Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 37 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

“Hi,” he said.

The beautiful woman looked directly at him, beautiful only from the right side. Straight on, a fine mesh of old scars robbed her of her symmetry, but Pete decided he wasn’t too picky about that. Parts of her were still attractive. He considered carefully how best to vocalize this.

“Nice boobs,” he said seriously.

The woman looked up again and this time, Pete followed her gaze. There was a large man in a strange, black uniform coming back from the kitchen where he had just thoughtfully carried Pete’s groceries. The man was looking intently down at him and his eyes were the yellow of a cat’s.

“Hi,” said Pete.

“This is different. You did not speak unless I urged you to do so,” the man remarked. He pulled a narrow object, like a pen, from his belt and glared at it. His expression was sour, disgusted. “I am beginning to think this mixture needs reformulating.”

“Gosh, think so?” the woman asked wryly. “Believe me, it’s no fun on the other end, either.”

“I need to throw up,” Pete announced, and did.

“No fun at all,” the woman repeated, and rolled Pete onto his side.

“You did not do this until much later.”

“He’s bigger than I am. You know how it is. The bigger you are, the more the drugs have to spread out.”

“That’s called the body mass tolerance arc,” Pete supplied helpfully. “Also, I drink heavily so I may have some natural immunity to other depressants.”

The man came into the living room and crouched down, his yellow eyes as sharp as knives. He raised a hand full of claws to Pete’s face and snapped his fingers. “Human,” he said. “Pay attention.”

Pete focused with great effort on the tall man’s face. The fact that the man had just addressed him as ‘human’ did not entirely escape him, even in this pleasant fog. He looked down at the claws that tipped each of the man’s three fingers and then up again. There had been holes in the backs of the victims head at the theatre. Two little ones, and one big one, where the skull had actually been cracked open. The coroner thought it was some kind of levering pick, maybe something you could use to climb mountains, but now Pete really didn’t think so. “Was it you?” he asked politely.

“It was not. But I am seeking him, and I require your help.” The clawed hand slipped into the stranger’s jacket and came out with something infinitely familiar. A badge, with four stars and a broad loop connecting them, made of some faintly-greenish metal. “I am a man of law, like you. Tell me about the movie theater.”

Pete’s good mood didn’t break away, but with the memory of that horrible place, it did crack a little. “They were all dead,” he said. “Fifty-eight people. Fifty-eight. Someone broke their heads open. Someone took out pieces of their brains and…and squeezed it. They were everywhere, like…like…chewed up erasers off a whole pack of pencils.”

The big man nodded and put his badge away. “What do you know of the man who did it?” he asked.

“We think there were three of them,” Pete said.

The tall man frowned, his brows drawing together. “No,” he said. “There was only one.”

“No, there was three,” Pete argued mildly. “The ticket taker was upstairs playing Hide the Salami with the projectionist when it happened. She remembers selling tickets to three people just after eleven o’clock. She was able to describe them really well, so we’re sure they weren’t dead in the theater.”

The woman and the tall man exchanged glances. “Describe these people,” the man said at last.

“There was a man, a big man, she says,” Pete recalled. “In a long coat. She remembered because it was so hot outside. And there were two girls with him.”

That seemed to hit the tall man right between the eyes. He leaned back, staring. “Two?” he echoed.

“You’re not the only one getting hit by the weather,” the woman remarked.

The tall man cut his eyes at her, an arch twist to his smile. “And yet one should have sufficed, unless there is a extraordinary quality to E’Var that has been inexplicably omitted from his file.”

“What, obsessive girl-collecting?”

“I was thinking more of a physical abnormality.”

“Like what?” the girl asked.

In an effort to impress her with his savvy, Pete piped up, “He means like if the guy has two dicks,” and waggled his eyebrows at her.

There was a long pause while the two of them stared down at Pete. What the hell, he waggled his eyebrows at the man, too.

The man frowned.

“Well, maybe there was a two-fer sale when he picked them up.” The woman shrugged. “Or maybe there’s something wrong with one of them.”

“Then he would kill her before taking his second,” the tall man said reasonably. “The fact remains, he does not require both of them.” He looked back down at Pete. “Describe these females,” he said.

“Girl says they were both kind of punked out, but one of them in particular was easy to recognize. Purple hair. Pierced all over. Which was interesting to us,” he continued serenely, “because the boys found some purple hairs on a booth seat in Blue Ridge a couple days ago when that roadhouse got worked over.”

“I don’t suppose your witness saw which way they went or what kind of car they were driving,” the woman interjected.

Pete laughed. “I wish.”

“Well. So we know it was really him.” The woman glanced at the clock on Pete’s wall. “And that he’s had seven hours now to get away from us. I told you we should have kept going.”

“In what direction?” the man asked evenly, and while the woman was thinking that one over, he stood up and paced around Pete’s living room. “Let us return to your home,” he said finally.

“He’s getting away, Tagen!”

“No,” the man said. One talon on one foot tapped distractedly on the floor. “He is hunting. He is taking his time. And he is taking risks. I must think. I cannot believe he is moving aimlessly. There is something we have not seen…” The man rubbed at the bridge of his nose and growled, his brow furrowed with frustration. “And I cannot think what it could be. Take me home.”

“We’re not going to get this guy, are we?” Pete asked. The thought saddened him, in an off-hand sort of way.

“Anything is possible,” the man replied, and glanced at him. “But I think that you will not, and that is best. He is not of this world. Are you prepared to accept that?”

“Buddy,” Pete said sincerely, “no one is prepared to accept that.” He folded his hands complacently on his stomach and stared up at the ceiling. “Are you going to get him?” he asked.

“I mean to try.”

“That’s all anybody can ask for, pal. Good luck to you.” Pete closed his eyes. He heard footsteps receding from his house, but didn’t bother to watch them go. He drifted along towards an easy sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sue-Eye lay on her side in the motel bed, watching the sun climb up behind the cheap curtains. Kane’s arm was around her waist, the only comfort Sue-Eye had left. She hurt too much to sleep. She could still taste the sweaty, bitter slick of the dead man’s cum. She could still feel the ache of them thrusting in her ass. She saw their blood splash out every time she closed her eyes. She’d fallen on top of one of them. Kane had pushed her down into the hot, dead meat of it and made her thank him, and she’d done it, fighting bile on every word.

Why did he do that? After everything she’d done to help him! Why didn’t he want her yet? Why was it still Raven that got his hand on her back and love bites on the chin when all she did was lie there and fucking bleed?

Sue-Eye rolled over, curling into Kane’s chest miserably. He raised his arm until she settled and then lowered it again, his deep breaths resuming almost at once. It had to mean something. He tortured her because he had to torture someone, some guys were just like that, but he always slept with her afterwards. Maybe it was even a good thing, like the way young boys will skin the knees of little girls on the playground because they know no other way to say they liked them. Maybe.

In the second bed, Raven quietly pushed back the covers and sat up. Kane turned towards her at once, his claws flexing on Sue-Eye’s hip. He watched Raven go into the bathroom and then rolled onto his back, taking his hand from Sue-Eye to scratch sleepily at his stomach. He gave her a nudge and not a gentle one.

“Turn on the cool air,” he said, and stretched hugely as she got up.

No Heat for him today, which meant no fucking. He’d probably spend the whole day playing with his little bottles and his computer and ignoring her.

Sue-Eye switched on the A/C and stood in front of it, hugging herself against the chill it pushed out and staring at the curtains. Another day, gone. Raven wasn’t cramping anymore. She’d probably be off the rag in another day or two, and then what? She might be killed, but that thought couldn’t really climb very high on Sue-Eye’s mental ladder. She was more afraid of being abandoned when Raven’s red tide washed out. She’d have nothing then. No Pack, no nothing. She’d always considered herself a solo, a survivor apart from the rest of humanity, but she realized now she’d never actually been alone in her whole life. There had always been other outcasts for her to hide among, beg from, feed on. Having to start all over from nothing, here in the middle of nowhere, seemed an insurmountable task.

“All right,” Kane said mildly. “I’ll ask. What are you doing?”

“Standing.” She couldn’t quite erase all the bitterness from her voice. She supposed if that pissed him off enough, he’d get up and sock her. That was fine. At least he’d be paying attention to her.

But he didn’t. He merely sat up and scooted himself back against the headboard of the bed, saying, “Bring me my pack, ichuta’a. I want a new look at you.”

She tried to ignore the uplifting swoop that tried to go through her at these words. Of course he’d want a look at her before he fucked her again. The man was damned careful when it came to dipping his wick. He’d probably even checked out that scrawny bitch in the woods.

Yeah, and don’t think she hadn’t noticed that little action. Just one more pony he’d ride instead of her. She’d more than half expected him to add the little bitch to the party. Kane’s Traveling Harem, come one, cum all.

Sue-Eye put the heavy pack in his waiting hands and he gestured for her to sit at his side. He drew blood from Sue-Eye’s arm and injected it into his computer, pressing his thumb over the slight incision he left and then licking at the smear it left on him while he waited for the results. It didn’t take long for the all-done chime, and Kane smiled.

“Still clean, ichuta’a.” He gave her arm a pat, his gaze going to the little bottles still in his pack, already distracted. “Ease your mind.”

“I couldn’t care less,” she said. She faced the wall ahead of her instead of him, feigning indifference but her emotional antennae tuned to the slightest shift of his mood. Sulking was a risky move, but at least she could do it with sincerity. “I wasn’t clean when you met me and it didn’t keep me up at nights.”

Kane grunted and settled back to tap at the keys of his computer. “You claimed to be grateful at the time,” he remarked. His voice was silk.

“I was. Fat lot of good it did me.”

He raised his eyes from the screen and stared at her for a long time without expression. Finally, a faint smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Poor ichuta’a,” he said softly. “Are you angry because Kane whored you out?”

Here were the first cracks in the ice under her feet. Sue-Eye walked with caution.

“No,” she said. “You can do whatever the hell you want with me.” She got up and reseated herself on Raven’s bed, now facing him but still looking away.

He watched her go, nothing but his eyes moving. “True.”

She wanted to go on from there, maybe point out that it had been her plan that netted him all the brain juice he was so damn pleased about, but the ice was too damned thin for that. She lay down and curled on her side, turning her back to him, and said nothing.

The A/C ground and rattled. The shower in the next room spattered on the tiles. Kane’s computer was perfectly silent. There was no other sound. Sue-Eye could feel the itch of his gaze between her shoulderblades.

Raven stepped naked and wet around the corner and called Kane’s name. “Are we leaving today?” she asked, presumably once she had his attention.

“I hadn’t planned to. Why?”

“Thought I’d wash my clothes if we were going to stay long enough to dry them.”

Kane’s answer was to stand up, shuck out of his pants, and toss them at her. “Ichuta’a,” he said, lying back down. “Yours, too.”

Scowling, Sue-Eye crawled out of her t-shirt and skirt and threw them at Raven. “No starch,” she said sullenly.

Raven snickered. “I’ll see what I can do.” She went back into the bathroom and closed the door.

God, she hated that bitch. Easy for the pony to be Little Miss Sunshine this morning. She hadn’t been the meat in a Drunken Bastard sandwich the night before. And yeah, sure, Kane had passed Raven out at Charlie’s, but just her mouth. Big fucking deal. Sue-Eye still felt like she had a piano leg up her ass.

Kane finally started typing again. “I should warn you that you’re starting to piss me off, ichuta’a,” he said evenly.

“I’m so sorry to hear that. What do you want me to do?” she asked, her tone just as cool as his.

“Go to sleep. Watch TV. Take a shower. Anything but what you’re doing, which is aiming your ugly mood right at me.” He took the sleeve out of the side of his computer, replaced it with a fresh one from his pack, and started emptying brain juice into it. “You seem to think you can do that and make me feel bad. Why in hell you’d want me in a bad mood, I couldn’t begin to guess, but I don’t think it’ll work, and even if it does, I’ll probably express that bad mood by carving an eye out of you.”

Sue-Eye stiffened and curled up a little tighter.

Raven reappeared wrapped in a towel, but only took a step toward the bed before Kane said, “Practice your letters, Raven.” Sue-Eye was left alone.

In all this time (and it felt like forever, even though Sue-Eye knew it had only been a few days), Kane had never once said that he would let her go when he was done using her. He’d said it to Cammy, and he’d done good by his promise, but he hadn’t said it to Sue-Eye. The most he’d done was tell her how temporary her place at his side really was, that he’d only need her for as long as he couldn’t have Raven. After that…

She really thought she’d have him by now. He was a killer, and while it was not necessarily true that killers have no loyalty, what loyalty they had was damned little. And Raven, well, Raven was a lousy bitch, pure and simple. She was mouthy and she got freaked out too easy. Sure, she was cute, but cute didn’t last. It should be Sue-Eye who had the man’s mark on her arm, damn it!

These thoughts had a way of circling, and anger (always the easiest emotion for Sue-Eye to nurture) was soothing to her heart. She’d actually started to doze off when Kane suddenly said, “All right, come over here.”

Sue-Eye rolled toward him, her eyes narrowed, but it really was her he was looking at as he set his computer aside and not Raven. She stood up and moved warily from her bed to his, more than half-expecting a fist as soon as she came into his reach. But he crooked a claw at her instead, an invitation to join him. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, her spirits rising, waiting for his command.

“You said something the other day.” Kane pillowed his head with one arm and let the other rest on his stomach, seemingly relaxed and unconcerned with her as he watched Raven write. “You said you’d been a bitch longer than my Raven. You knew how to do it better. That’s not a use for that word that I’m familiar with, but I think I take your meaning. We have a word for that, too. Thal. I think of you as my thal…when I don’t think of you as my ichuta’a.” He smiled thinly and moved his eyes to her. They were utterly without humor.

Sue-Eye resisted the urge to shift. She held his gaze and waited.

“Do you know what I can do with thalan?” he asked.

“Anything you want,” she said.

“That’s right. I can feed them. I can eat them. I can fix them. I can break them. I can do anything I want.” His voice never raised. His words remained calm and evenly modulated. His black-fathomed gaze never dimmed. “I can even humor them. Put your mouth on me, thal.”

Sue-Eye blinked. This was the victory she’d wanted, but she didn’t trust the way in which he acceded. Hesitantly, she reached for him.

He lifted his fist and punched her in the side of her head, not hard, but hard enough. “Did I say use your hand?” he asked. “Put your mouth on me, thal. Raven, your letters.”

Sue-Eye glanced up in time to see Raven turn back to the table. She felt herself blush, newly uncomfortable. Her ear throbbing and hot from the blow, she bent, bracing her hands on either side of his hips, and licked at his flaccid cock, sucking him awkwardly up into her mouth. She tongued until he hardened, and triumph bloomed in her heart. She took him into her throat, bobbing up and down, slicking the full length of him as he grew.

“That’s enough. On your belly, thal.”

She lay flat as he got up, waiting tensely as he crossed behind her. His hands gripped her ankles. With one yank, he pulled her legs off the bed and let them drop. Her knees burned on the carpet. He put a hand on her ass and pushed her full against the mattress, then kept it there, stretching her cheek aside.

Oh Jesus, no.

“W-Wait!” Sue-Eye gasped.

He punched her in the other ear. It was his only answer. He fit the head of his massive cock to her ass and pushed, splitting her open one brutal inch after another. He went slow, drawing out every second of agony, and she screamed into the mattress and tore at the sheets.

“A thal,” Kane said, timing his words to his steady, crushing thrusts, “takes…what she’s…given…and is…grateful…it isn’t…death.”

“Th-thank you, Kane!” she choked, tears streaming from her eyes. He was killing her! He was killing her!

“A thal…seeks…to please…because…she knows…her place. Move, thal.”

Sue-Eye grit her teeth and pushed back at him, braying with pain.

“That’s it.” Kane stopped thrusting but left his hand on her back. “Steady now. Slow and steady. And stop making that noise.”

Sue-Eye pushed her face into the bedding to muffle herself and Kane’s huge hand cracked like iron on the sensitive small of her back.

“I said stop!” he snarled. “Not cover, but stop! Thalan who can’t follow simple commands are cut open and fed their own guts as they die!”

Sue-Eye bit down on her lips until blood spat out with every sobbing breath. She yanked and twisted at the blankets, all her instinctive movements for escape confined to her helpless hands as she made herself to move on him.

“That’s better.” Kane leaned back, bracing his weight on his hands. It forced her to sit him, to actually bounce and roll instead of just push a little back and forth, but she did it. Her jaw was locked so tight against screams that she was afraid every second of hearing bones crack. She fucked him through a red mist of pain, and when he growled at her to go faster, she obeyed without hesitation.

“Up, thal,” he said suddenly, and shoved her forward and off him. She sprawled facedown on the floor and Kane rose over her on his knees. She felt the hot rain of his cum falling on her back, but it was a distant thing. Every nerve in her entire body was an echo of the titanic agony in her bowels. She clawed at the carpet, trying to will her jaw to relax, and suddenly retched, spitting frothy bile between her grit teeth.

Kane laughed, stepping over her on his way to the bathroom. “That,” he said dryly, “isn’t very flattering at all, ichuta’a. Work on that. And Raven, mind your writing. Your leth is crooked.”

The door shut. The shower came on. Raven dropped her pen and jumped up, kneeling down to grip Sue-Eye’s shoulders.

“Fuck off!” Sue-Eye spat, swiping at her eyes.

Raven dropped her hands but didn’t retreat. “Come on,” she whispered. “We don’t have to fight all the time, do we? I know what he—”

“I said, fuck off!” Sue-Eye swung blindly, smacking the pony a pathetic if gratifyingly loud blow on the arm. “I’m not your fucking girlfriend!”

Raven stood up again, looking down at her. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“What way?” Sue-Eye challenged. “He’s fucking me while you’re doing homework. What way is that, huh?” She climbed to her feet, advancing angrily on Kane’s pony. “You think you’re such hot shit. Well, you’re not. You’re just the bitch he met first. But I’m the one who says she wants him. I’m the one he’s fucking even when he’s not in Heat. And I’m the one he’s spooning with at night. So don’t come all over playing so concerned. I see right through you, bitch. You’re on the way out!”

She flicked her fingers along her neck to her chin and out toward Raven’s face, a slow and contemptuous physical curse, and Raven backed up a step. “Go practice your penmanship,” she snarled, and turned her back.

She hobbled into the bathroom. Kane was in the shower. He glanced at her as she entered, but didn’t speak, not even when she stepped into the tub behind him. That was all right. He let her stay and that must mean something.

Every little thing meant something.

*

Coming down the long dirt path to Daria’s house had felt absurdly like homecoming to Tagen and he knew Daria was relieved as well. They’d been up all night, they should have gone directly to their own rooms to sleep. Instead, he had come in here to stare at his map and comfort the distressed and starving cat, and Daria had disappeared into the fathoms of the house to clean something. He didn’t stop her. She needed the comfort of her routine, of action. He understood that. More than anything, he’d like to take his weapon out to a shooting range and blow a few thousand targets into vapor.

At least the itch was purely mental. The day was cool, even overcast. The door had been open all night and the front room was nicely freshened for it. The cat had missed him. Deeply. It was soothing to Tagen’s soul to be greeted in so enthusiastic a manner. He solemnly offered up his body to be the cushion for Grendel’s enormous bulk, and massaged happy growls from the creature while he studied his map. He could comfortably sit thus, with cat under hand and the gentle noise of Daria at work somewhere in the background, until sleep claimed him.

But there was work to do and the words of the human lawman kept running through Tagen’s mind. E’Var and his two human females, responsible for fifty-eight deaths at a single hunt.

Two females. Why two?

One for Heat and one for…for what? Could not both females pilot the groundcar? And if not, why keep the human who could not pilot? If one listened to Daria, it was because he liked her. Tagen found that difficult to take seriously, but then, even the very worst men could have unanticipated moments of sentimentality. Uraktus, for example, had adopted a son. And died for him.

Enough. Regardless of E’Var’s reasons, what mattered now was not who he traveled with, but where he traveled to.

Tagen sat before the map of killings, staring down at indications of trees, rivers and mountains until the colors lost their meaning and all that remained were Daria’s markings. His eyes tracked restlessly along the path of his prisoner, up and down the roadways from murder to murder. There were gaps, he was sure of it . Bodies the humans had not found, killings attributed to other causes, but E’Var was here. He and his two human companions, sweeping back and forth across the hunting grounds of Earth, taking what they needed as often as they could.

Companions. That was too gentle a word. Accomplices. That, perhaps, was a better one. They were not E’Var’s prisoners, or at least, not fully. Who but a human could tell E’Var the nature of this ‘movie theatre’ and then direct him to one? They were helping him to hunt. They were driving him around in their own groundcar. They were feeding him, sheltering him.

What had he promised them in exchange? Perhaps life and nothing more. And perhaps Tagen was being too harsh with these unknown females. E’Var had surely not asked for aid. He had abducted them. Raped them. Killed others in front of their eyes. And they were human, smaller and weaker than Jotan, unaware that they were not alone in the universe until the moment that E’Var had stolen them. Tagen supposed he could not condemn them for surrendering to E’Var’s will. Not fairly, anyway. He really was a rotten officer.

Tagen touched a claw to the black circles marking E’Var’s killings. East and east and east on foot. Well east, in the groundcar. Then North and then all over. There were great blocks of time unaccounted for, but if there was a pattern here, it evaded Tagen’s eye.

He leaned back with a sigh, pulling Grendel high onto his chest and massaging the cat’s ears. From back in the bowels of the house, he could hear a muffled thump and rattle of Daria at work. It was a soothing sound, but the map before him kept catching his eye and tightening his claws. If only he knew how E’Var was guiding himself around Earth. The humans who accompanied him were navigating the groundcar, but it must be E’Var himself telling them where to go and Tagen couldn’t believe it was purely at random. That was just too stupid a way to hunt, and stupid hunters get caught a whole lot faster than it had taken Uraktus E’Var and his crew.

Tagen put the cat onto the floor and stood up before Grendel could leap back onto his lap. The animal gripped at his knee and wailed, but Tagen unhooked its tiny claws with a firm hand and stepped over it and out into the hall. He needed Daria’s eyes. Her insight, her Earther experience, her wisdom, her…just her.

Tagen followed the sounds of movement to the utility room and there found Daria rummaging through her tall shelves. She was dressed scantily, uncharacteristic for her but quite a pleasant surprise for him. Her legs were mostly bared beneath shortcut jeans and she had a white shirt tied just below her breasts to expose her midriff. Her long hair was shaped into a rope that hung well down her back and swayed like a Kevrian tail with every movement. Tagen leaned against the doorjamb and admired her, thinking how eerily beautiful it was to see light and shadow playing through all those uniquely-human curves.

He made no sound, of that he was sure, but his stare must have grown some weight of its own because she peeked over one shoulder and saw him, startling just a little before laughing selfconsciously.

“What are you doing, just standing there and looking at me?” she asked.

“Yes.” He smiled, and let her see him run his gaze down to her heels and back up, savoring every part of her. “A most worthwhile pursuit. And what are you doing?”

“I can’t find anything since we put this stuff away,” she said, as though apologizing. “I must have re-organized this place ten times—”

“At least.”

“—but I still can’t remember where I put everything. Oh!” She stepped off the little bucket she’d been using for a step-up and displayed her prize: a long-armed set of shears. “I need to prune the trees,” she said.

“Need you?” he sighed, but he came down into the room to join her. “Then I will help.”

“Aw, you don’t want to go out there and work,” she said, but she looked pleased. “Stay in here where it’s cool.”

“It is cool enough,” he replied, tossing his shoulder in that fine human shrug. “And I may as well occupy myself with other tasks. I have never found a way to accustom myself to leisure.”

“Me, neither.” She handed him the shears and opened the back door.

“I warn you, my motives are less than pure.” He arched a brow at her with mock seriousness as he stepped out beneath the sun’s cloud-smothered gaze. “I hope that when you see how I labor on your behalf, you will be desirous to mate with me.”

“It’s working.”

“Ah, well then. I shall work the harder.”

She made a point of showing him how to operate the shears she called ‘pruners’, and then took him to her garden, where a tall step-up already waited. She tried to explain what was to be done and Tagen let her, but he had done this before, if not on quite the same trees.

“It’s the wrong time of year for this, I would think,” he commented as he took his first cuts.

“I know. But it’s easiest to tell which branches are dead when there are leaves on them. In the winter, they all look dead.”

“Do they?”

“Don’t the trees on Jota drop their leaves when it gets cold?”

“Only a very few, toward the planet’s mid-point. I suppose our trees have accustomed themselves to cold over the past several billion years.”

“I guess your winters are a lot colder than ours, too.”

“I would not know, having never experienced one of Earth’s. One can only assume, since your summers are so hot for so long, your winters must be mild. In ancient times, Jota’s winter storms were of killing force.”

“Not anymore?” she asked. “What happened, global warming?”

“In a sense. Global climate control.”

“Gosh, that must be nice. Do you use it to keep your summers from getting too hot, too?”

“No,” he said, glancing wryly back at her. “For some unknowable reason, our government thinks it would be a good idea if we bred once in a while.” He paused to move the ladder to a new tree, and Daria followed after gathering the cut branches into a neat pile. “Humans don’t have a breeding season, do they?” he asked. He’d been wondering for some time.

“No, they—Hey, contractions! Way to go, Tagen!”

“Thank you. I have been studying very hard.”

“No, to answer your question, humans don’t have a breeding season,” she said, smiling. “I think a lot of babies get conceived in the winter, but that’s probably just because we get snowed in and get bored. Men are fertile all the time around here. And women become fertile once a month for about a week at a time.”

“Truly? So often? Do you know when you are fertile?”

“Not exactly, but we know right afterwards when we’re not, so we can kind of guess if we keep track.” Her face drained suddenly of color and she jerked back, her hands flying to her belly. “Oh God!”