Part 35 (1/2)

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ingly drank of both. So you wanted to make love to him.

Integrate critical query: do you want more than that? Don't know, don't know G.o.d I don't know. You went into this with your eyes open. Yes, eyes open and brain shut. Serves you right. You deserve what you get in this life.

Then stop acting like a sixteen-year-old! You're al- ways harping at Rachael for acting immature, and you're acting worse than she ever has. When you see him again, you go right on as if nothing has happened.

Yes . . . he's still in charge of the security end of this expedition. You treat him that way. Polite, friendly- and distant. If he so much as touches you ...

Again the fury rose like lava in the throat of a volcano, subsided as quickly. How interesting to spec- ulate, she told herself, on man's continuing familial relations.h.i.+p with the ape. Don't blame Sam for a species-wide lack of progression.

She rolled onto her back, studied the ceiling. Al- ways the male must prove himself. You cannot be mad at the leader of the baboon pack for acting like himself.

She could cope with that reality. She had done so for years. No reason to regress now. Sam had made his point. She did not bother to debate the thoughts behind his ludicrous little grin, back there on the floor.

How jejune!

Running back to her room, memory and confusion and hurt all mashed together in her mind, she had thought he had been taunting her, deliberately flaunt- ing the woman at her. The male peac.o.c.k flares his feathers, she mused.

But that was asking too much of him. He had never laid claim to eloquence or cunning, and now he had demonstrated his lack of both. You were the one, Cora reminded herself with satisfaction, who took the situation in hand and spoke, made the decision to

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move. That smile was nothing more than a truthful mirror of his inner vapidness. She had made a mis- take. Sam Mataroreva was not merely boyish in ap- pearance and manner, he was a boy in all things. She should simply treat him as such. Her expectations had been too, too high. How she had permitted herself to regard him as an admirable man she now could not imagine.

Enough. She would relax with some tapes the re- mainder of the afternoon, dine with the others as pleasantly as possible, and have a good night's rest.

There was still much of the town to be seen, for who knew wherein might lie the critical clue? Perhaps she might even seek out that girl and ask her to show them about Vai'oire. Yes, that was it, show her how a mature woman can act. Let the other be the nerv- ous one, awaiting the explosion that would never come.

For now a nap would be a good idea. She would have no trouble falling asleep. The autochef could dispense things other than food. At the last moment she changed her mind. Naturally induced tranquility was better than drugged.

She lay back down on the bed, rolled over, and darkened the window and floor. The anger had sub- sided, the anxiety vanished. But though the room was now as dark as night, she could not shut out the af- terimage burned into her retinas of two bodies en- twined on a floor.

Dinner proceeded with a forced amiability that fooled no one. Rachael knew something was wrong with her mother, but for once had the sense not to open her mouth. Mataroreva ate with an unusual single-mindedness, letting Rachael and Merced carry the conversation.

After dessert he brightened, however, at a thought.

”Listen, there's going to be a spectacle on the reef to-

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CACHALOT.

night. The townsfolk are used to it already, so we ought to have the entire reef to ourselves.”

”What kind of spectacle?” Cora displayed more in- terest than she felt.

”Well,” Mataroreva hurried on, believing that he had genuinely aroused her interest, ”it involves a na- tive cephalopod. It doesn't look like a squid or s.e.xa- thorp. More like a ball with tentacles.”

He withdrew a sketch film from his pareu pockets, then a stylus. The instrument was wielded with sur- prising delicacy by his thick digits. The creature he outlined was actually more ellipsoidal than spherical.

Four squat fins protruded from one end while a ring of six or seven tiny eyes...o...b..ted the other. Each eye had a long tentacle set just above it. A single round mouth rested in the center of the ocular ring.