Hence, well and truly do I want you."

"Huh?" He stared at her, watching the blush deepen. "You mean--?"

"Take care! First you should know that I am proscribed as a duly
registered virgin. And in this time of need, the magic of my blood must
not be profaned." She twisted sidewise, and then turned toward the door,
avoiding him. Before she reached it, the door opened to show a dull
clod, entirely naked, holding up a heavy weight of nothing.

"Your sample of sky," she said as the clod labored over to the desk and
dropped nothing with a dull clank. The desk top dented slightly.

Dave could clearly see that nothing was on the desk. But if nothing was
a vacuum, this was an extremely hard and heavy one. It seemed to be
about twelve inches on a side, in its rough shape, and must have weighed
two hundred pounds. He tapped it, and it rang. Inside it, a tiny point
of light danced frantically back and forth.

"A star," she said sadly.

"I'm going to need some place to experiment with this," he suggested. He
expected to be sent to the deepest, dankest cave of all the world as a
laboratory, and to find it equipped with pedigreed bats, dried unicorn
horns and whole rows of alembics that he couldn't use.

Nema smiled brightly. "Of course. We've already prepared a construction
camp for you. You'll find most of the tools you used in your world
waiting there and all the engineers we could get or make for you."