The Princess Zeena said, "I am bound too tightly. I hurt. Will you loose me, Blade?"

The big man smiled. "Can I trust you, Princess? You will not try to run away?"

The violet eyes met his gravely. "I will not run away. You have my word for it. Where could I run? We have come far and I am as lost as you may be."

He had intended to free her anyway. Free her and watch her closely to see what she would do. His plan, after all, depended on her attitude. He could have misread her eyes. A woman's eyes have been known to lie.

As he began to unknot the thongs around her ankles she added, very softly so that Pelops could not hear, "I do not think I want to run away, Blade. I am most curious about you. I see now that you spoke the truth and will not harm me, and I want to know about you. I have never seen such a man as you before - I did not know any such man existed - and I have many questions. And - " she glanced at the darkening swamp, "I would be afraid to venture there alone. There may be dangerous beasts and foul things that come out at night. No, Blade, I will not run away."

He left her chafing her wrists and ankles. He set about making the best camp he could. It was not much, yet better than he had expected. Pelops, much to Blade's surprise, fumbled about the lake edge until he found some sharp flints. The largest flint he used as a knife and dug the punk out of a fallen log; he managed to start a fire with smaller flints, and then set about gathering brush that was dry enough to burn, albeit very smokily. He found slender saplings and bent and tied them with reeds to form a crude lean-to over the cavern rocks.

The Princess Zeena watched all this in silence. Blade, pleased, slapped the little man on the shoulder. "You do well, Pelops. You also amaze me. I take back some of my churlish thoughts about you. But I don't suppose that even you can find us anything to eat? If I starve much longer my stomach will stop complaining and disappear."

Pelops smiled shyly. He had lost some of his fear and awe of the Princess, seeing her carried like a sack of grain on Blade's shoulder. And, a much more efficient leveler, watching her beg to be allowed to squat and make water within their view. Since Blade would not let her get out of his sight.

Blade, watching this with a secret smile, had known something of what little Pelops was thinking. A woman may be a Princess, she may be lovely and desirable and aloof, untouchable and out of sight, yet when she squats to piss or shit something happens. The gloss wears thin.

Zeena herself, though she complained at first, appeared to have immediately forgotten the incident.

Now Pelops, new confidence in his tone, said, "I will try to find us food, sire. I have heard of a lake called Patmos Tarn; most people fear it, but it is said to contain strange shelled fish that come out at night. It may be that I can find us food."

He nodded toward the lean-to, where the Princess Zeena sat and slapped at insects. "You trust her not to escape, sire?"

Blade grinned. "I trust no man. Nor woman. Go search for food, little man, and leave the Princess to me."

In more ways than one, Blade thought as he went back to the lean-to. If the initial part of his plan worked he would have made an ally and so increased his chances of survival in Sarma. He would also have a woman on his hands. Blade had no false modesty about his sexual prowess. Yet he wanted help, an ally and a friend, not an encumbrance. He shrugged his big shoulders and laughed at himself. There were worse fates.

Blade fed the fire with some of the drier brush. It crackled and sparked. The Princess Zeena watched him with cautious eyes. Blade sat staring at the fire in silence. He now had, as he had not had at first, total recall of Home Dimension. Where on his other trips into Dimension X his memory had been fogged - on his first trip to Alb it had been very bad - now it was clear and sharp. Credit Lord Leighton for that.

What were Lord L and J doing at the moment? Blade's lips creased in a wry smile. That was easy. J was worrying himself to the edge of a nervous breakdown; Lord L was working like a beaver and was happier than more normal, and less talented, men.

Blade, lost in his thoughts, firmed his mouth into a hard line. The stable near Salisbury was gone, total destruction, and only a few parts of bodies had been found. He recalled the strange shrapnel falling about him as he lay in the hedge. They would never bother him or MI6A again. As for his twin, the double, the pseudo Blade, that would have to wait until -

Soft fingers touched his biceps. She had moved close without a sound. Her fingers continued to stroke his great sleek muscles. She leaned to peer up into his eyes.

"Who are you, Blade? What are you? Why do you affect me so strangely?"

He put an arm about her and pulled her gently against his chest. He was no longer conscious of his nakedness. He knew now that what he had been thinking of as a necessary task was going to be a pleasure. Still necessary, still something that must be done if he could do it, but a pleasure. He began to lie, fluently and softly with the skill attained by three trips into the unknown.

He cradled her as gently as he might hold a child. He stroked her long golden hair and ran his fingers lightly down her spine. She shivered in his embrace.

"In my country," said Blade, "in the far land from which I come, and of which I will tell you when the time is right, we have a sign between men and woman. A sign of trust and faith, of friendship and love. Do you in Sarma have such a sign?"

Zeena nodded. Without hesitation she grasped his half limp penis in a firm hand. "We have such a sign," she murmured. "This is the sign. A woman touches a man so, and the man touches the woman so. It is the sign of all the things you mentioned. This is so in your land?"

Blade, being the man he was, handled it well enough. Her touch had made him instantly tumescent, ready for love, yet he only leaned down to kiss her.

"Not exactly," he explained. "This is what I meant. We do the other, as you do now, but we do this first. It is called kissing. Come, Zeena. Try it. If you do not like it you will not have to do it again."

She held fast to his penis. At first she shied away, pulled back, tried to disengage her lips. Blade persisted gently, holding her, pressing his mouth on hers until she began to respond. Her mouth was soft and warm and moist. Very gradually, at his skillful urging, it opened and he felt her teeth and the tip of her tongue. She began to breathe faster, the air sobbing through her nostrils. She pressed the cold metal of her breastplates against his chest. At last, reluctantly, she released her grip on him. Her arms crept up and around his brawny neck. He held the kiss for a long, long time and then put her gently away from him. He smiled down into the gentian eyes.

"Kissing," he said softly. "That is called kissing. Do you like it?"

She nodded. "It is very strange. I have never done it, or heard of it before, but I like it." Her red mouth crinkled in a smile. "But I like our way, too. I would not like to give it up. Can we not have both?"

Blade smiled and told her yes - they could certainly have both. They heard Pelops coming back and she moved away from Blade and put a finger to her lips.

"When he sleeps," she whispered. Blade was relieved to find the idea of privacy was not unknown in Sarma.

Pelops flung three large turtles on the ground near the fire.

These were his strange shelled fish. But how to get to the edible meat? The flint knives were not equal to the iron-hard shells. Blade solved that by simply tearing the shells off with his hands. They ate well enough of turtle steaks roasted on the ends of sharpened sticks.

Zeena retired into the brush for a few minutes. Blade let her go. He did not think she would run away now.

Pelops regarded the big man over the fire. His gaze wavered, then came back to face Blade's stare. He was clearly trying to muster his courage. Blade waited.

"The Princess Zeena - " Pelops began.

Blade nodded encouragement. "Yes, Pelops? What of her?"

Pelops swallowed hard. "She is a Princess, Blade. Daughter of Pphira serving her time as a cadet with the slave patrols so that she may one day learn to govern. All royal women must do this - learn the arts of war and administration, of justice, from the time they are little girls. I myself taught the Princess the art of eloquent speech by reciting day after day the famous speeches of past Queens."

Blade yawned. "You were well chosen for the task, Pelops. But what has this to do with me? And I warn you - no lectures! I am in no mood for them."

"Nor I," said Pelops. "I am a coward, as you know, and much too frightened for lectures. But I must warn you - commoners are forbidden by law to marry royalty. The penalty for so doing is a terrible one - the commoner is hurled alive into the flaming jaws of Bek-Tor."

Pelops made a hasty sign of the T and muttered something that Blade did not catch. He gulped hard and said, "I saw you. I came quietly with the shelled fish at first. When I saw what you were doing I made noise."

Blade regarded him with amusement. "You are a brave little man, Pelops. And you are also something of a fool - I have no thought of marrying Zeena. Why do you think of this?"

"But I saw," exclaimed Pelops. "I saw you touching each other. That is marriage, Blade, and it is forbidden between you."

Blade sighed. He got it now. Sex and marriage were one and the same thing to Pelops and, by extension, in all of Sarma.

He stood up, stretched tremendously, yawned, and patted Pelops on the head. "Don't worry about it, my small friend.

Go to bed. And sleep - do not pry. Think of the future - your own future. What you do not see you cannot be witness to. You understand me?"

Pelops stroked the baby fuzz on his skull. "I understand, sire. You command. I obey. But never forget that I warned you."

"You warned me," Blade said curtly. "Goodnight."