“No!”

“You’re wasting your time, Shani,” Martha interjected tactlessly. “He’s not going to see it any way but his way.”

“I’m saying good-bye, Martha,” Shanelle snapped irritably. “Do you mind?”

“Hell, yes, I mind, but you’re going to do it anyway. Stubborn, just like your mother.”

Shanelle glared at the computer unit, but no other noise came out of it. When she glanced at Falon again, it was to find him actually smiling.

“You really do have it under control now, don’t you?” she said to him with some surprise.

He didn’t have to ask what she referred to. “You needed proof. Now you have it.”

“But without guarantees. I’m sorry, Falon, but I’m not going to take the risk again. However, I want you to know I regret that it didn’t work out between us, more than you can imagine. You were-are-really something.” She had resisted it all this while, but she finally let her eyes roam all over him for a final time-and ended up groaning, “Oh, Stars. Good-bye, Falon.”

“Shani?”

She wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t used her name for the first time. Still, she had her back to him now. She wouldn’t look at him again.

But she didn’t have to turn around to hear him promise, “Know that if there is a way to obtain you for my own, I will discover it-then will I destroy your computer.”

Shanelle continued to walk out of there, thanking the Stars and the Sha-Ka’ani Droda that the man didn’t know who she was.

“I like that!” Martha’s voice was about as indignant as it could get. “Destroy me? Me.‘ Doesn’t that idiot man know how expensive I am?”

“I doubt he cares,” Shanelle replied absently as she looked for Corth, found him sitting beneath a tree not too far away, and signaled him that she was leaving now.

“Destroy me!” Martha continued in the same tone. “I ought to-”

“You’ll leave him alone, Martha. But while we’re getting around to complaints, were you really listening in the whole time I was in that tent?”

“Sure was, doll.”

“Then why didn’t you do something sooner? My father’s order was explicit, as I recall.”

“Ah, but it dealt specifically with difficulties with warriors. You chose not to choose a warrior.”

“I see,” Shanelle said stiffly. “Punish the child for not following teacher’s advice.”

“Now don’t get huffy. You’re still in one piece, aren’t you?”

“That is definitely debatable. I fainted, for Stars’ sake! And it wasn’t in ecstasy!”

“Well, how was I to know it wasn’t from pleasure? There’s a fine emotional line between the two, you know. And besides, I don’t think your Falon would have appreciated having you disappear from under him at such a crucial moment, though I might have had a good laugh over it.”

“That’s right,” Shanelle snapped. “Why don’t we joke about it?”

Martha chuckled. “If you think I don’t know what’s really bothering you, think again. You aren’t mad at me, you’re furious at the fates that made that gorgeous man too rough for you to handle. But you should have seen what was going on inside him from my view. He really did blow a circuit over you, kiddo. Just before you fainted, he was about to combust. Could be he merely lost control.”

“Could be it can happen again.”

“Well, far be it from me to talk you into settling on a visitor. Maybe now you’ll get serious and start looking over the warriors.”

“Not today I won’t. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I feel like I got run over by a solidite paver.”

“I can Transfer you to a meditech and you’ll feel good as new.”

“No, thanks. I want to remember this feeling for a while so I don’t make mistakes like that again. And besides, you know you’re not supposed to use Transfer out here in the open unless it’s an emergency. The Sha-Ka’ani don’t like having people pop in and out of their midst. It reminds them too much that they’ve been discovered.”

“I don’t think that’s much in doubt today.” Shanelle could wish that wasn’t so, and that there was one visitor she hadn’t noticed at all. Falon Van’yer, she was afraid, was going to be very hard to forget.

Falon was dressed and halfway into a bottle of wine when his brother joined him. He had been pacing about the tent and did not stop now just because Jadell had arrived. He carried the bottle in his hand. And his stride bespoke the agitation swirling inside him.

Jadell Van’yer made himself comfortable and watched Falon for a while without comment. Jadell was the younger by a year, yet the brothers were much alike, the same in height and coloring, though Jadell’s blue eyes were of a darker hue and his face was softer, more open and expressive. Their personalities greatly differed, however. Falon was the more serious due to his responsibilities, while Jadell was more carefree and easily amused.

He was amused now. He knew his brother well, and it was not often he saw him like this. Only two things could be the cause: their unanticipated delay in this visitor-infested town, or the woman. Jadell would place his wager on the woman, especially after what he had witnessed of his brother’s behavior when he first noticed her.

He had never seen Falon so completely snared, to where everything else around him ceased to be. Jadell had stopped trying to speak to him. Falon simply did not hear. And then to watch him enter that arena, not for an acceptable reason, but merely to impress a woman.

That would not have been so unusual, except that Falon did not do such things. And he had already refused to participate in the competitions. Jadell, Tarren, and Deamon had all decided to amuse themselves by testing their skills against these Kan-is-Tran warriors, since they had nothing better to do while they were delayed here, but Falon had scorned the idea and rightly so. His abilities had been proved beyond question when he had become shodan of Ka’al and had accepted all challenges for the position. Nine opponents he had defeated in a single day, the most able men Ka’al had to offer, and without rest between each challenge. Little wonder no others had come forward during the remaining four risings of the challenge period.

Falon had to be furious with himself for his foolish behavior, now that the prompting of lust had been appeased and he was returned to normal. He must also be appalled that it had been a visitor whom he had lost his senses over. They were creatures lacking all morals and honor, good only to be scorned.

The bottle of wine was again at Falon’s lips, nearly empty now. Jadell decided it was time to tease him out of his self-condemnation.

Coming right to the point, Jadell said, “It is understandable why you chose her, Falon. It is difficult to ignore a woman wearing your own colors.”

Falon did not stop pacing to reply. “She wore the colors of a shodan. Any cloak but that one and I would have kept her.”

“Kept her?” Jadell sat up, surprised that he had so misinterpreted the problem. “You cannot be serious.”

Falon stopped, turned, and met his brother’s amazed look directly. “Can I not?”

Jadell was no longer the least bit amused. “But you hate visitors!” he burst out. “We live with the results of their perfidy in our own house. I do not understand why you even agreed to come here to speak with them. The debt was mine to repay, not yours.”

“But the request was made of me, not you. The man saved your life, Jadell. I would have given him anything he asked.”

“You should have found out what he would ask for before you made the offer,” Jadell grumbled.

“True, yet is the matter done, and one I can no longer even regret. Were we not here now at his request, I would never have met the woman.”

“So you have met her, and had her. What, then-”

“I did not have her-at least, the joining was not complete.”