"Then the whole society from which we come will have to be strictly monogamous, in the narrowest, most literal sense of the term. No exceptions whatever. Adultery, anything illicit, has always been not only unimaginable, but in fact impossible. We pair--or marry, or whatever they do here--once only. For life. Desire and potency can exist only within the pair; never outside it. Like eagles. If a man's wife dies, even, he loses all desire and all potency. That would make it physically impossible for you two to follow the Hodellian Code. You'd both be completely impotent with any women whatever except your mates--Belle and me." "That will work," Belle said. "_How_ it will work!" She paused. Then, suddenly, she whistled; the loud, full-bodied, ear-piercing, tongue-and-teeth whistle which so few women ever master. Her eyes sparkled and she began to laugh with unrestrained glee. "But do you know what you've done, Lola?" "Nothing, except to suggest a solution. What's so funny about that?" "You're wonderful, Lola--simply priceless! You've created something brand-new to science--an impotent tomcat! And the more I think about it...." Belle was rocking back and forth with laughter. She could not possibly talk, but her thought flowed on, "I just love you all to pieces! An _impotent tomcat_, and he'll _have_ to stay true to me--Oh, this is simply _killing_ me--I'll _never_ live through it!" "It _does_ put us on the spot--especially Jim," came Garlock's thought. * * * He, too, began to laugh; and Lola, as soon as she stopped thinking about the thing only as a problem in anthropology, joined in. James, however, did not think it was very funny. "And that's less than half of it!" Belle went on, still unable to talk. "Think of Clee, Lola. Six two--over two hundred--hard as nails--a perfect hunk of hard red meat--telling this whole damn cockeyed region of space that he's impotent, too! And with a perfectly straight face! And it ties in so _beautifully_ with his making no response, yes or no, when she propositioned him. The poor, innocent, impotent lamb just simply didn't have even the faintest inkling of what she meant! Oh, my...." "Listen--_listen_--_listen_!" James managed finally to break in. "Not that I want to be promiscuous, but...." "There, there, my precious little impotent tomcat," Belle soothed him aloud, between giggles and snorts. "Us Earth-girls will take care of our lover-boys, see if we don't. You won't need any nasty little...." Belle could not hold the pose, but went off again into whoops of laughter. "_What_ a brain you've got, Lola! I thought I could imagine _anything_, but to make these two guys of ours--the two absolute tops of the whole Solar System--it's a stroke of genius...." "Shut up, will you, you human hyena, and _listen_!" James roared aloud. "There ought to be _some_ better way than that." "Better? Than sheer perfection?" Belle was still laughing but could now talk coherently.