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possess but to dominate Chiron. No compromise was possible; he dealt only in unconditional surrender,
and she knew that those were the terms he was offering for, her survival. Perhaps she had known it even
before she arrived.
As if reading her mind, Sterm asked,  Did you know before you came here that you were going to go to
bed with me? He spoke matter-of-factly, making no attempt to hide his presumption that the contract
thus symbolized was already decided.
 I...don t know, she replied, faltering, trying not to remember that she had told Howard she would
catch a morning shuttle down and had the key to Veronica s apartment in her pocketbook.
 Does he expect you tonight? Sterm inquired curiously, although Celia couldn t avoid a feeling that he
already knew the answer. She shook her head.  Where are you supposed to be?
 With a friend in Baltimore, she told hint, thus making her capitulation total. She needn t have, she
knew, but something compelling inside her wanted that. She knew also that it was Sterm s way of forcing
her to admit it to herself. The terms were now understood.
 Then there is no reason for us to allow unseemly haste to lower the quality of the evening, Sterm said,
sitting forward and reaching with a leisurely movement of his hand for the decanter.  A little time ripens
more than just fine cognac. Will you join me in a refill?
 Of course, Celia whispered and passed him her glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
 WE LL TAKE CARE of that. Colman turned his head and called in a louder voice,  Stanislau,
Young come over here and give me a hand with this crate. Rifles slung across their backs, Stanislau
and Young stepped away from the squad standing on the sidewalk and helped Colman to heave the crate
into the truck waiting to leave for the border checkpoint, while the Chironian who had been struggling to
lift it with his teenage son watched. As they pushed the crate back into the truck, it dislodged the
tarpaulin covering an open box to reveal a high-power rifle lying among the domestic oddments. The
Chironian saw it and lifted his head to look at Colman curiously. Colman threw the tarp back over the
box and turned away.
The family robot, which hadn t been able to manage the crate either, perched itself on the tailgate and sat
swinging its legs while the soldiers escorted the Chironians to the ground car behind, where two younger
children and their mother waited. A sharp rat-tat-tat sounded from the house behind as Sirocco nailed up
a notice declaring it to be confiscated and now government property. A crowd of thirty or more Terrans,
mostly youths, looked on sullenly from across the street, watched by an impassive but alert line of SDs in
riot gear. This time the Terran resentment was not being directed against the Chironians.
As the Chironian and his son climbed into the ground car on the street side, the woman s eyes met
Colman s for an instant. There was no malice in them.  I know, she said through the window.  You ve
got a job that you have to do for a little while longer. Don t worry about it. We can use the vacation.
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We ll be back. Colman managed the shadow of a grin. Seconds later the truck moved away, the robot
sitting in the rear, and the groundcar followed, two wistful young faces pressed against the rear window.
Angry murmurs were heard from the Terran civilians.
Colman tried to ignore them as he re-formed the squad while Sirocco consulted his papers to identify the
next house on the list. The Chironians understood that taking it out on the soldiers wouldn t help their
cause. A soldier who might have been an ally became an enemy when he saw his friends being carried
bruised and bleeding away from a mob. Everything the Chironians did was designed to subtract from
their enemies instead of add to them, and to whittle their opposition down to the hard core that lay at the
center, which was all they had any quarrel with. He could see it; Sirocco could see it, and the men could
see it. Why couldn t more of the Terrans see it too?
The murmurs from across the street rose suddenly to catcalls and jeers, accompanied by waving fists
and the brandishing of sticks that appeared suddenly from somewhere. Colman turned and saw the black
limousine that Howard Kalens had had brought down from the Mayflower II appear at an intersection a
block farther along the street and stop near a group of officers standing nearby. Major Thorpe detached
himself from the group and walked across. Colman could see Kalens s silver-haired figure talking to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]