Careful decontamination had saved our sterility, but now the Big Tank had no window.
"I was saying...." the Firebird said, in a firm voice.
"That Mary deWitte isn't here. Do you suppose she's still outside? She checked out her sterility-suit about the same time you did."
"That's a good nine hours ago," I said, glancing at the clock set over Saturn on our mural. "Either Mary has been on a restricted-fluids diet, or True Love has made her careless of visceral discomfort."
"The demands of the kidney are as exigent as those of the heart, Firebird," I said. "I think I'd better call Dr. McQueen."
"You'll only cause trouble for her and Lofting," Firebird said.
"I've decided that it's better to be lovesick than dead," I explained, getting up from the table.
I went to the phone in the corner of the dining-room and dialed Dr. McQueen's home. "Chief? John Bogardus. Mary deWitte still hasn't come home to roost. I think we'd better find her before she does something splendid and foolish."
"Like perhaps marrying her contaminated basketball-player and setting out on a suicidal honeymoon?" Dr. McQueen suggested. "You're right, John; we should prevent that sort of thing. The rub is, we're too late. I got a phone-call from Mary a few minutes after I got home this evening. She abandoned her sterility-suit in a downtown Chicago hotel room at noon today, and married her fledgling lawyer in a civil ceremony at one o'clock. I tried to find out from her where she was, but she just said she was very happy and hung up."
"I'm flying to Chicago, where I'll ask the help of the police in finding Mary," the Chief said. "Once I've run down the happy couple, though, damned if I know what I'll do next. Shall I stand outside the bridal chamber with a syringeful of broad-spectrum antibiotics, waiting for Mary to sneeze?"
"Mary knows how likely it is that she'll never grow old," Dr. McQueen said. "But I suspect that she hasn't said a word to her husband. I'd better go now, John. My plane leaves in twenty minutes."
"Don't let this prey on you too much, Chief," I said. "We Lapins have free will, too. We're old enough to bear the responsibilities for our own actions."
"Thank you, Johnny." Dr. McQueen hung up.
I returned to the table with no enthusiasm for the remaining half of my steak. "What's up, Johnny?" the Firebird asked me.