I guess there are some things you can't take out of an intelligent gene pool.I guess there are some things you can't take out of an intelligent gene pool. "Shardik?" "Kathy, call me Ken, please, something other than Shardik, huh? That's a name for offworlders." "Okay... Ken. Uhm, can I borrow a book?" See what I mean? "I guess. Sure, go ahead." "Thanks!" She reached out to the shelf, grabbed one, and headed for the door. "Oh, and I'll see what I can do about that project. Can I ask Andraveleskand'r for help?" She knows Andra? I shrugged. "Sure, as long as your work is on the testbed." She nodded, smiling, and headed for the door. I snapped off the statis field and resumed cooking. I glanced at my bookshelf, curious to see what she'd taken. I was intrigued. The book she'd taken was considered a classic of S/M literature. The Erotic Adventures of Sleeping Beauty, vol. 1, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. A few weeks later, there came another visit from Miss Hawkwind. I invited her in. "Hi! How goes your project?" She shrugged, her expression more nervous than studious, and I wondered. "It's okay. Testbed's a mess, though. Ugliest pressings of circuitry I ever did." "I thought you weren't an engineer. "I'm not," that shrug again. "I do know what I'm doing though in hyperfields. But that's not what I wanted to ask you about." "Oh?" She sat down at the dining table, her back straight. She paused for a minute, then began, "You know my parents, right? I'm twenty-three years old, y'know, but, well... Ken, I've slept with boys and I've even slept with girls, but, well, I read that book you loaned me, then I went and got the others, and. |