In her own room, with Gunther blocks full on, she threw herself face down on the bed and cried as she had not cried since she was a child. And finally, without even taking off her clothes, she cried herself to sleep. CHAPTER 8 Next morning, early, Belle tapped lightly on Garlock's door. "Come in." She did so. "Have you had your coffee?" "Yes." "So have I." Neither Belle nor Garlock had recovered; both faces showed strain and drain. "I think we'd better break this up," Belle said, quietly. "Check. We'll have to, if we expect to get any work done." Belle could not conceal her surprise. "Oh, not for the reason you think," Garlock went on, quickly. "Your record as a man-killer is still one hundred point zero zero zero percent. I've been in love with you ever since we paired. Before that, even." "Flapdoodle!" she snorted, inelegantly. "Why, I...." "Keep still a minute. And I'm not going to fight with you again. Ever. I'm not going to touch you again until I can control myself a lot better than I could last night." "Oh? That was mostly my fault, of course. But in love? Uh-uh, I've seen men in love. You aren't. I couldn't make you be, not with the best I could do. Not even in bed. You aren't, Clee--if you are, I'm an Australian bushman." "Perhaps I'm an atypical case. I'm not raving about your perfect body--you know what that is like already. Nor about your mind, which is the only one I know of as good as my own. Maybe I'm in love with what I think you ought to be ... or what I hope you will be. Anyway, I'm in love with _something_ connected with you--and with no other woman alive. Shall we go eat?" "Uh-huh--let's." They joined Lola and James at the table; and if Lola noticed anything out of the ordinary, she made no sign. And after breakfast, in the Main-- "About three weeks, Jim, you think?" Garlock asked. "Give or take a couple of days, yes." "And Belle and I would just be in the way--at least until time to show Deggi about the activation ... and all those Primes to organize ... we'd better leave you here, don't you think, and get going?" "I'll buy that. We'll finish as soon as possible." Lola and James moved a few personal belongings planetside; Garlock and Belle shot the _Pleiades_ across a vast gulf of space to one of the planets they had scanned so fleetingly on their preliminary survey. Its name was, both remembered, Lizoria; its two Primes were named Rezdo Semolo and Mirea Mitala--male and female, respectively. After sending down a very brief and perfunctory request for audience--which was in effect a declaration of intent and nothing else--Garlock and Belle teleported themselves down into Semolo's office, where both Lizorian Primes were. Both got up out of peculiar-looking chairs to face their visitors. Both were tall; both were peculiarly thin. Not the thinness of emaciation, but that of bodily structure. "On them it looks good," Belle tight-beamed a thought to Garlock.