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In the preop surgical scrub room, Jos washed his hands, taking the customary ten minutes to do so, lath-ering, cleaning under the short nails, then repeating the process, even though the need for such had been unnec-essary since long before he’d been born. With sterile fields and gloves, there was not much of a chance any pathogens were going to be transferred into a patient because he washed his hands for nine minutes instead of ten, but he’d been taught by traditionalists who valued the old customs. So he washed, and he watched the chrono, and he brooded.

Old customs. On his world it was acceptable - barely-that a young unmarried person might go forth into the galaxy and sample the pleasures of ekster com-pany. It wasn’t spoken of in polite circles, but it was done. Then the young, having gotten it out of their sys-tems, were to return home, find a spouse from a proper enster family, and settle down.

But even in his younger and wilder days, Jos had never been comfortable with the idea of brief liaisons. He’d done it, of course, but the essentially meaningless en-counters had weighed heavily upon him. At the core of his being, Jos knew that there would only be one love in his life, and that he should not be unfaithful to her - even if he did so before he ever met her.

But now, here was Tolk. Beautiful. Sexy. Adept. Car-ing. Intelligent and, Jos knew, all too perceptive. She called to him. He wanted to get to know her, to explore her emotional depths, to find out if what he saw within was real. And, were he from another background, he would have broken landspeeder records to pursue her, to see if she was indeed the One.

But she could not be the One for him; his family, his culture, and a lifetime of duty to both forbade it out of hand. She was not of his people. She was ekster. There was no sacrament, no cer-emony, no ritual, that could change this. She could not become one of them.

Jos was indeed a man torn.

Tolk knew about his cultural background, of course. She could have politely backed away from any possible entanglements. But she hadn’t.

And why is that, Jos, you simpleton? Hmmm?

Jos scrubbed hard at the backs of his fingers. How pink the skin was getting there. Clean.

Very clean.

Tolk hadn’t made herself scarce for a simple reason: he wanted her, and not just physically. And she knew it. And apparently, she was of like enough mind so as not to be offended by the idea. And therein lay the real problem-"I wouldn’t recommend scrubbing the skin off en-tirely, Jos. Get serous fluid inside the gloves and all."

Speak of temptation, and lo! there did she appear!

He mumbled something.

"Pardon? I didn’t catch that."

Jos continued to meticulously wash his hands, like that character in the old holodrama who believed that, no matter how hard he scrubbed, he would never be clean of his father’s blood. What was his name again...?

He took a deep breath. Might as well get to it.

"Listen, Tolk. I... uh, I mean... uh..." Blast, this was hard! The term mixed emotions didn’t begin to cover how he felt. It was more like pureed emotions.

She smiled sweetly at him, pretending, he knew, that she didn’t have a clue as to how he felt. "Yes?"

He straightened, stuck his hands under the dryer. "Why are you making this so hard?"

"Me? I’m sorry, am I making something hard, Doctor Vondar?" The finest strands of spun Yyeger sugar would not have melted upon her tongue.

"You know my culture," he said, determined to see it through.

"Yes. And this knowledge disturbs you...?"

"Blast it, Tolk. You know very well what I’m talking about!"

She looked at him with an innocent gaze, her eyes so wide they made a Sullustan look squint-eyed. "My tal-ents aren’t perfect, Jos. I’m not a mind reader; I can only see what’s obvious to anybody who looks closely enough. Maybe you should just say what you mean so there won’t be any confusion." She smiled again.

He wanted to scream and break things.

"I-you-we-we can’t have a future together."

Tolk blinked, as innocent as a newborn. "Future?