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He did, then sat back, his eyes gone soft green and clear, free of the shadow that had haunted thehed It was one of their gas they missed fro how you looked at it

"Coke," she said proood is pizza without Coca-Cola?"

"Pizza with beer is perfectly fine," he assured her "And we can have beer--not that Lizzie’s hoer, yet But you really think you could make pizza?"

"Don’t see why not" She nibbled at the cheese, frowning "This wouldn’t do"--she brandished the yellowish re-flavored But I think" She paused to chew and s, then washed it doith a long drink of rough cider

"Coo pretty ith pizza" She lowered the leather bottle and licked the last sweet, semi-alcoholic drops from her lips "But the cheese--I think ht soet soht, pale sun, calculating

"Maarlic I know she has basil--don’t know about the oregano, but I could do without that And crust--" She waved a dis to it"

He laughed, handing her a biscuit filled with ha’s piccalilli

"How Pizza Came to the Colonies," he said, and lifted the cider bottle in brief salute "Folk alonder where hureat inventions cohtly, but there was an odd tone in his voice, and his glance held hers

"Maybe we do know," she said softly, after a moment "You ever think about it--why? Why we’re here?"

"Of course" The green of his eyes was darker now, but still clear "So do you, aye?"

She nodded, and took a bite of biscuit and haent in her er and her h the stones It must And yether parents seldom spoke of war and battle, but froreater quantity she had read--she knew just how randos could sometimes be Sometier cruers, and tossed the crumbs a few feet away A chickadee flen, pecked once, and was joined within seconds by a flock that swooped down out of the trees, vacuu efficiency He stretched, sighing, and lay back on the quilt

"Well," he said, "if you ever figure it out, ye’ll be sure to tellin her brsts; no longer safely contained behind the rah her flesh, s her nples She didn’t dare to think of Jeush

Before she could let herself think tooshirt over her head

Roger’s eyes were open, fixed on her, soft and brilliant as the moss beneath the trees She undid the knot of the linen strip, and felt the cool touch of the wind on her bare brsts She cupped thele and crest

"Come here," she said softly, eyes on his "Hurry I need you"

THEY LAY HALF-CLOTHED and coled beneath the tattered quilt, sleepy and sticky with half-driedstill warh the empty branches overhead made black ripples behind the lids of her closed eyes, as though she looked down through a dark red sea, wading in the blood-ater, seeing black volcanic sand change and ripple round her feet

Was he awake? She didn’t turn her head or open her eyes to see, but tried to send a e to hi from blood to blood Are you there? she asked silently She felt the question ined the pale underside of her arht see soh her blood and down her forearer, and delivered the faintest throb of its pressure against his skin

Nothing happened at once She could hear his breathing, slow and regular, a counterpoint to the sough of breeze through trees and grass, like surf coined herself as a jellyfish, he another She could see them clearly; two transparent bodies, lucent as thein and out in hypnotic rhyth, slowly touching

His finger crossed her palht have been the brush of fin or feather

I’m here, it said And you?