When Blade went to bed, the moon was out. He could tell this from the spot of pale light on the floor of his cubicle. Like the other farmhands, Blade lived underground, in what he suspected was once an Oltec bomb shelter. Now it was divided into cubicles by brick and timber walls. Most of the farmhands slept two to a cubicle, but no one wanted to share a cubicle with a half-wit. Once they'd seen that Blade could take care of himself, they let him have a cubicle alone.

Over the centuries, the ground and the rubble of the building on the surface shifted. A shaft opened from the surface into Blade's cubicle. It would be a tight squeeze, but if he had to leave in a hurry he now had a line of retreat.

This let him sleep more easily at night. Not that he needed much help, after twelve hours' work and a heavy meal washed down with beer. The bed was crude but comfortable, too. Monitor Bekror was clearly the sort of master who believed that happy workers did their best. He was not one of the tyrannical masters who could drive their workers to the desperate step of running off to the Tribes.

The Tribes of mutants were much weaker now than the first time Blade came to Kaldak. Both of the great cities had expanded their lands. Where the cities ruled, the Tribesmen either died in the wars of conquest or fled beyond the reach of the cities.

Even then they still suffered losses. Sometimes they fought among themselves, larger Tribes with Newtec weapons devouring smaller ones. They exterminated the last pitiful bands of really serious mutants left over from the war. They even lost people raiding the outposts of the cities. Monitor Bekror's home had once been such an outpost of Kaldak, but it hadn't been attacked in five years. The lands of the Tribes were no more than two days' march away, but they seemed to have lost the will to fight.

Blade drank half the water in the jug on the floor by his bed and combed his hair with a comb of wire teeth set in a bone handle. The handle was carved into the form of a serpent. The craftsmen of Kaldak hadn't lost their habit of making even small household objects beautiful.

Then he used the rest of the water to wash the dust and dinner scraps out of his beard. He'd started growing one as soon as he saw it was allowed. Right now it was just long enough to make him look like a tramp. However, another week and even the people who'd seen him on the first trip would have trouble recognizing him. Certainly nobody here was going to recognize him from the portrait of the Sky Master on the tapestry in Bekror's hall!

If it hadn't been for the Dimension X secret, Blade would have been hoping that some of his friends from the first trip were still alive. His solitary life didn't give him friends that often. Chief Peython would probably be dead now, but what about his son, Bairam?

And Kareena-although she'd probably be a grandmother now, gray-haired and considerably older than Blade. He would still have liked to see her again. She had the combination of intelligence, courage, beauty, and the ability to stick up for herself he'd hope for if he ever looked for a wife again. After his experience with Zoe, he was afraid to do that again until after he retired-and what his chances of living that long were, God only knew. Certainly no life insurance company would have called Blade a terribly good risk!

He lay down on the bed and pulled the blankets over himself. He was just stretching out when he noticed that the patch of moonlight on the floor was smaller than before. Had the moon gone behind a cloud? Then he noticed that the patch was changing both shape and size much too fast. Someone was crawling down the shaft from the surface.

Blade rolled over until he could get a good view of the ceiling. At the same time, he tried to look as if he were asleep or dozing. It would be out of character for him to be alert and ready for his visitor.

Now the moonlight was almost gone, and he could hear scrapings and scrabblings from overhead. A small pebble dropped out of the shaft and plopped into the water jug. Then a human figure followed it.

Blade wanted to laugh. Instead of a would-be assassin, perhaps Chyatho or someone sent by him, it was Sparra. She wore coveralls and her pistol, but had slung her boots around her neck. He recognized her at once, although she'd bound her dark hair under a scarf to keep off the dust of the shaft. She landed as lightly as a cat, looked around the room to make sure she was alone except for Blade, then undid the scarf. Her hair flowed down across her shoulders, framing her strong face. It shone glossy in the moonlight. Blade felt his breath quicken.

On her bare feet Sparra padded over to the bed and sat down cross-legged beside it. Then she lifted the blanket and ran her eyes down Blade's naked body. She seemed to like what she saw.

«Those scars-so many of them,» she murmured. «If you were not a soldier or a hunter of dangerous game, I would like to know what you were. Will I ever know? Will you ever know, you poor lost man? Well, even now I know one thing. You were not born witless. Your blood is sound. I wonder about your loins, though.»

Blade was also wondering about his loins; other parts of his body, too. He'd never before had to make love to a woman while pretending to be feebleminded. At least she didn't seem to expect him to be feeble-bodied as well. Perhaps if he-

«But you won't have had a woman for a long time, I suppose?» Sparra murmured. «No harm in that, but. .» She ran nimble fingers up and down Blade's shaft, until it started to quiver encouragingly. Then without bothering to undress she bent over and enveloped the sensitive flesh with her lips.

Sparra's lips were as skilled as her fingers. That was Blade's first thought. It was also his last coherent thought for quite a while, as the pleasure Sparra was giving him swallowed him up. He couldn't have gone on acting if twenty scientists were standing around, ready to take notes on anything he let slip about the Dimension X secret.

Fortunately Sparra wasn't taking notes. Her partner's obvious arousal and pleasure increased her own. After Blade's first few gasps she drew back and pulled off her coveralls. Under it she wore a sort of body stocking, with buttons down the front. Then she went back to work.

A little bit later, she saw Blade's fingers beginning to writhe, as if he wanted to reach out and touch. «I think you remember something,» she said, licking her lips. She unbuttoned the body stocking down to the waist. Blade reached out and cupped one of the full breasts. The dark nipple was already hard against his palm. He stroked it until Sparra threw her head back and gripped his wrist.

«Ah-n-n-no-too strong,» and a few other things which made even less sense. Blade kept his hand in place, and after a while she let him go on. Her breast felt too good in his hand, and maybe his hand felt too good on her breast. I wonder how long it's been since she was bedded?

Then Sparra twisted clear, and pulled her garment down so that she was bare to the waist. Now Blade could reach one breast while she bent over him again and put her lips to work. The breast he couldn't reach, she kept pressing against him. When he finally groaned with release, she drank him down.

Then Sparra drew back and stripped off the rest of her clothes. She stood in the patch of moonlight and turned slowly, knowing Blade's eyes were on her. He could tell she was no girl, and if he looked closely he could see the Stretch marks. Otherwise she was magnificent, with an all-over tan. Blade felt the beginnings of new arousal just looking at her.

She didn't wait for him, and he didn't expect her to. The lush triangle of dark hair between her thighs was already damp. She lay down on the narrow bed beside him, then rolled over on top of him. Her lips traced his eyebrows, then moved down over his cheeks and throat, while her hands chased each other over his ribs ….