As the day wore on, drenching him in perspiration, it began to seem that his own breaking point was likely to be the one measured. The girl made no comment, no suggestions. She was versed in the art of climbing; her motions were economical, conserving of energy, and she expended far less of it than he. She must, he thought, have escorted many a prior gentleman up these same slopes. That bothered him.
At length they came to an overhanging ledge, where the outcropping rock ascended jaggedly for the better part of fifty feet before retreating beneath its cover of shrubbery. The area was not wide and would have been easy to circle—but Aton had no such intention. This was ideal. His years as a Navy enlistee had familiarized him with the rigors of rope handling; such a hoist would be difficult enough, but within his means. For a woman, however, necessarily lacking the sheer musculature and practice required, it would be the supreme test.
He lassoed a low rock that stood twenty feet above the base. It would be large enough to stand on, and to serve as a take-off for the major portion of the climb. He hauled himself up quickly, his feet walking the almost vertical cliff face. The familiar exertion was good to feel.
He cleared the top, checked the rope, and waited for Coquina to climb. And climb she did, coming hand over hand and walking up the side of the mountain as he had done. The pack on her back obviously threw her off-balance and made it hard, but she said nothing.
He hooked the cord around the uppermost projection and pulled it tight. This would be a longer haul—twenty-five feet at least, with the rock angling out so that the rope hung free. There would be no wall-walking this time.
Aton went up. The climb this time was not so simple. He realized belatedly that there was a difference between swinging on a line at half-gravity in spacecraft, and facing full gravity with a pack on. The strength he had expended so generously of the prior climb was in demand now; he had been wasteful. He should have towed the packs up separately—and he should have secured a safety line, to prevent an accidental fall. His spare rope was coiled at his belt, useless.
But the girl was watching below, and he was strong. He achieved the higher projection and clambered over, very glad for the release. This ledge was secure, and there was space for a second line. He uncoiled his extra and made a loop.
Coquina had already begun her climb. Lying flat with his head and one shoulder over the edge, he could see that he had guessed correctly. She was not used to this particular type of exercise, and did not know the little tricks of rope facility. This was not a woman’s sport. She swung out against a backdrop of brush and trees falling precipitously away, and swung in almost to strike the concavity of stone. She was tiring rapidly, but she kept coming.
About fifteen feet up she slowed and stopped. She had come to her limit at last. Aton, obscurely gratified, was about to shout to her, to tell her to let herself down and choose another route.
Then he saw how really tired she was. Her small hands, hanging numbly to the rope, began to slip. The view of distant and rocky terrain spun slowly behind her dropping form; the landing below was death.
Without thinking, Aton flipped his loop over the outcropping and flung himself over. It was the spaceman’s reflex: immediate action, thoughtless of personal danger. He dropped, the pack he still wore tugging upward against his armpits. Halfway down the sheer face the taut rope he gripped yanked him to a halt with a violence that smashed skin from fingers and palms and almost tore loose his grip. There were muscles in arms and shoulders that would cause him severe regret on the morrow.
He was dangling a little below the girl. As her hold finally gave way he spread one arm and caught her around the waist, pulling her body clumsily to him. She clung to him weakly, nearly unconscious with her own fatigue.
Preoccupied as he was, trying to handle a double load augmented by the weight of the packs, with a single straining hand on his rope, he nevertheless noted with nightmare irrelevance how lithe and sweet her body was against his. Except for the time that first evening at the country dance, he had never held her; it came somehow as a surprise now that she was very much a woman.
Meanwhile reflex took over again. His hand loosened, permitting a controlled slide down the rope, burning fearfully. But he landed roughly on the lower ledge and let Coquina down on the widest portion, where she could lie safely. As he kneeled beside her, her arm came around his neck, hugging him.
“You are strong, strong,” she whispered, eyes closed. “Stronger than I.” Then her hand fell away and she was unconscious.
Her words left him elated. He knew they were sincere. Whatever had passed before, she saw him now as a man and not as a pampered patron. That, perhaps, had been the thing he was warring against. With profound pleasure he set about doing the things that she had done before, for him. He made her comfortable, foraged in the packs for food, and brought it to her. Later he wrapped gauze around and around his clotted hand and lowered the packs to the foot of the cliff, and climbed down himself to arrange a nearby campsite.
Only after they were both down did he allow her to put salve on his hand and rebandage it. She was taking over again, and he liked it still—and he realized with a pleasant shock that Malice had been driven completely out of his mind for some time, and that there were far more immediate things for his concern.
Nine
Coquina’s first words that evening, as a solitary cricket chirruped from somewhere, were of apology. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay with you, Mr. Five. I did not mean to—”
“Never call me that again,” he said, cutting her off. “I am a man, not a title—a foolish man who almost killed you.”
“Yes, Aton,” she said. “But no one dies on Idyllia.” She got up. “I have work to do.”
Aton grabbed her by the ankle and brought her down again. “Do it tomorrow. Right now you are going to rest quietly if I have to sit on you. Why didn’t you tell me how tired you were getting?”
Her smile was rueful. “A slave does not consider personal problems. The patrons usually have more than enough of their own.”
Aton blanched inwardly at the reference to patrons. Things had not really changed between them. “Have you been a slave here all your life?”
Another wan smile. “Of course not. No one is born to slavery. There are conventions… I came here the only way anyone can. I volunteered.”
“Volunteered!”
“It is a good situation. There’s a long waiting list. The standards are high.”
“So I noticed,” Aton said, appraising her figure.
She put her hands in front of her, unconsciously defensive. “I’m not that kind of slave, and I wouldn’t care to be judged on such terms.”
“Forgive me,” Aton said contritely, “for being male. I value you very much on whatever terms you consider to be applicable. But surely you sometimes have trouble with men in lonely places like this?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But we are trained to protect ourselves.”
Aton thought of some of the tricks he knew. “Even against spacemen?”
“Especially against spacemen.”
He laughed. “My pride will not let me believe that, but I like you very well as you are.” She laughed with him, and he felt a warm glow. But the Malice image hovered in the background, undead.
He banished that thought. “You are surprisingly strong for a woman, Coquina. Where are you from?”
“I shouldn’t tell you…”
Suddenly she didn’t need to. “Hvee’ he exclaimed. “They don’t grow women like you anywhere else in the galaxy. Only on my home world.” With this discovery his interest in her blossomed. His interest was no longer idle—if idle it had been. “Name your Family.”