Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 12

Blade awoke to find Riyannah floating in the air in front of him. She was holding onto the arm of his seat with one hand and rubbing his thigh with a soft cloth held in the other. He saw that he was now naked, while Riyannah was wearing a loose coverall with a closing strip from throat to groin.

«Lie still a little more, Richard. You shouldn't have gone to sleep without looking at that wound. I had to do more to get out the infection than I should have. I'm not a doctor, you know.»

He patted her free hand. «I know. But I seem to remember a certain lady who also fell asleep as if she'd been hit on the head.»

Riyannah pulled a small black tube from a pouch at her belt and sprayed something cool and scented on Blade's thigh. Then she let go of the seat and sat cross-legged in midair in front of him.

«I did sleep. The drugs I used to fight the cold and get ready to fly the ship wouldn't last forever. If I tried to go on, I'd be sick, starting with my stomach. Have you ever taken a long trip in a spaceship with no gravity after someone has been sick to their stomach?»

Blade considered the idea and nodded. «I see what you mean.» He sat up and reached out to pull Riyannah toward him, but she kicked herself just out of reach. «No, Richard. Right now I think we eat.»

Blade realized that his stomach was too empty even to rumble and nodded again. «Yes. I'm going to enjoy something beside Targan emergency rations and half-raw meat for a change.»

Riyannah set an alarm so they'd be warned if the radar set picked up any other ships. «I think we're too far out for the Targans and too close to Targa for any of our own. But you never know.»

«What will we do without the power plant if a Targan ship does find us?»

«We should be moving too fast for it to even hit us. We can also shoot back a few times with the hurd-ray, using the emergency power cells. After that-«She shrugged, a motion which made her body twist sensuously in the zero gravity.

The meal was dried and frozen foods mixed with hot water or thawed in a small infrared oven. There was a meat that tasted like a cross between turkey and ham, something like mashed potatoes with a delicious nutty flavor, and three kinds of vegetables which looked and tasted like nothing Blade had ever imagined. Dessert was a crunchy blue-fleshed fruit, soaked in something like highly spiced honey. Riyannah prepared enough food for six people but there were no leftovers.

After dinner Riyannah opened the refrigerator and brought out three frost-covered green bottles. With a little suction pump she filled two plastic bulbs from one of the bottles, shoved a straw into each one, and handed one to Blade.

The drink that came out when Blade squeezed the bulb looked like turpentine but tasted like a rich, well-aged sweet wine. It was certainly powerful. By the time Blade was sure he had the knack of drinking from the bulbs, he was beginning to feel it.

Riyannah emptied one bulb in a few minutes, went through a second nearly as fast, and started on a third. By the time she'd finished that third, her speech was slurred, she giggled, she floated on her back with arms and legs trailing loosely. Blade could have believed she was simply getting happily drunk to celebrate their escape if he hadn't seen her face when she thought he wasn't looking at her.

There were too many memories for Riyannah in this cabin, memories of the last time she'd been in it, bound for Targa with her comrades. Had she been in love with one of them? Certainly they'd been on their way to Targa with high hopes of an alliance with the underground and victory over Loyun Chard.

Now she was returning in a crippled ship, leaving her friends dead on Targa. She was returning with a man of another race who'd become friend, lover, and trusted comrade in battle, but how much was he really worth? She was also returning without an alliance with the underground and with news of the deadly threat of Dark Warrior. She'd failed and she wanted to forget both the failure and her dead friends.

Riyannah pushed the empty bottle away from her. It clinked against the ceiling and drifted off as she reached for another. Before she could open the new bottle, Blade was beside her. He pressed one hand gently into the small of her back to hold her against him. With the other hand he opened her coveralls. Then his lips were on her breasts, kissing, stroking, drawing her nipples out into hard points. She sighed and her arms locked around his back, her hands pressing into his buttocks. Blade's lips moved down to the flat stomach, she moaned, her legs wrapped around his hips.

By the time they slept again, Riyannah's skin was covered with a gleaming layer of sweat. She lolled bonelessly in the air, eyes closed and all the lines gone from her face.

Blade hoped they'd stay away.

They quickly established a regular cycle of eating, sleeping, lovemaking, housekeeping, and conversation. Each complete cycle they called a «day,» since they had no other way of telling the time in the eternal sunlight of outer space.

Blade found that making love in zero gravity was even more complicated than he'd expected. There were certainly advantages to it. They could fall asleep still locked together, then wake without muscles cramped or arms and legs fallen asleep. They could also make love without worrying about whose weight would be on whom. This was important, considering that Blade weighed nearly twice as much as Riyannah.

On the other hand, there were certain problems. Some of them were rather exotic. For example, how do you handle the normal muscular contractions of orgasm, which will send both partners into a slow cartwheel around the cabin until they bump into something?

Solving this and other problems was amusing, but also sometimes a bit exhausting. Once after they'd bumped their heads on the ceiling for the third time in one day, Blade raised a question.

«Maybe we'd better strap ourselves down the next time?»

Riyannah frowned. «I suppose we could,» she said thoughtfully. «But would that be as much fun?»

«You're right.»

They spent several hours each day talking of their home worlds. Blade described a Home Dimension Earth a little more advanced scientifically and a good deal less divided and warlike. This saved him the trouble and risk involved in making up everything as he went along.

The strain of spinning these tales sometimes gave Blade sleepless hours. He didn't want to lie to Riyannah. He was sure he wouldn't have to, if everything was up to the two of them. But neither of them was their own master. If he told Riyannah the truth, could he trust her not to tell other Kananites who might take advantage of the information? Probably not. Then what would happen to him if the Kananites decided they should try ripping the Dimension X secret out of him?

Blade had still another reason for leaving out some of the uglier details of Home Dimension Earth. Riyannah said that the Kananites had outlawed war a thousand years ago. What would she think of an account of World War II? She might understand why Blade was willing to help stop Loyun Chard, the Hitler of Targa. She might also think Blade came from a race of bloodthirsty maniacs. What would happen then?

On the tenth day they picked up a radio signal that Riyannah said came from a patrol ship. On the twelfth day they were able to reply and exchange messages. Two days after that a Menel-crewed patrol ship matched courses with them and took them aboard. There was no way to salvage their crippled ship, so she was allowed to continue on course. In time she would leave the Targan system entirely and become another derelict wandering endlessly through the freezing emptiness of interstellar space.

Three days more traveling brought them to the asteroid base.