"Not like you, Nedra. But they would admire you."
"As you admire me?"
"Yes."
Then, peremptorily, "Admire me, O'Hara, and let us begin to have our babies."
The eternal antidote! Wherever women were, they had this cure for restlessness. And there was something to it. He was not going to find, on either side of the Curtain, a life more idyllic than this. They had drawn a screen of skins across the mouth of the cavern and their log fire gave sufficient light and warmth; they had eaten together and now they were lying together on a heavy pad of furs, Nedra luxuriating in the tigrish grace of her naked body. Was there more than this?
"Nedra," he said at last, "I've got to know about the torches."
"The Elder knows these things. Ask him."
"Where does he get the petroleum?"
"That is a secret word. I do not know it."
"The oil—the stuff that burns in them. The black water."