So.

An XY officer, a male, might have wanted children. Might have had children. They were gene-tailored, but the doctors had used mostly human genes; maybe all-human, despite the tales. They weren't a different species, after all. What would such children look like? How would they grow up?

The Polar Datafile interview was fun. The Other Worlds interview the next day felt more like work. Charley's voice gave out, so they called it off for a few days.

The borloi arrived in several planeloads. Terry didn't notice any special attempts at security. On many worlds there would have been a police raid followed by worldwide publicity. Memo: call all possible listeners in Gaea system immediately immediately after jump. Sell to government only. Run if anything looks funny. after jump. Sell to government only. Run if anything looks funny.

They flew half the borloi to orbit and packed it into Firebee's Firebee's outer hull, with no objection from Sharon. The work went fast. The next step was taken slowly, carefully. outer hull, with no objection from Sharon. The work went fast. The next step was taken slowly, carefully.

The Langston Field generator from Phoenix system was too big for either boat.

Sharon put Firebee Firebee in an orbit that would intersect the atmosphere. With an hour to play with, they moved the beast out of the cargo hold in an orbit that would intersect the atmosphere. With an hour to play with, they moved the beast out of the cargo hold with an armchair-type pusher frame and let it get a good distance away. They all watched as Terry beamed the signal that turned it on.

The generator became a black sphere five hundred meters across.

Charley and Terry boarded Shuttle #1. Sharon set Firebee Firebee accelerating back to orbit. accelerating back to orbit.

When the black sphere intersected the atmosphere there was little in the way of reentry flame. Despite the ma.s.sive machine at the center, the huge sphere was a near-vacuum. It slowed rapidly and drifted like a balloon. Boat #1 overshot, then circled back.

Air seeped through the black forcefield to fill the vacuum inside. It ceased to be a balloon.

It touched down in the marshes south and east of Dagon City, more or less as planned. No signal would penetrate the field. Terry and Charley had to go into the Field with a big inflatable cargo raft, mount it beneath the generator and turn it off.

At that point it became the owner's problem. He'd arranged for two heavy-lift aircraft. Firebee's Firebee's crew waited until the planes had landed, then took Boat #1 back to Dagon. crew waited until the planes had landed, then took Boat #1 back to Dagon.

They were back at the hotel thirty-six hours after they'd left. Maria found the door open and Terry lolling in the spa. "I think I'm almost dissolved," he told her.

Lex didn't call. Brenda didn't call.

They ferried the rest of the borloi up a day later. Some went into the outer hull. The rest they packed around the cargo hold, leaving racks open in the center. Dried borloi for padding, to shield whatever else Charley found to carry.

It was morning when they landed, with time for sightseeing. Andrea and Charley opted to rent equipment and do some semiserious mountain climbing in the foothills of The Warden. Terry called Maria, but she couldn't get off work, and couldn't see him tonight either. That made mountain climbing less attractive. Terry hiked around Dagon City for a while, looked through the major shopping mall, then went back to the hotel.

He was half asleep with his shoes off when the phone chimed.

The face was Brenda's. Terry rubbed his palms together and tapped the answer pad.

"Hi, Terry. I'm in the lobby. Can I come up?"

"Sure, Brenda. Can I order you a drink? Lunch?"

"Get me a rum collins."

Terry rang off, then ordered from room service. His palms were sweating.

I ran the record into Firebee's Firebee's memory and ran a translation program on it, but I didn't look at the result. I'd have to go back to memory and ran a translation program on it, but I didn't look at the result. I'd have to go back to Firebee, Firebee, then come back here. Has Bob Maddox told her? Probably not. then come back here. Has Bob Maddox told her? Probably not.

She walked in like she owned the hotel, smiling as if n.o.body was supposed to know. Her dress was vivid orange; it went well with her color. The drink trolley followed her in. When it had rolled out she asked, "How long are you going to be on Tanith?"

"Two weeks, give or take a week. Charley has to find us something to sell. Besides borloi, that is.''

"Have you tried bantar cloth? It's just about the only hi-tech stuff we make enough of. Don't take clothing. Styles change. Get bolts, and be sure you've got the tools to shape it."

"Yeah . . . . . . Brenda, is there anything you can't do?" Brenda, is there anything you can't do?"

"Cook. And I'm not the marrying type."

"I know that now."

"But I have children. Do you like Tarzan?"

He smiled and relaxed a little. "Good job there. I'm glad I met him."

"Let's do it again."

His drink slopped. Somehow he hadn't expected this. "Hold it, Brenda. I'm with another woman this trip."

"Maria? Terry, Maria's with Fritz Marsden tonight and all tomorrow. Fritz is one of mine. He works at the fusion plant at Randall's Point, and he only gets into town every couple of weeks. Maria isn't going to give him him up for a, well, a transient." up for a, well, a transient."

He sipped at his drink to give himself time to think. When he took the gla.s.s from his lips, she pulled it out of his hand without spilling it and set it down. She pulled him to his feet with a fist in his belt. "I'm not asking for very much, am I?"

"Ah, no. Child support? We'll be leaving funds behind us anyway. Are you young enough?" Was she serious? serious?

"I don't know. What's the worst that can happen?" She had unzipped his shirt and was pulling it loose. And with wild hope he thought, It could be! It could be!

She stripped him naked, then stepped back to examine him. "I don't think you've gained or lost an ounce. Same muscle tone too. You people don't even wrinkle."

"We wrinkle all at once. You've changed incredibly."

"I wanted to. I needed to. Terry, am I coming on too strong? You're tense. Let me show you something else I learned. Face down on the bed-" She helped him irresistibly. "I'll keep my dress on. Okay? And if you've got anything like ma.s.sage oil around, tell me now."

"I've never had a ma.s.sage of any kind."

The next hour was a revelation. She kept telling him to relax, and somehow he did that, while she tenderized muscles he'd strained moving borloi bags in free-fall. He wondered if he'd been wrong; he wondered if he was going to die; he wondered why he'd never tried this before.

"I took ma.s.sage training after you left. I used it at the hospital. I never had to work through a Nuliajuk's fat padding before . . . . . . No sweat, I can reach the muscle underneath." No sweat, I can reach the muscle underneath."

"h.e.l.l, you could reach through the ribs!"

"Is this too hard? Were you having trouble in orbit?"

"Nope. Everything went fine."

"Then why the tension? Turn over." She rolled him over and resumed work on his legs, then his arms and shoulders. "You didn't used to be shy with me."

"Am I shy now?"

"You keep tensing up." Her skirt was hiked up and she straddled his hips to work on his belly. "Good muscle here. Ease up-Well."

He had a respectable erection.

She caressed him. "I was afraid you'd changed." She slid forward and, h.e.l.l, she didn't have panties.

"I kept my promise," she gloated.

"True," he croaked. "Take it off."

She pulled her dress over her head. There was still a bra.s.siere; no woman would go without one in Tanith gravity. She took that off too.

She was smoothly dark, with no pale areas anywhere. His hands remembered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as smaller. Four kids-and it had been too long, far too long. He cried out, and it might have been ecstasy or grief or both.

She rolled away, then slid up along the length of him. "And that was a ma.s.sage."

"Well, I've been missing something."

"I did you wrong all those years ago. Did you hate me? Is that why you're so tense?"

"That wasn't it." He felt good: relaxed, uncaring. She'd come here only to seduce him, to mend fences, to revive memories. Or she already knew, and he might as well learn. "There's a Sauron message sender, galactic south of the Coal Sack. It was there to send Sauron ships to a certain Jump point."

"So?"

"Would you like to know where they were supposed to go? I could find out."

''No. ' '

"Flat-out no? Suppose they come back?"

"Cut the c.r.a.p, Terry. Hints and secrets. You never did that that to me before." to me before."

"I'm sorry, love-"

"Why did two Saurons go around the Maddox farm and straight to us? You told Bob you knew."

"Because they're white."

Brenda's face went uncannily blank. Then she laughed. "Poor Bob! He'd think you were absolutely loony."

"He sure would. I didn't want want to know this, Brenda. Why don't you want to find the Saurons?" to know this, Brenda. Why don't you want to find the Saurons?"

"What would I want with them? I want to see my children safe-"

"Send them."

"Not likely! Terry, how much have you figured out?"

"I think I've got it all. I keep testing it, Brenda, and it fits every time.''

She waited, her nose four centimeters from his, her breath on his face. The scent of her was very faint.

He said, "You saw to it that three of your own children were out in the rice paddy, including Tarzan. The girl you kept at the house was Reseda, the blond, the girl with the least obvious of Sauron genes. You invited Bob over. Maybe he'd get rid of me before the kids came back."

"Just my luck. He likes you."

"They took away your scent. No enemy could smell you out. They gave you an epicanthic fold to protect your eyes. The flat, wide nose is less vulnerable and pulls in more air." He pushed his fingers into her hair. Spongy, resilient, thick. She didn't flinch; she smiled in pleasure.

"And this kind of hair to protect your skulls. It'd take an impact. You grow your own skewball helmets!"

"How gracefully you put it."

"But it looks like a black woman's hair, so you want black skin. So you spend an hour on the roof every afternoon. Naked?" There were no white areas.

"Sure."

"There was a burn-through over Dagon City, and the EMP destroyed most of the records, but maybe not all. Whatever was left had to say that the Curtis family was mostly black."

"Whereas the Maddoxes are white," she said.

"That burn-through was important. You had to be sure. I'm betting you caused it yourself. It didn't have any serious military importance, did it? The pulse wiped out hospital equipment too, so they couldn't look inside you. Couldn't see that you aren't built-"

"If you say, 'Not quite like a woman,' I'll turn you upside down." She reached down to grip his ankle.

"You came down in a two-man escape pod. One XYY Sauron, and you. There wasn't any Horatius loose for fifteen years. No Miranda either."

"Only an XX," she said. Oh, she felt good lying alongside him. The Saurons weren't a different species. Gene-tailored, but human, quite human.

He said, "But you didn't speak Anglic. Here you were on Tanith with some chance of pa.s.sing for a citizen. But you couldn't speak a word, and you were with a Sauron berserker-"

"We say soldier. Soldiers and officers. We don't say Sauron."

"Okay."

"We killed a family and took over the house. It was still war, Terry. We cleaned up as best we could. Hid one body, a girl about my size, and buried the rest. I painted our bantar cloth armor. Turned on the TV wall and left it on. It didn't tell me what they were talking about, but I got the accents. Worked naked in the fields, but that didn't help. It left my feet white up to the knees!"

"The soldier couldn't hide, so you had to kill him. Lex found the knife wound. He wouldn't tell me about it, Brenda."

"Lex knows. He delivered Van, our second. Van was a soldier."

He couldn't think of anything to say. Brenda said, "I killed Randus. I found a Weem's beast and gave him to it. We don't think much of the soldiers, Terry. I cut a claw off the Weem's beast and made the wound-"

"Almost through your skull."

"It had to be done in one stroke. And kept septic. And in the jungle I had to climb a tree when I had daylight and take off all my clothes to keep the tan. I waved at a plane once. Too late to hide. If the pilot saw me he must have thought he was hallucinating."

"What'd you eat out there?"