Miriam would twirl through the house singing “Caro Nome,” and laughing, all the while feeling the baby within her. They took a year to gestate, and giving birth was very hard. But the baby—the baby was fine! “No indication of a problem,” Sarah kept saying.

She really didn’t know. She didn’t even know for certain that Miriam was pregnant. She’d given her a urine test, but who knew if chorionic gonadotropin levels in a Keeper would be the same as in a human female. Probably not, in fact. Maybe their placental tissue produced another hormone altogether.

Unspoken in the household was the fact that the date of the first ultrasound was approaching. They would know then for sure, then and only then.

Miriam sang to her baby, she sang to her friends, and when Paul started smiling at her again, she sang to all the world.

Miriam had never before been so happy. Her household was thriving. Her body was glowing with health. She sensed that the baby was growing beautifully. And her new husband was slowly coming round.

“You know, Paul, I think you need to see it from our viewpoint, morally.”

“Try me.”

“We didn’t make ourselves. Nature made us.”

“That’s what the CIA says.”

She was quite interested in this. He’d never referred to what his employers might think of her before. “How so?”

“You’re not murderers; you’re predators. You have a right to kill us, and we have a right to defend ourselves. That’s the basis of a policy statement they’re working on.” “Well, that’s exactly my point.” She just ached to kiss him, he was so luscious. But he had not so far been willing to do that again.

Tomorrow, she was going to surprise him. He was finished with the infirmary. Her hope was that he would return to the marriage bed. She was going to be as sweet and as tempting as she knew how.

She got Sarah alone and said to her, “It’s time to take off his cuffs.”

“It’ll never be time for that.”

“Do it.”

“Miri, it’s crazy!”

“Do it.”

Sarah went to him. She locked the door behind her, then produced her key.

“Hey,” he said.

As she unlocked first the ankle cuffs, then the wrists, he watched her. She did not like his eyes, hadn’t liked them from the beginning.

“Well,” he said as he rubbed his wrists, “that feels a whole lot better.”

She backed away from him as she would from a spreading cobra, with care and sick fear.

He smiled.