She was beautiful too. Her high-cheekboned face was striking—the eyes dark-brown and wide-apart, the mouth sensuous, the teeth showing in a vivid white line between the half-parted purple lips. And her body was splendid. Blake had never seen anyone quite like her.
He beckoned to her when the dance was over and, after slipping into a white thigh-length tunic, she joined him at his table. She ordered Martian wine in a liquid voice, and sipped it with a finesse that belied her cannibalistic forebears. "You wish a night?" she asked.
Blake nodded. "If you are free."
"Three thousand quandoes."
He did not haggle, but counted out the amount and handed it to her. She slipped the bills into a thigh sheath-purse, told him her hut number and stood up to leave. "I will meet you there in an hour," she said.
Her hut was as good a place to wait for her as any. After buying a bottle of native whiskey at the bar, Blake went out into the Dubhe 4 night and made his way through the labyrinthine alleys of the native sector. In common with all chocoletto huts, Eldoria's was uncared for on the outside, and gave a false impression of poverty. He expected to find the usual hanger-on waiting in the anteroom, and looked forward to booting him out into the alley. Instead he found a young girl—
A human girl.
He paused in the doorway. The girl was sitting cross-legged on a small mat, a book open on her lap. Xenophon's Anabasis. Her hair made him think of the copper-colored sunrises of Norma 9 and her eyes reminded him of the blue tarns of Fornax 6. "Come in," she said.
After closing the door, he sat down opposite her on the guest mat. Behind her, a gaudy arras hid the hut's other room. "You are here to wait for Eldoria?" she asked.