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she could
speak for none other than herself. But to add a place where some of
his paintings could be shown--this close to the port, they might
gain a better clientele with such a gallery.
    Truth told, though, Bell's sometime presence
permitted Cyra to cut her dependence on Ortega's chancy employ; in
fact, twice recently they'd been there as patrons.
    He looked at her, snatched the ring to his
hand and began tossing it furiously into the air. This, after three
previous ragged forty-day cycles, she recognized. Any day, perhaps
any moment, he would drag out the rough sketches and ideas, choose
one, and then hardly see her, even should she stand naked before
him, while he took plasboard and tegg-paint and the secret odds and
ends from his duit box and transformed them by touch of skilled
hand and concentration and willpower unmatched to art as fine as
ever she'd seen. Days, he would be one with the art.
    And then he would crash; folding into a
hollow and dispirited being barely willing to feed himself, with a
near-fear of sunlight and a monotone voice and no plans to speak of
... until the cycle came full and from the gray, desperate being
emerged Bell, fresh and whole and new. Again.
    He shook the ring, tossed it, glanced
anxiously to his art kit where it was stashed near the door to the
back room.
    "I know," he said. "I know! It's almost
time. I think we should close early, perhaps, and go someplace fine
to eat--I'll pay!--and plan on a bottle of good wine and
snacks--I've chosen them already--and a night, a glorious night, my
beauty. And then, we can talk at breakfast, if the art's not here
yet, and if it is, we'll talk in a few days."
    In front of her then, the
choice--and she knew already she'd take it, or most of it. Had she
a clan to call on she would pledge her quartershare-- to make this
work, she'd--but what she would do if was no matter, now. Her
quartershare would go--till the twelfth year, at least--into the
account of a dead child, just as her invitations--large and
small--would go to her Delm, and be returned with the information
that she was in mourning and not permitted.
    She recalled the discreet caress a few
moments earlier, her blood warming...
    Tonight she would forget the she was poor
and outcast. Bell would take them somewhere with his stash of cash
and they would spend as if he were a visiting ambassador instead of
an itinerant artist, and then he would--
    "Bell," she said gently, "perhaps we should
stay until nearer closing. My friend. I followed your instructions
last time, you know--there are three prepared boards waiting--and I
have already an extra cannister of spacer's tea and you gave me
enough for two tins of Genwin Kaffe last time, so we have that.
That is, if you are certain that you won't talk to the Healers this
time."
    He looked at her then and his eyes were
hungry; she doubted that hers were not.
    "I'll check the boards, Cyra, and make sure
that you have room to work this time, too."
    * * *
    CYRA TASTED THE SALT on her lips, and nearly
wept as she relaxed against him. He was so inexhaustible and
inventive a lover, she thought, that perhaps she should have
invited the office manager to help out--and she laughed at the
silliness, and he heard her, Bell with his hands still willing and
eager, and his quirky Terran words dragged out of him in the
midsts.
    "Now I'm funny. Oh, woe, oh woe..."
    She could see him in the half-light he
preferred for lovemaking; just bright enough that the mirrors on
the wall might tell an interesting tale to a glancing eye. She
remembered that he'd brought beeswax candles, along with wine,
flowers, that first evening after his very first return, when he'd
somehow parlayed her concern--
    She laughed again, this time finding his
hair and beard wooly near her face, and she gently moved to brush
them orderly. He had something more on his mind though, as her
hands came in contact with his cheek; but she held him a moment and
he was willing to be calmed.
    Of course, she