The fingers of that friend and ally were moving on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The hands were not harsh, and not arrogantly possessive. That was good and better than good. Janja liked it and she appreciated it. During her months as slave of Sicuan and Chulucan, she had received no tenderness. None. She had been used.

Now she made tiny throaty noises and let herself soften, for Corundum. She had decided.

That first time they had not got around to taking off all their clothes for quite some time. But by then they 42.had long been horizontal and were panting and practically tearing at each other.

Three days later she gave close examination to his cabin, and asked questions, and again his hands were cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s from behind. This time she was naked. Once again she was beginning to feel that combination of happy languor and excitation, need. Already she had felt it-and removed it temporarily- with him, eight times in three days. What a lover he was! What wonderful patience the man had; how he loved to please a woman! And he knew how.

"Is the artist, this al-Addin . . . handsome? Young? Uhhh ..."

His fingers were scissoring her nipples with just the right pressure, making them grow, pressing, pressing. She squirmed and pushed back against him. Her naked bottom found his groin, found a firmness there that was growing, becoming a hardness.

"Is he handsome?" she repeated, staving it off a little, gazing at the painting of Meccah through lowering lashes like a lace veil. Her arousal was a lovely pink mist rising around her.

"No," he said very quietly, very close to her ear. "Neither handsome nor young. Perhaps he was, thirteen years ago. What is young?"

"He lives, still? Is he alive-uh!-Cor-uhnn-dummm?"

A long silence; a long sigh. He was pushing her tight b.r.e.a.s.t.s upward, his hands a warm living bandeau. "No," he said very very softly. "I believe that he is dead. As a painter, I believe he is dead."

That was cryptic and aroused her curiosity. Her mind was aroused, but . . . her nipples were burning Bright knots and a hard hot bar was pressing at her from behind, inveigling itself una.s.sisted between the tight ovals of her b.u.t.tocks and she did not want it that way from Corundum, not Chulucan's preferred way of ... using a woman, ignoring her femaleness in 43.favor of that orifice she had in common with his s.e.x. Janja did not want Corundum to enter her there, not unless she decided.

Suddenly she turned to him. Her eyes were excited. "Corundum, who-"

His mouth closed hers. His mouth and tongue and hands changed her excitement to the purely s.e.xual. His tongue explored her mouth and she met it with hers. Painting and artist were forgotten as her hips writhed involuntarily.

They went at each other with mouths and tongues and hands and fingers and lurching, writhing bodies. They went at each other's mouth, and b.u.t.tocks and their cleavage, and at each other's gqnitals. They wallowed on the unlikely: a carpet on the floor of a cabin of a s.p.a.ceship moving at thousands and thousands of kloms per second. They wallowed and sucked and chewed and the seemingly sprawlingly s.p.a.cious cabin grew warm. They panted and moaned and she had an iron bar of p.e.n.i.s in her and two fingers, all at once. She clutched at him and hunched to those three probes.

There were no frigid women on Aglaya. Aglaya was not a selfish planet of selfish men. Both s.e.xes were circ.u.mcised, on Aglaya. The c.l.i.toris was not buried in a sheath, on Aglaya, but freed, bared to attract and excite and receive direct attention. There were no frigid women of Aglaya.

And Corundum knew what he was doing, loved what he was doing and what she was doing, and they both did it well. She did not hold back her cries. It was good that he liked them and said so. Restraint and reserve lay beside the bed with their clothing. He was in deep, with that iron bar they called, a "slicer," slicing her, and within her his two ringers moved hi the adjacent channel to heighten her arousal and her delight. He was striving ever for more depth and so was she, bucking, upthrusting.

Furthermore, he came in her like a cannon and like a boy in need of solace.

44.She liked that very much, and the fact that he did not try to cover up his explosive o.r.g.a.s.ms and instant weakness. It was . . . gratifying. She held him to her, in her. She stroked him while he gasped and valiantly kept his full weight off her for he was a more valiant and gentlemanly lover than anyone in that medieval tapestry. As if he were heavy, this Corundum who looked forty and must be older and who sliced-the current euphemism for f.u.c.ked-like a boy, though longer. She liked that very much, too.

I deserve it. There's no pun in saying that I have it coming.

She did deserve it, after that rapacious flainer Jonuta and his raping b.a.s.t.a.r.ds Arel and Srih and those raping flainers Chulucan and wizened evil old Sicuan-former High Priest of Gri for all Resh!

Sicuan, Chulucan, their slavemaster-and Srih. Dead. She had slain them, one by one. They had taught her to kill, and instilled in her the rage. Now they wanted her, as a criminal. Oh, she was wanted, Janja of Aglaya was. But not nearly so much as Corundum the pirate was wanted, or Jonuta the slaver!

Before Corundum, her first and last truly and totally voluntary and enjoyable s.e.x had been with Tarkij, her Promised. Then Jonuta's s.p.a.ceboat had come down, though neither of the lovers on the Aglayan savannah knew what a s.p.a.ceboat was. Tarkij and Janja did not know what a stopper was, either. Srih had unnecessarily shot Tarkij with his stopper on the third setting. Then she had been taken, unconscious, up to Jonuta's Coronet, She had not known then what a coronet was, or a s.p.a.ceship-or s.p.a.ce, for the matter of that.

After that had come the horror and pain and use.

Months and months of it, months that seemed years. And escape at last, because she was Janja, worthy of Aglii and worthy of Aglaya; worthy of the s.p.a.ceways! Then had come knowledge, her days in the library dredging Retrieval like a manic fisherman dredging a 45.river's depths. A torrent of information inundated her brain. And then Corundum.

A pirate!

Three days later she lay beneath him and held him, on her and in her, and she welcomed his weight. She told him so. He told her that he welcomed hers, on him.

Now a month had pa.s.sed and Janja was truly a pirate, entering the fantastic opulence of his cabin: his home on Firedancer, which was now Janja's home.

"Scientists who study such things say that we are excited after danger, and that the excitement is s.e.xual," he said.

"They are right," she said, low and throat-thick.

"Perhaps that is a partial explanation for our human history of post-battle raping."

"They are right," she said again. "I hated it when you stood and so coldly killed that pitiful sponge of a man. But I understand it and I am not civilized and so do not have to pretend horror." She whirled. "Get out of that s.p.a.cesuit, Emery!"

"Ah. You sound imperious, Primeval Princess."

"And you sound sarcastic! Strip, evil murdering pirate, or I'll loose my lizard-monsters on you!"

She elevated brow and chin while lowering her eyelids, in the manner of the Primeval Princess he "might be a bit in love with." With a jerk she tore the dull binder from her chest. She gasped at the pain and wonder and wondrous pain of the sudden freeing of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Warheads, they called them. They had names for everything; euphemisms. Warheads and slic-ers and slicing. She was a cake, with a stash, and into it a man put his sllcer to cut a slice.

She clamped her hands to her warheads. She saw his stare and knew her nipples had been too long warm and compressed and were celebrating their release into coolth by erecting. Aureoles became goosepimply and smaller, feeding into the nipples they surrounded. They 46.were subcutaned a pale lavender color, because it pleased him. The same nonpermanent subcutaneous dye turned her lips the same exotic hue.

She stood as tall as she could and gazed imperiously and rose onto her toes to tauten her calves and bulge them because he loved them. Her pubis bulged too, against the skimpy gray briefs.

Corundum stared at her with those glittering, eerily blue implanted optics that were not eyes, and Janja knew why he had slain Ota. They called Aglaya a "barbarian" planet because it was not only pre-techno-logical but pre-steel-and they punished several major crimes by blinding. It was accomplished painlessly. They were civilized barbarians!

Still, the concept of such a cool, easy killing had not occurred to her. She had slain to escape death, and for Tarkij, dead Tarkij. She was not civilized. The retrieval encyclopedic display she had accessed had told her so. Had she been civilized, one of them, she'd have known about casual murder. Janja had learned to kill, since they dragged her among them. They had hurt her and taught her and used her and hurt her and killed Janjaheriohir of Aglaya, so that now she was reborn, partially, as Janja of them. A new Galactic who was as alien, though they did not know it, as a Jarp. But she had slain only in vengeance and in self-defense. (Oh, that night on Resh when that so-clever couple had tricked her in order to sell her anew! She had done them violence, but had not even thought about ending their lives. They were out of business.) These barbarians, these Thingmakers, they, proudly called themselves Galactics and smugly called Aglaya "uncivilized" and "barbarian"! Aglayans stole no people. Aglayans sold no people, killed no people.

Yet I have killed, and I know that I am worthy of Aglii and Aglaya!

Now I have seen cold killing-murder. And I want him. The killer! This pirate! O Aglii, O Sunmother . . . help your daughter Janjaheriohir-who-was. They are 47.dark and call me "white" though 1 am not. But I am becoming one of them . . . becoming gray!

Can black and white exist at one and the same time in the same object?

And . . . just now . . . who cares-I l.u.s.t!

While she watched with luminous, excited eyes. Cor-undum's bulky white suit dropped from him. Under the protective coverall he wore a skintight one, a cool-suit that fitted tighter than the skin of youth. It covered him from neck to wrists to ankles and it was black, black as his hair and the hawkish brows aswoop over eyes that were not eyes.

He bulged beautifully in the skinnt.i.te, she thought, if she was thinking. Perhaps she was thinking with her v.a.g.i.n.a, as that long-ago writer Stendahl had put it. The heat was in her and her eyes glittered, staring at the bulge of his genital triad. His slicer. A slicer to slice with. Her stash wanted to be sliced.

He was not a tall man, but his leanness made him appear tall. (Everyone was tall to Janja, who stood 156 sems, barely over what used to be called five feet.) He was well-muscled and in tone, so that he would be considered rangy. Dangerously rangy, rather than just lean. Not thin. She knew his strength and had felt it, though he would not use it on her, against her. He used it to drive into her. Dark and black-haired, he was. Aware of drama and effect.

A pirate!

He popped the single polarizer control of five seams and the suit fell from him and the Primeval Princess became not imperious but predatory.

She pounced, she mouthed and chewed, she ate. She gnawed and teased his dark little twigs of nipples until they were swollen and hard and would be sore tomorrow. Her eyes were aglitter like gemstones as she squeezed his b.a.l.l.s until he gasped and his hands tightened reflexively on her b.u.t.tocks, then dropped from her. She rode and was ridden. Neither of them noticed Jinni's fifty-second warning for her mouth was agape 48.and she was sweat-sheened, swiveling her hips, plunging up and down, listening to the wet slappy sounds their bodies made on impact, feeling the thumping of her rearward cheeks on his thighs and the thumping of his ferrously hard slicer against her cervix. His hands rose for her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and all glittery of eyes she slapped them away, then bent a little to let his nipples feel her nails again. She loved it, loved it, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her gapingly distended body up and down on him with swift jogging movements. Goring herself. Gorging herself. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bobbed only a little. Their muscles had developed on a high-G planet, like those of her calves. She was giving herself a constant salvo of extremely deep thrusts, right up to the mouth of her womb. Hot little carnal thrills surged up into her tauntening belly and she was a happy animal.

"I can actually feel it, feel it! That bulging k.n.o.b all the way up me, up me! And it feels nice. I love it. Uh-and uh, and there! I've got you, I've got it, I've got your slicer trapped up my stash, jacko!"

She had, and she ground on it. It didn't break in her, and his groans were not of pain. She jogged on it. Slicing, slicing, being sliced. Her driving hips plunged and swayed while she listened happily to his moans of delight and rising need.

Milady Janja, was it? Primeval Princess, eh? Imperious, hmm? Loved it, didn't he! Loved being used, ridden.

Again she bent to give each of his nipples wicked little scratches and tweaks-and paused while his fingers tried to sink into her hips. Straightening again she began rocking slowly back and forth on his lap with what seemed about a half-meter's worth of hot stiff very male flesh-club stuck up her somewhere in the vicinity of her lungs.

Feared and courtly, menacing and deadly, swiftly offended and swift to shoot, he lay on his back. He smiled at her while enjoying the fleshy caresses of her 49.haunches on his thighs while this incredible woman sliced herself happily. Raping him!

"Let me-uh!-know when you tire, Primeval Princess! I'll-"

Her face was straining but she smiled almost ferociously and ground down. "Not-until-you've shot- me, you evil murdering cold-blooded pirate!"

He laughed aloud. His knees rose and he pushed to thrust sharply upward. They squirmed and hunched and wallowed their way right into subs.p.a.ce. Down the Tachyon Trail they went: ruby, sapphire, emery, and diamond. Short hair and long; white hair and black. At one area they mingled, black hair and white, dark skin and fair. Tachyons in rut.

3.

The breeding concept, the concept of the "Be Fruitful and Multiply" mandate, had never really taken, on Sekhar. Sekhar was an unfriendly planet plodding around an unfriendly sun. The sun was blue-white and it was too close. It was said that Sekhar's colonization was accidental, in desperation. A dying ship on its way elsewhere, forced to duck past that nasty sun and bang down on steamy little Sekhar. Sekhar extended no welcome mat. The standard pioneer instinct and mandate had never surfaced, much less prevailed: breed to survive. On Sekhar, the situation was dreadfully obvious: Don't breed all that much! We can survive here but where in h.e.l.l on h.e.l.l is there for more of us to go?

Had Homeworld, old Earth, been anything like Sekhar, humankind would never have risen there to settle here. And good riddance!

Still, pride and roots being what they were, the Seks called it home. Once they were found, a century after their arrival, most of them refused to be offlifted. Centuries later they were still here, mostly cl.u.s.tered in and very close to the s.p.a.ceport city, Refuge.

Verley 2197223SK was born in Refuge. She had 50 51.never been off Sekhar. She had been out of Refuge only twice (Sekhar didn't really have much else), and Jarps were something she had only heard of. She didn't believe what she'd heard and didn't know the difference between Jarp and Jarpi any more than her ancient ancestors had known a djinni from a genie. She married at sixteen, to get away from home. That got her six years with a husband hung up higher than a solar-power satellite and tighter than a banker's fist. She worked, tried to be the best of wives, bore a child, and learned nothing.

Dat was a good Sek. His idea of a woman's role in s.e.x was that she must be a lady. That meant she did not think about It. That also meant very little touching, indeed; and turning out the lights, undressing, getting into bed, and lying still while he did It. His idea of his own role in s.e.x was to put It off as long as possible, since It was an unworthy, animalistic but unnecessary Thing.

That was Verley's 2197223SK's first s.e.xual experience. Over the next six years-Sek of 298 days-Sek, that described her other seventy-one s.e.xual experiences. Since he always put It off so long, as long as he possibly could, Dat always came fast. That made Verley (who knew nothing and did nothing in bed, really) think that she must be great in bed.

It had to be just that bed wasn't great; It wasn't great.

Still, she did get all excited. How many nights had she lain awake long, long after Dat came and his mouth came open and his uvula dropped so that he. either snored or breathed as stertorously as a water-cooled engine on the Great Sekhari Desert? (There were no water-cooled engines on the deserts of Sekhar. No one was that stupid. It was just a saying. Besides, neither Dat nor Verley knew a uvula from a v.u.l.v.a anyway, or a c.l.i.toris from a clepsydra.) So Verley got a divorce and now Dat was doing the same thing with someone else young and dumb and likely to remain the latter, and she seemed to thrive 52.on it if not on It. She was happy on her pedestal, and she was happy to lie still while he did It to her. Sometimes she prayed, during.

As for Verley, she was still looking for another o.r.g.a.s.m, of which she'd had three. All since the divorce, eleven months-Sek ago. She had added twenty-two s.e.xual experiences in the past four of those eleven months, Seeking. She was at least touched, held, seemingly cherished when she was in bed with someone. Otherwise she hadn't found much, or learned much either. She had found three o.r.g.a.s.ms. All they were, were great. Great! Starbursts and novas, and enormous, happy la.s.situde after. And happy, proud males. (And twice, females, for by Sekhar's tight standards Verley was a very wicked woman indeed and in deed.) Verley, Seeking. She still wasn't learning anything about the making of love, but she was trying a lot of things and a lot of bodies. She thought she had tried everything. Bodies, that was where it was. She proved she was wanted and worth something if she ran up a good body count, didn't she? Bodies. Attracting him and giving It to him; letting him do It to her. Proving her attractiveness, her femaleness. Pumping, in Sek-hari terms. He put his pump into her oasis, and pumped. Pumping. Wow.

She loved it, or thought she did. She thought she was s.e.xy. It all meant that she was wanted and worthy, didn't it? She had after all had three of those wonderful experiences whisperingly called "o.r.g.a.s.ms," hadn't she?

Verley, Seeking. Strangely, it was easy for her to continue moving from body to body. She was seldom asked twice. In bed, Verley was a willing body with a convenient hole in it.

So, naughtily for a woman on Sekhar, she walked into the Imperial Hotel's bar, the Cosmoasis, on this particular night and the weirdest creature she had ever seen looked at her and kept looking. It was hard not to stare back.

It had great big starey eyes, eyes about twice the 53.size of Verley's, which were large. And they were round, this creature's eyes; really round. They were set well apart in a face with a broad forehead and cheeks above a little chin that was almost pointed. The skin was not tan, or brown, or copper or bronze or bra.s.s or yellow, but orange. Not cupreous orange or brazen orange. This was a true most-definitely-no-mistake-about-it orange. And the hair was not redhead red or t.i.tian, but a deep dark glowing impossible wine-like red. The mouth in that sort of heart-shaped face had semi-everted lips of a paler orange. The nose was a bit broad of septum and of nostrilar flare, but was without the slight downward tip of almost every Galac-tic's. The creature was tall and lean, broad of shoulder and rather lean of hips, with long limbs. The hands at the ends of those long arms were different too, but all Verley noticed for a while was the strangely childish sweet-faced look of this creature. And its body.

It wore no kaffey or the usual full Sekhari robe; not even a cloak. Some sort of lacework "helmet" webbed the head with straps. The straps were equipped with more than one . . . dial? Verley realized that she was seeing a s.p.a.cefarer, a genuine "alien," meaning non-Galactic. It must be staying here at the hotel with no intention of going out. Or did orange skin not burn? What it did wear was a short-sleeved sort of shirt that was slashed in a deep round-sided V or set of parentheses, which ended just below its b.r.e.a.s.t.s. There it snugged tight.

b.r.e.a.s.t.s, yes. Therefore it was female, and could be called her and she, rather than the standard no-gender singular p.r.o.noun es: it. And that abbreviated shirt was a most un-Sekhari scarlet.

But . . . well, there were the dark brown boots that sheathed the legs without wrinkle to a point higher than mid-thigh. The couple of inches of laces at the top must be ornamental. There was the low-slung belt, broad and matching the boots, that supported a bolstered stopper slung low on the left hip. And there 54.were the tights. Like the upper garment and the hair, they were scarlet, vanishing into the boots. They began low on the hips, so that a long expanse of narrow-waisted abdomen was left orangely bare. (There was a navel, yes.) The thing about those supertight tights was that either the orange creature had a large and protuberant v.u.l.v.a or oasis, or, as appeared a lot more likely no matter how incredible: a pump and s.c.r.o.t.u.m!

While Verley was wondering if it was possible that the creature really did possess male primary and female secondary s.e.xual characteristics, it uttered a strange whistling sound. It was still gazing at her, as she entered the Cosmoasis. It, with fresh drink in hand, was apparently returning to a table from the bar.

She shrank back a bit. "What?"

It raised a weird six-digited hand to do something to the weird strap-work helmet and said, "My name is T'leetl-Wheee'tT!, and this is my first time ever on Sekhar. Had I known about you, I'd have been here before. Do you mind if I stare at you the rest of the evening?"

She stared at T'leetl-Wheee'tT!, which she could not hope to p.r.o.nounce. Tweedle, she thought. "I ... I ... eyes that stare are no insult to her who dresses so as to attract stares."

The enormous eyes seemed to send forth rays that went through her, all through her. "Is that a Sekhari saying?"

"Yes," Verley admitted, and lowered her gaze, ashamed that she had not been able to think of something original.

"Well," Tweedle said, "I like it, and your honesty. I wish you'd have a drink with me."

How exciting! A real . . . something else. "You are -you are a s.p.a.cefarer?" Oh that was dumb, she told herself miserably.

"Oh yes. No one resembling me ever grew up on Sekhar."

55."Well, uh, what are-I mean, I'd love a drink. And-" She tried to smile but failed and looked down into her cleavage, which was more substantial than this exotic s.p.a.cefarer's, if not as fully revealed. "What did you say your name is?"

It gestured her to a table. Lots of people were watching, and Verley was really aware of that. They didn't all look happy, but she certainly was getting attention!

"You heard but can't p.r.o.nounce it," Tweedle said. "Non-Jarps do have trouble talking Jarp. As a matter of fact, no one I've ever met can p.r.o.nounce Jarp. People usually just call me 'Jarp.' That's about the same as calling you Sek, really."

"You're a Jarp!" she burst out. "I mean-excuse me, but I've heard of Jarps but never saw one. Is it true that-I mean, are Jarps . . . are you really-"

"Pos-for-positive: we really are. I really am. b.r.e.a.s.t.s and p.e.n.i.s and v.u.l.v.a. One ovary, one t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. One egg, one nut."

"Here," a male voice cut in. "We don't talk to ladies that way hereabouts, Jarp."

The Jarp stared at the man, a nice-looking Sek with a gut. "You are not being bright, big-ears. I am wearing a stopper and you are not. Interrupt us again and I will start an interplanetary incident."

"Not to mention an interracial one," someone else said.

Neither Verley nor the male Sek nor the Jarp glanced in the direction of that voice. They were busy being caught up in tension. The Jarp and "big-ears" were trading stares. The Jarp's eyes were huge and it did indeed wear that stopper on its hip. The Sek kept staring and so did the Jarp. Its face did not look quite so sweet. Verley had not been so uncomfortable -or so thrilled-for months and months.

Around them, a lot of conversations had broken off, in mid-word.

The man broke. "Yer right," he said, looking away.

56."I don't have a stopper and I'm not stupid." He turned all the way away, and Verley thought that he had shrunk visibly.

The Jarp returned full attention to Verley. "I am sorry we never exchanged names," it said, "I dislike telling anyone what I am called by my captain and crewmates, because people laugh."

Then the Jarp-T'leetl-Wheee'tT!!-presented Verley with its untasted drink, and departed the bar. Many stared. The man who had challenged it began to grow to his former size. Verley felt disappointed. Also abandoned and nervous. The bar was normal again, and dull.

The man who had challenged the Jarp, now regrown to his full size, turned toward Verley. His voice swaggered.