Part 15 (1/2)

”I don't remember coming her willingly.” She smiled a lazy, devilish, sensuous smile, and circled his neck with her arm. ”Whether I am a prisoner now is for you to say.”

He shook his head, and he spoke low and quietly. ”You are emphatically not a prisoner, Jan.”

She pulled him down to her. ”I am,” she said, ''whether you think so or not.''

After they had kissed, rubbing their bodies together gently so that only the surfaces touched in soft all-body caresses, he spoke again, in that quiet, low voice.

”Then you will be free today. I do not think of you as a prisoner.”

And what did I say I am-a dam' good TGO agent? Again she showed him the lazy smile he loved; a smile that was not Daura's at all. ”Ah . . .but I didn't say that I am an unwilling prisoner, my Ram.”

She drew him down again, and in moments they were panting into each other's mouths and in minutes more she was crying out as once again she received his seed. After a few more minutes he came out of her softly, and then both of them were at her with hands at v.u.l.v.a and nipples, mildly mistreating both, and within a minute more she was screaming anew in a boiling release.

Soon they rose and showered and dressed. Janja was delighted to see what was laid out for her: the piratical clothing she had worn when Redhand Gopal had brought her here-the protective white body-stocking, the black vest and belt and gloves. Yet these were not the garments she had worn. The skintight body-stocking was of the newer monofilamental metallic weave that 188.

was spun out, at tremendous expense and with an ever more transcendent retail price, into fabric softer and thinner and far more beautiful than silver lame had ever been. This garment was deceptively lightweight. She glided into it.

The belt was jeweled, and the gems were real. So was the stopper in its holster. It bore his crest on the b.u.t.t.

So did the one he wore, when they met again outside the wonderful large room that was hers, with one entire wall a hologram of Aglayan savannah and forest. He wore a jumpsuit in a chocolate brown that was neither loose nor snug. The pants-legs bloused over his boots.

”d.a.m.n!” he said with a glad smile, ”You look wonderful, madam-good enough to f.u.c.k.”

”You just did,” she said, thrusting an elbow at his ribs.

”d.a.m.n.”

In the swift, unmarked little flyer he used, its armor and armaments well disguised, they soared out from the great hill surrounded by his citadel. Half around unpopulated Janat they swooped, and down to a mountain, and into that mountain, and into an una.s.sumingly raw-looking cave-mouth. Inside, it was far from una.s.suming or raw, but presumptuous and sumptuous. A great well-lighted cavern begun time out of mind by Nature and completed by the money and workers of Ramesh Jageshwar Kshatriya.

There lay the sleek charcoal-gray s.h.i.+p with its black trim: Hornet. Inside were the most modern equipment and accommodations. In its hide, ready to slither out and become unequivocally deadly, were the most modern of weapons that Rat Yao had been able to provide with TGO money. Janja saw that the s.h.i.+p was Hornet no longer. On its sleek flanks was painted the new name she had not known about: KSHATRIYA JANSA.

189.

With Janja at the controls-hardly necessary, since s.h.i.+p's puter, housed in a cube a half-meter on a side, took as complete control as it was allowed-they fled out across Janat, a streak of black and deepest gray impatiently ready to take on more speed and rise beyond the clouds, beyond a sky that was yellow and white with a bit of blue.

Back they came, Janja laughing and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, to swoop once more within the cavern, Ram pretending fear all the way. The three loyal servicers-guards, all men, were awaiting the emergence of their master and his leman. They waited. And waited, for Janja would not leave the s.h.i.+p without making love within its handsome sh.e.l.l, and Ram would deny her nothing-certainly not that.

At last they emerged, the master and his leman. Yet she was not that. She was his mistress, which did not mean leman or doxy or paramour or wh.o.r.e but was merely the feminine form of ”master.”

”Good s.h.i.+p,” he commented.

”Good s.h.i.+p-handler too,” she said, with eyes alight. ”And you were scared, weren't you!”

”Oh sure. Scared half to death. Biting my nails all the way. Want to go again?”

No, and they returned to the aerie he called Citadel Cuesta. They were old words from a dead Homeworlder language, describing a fortress on a hill, one side of which was a sheer drop and the other a long scarp. That did not matter; ”Citadel Cuesta” was marvelously exotic. Inside he s.h.i.+fted to the robe he loved, while requesting that she remain in the silver and black that hugged her so lovingly. He liked it; it was s.e.xy. Janja was more than willing to comply.

”All that worries me, Jansa, is your own recklessness in a s.h.i.+p like that,” he said, lifting his gla.s.s-not only 190.

was it not a pla.s.s made of plas, it was etched crystal and it rang. ”You have one dreadful fault. You have more bravery than sense.”

”Well, you don't have to worry about me in a s.h.i.+p like that one,” she said, overdoing the archness. ”I'll just stick to that one, not one like it.”

”Twit me about my grammar and I'll rape you, rotten b.i.t.c.h!”

”Twit. . .twit. . . twit. . . ”

She was grinning and he chuckled. Then she c.o.c.ked her head, sipping, to show him that she was listening.

”Your action regarding s.h.i.+eda was senseless; your reaction and strutting about after his death, allowing yourself to be taken-that was simply stupid.” He smiled to show her that the sting in the word was not his doing; that he was stating a fact, admonis.h.i.+ng rather than chastising or attacking.

”Wrong,” she said in a strong voice, and set down her drink with an air of finality and determination. ”I wanted to be taken. I wanted to be brought to you, to be here. I wanted to be sliced by you, and I wanted to be alone with you here this way, right now.”

He stared at her intense eyes, which were staring. He sat forward sharply. ”Wha-why?”

Janja told him. She told him all of it this time, naming Ratran Yao and going into detail about Daura's kidnap and Janja's training. He listened, and he repeated his one-word question: ”Why?”

Before he could move to counter her, she took from its holster the stopper he had given her . . . and just as his eyes flared, she tossed the nasty little cylinder to him. He caught it in a reflex movement unslowed by his shock. Almost at once, he laid it on the divan beside him without looking at it. Both of them knew the stopper 191.

was in fine working order. His giving it to her had been a sign of trust. She had tested it, outside, without feeling sorry for the weird orange lizard she Fried.

There were nearly as many lizards in the universe as people. Cheap, both of them.

He repeated himself still again. ”You could have used it,” he said. ”Then, or on the s.h.i.+p when we were alone, and kept on going. You could have used it and taken me anywhere or killed me. Why didn't you? Why have you told me all this, TGO agent?”

Janja shrugged. ”You know, Ram. You know my story, and you know me. All you have to do is get used to calling me Janja rather than Jansa, and that doesn't matter. I don't belong on Aglaya any more, and I don't belong with them-with TGO. You have more honor than Ratran Yao or any of his Gray Organization. I think you are worthy of Aglaya, Ram. I belong with you, Ram. If you don't agree . . . you have the stopper, now.”

He gazed at her, studying her. She searched his face for pain. He closed his eyes. Trying not to cherm, she chermed no menace. He picked up the stopper and her heartbeat stepped up. He looked at the weapon distastefully, sadly, and leveled it at her. Janja's cherming ability gave no warning, but she held her breath as she waited, just the same. She had gotten around Ratran first, by having the clammup taken out of her mind so that she could talk openly on this mission, once her captor had said one of the releasing phrases. She and Rat had foreseen that she might need to tell Ram who and what she was.

Now the next hurdle. She had got past Rat; would she get past Ramesh?

He tossed her the stopper.

She didn't catch it. Instead she batted it aside with her 192.

wrist. It rolled across the carpet and was swiftly joined by two bodies not at all interested in the weapon. The stopper lay forgotten while Ram and Janja hurled themselves into their wildest bout of lovemaking yet.

He had denied her what she had started to do, weeks ago, and then had asked for. No. His first act with his sister, he had told her, had been her taking him in her mouth when she was twelve and he fourteen, to suck his seed from him. She had done it frequently, ever after, because she loved it and so did he. He had not allowed that to Janja. He had not been ready to admit that much, to give that much.

This time she gave him no opportunity to demur or pull back, knowing as he knew that all prohibitions were at an end between them.

While his mouth worried at hers, seeking simultaneously to enter and to enclose it in his fiery enthusiasm, her fingers caressed the inside of his thigh. She stroked and squeezed and caressed until, by unspoken common accord, they separated and sprang to their feet to strip. They lurched as if drunk, and that could have accounted for the glaze in their eyes. Neither was drunk-not on alcohol or any other drug except each other.

The seams of her body-stocking ran down both shoulders and over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and down the fronts of her legs. Hurling the belt from her, she touched the tiny depolarizing mechanism in her left armpit. The taut-stretched cloth sprang away like a clipped fence, and fell from her. Her clothing fell to the green-gold carpet with his, and before he could move she dropped to her knees. Her hands shot out.