Read Callahan's Secret for Free Online Page B

crib anytime, for as long as you like, and the same goes for the rest of us, ain’t that right?”
    There were universal shouts of agreement. Finn smiled a pained smile. “Thank you all,” he said. “You are true Mends. But your generous offer does not speak to my problem. I did not say I was lonely. I said I was alone.”
    “Mickey,” Josie Bauer began silkily, “I told you once already-“
    “Again, thanks,” he said, sketching a gallant bow. “But it would, forgive me, hurt more than it would help.”
    “Hurt how?” she asked, not in the least offended.
    “Physically, for one thing, it would hurt you. You recall the Niven story you lent me once, about Superman’s sex life?”
    “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’, sure,” she said.
     
    “Yes,” Finn said sadly. “Orgasm involves involuntary muscle spasm-and while I am not as strong as Superman, I am much stronger than a Terran man. And you are slightly built.”
     
    There was something peculiar about Finn’s face. The eyes, that was it. His eyes hadn’t looked like that since the first night he’d come here. Hollow, btirnt out, empty of all hope. Why hadn’t they looked like that up on the roof? Or had I just failed to notice in the dark, distracted by lust? “It would hurt me, too,” he went on. “Not physically-.-spiritually. Human females often become angry when I fry to explain this, Josie, please do not be offended, but would it not be fair to say that what you were just about to offer me was a transient sexual relationship?”
    “Now, hold on a goddam-“
    “I said, ‘Please’, Josie.”
    “-uh… dammit, Finn, I didn’t mean a purely sexual-“
    “Of course not; I do not believe myself that there is any such thing. No doubt it would have involved friendship and laughter and kindness and several other wonderful qualities for which you Terrans do not yet have words. But is not
    the key word ‘transient’?”
    “Well, for crying out-“
    “I am wrong? You were proposing marriage?”
    Josie shut very quickly up.
    “Perhaps your subconscious intent was a liaison of days, or weeks, or even months. But I am sure that you were not offering to become my mate. No human ever would.”
    “Christ, Mickey, don’t run yourself down. I don’t happen to be the marrying kind, but I’m sure that some nice g-“
    “Look at me,” he roared suddenly, and everyone in the Place jumped a foot in the air. Deliberately, he pulled open his black sports coat, pulled open his shirt, pulled open his chest…
    I tried to look away, could not. I tried to fit words around what I was seeing, could not. I tried not to be horrified, could not. A strange sound filled the room: many people sucking air through their teeth. I can’t describe it, even now: take my word for it, whatever was inside Finn’s chest, human beings aren’t supposed to see things like that. Ever.
    Finn closed up his chest.
    A collective sigh went up.
    “I have shown you my heart,” Finn said softly. “Will you marry me?” Josie began to whimper.
    “Josie, I am sorry,” he said at once, but it was too late-she was out the door and gone. He said a word then which
    I’ve never heard before and hope never to hear again, something in his native tongue that hurt him worse than it did us. Josie’s a real nice lady, and Finn knew it.
     
    Callahan cleared his throat.
    “Mickey,” he rumbled, “you’re alone, we get it now. It’s a hard thing to be alone. Everyone in here has been alone, some of us are now-“
    “Not as I am,” Finn stated. “Even the most unfortunate of you is less alone. Now matter how remote the chance of your fmding a mate… there is always the chance. Always you have hope, even as you despair. No human will ever pair-bond with me-and I dare not leave your planet. My Masters believe me dead; if they ever learned otherwise-“
    “-they’d kill you,” Long-Drink finished.
    “Worse.”
    “They’d punish you.”
    “Worse.”
    “What’s worse?” Shorty