"I love him--even more, now. And I'd do nothing to stand in the way of his happiness. But Jack, remember I'm Martian and he is denied his right to command a battle squadron. Because of me. He's stuck in this noncombat group--because of my heritage. In all that time, he has never shown it, yet he must know. If anything, he has become more tender, more protecting, more affectionate. More tolerant. Yet what can I do to give him release from this? Suicide isn't the proper answer. That would deprive me of what I want, and his desire is not completely to the service. But he cannot have his cake and eat it too." "That's quite a load, Jenna," said Grant tenderly. "I hadn't realized." "I ignore it, mostly. But there are times when it creeps up and gets me. I wake at night, thinking deeply. I fret, and go sleepless, wishing there were a way out." "I think you've well made up for it." "No," she said with a shake of his head. "He must feel denied of his right to honor by his affiliation--made in the face of public objection to mixed-marriage. I ... am now worse. An enemy alien." "You are a Terran citizen," stated Grant. "I have papers to prove it," she said scornfully. "And any doctor that didn't see the papers but examined me perfunctorily would pronounce me Martian. Ours will always be--a sterile marriage. It cannot be otherwise. Yet until this shadow came, we were both happy." "Poor Jenna," said Grant, putting her head down on his shoulder and patting the back of it. "And now that the first doubt has crept in, the rest of Pandora's Troubles all come roaring in through the initial breach." "And now this," she sobbed. "Grant, it's worse than torture." * * * * * Grant's mind whipped back and forth between several types of torture he'd heard about and wondered what she meant. "No amount of torture could pry a secret from you, could it?" she asked. "I like to think I'm that way," he said. "You think a lot of me," she said. "Would you talk to save me from torture?" A bead of sweat popped out on Jack's forehead as he thought it over. "That's a double curse," he said grimly. "You'd prefer torture to misloyalty and I'd be torn between the two because it is against all natural instincts for a male to harm a female. That's a forty-thousand-year heritage, Jenna." "Well," she said, "I'm in that position but I'm without the means to say the word and relieve his torture." "And he," said Grant, with feeling, "is pretty much in the same boat." "Before this all happened there was enough to outweigh any doubt. But I'm practically accused of treachery." Grant smiled tolerantly. "Most of that is in your own mind," he said gently. "You've kept your fears bottled up too long, and they're fermenting into all sorts of questionings and worries." "Then I'm not really under suspicion?"