Her grin was dangerous as she clambered on top of him. "Oh yes, to be sure, I like this. Way too much, in case you hadn't noticed. Two weeks with you, and I've turned into a complete slut." She pushed her breasts toward his face.

"Me too." He licked her nipples, urgent for the taste of them. Even after all this time he was still amazed at what she let him do. His own bravery in suggesting things was surprising, too. It was as if neither of them owned a single inhibition between them.

Roselyn lifted herself out of his immediate reach. "I've got to start doing some serious homestudy. Amethi's schools are ultra-fast-tracked compared to dear old Ireland's. If I'm not careful, I'm going to wind up the biggest dunce this planet has ever seen."

"You won't."

"Lawrence! I will. I'm serious now, I have got to get my homestudy done."

"Do it here," he said simply. "There's datapool access. You've got your bracelet pearl with you. No problem." His hand went up ready to fondle her breast.

Roselyn sat back, hands on hips, to stare down at him. "You know what'll happen if I come here to do it. You'll start cuddling up and then we'll wind up fucking, and I'll never get anything done. Do you want me to be a total idiot?"

"Of course not. But—" He couldn't bear the idea of not seeing her outside school. "I won't get fresh with you until you've finished your coursework. Promise. Just, please, come back here in the afternoons. Please?"

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

His finger drew a cross on his chest. "Absolutely."

"Okay then."

"Great!"

"But, we go to the house first. Do our homestudy there."

"Ow, what?"

"That's the deal. We work together in the lounge or somewhere. That way neither of us can lapse."

"Oh hell. All right"

"And afterward"—she leaned down again, taunting— "afterward, we can come back down here, and I'll show you how grateful I am."

"Will you?"

Her tongue licked around the outside of his lips at the same time he could feel her nipples brushing against his chest. The provocation was a beautiful torment.

"Oh yes," she whispered.

"How grateful is that, exactly?"

"So grateful, I won't be able to talk, my mouth will be too busy."

Lawrence's moan was almost a whimper, his eyes were half shut, pleasure blurring his vision with tears. Trepidation made him tremble as he felt her hand curl lovingly around his balls. Then—bastardFate—her other hand pinched the fat at the side of his belly, and he juddered free.

Her beautiful face was pouting with disappointment "What's the matter?"

"I don't like that," he grunted shamefully.

"You mean this?" Her hand reached for the band of fat again.

"Yes!" He shifted sharply out of her way. "There's no need to remind me I'm overweight."

Roselyn frowned. "You are your body, Lawrence. Just like me."

But your body is fantastic, he avoided saying. Where as mine... "I know. I keep meaning to get into better shape." He shut his mouth quickly, before anything else stupid could escape.

"Really?" Her face lit up, and she kissed him enthusiastically. "That would be such a turn-on for me."

CHAPTER SIX

Can-time—the period that ground forces can spend in transit before their combat performance will start to deteriorate—was a factor that military commanders had known about for centuries, building it in to all their tactical planning. According to Z-B's manual, their strategic security forces could endure a fifty-day trip in a starship without any noticeable decay in efficiency.

At forty days into the flight, which put them still three light-years from Thallspring, Lawrence was already wondering if any of Platoon 435NK9 would even get into the drop glider when the time came to go planetside. Whatever office-lurker expert had come up with the fifty-day rule had clearly never been in low-Earth orbit, let alone a starship.

Day forty-one, at 09:30 shiptime, the platoon were in the gym. With the rest of the day given over to nonphysical training and mission revision, it was the wrong time to be doing anything strenuous. The high they'd come out with would take hours to fade, leaving them hyped and edgy. But every platoon was scheduled for ninety minutes a day in one of the life support wheel's gym compartments, keeping their muscle and bone structure up to scratch. There was no getting out of it.

Even knowing it would screw with the rest of his day, Lawrence concentrated hard on his exercise regimen, pushing rhythmically against the stiff resistance of the handlebars. He was prone on one of the starship's standard apparatus benches, which used only springs or pistons to provide resistance. He tightened the resistance settings a couple of notches and carried on. Sweat began to build up on his forehead. His heart was pumping fast. That was the response he wanted, keeping every organ at its peak. He'd emphasized that enough times to the rest of them, and then led by example. Their Skin suits placed a lot of strain on a body, especially one that had been rotting away in an eighth of a gee for five weeks—something the can-time charts tended to overlook.

Glancing round the gym he could see Amersy and Hal Grabowski putting in a decent amount of effort; sweat was staining their scarlet T-shirts. Odel and Karl were getting away with the minimum, as always. Jones Johnson was barely moving his leg restraint, treating the session as some kind of personal rest period.

Typical, Lawrence thought: Jones was their platoon's mechanic, and damn good with just about any sort of machinery, including projectile weapons. Naturally, he assumed that ability compensated for his lack in others. Despite being a member for three campaigns, he never seemed to grasp that the platoon survived by teamwork, which started at the most basic level: physical adequacy.

Lawrence got up and casually threw a towel round his neck. He loped over to Jones and grasped the frame around the man's bench apparatus to give himself some leverage. His free hand slammed down on the leg restraint bars, forcing them to hinge round, and bending Jones's legs almost double.

"Fuck!" Jones yelled.

"You've just been ambushed. A mine has blown a wall down, pinning your legs under a shitload of stone, and three rebels with machetes are coming toward you. If you want to live, you've got to lift yourself free."

"Jesus fuck."

"Come on, you idle bastard, lift."