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Cadma
They arfed and snapped playfully at each other's tails and ears.
Cadma
Mary A
"What in the hell is that mess?"
"Call it an Avalon omelet. It's our breakfast," she said.
He thrust a fork into the pan, probing, and snapped at her, "How much of it is poison?"
She took the fork and shoveled a bite into her own mouth, glaring right back.
"Half, eh? Well, I'm tough. I can handle that." He tried to sit in a gracefully cross-legged position, but finally just sort of collapsed into a heap. "My head."
"Your breath. Here. Eat."
Cadma
At the first sign of her smile he shut up and hunched over the pan, sulking as he ate.
Mary A
She squinted across the fire at Cadma
"You are going," he said. He ate the last forkful of the eggs, squinted at her and belched with satisfaction. "Right after lunch."
"Keep the head down." One of Cadma
Brapp!! The sound was not as loud as Mary A
She bobbed her head nervously. "Finest kind."
His hands were gentle as he helped her to her feet. Shielding his eyes against the dust, he surveyed his handiwork.
The third detonation of the day completed a hole in the granite face twenty meters above the mesa. It looked very like the opening excavation of a mine. Shelf-like slabs of rock jutted out from the earth, their ends shattered by the concussion.
"I'm not sure I understand why you don't just build on the flat."
"Weren't you in the camp?" She heard the sarcasm change to something else. He stared at her. "Mary A
"I know that."
"So we—I—don't want to be on the flat. Also, I want the flatland for farming—if I decide to stay, all of the farmland will be worth its acreage in gold foil. Second, drainage—if I build underground on the hillside, rain and snowmelt will run right off, if I build my roof right. Third, view. From where we'll... I'll be, I'll have the best damn view that ever was. Right down on their heads. And fourth, I want us to be unreachable. One path, and it twists, and I'll guard it. I won't be on some tabletop watching one of those come at me at ninety miles an hour."
She saw it now, and her ears burned. My God, of course not! Why didn't I see... the way he looked at me? Oh. "It was a stupid question, wasn't it?"
"Uh—"
"Cadma
His hand moved to touch hers, then drew back. She held her breath. He turned away to survey his work, then turned back, a deeply satisfied smile creasing his face. "There are more reasons, but those will do for the moment." He looked at her sharply. "Nobody's asking you to live in it. Or to stay here."
"I'm staying." She stood on her tiptoes and locked her arms around his neck. "I love you, Cadma
He reached back to unfasten her fingers from the back of his neck, but she clung too tightly, and finally he just met her eyes squarely.
"You do things my way," he said. "If you don't like it, go home. Down there, things can be whatever way people decide by vote that they should be. This is not a democracy. Up here I'm the bottom line."
"Male chauvinist," she said, kissing him lightly.
"I'm a ma chauvinist. I'd probably be the same way if I was a woman. I just want to get this straight before we... start anything."
"I love you," she repeated. The rock dust at the corner of her eyes was slightly muddied. "Love, honor and obey. Isn't that what women used to promise? I will, you know."
He gave her a hard, brief hug. "Then let's get started."
"Aye, aye, sir. What first?"
"Defenses. Notice anything about the—our—house site?"
"Many things."
"Boulder. That one."
"Big."
"And it will roll, once I dig it out. So I dig. Put chocks under it first. Levers on the chocks. Anyone wants to come up the path without permission—"
"Any one?"
"Or any thing. If it comes up and we don't like it, we roll the boulder down."
"I'm for that. What next?"
"Terrace down the hill. Vegetable garden. Divert some water from the
Amazon to keep the vegetables happy, and us too. Then finish the house. I have to finish the excavation by hand to make sure that I have the dimensions that I want. Then I level the floor and set the corner posts. That will take about three weeks."
She smiled uneasily. "Three weeks. Cadma
It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it instantly. "Until I'm finished. Until I feel like going the hell back down. And the instant you don't like it up here, go."
Cadma
He was still limping.
A tireless machine, made of polished hickory and leather. That's what
Cadma
He worked eight hours a day, digging, shoring, piling... building ridges of earth that would later become garden or upper patio. No effort was lost. He never hauled any dirt or stone uphill. He built on the hill and he pla
In some ways the excavation was begi
When he was through with the morning's work, Cadma
And here she was able to accompany him, learning to set the wire spring traps that Cadma