The comm said click. Janja gazed thoughtfully at it for a moment. She smiled just a little. She had noticed how h.e.l.lfire applied the female p.r.o.noun to Raunchy. Probably automatic, Janja decided, b.u.t.toning off the phone. A Jarp was an it* Most Jarps were quick to remind others of that fact. Janja turned and stepped out of the booth, glanced about, and headed for the door marked HERN.

"Rest" rooms, Janja had learned, had not changed much across the hundreds of years. That was a finger-flipper to her; there were no such facilities on pastoral Aglaya. The Aglayan euphemism translated as "the bushes" as in "I have to go to the bushes."

As she entered, Althis was just coming out of a stall. They nodded without speaking and Janja entered the adjacent one.

She soon emerged to actuate the foot-switch to cleanse her hands radiantly. Althis stood waiting.

"Nothing like a good pressure release to make a woman feel like a girl again, hmmm?"

Janja nodded. Words seemed called for, ridiculously. She said one: "Right."

"Say Janje, me and Vett would love to have yourself and Corundum join ourselves in a few minutes for a little . . . party." She chuckled. "Actually I think it's you Vett and myself are both taken with, but we can't leave out Corundum, huh!"

"That's what Ahizna means to you two, isn't it," Janja said, turning to the door.

* Actually the third, genderless p.r.o.noun, not the fourth one for things: "it." There is unfortunately no English equivalent, "they" being plural only.

167.

"Uh-pos. You caught all that, huh. You're too fast, Janja, just too fast!" The tone was admiring and placating, not quite fawning. "We-"

"I'm afraid Ahizna is not on Thebanis tonight, Althis."

"Oh. Uh. You mean, uh, Vett and myself don't interest you, huh." She followed Janja out, watching that small blond head shake.

"No, Althis. That's not what I said. It's not-ah- something I want to do, that's all."

"You don't like Vett?"

O Aglil, has this creature no sense of self, no matter how often she misemploys the word myself? Janja said, "It just isn't something I want to do, Althis. That's all. Really."

"Um. Well, uh-what if-" Althis was hurrying to stay alongside the other woman, making her way back to the rear of the Loophole. "What if Corundum wants -uh, you're not going to talk to him about it?"

Janja shook her head.

"Hey, Janja, quit rushing, we aren't enemies and I'm not begging, f r Tao's sake, I just-well, what if Corundum and Vettering are talking right now and Corundum does want to?"

Janja almost stopped. She turned her head to look into Althis's eyes, and she kept her expression pleasant. "That won't matter to me, Althis."

"Tao's b.a.l.l.s, you are really something Janje, you know that?"

Oh sure, Janja thought, moving on back to the others. I'm really something, all right. The trouble is I don't know what and I'm no longer sure who.

11.

One can't feel responsible for the ill effects he inadvertently causes in another's life. In reality we are all unwitting shapers of each other.

Gil Gaier, Phosphene Vettering and Corundum had not been discussing the invitation to a mini-orgy because Vettering was still standing, watchfully waiting. Janja merely glanced at him. She a.s.sumed his questioning look would be met by a headshake from Althis, and that would be that. She was right.

She turned to smile at Althis. Janja winked. After a time, Althis smiled back. Yes. That was sensible. Practicality really should rule. Let sensation and its call just sort of wander off by itself into the more primitive area of the brain. Just a thought. Lightly, the larger woman gave Janja's forearm an understanding squeeze. No hard feelings. It was obvious that Althis worried a lot about hard feelings.

"It's a night," Corundum said, and Janja arrested herself in the act of settling into her seat. Corundum was making the beau geste of feeding bis I.D. card 168.

169.

into the wall panel to his right. The slot gulped the card and had it back in less than forty seconds. That swiftly the bill was settled, while Dignis and Shieda made spluttering noises about being cheated out of paying.

"Pacy," Shieda said abruptly, squeezing so that she winced, "do let us bring Dignis up to our suite for a nightcap."

Janja smiled. How nice for Dignis, If he could stay awake with his considerable load, he was going to get to share Shieda's wealth of just-post-nubile flesh and willingness! She felt nothing for the girls, who looked accepting if unenthusiastic. They chose their actions. They were as much in charge of their lives as anyone else.

As much as I am, Janja thought hi some revelation, as Corundum rose to stand beside her. She remembered the words of the philosopher Gaier: "When I was younger, I used to look like me." And she considered a modification: "When I was younger, I used to like me." Her mouth tightened.

The Thebanis Mahal hotel was three and a half blocks distant and at least three of Thebanis's moons were visible. Maybe four; Janja was not sure about that point of light. They walked. Only an army would have molested such a group. Janja asked about the point of light, but Dignis was having a hard enough time just walking, without answering ethereal questions. Pacy said she thought it was a star. Pearl said she thought it was Fh'cka, the planet's sixth moon. Flicka was the seventh, Pacy thought. Some people talked too much, a wheezing Shieda observed.

"Oh, it is a lovely night," Althis said with enthusiasm, ever anxious to allay anything approaching strife. "Let's stay another day, sweetering. I'd love to have dinner tomorrow night in that open restaurant on top of the Commerce Tower!"

Dignis concentrated on walking, aided by Pacy. Shieda puffed along with an arm around Pearl, leaning 170.

on her a bit, and his other hand in Pacy's. Janja and Corundum walked ahead, saying nothing. Vettering didn't answer Althis. A police cyberpatrol car went by, all green and shining silvery aluminic. People stepped aside for the group of eight led by the armed couple in black, and they stared after Janja, wondering if her hair and pallor could be real.

In the hotel, Shieda elected to wait for the next elevator. The Thebanis Mahal had no anti-gee chutes. Janja and Corundum bade Vettering and Althis good night and got off on Eight. They walked down the hall in silence. The door of 879, its electronic lock reset to his standard I.D. credcard, opened Corundum entered and did a little checking anyhow, while Janja closed the door. He went into the bathroom.

Janja realized that she had just braced the Loophole bartender, walked several blocks and through the lobby with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s exposed as if advertising. She rolled her eyes upward and forgot it. She was thinking. Her thoughts generated a p.r.i.c.kling in her armpits and a tightness of her scalp. She decided. She pulled the zipper all the way up just as Corundum emerged from the bathroom.

"Well, Primeval Princess-"

"Althis and Vettering wanted a four-way s.e.xaria and I told her no."

He paused, letting her know he had noticed the interruption, before he nodded. "Good. We-"

"I think I'll go down and have a last quiet sip of Pale or something," she said casually.

It was not casual. O Aglii, it was not casual! It was a first, Janja's saying that she was not going to do something without him on her own, and they both knew it and the significance of it. He was captain, and experienced and knowledgeable, and he was Corundum. He was senior and he always decided. For that reason she had phrased the enormity of her statement as she had, softening it. She watched his jaw work.

171.

"Up," he said quietly, mildly. "The hotel bar is up. The astrobubble on top."

"Up, then." She gazed at the copse of slate-colored trees on the holographically pastoral wall, and she kept her expression wide open.

He stood regarding her. "Is it correct to a.s.sume that you imply but merely did not say the word . . . alone?"

She forced herself to swing her gaze back to him. It was an enormous step, and it might be right off a cliff. She took it. "Pos."

Looking at her almost expressionlessly, he nodded. Then he walked over to pa.s.s a hand over the panel that drew the drapes. The view from that window was rotten, anyhow.

"The door cannot be left unlocked," he said, "and it opens only for the card of Corundum, who is going to bed."

This was getting consummately meaningful. Maybe she had stepped off a cliff. He had said it quietly, flatly, with his back to her. He had just told her that if she left she could not get back into the module. She had no intention of asking to borrow his card.

"Are you certain that you are not... just tired, Janja?"

She heard him, and she understood his meaning. She had been challenged, and now he gave her opportunity to reconsider without loss of face. She heard the formality of her name, too.

Janja maintained her strength. "No. I need to think a little, Emery." Deliberately she used her private name for him. "To settle down a little."

"Umm."

Gnawing at her lip, she waited. He was not going to say anything else, she realized. She watched him move his hand again. The drapes reopened. He was not even going to ask about that call for "Cloud-top." Its origin was obvious. She fidgeted, wondering. Far from comfortable or happy. Giving herself a chance to reconsider, as he had done.

172.

No. Then she realized there was something she did not know. She must ask. She considered that for a moment, then moved to put her hand on the door.

"Emery."

"Yes?"

He did not turn. Staring out at Raunch, or pretending to do. No more happy or comfortable than I, Janja realized. That helped a little. But I thought he was so mature and sophisticated! We communicate no better than . . . than most married couples!

A new thought inveigled its way into her consciousness: or stern father and willful daughter?

"Are you telling me not to come back, Emery-in the morning?"

"Suggesting that you reconsider leaving," he said, clipping the wings of her choices. "Otherwise-no, of course not. It is not what you are suggesting, surely. Not this way, on little more than a whim, the tick of the moment. That fellow Starnik is meeting me here for breakfast, at ten-hundred Thebanistime. Corun . , . I should prefer that you be here then, too. Then, and after, and after that as well."

Janja was elated. He means always, she mused, though he doesn't say it. He is saying go and have your fling, Primeval Princess, and come back . . . home. With no threats and no suggestion even of talking about it, now or tomorrow. Stiff as a board or a stern father. And yet he had switched from "Corundum" to "I," deliberately softening. She made a softening gesture, too: "The bar closes at three, local time, doesn't it?"

"Yes. By then Corundum will be long asleep."

His words closed the door. That was that, then. She could stay, or she could go and stay gone. Until morning. He insisted that this be a major decision, and action. Corundum: a hard substance often used as an abrasive.

"I'll see you for breakfast then, Corundum."

She left. Quickly, before he could turn or say 173.

something else. The door closed behind her and she glanced back at it. Then she went down the meadow-land carpet of the bright-lit corridor, to the elevators. After pa.s.sing a hand over the UP plate she waited, thinking, staring at nothing, chewing the inside of her cheek. She felt a little frisson. Her armpits were not just p.r.i.c.kly, they were damp. She was taking a tremendous step, heavily freighted with import. She could recall it; she could go back and knock on the door. Now. Swiftly. Before he got into bed. Alone. Now- No.

Primeval Princess had been strong and he had accepted it, up to a point. She must; she had to continue strong. Otherwise she was just a girl. Corundum's girl.

The elevator door opened. A very straight-looking couple stood inside, almost as if at attention. Their glances slid over her and slid off like oil. They were the sort who did not meet eyes, who did not stare even at the surprising and stareworthy. A couple who doesIdo not communicate, she thought, joining them on the elevator.

She watched them off at the Tenth, rode on up to the top, got off, and was just in time to catch the other elevator going down, with a group of noisy people. Locals, here only for a night out atop Raunch, looking down on Raunch. They were paired. They looked, but no one said anything to her or sought to flirt with the blond exotic in the snug black clothing.

They stated no floor, meaning they intended to go all the way down. And thence home to their pair-bonded beds, doubtless.

"Excuse me." She leaned to the plate, murmured "Six," and got off there, feeling silly in her secretive-ness, opening the stairwell door and walking up to Seven. She saw no one. She heard voices emanating from a couple of modules as she walked along the meadow-carpeted corridor. Her heartbeat was not much short of lightspeed when she reached 754. She 174.

paused there, all p.r.i.c.kly anew. Her heart thuttered while she looked at the door.

She took a few deep breaths, rolled her neck five times left, five times right, gave herself a few silent instructions about settling down. And she knocked.

Silence. She waited. Just as she knocked again, a voice called from the other side of the door: "Who is it?"

"Cloud-top."

Silence. She waited, getting less comfortable by the second-or more uncomfortable, rather.

The door opened. "Come in, Janjy," h.e.l.lfire said.

The room was dark. Janja entered slowly and the light came on in a flash of illumination, hot blue, and she was staring at h.e.l.lfire, naked, thin-not-sldnny, wiry. Tattooed or body-painted or cell-dyed at navel and nipples. Legs apart. Stopper in hand.

It was pointed at Janja.

Behind her the door closed. She glanced around, not wheeling because she was mindful of the gun. Raunchy stood beside the door. Also naked, weirdly blue-lit orange. Nice wide-set b.r.e.a.s.t.s were almost perfect cones and a growth below that more resembled an impossibly enlarged c.l.i.toris than a small p.e.n.i.s. Below, almost concealed, a small v.a.g.i.n.al opening. There was, after all, only so much room down there. Raunchy's hips were mighty lean-but then so were h.e.l.lfire's, and Janja's hardly formed a voluptuous cradle for the rocking of men. Raunchy's nakedness was emphasized by its lack of translator helmet and, of course, body hair.

The Jarp, too, held a stopper. This one, too, was pointed at Janja.

Aglii's Light and Hands-it was a trap! I've been a fool, a fool, I am a fool-it was a trap!

"Take her stopper, Raunchy." h.e.l.lfire's tone was not fiat, but excited.

"T'1-ldleew'eetl!" the Jarp said, just behind Janja. Her stopper was whipped out of its holster while she was still in shock.

175.

h.e.l.lfire gestured with her left hand. h.e.l.lfire's hairless pubis was shockingly protuberant, her legs obviously strong. Her stomach seemed nonexistent and her navel shockingly surrounded by a sunburst hi orange-outlined gold that was little different from her own color. A child could have covered those hard-looking b.r.e.a.s.t.s with its hands. The aureoles were gold-and-blue dotted. Nipples like raisins.

"Gimme."

Raunchy stalked past Janja, who even in her shock appreciated the look of those tight boyishly round b.u.t.tocks, set mtriguingly, anomalously in from a woman's svelte hips. It handed h.e.l.lfire both stoppers and turned to face Janja. It smiled.

"The door's locked," h.e.l.lfire said. "You've been kidnaped, Janjy." She waggled her stopper and her breast on that side tightened visibly. "Strip."

Janja swallowed hard. "No."

"Wha-strip, b.i.t.c.h! I've got a stopper on you!"

"You want me naked, Captain Pra.s.s-top, come strip me."

"Aw come on, Janjy, dammit, go along with the game!" h.e.l.lfire said almost pleadingly and then, in a different voice, "Strip, you beautiful cloud-haired stash!"