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09 - The Door Through Space - Marion Zimmer Bradley · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine. When I came to again, I was lying
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  Speaker 1: with my head in Delica's lap, and the reddish color
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  Speaker 1: of the sunset was in the room. Her thighs were
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  Speaker 1: soft under my head, and for an instant I wondered if,
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  Speaker 1: in delirium I had conceded to her. I muttered, sun
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  Speaker 1: not down. She bent her face to mine, whispering, hush, hush,
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  Speaker 1: it was heaven, and I drifted off again. After a moment,
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  Speaker 1: I felt a cup against my lips. Can you swallow this?
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  Speaker 1: I could, and did. I couldn't taste it yet, but
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  Speaker 1: it was cold and wet and felt heavenly trickling down
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  Speaker 1: my throat. She bent and looked into my eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: I felt as if I were falling into those reddish
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  Speaker 1: and stormy depths. She touched my scarred mouth with a
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  Speaker 1: light finger. Suddenly my head cleared and I sat upright.
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  Speaker 1: Is this a trick to force me to calling my bed?
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  Speaker 1: She recoiled as if I had struck her. Then the
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  Speaker 1: trace of a smile flitted around her red mouth. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: between us, it was battle. You are right to be suspicious,
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  Speaker 1: I suppose. But if I tell you what I know
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  Speaker 1: of recall, will you trust me? Then I looked straight
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  Speaker 1: at her and said no. Surprisingly, she threw back her
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  Speaker 1: head and laughed. I flexed my freed wrists cautiously. The
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  Speaker 1: skin was torn away and chafed, and my arms ached
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  Speaker 1: to the bone. When I moved, harsh glances of pain
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  Speaker 1: drove through my chest. Well until sunset, I have no
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  Speaker 1: right to ask you to trust me, said De Lisa,
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  Speaker 1: when she was done laughing. And since you are bound
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  Speaker 1: by my command until the last ray has fallen, I
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  Speaker 1: command that you lay your head upon my knees. I blazed.
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  Speaker 1: You are making a game of me? Is that my privilege?
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  Speaker 1: Do you refuse? Refuse? It was not yet sunset. This
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  Speaker 1: might be a torture more complex than any which had
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  Speaker 1: yet greeted me. From the scarlet glint in her eyes,
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  Speaker 1: I felt she was playing with me as the cat
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  Speaker 1: things of the forest play with their helpless victims. My
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  Speaker 1: mouth twitched in a grimace of humiliation as I lowered
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  Speaker 1: myself obediently until my head rested on her fur clad knees.
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  Speaker 1: She murmured, smiling, Is this so unbearable? Then? I said nothing. Never, Never,
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  Speaker 1: for an instant could I forget that all human, all woman.
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  Speaker 1: As she seemed Dallis's race was worn and old when
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  Speaker 1: the Terran Empire had not left their home star. The
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  Speaker 1: mind of Wolf, which has mingled with the non human
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  Speaker 1: since before the beginnings of recorded time, is unfathomable to
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  Speaker 1: an outsider. I was better equipped than most Earthmen to
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  Speaker 1: keep pace with its surface ax, but I could never
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  Speaker 1: pretend to understand its deeper motivations. It works on complex
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  Speaker 1: and irrational logic. Mischief is an integral part of it.
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  Speaker 1: Even the deadly blood feud with Recall had begun with
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  Speaker 1: an over elaborate, practical joke, which had lost the service, incidentally,
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  Speaker 1: several thousand credits worth of spaceship, And so I could
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  Speaker 1: not trust Dallisa for an instant. Yet it was wonderful
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  Speaker 1: to lie here with my head resting against the perfumed
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  Speaker 1: softness of her body. Then suddenly her arms were gripping me,
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  Speaker 1: frantic and hungry, the subdued thing in her voice her
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  Speaker 1: eyes flamed out, hot and wild. She was pressing the
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  Speaker 1: whole length of her body to mine, breasts and thighs
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  Speaker 1: and long legs, and her voice was hoarse. Is this
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  Speaker 1: torture too? Beneath the fur robe, she was soft and white,
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  Speaker 1: and the subtle scent of her hair seemed deeper entrapment
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  Speaker 1: than any frail as she seemed. Her arms had the
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  Speaker 1: strength of steel, and pain blazed down my wrenched shoulders,
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  Speaker 1: seared through the twined wrists. Then I forgot the pain
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  Speaker 1: over her shoulder. The last dropping redness of the sun
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  Speaker 1: vanished and plunged the room into orchid twilight. I caught
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  Speaker 1: her wrists in my hands, prising them backward, twisting them
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  Speaker 1: upward over her head. I said thickly, the sun's down.
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  Speaker 1: And then I stopped her wild mouth with mine, and
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  Speaker 1: I knew that the battle between us had reached climax
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  Speaker 1: and victory simultaneously, and any question about who had won
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  Speaker 1: was purely academic. During the night, some time, while her
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  Speaker 1: dark head lay motionless on my shoulder, I found myself
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  Speaker 1: staring into the darkness, wakeful. The throbbing of my bruises
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  Speaker 1: had little to do with my sleeplessness. I was remembered
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  Speaker 1: other chained girls from the old days in the dry towns,
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  Speaker 1: and the honey and poison of them distilled into Dallis's kisses.
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  Speaker 1: Her head was very light on my shoulder, and she
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  Speaker 1: felt curiously insubstantial. Like a woman of feathers. One of
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  Speaker 1: the tiny moons was visible through the slitted windows. I
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  Speaker 1: thought of my rooms in the Terran trade city, clean
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  Speaker 1: and bright and warm, and all the nights when I
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  Speaker 1: had paced the floor hating, filled to the teeth with bitterness,
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  Speaker 1: longing for the wind swept stars of the dry towns,
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  Speaker 1: the salt smell of the winds, and the musical clashing
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  Speaker 1: of the walk of the chained women. With a sting
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  Speaker 1: of guilt, I realized that I had half forgotten Julie
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  Speaker 1: and my pledge to her, and her misfortune which had
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  Speaker 1: freed me again for this Yet I had won, and
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  Speaker 1: what they knew had narrowed my planet wide search to
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  Speaker 1: a pin point. Rakhal was in Charin. I wasn't altogether surprised.
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  Speaker 1: Charin is the only city on Wolf except the Kharsa,
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  Speaker 1: where the Terran Empire has put down deep roots into
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  Speaker 1: the planet, built a trade city, a smaller spaceport like
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  Speaker 1: the Carsa. It lies within the circle of Terran law
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  Speaker 1: and a million miles outside it. A non human town
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  Speaker 1: inhabited largely by chalks, it is the core and center
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  Speaker 1: of the resistance movement. A noisy town in perpetual ferment.
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  Speaker 1: It was the logical place for a renegade. I settled
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  Speaker 1: myself so that the ache in my racked shoulders was
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  Speaker 1: less violent, and muttered, why Charin slight? As the movement was?
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  Speaker 1: It roused Dallisa. She rolled over and propped herself on
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  Speaker 1: her elbows, quoting drowsily, The prey walks safest at the
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  Speaker 1: hunter's door. I stared at the square of violet moonlight,
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  Speaker 1: trying to fit together all the pieces of the puzzle,
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  Speaker 1: and asked half aloud, what prey and what hunters? Dallisa
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  Speaker 1: didn't answer. I hadn't expected her to answer. I asked
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  Speaker 1: the real question in my mind. Why does Kerl hate
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  Speaker 1: Raculsensar when he doesn't even know him by sight? There
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  Speaker 1: are reasons, she said somberly. One of them is Miellyn,
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  Speaker 1: my twin sister. Kerral climbed the steps of the great
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  Speaker 1: House by claiming us both as his consorts. He is
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  Speaker 1: our father's son by another wife. That explained much. Brother
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  Speaker 1: and sister marriages, not uncommon in the dry towns, are
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  Speaker 1: based on expediency and suspicion, and are frequently, though not always, loveless.
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  Speaker 1: It explained Dalis's taunts, and it partly explained, only partly,
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  Speaker 1: why I found her in my arms. It did not
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  Speaker 1: explain Recall's part in this mysterious intrigue, nor why Kiral
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  Speaker 1: had taken me for recall. But only after he remembered
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  Speaker 1: seeing me in Terran clothing, I wondered why it had
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  Speaker 1: never occurred to me before that I might be mistaken
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  Speaker 1: for recall. There was no close resemblance between us, but
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  Speaker 1: a casual description would apply equally well to me or
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  Speaker 1: to Recall. My height as unusual for a Terran within
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  Speaker 1: an inch of recall zone, and we had roughly the
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  Speaker 1: same build, the same coloring. I had copied his walk,
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  Speaker 1: imitated his mannerisms since we were boys together, and blurring
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  Speaker 1: minor facial characteristics. There were the scars of the kefirch
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  Speaker 1: on my mouth, cheeks, and shoulders. Anyone who did not
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  Speaker 1: know us by sight, anyone who had known us by
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  Speaker 1: reputation from the days when we had worked together in
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  Speaker 1: the dry towns, might easily take one of us for
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  Speaker 1: the other. Even Julie had blurted, you're so much alike,
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  Speaker 1: before thinking better of it. Other odd bits of the
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  Speaker 1: puzzle floated in my mind stubbornly refusing to take on
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  Speaker 1: recognizable patterns. The disappearance of a toy seller, Julie's hysterical babbling,
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  Speaker 1: the way the girl Miellyn had vanished into a shrine
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  Speaker 1: of Nebron, and the taunts of Dallisa and the old
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  Speaker 1: man about a mysterious toy maker, and something some random
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  Speaker 1: joggling of a memory in that eerie trading in the
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  Speaker 1: city of the Silent Ones. I knew all these things
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  Speaker 1: fitted together somehow, but I had no real hope that
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  Speaker 1: Dallisa could complete their pattern for me. She said, with
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  Speaker 1: a vehemence that startled me. Miellyn is only the excuse
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  Speaker 1: Carrall hates recall because Racal will compromise, and because he'll fight.
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  Speaker 1: She rolled over and pressed herself against me in the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: Her voice trembled, race. Our world is dying. We can't
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  Speaker 1: stand against Tara, and there are other things, worse things.
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  Speaker 1: I sat up, surprised to find myself defending Tara to
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  Speaker 1: this girl. After all these years, I was back in
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  Speaker 1: my own world. And yet, and yet I heard myself
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  Speaker 1: say quietly, the Terrans aren't exploiting Wolf. We haven't abolished
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  Speaker 1: the rule of shainsaw. We've changed nothing, It was true,
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  Speaker 1: Tara held Wolf by compact, not conquest. They paid and
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  Speaker 1: paid generously for the lease of the lands where their
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  Speaker 1: trade cities would rise, and stepped beyond them only when
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  Speaker 1: invited to do so. We let any city or state
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  Speaker 1: that wants to keep its independence govern itself until it collapses, Dallisa.
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  Speaker 1: And they do collapse after a generation or so. Very
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  Speaker 1: few primitive planets can hold out against us. The people
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  Speaker 1: themselves get tired of living under feudal or theocratic systems,
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  Speaker 1: and they beg to be taken into the empire. That's all.
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  Speaker 1: But that's just it, Dalisa argued. You give the people
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  Speaker 1: all those things we used to give them, and you
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  Speaker 1: do it better just by being here. You're killing the
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  Speaker 1: dry towns. They're turning to you and leaving us, and
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  Speaker 1: you let them do it. I shook my head. We've
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  Speaker 1: kept the tear in piece for centuries. What do you expect?
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  Speaker 1: Should we give you arms, planes, bombs, weapons to hold
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  Speaker 1: your slaves down? Yes, she flared at me. The dry
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  Speaker 1: Tounds have ruled Wolf since since you you can't even
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  Speaker 1: imagine how long. And we made compact with you to
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  Speaker 1: trade here and we have rewarded you by leaving you untouched,
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  Speaker 1: I said quietly, But we have not forbidden the dry
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  Speaker 1: towns to come into the empire and work with Terra,
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  Speaker 1: she said bitterly. Men like Kerral will die first, and
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  Speaker 1: pressed her face helplessly against me, and I will die
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  Speaker 1: with them. Mielynn broke away. But I cannot courage is
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  Speaker 1: what I lack. Our world is rotten, race, rotten all through,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm as rotten as the core of it. I
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  Speaker 1: could have killed you today, and I'm here in your arms.
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  Speaker 1: Our world is rotten, but I've no confidence that the
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  Speaker 1: new world will be better. I put my hand under
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  Speaker 1: her chin and looked down gravely into her face, only
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  Speaker 1: a pale oval in the darkness. There was nothing I
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  Speaker 1: could say. She had set it off, and truthfully, I
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  Speaker 1: had hated and yearned and starved for this, and when
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  Speaker 1: I found it, it turned salty and bloody on my lips,
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  Speaker 1: like Dollis's despairing kisses. She ran her fingers over the
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  Speaker 1: scars on my face, then gripped her small thin hands
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  Speaker 1: round my wrists so fiercely that I grunted protest. You
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  Speaker 1: will not forget me, she said in her strangely lilting voice.
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  Speaker 1: You will not forget me, although you were victorious. She
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  Speaker 1: twisted and lay looking up at me, her eyes glowing
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  Speaker 1: faintly luminous in darkness. I knew that she could see
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  Speaker 1: me as clearly as if it were day. I think
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  Speaker 1: it was my victory, not yours. Race cargle gently. On
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  Speaker 1: an impulse I could not explain. I picked up one
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  Speaker 1: delicate wrist, then the other, unclasping the heavy jeweled bracelets.
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  Speaker 1: She let out a stifled cry of dismay, and then
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  Speaker 1: I tossed the chains into a corner before I drew
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  Speaker 1: her savagely into my arms again and forced her head
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  Speaker 1: back under my mouth. I said good bye to her
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  Speaker 1: alone in the reddish wind swept space before the great House.
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  Speaker 1: She pressed her head against my shoulder and whispered, Race,
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  Speaker 1: take me with you. For answer, I only picked up
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  Speaker 1: her narrow wrists and turned them over on my palm.
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  Speaker 1: The jeweled bracelets were clasped again around the thinly boned joints,
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  Speaker 1: and on some self punishing impulse, she had shortened the
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  Speaker 1: chains so that she could not even put her arms
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  Speaker 1: around me. I lifted the punished wrists to my mouth.
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  Speaker 1: And kissed them gently. You don't want to leave, Dollusa.
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  Speaker 1: I was desperately sorry for her. She would go down
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  Speaker 1: with her dying world, proud and cold and with no
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  Speaker 1: place in the new one. She kissed me and I
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  Speaker 1: tasted blood, her thin, fettered body straining wildly against me,
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  Speaker 1: shaken with tearing, convulsive sobs. Then she turned and fled
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  Speaker 1: back into the shadow of the Great dark House. I
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  Speaker 1: never saw her again. End of chapter nine.