Toshiro's left foot whipped up and at Edgar's jaw. That wasn't full speed... Edgar was thinking and then realized that he had blocked it, automatically, with his right hand.

Toshiro smiled. "Some must be students. Otherwise there could be no teachers. Who wants to live in such a world?"

Chapter 16

THREE SEDUCTIONS

The surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take away the matter of them.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays

Weeks passed, and a semblance of normality returned to the colony. The Star Born mostly brooded at Surf's Up and avoided interacting with the Earth Born. Justin stayed at the Bluff. When Jessica came home from Surf's Up, she rarely spoke to her parents, although Cadmann tried to reach out to her.

Then, on a day when Geographic's satellites warned that storm clouds were sweeping in from the mainland, Jessica called her father to ask if she could come for dinner.

There was no mention of any of the unpleasantness during the call. In fact, there had been little public protest of Zack's proclamation. And that, in itself, should have warned them.

Ruth Moskowitz adjusted her chamel's harness for a little more give around the shoulders. The beast's name was Tarzan. All six of the tamed chamels were males. The females were too large and irritable to domesticate, and they'd only captured one before the expeditions into the forests northeast of Deadwood Pass had ceased.

Male chamels were horse-size and had the exaggerated grace of a praying mantis. They were intelligent and fast, with excellent pack instincts. Only three of them were really tamed, but there was every evidence that Tarzan and the other two might be just the first of thousands. There were some very special reasons why tamed chamels might be ideal hunting mounts.

Ruth had never seen a kangaroo, although the Chakas were thinking of developing one from the fertilized ova banks, but Tarzan reminded her of those in Cassandra's pictures. Tarzan looked like a kangaroo with feathery antennae and stronger forelegs. He was tan with a greenish tinge, but his back was changing color even now to match Ruth's blue denim outfit.

Tarzan balanced himself on his strong hind legs and reached around to snap at her irritably. She tugged her reins expertly, and spurred him with heels to the ribs. He whistled in exasperation and galloped around the corral for the fiftieth time that day.

She wove him in between carefully spaced stakes, wheeled him, jumped him first over a low gate and then over one three feet in height. They were into high golden grass now, and Tarzan's coat was turning to gold.

Chamels jumped oddly. They would hit the ground, sink, seem to pause for an instant, and then unwind from that deep crouch and spring into the air as if from a standing position. Their hind legs were so powerful that they landed with no shock at all. She loved Tarzan, and everything about training him.

She and Tarzan were getting into a rhythm now, speeding around the quarter-mile perimeter exhilaratingly fast, occasionally dipping into the center of the pen to try weaving and jumping maneuvers.

She was so caught up in her work that at first she did not notice a flat, regular clapping sound. Flushed and sweating, she turned in the saddle to see Aaron Tragon, mounted on a gray horse, just the other side of the gate.

"Bravo," he said, striking his palms together.

She smiled shyly, and trotted Tarzan over to him. Aaron's horse was a mare, a quarter horse named Zodiac with a raucous disposition. The mare tossed her mottled head and eyed Tarzan suspiciously. Horses and chamels existed in an uneasy truce at best.

"You're really bringing him along," Aaron said. His golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a loose buccaneer-style shirt cut almost to the navel, crisscrossed with leather thongs. His lips were half opened in a lazy smile.

"What brings you out this way?" Ruth asked. "I thought you were out at Surf's Up."

"Man does not live by wave alone," he laughed. "So what brings you here?"

He looked at her for about thirty seconds without speaking, and Ruth felt her cheeks start to burn. She had to look away.

"To tell you the truth, I just wanted to ask you on a picnic."

She snapped her head up. Her throat felt constricted. "Me?"

"Sure. We had a great catch last week, and we've smoked it. I made fresh bread last night, and I have enough sandwiches for a small army. You look hungry enough for a division."

She felt her heart speed up, had the terrible, crazy thought that she must be dreaming. She felt as if she were falling down a deep well, and made a powerful effort of will to bring herself up sharp.

"Well?" he asked. There was a world of insinuation in his question. His eyes twinkled. "I tell you what," he said. "I'll race you to the grove."

"Winner?" she asked.

"Takes all," he answered, and her cheeks burned again.

Edgar Sikes slept alone in his room off the main communications center. He had another domicile, out at Surf's Up, but spent little time there. Most of his personal possessions—such as they were-were here in his little cubbyhole. It was cluttered and overstuffed. He rarely had visitors. Most of the time he was in the computer center, or in his room reading. He'd been reading a James Bond metabook when he went to sleep.

Something hit his door three times, hard enough to rattle it. He sat up with visions of SMERSH assassins dancing through his head.

Trish Chance was an impressive sight. Five foot ten of brown-skinned feminine muscle, her body was almost-but not quite-a parody of the female form. When he opened the door she brushed past him, buttocks sliding pleasantly past his, as if she were dancing with an inexpert partner. She turned as if posing. The muscles in her arms and shoulders shifted and separated like the coils of a spring.

In the crowded environs of this room, she was damned near overpowering. The only girl who had shared a bed with Edgar Sikes, once and nevermore. She smiled at him, and closed the door behind her.

She wore a formfitting pair of black denims, and a white ruffled shirt so tight across the chest that her breasts threatened to explode through the cloth. She smiled at him, lips curling up at the corners like those of a jungle eat who has spotted something extremely edible.

Edgar's throat tightened until he could barely swallow. "Ah-hi Trish," he said, startled by his own daring. Why was she looking at him like that?

She crossed the room to sit beside him on his narrow cot. It creaked at their combined weight. He sat too, and her thigh was only an inch from his. She wore some kind of sweet, musky oiled essence. Her skin had a soft, almost golden sheen in the dim light.

Trish was part of Aaron's inner circle. What was she doing here? "Is there something I can... do for you?"

In answer she leaned forward. What happened next was so shocking, and so powerful, that when she finally pulled back it took almost a full minute for his brain to get back into gear. He had never been kissed like that. His experience with kissing-or anything else to do with women-was scant. Yet and still he would have wagered either kidney that no more thorough kiss had ever been given-or gratefully received—in the history of the universe.

He leaned forward urgently, hands questing for something to hold on to-preferably Trish's extraordinary breasts. She held him away gently but firmly. In that instant he verified what he had always suspected-that Trish was much stronger than he. Why didn't that make him less a man?