the far corner, digging through robes cut in the female style.
Allenby shrugged. “I would rethink this, if I were you. You have no idea how violent they can be.”
“Strange that they wear so many clothes here,” Mitsu said. “It’s so hot, what with their fur and all, I would have thought they’d wear very little, or nothing.”
“They wear this style precisely because of the heat.” Allenby slid a folded pile in the cupboard and closed the door. “Desert cultures favor long flowing robes that create cool air pockets and protect them from the sun.”
“I’ll take these.” Mitsu held up a set of elegantly cut robes, dyed in a startling crimson which matched Anktan’s fiercely red sun.
“No, no, no!” Allenby seized the material out of her hands. “That color is the sole property of one particular outfit. You go out dressed in that, meet up with the wrong bunch, and the first thing you know, we’re shipping your remaining bits back to your next of kin!”
Mitsu’s slanted blue eyes radiated a calculated iciness with which Heyoka had become very familiar on battlefields ranging across a dozen worlds. She slipped her thumbs through her belt and squared her shoulders, never taking her stony gaze off Allenby’s face. He clutched the crimson robes to his chest and backed out of reach.
Heyoka headed for the door, trying not to favor his stiff leg. “We’ve already settled this. You weren’t invited. I’m going to the males’ house, and the last time I had any reason to check, you were not equip­ped as either a male or a hrinn.”
“All-Father blast it!” Sinking back into her home­world dialect, Mitsu turned back to Allenby. “Then give me some black ones too. They’ll blend with the shadows better anyway.”
Allenby surrendered the first set that came to hand, then retreated again, his uneasy eyes fixed on her face. Wadding the material under one arm, Mitsu followed Heyoka to the door.
“This is not a social occasion, Mitsu.” Heyoka studied her set expression as they walked the long corridors, matching each other stride for stride. “You heard what Eldrich said. You could be mauled if they catch you prowling around where you don’t .