He chuckled, a deep bass like a big log rolling over a tin roof. “Sho ’nuff, the Devil has to know how things work.”

“I do wish we could get more to eat. I’m just a tad hungry all the time.”

“The chef has some really awful-looking gray longworms in a box. They’ll be out soon.”

“Ugh.”

“People will eat anything if it’s smothered in chocolate.”

“You said the magic word.”

He turned from the view and came closer, looming over her. His smile was broad and his eyes took on a skeptical depth. “What’s the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?”

“Uh, I—”

“The southern zoo has a description of the animal along with a recipe.” He studied her as she laughed. “They’re pretty stretched back there”—he threw a shoulder at Earth—“but we have it better here.”

“I know.” She felt chastised. “I just—”

“Forget it. I lecture too much.” The smile got broader, and a moment passed between them, something in the eyes.

“Say, think those worms will be out soon?”

She pulled the sheet up to below her breasts, which were white as soap where the sun had never known them—so they would still beckon to him. His spreading smile was as big as the room. She could see in it now his inner pleasure as he hardened, and understood that for this man—and maybe for all of them, the just-arrived center of them—it gave a sensation of there being now more of him. She had simply never sensed that before. She imagined what it was like to be a big, hairy animal, cock flopping as you walked, like a careless, unruly advertisement. From outside him, she thought of what it was like to be inside him.

As he had been inside her. Delightfully.

Catkejen looked down at Rachel, eyes concerned. “It’s scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker.”

“Uh, huh?” She blinked and the room lost its blur.

“You didn’t show up for your meeting with Prefect Masoul. A robo called me.”

“Have I been—”

“Sleeping into the afternoon, yes.”

Rachel stretched. “I feel so… so…”

“Less horny, I’m guessing.”

She felt a blush spread over her cheeks. “Was I that obvious?”

“Well, you didn’t wear a sign.”

“I—I never do things like this.”

“C’mon, up. Breakfast has a way of shrinking problems.”

As she showered in the skimpy water flow and got dressed in the usual Library smock, the events of last night ran on her inner screen. By the time Catkejen got some protein into her, she could talk and it all came bubbling out.

“I… too many times I’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning, only to realize that it was because I was waking up on the side of… no one.”

“Kane didn’t stay?”

“Oh, he did.” To her surprise, a giggle burst out of her. “I remember waking up for, for…”

“Seconds.”

“More like sevenths, seemed like. He must’ve let me sleep in.”