She twisted fiercely. "Jesti-you're hurting me!"

"I know! I said answer me!"

Yahna's control gave way. With a sidewise twist she brought up a foot and raked it down his shin, with force.

Jesti let out a yell, let go her arm, and struck. At the last moment he remembered to pull his blow so that he only cuffed her-and she seized that hand in her teeth. When he tried to jerk free, she hung on while letting her legs go limp. Already offbalance, he was dragged to the floor with her.

Cursing, he let go her other arm and seized her by the hair. He wrenched her head backward. Pain popped her mouth open to scream and his released hand leaped to her throat. The scream died in an ugly gagging sound.

"Answer me, d.a.m.n you! For onCe don't challenge and sneer-answer!"

Her eyes bulged and she sobbed for breath. He eased up on her throat. She swallowed twice before she snap-gasped her reply.

"d.a.m.n you, I told you Hieri had a caller and silent siren too! All he had to do was tune in to your grid-line 170.

and listen to my transmission. You said you'd be wearing that stupid robe-he heard you! He didn't need me to betray you! But since he thinks you're stupid, he saw he could cause more trouble by making you think he and I had struck a bargain. I'm the one stupid enough to think you weren't that stupid, d.a.m.n it, oh d.a.m.n d.a.m.n you!"

What came next was a foregone conclusion. It went with pa.s.sions up and blood running hot and bodies writhing, on the floor.

He ruined the halter to paw and chew at her warheads, got the robe out of the way and his coverall open, and discovered that he didn't have to ruin her shorts or get them off. A tug lowered their crotch enough to allow his invasion of them and her. Impaled, she lurched violently and forced him to grab her flailing arms.

He forwent telling her that she was wet as a lake; excited, as usual, by violence and force. He thrust forward with all his might, powering into her from the tips of his straining toes. Violent spasms of shuddering leaped all through her and she writhed in little undulations that grew into bigger ones as she bucked under him. Filling herself. Her freed b.r.e.a.s.t.s became loose b.a.l.l.s dancing on her chest, rippling and swaying. Spreading inner warmth turned her cleft into a humid mora.s.s of seething l.u.s.t that oiled itself and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h at his impaling shaft.

Their sweat-shining bodies ground together. She was jerking her hips in spasms now. Twitching and moaning beneath him while need sluiced throughout the length of her squirming long body. His presence inside her was an internal fuse that sputtered heat into her very womb. It flared, exploded.

They lay still for a long while, still panting. Eventually he moved, to lie beside her. He chuckled.

"So that's what you wanted, you sly s.e.xpot. I should have known a psychist would sneak up on my off-side!"

"Why you-d.a.m.n you, d.a.m.n you, you d.a.m.ned . . . Eilan!" She beat at his chest.

"Lord, the positively awful name you call me!" He smiled, watching the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s danced and jumped with her exertions. Then she blinked, stared.

171.

Realizing belatedly what he'd meant, she said, "Oh."

"As in 'Oh how right you are, Jesti you rapacious stud?' " He grinned and cupped her breast . . . with, almost incredibly, real tenderness.

"Uh. Those toothmarks'll be sore for days."

"Hope so. But I'll lick 'em to make the hurt go away."

"Oh, Jes, d.a.m.n it. . . ." She looked away, then back. "Listen. The last word we got on the reader/coder is that your man Hajji Kalajji was slated to meet CongCorp. Might be worthwhile to see what happens, don't you think?"

"Ah!" But he grinned. "Sure you don't want to rile me up again, brat?" (She hit him.) When he started to rise, his "uh" was in recognition of pain. He examined his shin. "Glad you don't wear spike heels. Couldn't we just, uh, screw every now and then, Golden?-take it easy on each other? Just for a change."

She hit him. Not hard. "Oh d.a.m.n. You've ruined Twil's halter.''

"You should be delighted, Yahna-psychist ma'am. It's a sin to cover that beautiful set of inhalation halators of yours. Why not make a deal with Twil . . . both of you just go bare-topped. Tell you what-I will too!"

He grunted as he got to his feet, then turned to offer a hand to her.

She batted it away and bounced up-to catch him watching the further exuberanterant bounce of her ' 'inhalation halators." Putting on a grim face over the smile that started, she crossed her arms over her outstanding attributes.

"I could make a nice top from that robe," she said reflectively.

He had taken it off and was opening the comm-waste coverall. "Uh, well, I'd like to keep it intact. It served me well, and might again. Here." He found and handed her his old tunic. She saw the stopper in his coverall--Hieri's.

That wasn't why she stared, blinking, with both of them thinking she was about to start leaking tears. At last she swallowed and got words out: "First thing you ever offered me . . . can we ... can 172.

we stand such an encroachment of creeping tenderness into our pardon-the-expression relationship?"

Jesti chuckled. He also took back the tunic and started to put it on.

"Here, gimme that!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed it and headed for the reader/coder. "Got a good chest and shoulders on you, you know that . . . pirate?"

The minutes after that were baffling. The machine pulsed with top-priority CongCorp communications. C-C had made a tentative deal with the mysterious Hajji Kalajji. If it went through, a small s.p.a.cer with the payoff would pick him up in the vicinity of an abandoned satellite. Enter fortuitous circ.u.mstances: from Slicer, hidden in its cavern on The Sponge, Yahna and Jesti were in a superb position to watch the whole affair as if they watched an episode of a holomeller. They watched, an amazing clear picture.

A charter carrier came onscreen. Close by the dead satellite, it rendezvoused with a little speeder already there. Some sort of business went on between the two craft. Eventually the carrier unlocked and swept away. Just as Yahna began her "Is that all?" another carrier moved, onscreen.

This one departed from the XN-sat, cruised to the System Speeder as the first had, and locked on. Almost immediately came terror! It burst luridly out of the speeder's transmission screen: the face of a man with a single eye. Teeth bared, he glared and roared out a challenge. The sight of that awful green scar running from eye to mouth to ear was itself enough to chill blood. The man must have chosen to leave it there; why else, when scars were so easy for daktaris to get rid of? And that rubicund optic replacing his other eye!

Jesti reacted with a shocked identification: "Dravan! Dravan the Marked! We've heard of that devil even on Eilong!"

Yahna could only shiver and wish she were being held by the powerful man beside her. How could she, from her background and with her intelligence and talent, have come to this? Trapped in a nether world of pirates. Murderers. Madmen. Outlaws. Engulfed in terror and even 173.

draped in a nowhere male tunic. Swept from one whirlpool of panic/excitement/pa.s.sion to another.

(And loving it. Loving every pulsing, petrifying moment of it.

(When I'm not too paralyzed with fear to know how I feel about it, that is. All those Akima Mars dramas she'd worked on-people thought they were exciting and fraught with peril and violence and derring-do!-not to mention rape. . . .) They saw the rest of it. The attack on Dravan of two s.p.a.cers zooming in out of the purple abyss. So much for Dravan the Hideous, Yahna thought . . . and then the System Speeder vanished from screen and from s.p.a.ce.

That incredibility came as a shock that left Yahna gasping, staring. Nothing wrong with the scanner disguised up above their cave; the two attack craft were still there.

Jesti stood frowning at the screen too, with narrowed eyes. Abruptly he gave his head a jerk and headed for his clothes. "I'm going back down."

"Down? To Jasbir?''

"Firm."

She had to scramble up and follow him out the door. "Why? You saw what happened. That speeder simply . . . vanished. Disappeared.''

"Uh. Had to be Forty Percent City. Hieri told me about it," he said, striding to collect the discarded robe. "What you call it when someone uses the tachyon converter- bam, just like that-without waiting to make sure it's safe. Odds are forty-something per cent that you won't live through it."

"Yes, sure, I know about jam-cram," she snapped, walking (rapidly, to keep up!) a tightrope between confusion and irritation. "But what's that got to do with your going back onplanet? You're not going to find Dravan there!"

"Dravan's the least of my concerns, Golden One!"

''Then what-Jesti-i-!''

"Someone was with him, Yahna. The same someone who brought him and piloted the carrier back. That's who I'm after. Someone who can tell me what's going on. How 174.

our Handsome Man and CongCorp's Hajji Kalajji contact fit into all this. Are they the same man, or two different people? I want to know. I have to know. So-back down to Jasbir for me."

Yahna cringed at the determination she heard in that strong voice. It was a moment she had known instinctively would come. She had dreaded it. Now, for an instant, she hesitated. Wondering if it might not be wiser to let him go ahead, regardless.

But no; her brain wouldn't let her do that. That was the trouble with logic, with education. They got in the way of empathy and impulse and emotion. Tautly, she matched the firmness of Jesti's tone: "Negatory. You're not going, Jes."

His face froze. "What? Why not?"

"Because you're you. She gestured to her friend, the mirror. "Look at you. You're Eilan miner purple. Anyone sees that with one glimpse."

"Not if I wear the Xan robe, mask, and the gloves. No color at all-no me showing!"

"Especially if you wear that rainbow robe! By now the word's out on it, Jesti." She was practically pleading for understanding, acceptance of good sense. "Every Xan in Marmot is being searched and questioned, and probably released with some policer ID-a visible something. Show up down there in that outfit and policers and ruffos will fight each other for the chance to grab you."

The difference between Jestikhan Churt and a fictional hero was that he could not and would not argue with logic. She saw that from the shadow that fell over his face. It made her feel better.

"d.a.m.n. You're right. But it's our only chance to get the scrute-to find out what the vug is going on!"

"No, it is not our only chance, Jes." She stared directly into his eyes. "We can both go."

"Both-!" Pure incredulity crossed his face. "You're out of your mind, woman. They'd have the two of us in irons before we hit the port gate."

"Not if I had you sealed in a contagion sack," she said sweetly. "A body bag out of, say, Shankar. Don't you 175.

see," she said, coming close to rest a hand on his arm. She indulged herself in a small, triumphant smile. "It's the perfect answer. No one wants to take a chance with Shanki Fever!"

"Shanki Fever. Is it bad?"

"The worst," she told him. "It terrifies everyone. Look, we're immunized against nearly everything ever thought of and a few that haven't been. But Shanki Fever's worse than the famous old Plague-and there's no vaccine. No one is going to want to touch me, or even be near. All they'll want to do is make sure the bag's sealed and buckpa.s.s me on to the next clerk, who'll do the same, and-''

"I see all that. Brilliant. But if there is trouble, any slip-up ..."

"There won't be. I'm a registered psychist. No one-"

"No." He shook his head. "Negatory, Yahna."

Her heart sank. This time, she knew that no words could change his d.a.m.ned bullish head. She didn't even cover; seeing her reaction, Jesti patted her shoulder. A little clumsily; the "encroachment of creeping tenderness into their relationship." She didn't flinch, either. Much.

"Don't feel too down, Golden One. It's a beautiful idea. It just isn't quite good enough. I left things in an uproar in Marmot. Everybody's going to be edgy. And no man in his right mind's going to let himself be sealed in a sack so that any nervous fobber can Fry him. Besides ... there's a better way. You've sparked it from me. All we need's a breathing helmet, the kind s.p.a.cefarers wear when they're on a planet way out of sync with what they're accustomed to in the way of air and grav. Put a faceplate with the right filter polarizer in it and I can have any color skin you want.''

"Your hands-"

He held them up, showing her the skintight, breathing gloves. "Come to think, I can stain-squirt these green in about one min. Less."

Even knowing she'd lose, Yahna tried to argue with him. Yet . . . strangely, she was glad he wouldn't let her dissuade him. It gave her something approaching a sense 176.

of security. As if she needn't fret any more about anything because, whatever happened, this man would protect her.

Shades of that infamous Kenowa! I'm thinking like a-a woman!

That was a species of insanity to Yahna Golden. It belonged to ancient eras of female subservience to "protecting" males-who accordingly dominated. That was anathema in any psychist's book, and never mind Mama Nature's (long outgrown) Plan!

Besides ... he needs me. He can't protect anyone if they kill him on Jasbir or lock him away in durance vile for the next century!

She sighed. "Let's get it going, then. You have to promise to buy a bandeau or two for Twil. I'll try to explain to the h.o.r.n.y creep and beg another something to wear."

"If it gives you any trouble, we use this." He slapped his stopper, and headed for the con.

A few minutes later, braced by an anxious-unto-surly pair of crewmembers, Jesti felt no compunctions whatever about lying.

"Hieri's been taken," he told Musla and Twil. "You two are the ship experts-the real s.p.a.cefarers. It's up to Yahna and me to go down onplanet and try to find him- rescue him if we have to. I'm not too bad at that, you'll remember.''

Surprisingly, Musla grinned. "I do, Jesti," he said, and while Jesti tried to remember whether the dour Sek had used his name before, Musla went on to his fellow crewmember: "Strip, Twil! Give 'er yer clo'es. s.h.i.t, it's for all of us, an' no matter how great she looked with 'er warheads hanging out on the bounce, she can't go down onto Jasbir like that! s.h.i.t, she'd be grabbed by thirteen slavers in the first seven minutes!"

Jesti laughed; the Golden One looked shocked. The Jarp went along, looking un-overjoyed. When Musla looked his way, Jesti gave the Sek a friendly look with a carefully measured dollop of grat.i.tude in it.

Soon Yahna wore a good-looking lace-front jerkin in a rust hue, and tights the color of old wine seen in dim 177.

lighting. And she and Jesti went down. Down to Jasbirstation in their tiny charter carrier, while Musla and Twil'im stayed on Slicer. Whether the Jarp clothed its nakedness neither Golden iior Churt cared. They went down, with Jesti in a breather helmet whose faceplate he didn't dare open lest it reveal his purple Eilan skin. And green gloves. Down, with Yahna absolutely skin-sheathed in Twil's seductive clothing, sure to distract attention to from her companion.

"Musla's full of s.h.i.t," Jesti observed. "You're s.e.xier in that laced vest than you were bouncy-bare."

"Oh, disconnect your helmet's speaker."

That friendly sarcasm turned out to be an excellent idea. If she did all the talking, it would enhance the image they were trying to create of Jesti as an offplanet visitor with a breathing problem. Too, it would enable her to field questions that might call for knowledge he lacked.

They had little difficulty locating the carrier that had carried Dravan out to the System Speeder. The question of who had brought it back to the big docking wheel in s.p.a.ce was another matter. It should have been the portside pilot called Rafi, they were told. But Rafi appeared to be missing.

Jesti chose not to mention the crate he had seen near that carrier's umbilical "door" into the station; a huge one marked to be held for pickup by CongCorp. He wanted a sneak look at and in that one himself, if he could sidestep station security and stevedores who belonged to a greedy and touchy union. That proved not difficult; a big flap developed on the station, and security people scrambled to that berth. Some maniac had blasted a lander or pinnace or something right through a docked s.p.a.cecraft-one Coronet-and was away.

Jesti didn't know good guys from bad, didn't know who Coronet's captain was, or whether the monster who had holed the ship had been escaping durance vile, slavery, or justice. Therefore Jesti didn't know who to feel for. He did know what to do. He hurried in the opposite direction of the big flap, and opened the box. Dam' thing looks like a coffin, he mused . . . and of course discovered that it was.

This, he a.s.sumed, was carrier "pilot" Rafi-the late 178.

Rafi. His neck had been broken by a blow so savage that the shattered vertebrae stuck out through the skin.

It was hardly a time for reporting anything to the authorities, even a murder. Instead, Yahna struck up a few minutes' conversation with some of the dispatchers in the off-duty lounge. One of the women recalled that the last time she'd seen Rafi he was deep in conversation with one of the handsomest men she had ever seen. It was the sort of thing she remembered, she chuckled, and Yahna smiled and nodded.

Inside his disguising helmet, Jestikhan was not smiling. A man too handsome to be believed? Uh-huh. They checked, and a shuttle ID-checker/"guard" remembered the fellow. He had pa.s.sed him. No, he didn't remember the fellow's name. All he paid attention to was ticket and ID picture. He did remember that it barely did the big good-lookin' man justice.

So. The Handsome Man was back on Jasbir, presumably back in Marmot. And still with no clues as to his ident.i.ty or his whereabouts beyond the shuttleport.

Sharing Jesti's frustration, Yahna dragged him into the lounge for a beer or saufee. That did nothing for his frustration, since he couldn't drink through the breather helmet. They ordered one of each anyhow. While she sipped hot saufee she heard his plaintively helpless "Why-wfry?"

"Why what, Jesti?"