So it went, everywhere Blade traveled in Mak'loh. The city was a breathtaking and contradictory mixture of dazzling genius and creeping decay, with the decay slowly winning.
After a week of touring the city, Sela taught Blade how to use one of the Authority's flyers. The gravity-control fields in the Houses of Peace required heavy generators and a great deal of power. They could not be used in small flying machines. So the flyer was no more than a platform with controls slung between two ducted fans. It was easy to control, and the ones in service were all very carefully maintained. That was good news to Blade. As he put it:
«A thousand-foot fall can ruin a man's whole day.»
Blade enjoyed the leisurely flights across the gardens, above the tops of Mak'loh's highest towers, even out to the Wall. There was no way to pass beyond the Wall, since the Hoak Field rose higher than the flyers could climb, and no man could control one of them blind. That did not worry Blade. He knew he had the measure of all Mak'loh's defenses, and none of them could prevent him from going where he wanted, when he wanted. This was vital to a plan that was rapidly taking shape in his mind.
It was a particularly lovely day, flawlessly clear from the moment the eastern sky began to turn pink with dawn. Blade and Sela were up early, bathing, breakfasting, and ordering the androids to prepare their flyer for the day's traveling.
They walked out to the landing platform as the sun crept over the Wall. Overhead the sky was turning the pale blue that promised a scorching hot day. The android servant stowed away their lunch under the seat of the flyer, then climbed into the seat and strapped itself in.
Sela shook her head. «No, you will not be needed today.»
«Yes, Master,» said the android. It unstrapped itself and vanished down the stairs. Sela turned to Blade and smiled.
«We are going farther than before today, into the western forests close to the Wall. It is so wild there that no one ever comes near it. Working androids do not know what to do there, so they are more of a nuisance than a help.»
«I see,» said Blade. By now he'd got used to the worker androids so they hardly seemed more than pieces of furniture. He was still happy to be free of them whenever possible.
Blade lifted the flyer off the platform, took it up above the highest tower of the city, and headed west. He flew slowly, his helmet off and his coveralls zipped open halfway down his chest. He savored the sunshine, the breeze, the gentle whirr of the fans, and the view below. From this high there was nothing to show that Mak'loh was a dying city, and all the colors of its towers blazed in the sunlight.
The city crept past below them; then came the inner wall and the gardens. They were green and luxuriant-too much so, with water plants choking streams, and ponds and creepers twining around trees. This was good land though-fertile and well-watered. With skilled cultivation, it could feed twice as many people as Mak'loh held now, and in time ….
No, he wouldn't let his mind spin fantasies of what could only lie in the distant future. There was little chance of Mak'loh turning back to the land for its food, and, perhaps there would be no need to. Blade hoped so. The people of the city would have to do many things they were not doing now in order to survive, but they should not have to become sweating peasants. Not if his plan worked and the people of Mak'loh showed at least a little intelligence!
Half an hour later Blade sent the flyer spiraling down to a landing on the edge of the forest along the western Wall. He couldn't land in the forest itself without the risk of impaling the flyer on a treetop.
The flyer touched down, and the fans whispered into silence. Blade and Sela climbed down to the ground, hoisted their gear, and strode into the forest.
They walked a mile through the hot, windless silence under the trees, brushing off insects and rapidly working up a sweat. At last they broke out of the trees onto the bank of a small stream. It flowed down a hillside between two grassy banks, clear and cold, so fast that the water plants hadn't been able to choke it. Flowering bushes like lilacs dotted the hillside, rising twelve and fifteen feet, covering the grass with fallen yellow blossoms and filling the air with a delicate sweet scent. It was an absolutely irresistible place for a picnic.
Blade dropped the gear, while Sela sat down and pulled off her boots. She lay back on the grass, wiggling her toes, hair spread out around her head, the picture of absolute contentment. Suddenly she sat up and began undoing her coveralls. «Blade, I think I'll take a bath in the stream before we eat. I feel like I've been cooked along with the mush in one of the food factory's raw material vats.»
«Can you swim?» Blade had to ask. He'd never seen Sela enter the water, or indeed do anything without at least her coverall and boots on. He'd always been aware of the body under those coveralls, but he'd never seen it.
Before he could complete the thought, Sela's coveralls were lying on the grass beside her boots. She stood up, wearing a sort of padded green body stocking. Her figure hardly needed padding. Blade assumed it was some sort of protective garment, like the bulletproof vests worn by the android soldiers. She reached around behind her and tried to undo the neck of the vest. Her fingers waved desperately an inch short of the seal.
She laughed in amused frustration. «This is the first time in years I've tried to take off one of these things without an android to help me. Could you help me, Blade?»
Blade stepped over behind Sela and gently undid the neck of the vest. Even more gently he undid the seam down her back, until he could see an expanse of creamy skin stretching all the way down to the cleft between her buttocks. A second glance told him that skin was lightly freckled. He let his hands rest on the back of her neck for a moment. Then he pushed the vest slowly down off her shoulders. She stood without moving or even breathing hard as it slipped down to her waist. Then she turned around.
Against the freckled whiteness of her breasts, her large nipples were startlingly dark. Blade raised his hands, ran them down her neck and over her shoulders to her breasts, brushed his thumbs lightly across the nipples, felt them harden and rise. Sela still did not move, but her breasts seemed to take on a life of their own as her breathing quickened.
It had been almost inevitable that sooner or later they would come together like this. Blade had been too aware of Sela's beauty not to be showing interest. Sela was experienced enough to notice those signs of interest. To be sure, she hadn't had an actual Physical sex experience in more than fifty years. Those of the Authority had many more waking hours free of the Inward Eye, but they also had much more work to do. Besides, they seldom found anyone but another member of the Authority a congenial bed partner.
Sela continued to stand motionless while Blade worked on her with both his lips and his hands. His lips crept up and down her body from throat to navel, lingering the longest on her breasts, drawing her nipples out, making the skin around them flush. His hands slowly shoved the vest down past her waist, her hips, her thighs, until it slid on its own down her legs to fall in a pile at her feet. She still stood motionless as Blade stepped back from her long enough to strip off his own coverall. He wore nothing under it but a padded loinguard, and then nothing at all.
This time Sela moved when she felt his hands on her. Her kiss began as tentatively and fumbling as the first kiss of a schoolgirl, but did not stay like that for long. There was little skill in it, but there was a passion ready to be given with no thought of holding back. Blade's mouth opened to meet Sela's, and his arms went around her as hers gripped him.