"Thank you." Kirk sat down, with a deep sigh, and leaned back, watching her precise, exquisite movements, as she prepared the hot liquid. He found himself longing to touch her, to reach out and feel the soft, supple flesh, the rippling hair. The sight of her beautiful, firm breasts moving as she worked tortured him. The low necklace that signified they were covered didn't work very well for him, he thought. The flowers twined into it kept falling aside as she bent and turned, tantalizing him more. He pulled his eyes away, and forced himself to think of other things.
She had been very kind, he realized.
She hadn't made him feel like a fool.
He stood waiting for the last of the staff to assemble, letting the feel of triumph course through his body. He felt heady, exultant, a little drunk with joy. This was his moment. This made it all worth while—the long hours, the sleepless nights, the relentless work, the struggle. They would see. They would see he hadn't been driving himself and them for nothing.
He stared down for a moment at the piece of ore which he had brought to show them. It contained unpolished zenites.
Nemar possessed zenites, the fabulous gems valued all over the galaxy for their shimmering, glowing beauty of changing color. Infinitely more precious and rare than diamonds, they served often as a galactic medium of exchange, where weight was important. A handful of them could be worth the whole cargo of a trading ship.
He was not surprised that no one had found the ore deposits before. They were the products of immense and peculiar pressures and no appreciable amount of the ore was ever found except very deep underground. He was very glad now he had specialized in geology and mineralogy instead of social structure and alien psychology. Otherwise, the geologic reports he had received of the area would have seemed perfectly routine and ordinary. The nagging feeling that there was something a little unusual about the soil analysis would never have come into consciousness as a definite, tremulous hunch.
He could have sent Cortland or one of the others out there with the tools and instruments to dig and make test after test, searching several feet under the surface for the elusive end-trail of a lode. But he had wanted to go himself. He had packed and prepared for the two-day trip, steeling himself against the disappointment he was almost sure to receive.
He looked at the faces of his staff members, all present now, thinking of that first meeting with them and the peculiar reception his plans had received. Now it would be different; now everything he had asked of them was justified.