and he was so overcome by the ivory and roses of Sula’s complexion glowing in the soft light of the club that the only reason he failed to fling himself on her and feast with his lips on that perfect countenance was that he was afraid he’d spoil it, that her beautiful trance would be broken….
He didn’t dare kiss her until after they’d left the club, until he felt her shiver in the chill of the night air and he could wrap her in the warmth of his arms and press her lips with his own.
“That waswonderful, ” she said after a moment. He felt a brief disappointment that she spoke of the derivoo and not his kiss.
“She’s one of the best,” Martinez said. He took her arm and walked with her down the street in the general direction of the funicular. The door of a bar opened and cast a warm glow on the pavement. Music thumped out from clubs.
“You’re cold. Would you like to stop in one of these places and take the chill off?”
“I’m not cold. I’m all right.” She forced a smile. “I don’t want to hear any other music tonight. It wouldn’t measure up.”
She turned to him, the color still high in her face. Her smile was brilliant. Martinez maneuvered her into the recessed doorway of a shop and took her in his arms and kissed her. For a moment he enjoyed the warmth of her breath on his cheek, the softness of her lips, the taste of a citrus-flavored soft drink on her mischievous tongue, and then he drew back. Sandama Twilight whirled in his senses. His heart was beating thickly, to a strange lurching rhythm, and his mind seemed to be lurching as well, incongruous thoughts and impressions flashing from its dim recesses. He forced it into the channel he wanted.
“You know,” he said, “I wasn’t joking when I said I wanted to join your family.”
Her smile was bemused. “I suppose I could arrange to adopt you. Though I hadn’t planned on being a mother quite so young.”
“There’s an easier way I could join,” Martinez said. “We could get married.”
Sula stared at him, pupils wide in her green eyes, and then an expression of suspicion crossed her face. “You’re not joking, are you, captain?”
“N-No.” Martinez fought the stammer that seemed to have suddenly possessed his tongue. “Absolutely not.”
Sula’s face was dazzling in its sudden brilliant splendor. Further words seemed suddenly unnecessary. His lips took their answer from hers.
A moment later, mind whirling, he was walking with her down the street, aware of the idiot’s grin on his face and the bloom of happiness in his chest.
“Your family really thinks this is all right?” Sula asked. Earlier in the evening he’d told her what had happened to Sempronia, banished for loving a man of insufficient rank.
“They’ll have plans for you,” Martinez said. “They’ll want to load you with a few million zeniths and buy you a showcase palace in the High City and a country estate where we can entertain.” He grinned. “And if youdon’t want any of that, you’ll have to bevery firm with them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And in return for this, I’ll have to do what exactly?”
“Pry open some doors in the High City that are otherwise closed to provincials.”
She gave a bemused shrug. “I’m much more a blunt instrument than I am a pry bar,” she said. “I could get the doors open, maybe, but I wouldn’t answer for what the folk on the other side might think about it.”
“Best let Roland work that out on his own.”
Sula gave a sudden bright laugh and swung herself like a child on the end of his arm, shoes skipping on the pavement. “So what happens next?”
“We could make the announcement tomorrow afternoon at the reception after Vipsania’s wedding.” He grinned at her. “That’ll serve her right for diverting the guests’ attention atmy party.” He swung her laughing on the end of his arm. “And before that, in the morning, we could pay our visit to the Peers’ Gene Bank and get the paperwork out of the way.”
She gave him a startled, half-believing look and dropped his hand. “Thewhat ?”
“Don’t worry. They just take a drop of blood.”
“Thewhat bank?” Her voice turned insistent.
“The Peers’ Gene Bank,” Martinez said. “Just to get all the bloodlines on record.”
She turned down the street, and he fell into step with her. He saw her face reflected in window glass, a wavy dark-eyed ghost. Skepticism invaded her face. “Is this strictly necessary?” she asked. “I never heard of this place.”
“I don’t suppose the Gene Bank advertises,” Martinez shrugged. “But then they don’t have to. It’s the law, at least here on Zanshaa, if you’re a Peer and want to marry. We have a gene bank on Laredo, too, though it’s not just for Peers.”
“There wasn’t anything like that on Spannan.” The planet, Martinez knew, where she’d been fostered after the execution of her parents.
“Some Peers care more about their bloodlines than others, I suppose,” Martinez said. “It’s a stupid old institution, but what can you do?”
They came to one of the Lower Town’s canals and turned left to the bridge they could see in the distance. The scent of the canal filled the air, iodine and decay.
Sula’s face hardened. “So what happens to the drop of blood once they draw it?”
“Nothing. It just goes into the record.”
“And who consults the record?”
A canal barge chugged by, its running lights shimmering on the dark water. The greasy wake slopped against the stone quay. Martinez raised his voice against the sound. “No one consults it, I imagine. Not unless there’s some question about the parentage of the children.” He slipped up behind her as they walked and wrapped her in his arms. He nuzzled close to Sula’s ear and said, “You’re not planning on having children by anyone but me, are you?”
He could feel surprising tension in her shoulders, and then the deliberate attempt at relaxation. “No one but you,” she said abstractly. She slowed her walk, then turned to him and gave him a quick kiss. “This is so sudden,” she said. “A few minutes ago I was just a woman with a medal and no job, and now—”
“Now you’re my partner for life,” he said, and was unable to restrain his grin.
She looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read. “You’re not getting carried away in some kind of stampede, are you? How many marriages are going on in your family, anyway?”
“You and I will make three. Or four, but I’m not sure Sempronia rightly counts, and I don’t know if she’s actually getting married or just threatening to.”
Her arms tautened around him like wire, and she pressed her cheek hard to his chest. Sandama Twilight floated through the air. “Three marriages at once,” she said. “Isn’t that unlucky?”
“It sounds lucky tome, ” Martinez said.
“I can hear your heart beating,” Sula murmured irrelevantly. He stroked her pale gold hair. A cold gust chilled him. Water slopped against the quay.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
There was a moment’s silence, and Martinez felt a wariness touch his nerves. She loosened her arms and looked up at him.
“Look,” she said. “This is all very sudden. I’m not used to the idea yet.”
He looked at her with the dizzying sensation that he had just stepped onto the edge of an abyss, and that a single misstep would send him spinning into the void.
“What,” he said carefully, “are you trying to tell me?”
She gave him a gentle kiss and offered a tentative smile. “Can’t we just go on as we are for a while?”
He looked at her. “We don’t have a lot of time. I want this to happen before…”
A door opened ahead of them, and music boomed out. Torminel in the brown uniforms of the civil service spilled into the doorway, then stood there calling to one another while the music shouted out around them, stringed instruments shrieking in a minor key. Sula bent her head, put her hands over her ears as discordant cymbals crashed.
“I need tothink, ” she insisted over the noise.
Sudden anger drew a hot slash across Martinez’s chest. He found himself raising his voice over the blaring
