Finally Doul ducked below a snarl of pipes and ushered her into a tiny chamber. It was not a room, just a little found space. All the surfaces were dusty, and the paint was peeling.

Doul gently put his finger in front of her lips.

Bellis was aware that meekly following Doul, fraternizing with him, was not sensible behavior from one who had been deeply involved in counter-Garwater activities. What am I doing here? she thought.

Uther Doul was pointing up at the ceiling, only an inch or so above her head. He cocked an ear expressively. It took some seconds before Bellis heard anything, and when she did, she was not at first sure what it was.

Voices. Muffled by layers of air and metal. Half-familiar. Bellis turned her head up. She could almost make out words now. This was an accidental little listening post. By quirk of architecture and materials, the sounds from the room above issued (by pipes, hollow walls?) through the ceiling.

Voices from the room above.

The Lovers’ room.

She started in astonishment. It was the Lovers that she could hear.

Cautious and slow, as if they might somehow see her, Bellis craned her neck and listened.

Words fluttering across registers, uttered with quick breaths. Mewing, pleading, delighting. Gasps of sexual closeness and pain and other intense emotions. And words coming through the metal.

… love… soon… fuck… yes and… cut… now… love… cut… yes, yes…

Yes.

The words were thick. Bellis recoiled from them-physically, literally, stepping away from the weak spot in the metal. The words, the sounds, were crooned quickly, so steeped in passion and need that they had to be bitten out or they would become a wordless shriek.

cut yes love cut

Two streams of words, male and female, overlapping and interweaving and inextricable-their rhythms inextricable.

Dear Jabber!thought Bellis. Uther Doul watched her, expressionless.

Cut and cut and love and cut!she thought, and went for the door, appalled. She thought of what they were doing, in their room, a few feet away.

Doul led her away from that terrible little cubbyhole. They ascended through layers of metal toward the night air. Doul still did not speak.

What are you doing?she thought, staring at his back. Why show me that?

There had been nothing prurient in his demeanor. She did not understand. Stiff, eloquent, and formal in his own room, uncovering extraordinary stories and theories to keep himself talking, he had become, in these corridors, a truculent child with a secret hideaway. And with something like the wordless, inarticulate pride she would expect from such a child, he had led her to his private den and shown her its secret. And she could not fathom why.