“Excuse me, sir, but I’m discussing the possibility of marriage to your daughter,” said Noxon. “And explaining to you both why my twin and I have decided that where she goes, there go I. Not because we expect anything, or require anything. We’re both quite smitten with your daughter. In fact, we’re both very much in love with her. So on the chance that she might at some future point reciprocate . . .”

“Passage through the Wall apparently makes you awkward and stuffy in any language,” said Wheaton.

“We want to offer her the best chance of creating a family with healthy, whole, unmutated children.”

“Apart from that little genetic twist about being able to fiddle with time,” said Wheaton.

“We’re not sure whether that’s a plus or not,” said Noxon. “We do know that while pathfinding emerged at an early age, time manipulation came along much later. I don’t think that she would find a nursing baby suddenly disappearing and then reappearing at another time.”

“So you look at my breasts and think of attaching a baby to them?” asked Deborah.

Noxon looked at her steadily, trying to conceal his consternation. “I assure you that I’m a normal human male in most respects. But I’m an uxorious male, I believe the professor would say, and so I don’t have the alpha male’s assumption that all women are faunching to mate with me.”

“Only to nurse your babies.”

“Only to wish the babies they nurse to be healthy and not particularly weird.”

“What if I like your twin better than you?” asked Deborah. “Pretty cheeky, to take the decision out of my hands.”

“We’re quite sure that you can’t tell the difference between us at this point,” said Noxon. “And also sure that our feelings toward you are identical, because we were in love with you long before we duplicated.”

“When, exactly, did this overpowering passion first . . . overpower you?” asked Deborah.

“I first noticed it when you inconveniently got yourself killed by an Erectid stone.”

“Clumsy of me,” said Deborah.

“You didn’t follow instructions,” said Noxon. “And I knew, rationally, that I should consider the option of leaving that unfortunate event alone. But I did not consider it. I didn’t actually give a rat’s ass what else happened. Even if it would make saving Garden more difficult, I was not going to leave you dead.”

“How gallant,” said Deborah.

“I thought of going on without you and I found that unbearable,” said Noxon.

“Yet because one of you is going to Garden and the other to the planet Hell, or whatever we’re calling it, one of you must go on without me.”

“Yes,” said Noxon. “And so we decided, rationally, that we would offer you ourself at our best. My best. And the other would go about his tragic, meaningless existence without you.”

“And now you’re being ironic.”