w she balanced on the stilt-like soles. Stepping thus
in little balancing steps like a dancer, she moved very close, peering
into my eyes, so that I blushed deeply at the nearness and the nudity of
her, and she laughed, amusedly, as at a child. Her long, gemmed hand
reached out and touched me, and she talked to Holaf excitedly, her face
all smiles and interest; I was a wholly fascinating new toy he had
brought her, it seemed. Then she sank to the bench, crossing her lovely
knees over her hands, clasped together as if to make sure they behaved.
To me she was wholly cultured and I some strange boor who had never been
in a drawing room. I felt the impact of that culture in her interested
eyes and in the sleek, smart bearing of her utterly relaxed body. She
stretched a hand to gesture me to be seated, and I tried Korean on her.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, lady. If I but knew who you were, and how
to speak properly, there is much we could find of interest to discuss."

"I am sure of it, stranger. First you must tell me of yourself, and then
later we will talk of what is familiar to me. I cannot put off the
curiosity which burns me. Please tell me all about your people and
yourself!" Her voice was hard to follow, she handled the clumsy Korean
with a bird-like quickness and an utter disregard for the nature of the
language. Her eyes burned into my own, and I sat embarrassed beside her,
tongue-tied, while Holaf smiled quietly and kept his hand on his weapon.

So I talked about New York, about my home town in Indiana, about my mine
in South America, about anything and everything, and she listened, rapt
eyes encouraging me, hanging on every stumbling, mispronounced,
difficult word. I would have given an arm to have been able to talk
expertly in her own tongue.

Thus engaged, and engrossed by her, I glanced up absently to note
Nokomee's eyes blazing into my own in fury, and spaced about the room in
a listening circle, a score of others. I stopped abruptly, and Nokomee
lashed out at the woman beside me with a string of alien expletives that
made her face flame with an anger as great as Nokomee's own. I wondered
vaguely what I had done....

Their strange, grim faces, all watching me, seeming to peer inside me,
trying to gauge me as an enemy or a friend. I stood up, for the exciting
near-nude body of the woman who had caused Nokomee's outburst was too
close, too intimately relaxed.

Abruptly Nokomee took me by the hand, led