She said nothing, but moved ever so slightly forward so that her body touched his. As she walked her fingers back to his neck, she dared to press against him so that her breasts lightly touched his shoulder blades. She could feel her nipples harden at the contact, and her respiration quickened. Her fingers ceased to knead and began to caress, moving down over his chest in long slow motions. He caught her hands then, and she could feel the stillness of him, a stillness of mind and breath, as his body began to tremble slightly.

“Perhaps this is the time,” he mused as if alone. “There will never be a better. And it must be done.”

With the suppleness that was as much a trademark of Tarvi Andiyar as his ineffable charm, he gathered her in his arms, pulling her across his lap. His expression, oddly detached as if examining her for the first time, was not yet quite the tender, loving expression she had so wished to evoke. His expressive and large brown eyes were almost sad, though his perfectly shaped lips curved in an infinitely gentle smile—as if, the thought intruded on Sallah’s delight in her progress, he did not wish to frighten her.

“So, Sallah,” he said in his rich low and sensual voice, “it is you.”

She knew she should interpret that cryptic remark, but then he began to kiss her, his hands suddenly displaying an exceedingly erotic mind of their own, and she no longer wished to interpret anything.

Chapter 8

Four mares, three dolphins, and twelve cows produced their young at precisely the same moment, or so the records for that dawn hour stood. Sean had even agreed to allow Sorka to observe the birth of the foal designated for him by Pol and Bay. He had maintained a pose of skepticism over the color and sex of the creature although, three days previously, he had already witnessed that the first of the draft animals produced for his father’s group was exactly as requested, a sturdy bay mare with white socks and a face blaze who had weighed over seventy kilos at birth and would be the image of the long-dead Shire stallion whose sperm had begot her.

Some wit had quipped that Landing’s records were turning into the biblical begottens of Pern’s chronicle. In two years, the new generation was well begun and increasing daily. Human births were less minutely reported than the successes of animalkind, but at least as well celebrated.