There was no need for talking, no sense in it at all. Her body mashed up against him and he allowed his hands to smooth down over the material of her dress, along the curve of her spine to the twin globes of her b.u.t.tocks. Her mouth lifted to his again, eager, demanding, while her fingers dug through his tunic and into his flesh with a sharp need that thrilled him.

Her hand reached behind him, her fingers finding the light b.u.t.ton and suddenly the room was sheathed in the soft cloak of darkness. Only the tiny nightlight gleamed like a small, yellow eye in the center of the ceiling. She spoke to him, without removing her lips, her breath hot and demanding against his mouth.

"I don't want to wait any longer, darling," she panted, "not another minute."

His arms slid around her, lifting her at the shoulders and the thighs to carry her to the bed, but she twisted away from him, whirling off into a darkened corner of the room where the yellow light could not touch. He could hear the sigh of the toga-like robe as she whipped it away from her soft flesh. Then she stood there, before him, framed in the alluring gold of the circle of light.

Lors felt his breath suck inward at the sight of her, standing there nude. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered and he felt shaken, to the very roots of his being.

The smooth curve of her shoulders glowed in the light and her face was kissed by shadows. The arching lift of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the impa.s.sioned nipples threw a wash of dark shadow downward over the flat of her stomach and the lithe curve of her thighs. With the light covering the beauty of her face, Jela lost her ident.i.ty.

She was woman. Period.

Any and all, from time immemorial, or immoral, perhaps. She was somehow, standing there, a composite of every woman who had ever drawn a breath.

She was the best of woman, the choicest parts of all women since the dawn of time, suddenly thrown together in a high breasted, slim waisted creation that was being offered to him, only to him.

And Lors?

It moved in him, churned through his guts like a forest fire. He was man! All men, glaring with the red eyes of pa.s.sion at all women. He too, in the wash of l.u.s.t that had swept over him, lost his ident.i.ty and he didn't give a d.a.m.n. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that she was waiting...

His fingers ripped away his clothing and he was at her side in no time at all, his arms sliding about the pliant warmth of her flesh to clasp her to him. To take her. To love her with a fever that was equal to the challenge she presented.

She made a small sound and he hushed it with his mouth, planting his lips roughly against hers while he lowered her to the bed. He hurt her, but she didn't try to get away.

It was the kind of hurt she had waited for, that they both had yearned for all the long months that had kept them apart. His hands closed over her. Smoothing the tender flesh and feeling of life beneath his palm.

She moaned, tearing the sound from the very depths of her as his hands smoothed the satiny texture of her thighs, his fingers working against her flesh. He felt the nails of her hands digging into his shoulders, but he paid no attention to it.

Nothing mattered now. Nothing except the warmth of their love and the expenditure of the raging pa.s.sions that threatened to engulf them both.

They laid there for a long time, basking in the heat of their love, and he knew. Finally he knew that it all would not work. There could be nothing between him and the Terran woman. It was impossible. She could not live in his worlds, nor could he live in hers. Jela was his world and the past was merely an emotional thing. A moth and the flame.

Yet ... somehow, he _did_ love Beth. Somehow her and her life was important to him. Her happiness was something that he had to a.s.sure. Had to guarantee for her.

He had to work out a plan that would solve everything and return the whole business to a state of normalcy. It would be difficult, if not impossible, and he knew that Zark would never listen to him, never allow him to carry it out.

But he had to do it.

There would be all kinds of risks and, if he failed in the thing, he might have to pay with his life. If he managed to accomplish it, he would get nothing as a reward, except perhaps the hand of the Commander's daughter. That wasn't such a bad reward, though.

He kissed her and the fires began to burn again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lors finished dressing himself, buckling the black belt about his waist; then he looked down at the still form of Zark's daughter, Jela, golden in the light of the overhead bulb. She slept like a baby. He blew a kiss to her and let his breath out in a rush.

"If everything goes right," he whispered, "I'll be back before you know I'm gone. If not..." He let it hang there and checked the loads in the auto-pistol.

Then he went out into the bright light of the corridor.

The guard merely accepted his auto-pistol when he stopped at the door to Danson's prison. Lors gave it to him and the s.p.a.cer opened the door.

Nick Danson rubbed the beard on his face and grinned at him.

"Forget something, Firsts.p.a.cer?" He asked.

When the door closed, Lors said: "Shut up."

Danson blinked.

"Sit down."

Danson sat.

"How badly do you want to get off this ship, Danson?"

"How badly do you want to make Commander?" Danson countered and lit a cigarette.

"You willing to risk your life?"

"Why not? It isn't worth a h.e.l.l of a lot anyhow."

Lors reached into Danson's shirt pocket, found the pack of cigarettes and filched one. Nick touched a match to it and Lors dragged the smoke into his lungs. He could see the Terran regarding him suspiciously.

"What's the play, Firsts.p.a.cer?" Danson asked.

"You're dead, Nick," Lors said softly, "if you stay on this ship. That can be either literally, or figuratively speaking, I don't know. It all depends on Zark's plans for you."

Nick snorted, "h.e.l.l, Lors, it can't be any worse than whatever Imry had cooked up for me."

"It'll be better. That I can a.s.sure you. Zark is a just man, but he hasn't much feeling for Terrans..."

"Yeah, I know. The "G.o.d" theory."

Lors nodded.

"Well, look, Firsts.p.a.cer," Danson said, snubbing out his cigarette.

"Your concern for my welfare touches me deeply, but I don't get it. How come?"

Lors grinned. "I've been asking myself that same question, and while I can get answers that make sense to me, I sincerely doubt if they'd make sense to you.