Ice Dragon

Answer. There was no natural explanation. The Ice Master had allies, beings from beyond this world, beyond its planetary system, allies who had come to this world with the gas cloud and now lurked along with the Ice Master and his-or their-creations in the glacial wastes. Why they had come, altering the world's climate and now aiding the Ice Master, Blade did not know. Nor did he know why the Ice Master had allied himself with them.

But that this world's troubles had origins beyond the human Blade was as certain as if he had seen it carved in the living ice of the glaciers. And in contemplating all of it for the first time, from begi

These people did not know their real enemy. So he would have two battles. First, convincing them he was right. Second, leading them against the enemy. And in the process, learning more about this tantalizingly glimpsed horror from the stars, and then learning how to fight it-or perhaps learning that there was no way to fight it at all? Blade for the first time, was seriously concerned that all his skills and training might be unable to help these people cope with their problem. And at that thought, he went even colder. Futility was not a good feeling.

Chapter 8

Since the Unionists had been keeping Blade confined to bed to simplify his interrogation rather than because his health required it, they let him up the next day. The place to which the rescued prisoners had been taken was in appearance an expensive private health resort back in the hills nearly a hundred miles north of Treniga. Actually it was the largest Union facility. Doctor Leyndt's reputation for curing the Graduk elite of the consequences of their numerous vices was so great that it acted as a shield for any institution with which she chose to become associated. So the resort headquarters housed most of the Union's records (insofar as they dared to write anything down), laboratories for research into methods of dealing with the Ice Master and the glaciers, and a floating population of between forty and sixty Union people plus other transients such as Blade and his companions. The Union people were not complacent about their security; guards patrolled the roads and radar sca

He spent much time in the laboratories, and there further confirmed his beliefs that the Dragon wands were far beyond Graduk knowledge. In some things, such as the power charges that supplied the beamers, the Graduki had advanced well beyond Home Dimension science. In other respects (such as lacking atomic power, though not atomic theory) they were well behind it. Nowhere did he see any signs of the mastery of electronics needed to make the wands, nor indeed much of anything that Home Dimension could not have produced within a few years. The science of the Graduki, however impressive to the Treduki, offered little or nothing that might be worth taking home. What was worse, it offered little or nothing that might stand effectively against the aliens.

If there were any aliens. In the peace of the resort, Blade sometimes found it hard to accept even his own deeply believed theory as other than totally fantastic. There were hundreds of acres of grounds, some neatly kept lawn but mostly wooded, streams curling through to form little ponds, sudden patches of wildflowers blazing blue and red and yellow against the greenery, a continuous pulse of life in the sounds of the birds and insects and the sighing of the wind in the leaf-hung branches. He found that he thought best when wandering alone through these woods, although even the best thoughts that came to him there seemed unequal to the occasion.

It was during one of these wanderings, one morning earlier than usual, that Doctor Leyndt found him. In spite of the chill, Blade was barefoot and wearing only a pair of trousers. He was sitting on the damp grass, just about to rise because of the dew soaking through the seat of the trousers, when the bushes in front of him parted and Leyndt stepped out.

He had seldom seen her in anything except her medical tunic and trousers, and never in anything much less severe than these. Her grace and dignity and fine appearance were in spite of, rather than aided by, what she wore. Until today.

Today the woman who stepped toward him wore a flowing poncho-like garment, a single piece of material with a hole in the middle for her head and others for her arms. It could not have been simpler in design, but the material itself had an iridescent shimmer in which a hundred shades of cool colors-blue and green and purple and occasional flecks of silver-gray-swirled and chased each other like fish in a bowl as her movements caused the garment to swirl. It covered her from neck to ankles; the long-toed flexible feet peering out from under it were bare. Her loosened auburn hair now flowed halfway down her back in a cascade with its own kind of shimmer and movement, and the proud austere face was bare of the makeup she usually wore, it seemed, to heighten that austerity.

Blade rose as Leyndt approached. Her dress and ma

They stood there in silence for a moment. Blade was not surprised or disturbed now, either. Her hands were muscular, the grip of the long fingers firm and without fumbling or shyness, as he would have expected a doctor's hands to be. But he was now closer to her than he had ever been before. He was very conscious of her scent-no perfume, just a woman fresh, clean, healthy. He was very conscious also that he had been a long time without a woman, except for that brief flurry of coupling with Rena outside the ruins of her village. And he was embarrassingly conscious that his mind was turning to wondering what she wore under that shimmering poncho, and the thought of her wearing nothing at all was arousing him. In his mind he firmly addressed that obstinate and self-willed rod of flesh, but as usual it remained deaf to the call of his allegedly higher faculties.

Leyndt's eyes roved downward with open approval, and Blade held his breath as they reached his swollen and upstanding manhood. This, he feared, might very easily strike a sour note and make the woman back off. Not only physically, but mentally.

Instead, her hands let go of his and followed the course of her eyes-gently combing his eyebrows, tracing a path down over nose and mouth and chin, on to his chest, across the chest with a gentle probing at each bulge of muscle, farther down across the flat, hard stomach, and farther down still until they stopped where the eyes had First a gentle prod, then a firmer squeeze, then she jerked open the clasp of his trousers. They fell to his ankles, and before he could move to step out of them her fingers had returned to their work.

It was the first time he had ever felt such a caressing totally balanced, like the woman doing it, with the delicacy and softness of a kitten and the sure strength and knowledge of a surgeon. Blade was not an iron statue, and knew very well that if he was expected to stand here like one much longer, Leyndt would find her expectations sorely disappointed. But on the other hand, neither would he make an abrupt move that might once again strike the wrong note.

Slowly he lifted his own hands and grasped her by the wrists, pulling her hands away from his now solid manhood. His hands moved up her arms to the holes in the poncho through which they emerged, and vanished into the holes. As he had imagined, she wore nothing under the poncho. The curves he felt all flowed smoothly into one another. His hands kept creeping around her body until they met at her back-petal-smooth skin over firm muscles and a spine straight as a sword blade. Then he gently drew her against him.