"But can we?" Alicia cut in. "Suppose they've stationed guards in a tight circle a few yards from the dwelling, with only a few feet between them. Every circle doesn't have to be widespread, if it's near enough."
"If there was a circle of guards directly outside they would never have dropped a bomb so close to the dwelling," Teleman said, impatiently. "Darling, we're wasting precious seconds. Take off your clothes. Quickly, strip yourself naked."
Alicia's eyes widened in shocked dismay and she stared at him wordlessly, as if she feared that he had suddenly become bereft of his senses.
"It's another string to our bow," he said, quickly. "We're disguising ourselves as a sex-privileged man and woman. The garments are here, and the insignia."
"The garments? You mean—"
For answer Teleman went to a built-in wall cabinet on the opposite side of the window, jerked it open and removed all of its contents: two knee-length tunics of pale blue fabric, two identification disks with corrugated surface markings, and two shining silver insignia, bearing the emblem of the sex-privileged, a nude man and woman locked in an embrace that made them seem almost to blend into a single reclining figure.
"These garments are a gift to us," he said. "Surrendered freely and with nothing asked in return by a man who has become, in just these few moments, a friend I shall never forget. When the gift was made he did not know that the garments would mock his grief and be of no further use to him. Let me never be cynical, and doubt human nature, darling, its capacity for generosity and unfaltering courage in moments of shared danger."
Teleman explained to her swiftly how the garments would be used, and why the mating center plan had a better chance of success than any of the other plans he had thought of as second-choice possibilities.
She was quick to agree and was removing her garments before the second blast came. The room shook again, but this time there was no glass to splinter and it seemed less loud than the first explosion. A dropped bomb falling into a pond and detonating under water perhaps, or a small bomb hurled by hand. Teleman had no intention of letting it unnerve him and he gestured reassuringly as Alicia paused to stare at him with fear in her eyes, a tangle of dropped garments at her feet and her nude body bathed in light from the window—a light so dazzling it made her blink furiously—she had the white-limbed grace of a statue carved in stone.
She was naked for a moment, for Teleman tossed her one of the two garments he had taken from the cabinet, and she caught it deftly, a smile appearing for an instant on her lips, and put it on, loosening the belt at the waist a little and adjusting the bosom-sheaths until they fitted snugly over the twin mounds of her gently swelling breasts. There was a flame-colored sheath lower down, where the garment became more tight-fitting, and this she adjusted carefully too, smoothing out the cloth here and then and twisting her body about until she appeared to be wearing a garment which had been made for her. There was no fold out of place or too tight-fitting, and when she raised her arms the garment seemed to mold itself even more perfectly to her slender torso, its smooth-flowing, silken texture enhancing her body's grace.