"I don't mind either!" he assured her.
When his arm slipped around her waist and he kissed her, Maria was sure. She let her lips part gradually, trembling as the fever rose in her.
"Let me go a minute," she murmured.
Presently, after a few weightless contortions, the muffling Greenhaven flannels were sent swirling into a corner. Maria laughed softly as she set a bare foot against the bulkhead to launch herself back into Willard's arms.
[EIGHTEEN]
Was it the pain in his head that made everything seem to sway?
Or was it the swaying that made his head hurt?
Taranto opened his eyes slowly. For two or three minutes, in the darkness, he did not understand what he saw.
Gradually, comprehension developed. He was on a litter again, and the bearers were descending a rough track into a shallow valley. There was no sign of the city or of any other landmark even vaguely familiar. Jagged rocks formed a ridge to his left, curving around to enclose the depression. Other rocky buttes, he saw through slitted eyes, projected from the barren rubble of the Valley floor. There seemed to be little sand, unless it had blown down into the lower areas.