Ender in Exile Page 0,42

"You stay here and head up the adaptation studies. I'll go work in the fields."

"What do you mean? There are plenty of people who can do that."

"It's either fire you or fire me. We're not working together anymore after this."

"But no one had to know!"

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," said Sel. "You're supposed to be the believer."

"But the daughters of Midian - "

"Slept with their own father because it was more important to have babies than to practice exogamy." Sel sighed. "It's also important to respect the rules of monogamy absolutely, so we don't see the colony torn up with conflict over women."

"All right, forget I said anything," said Afraima.

"I can't forget it," said Sel.

"Then why don't you - "

"I lost the lottery, Afraima. It's now illegal for me to have offspring. Especially by poaching another man's mate. But I also can't take the libido suppressants because I need to be sharp and energetic in order to conduct my study of the life forms on this world. I can't have you in here, now that you've offered yourself to me."

"It was just an idea," she said. "You need me to work with you."

"I need someone," said Sel. "Doesn't have to be you."

"But people will wonder why you fired me. Evenezer will guess that there was something between us."

"That's your problem."

"What if I tell them that you got me pregnant?"

"You're definitely fired. Right now. Irrevocably."

"I was kidding!"

"Get your brain back inside your head. There'll be a paternity test. DNA. Meanwhile, your husband will be made a figure of ridicule, and every other man will look at his wife, wondering if she's offering herself to someone else to put a cuckoo in the nest. So you're out. For the sake of everyone."

"If you make it that obvious, then it'll do the same damage to people's trust in marriage as if we'd actually done it!"

Sel sat down on the greenhouse floor and buried his face in his hands.

"I'm sorry," said Afraima. "I only half meant it."

"You mean that if I had said yes, you'd have told me you were just kidding and left me humiliated for having agreed to adultery?"

"No," she said. "I'd do it. Sel, you're the smartest, everyone knows it. And you shouldn't be cut off without having children. It's not right. We need your genes in the pool."

"That's the genetic argument," said Sel. "Then there's the social argument. Monogamy has been proven, over and over, to be the optimum social arrangement. It's not about genes, it's about children - they have to grow up into the society we want them to maintain. We voted on this."

"And I vote to carry one baby of yours. Just one."

"Please leave," said Sel.

"I'm the logical one, since I'm Jewish and so are you."

"Please go. Close the door behind you. I have work to do."

"You can't turn me away," she said. "It would hurt the colony."

"So would killing you," said Sel, "but you're making that more and more tempting the longer you stay here to torture me."

"It's only torture because you want me."

"My body is human and male," said Sel, "and so of course I want to engage in mating behavior regardless of consequences. My logical functions are being suppressed already so it's a good thing I made the decision irrevocably. Don't make me turn my decision into a painful reality by cutting the little suckers off."

"So that's it? You castrate yourself, one way or the other. Well, I'm a human female, and I hunger for the mate that will give me the best offspring."

"Then look for somebody big and strong and healthy if you want to commit adultery, and don't let me catch you because I'll turn you in."

"Brain. I want your brain."

"Well, the kid would probably have your brain and my face. Now go and get the reports on the D-4 treatment and take it over to chem."

"I'm not fired?"

"No," said Sel. "I'm resigning. I'm going out into the fields and leaving you here."

"I'm just the backup XB. I can't do the work."

"You should have thought of that before you made it impossible for us to work together."

"Who ever heard of a man who didn't want a little roll in the hay on the side?"

"This colony is my life now, Afraima. Yours too. You don't shit in your own soup. Can I put it any plainer than that?"

She began to cry.

"What have I done that God would punish me like this?" said Sel. "What comes next? Interpreting dreams for