This time Riyannah shook her head, clearly not just nervous but irritated. While Blade was still trying to figure out what the woman wanted now, she stood up and started unbuttoning her own shirt. Before Blade could say a word, she was bare to the waist. Her breasts were small firm cones, tipped with large dark nipples now hardening from desire or from the chill night air. The light of the fire played across her skin, covering it with a dappled, dancing pattern of shadows. Blade felt a familiar warmth in his groin, and his throat was tight. He'd seldom seen a more desirable woman.

He also hadn't been quite as confused about what to do with a desirable woman since he was fifteen. He'd have sworn that sex was the last thing on Riyannah's mind. She'd been raped, she must be exhausted, and in any case she didn't trust him. Yet here she was, calmly peeling off her clothes.

By now Riyannah had her boots off. She stood up, unbuckled her trousers, shoved them down her legs, and stepped out of the pile. With the light and shadows now playing over the rest of her body, she was even more exquisite. Blade found the warmth in his groin turning into a fire.

He started taking off the rest of his own clothes, since she clearly wanted him to do that much. After that he'd let her take the lead and see what happened. If it came to sex, he'd make sure they lay down someplace away from the weapons.

By the time Blade was naked, Riyannah was covered from head to toe with gooseflesh. She stared at Blade's penis as if she'd never seen anything like it before, or as if there was something unusual about it. Neither explanation really made sense. Riyannah was hardly an innocent girl, and there was nothing unusual about Blade's penis. It was now impressively erect, but that was only to be expected in the presence of a desirable, naked, and apparently willing woman.

Riyannah went on staring at Blade's penis, occasionally meeting his eyes but always looking down again afterward. Blade began to feel gooseflesh on his own skin, at least on the side away from the fire.

Riyannah finally stopped looking at Blade's erection, then licked her lips and stepped forward. She came around the fire and knelt in front of Blade. Then she gently laid three fingers on his penis and pushed it to one side. Her head was now within inches of Blade's groin.

Was she going to use her mouth on him? That would be a pleasant surprise. Those long slim fingers were moving on his penis with great gentleness and maddening skill. If her lips had some of that same skill, he could hope for-

Riyannah's fingers stopped their movement. Still holding Blade's penis, she sat back on her heels. Again her eyes traced a path up and down his body. Blade thought he detected surprise and confusion on her face this time. Apparently she'd found something she hadn't expected, or not found something she'd been expecting.

Blade stopped feeling pleased and excited over the prospect of sex with Riyannah and began to feel annoyed. He was getting a little tired of being stared at as if he was something rare and monstrous. If there was something unusual about him, he'd be damned if he knew what it was!

He reached down and gently plucked Riyannah's fingers from his penis. She looked up at him and smiled. He thought she was fighting not to laugh. Then she bent swiftly, planted a kiss on Blade's penis, stood up, backed away to the other side of the fire, and started pulling on her clothes.

She didn't even look at Blade until she was fully dressed. Then she piled some more wood on the fire and smiled at him again. It was a slow, gentle smile that seemed to spread all across her face. Normally her face was rather austere, everything except the eyes small, the flesh stretched too tightly over the bones. The smile transformed it, giving warmth, substance, even sensuousness. If Riyannah hadn't just refused an opportunity for sex, Blade would have been quite sure he was getting an explicit invitation.

Riyannah seemed to feel he was a mystery, perhaps a dangerous one for her people and the Menel. So she was playing a game of her own, trying to solve the mystery of Richard Blade the same way he was trying to solve the mystery of Riyannah. That could make things harder for him in one way, Blade realized. Riyannah would now have her guard up and be watching him closely. On the other hand, there was also one advantage.

If he was a mystery she needed to solve, she'd also need to keep him alive for a while. Blade suspected he shouldn't have to worry any more about her sticking a knife into him some night. Now he could spend more time watching for the dangers of the wilderness instead of watching his own back.

That was just as well. They'd both live a lot longer that way.

Chapter 7

Riyannah might be alert and watching him, but that didn't keep Blade from trying to find out who she was and where she came from. He tried three more times in the next few days as they marched deeper into the wilderness.

Once he tried drawing spaceships again. A second time he started a conversation on the stars in the night sky. A third time he tried to make a joke about her examination of his penis, wondering out loud what was wrong with it? She laughed and that lovely sensuous smile spread across her face again, but she didn't answer the question.

Once they'd passed through the canyon, they turned north away from the river and the cliffs along its south bank. The river was too easy a mark for anyone searching for them, and the cliffs seemed to shelter too many of the bat-cats. The country was so lush and green there had to be plenty of water and game everywhere.

If they got far enough from the river, it might also keep Riyannah from trying to run away. For all her courage, strength, and endurance, she seemed to be something of a babe in the woods when it came to wilderness survival. Apart from everything else, if she tried to run off, she would probably get lost. Then she might very well die before Blade could find her, if he could find her at all.

Blade didn't want that. She might be an enemy, or at least the friend and ally of the Menel, who certainly were enemies. He still didn't like to think of her fleeing into the forest, to die of exposure or starvation or being torn apart by wild animals. He was getting used to waking each morning and seeing her asleep in her blankets on the other side of the campfire. Asleep, her small face had an innocence that made it almost possible to believe she really was a child.

Four days march north of the river, Blade set up a permanent camp. The cliffs along the river were far out of sight to the south. The mountains to the north were looming higher and higher. Blade could see the blue-white shimmer of the glaciers along their flanks and feel a new chill in the air. The country was well-watered, with a spring or clear stream every mile or so. It had plenty of birds, small animals, and edible berries, and apparently no bat-cats. Finally, Blade hadn't seen or heard any sort of plane in two days. He and Riyannah might have been Adam and Eve, alone in a newly-created world.

The only serpent in their Eden was that each of them still had to learn the other's secrets without revealing their own.

For the first few days at the camp, Blade was too busy getting them settled in to worry about Riyannah's secrets. There was shelter to build, firewood to gather, snares to set for animals, and a water supply to establish. Blade could work beside Riyannah for hours on end without remembering that she was a mystery he had to solve.

If Blade suspected before that Riyannah didn't know much about living in the wilderness, he was now absolutely sure. She learned quickly what he taught her, but he had to teach her practically everything. She watched him building their shelter as if he'd been conjuring a palace out of the ground by waving a magic wand.