47

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BRITTANY TRIED TO GIVE DALDEN THE BENEFIT OF THE doubt, she really did. She allowed that she was overreacting to one simple word. Granted, it was a word that went against the grain for an independent woman who'd been making all her own decisions since she left home. But all she had to do, really, was give the word a less offensive meaning. After all, she hadn't been "obeying," and said so to answer his question.

"I didn't see it as an order, but a suggestion."

"Had it been an order?"

"Then it would have required thought on my part," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because I don't like orders. They are demeaning, suggesting I lack intelligence. That's why I didn't join the military. I wouldn't have been able to handle hearing nothing but orders. And don't look so surprised; women can be soldiers where I come from. Wasn't it the same where your mother comes from?"

"I will allow that the technology of these other worlds make such possible, if you will allow that in a society where the weapons are only swords and strength, a woman cannot hope to compete."

That caused an image in her mind of her trying to wield a fourfoot sword that she could barely lift against one of these barbarian giants. It was an absurd image that caused her to grin, then chuckle.

"Good point," she said.

Again he looked surprised, probably because he'd expected an argument. "You agree?"

"Sure, but that still doesn't mean I'm going to jump when you say jump."

"Even if an order is given for your own good?" Dalden persisted.

She gave that some thought, then allowed, "Some orders are acceptable, certainly, but you aren't my boss with power over my job, or my government, or the law. You're the man I live with in a mutual relationship. Why would you even want to order me around?"

"It is not a matter of want, but of necessity," he told her. "It is my right to protect you. No one else has this right more than I-even you. This is not something that normally needs explaining. Our women are taught from birth what they can and cannot do, and who they must obey in all things-and why. A warrior needs the assurance that if he finds his woman in danger, and must instruct her to remove her from that danger, she will not stop to argue about it. If he cannot have this assurance, then he would restrict her more than is needful, and neither would be pleased."

"Okay, I see where you're coming from. If your women have been trained from birth to literally jump when you say jump, then you men probably take it for granted that they'll do just that. But you have to take into account that I wasn't trained that way, so instead of getting an old horse to follow new tricks, how about just keeping in mind that I'm not one of your women and so need to be treated differently?"

"Do you tell me you did not follow the rules of your father?" he said.

She frowned. "Not just my father, my parents. Both. Rules mutually decided on. Yes, when I lived with them I obeyed their rules, but it was with full knowledge that when I left home I'd be living by my own rules. Do you see the difference? Those were temporary rules, the rules for a child. Our children grow up knowing that eventually they'll be on their own, with no one but government and laws telling them what they can and can't do. You, on the other hand, are telling me that your people continue to treat your women like children even after they're adults. I'm twenty-eight years old, Dalden, in case that hasn't been mentioned yet. I am not a child."

His hands suddenly cupped her breasts fully, heat searing through the thin material of the chauri. "I do not see you as a child."

She blushed. He couldn't miss it this time with the gaali stone lighting the inside of the tent with daylight brightness. He smiled She scowled.

"Don't sidestep the issue," she said. "I wasn't talking about sex, but general overall treatment. I've heard the ridiculous rules you place on your women, that they have to dress a certain way, that they can't walk out their front door without having their hand held by some man. Has it even occurred to you how demeaning I would find such rules?"

Now he frowned. "You were told the rules but not why there are such rules?"

"Martha didn't want to discuss them at all, probably because she finds them as offensive as I do."

"They are not meant to offend, but to protect."

"If your town was a civilized town, then I could walk its streets without fear of being bothered. Are you going to tell me it's not civilized?"

"How many times were you told that Sha-Ka'an is viewed by modern worlds as a barbaric world? Did you truly think you would find equality between men and women here?"

The blush was back. She had been forgetting that. Not that it meant much when this was all make-believe anyway, but if she was going to go along with the program-or at least accept the possibility that Dalden really did believe all this-then she needed to keep in mind that nothing here was going to be what she would call normal. Why was she even fighting it? What she needed to figure out was if she could live with it-at least until the "program" was over.

"All right, so you're barbarians-I'm sorry, I know you don't like that word, but you brought it up. And you say these rules that I object to are for my own protection. Why? What happens if I don't follow them?"

"You will be punished."

"You have jails for this?"

"No."

"Whipping posts?"

"Do not be silly, woman," he said sternly. "Your punishment would be mine to give, and you know I would not cause you physical pain."

She did know that. He was always mindful of his greater strength, always so careful in touching her. She sighed, leaned forward to lay her head on his chest.

"I'm beginning not to like this discussion," she said in a tired voice.

He immediately began to soothe her with his hands. "We need not finish it now, yet it is my wish that you have no more questions when we leave here."

She was all for that. She'd avoided those answers, or had had them avoided for her, too long now.

"That must have been quite a talk you had with your father," she remarked.

"How did you-?"

"Martha."

"Ah, Martha. Indeed, she was thorough in her report. My parents were together to hear it."

"I take it you're ignoring her advice to continue patience with me?"

"My patience has not assisted you to full acceptance," he said.

"Dalden, I'm never going to accept this fantasy. If you can't accept that-"

"Answer me this, kerima," he cut in. "If you did believe everything that has been told you, would it change your feelings for me?"

"No," she said without hesitation.

"This is what my father pointed out to me. Martha's predictions of doomed failure did not take into account a woman's heart, which Martha can never fully understand."

"Then why bring me out here?"

"To assist you to a full acceptance of me."

"But I-"

He put a finger to her lips. "I will endeavor to explain what I mean. The culture differences that so worried Martha are indeed real. Already you have shown an unwillingness to embrace my culture. What you have yet to realize is there is no choice in the matter, for you or for me. If this were a different country in your world that you were visiting, would you refuse to obey its laws while you were there? Would you expect immunity from those laws simply because you were not born there?"

"No, but-"

Once again he didn't let her finish. "Then why do you resist doing so here? Because here is not real to you? Is your denial, then, the true problem after all?"