Get off the Unicorn
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Get off the Unicorn». Краткое содержание книги:
Contents:
Lady in the Tower.--A Meeting of Minds.--Daughter.--Dull Drums.--Changeling.--Weather on Welladay.--The Thorns of Barevi.--Horse From a Different Sea.--Great Canine Chorus.--Finder's Keeper.--A Proper Santa Claus.--The Smallest Dragonboy.--Apple.--Honeymoon.
Before she could draw back, his left hand cupped her breast and the other grabbed her tunic at the back, ripping the garment from her in one sharp, powerful jerk. The fingers of his right hand pulled her inexorably toward him.
"I saved your life…" she said in protest, her heart beating in panic.
"And I intend to reward you suitably."
"Not that…"
"A Catteni's honor is involved," he said, both hands exerting such pressure on her body that his caresses were painful.
With no effort at all he picked her up and deposited her on the bed. When she tried to wiggle away, he laid a hand, like a ton of bricks, on her chest. With the other, he stripped off his tunic, exposing his immense chest, each well-defined muscle rippling sinuously under slightly olive skin. The rest of his clothing followed.
"Oh no!" Chris cried in desperation. "You're… I can't!"
He glanced down at her wide, curving hips, and shrugged.
"Catteni have been enjoying your race since you were discovered," he reassured her calmly.
"Yes, but have we enjoyed it?"
She made a frantic attempt to evade him as he leaned down. But there was no escape from that implacable male. She arched her back, only to realize that she had made it much easier for him. She continued to struggle out of pride.
"You enjoy pain?" he asked, a puzzled frown on his face. His fingers tightened just that much more so that she felt she'd been caught in a vise and, with a shuddering moan she relaxed, too exhausted to offer even token resistance. "Now we will both enjoy," he said, and proceeded to prove his point.
Just as she was certain she would be split apart, apprehension was replaced by a surging emotion far more powerful and overwhelming. Somewhere, in that flood of intense relief and unexpected ecstasy, she heard him exclaiming, too, in loud surprise.
A harsh curse broke the silence that had settled in the hidden flitter. The warm, strong body of the Catteni stiffened. ,Chris glanced up at him in alarm. He brushed his hand warningly across her lips, all his attention focused in the direction of that swearing. The flitter door was still open, and both Chris and Mahomet heard the vrrh, vrrh as the thorn-bushes released their darts. There were loud cries of pain and further curses. Chris saw the Catteni's eyes dance with malicious amusement.
An authoritative voice uttered a rough command, and even Chris understood the "Get the hell out of here, nothing can pass this way."
She and Mahomet lay still, almost breathless, although the flitter was buried a good hundred yards from the edge of the thickets and could not possibly be seen. They waited until they heard no sound except the brief sighing of the wind.
With a low laugh, the Catteni finally withdrew from Chris, stretching leisurely, his joints popping and cracking with startling loudness.
"I'd heard there was a run on Terran women, and now I can see why. They use their heads as well as their tails."
Chris slapped at his hand, feeling like a flea attacking a Great Dane, but determined to make a gesture. He began to stroke her body, gently exploring it rather than attempting to arouse passion. He was curious, like a small intrigued boy.
"Yes, I can see why," he repeated with a chuckle. He lay back, glancing about the flitter. "This car has been gone five months. Why have you stayed so long alone?" he asked. "Are there others of you here?" He propped himself up on one huge elbow, looking suspiciously out the windows.
"Just me."
He relaxed and smiled. Sensing his receptivity, she dared ask him why he had been chased by his own people.
"Oh," and he shrugged negligently, "a tactical error. I was forced to kill their patrol leader. He had insulted the accomplishments of my squadron. And, as I was without allies, I withdrew."
"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day?"
"The next day," he corrected her, absently. "The next day?"
"Certainly. It is against the Catteni Law to continue a quarrel past the same hour of the following day. I have only to lie hidden," and he grinned at her, "until tomorrow at sun zenith and then I can return."
"Won't they be waiting for you?"
He shook his head violently. "Against the Law. Otherwise, we Catteni would quickly exterminate each other."
"You honestly mean to say that, if they can't find you before noon tomorrow, they have to give up?"
He nodded.
"Would that Law apply to slaves, too?"
He looked at her intently. "It can. And I shall personally see that in your case it does. However, while we're waiting for tomorrow…" And he reached purposefully for her.
Batting at his possessive hands, she squirmed to free herself.
"What? Was I not tender enough with you?" he asked, concern flitting across his face. "We Catteni pride ourselves that we are gentle with our women."
Chris could think of a hundred argumentative replies to that statement, and yet had to admit that he had been considerate, gentle, and that even at the height of his passion, he had not forgotten to adjust his strength. His hands were caressing her now, softly, and despite herself, she was responding to him, wanting more of that strong gentleness.
"It's just… well… you've had quite a day," she temporized, aware that her body was already conforming itself to his even as she protested, "you've been in a crash, half-frozen in icy water and…"
"Like the thom-bushes of Barevi," he said, smiling, "it takes the Catteni little time to rearm."
Horse from a Different Sea
Are we babes-in-the-woods? Or i should say, babes-in-space. I don't mean beating the Russians to a manned moonbase or setting up a space hospital or making Mars adaptable to our survival there to ease the population explosion here. Our problem is more basic than that: can man survive as Homo sapiens or a reasonable facsimile thereof. In that department, are we wetting our spacesuits!
I know what I'm talking about. Only I can't talk. Not yet, since my evidence hasn't come to light, so to speak. It's due soon and, as an ambulance chaser from way back, I've got to be there. I'd rather know right off what the competition makes out as.
We—that is, mankind, Earth-type—are in for one helluva jolt and this is one therapeutic pill that has no sugar coating—unless it's an LSD cube. I'm not the only one in the medical fraternity to realize that there's something queer in the conversion chamber. Some of us tumbled to it six months ago. The research is not the stuff of which AMA citations are made, but it will be handy when I-told-you-so time comes.
For me it started when my perennial maternity case phoned up and asked for an appointment.
"Buzzy-boy says I must be pregnant again," Liz Lattimore said with understandable grimness in her voice. She has six under six—well, one set of twins.
Buzz is a guy on a single track, business and monkey business. As a kind of moral justice, he has sympathetic reactions to each of Liz's pregnancies in the form of violent morning nausea. Oh yes, it happens. Liz may develop varicose veins, hemorrhoids, boils, hot flashes, heartburn, and high blood pressure during her gestations. Buzz gets the morning sickness. "How long since you missed a period, Liz?" I asked her.
"That's just it, Ted. This time he must be sympathetic to someone else because I came regular as clockwork last week."
"On a possible sixth pregnancy, you'd better see me."
She did. She wasn't pregnant.
"We had a fight a while ago," she told me after she'd dressed. "Buzz flounced out of the house like an injured Cub Scout. When he came home, he wore that merchandise-better-than-thou expression. Sometimes, Ted, it's a pure relief to me when Buzz cats around so I don't whinge."
She paused, about to add something more but hesitated. Even if she had voiced her suspicion then, I doubt it would've made much difference.
"Anything I can do, Liz?"