She cocked her head slyly and smiled. "Say, Captain Hansard, I'm glad you're here." "The feeling is mutual, Mrs. Panofsky. I'd rather be having a steak dinner with you than with "A" Company." "We'll have some fun together, Captain." "But some food first?" "Mmm." Bridgetta Panofsky leaned forward through Howard Johnson's Formica tabletop and, apropos of nothing, she laid a gloved hand on Nathan Hansard's throat and slowly, deliberately, and a little insistently kissed his lips. "Hey, you're married, remember?" Her laughter was too self-assured to be due to embarrassment. "Such an old-fashioned pickle ," she commented, as she stood to leave. "But I rather like that." Jesus Christ, Hansard thought to himself. He thought it with such force that he wasn't quite sure he had not said it aloud. For Hansard's moral sense was too finely formed to tolerate a double standard. The notion of adultery with another man's wife was as noxious to him as, years before, his own wife's adultery had been. In any case, moral sense notwithstanding, he had scarcely had an opportunity yet to be tempted; nor was he, given that opportunity, in condition to respond to it. Perhaps this was what she had in mind when Bridgetta said to him, as they left the restaurant, "First thing, we'll get some chicken broth into your belly, and then maybe some soft-boiled eggs. But no steaks -- not for a day or so. Do you like curries? Bernie makes very good curries." "Don't know. Never had curry." "Lord, you are a military man! I've always liked men in uniform, but Bernie doesn't feel that way at all. Oh, now you've started blushing again. Really, you don't have the blood to waste on blushing, Captain." "You'll have to excuse me," Hansard said stiffly. "No, no," Bridgetta said, with an abrupt shift of mood, "you'll have to excuse me . You see, if the truth be told, Captain, if you could see what I'm feeling tonight, you'd see . . ." She broke off for a while, then continued, shaking her head as though in anger for her own awkwardness. "I'm afraid, that's all. And when a person is afraid -- why, then she reaches out. You know? Will you hold my hand at least? Like that. Thank you." After they had walked on a way he asked, "What are you afraid of?" "Why, what is anybody afraid of, Captain?" "I don't know." "Of dying, certainly." NINE PANOFSKY "You'll have to admit," Bridie said, "that he's smart." "Smart, smart, what is smart?" asked Panofsky. "A rat that runs a maze is smart. I'm smart. President Madigan is smart." "And that he's polite and respectful," Jet added. "At the moment, that is only a part of being smart," snapped the other Panofsky. "You might as well say that because he's good-looking -- " "He does have an honest face," said Bridget firmly. "Because he doesn't often smile," said the first Panofsky. "He was humorous enough with me , love," Jet argued. "You forget at times how much you throw most people off balance. Captain Hansard didn't know what to make of you last night." "Goulash or shishkebab, eh?" "That's being perfectly unfair," Bridget objected in her loftiest tone. "You heard everything the good captain said at Howard Johnson's over Jet's little transmitter. Not only is he not a cannibal , he's also the last of the Puritans -- by the looks of it." The other two Bridgettas nodded their heads in glum confirmation. "But there's no need to write him off yet ," Jet said, rallying. "He just needs to get his strength back." "I think you're missing Bridget's point," Bridie said. "In her gentle way she was suggesting that you went after him too quickly. Why, the poor man must suppose that he's escaped from a den of cannibals into a nest of vampires." "Girls, girls," said both Panofskys together. Then the one who wore the knitted skull cap (possession of which gave its wearer priority at such times) continued: "I have no desire to engage in a debate on the merits of different strategies of seduction. I only wish to counsel you not to set your hearts too much on keeping him. Remember, he is in the Army; and while you're admiring the uniform, watch out for the iron heel. Perhaps Bridie is right about going slow with him. He's survived this long only by having a too-rigid character. If it cracks there's no telling what will come out from the old shell. But I'm certain I'd rather not find out. Do you agree with me, Bernard?" "Entirely, Bernard." "Then to your posts -- and may the best woman win." "Did you sleep well, Captain?" "Very well, thank you." Hansard sat up from the mattress on which he had spent the night. "How do you do it?" "The mattress, you mean? Bernie has to take all the credit for provisioning us. In fact, you have Bernie to thank for this too. It's his breakfast, but he thought you'd appreciate it more." Bridget held out the tray she was carrying. It held a plate of three fried eggs, other plates of bacon and toast, a pint glass of orange juice, a silver scallop-dish of jam, and an antique coffee server from the Plaza Hotel. Steam rose from the spout of the server. "After you've eaten I'll have some water ready for you to shave with, unless you'd rather let your beard grow out." "Amazing," said Hansard, oblivious for the first few moments of anything but the breakfast. After one egg, however, he looked up. "You're a different color today," he observed. For this Bridgetta's hair was not red but flaxen-blond and braided into a tight crown about her head, Irish-peasant-style. "I'm a different girl altogether. It was Jet who rescued you yesterday. She's the beauty of the family. I'm Bridget -- I take care of household things. And you've still to meet Bridie, the intellectual one." "But aren't you all the same person? I mean, you speak as though the others were your older sisters." "In a sense they are. It's important, if only for our self-concept, that we should be able to tell each other apart. So we try, by division of labor, to split the old single Bridgetta-identity into three. The youngest always has to be Bridget, because obviously that's the least fun." "The youngest?" "The one to have come out of the manmitter most recently is the youngest. You understand how it works, don't you? It's sort of like an echo. Well, the echo that's me has only been here a week. Jet, who was Bridget before I came, has been here four months now. And Bridie has been around from the very start, two years ago. You can always tell which of us is which because I'm blond and wear an apron; Jet is a redhead and dresses alamode, and Bridie is a sort of ashy brunette and has a moldy old lab coat. It's remarkable how easily clothes can dictate one's behavior." "And your husband, are there more than one of him?" "Two. But we thought we'd only confront you with one of each of us last night to keep things simple. Bernard is always just Bernard. He doesn't bother to differentiate between his two selves the way we do. In any case, there's very little that could threaten his self-concept. Tell me, Captain, do you like me better as a blonde or as a redhead?" Hansard shook his head, as though to clear away cobwebs. "For a moment there you really did have me believing you were a different person than the girl I met last night, but when you said that I knew better." "Excuse me, Captain, it's not always easy to remember to keep in character as a drudge. Even Cinderella has moments, when her sisters are away. . . . You ate all that so fast! Do you want more?" "Not now." "Then, if you please, come with me. Bernard wants to have a word with you." It was like following a teacher to the principal's office. Hansard wondered what he could possibly have done wrong already. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your hospitality, Doctor Pan- " "Then don't make the attempt, Mr. Hansard. You will excuse me if I do not employ your proper title, but for me it would be a pejorative form. My experiences with the American military, and before that with the military establishments of East Germany and the Third Reich, have been, on the whole, unhappy experiences. You may use the same informality in addressing me. In America I have always felt that that 'Doctor' of yours also has a pejorative sense when it refers to someone outside the medical profession. Dr. Strangelove, for instance, or Dr. Frankenstein." "I'll try and remember that, sir. I certainly didn't intend any disrespect." "How old are you, Mr. Hansard?" "Thirty-eight." "Married?" "Divorced." "So much the better. You are just the right age for my Bridgetta. She is twenty-seven." "Just the right age for your Bridgetta for what , sir?" "For what!" The two Panofskys laughed in chorus. Then, pointing at his double, the Panofsky wearing the skull cap said: "Do you not see those wispy gray hairs? That shrunken chest? Do you not realize that that old man is paralyzed from the waist down?" "Nonsense, Bernard!" said the double. "Please to remember, Bernard," said Panofsky, laying his hand on the skull cap, "that I have the floor. And allow me a little poetic license in stating my case. Where was I? From the waist down, yes. Do you not see me here before you in a wheel chair? And you ask ' For what?' Are you naďve, my good Captain?" "It's not that exactly," Hansard mumbled, shifting his gaze uneasily from one Panofsky to the other. "Or, perhaps, though you're willing enough to go out and kill people or to push the button that will destroy the world, you have too fine a moral sense to think of a little hanky-panky?" "It may surprise you to learn that some of us military men do have a moral sense -- Doctor ." "Ah, he's got you there, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap. "Dead to rights." "If you have an objection, Mr. Hansard, please to state it." "Much as I admire your wife's fine qualities -- " "My wives, rather. There are presently three women meriting the distinction." "Lovely as all three are, they are your wives, sir. And I don't believe in, uh, promiscuity. Not with another man's wedded wife." "Really, Captain?" Both old gentlemen leaned forward in their wheel chairs. "Excuse me, but is that your sincere objection?" "I might have others, but I wouldn't know of them yet. The one I stated is sufficient in itself to be a basis for decision. Why should you question my sincerity?" "Ask him if he's a Catholic, Bernard," said the Panofsky without the cap. "Bernard, if you want to take over this discussion, I will give you my cap. As it happens I was about to ask him just that question. Well, Captain?" "No, sir. I was raised a Methodist, but it's been a few years since I've been in any kind of church at all." Both Panofskys sighed. "The reason we asked," the first explained, "is that it's so unusual today to find a young man of your convictions. Even within the church. We are both Catholics, you see, though that becomes a problematical statement at the present time. Are we in fact two ? But that's all theology, and I won't go into that now. As for these scruples of yours, I think they can be cleared up easily. You see, our marriage is of a rather fictitious quality. Bridgetta is my wife in -- what is that nice euphemism, Bernard?" "In name only." "Ah, yes! My wife in name only. Further, we were wed in a civil ceremony instead of before a priest. We married each other with the clear understanding that there were to be no children. Even had we had such an intention, it is highly doubtful, considering my age, that it could have been accomplished. In the eyes of Holy Mother Church such a marriage is no marriage at all. If we had access to the machinery of canon law, an annulment could be obtained with ease. But after all, an annulment is only a formality, a statement that says that what does not exist has never happened. "Consider, if you prefer, that Bridgetta is my daughter rather than my wife. That is more usual in these cases, isn't it -- that the wise old scientist, or the evil old scientist, as the case may be, should have a lovely daughter to give to the hero? And I've never heard it to happen that the hero refuses her." "What was the point in having married her at all, if what you say is so?" "My civil marriage to Bridgetta, whom, you must understand, I dearly love, is a mariage de convenance. I need an heir, someone who can inherit from me; for I have earned, from the government and through patent contracts, a fantabulous amount of money -- " "Fantabulous -- how vulgar!" observed the double quietly. "Yes, but how American ! And so I married Bridgetta, who had been my laboratory assistant, so that she might inherit from me. Otherwise it would go to the government, for whom I have no great love. Then, too, someone must carry on my legal battles in the courts after I'm dead -- " "Against the Emergency Allocations Act, you know." " I'm telling this, Bernard. And finally I need someone to talk to in this gloomy prison besides the secret service guards and brainwashed lab technicians they assign to me. I'm not allowed to hold private conversations with my colleagues from the university any more, because they're afraid I'll leak their secret weapon . . . which I invented! In just such a manner as this was Prometheus dealt with for giving man the gift of fire." "Now, Bernard, don't overexcite yourself. Better give me the cap for a while now, and I'll straighten out matters with the captain. I think we can come to an understanding that will satisfy everyone -- " But before this happy accord could be reached, they were interrupted by Bridgetta -- a fourth version, with black hair -- who entered through the door at the farther end of the room. Bridget, Jet, and Bridie followed closely after. "She's going through," Bridie announced. And indeed it was so, for the new, black-haired Bridgetta walked on relentlessly toward and then through her husband, who seemed not at all perplexed by the experience. "That was Bridgetta-Sub-One, of course," his double explained to Hansard. "Otherwise, you know, she wouldn't go around the house opening doors instead of, like any proper ghost, walking through them. Bridgetta Sub-One is leaving for Paris.