Skylark DuQuesne

But he and I love each other more than life. When we Jelmi aboard this Mallidaxian have taught those accursed Llurdi their lesson, we will marry and we’ll never be parted again. But time presses, friend Vance; we must consider our formalities.”

Walking around the foot of her bed — the satin coverlet of which bore, in red and gold, a motif that almost made even DuQuesne blush — she went to a bureau-like piece of furniture and began to pull open its bottom drawer. Then, changing her mind, she closed it sharply; but not before the man got a glimpse of its contents that made him catch his breath. That drawer contained at least two bushels of the most fantastic jewelry DuQuesne had ever seen!

Shaking her head, Se

“Yes; you and I think very much alike on that,” DuQuesne agreed. He was still feeling his way. This hadn’t been a cue; that was now abundantly certain. In fact, with Se

“I intended to comply with your conventions, but I’ll be glad to use my own if you prefer. So I’ll ask Tammon to flip me over to my own ship to put on my high-formal gear.”

“Oh, no; I’ll do it.” Do

“Ten minutes will be time enough.”

“In exactly ten minutes from—” She waited until the sweep hand of his watch was exactly at the dot of twelve o’clock. “Mark,” she said then, and DuQuesne found himself standing in his own private cabin aboard the Capital D.

He picked up shaving cream and brush; then, asking aloud, “How stupid can you get, fool?” he tossed them back onto the shelf, put on his helmet, and thought his whiskers off flush with the surface of his skin. Then, partly from habit but mostly by design — its richly masculine, heady scent was supposed to “wow the women” — he rubbed on a couple of squirts of after-shave lotion.

Opening closet doors, he looked at the just-nicely-broken-in trappings he had made such a short time before. How should he do it, jeweled or plain? She was going to be gussied up like a Christmas tree, so he’d better go plain. Showy, plenty; but no jewels.

And, judging by that spectacular coverlet and other items in her room, she liked fire-engine red and gold. Okay.

Taking off his watch and do

He now wore a winged and crested headpiece of interlaced platinum strips; the front of the crest ridging up into a three-inch platinum disk emblazoned with an intricate heraldic design in deeply inlaid massive gold. A heavy collar, two armbands, and two wristlets, all made of woven and braided platinum strands, each bore the same symbolic disk. He wore a sleeveless shirt and legless shorts of gleaming, glaringly-red silk, with knee-length hose to match — and red-leather-lined buskins of solid-gold chain mail. And lastly, a crossed-strap belt, also of massive but supple gold link, with three platinum comets on each shoulder, supported a solid-platinum scabbard containing an extremely practical knife.

He drew the blade. Basket-hilted and with fifteen inches of heavy, wickedly curved, peculiarly shaped, razor-edged and needle-pointed stainless-steel blade, it was in fact an atrocious weapon indeed — and completely unlike any item of formal dress that DuQuesne had ever heard of.

All this had taken nine and one half minutes by his watch — by his Earth-watch, lying now upon his dresser. The time was now zero minus exactly twenty-eight seconds.

14. SEEKER SEVANCE OF XYLMNY

PRECISELY On the tick of time DuQuesne stood again in Se

Yet she did not look barbaric. Blue-eyed, with an incredible cascade of pale blonde hair cut squarely across well below her hips, she looked both regal and virginal.

“Wow!” he exclaimed finally. “The English has-not a word for it, but a sound,” and he executed a long-drawn-out wolf-whistle.

She laughed delightedly. “Oh? I did not hear that on Tellus; but it sounds… appreciative.”

“It is, Milady. Very.” He took her hands and bowed over them. “May I say, Lady Se

“Milady.”

“ ‘Lady.’ I have not told you how much I like those terms, friend Vance. I’m wonderfully pleased that you find me so. You’re magnificently handsome yourself… and you smell nice, too.” She came squarely up to him and sniffed approvingly. “But the… the blade of formality. May I look at it, please?”

She examined it closely, then went on, “Tell me, Vance, how old is your recorded history? Just roughly, in Tellurian years?”

This could be a crucial question, DuQuesne realized; but, since he didn’t know the score yet, he hadn’t better lie too much. “Before I answer that; you’re a biologist, aren’t you, and in the top bracket?”

“Yes. In English it would have to be ‘anthropological biologist’ and yes, I know my specialty very well.”

“Okay. For better or for worse, here it is. Xylmny’s recorded history goes back a little over six thousand Tellurian years.”

“Oh, wonderful!” she breathed. “Perfect! That’s what I read, but I could scarcely believe it. A young race. Mature, but still possessing the fire and the power and the genius that those accursed Llurdi have been breeding out of all us Jelmi for many thousands of years. They want us to produce geniuses for them, but they kill or sterilize all our aggressive, combative, rebellious young men. A few of us women carry all the necessary female genes, but without their male complements, dominant in heredity, we all might exactly as well have none of them.”

“I see… but how about Tammon?”

“He’s sterile, since he was a genius before he became a rebel. And he kept on being a genius; one of the very few exceptions to the rule. But since the Llurdi are insanely logical, one exception to any rule invalidates that rule.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s time to go now.”

Walking slowly along the corridor, DuQuesne said, “ ‘Insanely logical’ is right. I knew that there was a lot more to this than just an experiment, but I had no idea it was to put new and younger blood into an entire race. But with mothers such as you have in mind—”

“Mothers?” She broke in. “You already know, then?”

“Of course. I am sufficiently familiar with your specialty to know what a top-bracket biologist can do and how you intend to do it. With mothers of your class some of our sons may make genius grade, but what’s to keep them alive?”