted to be paid. To me the acme of prose style is exemplified by that simple, graceful clause: "Pay to the order of-" I answered hastily, "Well, as a matter of fact that story is no problem. I didn't actually know the woman but my mother told me all about her-it was a girl she had gone to school with. This girl did indeed marry her mother's younger brother. She was already pregnant when the truth was discovered... and then she was faced with that horrible dilemma just as I've told it: the sin of abortion, or the tragedy of an incest baby with a possibility of two heads and no chin. All fact, Evelyn, but I trimmed it a bit in telling it. It turned out that Beth Lou was no blood relation to her uncle-and that's the way I wrote it-but also her baby was no relation to her husband. That part I left out."

"So write it again and leave that part in and the other part out. Just be sure to change the names and places; I don't want any complaints."

At a later time I did so and sold that version to him also, but never did get around to telling Fingerhut that it hadn't happened to a schoolmate of my mother, but was something I had cribbed from a book belonging to my Aunt Abby: the librettos of The Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, who should have stuck to composing music and found himself a W. S. Gilbert to write his librettos; Wagner was a terrible writer.