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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] "Is it not true that no instruction needs to be given to your individuals for them to procreate?" "It is true. One look at a girl like Honeybloom and the rest follows naturally, if she's willing." He decided not to go into the subject of rape; she would never understand it. "But we have better vision than you do; we are visually stimulated." "We have better taste than you do," Tsopi said. "Follow me." And she began a slow circle. He rolled after her-and picked up a most sensual taste. She was laying down amour, and his host-body was electrified. His own glands responded with the masculine equivalent, which he knew she would pick up as she completed the circuit and covered his trail. Here was the true meaning of circularity! Around and around they went, like two unicycles on a circus track. Slowly they spiraled inward, the taste stimulation intensifying. To hell with duty, he thought; this was fun. Every taste she laid down was a tangible caress, intellectual as well as physical. Tsopi was a most attractive specimen of her kind to begin with, and this courtship of hers enhanced her allure considerably. Closer together they came, until they were revolving about a common center like twin planets, almost touching. And Flint broke away. "No," he said, though his whole body pulsed with desire for the culmination. "Not this way." She paused, disappointed. "You do not wish to expiate the debt?" "Not as a business transaction. Love is love, and my mission is my mission. I don't care to mix them." Actually it was more subtle than that, for he had mixed them in Capella System. But while it was all a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r right to enjoy an interaction initiated for political expedience, it was not right to make political expediency from an act of love. The act had to justify itself. He had come to like Tsopi too well to use her-and though she was quite willing to be so used, in fact almost insisted on it, he could not. His mission had become an albatross, destroying the validity of his personal interaction. Now he was enough of a Polarian to place that personal matter first-but not enough to work it out this way. Let no one ever say or think he had cultivated Tsopi only as a means to the end of his mission! "But this is the way it is done in our culture!" "Not in ours-and I am a Solarian." "The Big Wheel will not see you unless-" "Unless I compromise my personal ideals. I won't see him on that basis." It was as though he had struck her-and he had, figuratively. The Polarians had utmost respect for the rights of the individual, and he had told her his rights were being infringed, not facilitated, by her well-meaning action. "In trying to abate my debt with you, I have complicated it," she said. "It was wrong of me to impose on you. I will tell the Big Wheel the debt has been expiated." "There never was any debt!" he said. "We humans save the life of a friend as a matter of necessity. To fail to make that effort would be cowardice and perhaps murder. You helped me, I helped you; if there was any debt, it canceled out right there. That's the way it is, in my culture; I cannot claim otherwise." "I should have understood you better," she said. There was a muffled quality to her voice; perhaps the wood of the tree was damping it. They returned to the mattermitter but did not enter. "The Big Wheel must not see us," she explained. "He would immediately know that we have not-" "He would?" But he took her word for it. "Then how do-?" But already his host-memory was supplying the answer. The Polarians had refined the technology of micromattermission so that they could ship individual message capsules the size of a living cell, and move them along in a steady stream so that virtually instantaneous communication resulted. These capsules could carry a complete sonic and visual image, but generally the visual part was dispensed with as not worth the effort. In this case, their demeanor would probably betray their lack of expiation. Tsopi provided the palace identification code, and Flint spoke it into the message-coder. The Big Wheel responded immediately. "So you tweaked the tail of the Small Bear, eh?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |