The country lay hushed. Nobody had work on the plantations this time of year…

The landing field was deserted. For as scanty traffic as St. Li got, automated ground control sufficed.

The space flitter stood closed. Rochefort strangled on relief till he remembered: Could be against no more than weather. They have no worries about thieves here.

How about curious children?

If somebody comes along and sees me, I can explain I got worried about that. Tabby will believe me.

He wheeled a portable ramp, used for unloading cargo carriers, to the sleek hull. Mounting, his boots went knock… knock… knock. The entrance was similar to kinds he had known and he found immediately a plate which must cover an exterior manual control. It was not secured, it slid easily aside, and behind was nothing keyed to any individual or signal, only a button. He pressed it. The outer valve purred open and a gangway came forth like a licking tongue.

Father, show me your will. Rochefort stepped across and inside.

The Ythrian vessel was quite similar to her Terran counterparts. No surprise, when you considered that the flying race learned spaceflight from man, and that on Avalon their craft must often carry humans. In the pilot room, seats and controls were adjustable for either species. The legends were in Planha, but Rochefort puzzled them out. After five minutes he knew he could lift and navigate this boat.

He smote palm into fist, once. Then he buckled down to work.

XVI

Arinnian carried Eyath back to the compound on foot. His gravbelt wouldn’t safely raise them both and he left it behind. Twice she told him she could fly, or walk at any rate, but in such a weak whisper that he said, “No.” Otherwise they did not speak, after the few words she had coughed against his breast while he knelt to hold her.

He couldn’t carry that mass long in his arms. Instead, she clung to him, keelbone alongside his back, foot-claws curved over his shoulders, hugging his waist, like a small Ythrian child except that he must help her against the heaviness of the planet by his clasp on her alatans. He had cut his shirt into rags to sponge her hurts with rainwater off the leaves, and into bandages to stop further bleeding. The injuries weren’t clinically serious, but it gave him something to use his knife on. Thus the warmth (the heat) and silk featheriness of her lay upon his skin; and the smell of her lovetime, like heavy perfume, was around him and in him.

That’s the worst, he kept thinking. The conditional last for days — a couple of weeks, given reinforcement. If she encounters him again—

Is she remorseful? How can she be, for a thing she couldn’t halt? She’s stunned, of course, harmed, dazed; but does she feel mortally befouled? Ought she to?

Suddenly I don’t understand my galemate.

He trudged on. There had been scant rest for him during his search. He ached, his mouth was dry, his brain seemed full of sand. The world was a path he had to walk, so-and-so many kilometers long, except that the kilometers kept stretching. This naturally thinned the path still more, until the world had no room left for anything but a row of betrayals. He tried to shut out consciousness of them by reciting a childish chant in his head for the benefit of his feet “You pick ’em up an’ lay ’em down. You pick ’em up—” But this made him too aware of feet, how they hurt, knees, how they shivered, arms, how they burned, and perforce he went back to the betrayals. Terra-Ythri. Ythri-Avalon. Tabitha-Rochef ort. Eyath-Draun, no, Draun-Eyath… Vodan-whatsername, that horrible creature in Centauri, yes, Quenna… Eyath-anybody, because right now she was anybody’s… no, a person had self-control, forethought, a person could stay chaste if not preserve that wind-virginity which had been hers… Those hands clasped on his belly, which had lain in his, had lately strained to pull Draun closer; that voice which had sung to him, and was now stilled, had moaned like the voice of any slut — Stop that! Stop, I say!

Sight of the compound jarred him back to a sort of reality. No one seemed about. Luck. He’d get Eyath safely put away. Ythrian chemists had developed an aerosol which effectively nullified the pheromones, and doubtless some could be borrowed from a neighbor. It’d keep the local males from strutting and gawking outside her room, till she’d rested enough to fly with him to the boat and thence home to Stormgate.

Tabitha’s house stood open. She must have heard his footsteps and breath, for she came to the door. “Hullo,” she called. “You found her?… Hoy!” She ran. He supposed once he would have appreciated the sight “She okay?”

“No.” He plodded inside. The coolness and shade belonged to a different planet.

Tabitha padded after. “This way,” she suggested. “My bed.”

“No!” Arinnian stopped. He would have shrugged if he weren’t burdened. “Why not?”

Eyath lay down, one wing folded under her, the other spread wide so the pinions trailed onto the floor. The nictitating membranes made her appear blind. “Thank you.” She could barely be heard.

“What happened?” Tabitha bent to see. The odor that a male Ythrian could catch across kilometers reached her, “Oh.” She straightened. Her jaw set. “Yeh.”

Arinnian sought the bathroom, drank glass after glass of cold water, showered beneath the iciest of the needle-spray settings. That and a stimpill brought him back to alertness. Meanwhile Tabitha went in and out, fetching supplies for Eyath’s care.

When they were both finished, they met in the living room. She put her lips close to his ear — he felt the tiny puffs of her words — to say very low: “I gave her a sedative. She’ll be asleep in a few minutes.”

“Good,” he answered out of his hatred. “Where’s Draun?”

Tabitha stepped back. The green gaze widened. “Why?”

“Can’t you guess? Where is he?”

“Why do you want Draun?”

“To kill him.”

You won’t!” she cried. “Chris, if it was him, they couldn’t help themselves. Neither could. You know that. Shock and grief brought on premature ovulation, and then he chanced by—”

“He didn’t chance by, that slime,” Arinnian said. “Or if he did, he could’ve veered off from the first faint whiff he got, like any decent male. He most certainly didn’t have to brutalize her. Where is he?”

Tabitha moved sidewise, in front of the phone. She had gone paler than when Draun mocked her. He shoved her out of his way. She resisted a moment, but while she was strong, she couldn’t match him.

“At home, you’ve guessed,” Arinnian said. “A bunch of friends to hand, armed.”

“To keep you from trying anything reckless, surely, surely,” Tabitha pleaded. “Chris, we’ve a war. He’s too important in the guard. We — If Phil were here you’d never — Must I go after a gun?”

He sat down. “Your stud couldn’t prevent me calling from a different place,” he snapped. She recoiled. “Nor could your silly gun. Be quiet.”

He knew the number and stabbed it out. The screen came to life: Draun and, yes, a couple more in the background, blasters at their sides. The Ythrian spoke at once: “I expected this. Will you hear me? Done’s done, and no harm in it. Choth law says not, in cases like this, save that a gild may be asked for wounded pride and any child must be provided for. There’ll hardly be a brat, from this early in her season, and as for pride, she enjoyed herself.” He grinned and stared past the man. “Didn’t you, pretty-tail?”

Arinnian craned his neck around. Eyath staggered from the bedroom. Her eyes were fully open but glazed by the drug which had her already half unconscious. Her arms reached toward the image in the screen. “Yes. Come,” she croaked. “No. Help me, Arinnian. Help.”