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  They took their tea into the living room. There were two couches, several bookcases, a small TV and a large rack of CDs and audio ROMs, mostly jazz and old R&B. Jack hesitantly put his arm around her shoulder as she studied them. She leaned into the embrace, and selected an Oscar Peterson disk from the rack.

  "How about this?" she asked.

  "Perfect," he said, though she was pretty sure he would have answered the same way if she had selected Great Artillery Battles of World War II. She put the disk in the player and hit play. Nothing happened.

  "Tap it on the right side, about two thirds of the way towards the back," Jack instructed. Rhea did, and the warm tones of Peterson's piano filled the room.

  They retired to the couch, and Rhea put her arm around Jack, too. His manner was warm and relaxed, but she could feel his pulse racing. They sat for a while, sipping tea and listening to the smoky beat, then Rhea put her cup down and turned to Jack. "Kiss me, you fool," she whispered.

  "Not a problem," he replied slowly. He put his arms around her and drew her to him, gently, but with an urgency she hadn't expected. He surprised her again, kissing the hollow of her throat before settling on her lips. She relaxed and lured his tongue in, giving as good as she got, then following its retreat back into his mouth. He was a spectacular kisser. This is going to be great, she thought.

  There was a rap on the window. They ignored it, but it came again. Jack pulled away. "Jesus, what is it now?" he muttered. There was an arm dangling across the top of the front window—an ugly arm. Jack opened the front door and yelled out, "Well!?"

  "Sauce soy, please?" The high tones floated down from overhead. "Just little bit?"

  Jack strode into the kitchen and picked out several packets, opened the screen door and hurled them onto the roof. "Okay?" he demanded.

  "Okay."

  He slammed the door and looked at Rhea, breathing hard. She looked back steadily for a moment—then her control broke and she dissolved in laughter. Jack looked hurt for a second, then sheepish. Then he broke down too.

  Chapter 30

  When he was done laughing, Jack joined Rhea back on the couch. The gargoyle might have done him a favor, he decided, or given him one final chance to be a fool—or maybe to be smart. "Rhea," he said, "is this a good idea?" He sat straight, with his hands on his knees. "Remember, tomorrow morning I work for you."

  Rhea put her hands over his, and he felt his resolve waver. "Jack," she said seriously, "if you don't want this, tell me now. I'll go, and tomorrow we'll get back to work. That'll be the end of it."

  He didn't think he could stand a might have been like that, but he had to go the distance. "And if you don't go?" he said. "What will we do tomorrow then?"

  Rhea brought his hands to her lips and kissed them gently. She raised her eyes and held his while she traced her tongue down his lifeline. "You're sweet," she whispered, her breath drying the slight moisture, "but we're grownups. We'll deal with it. Still want me to go?"

  Like he wanted a date with Jesse Helms. "No," he said, "not in this lifetime." He pulled her hands to him for his own caress, then slowly drew each finger into his mouth for individual attention, paying homage to each ridge and cuticle. The stray thought, Mama never told me not to suck someone else's thumbs, drifted through the transom of his mind.

  When he was done, Rhea closed her arms around him and laid her head against his. "That was wonderful," she breathed into his ear, "but don't forget... I've got toes, too!" She nibbled at his earlobe, and Jack felt his breath catch.

  "I think I'll take the scenic route," he said and turned to cover her mouth with his. Rhea pushed him back into the couch and swung her leg over his to straddle him, sitting in his lap facing him. He was suddenly and wonderfully aware that at most four thin layers of cloth kept them from an NC17 rating, and from her vantage point, Rhea had to know it too.

  She broke their kiss and grinned down at him. "That peak's not in my atlas."

  "Then I'll have to make a new entry." He took the opportunity to unfasten the first few buttons of her blouse; she leaned back and wriggled her atlas distractingly, but he would not be diverted, and slowly the lush curves of her breasts came into view. He licked the hollow between them; it was already salty with her sweat. Rhea shivered, though he was sure she wasn't cold.

  She started undoing his shirt, working the buttons much more effectively than he had hers, yanking the shirttails from his trousers after she freed the last one. She ran her fingers through the sparse hair on his chest, then dropped her mouth to his nipples.

  "Hey," he said after a moment, "turnabout is fair play, you know." He pushed her back and undid her final button. He slid the blouse down her shoulders and stared, transfixed for the moment, at a fire-engine red microbra holding breasts that obviously didn't need the support. "My God," he said, "you wear that all day at work?"

  Rhea cupped her breasts. "Or less," she confirmed.

  "That's going to drive me crazy, knowing that," he said.

  "Good."

  He edged his hands under hers, holding the firm, lush curves of her, feeling the thrust of a nipple in each palm. Awkwardly, he freed the center clasp of the bra and drew the cups away.

  "Well?" Rhea said when he was silent for a second.

  "They say anything more than a mouthful is a waste," Jack said finally. "Here's to wretched excess!"

  He pulled her forward and traced an areola with his tongue. The nipple rose even higher and he took it into his mouth. He could feel the pulse of her blood racing through it, and he savored the beat of life.

  Rhea moaned softly into his ear, and started working his belt and zipper. She worked her hand inside his pants; then it was his turn to moan. Jack was trying to unfasten her skirt—a simple engineering problem normally—but his attention was distracted and he wasn't making any headway.

  "Let me," Rhea whispered. She leaned back, and Jack let go reluctantly. She worked magic with the clasp and zipper, and her skirt fell open across his lap. The panties she was almost wearing were fire-engine red too, except where they were darker with moisture. She raised up, and Jack eased them off. He was suddenly aware of what he hadn't noticed before on her arms and legs—Rhea had no body hair.

  He used the waistband elastic as a rubber band and shot the panties across the room; they landed on the television. "Best thing that's been on TV this year," he murmured.

  Rhea stood, and tossed the unfolded skirt aside. He drank her in from head to toe—every inch a wonder—and the old Mose Allison song came to him: "Your molecular structure—it really suits you fine!"

  Rhea grinned. "Thanks," she said. "Now it's your turn." She tugged on his trousers and Jack raised his hips obligingly. She took down the pants, and worked them over his feet. Getting his underwear off was more complicated than hers had been—a problem she solved finally by grabbing the source of the obstruction and moving it bodily above the waistband. She looked him up and down critically. Jack couldn't pretend to himself that she saw anything other than a pale, slightly overweight desk worker's body, but she winked, squeezed where she was still holding him and said, "You pass! Now how about that scenic route you promised me..."

  Jack set out to see the sights. First there was a bit of leisurely mountaineering in New England, and he was sorry to see the peaks fade from view, but going on maneuvers at the Norfolk Naval Station was almost as fun, and the flatlands of Mexico had their own charm. He flew over Central America, making a brief stop in Panama, and after some hard slogging, finally found himself off the coast of Tierra Del Fuego.

  Jack looked up at Rhea. She raised her head and grinned. It wasn't the kind of grin you brought home to mother. "Do that again," she said.

  He looked at her feet. He'd never really noticed them before. All the toes were straight and true, even the littlest ones. That was unusual. He nipped at one lightly, and earned an encouraging moan. He worked for a few more minutes, then decided it was time to head north to Panama again.

  As he started serious e
xcavation work at the canal, Rhea murmured, "You said turnabout was fair play—so... turn about."

  It took a bit of seismic activity and plate slippage, but in the end he was able to stay in the Canal Zone while Rhea headed for the North Pole—it had been a while since there was any volcanic activity there, but the magma was building.

  "A liggle hiter, yeth, yeth! Right there!" Rhea said.

  "Don' tak wif your mout full," Jack remonstrated. He didn't take his own advice too seriously, but shifted his attentions obligingly to the low promontory above the canal.

  The disaster, when it came, was nearly total. The pole erupted in volcanic fury, and earthquakes rocked Central America. In the end, the two survivors could only hold on to each other and ride it out.

  "Wow," Jack said, when he could speak again.

  Rhea rolled off of him, and landed catlike on the floor. "That was a good start," she said.

  Chapter 31

  Jack lay on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. They had made it to his bedroom, and done some more exploring, but right now he didn't think he would be able to move a muscle. Ever again. So he concentrated on studying the ceiling and grinning.

  He heard the shower stop in the bathroom, and moments later Rhea came through the bedroom door, fresh-scrubbed and towelless. The ceiling could wait, he decided. It was a rare moment, at least he hoped it was rare, when he could admire her without any tinge of lust, and appreciate fully life's ten-billion-year journey from the first protocell to evolution's ultimate culmination: the naked human female. Or at least this naked human female; he could overlook some of the journey's little detours like Bella Abzug and Rosanne Arnold.

  Rhea poked him in the ribs. "Scoot over," she said. He did, and she eased down into his outstretched arms.

  She was still damp and smelled faintly of sunshine and roses. Jack pulled her close, and savored a long, uncomplicated moment of silence. It ended with a suddenly-vivid memory of the last hour's activity. "Where did you get those feathers?" he asked.

  Rhea laughed softly. "Remember the scout motto," she said. "'Be Prepared.'"

  "That's the Boy Scout motto," Jack said, "and I think we've just established that you would flunk the physical."

  "Well, maybe I gave the physicals to all the little Boy Scouts." She smiled and ran a finger across his chest. "It would sure beat selling cookies." She grew serious for a second, "Jack, I'm not going to pretend you're the first man I've slept with. Nor am I going to apologize. I am what I am."

  He nodded. "Likewise," he said. Then, thinking of something he hadn't really considered in a long time, he laughed.

  "What?" Rhea asked.

  "This is a lot drier than my first time, anyway," he explained, remembering.

  After a minute, Rhea pinched him. "Are you going to elaborate on that or just lie there wearing nothing but a big grin?" she asked.

  "Well, they say a gentleman never tells."

  Rhea made a face at him.

  "But I'm no gentleman," he continued. "Besides, I know Natsu wouldn't mind. You remember I grew up in Myrtle Beach?"

  Rhea nodded.

  "Well, at the time, there was an Air Force base in town, and they got in lots of new families regularly—the Air Force likes to keep moving the troops around. Most of the kids went to school on post, but some of them ended up in public school. I met Natsu Forrester in sixth grade."

  "Natsu? That's a Japanese name?" Rhea asked.

  "It's an American name," Jack said. "As American as Kate or Shamika. But, yes, her ancestors did come from Japan. Anyway," he continued, "she was the only girl in school who would talk to me about science fiction and astronomy. When we moved up to middle school, we were the only two kids in the model rocketry club and we put together the first computer network at school with old IBM-PC Jrs. and doorbell wire."

  "So you saw a lot of each other," Rhea prompted.

  "Yeah, just buddies, you know? Then one day I noticed her shirt didn't hang straight down anymore—when you're a fourteen-year-old guy, something like that can suddenly become the most important thing in the world."

  "It works both ways," Rhea said. "Or so I hear."

  "Biology is a strange and wonderful thing," Jack agreed. "So it was springtime, and we sure didn't want to stay inside any more than we had to. So we cooked up this scheme and sold it to our science teacher. We'd take a model rocket with a little 8mm movie camera in it out onto Murrel's Inlet and take aerial pictures of the marsh. I think we were going to look for the effects of boat wakes on the Spartina or something—it didn't matter, just anything to get out of the classroom. So there was some kind of scheduling fiasco, and the teacher wasn't there, but we had the boat rented anyway so we took it out."

  "And made another kind of launch," Rhea hazarded.

  "Well, yes. I mean, we did make our launch. It wasn't according to the model rocketry association safety standards, but we had a big piece of sheet tin we raised at the stern of the boat, and huddled behind for the firing. We weren't real sure of the balance with that camera on it, but the rocket went up like a charm, and while we were celebrating, we suddenly noticed we were squinched close together, and not wearing a heck of a lot."

  "And so you attacked her virtue," Rhea accused.

  "Madame, you wound me," Jack said. "'Twas the lady that ravished my tender virtue; though as I recall, by that point it wasn't all that tender, and perhaps not very virtuous either. At any rate, things escalated quickly from there, and somehow our flat-bottomed, ultra-stable john boat ended up upside down with us underneath it. We lost the tin sheet, the rocket launcher, Natsu's bikini top, the reserve gas can and half the seat cushions. Luckily the outboard was bolted on, and still ran when we finally managed to turn the thing back over. We even managed to recover the rocket.

  "I gave Natsu my shirt and we thought up a cover story for everything else."

  "And the teacher bought it?"

  "Well, until he developed the film."

  Rhea laughed out loud. When she stopped, she tilted her head back at him, and asked, "So what happened?"

  "Well, we didn't get any class credit on that project, I'm afraid—but the teacher was a nice guy, just out of college himself. We got a lecture on responsibility and birth control, but I think he really wanted to say 'Go for it, kids.' Anyway, he didn't tell our folks. Not that it would have been the end of the world for either of us, but there are things you want to protect your folks from having to be understanding about, you know?"

  Rhea nodded. "But obviously you're not still together."

  "Yeah, well, we were joined at the hip for about a year, then her father got transferred. We kept in touch regularly for a while. She went into AFROTC and pilot training, then took fighters when they opened that up to women. Last I heard, she was a captain stationed in Korea. Even saw some action in the Hong Kong fiasco."

  "Sounds like quite a woman," Rhea said quietly. "We're lucky to have people like that looking out for us."

  Jack stretched and put his arms behind his head. "Yeah," he said after a moment, "that's our blessing, I think. America's blessing. No matter how hard the system works against it, we have enough good ones to pull us through." He was silent for a second. "Rhea?"

  "Yes?"

  "I want us to be the good ones. NASA's got cataracts and the rest of the world is blind. If we don't make this work, I don't think there'll be another chance. It may not matter in our lifetimes, or our kids'. But if we don't get off Earth, that's it for America. That's it for humanity."

  Rhea took his hand and squeezed. "It'll work," she said fiercely. "We are the good guys, and we are going to make it work."

  Chapter 32

  Glibspet considered the collar carefully and thought. Most of those with names on the tags he hung on the top row, but he already had several Fifis in his collection, and the plaid fabric would look better in the middle. He already had a collar on the peg he wanted, but that one would balance nicely against the plaid from over in the corner once the new
collar was in place—he moved it and hung Fifi on its peg: Perfect.

  He stepped back to admire the effect. The pegboard covered most of the study wall, and there were only a few empty pegs left. The empty ones were scattered a bit too evenly, Glibspet decided after a moment's study—a bit of asymmetry would add a hint of tension. He took Snookums down from the top row and hung him on the bottom left. He looked again and nodded in satisfaction. He had it.

  The collar's smell lingered on his fingertips, and his stomach rumbled. Snookums. Now there was a poodle!

  Glibspet closed the study door behind him and headed for the kitchen.

  He'd been halfway hoping Mindenhall would call, and he sulked as he rummaged through the freezer. The man was coming to be invaluable for agency legwork, and Glibspet had been able to get him to lunch a few times, had even held his hands earnestly once or twice, but sweet Craig continued to turn down Glibspet's invitations for dinner and night life. It was infuriating.

  Glibspet's hand closed on a popsicle mold. That would do. He carried it over to the sink and ran tepid water on it, then turned the handle carefully. The frozen clam-juice cylinder eased free, and he popped it into his mouth. Not bad. Could be a little saltier. He walked into the living room and sat down in front of the TV. He watched QVC for a while, and almost got another cubic zirconia, but decided finally that you could have too much of even a bad thing. Instead, he surfed over to CNN.

  That cheered him up for a while, until they ran the Balkan headlines. So much human suffering and agony—and here he was stuck in North Carolina, away from it all. He bit down on the last piece of popsicle and tossed the plastic stick aside. Well, he'd just have to make the best of the hand he was dealt. He turned off the TV and closed his eyes in thought.

  Okay, Averial was in North Carolina. She had to be. That was a given. The Fallen couldn't find her. Even he hadn't found her—not yet anyway...

  She was good, no doubt about it, but was she so good that three of the Fallen and one very clever devil couldn't trace a single spent Hellawatt? Couldn't find the smallest flaw in an assumed identity? Was anybody really that good? Glibspet opened his eyes and narrowed them. There were angels in North Carolina now, too—he was sure of it. God had finally decided to make their presence active. They weren't doing much that he could tell—he hadn't heard complaints from other Hellraised, and he hadn't gotten any memos from Home Office warning that they were getting directly involved. But that business in the hotel had been a sure sign.