Nightmare journey

not over. It would be moved to the master bedroom.
    At his request she had disrobed. She undressed him, slowly, as he liked. She permitted him-indeed, encouraged him-to fondle her slim and curveless legs, her deliciously flat buttocks, her narrow waist, the swell of her heavy breasts. He had loved the deathly whiteness of her skin in which the veins could be seen like deeply buried wires, and she had let him kiss that skin wherever he found it most pleasing. She had ministered to him in every way she knew, had played the mount to his rider and had brought him off. Afterward he rolled away from her, as a man might leave a dinner table where he has gorged himself, ignored her, drew his knees up to his broad chest and fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.
    Merka Shanly was disappointed on two counts. First of all, she had expected a General to be a good lover, to know where to touch her and how to move her in order to bring her into her own time of joy. Instead he had been one of the worst lovers she had experienced, cold and aloof, all the heat of him concentrated in his stiffened member, a demanding heat that did nothing to warm her. But beyond that disappointment lay another, more serious. She had never expected to see a General, a man of responsibility to his people, wasting the precious prewar stores of food and other goods as they had been wasted at the party that night. He was less considerate of the future than any of his subjects. This last disappointment became a lingering anxiety that would not permit her sleep.
    She slid out of bed.
    Nude, she went into the main lounge of the palatial suite, padded across the thick carpet and commanded the shielded windows to become clear.
    In moments they changed from mirror-black to clear glass and gave her a panoramic view of the night sky, the brilliant stars and the gibbous moon. Beneath these celestial bodies lay the tainted village where she had been only that morning, the forest and the mutated landscape of the Chen Valley Blight just beyond, the home of the Ruiner.
    She, unlike the General and his subordinates, questioned whether the espers would be doomed in that place. They were, after all, already children of the Ruiner What purpose would that evil god have in corrupting them further? Better, he would send them out into other borderlands where his power was incomplete, in hopes they would corrupt other of Lady Nature's creatures.
    She sat on the fur-covered couch next to the windows, her bare flesh made more lovely by the bluish light of the moon, and she stared at the stars, trying to decide what she wanted her future to be like. Clearly she could use her desirable body and her willingness to perform with it to hold the General in her influence for years to come; he had repeatedly told her that she was the most uninhibited woman he had ever taken. Yet, if the enclave continued to ignore the need for an austerity program- as they would under this thoughtless General-those few good years would be followed by starvation, degeneration and death. It appeared that if anyone were to stop this waste and make plans for continuation of the enclave once the stores had been depleted, she would have to be that one. That meant, besides bedding the General regularly, she would have to plot against him and, eventually, remove him from office.
    Soon she would have to become a General herself.
    She felt lonely. Cold.
    Looking at the stars, however, she knew, with a sudden and fanatical certainty, that her Lady Nature would favor whatever connivances, lies and acts of violence she might be forced to employ in order to put her enclave onto the holy path again. Lady Nature loved them and did not want to see them wither and perish merely because so many of their leaders were blind fools and self-serving bureaucrats.
    Merka rose from the sofa after more than an hour of spiritual self- searching and walked into the bedroom. She stood over the General, aware that she could go find a knife right now and murder him in his sleep, with no opposition. He would not even have an opportunity to scream or throw up his hands to ward off the slashing blade. But the ascendance to power had to be more gradual and more subtle than that. Besides, she would require a power base, sympathizers and assistants in the enclave government who would swear their allegiance to her and ensure her own promotion when this General-passed on. That would take weeks, most likely months, to accomplish. Meanwhile, she