The smooth curve of her shoulders glowed in the light and her face was kissed by shadows. The arching lift of her breasts and the impassioned nipples threw a wash of dark shadow downward over the flat of her stomach and the lithe curve of her thighs. With the light covering the beauty of her face, Jela lost her identity. She was woman. Period. Any and all, from time immemorial, or immoral, perhaps. She was somehow, standing there, a composite of every woman who had ever drawn a breath. She was the best of woman, the choicest parts of all women since the dawn of time, suddenly thrown together in a high breasted, slim waisted creation that was being offered to him, only to him. And Lors? It moved in him, churned through his guts like a forest fire. He was man! All men, glaring with the red eyes of passion at all women. He too, in the wash of lust that had swept over him, lost his identity and he didn't give a damn. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that she was waiting... His fingers ripped away his clothing and he was at her side in no time at all, his arms sliding about the pliant warmth of her flesh to clasp her to him. To take her. To love her with a fever that was equal to the challenge she presented. She made a small sound and he hushed it with his mouth, planting his lips roughly against hers while he lowered her to the bed. He hurt her, but she didn't try to get away. It was the kind of hurt she had waited for, that they both had yearned for all the long months that had kept them apart. His hands closed over her. Smoothing the tender flesh and feeling of life beneath his palm. She moaned, tearing the sound from the very depths of her as his hands smoothed the satiny texture of her thighs, his fingers working against her flesh. He felt the nails of her hands digging into his shoulders, but he paid no attention to it. Nothing mattered now. Nothing except the warmth of their love and the expenditure of the raging passions that threatened to engulf them both. * * * * * They laid there for a long time, basking in the heat of their love, and he knew. Finally he knew that it all would not work. There could be nothing between him and the Terran woman. It was impossible. She could not live in his worlds, nor could he live in hers. Jela was his world and the past was merely an emotional thing. A moth and the flame. Yet ... somehow, he _did_ love Beth. Somehow her and her life was important to him. Her happiness was something that he had to assure. Had to guarantee for her. He had to work out a plan that would solve everything and return the whole business to a state of normalcy. It would be difficult, if not impossible, and he knew that Zark would never listen to him, never allow him to carry it out. But he had to do it.