y Maria's intensity, "we are all of us
alone."

"Somehow I _knew_ you'd understand!" she exclaimed, without taking her
dark eyes from his. "I'm not allowed to date gladiators, of course.
You're the only man I've ever been with who was not afraid to look as he
is."

"You'd better come to Mars," he suggested, shying away a little from the
high voltage the Secretary General's daughter seemed to be generating.
"I can assure you you'd have a chance to reveal the charms nature gave
you without shame."

She laughed with a sudden change of spirits. "It's at least a half hour
since dinner. Let's take a dip." She tossed back her lustrous dark hair
with a shake of her head and her hands went to the clasp of her halter,
a moment later to that of her shorts. "Come on," she called, extending
her arms to expose her exciting young body before him. "The water will
cool us off."

It didn't work out that way, of course. Lindsay was barely in the
tub-pool before Maria's arms were about his neck, her body close against
his, her lips thrusting upward toward his own. For a moment he felt
panic, said, "Hey! What if somebody comes? Your father--"

"Silly! Nobody will," she replied, laughing softly.

His last rational thought for quite awhile was, _Oh well--I'm hardly in
a position to get the Secretary General's daughter angry._

* * * * *

False dawn was spreading its dim fanlight over the eastern horizon as he
coptered back to his official quarters in the city. Trying to restore
some order to thoughts and emotions thoroughly disrupted by the
unexpected events of the evening, he wondered a little just what he had
got himself into.

Mars, of course, was scarcely a Puritan planet, populated as it was by
the hardiest and most adventurous members of the human race, of all
races. But there had been something almost psychopathic about Maria's
passion. It had been far too intense to have been generated solely
through regard for him.

The girl had made love to him simply to relieve her own inner tensions,
he thought wryly. Lacking a man she could love, walled in by the high
officialdom of her father's lofty position, she had turned to him in the
same way she turned to the anti-computer movement--as a way of feeling
less lonely for a while. Still, it had been sweet--if a little
frightening in retrospect.

And it had been a little decadent too.

With the copter on autopilot he lit a cigarette and forced his