Free To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) by William Rotsler Page B

startlingly loud in the empty night patio.
    "We're crazy, you know that?" she said.
    Does Voss own you? The question burned a trench through his mind like a laser gone wild. Are you Voss's property? He stopped smiling.
    "You look so angry!" Rio said, and put her hand on his shoulder and drifted closer. She looked soberly at him. "You're afraid," she said.
    Yes! Afraid of losing you! Losing something I don't have!
    "If he finds out, he'll be petulant and petty," she said. "But he'll get over it."
    Blake looked at her a long time before he spoke. "I want you," he said, "but not that way. Not only as long as Jean-Michel doesn't find out. Not as a loan-out from the Boss. And when it's over, you go back to being his property."
    Rio's face darkened. Blake's heart sank. He had spoken with such foolish possessiveness.
    "He doesn't own me!" she snapped. "I am not like Theta's wench. I'm not one of the silly little pagans running around spending their youth, trying for the big time."
    Blake raised his eyebrows in a silent question. He didn't want to ask, but he had to know. Something small and petty and weak inside me wants to know.
    Rio untangled her legs and moved back along the rim, both hands on the smooth stone edging, not looking at Blake. "I'm.. ... I value myself too much for ... for what they do. Sundance sold herself to Theta's agent because her whole family was starving up in Zavitaya, near the Manchurian border. Theta renamed her and trained her to be the pliable creature you see." She shot Blake a quick glance. "No one has trained me, not that way."
    "Rio, I–"
    "I know what you think. They always think that. I've had some beauties come after me. They think Jean-Michel talks in his sleep or something, and they want me to slip them little financial scraps on the side. They've sent me some gorgeous young men and beautiful young women. I've been ... I've been offered some freaky scenes, scenarios that I would control completely, from whips to electrostims. Anything, just as long as I tipped them off on Jean-Michel."
    Blake was silent, and the water lapped against the tiles. "But no one wanted you for you," he said.
    "No! That's not true. I ... I can't believe it's true." She moved further along the curving pool edge and Blake followed her. She spoke in a soft voice, almost to herself. "No ... There have been several ... They ... wanted ... just me. I know that ... I ... think that..."
    "But they were not the ones you wanted," Blake said, suddenly certain. He moved closer and touched her shoulder.
    Rio looked at him with a quick, fearful expression and shoved against the pool edge. The water pillowed behind her head as she backed up. She twisted over and swam to the opposite end with a great deal of energy. She ended up under the waterfall and Blake followed.
    The water crashed around them, louder now, pelting off their shoulders as they stood in the shallows and looked at each other.
    "Rio..."
    "Don't, Blake. I don't want just another damned quickie. I can't do that again. I'd rather..."
    "I want you, Rio. More than anything else in the world." They looked at each other, their eyes slitted against the cascade of the thin sheet of water. "I hardly know you, but I want you."
    Rio moved back, out of the waterfall. Her golden body gleamed with water drops in the warm night. Blake stepped free of the water and they looked at each other until Rio looked away.
    Blake smiled. "I've gotten in trouble before, being so ... so impulsive. I'm a romantic. It's the way I've been programmed, I suppose."
    Rio smiled at him, a sad, weary smile. "Don't," she said.
    "Yes," Blake said and moved a step closer in the water. "To hell with 'Blake Mason, Environmental Concepts,' to hell with money, to hell with Voss Investments and Voss Oil and Voss This and Voss That. To hell with a tomb for the ages."
    "It isn't just a tomb." Rio stopped short, and her lips parted. "Don't, Blake, please. He can get angry. You haven't seen that side of him. He can be