'But some debts can never be repaid. Your health, my lady!'
He drank with neat fastidiousness-if he had drunk at all. Another item of information to add to the rest but the increase made her all the more irritated. Why couldn't he fit into the normal pattern of masculine behavior? To desire her, yes, that in itself was a compliment, but also to display all the small crudities, the weaknesses and faults which made it so easy for her to be dominant. How should she handle him? How to manipulate his actions, to test and demand-yet how much more pleasant it would be to receive without the necessity of asking?
Dumarest looked at the glass she lowered. 'More wine?'
'No.' The container was empty. 'I mean yes,' she amended. 'But not here. We'll drink at home.'
Chapter Ten
It was a place filled with mirrors, the bedroom itself covered one floor, walls and ceiling with reflective panes, the wide bed reproduced endlessly in every direction. A chamber for exhibitionists and voyeurs. For lovers who needed to see and be seen; adding a new dimension of visual stimulus to an ancient art.
Lying on the bed, Dumarest looked at himself in the ceiling, the woman lying naked at his side. Her hair covered the pillow with a golden sheen, matched by the small glints from the soft down on her limbs and body. Her skin held the rich glow of studied care, the muscles beneath the fat firm with massage and exercise. A creature feline in her grace who now stretched and turned to look at him with warm, satiated eyes.
'Earl?'
'You are beautiful,' he said. 'Beautiful.'
She almost purred. 'You really think so?'
'Can there be any doubt?' He turned to meet her eyes, to smile into them, to touch gently the firm contours of her body. 'You do me more than honor, my lady.'
'You're strange,' she said as again he looked at the mirrored ceiling. 'Such odd terms of address. Have you known many highborn women? Loved them, even? Held them as you held me? Used them-Earl!'
Passion flowered, to turn into demanding flame, to fill the mirrors with writhing images. A time which was beyond measurement, terminating in a period of relative calm.
'A man,' she whispered. 'My darling, you are such a man.' Her fingers traced the scars on his torso, lingered on the wound above his ear, almost healed now with the aid of chemical magic, dropped again to the pattern on his chest. A woman entranced by the proximity of passion and pain, of death and desire. 'My man,' she said softly. 'All mine and such a wonderful asset. One I have been waiting for. A man I can love.'
For the moment, the hour, the day. For as long as the whim would last-but the mirrors had told their story; Dumarest knew she could love none other than herself. Even in the heights of their passion she had sought the mirrors of his eyes.
Now, reaching, she touched a button and as soft melody stirred the air with the throbbing susurration of muted drums she said, 'You have nothing to worry about, Earl. I want you to know that. As long as you are mine I will protect you.'
He knew she wasn't talking about a shared passion.
'Yours, my lady?'
'Still the caution, Earl?' She smiled then became serious. 'Didn't Tobol explain? To safeguard you from certain others you had to be registered as a resident of the sector. That binds you to the holding. I own the sector-you see?'
Facts he knew but it was as well to expose the threat if one existed.
'So you own me.'
'Not as a slave, Earl,' she said quickly. 'Never that. But I am responsible for you as you are to me. A matter of resident fee and other charges and in return you gain my protection and certain amenities-just details, Earl. Don't let them concern you.'
'But you can sell me?'
'Sell the holding,' she corrected. 'I can do that, yes, and you will, naturally, go with it. All residents do. A formality,' she added. 'A change of holder means almost nothing.'
To others, maybe, but they lacked his value. In the overhead mirror Dumarest saw the woman's face, the sudden alertness revealed in the tautness of skin, the tension of the eyes.
He said with deliberate casualness, 'Has anyone made you an offer for the holding?'
'The Maximus. A good offer but I refused it.' Her face had sharpened even more. 'Should I have?'
'Not if it made you a profit.' Dumarest reared to sit upright on the bed. 'Why did you refuse?'
'A whim.' She rose to sit beside him, legs crossed, the mane of her hair hanging like a curtain over her shoulders and breasts. 'I have no love for Kalova so why yield to his demands? In any case delay will make him the more eager to close a deal. Who knows? He may offer double again.' And then, with transparent motive, she added, 'Would it matter to you, Earl?'
'If you sold? No.'
A lie she chose not to question. The music died as she again touched the button, warm air wafting, heavy with pungent scents to fill the chamber with exotic perfumes. Leaning back she stared at the mirror, the twin reflections so close above.
'Life,' she mused. 'Why must it always be struggle? To spend it with someone special, to eat and drink and have a soft bed-how can there be more? Tell me, Earl, have you never wanted to settle down? To marry, rear sons, watch them grow? To belong to a family of note and walk with pride? To know real security. Real happiness?'
'A dream,' he said. 'Always there is the need to struggle. Always someone hungry for what you have. Willing to kill for it. Or are you saying that Sacaweena is a world different from the rest?'
'You should know, Earl. What brought you here anyway? A promise, you said. A name. The promise of what? Great wealth? The eggs you stole from Kalova?'
'Stole?'
'Of course. You raided his holding.' She shook her head in mock reproof at his ignorance. 'Did your friend mislead you? Didn't you know you were stealing from the Maximus? Perhaps that's why he's so eager to gain this special sector. You and what you stole and, without doubt, a bloody revenge. You and your friend both, but he looked to be dying, so it all falls on you.' Her hand reached up to caress his shoulder, golden hair clothing his arm with a mantle of silk. 'You see how much you need me, my darling?'
The threat exposed-if she sold it would cost him his life. Not from the Maximus, though she believed him to be the enemy, but from the cyber at his side, Zao who would stop at nothing to achieve the capture of himself and his secret.
His real worth-if the woman guessed it how safe would he be?
The answer lay in the mirrors all around; for her there could be only one person of any importance. As yet she had tried to manipulate him to learn what she could-the truth would condemn him.
How to escape the trap?
'Earl?' Her hand ceased its movement, hair whispering as she pulled away from his body. 'Is something wrong?'
'No. Of course not.'
'You sat so still-did my stupid words worry you?'
'I was thinking of what you said. About a wife and family and the security it could bring. Yet you are alone, uncle dead, father dead, mother?'
'Dead too.' She. sounded bitter. 'Suicide. When I was five. Emil-' Irritation edged her voice. 'He-well, never mind. That was twenty-five years ago.'
'Emil?'
'My elder brother. He was drowned on an inspection tour of undersea installations. So I'm all alone, Earl. But it isn't so bad-at least I haven't hungry dependents and stupid advisors to contend with and there are no Family Councils.' She forced brightness into her voice. 'And the rest? The name?'
He smiled to match her own expression. 'Name? Oh, what brought me to this world. Erce.' He watched her in the mirrors. 'I was told that used to be its name. Erce. You've heard of it?'
'Sacaweena was called that a long time ago. Before the Orres took over from the settlers they found here. A
