When he awoke at last, it was to discover her sitting tailor-fashion nearby, regarding him with thoughtful eyes. He grinned and she too smiled a soft, contented smile. When he reached out to touch her, to caress her body, she came into his arms and they kissed.
“Has it been a long time for you, O Brant?” she whispered.
It had been a long time since Brant had a woman. He nodded, adding: “And even longer since I’ve had a woman like you.” She smiled demurely.
“It has been long for Zuarra, too,” she admitted. “Never has she enjoyed love with any man as much as she enjoys it with you.”
They rose to their feet and went back to the clearing where they found Suoli and Agila fast asleep, and Will Harbin grinned at them. He wanted to remark further on the parallels between this lovely place and Eden—something to the effect that it looked as though Adam and Eve had tasted of the apple, but held his peace.
For breakfast they toasted thick slices of the tunafish-tree over a small fire which Brant touched to smoldering with a thin, quick beam from his power gun. It was even more delicious than it had been the “evening” before.
They were going to have to invent new terms for such familiar words as morning, afternoon, night and evening, for these words did not apply to this weird and wonderful world that lay dreaming like Paradise, bathed in a pearly light like that of the morning of the First Day.
After breakfast, Harbin and Brant set about rigging up a crude still in which to boil the impurities out of the seawater. It was not an easy job, for they lacked the proper utensils, but they found at length that their makeshift still worked well enough, although it was a lengthy and boring process, waiting for the steam from the boiling water to condense into enough pure water for them to sate their thirsts.
Brant and Zuarra had few words for each other, but their eyes met frequently and very often they touched, with a pretense of casualness. Agila and Suoli only had eyes for each other and hardly seemed to notice. As for the old scientist, he chattered volubly, if only to fill the silence.
Later that day, Brant caught a dragonfly napping and killed the creature with Agila’s knife, which he had not returned to him since their brief fist-fight many days before. Harbin examined the creature with alert curiosity, dissecting it with the knife. The bowie-like blade was unsuited to such delicate work, but Harbin did the best he could. He found that the tubular body contained a sizable quantity of meat, which he toasted over the smoldering coals of their fire.
When the others proved a bit too squeamish to taste the stuff, he sampled it himself. “Tastes quite a bit like escargot,” he pronounced, chewing judiciously. “A slice of lemon would help; but it’s not bad. Well, now we know that when we get tired of eating from the mushroom-trees, we can vary our diet somewhat.”
“Think there’s any fish in the ocean, Doc?” asked Brant.
“Doubt it very much. There are none to be found in Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, either. And this underground ocean is saltier than both.”
That “night” after the travelers dined on more mushroom-meat, and sought their rest, Zuarra and Brant stole away into the forest to make love. It was richer and deeper this third time, the hungry wanting somewhat satisfied. They lacked the urgency they had felt before, and took the time to explore each other’s bodies with sensitivity and tenderness.
“How long do we intend to remain in this strange world, O Brant?” Zuarra asked, after the loving, as they lay together with naked limbs entwined.
“Who knows?” he yawned. “Until the outlaws go away, I guess. But it’s not a bad place to be. Warm, comfortable, plenty of food. And if there are any predators down here, we’ve yet to see them.”
They kissed, and drowsed into sleep.
And awoke suddenly with lances touching their throats.
It had taken Tuan and his men less time to get down the stony stair than it had taken Brant’s party, for they were all lean and rangy men, hard and tough, while Brant had been slowed somewhat by the women, especially little Suoli.
But they had come at last. And Brant wondered if they had already captured the others, and cursed himself silently for having left his power guns behind with his clothing. But who could have thought that he might need his guns in this peaceful garden?
I should have thought, he said grimly to himself. After all, he had known there was a very good chance the outlaws might follow them down the stair. He inwardly cursed himself for letting the beauty of this place and the marvels within it, and the woman who lay at his side, lull him away from his usual wariness. Well, there was never any good crying over spilt milk—or blood, either.
A booted foot kicked him in the side. He gave voice to an involuntary grunt and would have sprung to his feet, but for the long lance level with his breast.
One of the outlaws, a villanous-looking rogue with cold, mean eyes as unblinking as those of a cobra, grinned, revealing broken and discolored teeth, and pressed with the lance a little.
The point just broke his skin. Brant felt a drop of blood trickle down his bare chest.
He exchanged a long look with Zuarra. Her face was expressionless and there was no fear in her eyes as she looked at him. But they were lying so close together that he could feel how rapidly her heart was beating beneath her proud breasts.
Yes, the Serpent was in Eden, at last… .
“Let them rise to their feet,” ordered Tuan, “and lead them back to where the other dogs are penned. Bind their wrists behind their backs.” He stalked away toward the place where, presumably, Harbin and the others were held prisoner.
Brant watched with a heavy heart as the men bound Zuarra. Oddly, they did not insult her body with their hands. Instead, they looked her naked body over from face to feet with cool, appraising eyes. They wore not the expression of men whose minds were lingering on thoughts of rape. Instead, they examined her with their eyes as if looking over something that could be sold for a good price.
19 The Flying Man
Looking weary, Will Harbin lay on the moss with two warriors standing over him.
Whimpering and blubbering, Suoli, similarly bound, cowered at the feet of another warrior, while Agila sprawled naked, eyes wide with fear, a little beyond where his woman was huddled.
They had all been taken unawares. And Brant silently damned himself for not having taken the proper precautions which would have prevented this debacle. He was too old a Mars hand to be caught like this, quite literally, napping.
When the five captives had all been bound, Tuan surveyed them one by one, with hard, measuring eyes. He was a tall rascal, his kilt unmarked by the colors of his nation, which, of course, showed that he was aoudh—an outcast. But the blood of princes flowed in his veins, and you could see it in his stance, in the ramrod-straightness wherewith he held himself, and in something of the poise of his head.
He strolled over to where Agila crouched, licking lips dry with fear, and nudged the naked man in the ribs with the toe of his boot.
“Dog, it was you who stole from me the sacred dish of my ancestors,” he hissed between thin lips. “Not only did you commit the crime of theft from one who had shown you the hospitality of his camp, but you fled from justice like a coward in the dark.”
Agila lowered his eyes to the ground, his lean, bony face surly and his eyes sullen. But he again licked his dry lips.