I'm not sure how old my bride is, but she is not a "baby girl." However, that was the least distortion of fact that was heard in the next few minutes. To put it in its mildest terms, Auntie told a pack of lies. With Gwen nodding and backing her up and looking angelic.

It was not so much that the facts were wrong as that Auntie testified to things she could not possibly have seen. Gwen must have coached her most carefully.

Two loads of bandits had tackled us but they had fought each other; that saved us, as all but two of them died in that fratricide. Those two I killed with my bare hands and a walking stick-against laser guns. I am so heroic that I amaze myself.

While these brave deeds were going on, I know Auntie was unconscious part of the time, and flat on her back all of the time, able to see only the ceiling of the bus. Yet she seemed to believe-I think she did believe-what she was saying. So much for eyewitnesses.

(Not that I'm complaining!)

Then Auntie told how Gwen had driven us. I found myself pulling up a trouser leg to show my prosthetic-something I never do-but did this time to show why I had been unable to wear it while wearing a standard p-suit, and thereby unable to drive.

But it was Gwen who brought down the house when Auntie finished her highly-colored account. Gwen did it with pictures.

Listen carefully. Gwen had used all her ammo, six rounds, then-neat as always-she had put her Miyako back into her purse. And pulled out her Mini Helvetia, snapped two frames.

She had tilted her camera down a bit, for it showed not only both bandit vehicles but also three casualties on the ground and one bandit up and moving. The second shot showed four on the ground and the superdoughnut turned away.

I can't figure an exact time line on this but there must have been at least four seconds from the time she ran out of ammo to the time the giant wheel turned away. With a fast camera it takes about as long to shoot one frame as it does to fire one shot with a semi-automatic slug gun.

So the question is: What did she do with the other two seconds? Just waste them?

"Premenstrual Syndrome: Just before their periods women behave the way men do all the time"

LOWELL STONE, M.D. 2144-

We didn't break into a run but we got out of there as fast as possible. True, Auntie had clobbered Mr. Mao into accepting me as a "hero" rather than a criminal-but that did not make him love me and I knew it.

Major Bozell did not even pretend to like me. Captain Mar-cy's "defection" infuriated Bozell; Gwen's pictures actually showing bandits (where they could not be!) broke his heart. Then his boss gave him the crudest blow by ordering him to get his troops together and get out there and find them! Do it now! "If you can't do it. Major, I'll have to find someone who can. You thought up this idea of the hundred-kilometer border. Now justify your boasts."

Mao should not have done it to Bozell in the presence of others-especially not in my presence. This I know from professional experience-in each role.

I think Gwen gave Auntie some signal. As may be. Aunt Lilybet told Mao she had to leave. "My little nurse is going to scold me for staying too long. I don't want her to have to scold me too hard. Mei-Ling Ouspenskaya-do you know her, Jefferson? She knows your momma."

The same two police officers wheeled Auntie all the way back through that series of offices and out to the public corridor-square, rather, as the city offices face on Revolutionary Square. She said good-bye to us there and the police officers wheeled her away to Wyoming Knott Memorial Hospital, two levels down and north of there. I don't think they expected to do it-I do know Gwen conscripted these two right there in the Moderator's offices-but Auntie assumed that they would take her back to hospital, and they did. "No, Gwen honey, no need for you to come along-these kind gentlemen know where it is."

(A lady has doors held for her because she expects doors to be held for her. Both Gwen and Aunt Lilybet had this principle down pat.)

Facing the municipal offices was a large bunting-bedecked sign:

FREE LUNA! July 4th, 2076-2188

Was it really Independence Day already? I counted up in my mind. Yes, Gwen and I had married on the first-so today had to be the Fourth of July. A good omen!

Seated at a bench around a fountain in the center of Revolutionary Square was Xia, waiting for us.

I had expected Gwen; I did not expect Xia. In the chat I had had with Xia, I had asked her to try to locate Gwen and to tell her where I was going and why. "Xia, I don't like being called in by cops for questioning, especially in a strange town where I don't know the political setup. If I am 'detained'-to put it politely-I want my wife to know where to look."

I did not suggest what Gwen should do about it. In only three days of marriage to Gwen I had already learned that nothing I could suggest could equal what she would think of, left to her own devious devices-being married to Gwen was not dull!

I was warmly pleased to find Xia waiting but I was startled at what she had with her. I stared and said, "Somebody book the bridal suite?" On the bench by Xia I saw Gwen's small case, a package containing a wig, a rock maple in bonsai, and a package not familiar to me but self-explained by its Sears Montgomery wrapping. "I'll bet my toothbrush is still hanging in the 'fresher."

"How much and what odds?" said Xia. "You would lose. Richard, I'll miss both of you. Maybe I'll run over to L-City and visit you."

"Do that!" said Gwen.

"Concur," I concurred, "if we're moving to L-City. Are we?"

"Right away," said Gwen.

"Bill, did you know about this?"

"No, Senator. But she had me rush over to Sears and turn in my p-suit. So I'm ready."

"Richard," Gwen said seriously, "it's not safe for you to stay here."

"No, it's not," said a voice behind me (proving again that classified matters should not be discussed in public places). "The sooner you chums leave the better. Hi, Xia. Are you with these dangerous characters?"

"Hi yourself, Choy-Mu. Thanks for last time."

I blinked at him. "Captain Marcy! I'm glad you came out;

I want to thank you!"

"Nothing to thank me for. Captain Midnight-or is it 'Senator'?"

"Well... actually it's 'Doctor.' Or 'Mister.' But to you it's 'Richard,' if you will. You saved my neck."

"And I'm Choy-Mu, Richard. But I did not save your neck. I followed you out to tell you so. You may think you won back in there. You did not. You lost. You made the Moderator lose face-you made both of them lose face. So you're a walking time bomb, an accident looking for the spot." He frowned. "Not too healthy for me, either, being present when they lost face... after making the initial mistake of 'bearing bad news to the king.' Understand me?"

"I'm afraid I do."

Xia asked, "Choy-Mu, truly did Number-One lose face?" 'Truly he did, luv. It was Aunt Lilybet Washington who did

it to him. But of course he can't touch her. So it lands on

Captain- On Richard. So I see it."

Xia stood up. "Gwen, let's go straight to the station. Not

waste a second! Oh, damn! I did so much want you to stay a

few days."

Twenty minutes later we were at South Tube Station, and about to enter the ballistic tube for Luna City. The fact that we were able to book space in the L-City capsule leaving almost at once controlled our destination, as Choy-Mu and Xia went along to see us off and, by the time we had reached the station via the local city subway, they had convinced me-or had convinced Gwen (more to the point)-that we should take the first thing leaving town, no matter where it went. From that same station there are ordinary (non-ballistic) tubes to Plato, Tycho Under, and Novy Leningrad-had we been six minutes earlier we would have wound up in Plato warren, which would have changed many things.