"Earl?"

"I'm thinking."

"Of us?"

Of Jumoke, and the expression he'd seen in the navigator's eyes on their return to the ship. Of the way the man had watched Dilys. His hurt when she had turned from him. His pain when she had praised what Dumarest had done.

"It's normal," she said quietly. "Ship-marriage, I mean. To last as long as either of us wants it to. No obligations."

"I know."

"You've had one before?"

"Yes." He looked at her and, in the moonglow, saw Lallia with her mane of ebon hair. Lallia, now long dead and long since dust. "Yes," he said again. "I've been ship-wed. But not again. Not with you."

"Am I so repulsive?"

"No." How could he explain? How to tell a woman in love that her love was not returned? How to be kind when he was being cruel? "Listen," he said, "and try to understand. You are a lovely woman and an intelligent one. Too intelligent to act the child and cry when you can't get your own way. And I think too much of you to lie. I like you, yes, but I don't want to marry you. Not even ship-marry you. I-"

He broke off as she rested her fingers against his lips. They were soft and held the scent of perfume, a heady fragrance which strengthened as she leaned forward to look into his eyes.

"No," she whispered. "Say no more. I understand. You are trying to save me from hurt, but when has pleasure ever been free of pain? You are kind, Earl, and gentle. And you care. My darling, you care!"

Chapter Five

On Ellge, they picked up a dancer, a woman of fading beauty with a heavily painted face, hands which held the likeness of claws, eyes the bleakness of glass. A creature long past her prime, now moving to worlds of lesser competition. Those with a cruder appreciation of her art, on which she could still earn a living and, perhaps, find a man to support her to the end of her days.

On Vhenga, they took on a dispenser of charms; a thin-faced man with an embroidered cloak and a box filled with strange nostrums and exotic ointments. The dancer stayed on, finding a kindred soul in the seller of charms, spending long hours huddled with him over the gaming table in the salon, where she played her cards as if they were pieces of her own flesh.

On Cheen, they were joined by two dour engineers, a time-served contract man from the mines and a minor historian from the Institute.

On Varge, they took on a professional dealer in items of death.

Like the dispenser of charms, he was tall, thin-faced, sparse in body, but where Fele Roster had crinkles in the corners of his eyes and a wry smile wreathing his lips, thin though they might be, Shan Threnond's face was a mask from which he looked with cynical indifference on a universe he had taken no part in making, and which he understood all too well.

A man of business, who wasted no time in setting up his trade in the salon, unwilling to waste a moment as the Entil hurtled through the void, wrapped in the humming, space-eating power of its Erhaft drive.

"Here we have a small item which must hold interest for all who value the safety of their skins," he murmured as, with deft hands, he set out his wares on the rich darkness of a velvet cloth. "In the shape of a ring, as you see, and the stone and mounting are of intrinsic value. But note, the stone is drilled and contains three darts, each of which can be fired by a simple contraction of the muscle. The stone can be removed and recharged so as to allow practice. Observe." He slipped the ring on a finger, aimed it at a scrap of board, lowered the appendage at the second joint. Those watching heard a barely audible spat and, on the board, a thing shrilled with vicious life. Almost immediately, it created an area of disintegration around it; a pit which dribbled a fine dust and from which, finally, it fell.

"The harmonics are destructive to all organic matter," said the dealer quietly. "The area affected is half as deep as it is wide. In flesh there are toxic side effects. The shock-impact is vast, the pain is great and, aimed at the throat, death is certain."

"Unless the dart is quickly removed?"

"Yes." Shan Threnond glanced at the dancer. "You know of these things, madam?"

She ignored the stilted courtesy. "I've seen them before. And, on Heldha, I saw a man whipped to the edge of death for owning such a thing."

"A backward world, my lady."

"A logical one." One of the engineers rasped a hand over his chin. "They don't like assassins."

"Does anyone?" Threnond lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "But a man must protect himself. Surely you would not deny anyone that right? And a woman must take elementary precautions against those who would do her harm. You, my lady, must have had experience of such dangers. At least, felt at times the need to reduce the pressure of an unwanted passion, shall we say? This will do exactly that." He lifted another item from his store. "A ring again-but what better place to carry a weapon than on a finger? There it can remain, always in clear view, apparently harmless, yet ready for immediate action should the need arise. This contains a pressurized drug which can be blasted into a face. Within two seconds, the recipient will be stunned and helpless long enough for the user to escape, change the situation, or summon aid."

"A whore's device." Fele Roster shook his head in distaste. "No decent woman would ever allow herself to become involved in the kind of situation you mention."

"You talk like a fool," snapped the dancer. "Decency has nothing to do with it. How much?"

"For the ring? In gold, with a genuine ruby, three hundred urus. With a synthetic gem, a hundred less. For paste and gilt, a hundred-the cost of the inner mechanism and charge must, of course, remain the same."

"I'll take a synthetic." The dancer pointed with a hooked finger. "That one. And another with the darts. How much for both?"

Later, lying beside him in the snug confines of his cabin, Dilys said, "Why did she buy such things, Earl? An old woman like that."

"She is afraid."

"And so arms herself? Against what?"

Against the terrors of the mind, which were often more frightening than those of reality. Against age itself, and imagined hunger. Against potential illness and poverty and neglect. Against threats she had known and dangers she had passed and could meet again. Like the scum they had met on Vult, and others who haunted the dark corners of primitive worlds.

Dilys said, after he'd explained, "Those rings won't give her much protection if she is attacked. She could miss, or the attacker could be armored, or there could be more than one. And the mere attempt to defend herself could anger them."

"So?"

She flushed, grasping his meaning, sensing his lack of sympathy with any who thought that way, or who imagined trouble could be avoided by the closing of eyes.

"Do you think I'm a coward, Earl?"

"No."

"But-?" She broke off as if waiting for an answer, and when none came, continued, "It's my size. Just because you're big, people think you must be hard and tough and aggressive, but it isn't like that at all. At least, not as far as I'm concerned. I hate violence, and always have. When I see it, I want to run away from it, and when I get mixed up in it, like on Vult, I-well, I just can't handle it. If that isn't being a coward, what is?"

"I don't know."

"Don't lie to me, Earl."

"I'm not." Dumarest turned to look at her in the soft, nacreous lighting. Moonglow touched her cheeks and shadowed her eyes, glimmered from the rich, full contours of her naked body, touched breasts and hips and the curve of thighs with creamy halations. "Cowardice is determined by other people on the basis of what they think someone else should have done in a particular situation. It's also a cheap term of abuse. What we're really talking about is survival. Sometimes, in order to survive, you have to kill. At other times, you have to run. If you try to kill and fail, then you aren't brave, you're dead. If you run and escape, you aren't a coward, you're alive."