Then the sudden rustle and thump and grunting of the beasts as they came charging out of their threatened shelter, their vast menacing shapes with huge tusks and little red eyes glittering in the confused crisscross of flashlight rays. She saw the paralyzers' brief glow, heard the thud of falling animal bodies, saw the sudden rush of one furious beast inside the protective sweep of Rolf's hand-weapon, saw his quick graceful evasive movement, heard the champ of savage tusks crushing the hard alloy of the metal tube.
Once, on the vidarscreen, she had watched a toreador do his dance of death with a furious bull, in an historical show. Rolf, she thought, was slim as a toreador, slim and graceful and equally accustomed to facing danger and death as an accepted part of life.
Then, she told herself scornfully, she was reverting to the primitive as if she were a Martian sow herself. She thought of the word ferkab and what it meant and felt her face grow hot in the darkness. For she could visualise Rolf and—herself—in a way she had never been able to think of herself with Ray Cornell.
It's not confined to Mars, darling, came the sudden probe of Rolf's thought over hers. But it takes a Martian to be the best.
Reverie was obliterated by rage. She sent back a string of thoughts that should have blistered Rolf's brains—if he had any decency. He withdrew before her counterattack and she wondered if he really did have any decency—or if her rage were all she had pretended.
She was cool to him the next day—and the arrival of the new member of the group-machine gave her opportunity to avoid him. Her replacement was a dark stocky quiet young man named Alan Waters and he seemed quite smitten with her—a fact which made Janet visibly jealous. Lynne found herself quite enjoying her triumph.
But the day after, when the other three reported for work at the brain-station and Mother Weedon visited the bazaar-mart for some needed household supplies, Lynne found herself looking at a mischievously contrite Rolf across the breakfast table.
He said, "I'm sorry if I've offended you, Lynne. Apparently I made the mistake of thinking you had blood in your veins."
Lynne acted without volition for the first time since early babyhood. She picked up the plastisaucer in front of her and flung it across the neoplast tabletop at him. He ducked and for a moment his dark eyes blazed with laughter and then he sensed her distress and helped her with the atocleaner.