Didn't it? Califa wondered. It did to her. She'd known her share of males who had thought to add her to the roster of females they'd mated with, as if her honored Coalition name on their list somehow improved their own standing.

"I mean I know what happened to my mother was something else. Dax said that was about power, and violence, not mating."

Unusual wisdom, from a man, Califa thought. Even more unusual from a skypirate.

"Some men feel that by overpowering a person who lacks their bulk and strength, they have proven themselves mighty," she said, then added coldly, "They are fools."

And didn't that apply to the Coalition as well? she thought suddenly. Wasn't that exactly what theyand she, as part of ithad done?

"So why do males and females mate?" Rina asked, distracting Califa from a rather disturbing revelation.

"Sometimes for children, of course," Califa began, stalling.

Rina gave her the look that comment deserved; if children were the intent of every mating that occurred, the entire system would be overrun with them.

"I don't think I'm the best person for you to ask, Rina," Califa said slowly. "I'm not...I haven't..."

When she hesitated, Rina's eyes widened. "You can't mean you haven't mated before? You're so old!"

"Thank you," Califa said dryly.

She knew the girl meant no insult. It was true no one in this age went far beyond maturity without mating regularly, whenever they chose. Sometimes, whether the other party chose them back or not. Or often, if no other choice was at hand, with whoever was available. So it was proclaimed by the Coalition; only a fool believed in anything more than gratification of a physical urge, anything more than the slaking of l.u.s.t.

Shaylah, I swear you're from the Creonic Age.Her own words, uttered in amazement at the friend she had once considered too s.e.xually fastidious to be real, came back to her now, hauntingly. Shaylah had believed in more. She had believed in the oldTriotian bonding myth, the joining of two beings not just bodily, but with mind, soul, and heart. And nomatter how Califa had baited her fellow Arellian about believing in fables that were not even of herown world, Shaylah had remained steadfast in her beliefs, more than once making Califa question herown.

But it wasn't until she wore the collar, it wasn't until the simple act of choice had been taken from her, that Califa had seen the true ugliness of what pa.s.sed for pleasure in her world.

"You know I didn't mean you're really old," Rina was saying hastily. "But you are older than me, you're almost as old as Dax, and Eos knows he's done his share of mating."

"So I've heard."

Califa didn't care to examine why that knowledge disturbed her. She'd done more than her own share of heedless mating in her life before; she could hardly judge this man for doing the same. But the memory of that kiss was seared into her mind as if with a laser scalpel, and she couldn't deny the image of Dax with any one of the women the crew had joked about troubled her.

"I just wondered what it was like," Rina said with a shrug. "I can't imagine ever trusting a male that much."

How could she tell this girl that trust had so little to do with it? Why worry about trusting someone you had never seen before, and would no doubt never see again? Why worry about trust in a contact that would last only as long as it took to slake the need, the only criteria for mating under Coalition rule?

Dax had not done Rina any favor by keeping her so isolated from the reality outside theEvening Star.

She could not live aboard the ship forever, and she would be ill equipped to survive outside it, not in this time, in this system.

"It can be...pleasurable," Califa said. "Intense, but momentary."

Rina's golden brows furrowed. "Hardly sounds worth the effort."

Califa chuckled humorlessly. "You may be quite right."

Rina looked troubled. Califa studied her, seeing this time a girl who had something she herself had never had, an innocence about mating, about the urges between male and female. Dax was wrong. Rina's childhood might have come to an abrupt, traumatic end, but she had had twelve years of innocence.

Thanks to her mother, Califa had had none. Perhaps it was this that drove her to save, not destroy, that innocence.

"I've heard it said," she began, "that with some...there is more. That there is a greater pleasure, more than just a mating out of l.u.s.t. That there can be..." She took a breath as she struggled to find the words to express something she had never believed. Then the memory of Dax's kiss intruded again, and suddenly she found the words. "That there can be a joining, they call it bonding, which makes the two together stronger than the two alone. A joining that creates a link so strong nothing can sever it,"

Rina stared at her. "Ever?"

"That is what some accept. It is an old Triotian"she hesitated on the word "myth" "belief."

"So that's what Dax meant," Rina murmured, wide-eyed.

"What?"

The girl looked startled, then, oddly, frightened. As if she'd said something horrible. Like she had looked in Dax's quarters, when he'd cut off her words about the dulcetpipe.

"Nothing," she said hastily. She grabbed at the belt in her lap and scrambled to her feet. "I have to get another tool."

She was gone practically before Califa could blink.

Dax flexed his shoulder as he walked down the companionway, lit for evening now by the ship's computer. Nelcar had done his usual fine job; some residual stiffness that would be gone in a couple of days was the only reminder of this run.

He thought that the young Clarionite's order for him to stay in his bunk for two days was a bit extreme, but he'd dutifully stayed in his quarters; Nelcar, when it suited him, had the bedside manner of a Carelian jackal. His only visitors had been Roxton and Rina. And, last night, Califa.

Califa. Little snowfox, with her pale skin and blue eyes. And a voice like the sound of spring coming to life. G.o.d, what had he gotten himself into?

He didn't want to think about it, tried to force it out of his mind.

He'd been headed for the crew lounge, but changed his mind and stopped at the narrow stairway that led up to the small observation deck. The bubble of anything-proof plaxan gave a full overhead and 360-degree-around view of everythingand all the nothing in between. It was one of the few places on theEvening Star where quiet was the rule, and right now he needed that, not the chatter of the crew. After each new raid, it seemed to take longer to come down, and the low after the adrenaline rush seemed lower.

He ran up the narrow stairs, then froze on the top step, cursing the urge had made him come up here.

For up here, sitting in the circle of soft light from outside, was the very woman he'd been trying like Hades to avoid even thinking about.

She was alone, staring outward, in the direction they were headed, not back at Boreas. The soft light gleamed on her hair, an ebony cap that looked like spun silk as it brushed her ears. Tiny, delicate ears, at odds with her uptilted nose and determined chin. And her eyes were so darkly fringed, yet that extraordinary light blue color. The arched brows were as dark as her lashes, and stood out against pale Arellian skin. And that mouth...

Images from last night flashed through his mind. The way she had looked at him after the song was done, her wide-eyed expression telling him without words that she had been feeling what he had felt, that somehow that song had compressed time between them, that in those minutes they had learned more of each other than some people do in a lifetime. The way she had held still for his kiss, instead of dodging away as he'd half expected. The way she'd parted her lips for him. The feel of her tongue as it had brushed over his, sending a burst of blazing heat through him...

He yanked his wandering mind back to safer territory. As if looking at this woman could ever be considered safe, he thought. At least for him.

The bruise was fading, he noticed. It was barely visible in the subtle light here. He wondered if there were other marks marring that exquisite skin, other badges attesting to Coalition cruelty. He had a sudden image of himself, laving every one of those imaginary bruises with his lips. Heat rocketed through him, hardening him in a rush.

She seemed raptly caught by the starry view, and Dax thought he could probably turn back and she might not even realize he'd ever been there. But he would know. He would know that he had turned and run, on his own ship, because he was afraid of the way an icy-eyed, ebony-haired Arellian made him feel.

And that was something he'd been avoiding as well, thinking about just that subject. He'd met many women he'd been very aware of as women, who had sent out subtleand some not very subtlemessages of invitation. Some of those invitations had been tempting enough to accept, even though he was certain of the inevitable outcome. Sometimes he'd felt driven to discover if anything had changed, if perhaps this woman, or that one, would make a difference. They never did.

He didn't even care why they wanted him; he knew for most of them it was the thrill of the forbidden, a mating with the notorious skypirate, as if he gave them some kind of cachet that they could brag about later. He didn't understand it, but he didn't begrudge them, either. How could he, when he'd used them as they used him, in his effort to leam why his body always betrayed him?

But this was the first time a woman had ever made him so aware of himself as a man. He didn't know if it was her cool but undeniable beauty, so unexpected after his first sight of the grubby waif in that dank prison cell, or if it was the glimpse he'd gotten of a bold, fiery woman, who had clung to some shred of spirit despite the efforts of the ma.s.sive machine of the Coalition to turn her into an automaton.

In either case, he'd known he was in trouble the first time he'd seen her in the crew lounge, wearing Rina's flight suit, the bright, crimson shade a dramatic contrast for her ebony hair and pale skin. And an altogether too vivid delineation of the feminine curves her ragged, filthy clothes had concealed.

For a while, he had wondered if he was going to have trouble with the men over her; he'd noticed more than one of them eyeing her with a surprise that hadn't been there when she'd come aboard looking as much a lost waif as Rina had that first time.

But perhaps that very connection was why the surprise had never turned into the hormone-driven haze he'd half expected in this crew that had been a long time without female companionship. Every one of them had come to look upon Rina as one of their own. Whether it was because she represented the families they'd lost, or now would never have, he didn't know, but he knew they all protected the girl.

Perhaps some of that protective instinct had spilled over to the woman Rina had made her friend. It didn't matter, he supposed; he was just glad he wasn't going to have to face the problem of his crew panting after the Arellian.

It was bad enough thathe was.

He waited until he had his bodyhis uselessly quickening bodyunder control. Then he went up that last step, reluctantly, yet feeling that if he didn't he would never be able to face himself again. She didn't react, even when she had to have seen him, and Dax realized that she had indeed known he was there all along. Grateful now that he hadn't retreated, he walked slowly over to where she was sitting, in one of a group of four chairs place for optimum viewing of the expanse of forward s.p.a.ce. There were three other groupings facing other directions, empty now.

After a moment's consideration, he chose the seat opposite her, deciding that was the best compromise between appearing to avoid her and getting too close.

Silence spun out between them, yet there seemed to Dax to be a charge in the air, like the scent that lingered after the firing of the flashbow. He searched for something to say, to talk aboutanything but that sizzling kissbut before he could think of anything, she spoke.

"Do you wish me to leave?"

Her quiet question startled him, both in its unexpectedness and its content. As Rina had said, he hated this submissive act of hers; it reminded him too forcefully of the meaning of that gold band around her slender neck. But perhaps it had been merely consideration that had prompted the question. After time spent in a Coalition prison, perhaps she appreciated the need for quiet. So, although he wasn't entirely certain his answer wasn't yes, he said, "No. Why would I?"

She looked at him then. "This seems a private place."

His mouth curved upward at one corner. "Not usually. And usually not for long. But if it's quiet you want, this is about the only place outside your quarters to get it."

"Even if it is fully occupied?"

He nodded. "It's the only rule, here."

"Your rule?"

He let out a compressed breath. He had wanted her to drop that slavelike habit of phrasing questions as merely observations, hadn't he?

"Yes. My rule."

He said nothing more, but after a moment she said, staring once more out at the stars, "A quiet place is necessary to sanity."

"Yes," he said after a moment of surprise at how exactly she had expressed his need for this one place of calm amid the chaos of a skypirate's vessel.

She shifted her gaze back to him. "Your shoulder? I neglected to ask... ast night."

He answered hastily, feeling like a man dodging through a field of saturation fire set down by thermal cannon. "It's fine. Nelcar did a good job. And it wasn't very serious to begin with."

"Rina was worried."

"She overreacts." His mouth quirked. "So does Roxton."

"They would not, did they not care."

He let out a long breath. "I know. But they shouldn't. Everything went well."

"So I hear. The crew talks of nothing but your great success."

They had talked of none of this last night, he realized in surprise. It was as if last night had truly been a magic interlude, with nothing mattering except the music. And a kiss.

Once more steering himself away from memories of those few moments that so inexplicably alarmed him, he answered with a negligent shrug.

"It was a good run."

"And they talk of your own risk taking."

Another shrug. "You can't expect to gain without risk."

She looked startled, as if she hadn't expected to hear those words from him. He didn't know why, it was a common enough belief. He had even heard that it was a well-preached dogma of the Coalition, taught in all their schools.

"You take them...excessively, it seems."

He looked at her consideringly. "There are those who would say that no risk is excessive if you succeed."

"You mean that your very success is proof that it wasn't?"

The corners of his mouth twitched as she used the very words he had so often used on Roxton when the older man chided him for his recklessness. "Exactly, snowfox."

Her eyes widened, and color tinged her cheeks. He could almost see her fighting back the blush. It was a moment before she spoke.

"Perhaps there is truth in that," she admitted, "but there are also those who speak of pushing your luck until fate pushes back."

"Is that what you did, Califa?" be asked softly, his gaze nicking to the gold collar.

She went very still. One hand crept up to finger the cool metal at her throat. "No," she whispered.

"So sometimes fate pushes first?"

He thought she wasn't going to answer. He couldn't blame her, really. One kiss hardly gave him the right to pry into her life. But then, in a voice so low he barely heard the words, she said, "Sometimes someone else pushes their luck, and you get caught in the backlash."

There was so much pain in her voice, and she was fighting so hard to hide it, that he said nothing. Had she been caught in someone else's fated backlash? Was that why she'd been so concerned about Rina being caught in the backlash of his pushing his luck?

He'd spent a long time mulling over that unexpected visit the night before the raid. When she'd first come in, he'd nearly choked on the brandy he'd been drinking at the way she had looked at him. He had seen looks of hunger on women's faces before, but had never expected to see such a look on her face.

He had wondered, because it hadn't been quite the same look he was used to seeing from other women. It had been more intense, somehow, fiercer, as if it was coming from the Califa he'd only seen glimpses of, not the compliant slave. And that thought had nearly driven him straight back to the brandy. Only the realization that he shouldn't add the heat of alcohol to his already too-quickly heating body had stayed him.

And then it had been gone, that look, gone as if he'd imagined it. He'd thought perhaps he had, that it had merely been urgency he had sensed; she had clearly become attached to Rina, and was worried about her welfare.

More likely, he'd thought wryly, it was the product of far too much wishful thinking on his part.

When he heard the sound of voices on the steps, he was almost grateful; he had no solution for the kind of pain she was in. If he had, he would have eased his own long ago.

Up came Nelcar and Roxton, still consoling each other on having missed the raid. As was the custom, their voices dropped to a quieter level as they came onto the observation deck. As was also the custom, they did not intrude, but merely nodded before taking seats that faced back toward Boreas, and continuing their conversation.

When Dax turned back to Califa, she was looking at him with a hint of anxiety in her silver-blue eyes.