Part 19 (1/2)

HEXAFLEXAGON.

They emerged into a blinding blizzard. Snow blasted Veg's face, and the chill quickly began its penetration of his body. He was not adequately dressed.

Tamme turned to him, showing mild irritation. ”Why did you come?” she demanded.

He tried to shrug, but it was lost in his fierce s.h.i.+vering. He did not really understand his own motive, but it had something to do with her last-minute display of decency. And with her beauty and his need to disengage irrevocably from Aquilon.

Tamme removed her skirt, did something to it, and put it about his shoulders. He was too cold to protest. ”This is thermal,” she said. ”Squat down, hunch up tight. It will trap a ma.s.s of warm air, Eskimo-style. Face away from the wind. Duck your head down; I'll cover it.” And she removed her halter, formerly her blouse, adjusted it, and fas.h.i.+oned it into a protective hood.

He obeyed but did finally get out a word, ”You -- ”

”I'm equipped for extremes,” she said. ”You aren't. I can survive for an hour or more naked in this environment -- longer with my undergarments. So can you -- if you just sit tight under that cloak. After that, we'll both exercise vigorously. We have to stretch it out three hours, until the projector brings us back. We'll make it -- though for once I wish I'd set it for the minimum safe-return time.”

He nodded miserably. ”Sorry. I didn't know -- ”

”That you would only be in the way? I knew -- but I also knew your motive, confused as it might be, was good. You have courage and ethics, not because you've been programmed for them, but because you are naturally that way. Perhaps agents should be more like that.” She paused, peering around. Snowflakes were hung up on her eyebrows, making little visors. ”I'll make a shelter. Maybe we won't have to go back.”

He watched her move about, seemingly at ease in the tempest... in her bra and slip. He was chagrined to be so suddenly, so completely dependent on a woman, especially in what he had thought of as a man's natural element: wilderness. But she was quite a woman!

Tamme made the shelter. She cleared the loose snow away, baring a nether layer of packed snow and ice, a crust from some prior melting and refreezing. She used one of her weapons, a small flame thrower, to cut blocks of this out. Soon she had a st.u.r.dy ice wall.

”Here,” she directed.

He obeyed, moving jerkily into the shelter of the hole behind the wall. The wind cut off. Suddenly he felt much better. The cloak was warm; once the wind stopped wrestling with it, stealing the heated air from the edges, he was almost comfortable. He held it close about his neck, trapping that pocket of heat. But his feet were turning numb.

Tamme built the wall around him, curving it inward until she formed a dome. It was an igloo!

”I think you'll manage now,” she said. ”Let me have my clothing; I want to look about.”

She crawled into the igloo beside him while he fumbled with cloak and hood. And she stripped off her underclothing.

Veg stared. She was an excellent specimen of womanhood, of course; not lush but perfectly proportioned, with no fat where it didn't belong. Every part of her was lithe and firm and feminine. But that was not what amazed him.

Strapped to her body was an a.s.sortment of paraphernalia. Veg recognized the holster for the flame thrower she had just used: It attached to her hip where a bikini would have tied -- a place always covered without seeming to be, filling a hollow to round out the hip slightly. There was another holster, perhaps for the laser, on the other hip. An ordinary woman would have padded that region with a little extra avoirdupois; Tamme's leanness only served to delineate her muscular structure without at all detracting from her allure. There was similar structures near her waist, which was in fact more slender than it had seemed. And at the undercurves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

How artfully she had hidden her weaponry while seeming to reveal all! Her thighs had seemed completely innocent under her skirt as she came down the pine tree. And who would have thought that the cleavage of her bosom had been fas.h.i.+oned by the push of steel weapons so close below! Had she been ready to make love to him that way, armed to the...?

”No, I'd have set aside the weapons,” she said. ”Can't ever tell where a man's hands may go.”

She tore the bra, slip, and panties apart, then put them back together a different way. Evidently she could instantly remake all her clothing for any purpose -- functional, seductive, or other. He had no doubt it could be fas.h.i.+oned into a rope to bind a captive or to scale a cliff. And of course her blouse had become first a revealing halter, then a hood for his head.

The female agent was every bit as impressive as the male agent! It was an excellent design.

”Thanks,” Tamme said.

She donned her revised underthings, once more covering the artillery. Veg now understood about her weight: She probably weighed a hundred and fifteen stripped but carried forty pounds of hardware.

She held out her hand unself-consciously. Hastily he pa.s.sed the cloak and hood across and watched her convert them back into skirt and blouse. But not the same design as before; the skirt was now longer for protection against the storm, and the blouse closed in about her neck, showing no breast. Quite a trick!

She scrambled out the igloo door and disappeared into the buzzard. While she was gone, Veg chafed his limbs and torso to warm them and marveled at the situation in which he found himself. He had gone from Earth to Paleo, the first alternate; then to Desertworld, the second alternate. And on to Cityworld, Forestworld, and now to Blizzard -- the third, fourth, and fifth, respectively. Now he was huddled here, s.h.i.+vering, dependent on a woman -- while all alternity beckoned beyond!