Where else am I ever going to find a woman who just might be smarter than I am?"

"Since when is that what a man is looking for?"

"Only stupid men trying to seem smart need to be with dumb women. Only weak men trying to look strong are attracted to compliant women. Surely there's something about that in Human Community."

"So you saw me this morning and—"

"I heard you this morning, I talked with you, you made me think, I made you think, and it was electric. It was just as electric a moment ago as we sat here trying to outguess the Hegemony. I think they ought to be scared to death, having the two of us sitting here together plotting against them."

"Is that what we were doing?"

"We both hate them," said John Paul.

"I don't know that I do," said Theresa. "My father does. But I'm not my father."

"You hate the Hegemony because it isn't what it pretends to be," said John Paul. "If it were really a government of the whole human race, with a commitment to democracy and fairness and growth and freedom, then neither of us would oppose it. Instead it's merely a temporary alliance which leaves a lot of evil governments intact underneath its umbrella. And now that we know that those governments are manipulating things to try to make sure the Hegemony never becomes the thing we want it to be, then what are two brilliant kids like us to do, except plot to overthrow the present Hegemony and put something better in its place?"

"I'm not interested in politics."

"You live and breathe politics," said John Paul. "You just call it 'community studies' and pretend you're only interested in observing and understanding. But someday you'll have children and they'll live in this world and you already care very much what kind of world they live in."

She didn't like this at all. "What makes you think I intend ever to have children?"

He just chuckled.

"I'm certainly not going to have them," she said, "in order to flout the population laws."

"Come on," said John Paul. "I've already read the textbook. It's one of the basic principles of community studies. Even people who think they don't want to reproduce still make most of their decisions as if they were active reproducers."

"With exceptions."

"Pathological ones," said John Paul. "You're healthy."

"Are all Polish men as arrogant and intrusive and rude as you?"

"Few measure up to my standards, but most try."

"So you decided in class that I was going to be the mother of your children?"

"Theresa," said John Paul, "we're both at prime reproductive age. We both size up everyone we see as potential reproductive partners."

"Maybe I sized you up differently from the way you sized me up."

"I know you did," said John Paul. "But my endeavor for the next while is to make myself irresistible to you."

"Didn't it occur to you that saying it right out loud would be extremely off-putting?"

"Come on," said John Paul. "You knew what I was about from the start. What would I accomplish by pretending?"

"Maybe I want to be courted a little. I have all the needs of an ordinary human female."

"Excuse me," said John Paul, "but some women would think that I was making a pretty damn good start at courting you. You get really bad news, you have a bad phone conversation, you cry in your office, and when you come out, here I am, with comfort food that you know I've gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for you, without your asking—and I tell you that I love you and my intention is to be your partner in science, politics, and family-making. I think that's damned romantic."

"Well, yes. But something's still missing."

"I know. I was waiting for just the right moment to tell you how much I want to take that ridiculous sweater off of you. I thought I'd wait, though, until you wanted me to do it so badly that you almost couldn't stand it."

She found herself laughing and blushing. "It'll be a long time before that happens, buster."

"As long as it takes. I'm a Polish Catholic boy. The kind of girl we marry is the kind that doesn't give you the milk until you buy the cow."

"That's such an attractive analogy."

"What about 'Eggs until you buy the chicken'?"

"Try 'Bacon until you buy the pig'?"

"Ouch," he said. "But if you insist, I'll try to think of you in porcine terms."

"You're not going to kiss me tonight."

"Who'd want to? You have salad in your teeth."

"I'm too emotionally on edge to make any kind of rational decision right now."

"I was counting on that."

"And here's a thought," she said. "What if this is their plan?"

"Whose plan?"

"Them. The same them we've been talking about. What if the reason they didn't send you back to Poland is because they wanted you to marry a really smart girl—maybe the daughter of the world's leading military theoretician. Of course, they couldn't be sure you'd end up in my section of Human Community."

"Yes, they could," he said thoughtfully.

"Ah," she said. "So you didn't want my section."

He stared at the remnants of the food. "What an interesting idea. We might be somebody's idea of a eugenics program."

"Ever since co-ed colleges began," she said, "it's been a marriage market for people with money to meet and marry people with brains."

"And vice versa."

"But sometimes two people with brains get together."

"And when they have babies, watch out."

Then they both burst out laughing.

"That is way arrogant, even for me," said John Paul. "As if you and I were so valuable that they'd bet the farm on us falling in love with each other."

"Maybe they knew we were both so irresistibly charming that if we ever met, we couldn't help falling in love."

"It's happening to me," said John Paul.

"Well, it's not happening to me at all," she said.

"Oh, but I do love a challenge."

"What if we find out that it's true? That they really are pushing us together?"

"So what?" said John Paul. "What does it matter if, by following my heart, I also fulfill someone else's plan?"

"What if we don't like the plan?" she said. "What if this is like Rumpelstiltskin? What if we have to give up what we love best in order to have what we want most?"

"Or vice versa."

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I," said John Paul. "Even in cultures where marriages are arranged by the parents, you're never actually forbidden to fall in love with your mate."

"I'm not in love, Mr. Wiggin."

"All right then," he said. "Tell me to go away."

She said nothing.

"You aren't telling me to go away."

"I should," she said. "In fact, I already did, several times, and you didn't go."

"I wanted to make sure you knew exactly what you were throwing away. But now that you've eaten my food and heard my confessions, I'm ready to take no for an answer, if you want to say it."

"Well, I'm not going to say it. As long as you understand that not saying no doesn't mean yes."

He laughed. "I understand that. I also understand that not saying yes doesn't mean no."

"In some circumstances. About some things."

"So the kiss is still a definite no?" he said.

"I have salad in my teeth, remember?"

He got up onto his knees, leaned over to her, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "No teeth, no salad," he said.

"I don't even like you yet," she said. "And here you are taking liberties."

He kissed her forehead. "You realize that about three dozen people have seen us sitting here eating.

And any one of them might walk by and see me kissing you."

"Scandal," she said.

"Ruin," he said.

"We'll be reported to the authorities," she said.

"It might just make their day," he said.

And since it was an emotional day, and she really did like him, and her feelings were in such a turmoil that she didn't know what was right or good or wise, she yielded to impulse and kissed him back. On the lips. A brief childlike kiss, but a kiss all the same.