He took hold of the ring with thumb and forefinger to pull it off—and discovered the second problem. It would not budge. It was not tight on his finger; in fact, it was so comfortable that he was never aware of it unless he focused on it—but it seemed to constrict itself when he drew on it. The harder he pulled the tighter it was. It was also invulnerable to twisting. He went to the bathroom and soaped his finger—the bars of soap were an affectation, since the sonic shower made them unnecessary, but affectations had a long shelf life—yet his efforts made no difference. He tried to pull the skin of the finger tight so it couldn't bunch up under the ring, but that, too, was ineffective. "This thing must have an adhesive-spell!"
"No, it doesn't," Orlene said behind him. He jumped guiltily; he hadn't been aware of her waking. Spying his discomfort, she laughed merrily and proffered a kiss; it was three more days before he thought of the ring again.
This time she was visiting the estate doctor for her routine weekly checkup. Part of the condition of her marriage to the ghost was that she remain healthy so she could bear a healthy heir. She was fastidious about all her duties. Thus Norton had a little time to himself in the doctor's lounge.
He contemplated the ring. The tiny gem eyes of the metallic serpent seemed to look back at him. "So you stay with your owner," he remarked. "Is that the extent of your magic?"
Then he almost leaped out of his chair. The ring had pulsed twice, gently squeezing his finger!
Norton was alone, but was aware that doctors' premises had ways to observe their occupants. Therefore, he acted as if he were in public and subdued his reaction. Perhaps, anyway, he had imagined those pulses. "Did you do that, ring?" he asked it in a low voice. There was a single squeeze, firm but not painful. He was onto something here! "You understand me?" One squeeze, constriction and release, brief but definite.
"And you respond to questions by squeezing?"
One squeeze. "One squeeze for yes, two for no?"
Squeeze. "Do you ever do three squeezes?"
Squeeze.
"When?"
This time there were three squeezes.
"That doesn't answer my question!" he whispered. "What does it mean when you do three?"
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Norton pondered. "Let's see—you answer yes or no. Would three squeezes mean you can't answer yes or no?"
Squeeze.
"So three means either you don't know the answer or you can't phrase it as a yes or no?"
Squeeze. "When I ask you a non-yes-no question, the answer has to be three squeezes?"
Squeeze, squeeze. Two? What did that mean? It was "No," but was it for the answer to a non-yes-no question having to be three Squeezes? Norton pondered, then saw what he had missed. "When I ask you a question whose answer is a number, then your squeezes indicate the number?"
Squeeze. "Such as: what is the product of three times seven?"
Squeeze. Oops. "I meant, please give me the answer to that question."
There was a pause, then three squeezes. "That's not the answer, ring! What happened?"
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
"Oh—you mean you aren't good at math?"
Squeeze!
Norton smiled. "We all have our weaknesses. No shame in that! But you can count?"
Squeeze.
"How many fingers do I have?"
There were ten squeezes.
Norton smiled again. "Ring, I think I understand you now! Have you other properties?"
Squeeze.
"But you can't tell me outright what they are?"
Squeeze. "But if I guess, you'll tell me?"
Squeeze.
"Very good!" Norton pondered again. Twenty Questions had never been his best game, but he was sure he could get the information he wanted, given unlimited questions. This was exciting!
Then Orlene reappeared, and he had to stop.
"Well, I'm not pregnant yet," she said. "Despite your efforts. I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. The doctor will see you next."
"Me?" he asked, startled.
Squeeze.
That startled him again. Apparently, now that he had evoked the ring, it answered any questions it heard.
"To make sure you're fertile," Orlene said.
"Oh." Of course that would be a requirement of the ghost-bride's consort. Suppose he were infertile? That might be the end of their relationship.
"Go on in," she said. "She's waiting for you."
"She?"
Squeeze.
Orlene smiled. "You don't think I'd trust this to a male doctor, do you?"
"But I'd rather see a male!"
"Too bad," she said wickedly. She leaned forward and kissed him briefly on the lips. "Enjoy yourself."
"Yeah, sure," he agreed, disgruntled.
The doctor was a stern, middle-aged woman. "Strip, son."
"Look, I—"
She cracked a cold smile. "Would you prefer to have a male orderly present to safeguard your virtue?"
"Oh, no, thanks. But—"
"This is routine. Believe me, young man, I've seen it before."
Surely true! Norton did not consider himself, in his latening thirties, as young, but didn't care to make an issue of that at the moment. He bowed to necessity and stripped to his trunks.
She ran him through the normal paces, checking his temperature, blood pressure, ears, eyes, tongue, muscle tone, and whatever else her instruments were set for. Then came the awkward part. "Now the trunks, please."
He clenched his teeth and obeyed. After all, women had to suffer examination by male doctors; this could be considered turnabout. She hooked a finger into his crotch. "Cough."
He coughed, and repeated it for the other side. Then she donned a plastic glove. "Bend over, son. Put your hands against the support."
"Don't you have some more modern way to—?"
"It's much more fun this way," she assured him. He obeyed instructions again, and she greased her glove and did what doctors always did to men, physically. "Hey!"
"Hold still. I'm securing the specimen." Evidently so. In a moment she took a glass smear off to her lab, and he was permitted to clean off the grease and redress. All this indignity just to verify—
"Ring," he asked, suffering a belated inspiration, "am I fertile?"
Squeeze.
To think of the awkwardness he could have spared himself! But the doctor probably wouldn't have believed the ring.
As it turned out, the ring was correct; he was fertile. Then he wondered how the ring had known. The fact that it could respond to a person's questions did not guarantee that it was omniscient. Magic came in many forms and degrees.
He rejoined Oriene, who was suppressing a smirk. "You knew I was fertile!" he accused her.
"Of course. Otherwise you wouldn't have glowed."
"Then why did you send me in to the doctor?" She tried valiantly to contain it, but her giggle managed to escape. Why, indeed! Even nice girls liked to turn the tables on men on occasion. He would find a way to get even.
They returned to the whirl of activities, including more efforts to complete the ghost's mission. It was another week before Norton had a moment to question the ring again. By then he had figured out how to make his questions count. Orlene was taking an old-fashioned bubble bath. The estate had sonic showers for each bedroom, but there was something about bubbles and bathing that delighted women. Actually, he wouldn't have minded taking one himself, but his masculine image forbade it.
Norton was theoretically watching a news program on holo, but he tuned that out mentally and talked to the ring instead.
"Parliamentary procedure," the holo announcer was saying, his head appearing to be right in the room, talking directly to Norton. "The Satanic forces admit they don't have the votes to override the expected veto this time, but they hope to show substantial strength. Any break in the ranks of—"
"Ring, what shall I call you?" Norton asked. "Do you have a name?"
&
nbsp; Squeeze, squeeze.
"Would you like one?"
Squeeze.
"Then suppose I make up a name? You are my Snake Ring; I'll call you Sning, for SNake rING. How's that?"
Squeeze! Evidently the ring was enthusiastic.
"Good enough, Sning. Are you of Evil Magic?"
Squeeze, squeeze.
"Good Magic?"
Squeeze.
The ring could be lying, for Evil lied, but he didn't think so. Orlene would never have sought an evil artifact. That meant he could trust it.
It? "Um, Sning, are you male or female?"
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze...
"Sorry. I'll rephrase that. Male?"
Squeeze.
"Okay, you're a he. Now, I believe you said you have other abilities?"
Squeeze.
He zeroed in on the answer. "What else you have—is it something you do or something you are? Do?"
Squeeze. "Are?" Squeeze. "So it's both?" Squeeze. This sounded good! "Are you animate or inanimate?" Again he got yes to both. "You can change?" Squeeze. "When I ask you to?" Squeeze. "In fact," he concluded triumphantly, "you can be a live snake!" Squeeze.
Now he had to figure out what advantage this might be to the owner of the ring. In due course he established that Sning could come alive, slither off his finger—all he had ever had to do was ask Sning to come off, and removal would have been easy; he had stupidly tried force instead—scout the local territory, return, and report via squeezes what was going on.
Norton pondered only momentarily before grinning wickedly. "Go scout Orlene," he ordered. "Very closely."
The ring turned a brighter green, slid off his finger, dropped to the floor, and slithered rapidly toward the bathroom. Sning, extended, was only five or six inches long, but lively enough.
A minute passed. Then there was a scream. A few seconds later Sning zipped back, trailing some bubble froth. Norton put down his hand, and the tiny snake wrapped around his finger and went metallic.
"She saw you?"
A wet squeeze.
"Close?"
Squeeze.
"She screamed?"
Squeeze.
"And threw bubbles at you?"
Squeeze.
"Anything else to report?"
At this point Orlene appeared, half-clothed in bubbles. "Don't you dare!" she snapped at the ring.
Norton laughed, his revenge complete—until she pounced on him, glistening wet and slippery, and doused his hair with bubbles. "So you found out how to use the ring!" she exclaimed severely. "I gave you too much time to yourself!" She jammed bubbles in his eyes, but they were the nonsting kind. "Send him after me again, and I'll drown you both in bubbles!" She stalked off, leaving a trail of dying bubbles.
"I only wish it could have been that female doctor," Norton muttered rebelliously.
One other thing he learned about Sning: he was poisonous. His fangs were tiny, of course, but his venom was potent. A single bite could not kill a creature the size of a man, but could make him very sick for several hours, so that he might think he was dying. Sning would bite on order, but then would require a day to restock his poison.
"That's all right," Norton said. "I have no enemies; you don't need to bite anyone for me." But it was perhaps just as well that he had not known about Sning's poison when encountering the doctor.
Later, after Orlene had calmed down—her annoyance had been mostly because he had unraveled the secrets of the ring so quickly—he asked her where she had gotten it. It turned out to have been in the family for generations, passed from parent to child or from spouse to spouse.
"But then it should go to your child!" he said. "I'm not technically your spouse."
"It's not a technical thing," she said. "I—care for you, Norton. I want you to have it."
"Then I'm glad to have it." He kissed her.
The following month she was verified pregnant. Then she changed; her interest in entertainments diminished, and she oriented increasingly on the family-to-be. "But don't go away, Norton," she cautioned him. "I need you more than ever now."
Norton wasn't sure of that, but certainly he needed her. He hoped that after the baby was born and the estate heir established, he and Orlene could travel again. But if not, then not. He was bound to her regardless. The baby would never legally be his, but the blood was his. However unconnected officially, he still cared. He had never figured himself to be a family man before, but it seemed he was. Orlene made it clear that she continued to need his presence and support, and he was glad to comply. He was a kept man—but, like many a kept woman, he had no interest in breaking free.
Time passed, and Orlene's girth grew. Norton started handling some of the household chores, simple as they were. It was surprising how readily he had been domesticated—but it seemed the glow had spoken truly. He was good at this. And she did need him—not for the routine, but for his continuing emotional and physical support.
The ghost stayed away, to Norton's relief. His other association with magic, Sning, was entertaining for a time, but he really had no reason to spy on anyone and had no questions in pressing need of answers, so he didn't use the snake ring for much except decoration. As Orlene's condition advanced, his romantic activity with her diminished and finally ceased; she wanted nothing to interfere in any way with the developing baby. He would have liked to resume his hikes in the park, but she could no longer come along, and he didn't care to leave her alone for any extended period.
As a result, he took to viewing historical holographs. He had grown tired of contemporary entertainment programs, but the historicals enabled him to indulge his urge to explore in time as well as space. His wanderlust was balked by his commitment to Orlene, but this was a fair sublimation. He also took holo courses in a number of subjects, improving his array of background skills. He learned the geography of the world in greater detail, and of Mars, Venus, and Mercury; he studied that of the Milky Way Galaxy itself, though, of course, most of it was well out of reach. Oh, to explore those farthest stars...!
In due time the baby arrived. Orlene was radiant. She had done her job; she had produced the heir. He was a robust boy who seemed to resemble Gawain more than Norton and was named Gawain II. Norton was glad for her, but felt somewhat out of sorts. His own service had now been performed, but he couldn't bring himself to leave, and Orlene didn't want him to. "We'll start doing things again," she promised him. "As soon as Gaw-Two is ready for baby-sitting."
But she didn't use any baby-sitters, human, robot, or golem. She was too attentive a mother for that. That was, of course, one reason she had been selected for the ghost marriage. She paid attention to Norton in a dutiful manner, and very sweet attention it was, but she paid more attention to the baby. She insisted on personally breastfeeding Gaw, because that was nature's way, and on washing his soiled diapers by hand, because she didn't want to risk the chemicals of mechanized washing. She wouldn't put him in the sonic shower, concerned that the sonics could injure his undeveloped nervous system. She supervised every aspect of his little life with loving concern, because that was what she deemed a good mother was for.
Norton could hardly quarrel with this; he believed in nature. Yet aspects of it bothered him. For he was largely excluded from the process; officially he had nothing to do with the baby. The comprehensive equipment of the estate went mostly unused, and he was part of the equipment. Orlene also took Gaw to visit his legal grandparents, who, she reported, exclaimed in pleased wonder at his resemblance to his ghost-father. Norton, of course, was not invited on that trip.
He sank into a pointless depression. He was glad for Orlene's success and he had known the nature of his position from the outset. But still he found it difficult to accept. He had somehow supposed that the arrival of the baby would free Orlene to be with him, Norton, as she had been before the conception; now it was apparent that the baby had pre-empted whatever attention she might have been ready to bestow on him. He wished that somehow all this could
have been his to share, estate, baby, and Orlene. He had become accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle of Gawain's means and to the constant attentions of a lovely young woman. In fact, he realized, he had been spoiled. He wanted, as Orlene had said at the outset, too much.
In the midst of one such reverie, the ghost reappeared.
Norton was almost glad to see him. "Well, sport, you've had a year," Gawain said. "How's it going?"
"Successfully," Norton said. "You now have your heir."
"Ah, yes!" Gawain was so delighted he sailed into the air. "I can finally go to Heaven!"
Gawain was going to Heaven? Norton shrugged. "Only you can decide that. Take a look at your son. He's sleeping in the crib in the bedroom."
"But I can't go near Orlene."
"She's in the kitchen now, I believe, taste testing new baby food. She wants Gaw's first solid food to be just right."
The ghost popped out. In a few minutes he popped back, looking worried. "He resembles me too much."
"You object to that?"
Gawain paced the floor. "Something I should tell you, Norton. On my travels this past year I met some interesting people."
"Why not? I certainly have no objection, and if I did, it wouldn't matter. I like to travel myself."
"I met some of the Incarnations."
"The whats?"
"The Incarnations. Two of them, anyway. War and Nature."
"I'm not sure I follow you, Gawain."
"They are personifications of fundamental concepts or forces. There are a lot of them, but only a few major ones. They sort of supervise their functions—Well, my point is, I talked with Nature, the Green Mother Gaea, and she promised to put my essence in my heir."
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