A World of Difference (49 page)
Read A World of Difference Online
Authors: Harry Turtledove
“Maybe,” Reatur said. “I’ve thought about that, too. Sooner or later, I guess we will need to see if we can make our own. Why don’t you take a clamp and show it to one of our carvers?”
“Me?” Lamra squeaked in alarm. “He wouldn’t listen to me!”
“To whom would he be more likely to listen than to the only mate in all the world who dropped her budlings but lived?”
“Well—” She hadn’t thought about it like that. “All right, Reatur, I will.”
“Good.”
Lamra came back to the question Reatur had asked before. She had hardly thought about budding at all since Reatur planted these last six on her; she certainly hadn’t thought about it since she had dropped them. But now, reminded, she recalled the way her body had driven her toward it. She searched herself for that same feeling.
She did not expect to find it. But she did—not with the urgency she had had before, perhaps, but with enough to be partial to the idea. “I suppose we can make budlings again,” she said. “From what I remember, it was fun.”
Reatur’s eyestalks wiggled. “For me, too, Lamra.”
“Well, then, let’s go find someplace quiet and do it,” she said, brisk once her mind was made up.
“Now?” Reatur sounded startled. Then he laughed some more. “Why not? There have to be a good many rooms in the castle that don’t have anyone in them right now. Shall we find one?” They walked back together.
Afterward, the domain-master was not laughing at all. He widened himself to Lamra. “What’s that for?” she demanded; she was still uneasy whenever he did it.
“Because over the years, I’ve planted buds on many eighteens of mates, probably more, and I’ve never felt sensations as strong as I just did with you.” He mimed tying his eyestalks into knots.
“Oh.” Lamra thought about that. “I was only remembering what I liked last time and trying to do more of that now.”
It was Reatur’s turn to say, “Oh.” Then he asked, “Do you suppose it will be better still after you’re healed from your next set of budlings?”
“
I
don’t know,” she said, flustered. That was further ahead than she’d thought.
Reatur was not listening to her, anyhow. He said dreamily, “Human males and mates both live to grow up all the time. What must planting buds be like for them, with so much practice on both sides?”
“When they come back, why don’t you ask them?” Lamra said.
“If I live until they come back, I will. And if I don’t live that long”—he looked at her with four eyes—“maybe you’ll ask them yourself.”
She thought it over. “Maybe I will,” she said.
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