She had to get out of this place.

Karvur came back for another inspection of the equipment. It was storming outside, something that occurred frequently on the high moors of Patash-Do. He was wearing a huge rainslick and a wide brimmed hat that dripped water on the cold stone floor.

She called his name. It was the first word she had uttered since he'd shoved her in this hellhole. He ignored her pointedly.

She begged him then, without shame.

Something about the urgency in her voice amused his interest. After a few moments more spent toying with the controls, he strolled over and squatted down on his haunches by the veal pen. Water continued to drip from his slicker. He wore enormous Wellington boots.

"You've come to your senses, then?" he said in a soft, deadly voice.

"Yes, Count. I-"

He clucked and raised a hand slightly as if to ward off praise.

"You're a bright young woman, I knew you'd come to see things as they are. Especially now that you're out of that awful, glittering city with all its false values, all its soft seductive ways. Things are different here, aren't they?"

"Yes, Count."

"I expect you'd like to take a bath and have a nice hot dinner.

It's a bit cold out here in the lab, isn't it?" He put a strange emphasis on the words "in the lab."

"Yes, please, Count."

"And after that good hot dinner, you'll want to reward the count, the kind count, who has given you such viands, so you'll come willingly to his bed."

A hard lump rose in her throat. "Yes, Count," she managed to say.

Anything would suffice if it just got her out of this cage.

"And in that bed you will gladly give that kind count everything you've got to give."

"Yes, Count," she whispered. What the hell did he want from her?

His eyes flashed. "Excellent, I knew you were an intelligent young woman. Got to live and learn, don't you know?"

He unlocked the cage and helped her out, holding her close with a familiarity she found quite disgusting.

This was going to be very hard. Caroline was not a sensualist; in fact, her love life had been relatively quiet for years. Pretending to want to make love to this horrible man was the last thing she could imagine doing. She just hoped she could submit without being sick all over him.

Karvur kept his arm around her waist as he walked her to the calving machine. His thigh pressed intrusively against her own.

"Would you like to see how our find is coming along?" he purred.

"Yes, Count," she muttered submissively. "Of course I would."

On the vidscreen floated a full view of the thing. She gasped.

"It's grown!"

It was twice the size it had been. And it was active. The tentacles were in constant motion, brushing the walls, stirring the nutrient gel.

Floating out of the slug-white, central mass was a thing that looked like a great orange chrysanthemum.

It wobbled, alive with a weird, fervid motion.

There was something utterly repulsive about it; she shrank back, appalled by the vigor of the thing.

"Our visitor is not exactly beautiful to the eye, is it?" The count mocked her. "But it will still make us rich, eh? That's what counts, eh?"

His hand continued to roam around her body with a horrible familiarity.

Caroline prayed she'd be able to handle this and not break down and try to kill him.

She had to survive, and she had to find that ITAA biolog check.

"Come along, Caroline, I want to watch you shower," murmured the count, tugging her toward the door.

Outside the rain was lashing down. The count gallantly opened his raincoat and shared it with her, holding her close to him as they crossed the yard.

"Women like yourself," he said in a hoarse whisper, "women in the fullness of middle life, these are my favorite women sometimes." He gave her behind a heavy squeeze. She quickened her step reflexively.

"Women like yourself, zaftig, generous, full of love."

"Count, please, I protest," she squeaked.

He goosed her, and she broke and ran for the back door to the house, getting drenched in the process, with his laughter pursuing her through the door and into the scullery.

The evening progressed to a night of enforced carnal submission of a sort that Caroline Reese had never dreamed existed, let alone imagined happening to her.

But of course she knew that it was a matter of submitting or being killed. No one on Karvur Farm would question the count.

He was merely exercising an age-old tradition. Any woman, indeed any man, could be taken by the count for sexual use. Thus it bad been since the days of the laowon.

Professor Reese thus suffered the most bitter degradation, but she survived.

And yet, she was fortunate in a way. Because the next time the small, red bipedal thing emerged from the calving machine it immediately searched the veal-calf enclosure and collected traces of her occupancy of the space, which it took back to the calving machine along with another Wexel kachi.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THEY WERE STILL TALKING WHEN THEY LANDED AT DOISY-DYAN, and for some reason it seemed the most natural thing in the world to simply carry on talking by going out for dinner together.

The camerawoman and the minder peeled out, to swim and exercise and get some sleep.

Hopester knew an ancient paisano restaurant, where they feasted on crawfish and drank chilled Doisy beer. Luisa wore a plain raincoat over her uniform and put on a little makeup. After a while she found she was truly enjoying herself for the first time in weeks, or so it seemed. At least since the beginning of the mission in the Skullas Hills.

Afterward they walked together on the river promenade, past the huge billboards of skulls and guns, and they were oblivious of both skulls and river view.

They checked into a hotel room under Hopester's ID, and made love with a delicious intensity that matched the rest of the evening.

It was exactly what Luisa had needed. It had been too long, far too long since she'd last had sex. It was one of the real problems in the active service officer's life; you couldn't be married and have the career, ITAA forbade that. You moved a lot, you covered light-years at a time, your friends back home were long since into their second century of life, and there was no "home" to go home to, ever.

Of course she knew that Hopester had a wife and three kids; in fact, he had the whole suburban life going up in CK City.

But in a way that was the best thing of all. She could not possibly enter any relationships right now.

Someone she might see occasionally, even less than once a month, might be just perfect.

And Hopester, well, she knew he had a woman in every port. His wife probably had her lovers, too, and they let life roll on, managing like most people did, everywhere.

Afterward she lay on the bed and stared out the windows at the dumpy skyline of Doisy-Dyan.

"You'll be heading back to Cowdray-Kara tomorrow morning, I take it," she said eventually.

He headed for the shower. "Actually no, tonight; the show must go on. I have an interview with Palatina Cowdray."

"The reigning debutante?"

"I have to be there by nine tomorrow morning, so I'll have to fly on up there tonight."

Checking back in with wife and family no doubt. She imagined the scene. She'd never wanted that for herself.

"It's too late. There aren't any more flights to the North Coast."

"There's a late-night flight out to Luc. I can haul down a carrier on the strat route there and get up to Frentana Beach.

From the Beach I can get over to Air&Space in time to just make the shuttle bus and hop over to Cowdray Towers by nine tomorrow morning."

"Take three stress tabs and sleep on the plane then?"

"From Luc to Frentana I should get a little sleep."

"So much for wife and kids, then?"

"Yeah." He nodded, and she sensed a true disappointment in him. "But I'll be with them tomorrow. We have three whole days coming up. It'll be good."

Suddenly she felt the warm fire of the nuclear family, the human way of life that she had forsaken for her career. A strange little pang of longing and guilt passed through her. How good it must be to go home to one's family like that. To a place of warmth and security, webbed in with love and respect. How different from the lonely camp bed of the CO for ITAA forces on planet Wexel! In a room that had to be sec-searched every day.

She waited until he emerged from the shower to ask the other question.

"Will l see you again?"

He smiled and kissed her gently on the lips. "It was good wasn't it? And really I'd love to stay, but as I explained, I'm a family man. And if you want to see me again then the answer is yes, but here in Doisy-Dyan. My wife and I, we have an agreement about that."

"No lechery inside the city limits, eh?" "We keep everything out of CK City." Her turn to smile and be indulgent.

"I understand. I'm not exactly in a position to have a family, or very many men friends."

"Yeah, I can understand. You're new here."

"And it could be dangerous. There's too much riding on what I do in the next few months."

"They've dealt you a pretty big hand."

"I just deal the first card. And I know how to handle myself.

See these red bars? Combat missions, every one."

He wasn't as impressed as he should have been.

"Yeah, I know, Colonel. You've seen combat. But this is different, these people are murderers.

Remember Huberte Baptiste. They play dirty."

She gave him a cool look. "Are you saying you're a spy for the Cowdray sisters?"

"No, but what if I were?"

"Then I'd be compromised. Time to get pulled out, go back to Scopus Central with my tail between my legs."

"I'd probably be doing you a favor."

She felt a gush of irritation. "I know you're all right to talk to because I did my research on you pretty damn thoroughly. It was no mistake that I chose you to do the interview."

"Hey, WEXnet chose me, you don't give WEXnet orders."

"Of course not, I just made it a request."

He shrugged. "Well, it was a good interview; it'll go out tonight, I think, they'll highlight it on the evening news."

The irritation had passed as suddenly as it had come. She gazed out the window once more, and Hopester dressed.

Soon after that he was gone. Luisa missed him. But she made an effort to get over the sudden loneliness with a belt of Scotch and the TV news until she fell asleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.