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The incident took place quite a while after the assault. Out on an inspection tour in his Archer, he happened to glance through the transparent wall of the sundeck of a prefab he was passing... In a moment he was inside, grinning happily. Miss Rosalie Parks was lecturing him: "... You needn't be surprised that I am here, Franklin. 'O, tempora O, mores! Cicero once said. 'O, the times!
Four years' training had brought out her potential, the power he had sensed she should be able to control, when they met. He had no intention whatever of letting them go to waste. Senior Adept Corina of the White Order, he thought yes, it had a pleasant ring. He caught sight of her then, and watched her come up the rubberoid walk to his raised sundeck. As usual, she was precisely on time.
Although it was still early spring, the day was a brilliant one, the temperature a comfortable fifteen degrees. He had taken advantage of that, deciding to have Corina's final lesson out on the sundeck. He took several seating cushions outside and arranged them so the sun would warm them, yet not glare into his or Corina's eyes. Then he leaned back on one set of the cushions to wait for her.
Bad signs came with her, but that fact got lost as she hugged Nelsen quickly there in the dwelling he had set up with the thought it would be their home. At once she went on a feminine exploring expedition of the prefab's interior, and its new, gleaming appointments. Kitchen, living room, sundeck. Nelsen's garden was already well along. "Like the place?" he asked.
Corina purred softly in pleasure when she saw Thark out on the sundeck. Truly, this weather was too good to waste any of it indoors, especially at this time of year. He stood as she approached. "Good day, Master Thark," she said with a slight bow, her hands open and raised to shoulder level. Thark returned the formal bow. "Good day, Student Losinj. Be welcome."
So it was that Maya stretched in a reclining chair on the sundeck of the Chateau Nectaris the next afternoon and permitted herself to be disgusted with the entire planet Mars. Maya's small, perfect body was kept minimally modest by one of those scanty Martian sunsuits. A huge straw hat, woven of dried canal sage, hid her beautiful face.
"You guys can find something useful to do," Nelsen snapped at the gathering crowd. "Well, Frankie," Tiflin taunted. "Aren't you going to invite me into your fancy new quarters? Joe and Two-and-Two also look as though they could stand a drink." On the sundeck, Tiflin spoke again. "I suppose you've got it figured, Nelsen?" Nelsen answered him in clipped fashion. "Thanks.
"And you crept in quietly. Swell to see you." Sitting showered and in fresh clothes on Frank Nelsen's sundeck, any changes in Two-and-Two Baines were less evident than one might have supposed. His eyes had a much surer, farther look. Otherwise he was still the same large hulk with much the same lugubrious humor. "Mercury's okay, Frankie," he said.
Nelsen looked out from his sundeck, and saw dangerous contrasts. The worst, perhaps, was a spherical bubble of stellene. Inside it was a great globe of water surrounded by air a colossal dewdrop. Within it, a man and two small boys no doubt father and sons from Pallastown, were swimming, horsing around, having a swell time only a few feet from nothing. Nelsen spoke softly into his radio-phone.
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