“Because you’re not my type,” Garth snorted, sending Tammad a sour look. “Do you really expect me to take this discussion seriously?”
“Perhaps not,” Tammad conceded. “Perhaps it is impossible to teach a man of your worlds freedom. Why did you not take one of the other females to your bed? My warriors are not that badly in need, and are aware that you are my guest.”
“Why—I don’t know.” Garth faltered, suddenly finding more sobriety in the discussion. “Was I supposed to just walk over and pick one? What if she refused to go with me? And don’t you remember how they were acting? What if the one I picked had hysterics?”
“There seem to be a great many reasons why it was best for you to remain alone in your bed,” the barbarian said, not conceding the point in the slightest. “Had my warriors been equally concerned with questions such as those, they too would have slept alone. And perhaps the females would not be as pleased as they appear to be.”
“And that’s another thing I don’t understand,” Garth complained, turning his head to look at the other group again. “Suddenly those three can’t do enough for your men, and they’re practically singing while they do it. Unless I’ve gone stark, raving mad, those women were raped during the sleep period, and by two men each. Now, I’ve seen women who were raped before, and none of them looked like those three. They were more like what those three looked like before the sleep period.”
The bewilderment in Garth’s voice was painful to hear, almost as painful as feeling it in his mind. He turned tragic eyes to Tammad, who gave him understanding without pity.
“Perhaps the reason for this is clear once it is explained,” he said, then gestured toward the other group. “Perhaps asking them would assist you.”
Garth, embarrassed, hesitated. “How could I—” then stopped in confusion before turning his desperation toward me. “Terry, tell me what they’re feeling,” he pleaded, his face as flushed as if he’d been running. “I can’t just go over there and ask them, but you don’t have to.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to say it,” I observed, ignoring his desperation. “I’m not here to make life easier for you mighty males, even in passing. If you want to go through channels to get an answer, be my guest. I’m sure the captain knows the right frequency to reach Central central.”
His embarrassment faded immediately to angry annoyance, echoing the annoyance that came more strongly from Tammad. The barbarian hadn’t really wanted me to read the women for Garth, but he didn’t care for the way I had refused. He had the distinct impression I’d meant the words for him as well—and he was right.
“It seems you have now discovered why one does not plead with a woman,” he said as Garth began drawing himself up. “Yet this discovery is only incidental to the purpose of our discussion. We have as yet to discover the reason for the behavior which disturbs you. Let us question one of the three together.”
Garth let his anger at me drain off reluctantly, then turned his attention back to Tammad. The barbarian had gotten the attention of one of his men, and had pointed out the girl he had chosen for his victim. The l’lenda took the girl’s arm, spoke to her quietly, then gestured toward Tammad, causing the girl to lose most of the laughter that bad filled her. She hesitated very briefly, as though gathering her nerve, before getting to her feet. By the time she was standing in front of us, her defensiveness was a mile high and a yard thick. I recognized her as the one Tammad had sent to wake me the day-period before, and wondered why he kept singling her out.
“My companion wishes to speak with you,” Tammad told her, nodding toward Garth. Hi a voice had been very gentle and encouraging, but that hadn’t done much to affect the girl’s stiffness. She turned her head to Garth, waiting without speaking, defying him with her eyes no matter what he wanted.
“I have a question,” Garth said, his voice as gentle and confident as Tammad’s had been. He wasn’t feeling any less distress than he bad been, but he’d been embarrassed once over the distress and didn’t want it to happen again. “You and your friends seem a good deal happier than you seemed before the sleep period. I won’t pretend I don’t know what happened to you three between then and now, so my question should be obvious. Why are you so much happier?”
The girl drew herself up, her face tinged with pink, her body trying to look dignified even in the altered towel she still wore. It didn’t seem possible for her defensiveness to increase, but she proved it was more than possible.
“We were hard up and got taken care of!” she snapped, her shoulders tensing to the scrape in her voice. “Chalk it up to that!”
“Now, look . . . !” Garth began, his own voice beginning to be angry and offended, but Tammad interrupted before a shouting match could start.
“Why do you speak so, wench?” he asked, his tone still mild but his voice sharpening just enough for her to notice. “A question was asked you; we await a civil answer.”
The girl’s bead snapped around to allow her to stare at Tammad, but whatever she’d been prepared to say to him was swallowed when she met his gaze. She bit her lip, trying to sustain her anger, and in some small measure succeeded.
“A civil answer won’t do him any good,” she muttered, not quite up to using the same tone on Tammad that she had used on Garth. “One like him already has all the answers—about everything. Besides, he wouldn’t understand.”
“Why don’t you try giving me a chance to understand?” Garth put in, his voice calm again. “If all my answers are wrong, how will I ever find out if no one tells me?”
Her face screwed up into a stubborn, resentful mold, showing as clearly as her mind that she was just short of refusing, but a quick glance at Tammad showed her that he was still watching her with the same look he’d used earlier. It was a look I was well familiar with, one he usually used on me, and she couldn’t stand up to it any more than I could.
“You won’t understand,” she muttered again, but to Garth, looking down at the way her fingers twisted at her waist. “It sounds stupid when you put it into words.” Then her head came up, and she looked at Garth defiantly. “Sure, they did whatever they wanted to us last sleep period, but not like any other man ever did. They didn’t ask, and after it they didn’t treat us any different than they did before. They—just didn’t ask.”
“You were right,” Garth said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand. What has asking got to do with it?”
“All men ask,” she said, looking and sounding disgusted. “It’s not the asking that gets you, it’s what goes along with the asking. If you answer yes, you’re a tramp, if you answer no, you’re a dip-teaser. With most men, no matter what you do is wrong. With these guys—they wanted it and they took it. They didn’t give us a chance to say yes or no, and they made us like it. After it was over, they still liked what they saw. We never had that before.”
She was staring at Garth, trying to see if he did understand after all, but Garth was staring down at his folded legs, his mind working furiously. He thought in silence for a minute or two, then raised his head again.
“This—difference in attitude you’re talking about,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Would you try it with me to see if I could do it?”
“No,” she answered immediately, disgust back in her voice. “You asked.”
“So I did,” he sighed, shaking his head but at himself. “Thank you for answering my question so completely.”
The woman hesitated, wondering if be would say anything else, then shrugged and turned away when it was clear that he wouldn’t. When she was back among her group again, Garth turned to me.