CHAPTER SEVEN

There was a bay concealed in the Citadel's flank. Its doors slowed, then latched open. Slade stared at the vessel hangared within. Then he looked back at the Terzia. He was not sure whether she had made a mistake through ignorance or whether he was the butt of a joke grim even by the standards of mercenary soldiers. "Terzia," Slade said in a voice that he worked to control, "this is only a lifeboat. It can't carry me back home."

"Not directly," agreed the Terzia off-handedly. For the first time since Slade had met her, she had not dressed before leaving her chamber. Intellectually, Slade knew that there was no more reason to dress for the autochthones than there was to dress before being seen by so many dogs . . . and there was no more reason to dress for one's lover than for one's mirror. Terzia's nonchalance surprised Slade, however, and the fact that nudity was a change bothered him. "It has a range of forty-five Transit seconds, though," she continued. "That will take you to Elysium."

Slade had stepped into the bay to touch the boat's nose. The hull's spongy coating was perfectly fresh. The only marks on the vessel's white surface were consistent with jostling during loading and shipment. The boat had very clearly never been moved under its own power. "I don't recall an Elysium in this sector," the man said as he paced cautiously along the vessel's seven-meter length. Like "Tethys," Elysium was a name of some frequency among the scattered human settlements.

"It's not in your indices,"said the Terzia. Something she did caused a motor to whine. The lifeboat began to ease out of the bay on its docking cradle. The low sun stained the ablative coating a pinkish color as the nose inched into the light. "The inhabitants are human, though they have no open traffic with the rest of the galaxy. They'll help you home for my sake; and perhaps for your sake as well."

Slade let the vessel slide past him. He stepped around its stern. He continued to examine the boat, even though his expertise would scarcely have let him discover gross damage to the structure. Slade was no rocket jockey. The thought of leaving in this contraption frightened him even against his hopes of escape from plush captivity. Only the fact that lifeboats were designed for use by the ignorant gave him any confidence at all in the coming operation.

The Terzia stood in the open. To Slade, she was framed between the bulk of the vessel and the doorpost. Her waist tucked in above hips that felt firmer than their fullness suggested. The shadow of one breast lay across the cone of the other. Her nipples were dark and still erect, though the Terzia's face was in repose as she met Slade's eyes.

The motor's whisper died back into silence. The lifeboat halted, now clear of the bay.

A tendril of vine squeezed a switch in a control box. The boat's hatch began to clamshell open. The Terzia had no non-mechanical control over machinery or other inanimate objects. Mechanical control was not limited to that exerted by her humanoid body, however. The result had to it a touch of magic or implanted electronics. It was new to Don Slade; and it was being shown him now only because the whole mime was ending.

"It's programmed to Elysium," the Terzia said. She was facing Slade, smiling at him as he walked slowly out of the building. "Food and water for twelve, there'll be no difficulty that way. You will have to bring her down yourself, though; there aren't any over-ride docking facilities on Elysium."

"I . . ." said Slade. His eyelids lowered as he stepped back into the sunlight. "Lady, I've never landed one of these. I guess you're sure that there'll be no freighters down soon?"

"That's beyond my control," said the Terzia coolly. "I can prevent ships from landing, but I can't make them come. And I can't be sure how much time I have. How much time your friends will permit me. I must consider the risk to Terzia now, you see."

"Of course," said the man, though the words made only grammatical sense to him. Something had changed, but Slade could not imagine what.

A year on Terzia had not rotted Slade's mind, but the year had its own parameters, as did any long time spent in a habitat. Slade was somewhat disoriented by being faced here with a sort of urgency that was familiar when he was a mercenary soldier. "Well, I've hit dirt on the likes of these before, so . . . ."

"At first I thought the ship itself was alive," said the Terzia with her face turned up to the sky. It was still blue in the west, but it shaded imperceptibly to magenta on the further rim of the horizon. A few bright stars waited there, above the gently-waving jungle canopy. "Then I learned it was the men, not the ships; but it was very long, very long indeed before I realized that the men were different among themselves in such a way."

"I'm not—Via, I don't understand what you mean," Slade said.

A ladder began to extend from the open cockpit. It was swinging wide enough to clear the hull's soft coating. Half-deployed, the ladder began to jerk as the motor protested. Burrs on an untested cam or lubricant congealed in the step-down gears were hanging up the system. Slade jumped, caught the bottom rung, and let his weight jerk the ladder over the rough spot before he let go.

The Terzia had still not answered him. It was becoming clear that she did not intend to do so; and the man's words had not precisely been a question, anyway. "You will be able to land it?" she asked.

"Sure," said Slade. He rubbed his palms together, the one slick with grime of some sort from the ladder. "I, I'll just get some of my gear together, I guess."

"No," said the Terzia. "There is clothing aboard, and the Elysians will provide you with whatever you need there. Tell them I sent you, to help you go home. You had nothing of particular note with you when you decided to—visit here, did you? Your wealth is still on Friesland, waiting for a bank transfer?"

Turning to the open hatch and not to the Terzia's rich, dark hair, Slade said, "Ah, I wonder if I could, ah, buy one of the guns in the armory. I know there can be some problems with arms shipments, and you don't know when you'd raise another freighter, like you say. But I'd be obliged—"

"Oh, Don," the Terzia said. Her arms encircled him from behind. Her hair and perfume flowed over Slade like the love that was back in her voice. "You could have the planetary defense battery if you could carry it, but not to Elysium. They would be offended, and you won't need a gun anyway, not there . . . . Not here, either, except for the sake of your own wants. I'll keep the guns you used so well, and perhaps there'll be another visitor who will want them and want me . . . and whom I will want in turn. I don't think you can imagine how rare—"

Slade turned. Her breasts were warm against him; a runnel of perspiration on his own chest dammed and spilled sideways as the two embraced. "I wish," Slade whispered before their mouths met. There was nothing more he could have said in any event.

It was the Terzia who gave the extra squeeze, then stepped away. "You are welcome here," she said. "You will always be welcome here, while you remain—the Captain Donald Slade that you are. While you live." She turned and began to walk briskly away from the open lifeboat.

Slade licked his lips, then nodded to no particular purpose. The ladder was ten rungs to the hatch, but he mounted them with only six long, deliberate movements of his arms and legs.

At the rim of the hatch, the man looked back and found the Terzia was watching him again from an open gateway of the Citadel. "You must remember," she said distinctly, "that I am not really human, Don Slade." Then she disappeared within the black, towering building.

It seemed somehow to Slade that the Terzia had been talking to herself; and in the softening light, he could not really have seen tears on the lovely cheeks anyway.