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."Are yousaying you don't like it here?"From his tone, I could only assume he was taking itpersonally.He might as well have asked if I didn't likehim."That's not what I meant," I said."It's just that I'mnot an adventuress by any stretch of the imagination, andit's a miracle I've made it this far without turning tail forhome.I mean, I've never even been out of the country,let alone the world! And now that I'm here, one minuteI'm feeling pretty good, and the next I'm passing out onthe floor.And, let's face it; you guys are just too muchfor a little ol' piano teacher from Upper Sandusky.""Maybe," Trag said as he looked down at me ratherwistfully."But if you'd just say the word, we couldmake you so glad you came.""I'm sure you would, but "Tychar let go of my foot and crawled toward me on hishands and knees like a tiger stalking his prey."I, for one,am already glad you came," he purred."And I promiseyou, Kyra, you will never want to leave Darconia."The look in his eyes was enough to assure me thathe was telling the absolute truth.I might have been toomuch of a chicken to do anything about it at the time,but I believed him, too. Chapter 7WHEN ZEALON CAME BACK FOR HER LESSON, I WAS ASLEEPwith Tychar curled up at the foot of the bed, purringcontentedly.This time, I drank as much water as I couldhold and then got up, but my skin was still gritty withsalt.That was the trouble here; I was hot as hell and wasundoubtedly sweating as a result, but it evaporated soquickly that I didn't even realize it was happening.I fig-ured if I just kept drinking no matter what, I'd be okay,but I was probably losing more than just water.Still, the Zetithians had survived this climate for along time, and they seemed to be fairly human, at leastfrom a metabolic standpoint.I was to learn that theDarconians became rather sluggish with cooler tempera-tures, and were, therefore, much more active in the heatof the day, but I knew that to survive, I was going tohave to develop the siesta habit.Tychar, for one, seemedto think that a nap in the middle of the day was an ex-cellent notion, and since he had only me to look after,he didn't need to do anything but sleep whenever I did.Zealon thought it was rather odd, though."You're sleeping now?" she exclaimed but kept hervoice down so as not to wake Tychar.At least she wasthat considerate of him, even if he was a slave."Are youreally that tired?""You don't know the half of it," I replied."It's goingto take me a long time to adjust to this heat.It's not so bad morning and evening, but the middle of the day?Forget it! Give me a nice, climate-controlled buildingevery time."She looked at me curiously, as though unable to de-cide if I was being serious or not."My internal clock needs resetting, too.""What do you mean?""Back home we call it jet lag, and even though jetsare a thing of the past, the basic principles still apply.When you travel from one time zone to another, it takesa while to get used to it.I guess you could call it spacelag in this case, though."Zealon nodded, but I had an idea she was just humor-ing me.Perhaps lizards weren't affected by such things,though it was doubtful that she'd ever traveled much."He looks pretty when he's asleep, doesn't he?" sheremarked with a gesture toward the foot of the bed."I'venever seen him sleeping.""Never seen him eat anything either, have you?" Isaid with a touch of sarcasm.Then it occurred to me thatI should watch my mouth more carefully after all, shewas a princess but she'd have to learn to watch whatshe said to a groggy human, too."No," she conceded."Does he look pretty whenhe eats?""Not really," I said."Well, no more so than anyoneelse does."She appeared to think about this for a moment."Youdon't approve of my mother having slaves, do you?""No," I replied."It's wrong on a multitude of levels.If your mother wishes to bring Darconia into the main-stream of galactic society, she needs to rethink that." "But their safety.""There are other ways of protecting people besideskeeping them locked up as slaves," I pointed out."But are you going to refuse to have Tycharian asyour servant? I know I wouldn't.""No," I replied."I'm not going to refuse, though Iprobably should and just on principle alone.But yourmother was right; I do need someone to help me out.He had to carry me back here after taking me on a tourof the palace.Funny thing is, I've never consideredmyself to be a weakling, but this heat is sapping thelife out of me.""I hope you can become accustomed to it," she said,and her sincerity was evident."It's
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