Lords of the Seventh Swarm Read Online Free PDF Page B

passing hour of the past few months that question had been foremost in his mind, yet he was still vacillating, then he might find himself voicing words that would only give her unrealistic hopes. At the same time, it would be equally unfair to the both of them if he told her that he had decided against her. For it was untrue. “Give me some time. I love you as a friend already, a true friend. But you chose me without warning. This all came so suddenly.”
    “I see.” The warmth had all gone from her voice. After a long moment, she whispered, “Orick, as far as bears go, am I attractive?”
    Orick looked into her eyes, which sparkled under the ship’s lights. Her fur was dark and glossy, her nails long and black. She was, in fact, one of the most beautiful she-bears he’d ever met, and once she went into heat, Orick imagined that every bear on Tihrglas would fight for the chance to be her mate. What she did not know was that as a juvenile, those looks did not matter. It was scent that excited Orick, not her lusty appearance.
    “Indeed, you are fair, my love, more beautiful than the mountains of Tirzah.”
    “Good,” Tallea said, then she yawned and stretched, lowering her head, arching her back so that her tail raised seductively in the air. Orick doubted that she had ever seen a female take the mating position, but she did it now quite naturally, then came and licked Orick once on the mouth. “Very good,” she whispered, “and good night to you.” Though it was not yet dark here on Ruin, Orick and the others were still running on ship time, and he indeed felt weary. Apparently Tallea, like Maggie, had decided to keep to the ship’s schedule.
    She sent him from her room. Orick padded back outside, somewhat glad for the fresh air, where he lay on the ground thinking of that last inviting look she’d given him. For a moment, when speaking to Gallen, he’d felt as if he were truly a priest, speaking under the power of inspiration. Now he felt miserable, and he lay wondering how he would ever be able to spurn such a lovely creature once she went into estrus.
    It was with these thoughts in mind that Orick was disturbed by the sound of flapping wings. He looked up to see the oddest creature soaring over the desert—a winged man, who soon landed at Orick’s feet, with a fascinating invitation for dinner.

Chapter 3
    Lord Felph found himself muttering under his breath as he made his way down a long stone staircase to a tiny room on the lower levels of his palace.
    Felph’s heavy robes dragged behind him on the staircase as he walked, and the cool air here in the tunnels chilled the bald spot on his head and his long, pale fingers. The dark sun shone thin and red through the oval, open windows along the staircase, windows that had long ago been carved by Qualeewoohs while digging their cloo holes.
    Indeed, the lower lip of each window was worn from the feet of Qualeewoohs who had nested here over the millennia, wearing the oval portals into irregular shapes. Felph had had his droids clear away all the old nesting sites centuries ago, convert the nesting cells into passageways and chambers for his citadel. Most of the palace now showed no sign that Qualeewoohs had ever lived in this mountain. Only here, in the very western wing, did the anachronistic sites still exist.
    Felph hated the old reminders. Perhaps that is why his daughter chose to live down here.
    Once, Felph stopped to rest, breathing raggedly from exertion, and stared out one crumbled window to the sheer cliffs of the redrock mountains stretching out around him. The sky above held no clouds, yet the distant dark sun gave only muted light. In the valleys far below, at the base of the slopes, peculiar oily gray trees grew in an impenetrable tangle, and, as Felph watched, a flock of a dozen black-winged skogs leapt from the brush and began winging their way with bulletlike speed toward one of the garden ponds on the palace grounds.
    Felph finished resting,