"I mean here, now, on this planet, in this time. Do you like it as well as your own ... place?" She stared up at him with wide puzzled eyes. "My own place? What other planet or time do you think I might know?" "I don't know, Miss Jones, I just...." He was not quite sure exactly what he had been driving at, himself. "Forget it. Just a stupid idea." He leaned back and let his eye follow the shadows up the valley. A faint whiff of perfume reached him. "Miss Jones," he said. "That's rather an awkward thing to call you. Do you have a first name?" "Jane Jones, naturally," she said, and smiled. "What else?" "No good," he said firmly. "I might call you Mary, that's a nice anonymous tag, and sounds better too ... or you could tell me your real name, just the first name, that wouldn't give much away." She considered silently. "Moirta," she said finally. "My name is Moirta." She accented the syllables evenly. "Moirta," he repeated. "Moirta." He rolled the "r" slightly, as she had done. "That's much better, it fits you now, Moirta, and it fits the cool shades of evenin'." He looked down at her. "Moirta," he said soberly. "It's a lovely name, truly." He leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips met his, not coldly, and not demandingly or fiercely, but gently and firmly, in the exact measure he desired. He put his arms about her, and she came into them, supple but not limp, as a beautifully trained dancer follows a lead. For a very long moment they remained thus, lip to lip and breast to breast, the yearning and response in each rising in swift even balance. And then Brown opened the door, casting a shaft of light past them in the dusk. "Oh, Moirta," he called. "Are you there? Could you come here a moment, please--" * * * * * The two male gun runners had stepped outside the cottage while Moirta served Dolan his dinner. They found the smells and sounds of summer night, the darkness itself--in their world there was no darkness except in closed rooms--disturbing, but preferable to watching and hearing Dolan eat. "For primitive, natural," the senior gun runner said, "but--" he winced, "_teeth!_" "_Gnawing!_" the other agreed. He clicked his own non-functional dentures experimentally, examined his fingers with fascinated revulsion. Tender flesh, white teeth--ugh! "Moirta," he said thoughtfully, "seems not to mind." The senior gun runner cringed as a bat fluttered by. "Her specialty," he said absently, "not to mind." He strained his eyes to see into the darkness. Was that a mouse rustling in the grass? Or worse yet, a _snake_? "Progress?" the younger man asked. "Motivation set. Next, focus on problem. Pressure." It was _something_, something small and alive, coming toward him. "Move nearer door," he said abruptly. "Light." * * * * *