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The blankets were outside and the needles and leaves on the floor dry and stiff. Neither of them cared. Blade sat down. Riya
Her cry held both pain and pleasure as he entered her. Then she was swaying back and forth, with small movements which grew quickly wilder. Her hair whipped about her shoulders like windblown leaves, her face tightened bit by bit into a mask, and once again Blade felt agony and delirious pleasure at the same time. Now it only started in his groin, then spread swiftly through his whole body. He could not think, he could not see or hear, he could barely breathe. Riya
Then Riya
The magnificent moments passed. Blade heard his breathing and Riya
Blade started and slapped Riya
The blanket where he'd laid the parts of the rifle was sending up a haze of gray-brown smoke. As he watched, one edge began to turn black and little flames danced up. Blade clutched the other edge and yanked hard. Several parts rolled off into the dirt. Blade snatched up a log of firewood and hammered at the burning edge of the blanket as if he was pounding the life out of a deadly enemy.
At last the fire was out. Blade gathered up the scattered parts, blew the dirt off them, and was putting them back on the blanket when he heard Riya
«Blade, are you-is this a thing your people do after sex? Pounding on the ground with a piece of wood?» Her laugh became a giggle.
Blade shook his head. «No. My people do many odd things, but this is not one of them.»
«Will you tell me more about your people, if I tell you about mine? I do not know who or what your people are, but they must be quite interesting.»
Now Blade felt like jumping up and down or ru
«I do not know if you will call my people interesting or not. I will tell you about them, though.»
«Good. But you can do that after you come to me again. Unless-you ca
«No, Riya
«Very good. Then come back to me. This shelter is warmer when there are two in it.»
«True.» He was barely inside before Riya
Chapter 9
They made love three more times that day. They would have made love a fourth time, except that Riya
«Stay off it for a couple of days and you'll be able to walk again without any trouble. That's good, because I have a feeling we may have to move out of here before long.»
«The bat-cats?»
«Yes. They aren't the most pleasant neighbors.»
«Where do you think we should go? Do you have-a spaceship of your own?»
Blade was pleasantly tired after so much lovemaking, but his mental reflexes were still fast. He could recognize a leading question when he heard one.
«Not any more. What about you?»
«I hope I still do. If I do, it will be in the mountains to the north. I was going to take you to it. Then we saw the battle between the Targans and the Menel.» She was silent for a moment, shutting her eyes as if trying to shut out the memory of the battle. Then she went on.
«You did come to Targa in a spaceship, I suppose?»
Blade smiled. «What else? Do you think I walked?»
Riya
«Riya
Riya
That was the last time either of them smiled or laughed for a couple of days. For Riya
For Blade, what he was hearing was simply too awesome to leave him feeling like laughing.
Riya
«I will show you Ba-Kanan-the Father of Kanan-when we reach my spaceship. The telescope is powerful enough.»
The Kananites also had faster-than-light travel. Riya
As Riya
«We use guns firing solid shot only when we go into the wilderness,» said Riya
Blade nodded. «We have found them good enough, as long as we do not go far from the ammunition supply.»
«Ah, that explains it. We travel so far among the stars that we would have to take a whole factory with us if we or the Menel used weapons like yours.»
Blade nodded again. «Yes. We do not yet travel among the stars as much as you or the Menel.» That was perfectly true, as far as it went. «Now I have a question for you. You speak of going into the wilderness on Kanan. Yet you act like someone who has never been in wild country in her life. You're strong and brave and you learn quickly. But I had to teach you much you should already have known if you'd really spent much time in a true wilderness. What do you have on Kanan?»