"But how—V

"I think we should wait a while," said Kadi. "If we build our house and get all our land cleared, and just live together, people are going to notice. Then, maybe if we show them how we do it—"

"Oh, no!" he groaned, nuzzling her hair and luxuriating in the feel of it. "Somehow I can't see us doing this in public. I'm certainly in no mood to give a lecture!"

Kadi had become intensely desirable again. The sun glinted on her bright hair, her blue eyes danced an invitation, she smelled deliciously sweet, and as he began to caress her once more, the very feel of her sent sparks of joy charging down his spine, wiping away the invisible scars Of a lifetime.

He was aware that he'd lost duoconsciousness again, but his other senses were enough to take him to the limits of ecstasy. The future would have to take care of itself. At this moment, he had Kadi, and that was enough for any man.

Gradually Rimon became aware that the thundering in his ears wasn't just his racing pulse. "Horses I Kadi, wake up!"

It was close to sundown. They scrambled to their feet, stepping hastily into their garments as they turned to face a group of five riders approaching from the east. Rimon was relieved to make out five Simes. It wasn't a Gen raiding party.

The three men and two women reined in too close to where Rimon and Kadi stood, and then, without even reading the fields, Rimon knew they were being hazed.

The shortest of the three men asked, "Mind saying what you're doing here?"

"Does this land belong to you?" asked Rimon, feeling naked in such an exchange for the first time in his life. How can you tell what they mean if you can't zlin? No wonder Gens are so scared all the time.

"Don't belong to nobody," said one of the women. "What we asked is what you're doing here."

"Building a house."

The five of them burst out laughing. It was an ugly sound, but Rimon hadn't judged laughter by sound in so long, he had no idea what they meant. He put a protective arm about Kadi's waist, willing her not to be frightened.

"They're building a house, Risko, did you hear that? Farming, now I can understand that if you've a passel of Gens to feed till you can get 'em to market. But—"

"Quiet, Flieg." One of the women edged out the man's horse and confronted Rimon. "You get a good crop to sell, you come into town and see me. I run the holding Pen in these parts, do a little breedin' on the side. You got any Gens, you sell 'em to me. You got any grain, you sell to me to slop my Gens. I give a fair price. But I don't want no competition. Understood?"

She gave Kadi a penetrating look. "What happened to that one?"

"Nothing," said Rimon, grabbing innocence around him like a cloak. He wasn't sure who or what he was dealing with, but he knew that they had no chance against these Simes. This far from any real civilization, there was no law but the whip, and each of these under-fed but strong Simes was well armed. He even saw a dagger at the waist of one of the women, and shuddered. No self-respecting Sime would carry one of those.

"Well," said the lead woman, "if she doesn't recover, come see me. If I'm in a good mood, I may extend you credit. If not—well, I can always use workers."

The Simes whirled their horses and rode on into the west. Kadi turned into Rimon's arms, shaking but not crying. Somehow that made Rimon wonder all the more urgently if they'd chosen their neighbors,wisely.

"Rimon. Wake up, Rimon," Kadi said, poking him.

Rimon stirred and pulled her into his arms. She pushed away, saying, "Wake up! Someone's coming.' Can't you hear it?"

"Yeah," he said, immediately alert as he recognized the sound of hoofbeats, but even as he was reaching for his clothes, the rider came around the bend, and they saw that it was Del Erick. Rimon sank back under the blanket with Kadi.

Del pulled Lightning to a halt, jumped down, strode to the edge of their makeshift bed, and stared down at them. "You did it again," he said flatly.

"Yes—of course… but Del—" Rimon broke off in mid-sentence, propping himself up on one elbow to peer at his friend. Del had said he could never come back. Yet here he was.

Del followed the thought. "I—ah—I got to thinking about you and Kadi out here alone like this. What if– what if you'd—Kadi—I mean it wasn't like with Billy. You've loved Kadi all your life!"

Rimon put an arm around Kadi. "And I'll love her all the rest of my life, Del." There was an awkward silence until Rimon said, "Anyway, welcome back."

"Look, I—ah—I'm sorry I left like that. What happened wasn't your fault. I'd have come back sooner, only I found a town down the road, with a saloon and I got drunk on porstan. I don't remember much about the last three days, until I woke up this morning."

"You really thought we couldn't do it again?" asked Rimon.

"I'm glad I was wrong!" Del said. "And now you can throw me off your land if you want to!"

Kadi said, "Of course we're not going to throw you out, Del. We're glad you came back. Look, want some breakfast? We're starved—I am, anyway."

"And," said Rimon, "when Kadi's hungry, everybody's hungry!"

"Oh, I couldn't eat—" Del started, then reconsidered, looking at Kadi. "On second thought—" They laughed together, and then Del said thoughtfully, "I haven't eaten since—since before—" He broke off, and nobody wanted to finish the sentence as his eye strayed toward Billy's grave.

Kadi said, "Rimon, where's my jumpsuit? You're letting all the cold under the blankets!"

As she dressed, Del frowned at Rimon, zlinning him closely. "What's wrong, Rimon?"

"Huh? Nothing's wrong. Things have never been righter!"

"Your fields—there's something—Rimon, you're still hypo!"

Rimon shrugged. "I can't zlin right now, but it comes back in a day or so."

"I never heard of such a thing!"

"Neither did I," said Rimon. "Del, we're the first, Kadi and I. And you—"

"No! Oh no, Rimon, I'm never going through that again!"

"But… you came back."

"To help you if you were in trouble. Since you're not, I can at least give you the rest of the money I owe you."

"Money? Where did you get—?"

"I don't remember it all too clearly, but sometime in the last couple of days there was a race. I rode Lightning, and I won. I must have—I ended up with more money this morning than I had before I arrived in town!"

"I didn't know anyone could get that drunk on porstan!"

"Oh, I remember someone playing shiltpron, too… I think. Anyhow, I managed to blot out some. time. There are parts I wish I could remember, though. At some point, I saw some wild horses in the hills, and that gave me an idea. I think I can capture some mares and start a herd."

"You're not going home?" asked Rimon.

"No—your dad knew I always planned on getting my own place."

"Won't you stay with us, Del?" asked Kadi. "At least for a while?"

His warm brown eyes looked into hers. "I can't, Kadi. I can't live like you and Rimon, so I can't live with you. But there's more land around here, good land for breeding horses. I'm going to claim some of it and in a few years I'll have the best herd in the Territory!"

"We can at least be neighbors, then," she said.

"Friends," asserted Del with a smile.

They shared breakfast and made plans.

A few days later, Rimon and Kadi went with Del to help capture some of the horses he'd found; then Del helped them plant Kadi's kitchen garden. The soil was rich, a pleasure to work with. Why had no Simes settled here, even if it was near the border? Certainly such fertile land was worth the effort of defending it.

Perhaps, though, it was simply that no Simes interested in settling down had come this far before. The riders who had stopped to laugh at Rimon and Kadi had scoffed at the idea of farming—and Del had described the nearby town as hardly more than a few huts thrown up as saloons and gambling places to milk the money from the Simes who hunted Gens across the border.