“Me?” Tedra said, wide-eyed. “Argue with barbarians? I wouldn’t dream of it, babe.”

She saw him stiffen at her persistence in calling him babe, but she was saved by the other warrior’s question. “From where does she come, Challen, that she speaks so strangely?”

“An excellent question, that.” Tedra grinned. “I dare you to tell him my version instead of yours.”

“You may do so yourself, kerima. As I told you, Tamiron enjoys a good tale as well as I.”

Tedra made a face of disgust. “You’re no fun at all to goad, warrior,” she complained. “He isn’t going to believe me any more than you did, so tell him whatever you like. I’ll save the truth for your shodan. At least he ought to be smart enough to let me prove what I say, unlike some people I know.”

“Challen-” the other warrior began, only to be cut off abruptly.

“She is Tedra, a woman of Kystran, which she claims to be a world other than Sha-Ka’an.”

“A sky-flyer?” Tamiron said in amazement.

“So she claims.”

“Wait just a farden minute,” Tedra demanded. “Either I’m dense, or you’ve just admitted you’ve heard of other world travelers before. If that’s so, then why did you-”

“It is not a new tale, woman, just one that cannot be proved.”

“But I can prove it. Just give me my phazor and I can-”

“This I will not do.”

“But-”

“No.”

Tedra ground her teeth together. She knew an adamant, no-getting-around-it no when she heard one, and she’d just heard one.

“Have it your way, barbarian,” she said sourly. “But when my month of service is up, I’m getting on with the business of world trade and mercenary hiring, and you can bet your farden fembair that you won’t stop me.”

“Again does she mention limited service,” Tamiron said to Challen. “Yet is she bound as a captive. Surely you do not mean to relinquish such a splendid prize?”

When Challen failed to answer immediately, Tedra smirked. “What’s the matter, babe? Having regrets now that you must admit you fought-”

“There is my tent, woman,” he interrupted her with a nod toward the tent behind her. “Inside it is where I sleep. I have no regrets.” Tedra was flushing with that reminder as he went on to say to Tamiron, “The woman was claimable, but refused to accept my claim. She challenged me instead, and I did not offer the same refusal.”

“She challenged-?”

That was as far as Tamiron got before he burst into laughter. And Tedra knew he wasn’t laughing over the fact that Challen had accepted the challenge, but because she had been, no doubt in his opinion, foolish enough to challenge a warrior. That was, if he even believed it. But Tedra had been laughed at one time too many that day.

“How much trouble would I get into by showing him that wasn’t a joke?” she asked Challen in all seriousness. “After all, the element of surprise is everything, as you found out for yourself.”

He stared hard at her. He must have realized she was referring to how easily she had tossed him on his backside when he wasn’t expecting such a move, for after a moment he took hold of her arm and, without a word to either her or Tamiron, safely remove her from the temptation of causing trouble.

“Was it something I said?” Tedra purred sarcastically before she was ensconced inside the barbarian’s tent-and once again in a place where he slept.

Chapter Thirteen

It was a good-sized tent with ample head room and some kind of thick material for walls well staked to the ground. Tedra came to know just about every inch of it as she paced the interior waiting for the barbarian to return. She was hungry, irritable at being left alone the rest of the afternoon with only the fembair to keep her company, and even more annoyed that she’d been ordered to remain there.

Because the order had been given in a “place of sleep,” she had to obey it. But it had come to her after she was alone that Challen’s place of sleep was also his living space, that the tent was just one large room, which meant he could order her about all day long rather than just at night when he retired, as she had assumed would be the case. The only time she wouldn’t be subject to complete obedience was outside the tent, but if he wouldn’t let her out… They were definitely going to have a talk about this, among other things. This finding things out when it was too late for her to do anything about them was not the way she operated.

The white fembair had remained, stretched out on the floor in an upright position like the king of beasts it likely was. Occasionally its long tail would swish as those great blue eyes followed her every movement. When her belly had begun to growl, she had wondered if the feline wasn’t getting hungry, too, and she developed a definite wariness as the hour grew later and the interior of the tent darker.

When the tent flap did finally open, Tedra felt enough relief to temper the irritation she’d experienced. Seeing a plate of food in Challen’s hands further appeased her. But she didn’t quite smile in welcome. He had ignored her for several long hours, after all, left her with nothing to do and a great beast to guard her. The guarding had been unnecessary. She’d told him she would honor her service to him, and as she understood the rules, that meant obeying him whether she liked his orders or not.

“Why have you not uncovered the gaali stones, woman?”

“If I was supposed to have uncovered something, you should have said so. I’m not a snoop to go through someone else’s possessions when they’re not around.”

She had been tempted, however, not that he had many possessions to snoop through. A large fur rug or blanket, however you chose to use it, was laid out on the floor; one well-stuffed fur sack by it and a small wooden box were all that sat on the big square of material that covered the floor area, more of the stuff the tent was made of.

“You like the dark, then?” he asked her, coming forward to set the plate down on the floor next to the fur blanket, which he sat down on.

“What’s the dark got to do with rocks?” she wanted to know, only to hear him sigh.

“Truly do you try my patience with this pretense of ignorance of everything natural to our world.”

“Your world,” she corrected. “I keep telling you it’s not mine.”

“So you say. And I suppose you know not what is a gaali stone box?”

She grinned now. “Sure. That’s got to be one there next to you, since it’s the only box in here. Now what’s a gaali stone?”

He didn’t tell her, he showed her, opening the box. Tedra gasped as the tent filled with light. She dropped down to her knees beside him for a closer look and saw the five smoothly rounded stones inside the little box, each glowing with a bright blue light. She could stare at them without her eyes hurting, yet they gave off such light that the inside of the tent was as if it were lit by the sun.

“Amazing,” she said in fascination. “It’s some kind of energy source, right? I wonder how it would compare with crysillium, which was discovered just a few hundred years ago. Before that, our ships could travel only at hyperspeed. Now we get stellarspeed, which is ten times faster and makes it so much easier to visit neighboring Star Systems. But these stones look like pure energy. Are they hot?”

Challen had been staring at her in vexation as he listened to her, but she didn’t know that. He answered her question now by picking up one of the gaali stones and placing it in the palm of her hand. It was actually cool to the touch, which was even more amazing, and seemed almost weightless. And when he closed the box on the other four stones, the tent was then lit only with a dim light by the one stone still uncovered. The more the brighter, obviously, and Tedra had to wonder what a really big stone could do.