He sighed. It was a pleasant unpleasantness, a mixed emotion he could not analyze. In a way it was poetry--the fierce, vaguely disquieting poetry of the sensual Santosian bards--the lyrics that sung of the joys of flesh. He had never really liked them, yet they filled him with a vague longing, an odd uneasiness--just the sort that filled him now. There was a deadly parallel here. He sighed. “Yes, sir? Do you want something?” Copper asked. “I could use a cup of coffee,” he said. “These reports are getting me down.” The banality amused him--sitting here thinking of Copper and talking about coffee. Banality was at once the curse and the saving grace of mankind. It kept men from the emotional peaks and valleys that could destroy them. He chuckled shakily. The only alternative would be to get rid of her--and he couldn’t (or wouldn’t?--the question intruded slyly) do that. Copper returned with a steaming cup which she set before him. Truly, this coffee was a man’s drink. She had tried it once but the hot bitterness scalded her mouth and flooded her body with its heat. And she had felt so lightheaded. Not like herself at all. It wasn’t a drink for Lani. Of that she was certain. Yet he enjoyed it. He looked at her and smiled. He was pleased with her. Perhaps--yet--she might find favor in his eyes. The hope was always there within her--a hope that was at once fear and prayer. And if she did--she would know what to do. Kennon looked up. Copper’s face was convulsed with a bright mixture of hope and pain. Never, he swore, had he saw anything more beautiful or sad. Involuntarily he placed his hand upon her arm. She flinched, her muscles tensing under his finger tips. It was though his fingers carried a galvanic current that backlashed up his arm even as it stiffened hers. “What’s the matter, Copper?” he asked softly. “Nothing, Doctor. I’m just upset.” “Why?” There it was again, the calm friendly curiosity that was worse than a bath in ice water. Her heart sank. She shivered. She would never find her desire here. He was cold--cold--cold! He wouldn’t see. He didn’t care. All right--so that was how it had to be. But first she would tell him. Then he could do with her as he wished. “I hoped--for the past year that you would see me. That you would think of me not as a Lani, but as a beloved.” The words came faster now, tumbling over one another. “That you would desire me and take me to those worlds we cannot know unless you humans show us. I have hoped so much, but I suppose it’s wrong--for you--you are so very human, and I--well, I’m not!” The last three words held all the sadness and the longing of mankind aspiring to be God. “My dear--my poor child,” Kennon murmured. She looked at him, but her eyes could not focus on his face, for his hands were on her shoulders and the nearness of him drove the breath from her body. From a distance she heard a hard tight voice that was her own. “Oh, sir--oh please, sir!”