QUETZAL'S FLOCK CHAPTER 16 Kane was spared the mental debate about how one knocks on the cloth of a tent flap. As he approached, Ajanta moved it aside and stood framed in the entrance. She had discarded her Kous and wore a tunic. He caught his breath, she was very beautiful. Her black hair was released from the pins which usually kept it hidden 100
QUETZAL'S FLOCK underneath the hood of the Kous. It fell loose to her waist, she looked like a young girl. It was impossible to accept that she was eight thousand years old. He brushed against her, as she held the tent flap open for him to enter. It hadn't been deliberate on his part. There was a fragrance, it might have been a perfume, although he couldn't imagine what could be used as ingredients. He was aware that she had also made herself ready for him. "What is it you want to say, Kane Ashford." She spoke in Solari, it was the only sign of unbending, she hadn't invited him to make himself comfortable. It looked as if he was expected do his negotiations standing, draped in the heavy Kous. It wasn't the way he wanted it. "I want to talk to you about us and the things which have happened since - er - before." She was stiff faced and silent. He exploded. "Damn it, Ajanta! I can't talk to you dressed up in this thing - I feel like a messenger boy!" A ghost of a smile touched her lips, it didn't reach her eyes, she was still wary. "Still the same old Kane. If you feel in the wrong, you start to bluster!" "I don't feel in the wrong! If you listen to what I have to say, you might agree that there isn't any right or wrong about the situation." She contemplated him silently. "I know your tricks, Kane Ashford. If I tell you take off your Kous, it's as good as inviting you to go to bed!" He raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. "If that's all that's worrying you. I promise to act like a perfect gentleman - boring though that might be - and only suggest going to bed, if you suggest it first!" He grinned and slowly, she thawed and smiled back. He undid the tie of the Kous and allowed it to drop to the ground. She indicated a place on a pile of hides, waited until he was seated and then sat herself, some distance away. She folded her hands and calmly waited for him to begin. He went through the entire story from beginning to end. He started with his own birth, childhood and adulthood on Mars and then progressed to the method of his arrival on Lynxe. He glossed over the episodes of Hara and Maia and then explained how he had left Lynxe and his arrival on Jubal. He paused and saw the puzzlement in her eyes, he continued. "Ajanta, I'm a traveller in time. It's very hard to explain in simple words, but travelling in the Psi isn't necessarily in chronological order. I can go from one world to another and then come back to the first, earlier than my first visit. I want to make you understand, I haven't met you yet! We haven't loved and conceived a child! It's not that I can't remember, it's simply that it hasn't happened yet for me - but it will!" He paused again and floundered on, trying to make her understand and all the time, she continued to stare at him, making the recitation seem all the more unbelievable, even to himself. In the end he faltered into silence and stared at her helplessly. "Well, say something!" She gave him a severe look, but her mouth seemed a little softer. "That's the best story I've heard in a few thousand of your years! There would be some of our young bucks who would give their eye teeth to get their mouths around it. It's too improbable not to be true! I believe you, Kane. Thousands wouldn't! I'm like a wife who's husband comes home and says: 'Sorry I'm late, dear, but actually, we've never met before. How's the children!'. Kane Ashford, I have the feeling that 101
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