Honcho turned Blade over to a squad of ceboid soldiers and was about to leave when Blade said: "I would like a favor, Honcho."
The neuter stared at him, impassive.
"I would see Zulekia again," Blade continued. "The Maiduke girl. In my chambers. This is possible?"
The green eyes narrowed, but a hint of a smile touched the thin lips. "You have not had enough coi for a time? I would have thought so, Blade. Or perhaps Totha did not suit you? I find that hard to believe."
Blade said nothing.
Honcho nodded. "All right. But it must be brief. There is very little time now. We stayed too long in the Gorge. See herm, and as soon as you have finished I will send you to Urcit. Go. I will send the ceboids for you when I want you."
In his chambers Blade bathed under the perfumed jets and donned fresh clothing. He combed his beard and admired it for a moment. Who would have guessed that he looked so well with a beard?
Org had given him a scabbard and baldric for the sword. The baldric was ancient and very rotten, and would have to be replaced, but for now it would serve. Blade admired the jewels that studded the hilt. There were twenty of them, set flush in the metal, and they glinted now in the pale Tharnian light. Diamonds, rubies, pearls and sapphires, and an oddly cut roseate stone that he did not recognize. In his other life they would have been worth a fortune, to the Pethcines they were only part of a symbol, and he had guessed that in Tharn jewels did not have much value.
He was still admiring them when the ceboids ushered Zulekia into the chamber.
Blade sensed at once that there was something different about the Maiduke girl. He could not be sure exactly what it was - she was dressed the same, her long red-bronze hair was still a glory, her gentian eyes as large - but the difference was there.
The ceboids bowed themselves out and Blade knew that the magveil was once again in place. Honcho no doubt would be watching on the spiscreens. He did not give it a thought. His heart lifted strangely as Zulekia walked toward him, unsmiling as ever, her lovely face impassive. Then, just before she reached him, something happened in her eyes. She blinked rapidly as though signaling alertness, and something moved in the violet depths. Warning? Entreaty?
Her eyes held his in a long stare as she stepped into his arms. "Make kiss," she said. "I like it. I remember. Make kiss."
Blade made kiss. She moved against him, pressing closer and closer. Her mouth, sweet and softly warm, slid from his and grazed his ear as she strained against him. She breathed the words, rather than whispered, as faint as a dying echo.
"When you make coi to me you must touch me deeply there! Very deeply."
Blade waited, chills prickling up his spine. Zulekia had taken a deliberate chance. She knew as well as Blade, better, how sensitive the spiscreens were. Yet she had gambled. Why? More important at the moment - would they get away with it?
Nothing. Blade breathed again. And now her eyes warned him again. No more risks. He had understood. Or had he? He must touch her deeply there! He thought he understood...and yet?
Zulekia took his hand and led him toward the bed. Blade, who had thought himself drained and exhausted by Totha's constant importunities, now found that he raged like a stallion.
At the bed she turned and faced him. "Make more kiss, my Lord."
They kissed for a long time, until she trembled against him as his hands explored her body.
She said at last. "I think I really understand kiss now."
"That is good," said Blade who was beginning to have a new understanding of it himself. Then he heard himself saying: "Do you understand love, Zulekia?"
The great eyes widened. "Love? It is not a Tharnian word. No, I do not understand it."
"Perhaps," he said gently, "one day you will." He tried to draw her down to the bed beside him, but for a moment she resisted.
"Honcho, the neuter who is He, has told me that you spoke for me. That you would have me saved. That my punishment shall not be as decreed. I am grateful to you, My lord. I make all slaveface."
"This is not the time to speak of that," he said fiercely. "Come to me. I command!"
Blade began to caress and explore her body, remembering her words, probing deep into that moist sanctum. His fingers touched something tiny, hard, cylindrical, and then he really understood. But how to mask it from the spiscreens?
Zulekia had taken a great risk. So must he. Blade threw his huge bulk on her, blanketing her slim cool body with his own. He clutched the tiny cylinder in a fist now. Secure for the moment.
He could wait no longer. He entered her with a great thrust. Then...
Then nothing. He felt her flesh melt away in his arms. He was embracing a wraith, mist, a gauze image of Zulekia that was a perfect and lovely emptiness. SIMLU!
Blade lay prone on the bed, raging. The O of Zulekia still embraced him.
Honcho laughed in the chamber. "I have kept my promise, Blade. I agreed to let you see the girl. Nothing else."
Blade fought to control his temper. Tremors ravaged him and sweat stood out on his face and chest. He knew himself and his temper too well. Once he let it slip the leash he was like a madman.
Honcho's laugh came again. "For a Lord, Blade, for Mazda, you look most undignified. Does coi mean so much, then?"
Blade won his battle with himself. He had the little cylinder clutched in his fist. Honcho had not seen, the spiscreens for once had failed. Blade felt better. He had won, not the neuter.
"I am sending the ceboids for you," said Honcho. "At once. You go to Urcit immediately.
Chapter Eight
So Richard Blade came to Urcit. Not as a body, at first, but as pure intelligence. So great were Honcho's powers. He had perfected a refinement of teleportation that even THEY did not understand and could not use.
Blade's big body, handsome and massive, lay fully clothed on a circular pad in the neuter's main laboratory. The corpus looked peaceful in sleep, the great sword at his side. A feathery veil of teksin covered him.
After he had sent Blade's mind away Honcho stayed alone with the body. He sent the ceboids and the minor neuters away. Again and again he walked to the edge of the pad and stood looking down at Blade. There was no one to see now, and the green eyes mirrored thoughts that Blade would have understood. Envy, fear, hate, jealousy - even admiration. They were all present. Envy loomed the greatest.
Once Honcho stepped on the pad, about to search the clothing, then he turned back with a shrug. The little cylinder snuggled unseen in a makeshift pocket in a fold of toga where Blade had hidden it.
Blade's mind wandered Urcit, seeing and understanding, assimilating and planning, yet unseen.
The towers of Urcit spired into points against the curdled milky sky, the eternal twilight. Blade understood that sky now. It was controlled so that mani, Tharn's single crop out of which everything was made, could best prosper.
Urcit stood on a vast and reaching plain. There were wide streets and graceful squares in which fountains played. Fountains that spewed colors and music instead of water. Blade had never heard such music before; it was everywhere and yet nowhere; it did not intrude and yet it was always there. Sensuous and gay, lifting the spirits like a powerful drug.
Urcit was clean. No speck of filth was seen anywhere. And yet nobody seemed to work. There were ceboids in the streets, and neuters, all hustling and bustling along, but he could discern no real intent.
And so it was that he saw THEY at last, and never thought of them so again. Richard Blade had never stood in awe of beautiful women!
Honcho had said that there were less than a thousand of them.
Blade watched them walk the streets, lounge in the squares and places, all regal, all tall, all lovely female creatures. There were brunettes and blondes and redheads, and every mingled shade, and their fine skins glowed in golden and copper tones. They dressed alike, and yet not alike, each wearing colors in breastplates and mini-togas that flattered and complemented them best.