“I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight,” she announced with a sigh.

“First we will talk.”

“Talk?” She blinked. There hadn’t been much of that today, but now? “Ah, come on, babe, the moon’s getting up there, and I’m feeling too mellow-” With a single tug she was sitting up, her legs were crossed for her, and her hands placed on her knees. A very talkable position. “I guess we’ll talk,” she said matter-of-factly, but her expression was grumbling.

“How is it you were an untouched maiden, yet you seemed… not to be?”

Tedra grinned and relaxed. “Is that the bug in your rug? It’s called sex education, babe, and it’s a mandatory subject taught to everyone. So just because I hadn’t tried it didn’t mean I didn’t know the hows and wherefores.” She suddenly laughed. “And now I can finally understand why Kystrani get a mite touchy when they miss their daily dose.” At his blank look, she sighed. “That was a compliment of sorts-never mind. Did that answer your question?”

He shook his head. “What of your manner that bespoke experience?”

“What of it? Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t like what I saw? Bold, brazen, and arrogant, that’s me.”

“Yet with such a manner, a woman would quickly find a mate for joining. How is it you have reached the age you have without joining?”

“Because I hadn’t met you yet, sweetcakes.”

“Is this another compliment-of sorts?”

“No ‘sorts’ about that one. I just didn’t like what I was being offered-until there was you. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I just didn’t feel comfortable being with men I could… that I…”

“That you could challenge and defeat?”

She thought he would have taken offense at that just on principle for the male species, but he was smiling. “Maybe I should explain something, so you don’t get the wrong idea again about Kystrani men. I’m not your average Sec 1 trained in weapons and warfare. I took my training a lot farther than that, studying not only modern combat but the techniques of our Ancients, too. Such things had long been forgotten, powerful weapons making the old ways obsolete.” She frowned at his expression. “You don’t look like you’re getting the point.”

“Perhaps because I am not.”

“Then look at it this way. How confident would you feel in my presence if I were sitting here with a phazor pointed at you? Would you feel comfortable trying to seduce me, knowing that at any moment I might stun you? And remember, you’re not coming to my bed with a similar weapon on hand… well, I mean they aren’t. You, on the other hand, do have a similar weapon. Now do you see my point?”

“Your weapon is weaponless fighting? This is what your Kystrani men have forgotten the use of?”

“Exactly. Oh, they still know how to punch it out, but that’s kiddie stuff next to what I can do. And a Kystrani male wouldn’t raise his hand against a female anyway. So do you understand now why I was still unbreached?”

“Why you chose to be so, yes. Why you had not been claimed despite this, no. Does a man see what he wants and it is armed, he will find a way to disarm it.”

“Did you have to bring arrogance into this?” she said in disgust. “You can take that attitude, but a Kystrani male wouldn’t. And your weapon, friend, is your incredible size, and muscles like steel rods.” And she added a dose of her own arrogance. “Without that I’d have taken you, just as I did Kowan, a brother warrior of yours.”

He snorted. “This Kowan could not have been a warrior of Kan-is-Tra.”

“He isn’t,” she said, deciding not to elaborate if that pacified him, and it did. “Now can we go to sleep?”

“First do you explain your meaning of ‘fixing it.’ Did this imply you could have lessened the pain of a first joining?”

“Yes.”

“Such is not possible,” he snorted.

“Such is not only possible, it’s become standard procedure on Kystran. All it takes is about five seconds inside a meditech unit, and that little membrane you ripped to shreds could have been removed without my feeling a thing.”

“But you called it breaching, which signifies an opening.”

“ ‘Breaching’ is an old word, used before women got smart and started visiting a meditech first when they were ready to start sex-sharing. The word now simple means ‘first experience.’ ”

“Then why did you not see to this painless removal when you came of age?”

“Because it would have gone on record as being done and I would have been expected to accept my first man shortly thereafter, and that, too, would have been duly recorded into my files. At least I don’t have to worry about the Age of Consent law anymore, though how I’m going to prove an old-fashioned breaching without a computer as witness, I don’t know. I suppose I’ll just have to do it again for Martha’s benefit when she finds me. That farden machine would never take me at my word about it.”

“Woman-”

“I know, I know, that went right over your head, but you don’t really want to hear about one of our more ridiculous laws, do you?”

“If such law pertains to you.”

“But it doesn’t anymore.”

“It is my right to protect my woman, and this cannot be done properly if she is subject to laws I am unaware of. Thus you will let me judge-”

“So the tyrant has joined us, has he? That’s a bad habit you have of letting him out-all right!” she gasped when his hand reached for her breast, and then she glared at him furiously, remembering he had promised they wouldn’t share any more sex tonight, and so being, his intent had been to punish her for trying to avoid the topic. “You fight dirty, don’t you? Don’t think I won’t remember-all right!” She dodged his hand as it came toward her again.

“Do you now explain.”

“It’s a stupid law, made by stupid men a long time ago, when it was first decided that sex-sharing was a farden cure-all for all kinds of minor ailments, and there was nothing for it but all women should benefit by it, whether they cared to or not. But it only applies to unbreached females, which I no longer am.”

“Was this so difficult to tell me?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, since it’s a subject that has disturbed me for a long time. But that’s not the point, Challen. I told you it didn’t pertain to me anymore. Why didn’t you just take me at my word and drop it?”

“You also said you must prove your breaching. Until such proof is given, are you not still subject to this law?”

He had a point. Her new stats, which listed her as Tamber De Oss and breached, didn’t apply to Tedra De Arr, still unbreached on record. Of course, she couldn’t resume her own identity on Kystran until Garr was back in power, but she’d still like to have the matter taken care of now that she had taken care of it.

“Security isn’t likely to show up here to give me to my computer-picked breacher, Challen. And under our new government, I’d end up a slave if they did, but that’s another story. And to hell with that gleam in your eye. I’m not getting into that unless you’re willing to admit Kystran is another planet, not a country here on Sha-Ka’an.”

He stared at her set features a moment and must have decided he’d done enough insisting for one evening. “You should not be angry with a warrior for his natural instinct to see his woman safe.”

Was that an apology or a scolding? Or a subtle prod that she ought to be doing the apologizing? She didn’t take the bait.

“Common courtesy would be to wait until help is requested,” she pointed out.

“Not in Kan-is-Tra.”

There was no getting around that little gem of truth. Sha-Ka’ani ways were not Kystran ways.