Chaining the Lady by Piers Anthony Page B

travel-velocity of the shuttle, which itself was phasing in to the orbital velocity of the fleet; now there was a lot of inertia to counter. But Melody insisted on sitting up so that she could watch the screen. There was also a port, but it was useless; the ships were not visible to her untrained naked eye. So she braced the sagging mammaries with one forearm, clenched her jaw to keep it from drawing down painfully, and stayed with the screen. She had never seen a space fleet before, and never expected to see another; this was interesting.
    Beside her, a novice Solarian crew-member also watched. His head-hair was of reddish hue, and at the moment so were his eyes. Melody knew this was from the temporary stress of deceleration on the surface veins of the eyeballs; the normal color of the main part of the ball was white, even on brown or black-surface entities. But the contrast of red eyes and blue skin was momentarily striking.
    Though she probably looked much the same. Her host's skin, now that she thought about it, was a delicate blue. That was the native color of Outworld. Green , rather; Melody was not yet precise about color vision. It occurred to her, however, that this could be a handy coding system for species with a lot of skin surface, like this Solarian: a different color for each star.
    â€œIsn't that—something!” the man gasped. Although he had been aboard the shuttle when she mattermitted on, he had not seen the fleet before.
    â€œNew to you too?” Melody asked. This formal query when the answer was either known or irrelevant was one of the little Solarian niceties of interaction.
    â€œYes, I've never been to space before.” He, like she, spoke through clenched teeth, though his jawline still sagged somewhat.
    â€œNeither have I.” Now they had a common framework and she was surprised to discover that it did make her feel more at ease. She paused for several shallow but difficult breaths, aware that his eyes were following the labored movements of her chest. The sidewise torque did his eyeballs no good; he should have clomped down his eyelids for added support. But it seemed the male liked to see even the suggestion of female points of distinction, despite the concealment of cloth and discomfort of gravity. “Who are you?”
    He hesitated. “Call me March,” he said at last.
    There was a suppressed stress on it that did not seem to be entirely due to the deceleration. Was that his real name? But he could not be another transfer agent; his aura was merely galactic norm. Normals could not detect the feel of neighboring auras, but high-Kirlians could. Maybe he had even been drafted, and did not like being reminded of his happy past. Possibly he had been assigned to watch her, in case her own inexperience led to complications. Yet he had started the shuttle trip well before she had been summoned to Imperial Outworld. Could he have been a convict, released from the prison-colony planet of this system, now shunted to space service? No; he seemed too young, too innocent. She was inclined to trust him. To a reasonable extent. “Yael,” she said.
    â€œThey messaged me, that, you were coming,” he said in pieces. His power of speech was fading; this deceleration was an awful strain. “But they did not tell me”—a pause to catch up on stifled breathing–”how pretty you would be.”
    â€œHey, I like him!” Yael said.
    â€œThen you answer him,” Melody replied to her “It's your body he admires. Mine would sicken him.” She turned over control of the vocal apparatus.
    â€œThank you,” Yael said aloud. “You're not bad yourself. Are you from Outworld?” As though a green man could be from anywhere else.
    â€œThe deepest backvines,” March admitted.
    â€œMe too.” They exchanged smiles.
    Then the stiffening deceleration forced them both to be silent.
    Melody faded in and out, and became expanded or