Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html feather-stroking her. But soon enough he dropped the subject, and they lay silent in each other's warmth. "Murder-joy," he said, after a while. "What an odd way of putting it. And so casual… A snake in the grass." "What, where? I know of only one around here." She gripped, drawing a pleasure-yelp out of him. "Yeoli saying. For something's being hidden under something else. You only gave it up for your spouses' sake, you say. Not your own—as if that were weakness. If the joy of the other's death comes of the continuation of one's own life, I doubt there is a warrior alive who's never felt it. You talk most casually speaking of the two most personal things there are between two people, did you know that?" Shkai'ra shrugged. "Either casual or crying,nia ? Life's too short to bethat serious about anything, especially sex and dying." He chuckled. "O Aged One, who knows all. Sex and fighting, I meant; dying doesn't have to be between two people. And there's the third one, I forgot, the mix of the first two, rape. Is there no way somewhere between casual and crying? Or must you be casual not only about your own death, but all others', to save yourself those tears?" "Save myself tears? They're dead and I'm alive, and that's all that's important,nia ? Rape—it's like a wound, you get over it." She laughed. "Alive, to dothis ." Chevenga refused to be distracted.That's the trouble with these extraordinary people , she thought. They're so damnably single-minded . "Then you consider your own life precious, and spit on theirs?" She shrugged. "Call me barbarian, if you want; many have. But I'm in of a kind with most of the world, I think. Who doesn't care for their own life—or their love's— more than anyone else's?" "Granted—though I've met some who don't. Haian healers spring to mind. Perhaps barbarism is a matter of how muchless one cares about other lives than one's own, then. Shkai'ra, imagine this. You see a rockslide starting, that will grow big enough, to crush the town below where live ten thousand people—unless you throw yourself in its path and stop it now, at the cost of your own life. You have no obligation elsewhere except what anyone has, to family, friends and so forth. No punishment will come your way if you don't do it, nor accolades if you do, because no one will ever know. Those ten thousand people are neither friends nor enemies to you, just strangers; you've never even walked through the town. Would you do it?" Shkai'ra propped herself up on both elbows, scratched between her breasts. "Do you lie awake at night thinking these things up?" He chuckled, stroking her shoulder. "Not anymore. Debate training. Now I lie awake at night thinking up battle-plans." His eyes flicked up to hers, a single bright spot in each twinkling in the moonlight; the stroke turned snake-curvy as it continued down her upper arm. Shkai'ra shrugged. "No. I wouldn't. Zaik take them. Megan and the family need me." "And you wouldn't regret afterwards?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html "No. I do or I don't. Regret is dithering." "That's good. Perhaps. Would you tell Megan about it?" She stared at him puzzled. "Ia—why not?She'd do the same. I hope." "That'svery good. Maybe. Wouldn't it bother you at all, having the blood of ten thousand people on your hands, even to save yourself?" "Ididn't kill them—a rockslide did. There's a difference between killing and not preventing death." "Ah-hah—I knew we disagreed somewhere. You didn'tstart the rockslide, yes; but their blood is still on your hands, because you could havestopped it. You being too far away to reach the rockslide in time, hence havingno choice, would be different again. In Yeoli the word for choice,kra , means power and responsibility both, because for a moment you held power over the town's fate, and hence responsibility. Whatever the cost to you; it's still power, and responsibility." "Don't get me wrong: I don't necessarily think your choice is bad. Ten thousand people or better die somewhere every day anyway, and I can understand not wanting to commit suicide and bereave those you love for the sake of strangers. But itis wrong, to my mind, to pretend youdidn't choose, that there was no forking path before you, no matter how unpleasant, no matter now unfair that one should be forced to take such a bitter choice. We all get stuck with them. I'd rather have the pain than delude myself." Shkai'ra sat up. "Choose, don't choose, forking paths, this thread and that… I take this man into the bushes and fuck him until he's half passed-out with joy, and he starts giving me a Zaik-damned rhetoric course. Maybe I should carry you back." Chevenga flicked her nipple with his tongue. "Don't tell me I didn't give as good as I got. But I have reason to raise these things, aside from being Yeoli—stop that and listen. I like to know my warriors, my officers most of all. You're all sworn to do whatever I command; but to my mind everything works best if I have people do as they are inclined. I know this about you, now: if I need someone to sacrifice to save many, you're a bad choice. If I need someone to do something that would be easy only for one who cares little for strangers, or can be casual about sex, fighting and rape—doing or being done to—you are." Shkai'ra laughed. "Well, I can't protest that; I'm always delighted to do what I'm naturally inclined, mmm." "Exactly." He pushed her hands away. "You cavaliers, you're all the same. Single-minded horse-mounters." She fixed his eyes with hers. "Yetyou , Zhven'ghka… I've heard much, but I can't believe you're so pure and noble that in all the fighting you've seen, youve never taken pleasure on a defeated enemy." She made the snake-gesture down his arm. "You asked truth out of me, hmm?" His brows flew up, and his voice turned serious. "You doubt I would give it?" He's touchy about that, she thought. "I didn't mean you'dlie ." "You just wouldn't believe me, if I said I never had, because you think it's impossible for anyone to forgo
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Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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