I was working on the finish when Fly-in-Amber came in and addressed me formally in Japanese. I set the instrument down and stood, and returned the greeting with a slight bow, which he had tried to do.

“Snowbird should be asking you this,” he said, “since human behavior is her area of expertise, but she was unsure about politeness.”

“And you don’t care.”

“Of course not. I am not human.”

I chose not to pursue the obvious there. “So what does Snowbird want to know?”

“Oh, I want to know as well. But my interest is not professional.”

“Fire away.”

“Pardon me?”

“Please ask the question.”

“It is more than one question.”

“All right. Ask them all.”

“It’s about your wife Elza mating with Meryl’s husband Moonboy.”

Good news travels fast. “Well, they weren’t mating. There was no possibility of offspring.”

“I know that. I was being polite. Should I say ‘fucking’?”

“With me, either one is fine. But your instinct is right.”

“Snowbird wanted me to talk to you in private, which is why I am bothering you here. She wants to know if this causes you pain, the adultery.”

“Not really. I’ve been expecting it.” I didn’t want to get into a definition of adultery.

“Is there symmetry? Are you going to mate with one of the other women?”

I had to smile. “Not immediately. It doesn’t always work that way.”

“Are you not attracted to any of them?”

“I’m attracted to all of them, in varying degrees. I just don’t act on that attraction as directly as Elza does.”

“Is that because you are old?”

“I’m not that old. It’s less youth on Elza’s part than impulsiveness. I want to know someone well before I am intimate with her.”

“Always ‘her’? You are not intimate with men?”

How honest do you have to be with a Martian? “Not in many years. Not since I was boy.”

“Not with Dustin Beckner?”

“No. Definitely not Dustin.”

“Yet you are married to him.”

“Yes, and I love him, but in a different way. You can love without mating.” He was silent for a moment, so I asked, “Do you feel love? Do you love Snowbird, for instance?”

“I don’t think so, in human terms. She says there was a word in ancient Greek, agape, that approximates the way Martians feel about one another.”

“You wouldn’t have erotic love.”

“No. That wouldn’t make sense. There is pleasure in mating, but you often don’t know ahead of time who will be involved, or how many. And, of course, you don’t know which of you will be the female until the contest is over. The female feels it more strongly.”

“Well, ‘erotic’ means more than that, if you go back to Snowbird’s ancient Greek. It’s an intense feeling one has for another, whether or not sex is involved.”

“Humans do that?”

“Some. Most.”