and that touch had burned like hot iron. For hours she had felt
it. He looked up. Her heart choked her with its beating. She would die
for him if he would but once run his fingers over her tingling skin, and
stroke her hair.

The naked emotion in Copper's face was readable enough, Kennon thought.
One didn't need Sorovkin techniques to interpret what was in her mind.
And it would have been amusing if it weren't so sad. For what she
wanted, he couldn't give. Yet if she were human it would be easy. A
hundred generations of Betan moral code said "never," yet when he looked
at her their voices faded. He was a man--a member of the ruling race.
She was an animal--a beast--a humanoid--near human but not near enough.
To like her was easy--but to love her was impossible. It would be
bestiality. Yet his body, less discerning than his mind, responded to
her nearness.

He sighed. It was a pleasant unpleasantness, a mixed emotion he could
not analyze. In a way it was poetry--the fierce, vaguely disquieting
poetry of the sensual Santosian bards--the lyrics that sung of the joys
of flesh. He had never really liked them, yet they filled him with a
vague longing, an odd uneasiness--just the sort that filled him now.
There was a deadly parallel here. He sighed.

"Yes, sir? Do you want something?" Copper asked.

"I could use a cup of coffee," he said. "These reports are getting me
down." The banality amused him--sitting here thinking of Copper and
talking about coffee. Banality was at once the curse and the saving
grace of mankind. It kept men from the emotional peaks and valleys that
could destroy them. He chuckled shakily. The only alternative would be
to get rid of her--and he couldn't (or wouldn't?--the question intruded
slyly) do that.

Copper returned with a steaming cup which she set before him. Truly,
this coffee was a man's drink. She had tried it once but the hot
bitterness scalded her mouth and flooded her body with its heat. And she
had felt so lightheaded. Not like herself at all. It wasn't a drink for
Lani. Of that she was certain.

Yet he enjoyed it. He looked at her and smiled. He was pleased with
her. Perhaps--yet--she might find favor in his eyes. The hope was always
there within her--a hope that was at once fear and prayer. And if she
did--she would know what to do.

Kennon looked up. Copper's face was convulsed with a bright mixture of
hope and pain. Never, he swore, had he saw anything more beautiful or
sad. I