Freedom's Ransom by Anne McCaffrey Page A

guilty for having forgotten the girl.
    â€œYes, but I think you’d better shower first and quickly. Zainal likes a wash in the evening, and we don’t have quite enough water for two long showers and the dishes, too. Come with me.” Kris paused only long enough to get a towel out of the cupboard and some shampoo—homemade though it was—from another cupboard before leading Floss to the shower room.
    â€œOh, if you knew how I’ve dreamed of this,” Floss murmured, stripping off the wraparound garment.
    â€œI’ll have to get you some clothes tomorrow but for now I have only a clean, spare jumpsuit, Floss.” Kris retrieved one from the closet as well as a spare leather belt, which the slender Floss might need around the much too ample waistband. “Nothing I own would fit you.”
    â€œYes’m,” Floss replied courteously and without a touch of sarcasm.
    Somehow, Floss contrived to give the utilitarian garment an air of style.
    â€œYou wouldn’t have a scarf or anything,” she asked as she reappeared in the main room. “It’s kind of bare up here,” and she touched her throat.
    Kris had never cared much about fashion but she could see that a scarf of some sort of color would reduce the uniform look and also draw attention to Floss’s bosom, which was certainly ample and pushing against the confines of the dull fabric. She wondered if there were any brassieres in the main commissary. With the ratio of four men to one woman, this nubile girl could be at risk. Maybe that was the real reason Floss had wanted to be released from the Masai encampment, where females were zealously guarded until a marriage had been arranged for them. Albeit Kris wouldn’t have agreed to her being wed to an elderly man, she didn’t want her to whore around Retreat either.
    Zainal’s appraisal of Floss, now clean with her blond hair gleaming in the last of the daylight coming in the window, only consolidated Kris’s observation.
    â€œDid the boys settle down?” Kris asked, opening a neutral topic.
    Zainal grinned. “Being allowed to sleep in a scout?” He gave an indulgent laugh. “They are excited but Clune said he’d listen for them. He’s more than able to handle them.”
    â€œClune is respected among his age-set with the Masai,” Floss said with a little smirk, as if she denied that status. “But he’s worked a lot with both Peran and Bazil and they will obey him. This elder stuff works with impressionable boys.” She shot Zainal an inquiring look.
    â€œIt is a Catteni attitude,” Zainal said in his language, and she inclined her head to show that she understood him.
    â€œI have put out an extra blanket for you, Floss,” Kris said, wanting to be private with Zainal. “It is much colder up here than it is in the south.”
    The girl yawned and stretched, an action that showed off her lithe body in the jumpsuit.
    â€œOh, I’ll survive,” she remarked and sauntered, again with swaying hips, over to the cots. “It’ll be such a relief to have a place to myself, with no one snoring or shouting in nightmares.” She gave Kris a smile and picked up the spare blanket, to flip it deftly across the bed. “Even a mattress. A great luxury, I assure you.”
    Somehow she managed to make slipping into the cot a voluptuous action. Zainal grinned and turned his back on her, walking toward their bedroom. Kris waved a good night and followed him.
    â€œWe’ll have trouble with that girl,” she murmured when she closed the door behind her.
    â€œTrouble’s name is Clune,” Zainal said. “He made it clear to me that he considers her, and her behavior, his business.”
    They were both tired, and although Zainal took a quick shower, muttering about lukewarm water, Kris wondered if Floss’s presence in their living room had something to do with her own