"What do you mean? The happy paste?"
"No." A pause. "Nicole, what ever did you have in mind to get sexual with Tora Kia?"
She felt the red rushing to her face as she abruptly came to a halt. "I did not! Damn, Mitzak! Kia’s a hermaphrodite!"
"Nevertheless."
She pulled her arm from Mitzak’s grasp. "Damn you!"
"When you asked me, Nicole, did you want an answer or did you want an opportunity to put on a demonstration?"
"Mitzak, why don’t you go and do whatever it is that you do?"
"Do you want me to help you back to your apartments?"
"I can find my own way." Mitzak hesitated for a moment, then his rapid footsteps receded into the silence beyond. Joanne Nicole stood alone, thinking, the sunlight and gentle wind touching her skin. Sexual.
"Absurd. Besides being hermaphrodites, the parts are in the wrong places."
She turned her face away from the sunlight and felt with her feet for the edge of the path. How could a human, male or female, be sexual with a Drac? In training, the brief survey of Drac reproduction was enough to evaporate any pervert’s fantasies regarding human-Drac fun and games. Male and female organs were contained in the lower abdomen behind the lips of a belly-slit.'
In the ancient True Laws of Aakva, Rhada had said that it is law that at least one child out of three be made by joining one’s fluids with the fluids of another. The lips could extend joining a pair and allowing fertilization to occur by another: But it was not something a human could participate in without considerable surgery.
Still, she thought. Last night… she cried out. An arm went around her shoulders… and she buried her face in Mallik’s chest as his hand stroked her face. Strange hand; strange face.
"Joanne. You are safe, now, Joanne…"
As she edged her way back to her apartments, she could not shake the memory.
THIRTEEN
There will come to you at times a blinding vision that fills your eyes and mind, announcing itself as Truth. Step back and strike down this vision and beat it as though it were a brain-sucking monster.
Then, with it lying there limp, bent, and tarnished, if it still claims to be Truth, accept it with great caution, remembering that the most dangerous lies arrive in the most highly polished armor.
After the night repast, she sat on a cushion in the music room, the tidna balanced on her lap. With untrained fingers she roughly plucked from the glass strings a version of Kia’s Amadeen tune. There were familiar footsteps, and she continued playing as she spoke. "Where have you been today. Kia?"
The footsteps paused, then there was the sound of the Drac lowering itself into the softness of the couch facing her. "Your playing is pitiful, human."
She stopped playing and placed the tidna on the floor. "Kia, last night-"
"I do not wish to discuss it."
She smiled. "Then why are you here?"
"The playing… I came to protect my instrument." There was a long silence, then came a chuckle from the Drac. "Joanne Nicole, what did last night mean to you?"
She let her hands fall to her lap. "I’m not sure. For a moment I imagined you as my husband-former husband; he’s dead. I reached out for… I don’t know. Comfort. Security. Peace."
"And you found these things?"
She slowly nodded her head. "Yes. Yes, I did. What was last night to you?"
The sharp smell of Kia’s drug filled the room. "Would you care for some?"
"No. What was last night to you?"
"Perhaps it was the same for me."
"I don’t believe that, Kia. Everyone on the Tora estate seems very upset about it. I don’t understand why. Did you tell them about last night?"
"There was no need to. Joanne Nicole, we are both trapped in the limits of a carefully engineered talma. What happened last night was not expected. It fell outside the limits and was therefore, quite obvious to those familiar with the talma."
"Will you tell me?"
"I… I cannot." Kia stood and left the room.
She leaned back on her elbows and sat in the quiet loneliness for an hour or more, when a slight difference in the air caused her to stand and listen.
The air seemed to move slightly, there was a vibration she could feel through her feet, and she could hear the gentle rattle of glass. Shock waves coming from a great distance. Nicole felt her way around the furniture until she came to an outside wall. She placed her hands against the stones and moved along the wall until she came to a window.
The vibrations became more pronounced; then there came the familiar crump of sonic warheads.
"Damn! Oh, damn!"
The USEF was attacking Draco.
She staggered away from the window and ran for the corridor, smacking into sharp edges, stumbling to the floor. After making it into the corridor, she turned left and let the fingers of her right hand glide along the wall as she ran toward her apartment. Once in the doorway, she immediately closed the door to the corridor, went through the central access into the sleeping room, and closed that door too.
As the sounds of the attack grew louder, she buried her face in the cushions and covers, much like a child trying to hide from the dark. But her dark was something that couldn’t be hidden from. Then, as abruptly as they had begun, the sounds ceased. She sat up, facing the door, clutching one of the cushions, waiting for them to come for her.
There was-not a dream-a kaleidoscope of impressions; shards of some indefinable whole…
…They were discussing the game much as, in the past, she had seen humans chewing over a bridge or poker hand…
…In the Chirn Kovah I had been placed in what amounted to a sensory deprivation environment…
No sight; no touch; reduced sound… and then The Talman handed to her for entertainment.
…The strangeness-the alien unknown-of everything was made almost familiar because the images from her eyes were prevented from overpowering her other senses…
…a strange thought is in my mind: I was curious; but, if I could have seen, I would have been terrified…
"…To Tora Soam, the war is… an immense puzzle to be solved; a fascinating problem. I think my parent basks in the size and complexity of the puzzle. You and I are nothing more than two factors among the trillions that comprise this puzzle…"
…They had been dipped in fire and had survived to see the Drac Infantry pulling back. Morio Taiseido collapsed beside her, his voice hoarse.
"Major, I could die content at this moment. We whipped them! Holy son of a bitch, we whipped them!"
…is this joy the appeal to battle; to war? If It was the truth, it would be an impossible motivation to treat rationally.
The rules were out; the ultimate consequences were out; nothing was in our minds except the fact that the Dracs were falling back. In that minuscule particle of time, we were victorious…
"…you have overlooked the two most important parties to the negotiations. Where is the Mavedah? Where is the Amadeen Front?"