Katha lifted a scarlet jug and poured cool white liquid into two crystal hemispheres. One she handed to Tyr, the other she raised in her white, red-nailed hand.
"To freedom," she laughed softly, and drank.
The white wine was rich and heady, and it warmed his throat going down. Tyr sipped again, and again. He looked around the room with unveiled eyes.
This was just one apartment of one girl. She ranked high in the councils of the ardth, but this was a planet far from home. And all the luxury before him! Why, one of those pillows with the red-and-white curves would make Fay's eyes bulge in jealousy. And he was pitting himself against a race that could give a woman this, for herself!
He grimaced. What could one man—even such as Tyr—do against such a race? He should quit now and enjoy himself with this woman who looked at him with those steady black eyes. He told himself all that, hating the truth of it.
A cool hand snuggled into his palm. "Tell me about you," Katha smiled.
"There isn't anything to tell."
"You have strength and incredible speed. But what are your other powers, Tyr? You are a mutant, a changeling. You know that. But why, Tyr? Why? Nature doesn't try changes unless she is fitting a being for something."
Katha was very close to him. She was perfumed and she was womanly, and Tyr was used to neither. She was as subtle and complex as some rare drug, where Fay was as transparent, in her childish hungers, as plate glass.
It may have been the white wine, he thought afterward, but all he saw now was her red mouth and the mocking amusement swimming in her black eyes. He kissed her, holding her close in his arms.