“This is for you. I have already eaten.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“A little. Tell me, how is it you are in possession of proscribed weaponry?”
“Took it off someone who tried to kill me,” he lied, but he could hardly tell her he had brought it here before the runcible proscription and modified it himself over the so very many years since. He sat and drank his breakfast. When he had finished, they set out across the Thira. Hirald noted him looking at her after an hour’s walking and closed her mask. He thought no more of it; lots of people did not like the masks and were prepared to pay the price of water-loss not to wear them so much.
By midmorning the temperature had reached forty-five degrees and was still rising. A sand shark broke out of the surface of a dune and came scuttling after them for a few metres, then halted, panting like a dog, either too tired or well fed to continue, that or it had sampled human flesh before and found it without nourishment. When the temperature reached fifty and the cooling units of Snow’s under suit were labouring under the load, he noted that Hirald still easily matched his pace. When a crab-bird dropped clacking out of the sky at them she brought it down with one shot before Snow could even think of reaching for his weapon. She was a remarkable woman, yes, remarkable.
Shortly after midday Snow called a halt. “We’ll rest until evening then continue through the night and tomorrow morning. The following night should bring us out the other side.”
Hirald nodded in agreement. Snow wondered why she had not suggested this earlier. Surely, she had not travelled only by day across here? Surely not.
They slept under the reflective shelter of Snow’s day tent, then moved on at sunset after Snow had checked their position by the satellite beacons. They walked all night and most of the following morning and when they finally set up the tent again Snow was exhausted. With a hint of irritation, he told Hirald he wanted privacy in the tent and suggested she set up her own. Once inside is tent he sealed up and stripped naked. He then cleaned himself and the inside of his under suit with a cycle sponge; a device that made it possible to stay clean with a quarter litre of water and little spillage. After this he pulled on a pair of towelling shorts and lay back with his miniature air cooler humming away at full power. It was luxury of a kind. After half an hour’s sleep he woke and opened the tent to look outside. Hirald was sitting in the sand with her mask open. She was watching the horizon intently, her stillness quite unnatural.
“Don’t you have a day tent?” Snow asked.
She shook her head.
“Come and join me then,” he said, reversing back into his tent. Hirald stood and walked over, the effects of the baking sun seemingly negligible to her. She entered the tent and closed it behind her, then after a glance at Snow she began to remove her survival suit. Snow turned away for a moment then thought, what the hell, and turned back to watch. She had not asked him to turn his head. Under her suit she wore a single skin-hugging garment that ended above her knees and elbows and in an arc exposing perfectly formed collarbones. The material of the garment was like white silk, and almost translucent. Snow swallowed dryly, then tried to distract himself by wondering about her sanitary arrangements. As she lifted her legs up to remove her trousers from her feet, he saw then how the matter was arranged and wondered if a blush was evident on his white skin. The garment had a hole from the lower part of her pale pubic hair round to the top crease of her buttocks.
As she finally removed her trousers Hirald looked at him and noted the direction of his gaze. He raised his eyes and met her eye to eye. She smiled at him and while smiling stretched the sleeves of the garment down and off over her hands and rolled it down below her breasts. Snow cleared his throat and tried to think of something witty to say. She was a succubus, a lonely desert man’s fantasy. Still smiling she came across the tent on her hands and knees, put her hand against his chest and pushed him back, sat astride him, and with her pale hair falling either side of his head she leant down and kissed him on the mouth.
Her mouth was sweet and warm. Snow was thoroughly aware of her hard little nipples sliding from side to side against his chest. He touched the skin of her shoulders and found it dry and warm. She sat back then and looked down at him for a moment. There was something strange about that look; a kind of cold curiosity. She slid forward onto his stomach then turned and reached back to pull his shorts down and off his legs. He was amazed at just how far she could twist and bend back her body. Once his shorts were removed, she slid back until his penis rested between her buttocks then, after raising herself a little, she continued to push back, bending it over until it almost caused him pain, then with a swift movement of her pelvis, took it inside her. Snow groaned, then gritted his teeth as she started to ride him, staring down at him with that strange expression on her face.
In the evening, when it was time to move on, Snow moved with a bone-deep lethargy. He had not slept much during the afternoon. Each time he had tried to relax after a session of sex, Hirald would do something, whether that would be to take his penis in her mouth or assume some position he could not resist. This had been after her climax while she rode him. It had been so intense that she had cried out and shuddered uncontrollably, and after it she had looked down at herself in surprise and shock. Thereafter she had been eager to repeat the experience. Snow felt sore and drained.
As they walked across the darkened violet sands they had talked little, but there had been one conversation that had raised Snow’s suspicions.
“Your hand, how did you lose it?”
“Andronache challenge. It was shredded by a flack shell.”
“How is it now?”
Snow had paused before replying. Did she know?
“What do you mean; how is it? It was amputated. It is no longer there.”
“Yes,” she had said, and no more.
The sun was breaking the horizon and the night asteroids fading out of the sky when they reached the rock-field at the edge of the Thira. With little energy to spare for conversation, Snow set up his day tent and collapsed inside, instantly asleep. When he woke in the latter part of the day it was to discover himself undressed under a blanket with Hirald lying beside him. She was up on her elbow, her head propped on her hand, looking at his face. As soon as she saw that he was awake she handed him a carton of mixed juice. He sat up, the blanket sliding down. She was naked. He drank the juice.
“I’m glad you came along,” he said, and the rest of the day was spent in pleasant activity. That night they moved deep into the rock field. The following day passed much as the one before.
“I think it fair to tell you I have an implant,” Snow said as he rested after some particularly vigorous activity. “You won’t get pregnant by me, and my sperm is little more than water and a few free proteins.”
“Why do you feel it necessary to tell me this?” Hirald asked him.
“As you know, there is a reward out for my testicles, stasis preserved. This is not because the Merchant Baris particularly wants me dead. I think it is because he is after my genetic tissue. It has value, of a kind. At the water station, the Androche… seduced me.” Snow was uncomfortable with that. “She did it so she could collect my sperm, probably to sell.”
“I know,” said Hirald. Snow looked at her and she went on, “He is after your testicles to provide him with an endless supply of your genetic material.”
Snow considered that. Of course, there had to be more to Hirald than he had supposed, but the Olympic screwing had clouded his thought-processes somewhat.
“He wouldn’t get that… meiosis only leaves half the chromosomes in each sperm,” he said.