The Sex Life of the Gods
Outside, in the corridor, Lors nodded to the guards and began walking
toward Thesa's quarters. In his mind, now that he again _had_ a whole
mind, was the feeling of being trapped, the feeling of being caught in a
mesh-like web that was about to strangle him.
Perhaps they could patch things up on Terra, but the two Terrans would
have to die, or at least one - merely to gain him another month, or two,
with Beth. Was it worth it? In the long run, was it practical? Perhaps
he didn't really love the Terran woman - maybe it was just infatuation,
or gratitude, or even the result of long abstinence. If that was the
case, it would be brutal for them to kill the one man who could make her
happy.
Then, on the other hand, suppose his love was genuine. If he really
loved her, the coming accident which he was to stage would never come to
pass. He knew himself too well to believe that. He would take Beth and
run, get away into another country, change his name, his features...
He smiled to himself and remembered his training on Mars, and the
ability of the spacemen to reach out with a long arm to stop anything.
Anything! _We are the gods, he remembered. We are the gods who move with
lightning and speak in thunder. The Terrans are like so many cows that
need a watchful eye upon them at all times..._
Gods. Yes, in a manner of speaking, he decided that they were gods ...
but what did the book say about one of the minor gods being caught up
in a crazy thing like this? It had never happened before.
Without actually realizing it, he found himself standing at the door to
his own quarters. A single guard, armed with an auto-rifle stopped him
when he approached the door.
"I'm sorry, sir," the Spacer said. "You cannot enter here."
Danson was on the other side, he knew. Nicholas Danson, the artist, the
man with whom he had traded places. Suddenly he wanted to speak with the
man, find out about him. All at once, Danson was not just another Terran
- he was a man, with feelings, emotion...
"I'm Firstspacer Lors," he heard his voice rumble with authority. "I'd
like to speak with the Terran."
The guard stiffened. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know who you were."
"You will open the door, spacer?"
"Yes, sir, but you'd best leave your sidearm with me."
Lors nodded and pulled his auto-pistol from the black leather holster
and handed it to the guard who stuffed it into his belt. He reached back
and unlocked the door. As it swung open, Lors stepped inside.
The room was not large; it couldn't be very big on a starship, but it
was serviceable. There was a dresser and locker for uniforms, as well as
a visi-screen, a couch and a small bed. The Terran was lying on the bed,
reading.
Lors smiled at him. They could have been twins of the same mother, were
it not for the fact that Terran's disposition was different. He hadn't
shaved in a few days, and his black hair was tangled. Even the fatigue
uniform he wore was rumpled badly.
"Hello, Danson," Lors said, in English, and to his acute surprise, the
Terran answered in Lors' tongue.
"This mortal bids welcome to the great god, Lors," Danson said, with a
faint smirk.
"You speak my language?" Lors asked, puzzled.
"Why not? You speak mine. When they checked my brain, they found that I
had a rather high I.Q. Besides, I've read all your reading material and
decided that you have lousy taste. So I decided to learn the language,
and try to make conversation with my watch dogs."
"You are comfortable?"
Danson nodded. "Wonderful. First rate. Now that I know the language, I'm
going to get a deck of cards and teach my jailers how to play draw
poker. Then I'm going to win this starship and take it to Washington for
analysis."
"I didn't come here to jest."
Danson lit a cigarette and smiled thinly. "Why did you come here?"
"To see you. Are you well taken care of?"
"Certainly. They've hooked up my pint sized T.V. set so that I can look
at the earth. I've been to the Lunar Base ... terrific real estate. A
rock pile. Elaborate, but still a rock pile. I eat very well. I sleep
occasionally, except that I cannot get used to the total darkness, and I
have minor grievances ... like I want to get the hell out of here!" He
stood up suddenly and glared at Lors. "Am I happy! Am I content! Hell,
yes! I'm so goddam content I'm going stir crazy from it!
"I'm sick of the whole damned mess, Firstspacer Lors, plain downright
sick and..."
"Take it easy, Danson."
"Shut up! Shut your damned mouth because I'm not finished! Tell me, god,
have you ever been confined to a pint sized prison? You ever had your
brain picked clean by a flock of intellectual buzzards? You ever sat in
a room, with the walls closing in on you, listening to a couple of
blue-uniformed knotheads stand outside your door talking a babble of
language that sounded like Chinese, and not be able to speak to them?
Not be able to take a piss because you don't know how to find the toilet
and don't know how to ask where it is?
"Well, I have. I have and I'm up to my ears with this whole bit. I lie
here every night and dream about taking this so-called starship and
ramming it up your ass, plate by plate..."
Danson broke off suddenly, unable to continue his wild tirade. He sat
there on the edge of the bunk, his face a livid white, with the
cigarette dangling from his lips. His left eye closed against the bite
of the smoke and his jaws knotted as he stared at the wall.
"All finished," Lors demanded quietly.
Danson grunted. "Yeah. Yeah, ace, I'm all finished. In a way, I'm sorry
... but it felt good. I've wanted to get all that off my chest for a
long time."
"I can see your position, Danson," Lors told him. "I know what you've
been through, but I can't do anything about it. I follow orders."
Danson grinned. "Who're you trying to kid, pal. You got Commander Zark's
daughter eating out of the palm of your hand. Hell, I'll bet you pull
more strings around this ship than a puppeteer."
"I've underestimated you, Danson," Lors told him in a soft voice. "You
have an interesting mind. Quite a grasp."
Danson snorted again. "You guys aren't the sharpest people in the world.
I will give you a bit of advice, for free. You better either return me
to earth, or kill me. In another thirteen months, I'll figure out a way
to blow this hulk into a million pieces."
"I doubt that," Lors mused.
"Go ahead and doubt it, but you'd better keep the powder magazine under
double guard. And while you're at it, you better have the boys be
careful of what they say around me, since I know the lingo."
"How many Spacers have you talked to?" Lors asked. "How many of them
know how intelligent you are?"
Danson shrugged. "Why?"
"Just wondered."
Nick Danson looked at him narrowly. "You have something on your mind,
Lors?"
"Maybe. Right now, I'll keep it to myself. Until then, keep your mouth
shut about how smart you are. A weapon, Nick, is only useful when the
enemy doesn't know how well it will work. When they know, a
counter-weapon can be made." Lors moved to the door. "I'll be back,
probably," he said and went out into the corridor, leaving the Terran to
ponder on what he had said.
The guard snapped to attention, then handed Lors his auto-pistol. The
Firstspacer slipped it into the holster and snapped the flap. Then he
walked rapidly toward Firstspacer Thesa's quarters with the germ of an
idea filtering and dancing through his mind.
It wasn't a complete idea, but it certainly was a wild one. The chances
of its working were about a thousand to one, but if it did things might
work out.
He hoped so.
He reached the door of Thesa's quarters and jerked it open. His fingers
fumbled for the button, inside the door, that would switch on the
lighted walls. When he found it, he closed the door and flicked on the
lights. He stared at the inside of the room in amazement.
She was lying on the bed, with her golden hair falling about her
shoulders like a waterfall of sunlight, and her lips pulled back over
white teeth to smile at him. But he was stunned, frozen to the spot.
"Jela," he whispered, in shock.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For a moment, she didn't move and, in the silence, he allowed his eyes
to finger her.
Beneath the blond tumble of hair, her blue eyes watched him, her lips
toying with a bemused smile. She wore the odd toga-like dress that had
recently become popular among the women on the home planet; it was a
white color, trimmed in a pale blue that went well with her hair, but
Lors hardly noticed it. His eyes were fixed upon the twin lift of her
breasts as they fought against the material.
She swung her long, curved legs to the floor, a momentary flash of
creamy flesh showing at her thighs, and stood up. She came to him on
slippered feet, whispering against the floor and stopped before him, her
breasts faintly brushing the material of his tunic.
"I thought I'd never get here, darling." Her voice was soft and warm.
Sex, love and desire hung in her words; the emotion dripped from her
voice the way water falls from the roof of a cave, giving her tone a
throaty huskiness that started the blood racing in his veins. Yet she
held herself back, restrained her urge to fling herself into his arms.
It was a game with her, one she had always played. "Did you miss me?"
She asked.
He nodded, unable to trust his voice. It would crack, he knew it would.
He would be able to say nothing beyond a mere croak. Too much was
happening, too damned fast. It was almost impossible to keep up with it
all.
"Well," she mused. "I realize you're stunned to see me, but you ought to
kiss me. At least, that."
He reached out his hands slowly, feeling the tremble begin in his
fingers as he closed them over the softness of her upper arms. A drum
began pounding in his temples as he touched her, a flashflood ripped
through his veins, and his stomach churned like a storm. He brought his
mouth down slowly against hers and felt her lithe body flatten up
against him the way a candle melts against a sheet of hot metal.
Her mouth was a pliant sweetness that shoved all his thoughts of Terra
into the back of his mind; her body trembled against the lean hardness
of his in a shiver of passion. The very touch of her tongue against his
lips beat aside all the problems that swirled about his muddled mind and
awakened the desire and need that had lain dormant within him all this
time.
"Darling," she breathed, when he had pulled his mouth from hers. "Oh,
Lors..."
"Shhh."
There was no need for talking, no sense in it at all. Her body mashed up
against him and he allowed his hands to smooth down over the material of
her dress, along the curve of her spine to the twin globes of her
buttocks. Her mouth lifted to his again, eager, demanding, while her
fingers dug through his tunic and into his flesh with a sharp need that
thrilled him.
Her hand reached behind him, her fingers finding the light button and
suddenly the room was sheathed in the soft cloak of darkness. Only the
tiny nightlight gleamed like a small, yellow eye in the center of the
ceiling. She spoke to him, without removing her lips, her breath hot and
demanding against his mouth.
"I don't want to wait any longer, darling," she panted, "not another
minute."
His arms slid around her, lifting her at the shoulders and the thighs to
carry her to the bed, but she twisted away from him, whirling off into a
darkened corner of the room where the yellow light could not touch. He
could hear the sigh of the toga-like robe as she whipped it away from
her soft flesh. Then she stood there, before him, framed in the alluring
gold of the circle of light.
Lors felt his breath suck inward at the sight of her, standing there