expected to take things quite this far.
Again Sol asked, and no grin, no matter how wry, could survive that question. Once he could explain away to himself, as something beyond his control. Repeating the act, though, would be committing himself to what he along with almost everyone in the Commonwealths thought of as disgusting.
And yet the coupling had not been the sordid sort of masturbation he imagined mating with a mare or ewes might be. Sol had been a partner in the act, not a mere uncomprehending receptacle for his lust.
Indeed, that he was being asked whether he wanted to go again said a good deal. In the end, the question, more than anything else, was what decided him 'All right,' he repeated. The sim could not have understood his words, but got the meaning from his tone.
Sol took him literally, and at once set about rousing his manhood. He thought that would be futile so soon after the first round, but his body, long deprived, proved him wrong. The sim mounted him again. Normal y he preferred riding to being ridden, but his leg made that not worth thinking about.
This time the joining was slower, less fervent. Quick left his eyes open. The sims in the clearing were paying hardly attention to him and Sol than they would have to a couple of their own kind, and the difference, he judged, was prurience, only curiosity about how he performed.
they saw he functioned much like them, they went to whatever they had been doing.
He stil did not look much at Sol, concentrating instead what he was feeling. As before, that was like in its knee to having a woman, but now he noticed the peripheral differences more. The hairiness of the sims body distracted him once or twice. Only later did he wonder if his relatively smooth skin was as strange to her.
He did notice the sims strength when she, in the middle coupling, he could not think of Sol as it, grasped him as they mated. He had never bedded a woman at least as strong he was.
Chat thought diverted Quick's attention again. He wondered how the males would react to his joining the band in this, most intimate sense. Some had partners who mated more or less steadily with them, but the dominant males of the hunting party, Martin and two or three others, So coupled with the unattached females of the band. Now trapper was part of that hierarchy. He wondered where he fit. He could not hunt. He could not even walk. If he was Plain importance, it would have to come through his tools. Anyway, he thought as sensation built toward release, it was too late to worry now.
But afterward he worked away on the bow and arrows ih more concentration than he had shown for several days. Nor could he stifle a twinge of alarm when Martin loomed over him, hands on hips, to inspect what he was up to. But the sim, as usual, was businesslike. Sticks flip Martin asked.
Henry Quick shrugged. It was always a good questioa After endless effort, he had figured out how to chip reasonably smal , reasonably sharp arrowheads, they were better points than he got by simply whittling away at the tip of tt arrow, at any rate. Now he was having trouble making the miserable arrows go straight.
The first ones he'd tried just spun crazily, which was good for making the sims laugh but not much else. Then he vaguely remembered that proper arrows had feathers at the back to make them fly true.
Getting feathers was a problem. The sims threw rocks well enough to bring down a lot of birds. But getting the feathers to stay on the arrow was a whole different question. The sims knew nothing about glue, and Quick did not know how to make it either So far his best solution was cutting thin grooves in the shafts and sliding the feathers into them.
That was not nearly good enough.
Once in a while, one of his arrows would fly straight and thwack into a tree with enough force to stick, which made the sims hoot appreciatively.
More often, a feather would come out in flight, which made the arrow behave as if it were trying to dodge its target instead of hitting it.
Sol continued to help in his bow-building efforts, and to care for him as she had been doing. She never understood much English besides her name, but he passed a lot of time talking first to her, then with her, in hand- talk. They did best at the purely pragmatic level.
She understood why the people back in the Commonwealths wanted the furs he had come to trap. Furs warm, she signed, running a hand over his relatively naked skin. No hair, need warm. she stroked he own red-brown hair to emphasize the contrast. Her hair had grown thicker, almost furry, as the season changed.
When Quick tried to explain that people coveted furs for their beauty as well as their warmth, he ran into a snare Sims did have an aestnet Wited to things they made themselves. A fur was just a fur.
did better getting across the idea of rarity. Begging for Ed was a simple kind of bargaining, and the sims had Od he would give them his strange and wonderful I tools in exchange for furs. In my band, he signed, many tools, few furs. Here many furs, few tools. You want nodded Why few furs there? she asked. Her hand-talk far more fluid than it had been when he first met her. She, and to a lesser extent the rest of the band, had learned from Quick a number of signs they had not people, he answered. Much hunting. I understood that. A band of sims that grew too large for the territory to support soon shrank again from starvation.
me parts of life in the
Commonwealths, railroads, boats, Quick did not even try to explain.
Getting as the idea of a house, a permanent place to live, was enough, as was describing domesticated plants and animals. To Sol, it al seemed a vision of unparalleled abundance. Warm place to sleep? she signed. Plenty to eat?
The trapper nodded, admitting it.
Why come here? Sol asked.
get furs, was the only answer Quick could put across.
wonderlust meant nothing to the sim; Sol's band knew perhaps twenty miles square as intimately as if; could, but nothing of the world beyond it. Explain that he often found the company of his fellow men exsessive was also next to impossible.
but, they fight? Sol asked.
