hadn’t gone to Kalva yet, though. You were almost dead, and your cells are—well, they’re different. I had a hard time with you.” Then she bent closer, long yellow hair falling over his face. “Are you really an Earthman, Eli?”
“I’m as much from Earth as you are,” he mumbled, reaching for her.
She seemed puzzled at his efforts to kiss her, but made no protests until the greeny uttered something that sounded like teasing. Then she disengaged herself, running her hands over her chest. With a shock, he realized it was as flat as his own.
“What’s a breasts, Uncle Kleon?” she asked.
“A breast, or two breasts—they come in pairs,” the creature told her, grinning in amusement. “Read his mind a little deeper and you’ll find a lot of things about them, I’ll bet.” His English was as easy and idiomatic as hers, though less clearly pronounced.
For a moment, she stared down at Eli. Then she began giggling like a schoolgirl as she left the room.
Kleon came over to drop heavily onto the bed. “I’m not really her uncle,” he said. “I’m her teacher, more or less, until she reaches the temple. I’m one of the few Sayonese who were admitted to one of your extension schools, before Earth decided to give up any idea of raising our living standard and to keep us on our own world. But I don’t hate Earth. I got over anger and hating long ago, which is probably why I’m still alive.”
“But what about her?” Eli asked.
The old man grinned affectionately. “She’s a lot more interesting than I am, I’ll admit. She’s what she says—a goddess. And a good thing, too. You were already in death shock when she got here. Haven’t you ever heard of our virgin goddesses?”
Eli had heard some stories, but he hadn’t really believed them. There had been a girl born about a century before who looked like an Earth woman and who had some fantastic power to heal the sick and restore the maimed. But not
“That’s her father and mother saying good-bye to her again,” Kleon said casually, indicating the two natives.
Eli fainted. When he next regained consciousness, his body seemed to be completely recovered, though it could only have been a couple of hours later. He drank some of the hot cheese soup Kleon offered him, swung out of bed, and faced the old man. “All right, give it to me in detail,” he suggested.
Kleon seemed ready and willing to oblige, and this time Eli was less skeptical. But he still had doubts until that evening when a wailing procession came up the road. Some had skin-rot, others were crippled, a few were blind. Then’^as they spotted Meia, their wails turned to cries «6f delight, and they made as much of a rush to her as they could, spreading out in front of her. Apparently, from what Eli could pick up of their degraded dialect, they had arrived late at her home village and been told she’d left, moving to Kalva for her birthday. Now finding her here was like a reprieve from hell. They seemed to regard Eli as a friend from heaven for having the good sense to get pneumonia and delay her.
One by one she took care of them, sometimes talking to them, sometimes laying on her hands. Eli watched, trying to spot the gimmick, and finally gave up. Under her fingers, flesh that had begun to corrode away literally grew new skin. Bones knit. Cataracts vanished from eyes. And once, to get at a broken spine, she casually levitated a native from the ground, spun him over, and pressed her hands to his back. There was a chant going on, but nobody seemed surprised at her feat.
When they were finally all cared for and spread out among the huts of the village, she turned to Eli. “It’s harder than it looks,” she told him. “But it feels good, too. Now, tell me about Earth.”
The others had all gone, leaving him alone with her. He tried to satisfy her curiosity. But sometimes he wasn’t too clear about what he was saying. It wasn’t easy to get used to the idea that a pretty, innocent young girl could be half alien kangaroo, half a being close enough to divinity to work miracles.
“I think we’ll stay here a few days,” she decided abruptly. “I want to know more about Earth people and to study you. Maybe I can even go to Earth and cure people.”
It was bad enough trying to go to sleep while he knew she was lying naked in the next room—she’d insisted on having him quarter Kleon and herself. But the picture of her on Earth eventually blotted all that out. The planet administrator here was a neo-Blavatskyite of the worst kind, and he’d love nothing better than taking back a real goddess, law or no law. Once the senatorial families learned of what she could do, all hell would break loose. There’d be at least a dozen kidnaping attempts a month, and probably half as many palace revolutions to control her. She’d be worse than the Tarshian hypnotic lizard of the last century. Besides, there’d be trouble here at the idea of letting her go, and she’d probably get killed before she really saw Earth.
He tried to argue her out of the idea during the next few days, sometimes with the casual help of Kleon. But she was quite sure she could handle anything, and she’d made up her mind.
“Besides, nobody hurts a virgin goddess,” she told him, as if that had anything to do with his arguments. It did serve to throw him off, though.
“Why a virgin, anyhow?” he asked. “You have a head goddess you call the Mother-Principle, but then she incarnates only in virgins. Isn’t that contradictory? I suppose she’d blast you asunder if you lost that one virtue.”
“She’d leave, because she’s the All-Mother, not the One-Mother. Anyhow, I can’t really breed—I’m not naturally fertile with our men. Maybe, for children and if I loved a man, in your terms, I wouldn’t mind not being a goddess—but I’m not going to lose what I have for nothing.”
Her words jerked his own thoughts back to level, with the sharp realization that he’d begun thinking of her as human again. Damn it, she might look like a woman, but even their basic cell structure was different. It would be easier to breed with an Earth tree than to have children with her. Not one of his chromosomes would match with hers. And morally, no matter what other reasons were involved, sex was related to having children. Besides, he knew nothing about Sayonese anatomy. Under her skirt, she might not be human at all.
She giggled. “Eli, if you want me to take off my clothes, why don’t you ask? I don’t mind, really. Then you can see for yourself.”
“Go to hell!” he told her, and stomped off, determined to pack and leave at once. A man could stand just so much. Innocent she might be, but she knew she had him going and sBj& was enjoying it.
Still, he was tfierVton the fifth day, when he really should have been beginning the trip back to Kalva. Of course, they could have traveled together, but that would have been awkward. Instead of packing, he was walking beside her toward one of his favorite loafing spots at the top of a little hill.
They came to a little dip in the ground that cut off the wind and he threw down a blanket and dropped onto it. He hadn’t slept well the night before, and he intended to nap now; She’d brought along the single book Kleon had preserved from his schooling—a tissue edition of some of the books of Earth’s old Bible. She and Kleon must have memorized it, but they still pored over it regularly. He sprawled out and she snuggled down beside him. Probably deliberately, she was closer than she had to be. He could feel her breasts move against him as she breathed.
He sat up with a yelp, staring at her. Breasts? She’d been absolutely flat-chested when he first saw her! But she wasn’t now—not by a long ways.
“You wanted them, so I changed,” she said contentedly. “It’s about time you noticed! And I took away the green in my skin you didn’t like and made the line where I should have a pouch disappear, too. See?”
He saw, but at the moment he was more fascinated by what was there than by what wasn’t. If she were using padding, she was doing a darned good job of it.
“They’re real,” she told him. “I picked the ones in your mind you liked best. You can feel, if you don’t believe me. I don’t mind. After all, it won’t mean anything to—to me….”
But her breath caught as sharply as his, while his fingers slipped under the halter. He felt her tremble, and her nipples were lifting and eager for his hands.
For a minute, she bent to him, her lips parting and reaching for him. Then abruptly she tore away, staring at him with wide, startled eyes. For the first time, he saw fear on her face.
“No!” she whispered.
But it had to be. He saw it clearly now. Once she gave herself to him, she’d lose her dangerous powers and be just another girl. Maybe the change in her would be only a loss of faith hi herself, but that didn’t matter. It was
