From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.furry
Subject: Journal Entry 212 / 0164 [ Ambassadors ]
Date: 9 Feb 1996 13:18:42 GMT
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Lines: 1029
Message-ID: <4ffhji$o3u@news1.halcyon.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: coho.halcyon.com
Seren, Narquel 1, 0164
"Kennet?"
The shout from the command cabin jolted me awake from yet
another short catnap. The four-day transit time to Terra was
trying on my nerves and stamina; Kangaroos are great
trans-atmospheric shuttlecraft, but they're cramped inside.
Information is light, so I had plenty of reading, music, video, and
even writing to keep myself occupied if I so desired. Consumables
such as food are not, and our technology in that field isn't as
advanced as Terra's, so my stomach, and I guessed the stomachs of
my five companions, were not so content.
I groaned audibly as I creaked out of my chair, stiff and sore,
and walked forward on velcro slippers to the CC. I grabbed hold of
a support strut and leaned in casually, looking down at our lovely
Felinzi pilot. "What's up?"
She didn't look up from her console as she said, "You said
advise you when we were leaving hyperspace. Ten minutes."
"Mph," I agreed tiredly. I noted the copilot's chair was
empty. "Shtamed taking a nap?"
"Yep," she replied. "Go ahead, have a seat."
I eased myself into the red-upholstered chair and strapped the
harness on, looking over the ever-bewildering array of readouts,
displays and consoles. In the first six years of Pendor's shift to
a space-faring culture, many people had been surprised at the
sudden rush of people anxious to get "out there."
I had not been so surprised. I'm so fully aware of diversity
that I was sure we'd have hundreds of talented starstruck
Pendorians anxious to take their place as crewfen. Pendorians who
would understand why I insisted on having a small crew learn about
zero gravity and spaceflight even before we lived in a place with
stars in the sky. What frustrated me was that my own rise into
space was, for me, painfully slow. I had taken classes in orbital
and special mechanics, starship maintenance and so forth, but I
wasn't as quick a learner as many. I had expected more from
myself.
I blinked at the controls, forcing myself to think of what I
wanted, reached for the keyboard and dialed a plus-z overhead view
of our ship's predicted path, closing in on a time-tolerant view of
the approaching ex-hyperspace window. Eight minutes to go.
As I watched the clock tick down, a thought that had been
nagging me for the past day finally clicked in my head. "K'meh?"
"Sir?"
"Uhm..." I paused to collect my thoughts. "Neither P'nyssa or
anyone else with whom I feel I have a comforting relationship with
came with me on this trip. I, uh... well, first of all, I want you
to stop calling me 'Sir.' That 'Kennet' you addressed me with
earlier is fine." I swallowed hard, thinking about how sometimes
dealing with people was so very easy, and then at times like this I
couldn't get out a single word. "You and I were talking rather...
comfortably yesterday, and I'd like to ask if you'd consider
sharing my room." I snorted a soft laugh at my own reluctance.
"My bed."
K'meh didn't even blink at the invitation. "I thought you had
the invitation of Dr. Stoneman."
I smiled, checked the clock, and placed my hand over hers.
"Dr. Stoneman and I have every intention of having dinner together.
If something else develops out of that, which I doubt, well... Let
me be honest, K'meh... I don't like to sleep alone."
She laughed freely, tossing her head back. "So," she said
loudly, recovering, "Am I a roommate, or backup?"
I blushed, embarrassed. "Maybe a little bit of both."
She pulled her hand free from under mine, and then laid it atop
mine reassuringly. "I need a roommate, and I can't think of anyone
I'd rather have."
Before I could answer, there was a curious lurch, but it felt
as if it were coming from inside my skull, rather than against the
harness, which seemed to move not at all. K'meh was suddenly busy.
"Kanga Two, Kanga Two."
"This is Kanga Two," the radio announced cleanly. "That you at
the helm, K'meh?"
"Affirmative, Segio. How's your compliment?"
"We're fine. Nice scheduling; we came out clean."
"Nice to drive with you, Seg. See you on Terra."
"Right. Stay in touch."
"Will do. Out." She turned her attention to the navigation
computer. "We're an hour out from Luna Insertion Orbit, and it
looks like we'll be coming along the right path so we should be
landing at Tycho in slightly under two hours."
I nodded. "Sorry about the stop at Luna."
She smiled and pointed around herself towards the back. "The
scientists wanted a Luna conference. Besides, everyone wants a
past they can touch," she finished mysteriously.
I settled back into the chair and looked at her curiously, but
decided not to continue the conversation. Instead, I summoned up
the collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe that I'd been
reading earlier. Eventually, I leaned back in my chair and napped.
- - -
"Vatare'," the voice said, someone shaking my shoulder. "I'm
going to need the co-pilot's position for landing."
"Eh?" I said, waking quickly. "Oh," I said, smiling, "sure."
I creaked against out of my comfortable seat, handing it back to
flight specialist Shtamed. I drifted back to my equally
comfortable passenger chair and pulled the harness back on there as
well. "You have one minute to secure positions," K'meh announced,
"before we detach from the hyperdrive module for descent to the
lunar surface. Please make sure you are all strapped in securely."
The actual landing took only fifteen minutes more. Although I
had put off thinking about it for the past couple of days, now that
we were actually coming close to Tycho Base my anxiety level was
increasing with every diminishing meter. I tried to relax. It had
been, for me, centuries since I had last spoken to Victoria
Stoneman face-to-face. I looked down at my hands, still perfectly
smooth and relatively untouched by age or effort. I knew
Victoria's wouldn't be the same.
The Kanga came to a gentle, perfect touchdown on the lunar
terrain. Although I had always been an avid reader of "science
fiction," and had been a member of a spacefaring race for nearly
fifty years, this was my first visit to Earth's moon, that object
that had hung overhead for so much of my youth.
We were lowered into a receiving bay, and then the entire
platform started to move across the bay, apparently on some sort of
giant truck. The same philosophy that had led to the development
of the huge tractor- carriages that hauled space vehicles out to
their launch pads apparently had been adapted for use on Luna.
The truck pulled into a smaller bay, and airlock doors
double-sealed behind us. There was a delay as air was pumped into
the airlock, and then the doors in front opened, leading us to a
pressurized maintenance bay filled with a large collection of
uniform spacecraft, none of which were ever intended for
atmospheric flight.
"The outside is apparently safely pressurized," K'meh announce.
"At least, I hope it is... there are humans out there working in
shirtsleeves. I'm going to open both doors on the airlock
sequentially." The outside doors opened first, followed by the
inside doors; there was just a slight >pop< as the pressure outside
and in equalized.
"After you, Kennet," said the Uncia medic who had come to Luna
to give his presentation on xenophysiology and space medicine. I
nodded and slowly stepped down the self-extending steps onto to
vaguely ellipsoid landing platform.
A stairway ramp was rolled up to the platform and a tall, aging
Caucasian human with swept, black hair and grey eyes bounded up,
followed by a small party, in the center of which I spied Victoria.
He crossed the platform assuredly and held out his hand. "How do
you do? I'm Martin Scheider, Commander of Moonbase Tycho.
Welcome, and welcome to United States Territory." He held out his
hand.
I took it and shook comfortably. "Glad to be here," I said.
He smiled in response, and I thought I would call his smile
'charming.' I wondered how much of that smile was honest, and how
much of it he reserved for the politicians he had to deal with on a
daily basis. Most of it felt honest, to me.
"I understand that the three Pendrii behind you are here for
the conferences on extra solar exploration, but I am also led to
understand that you personally are here to visit Dr. Victoria
Stoneman?"
I coughed politely and said, "Yes; Dr. Stoneman and I have been
corresponding for a number of years, and seeing as I was going to
be in the neighborhood I requested clearance to land and visit."
"I received the information five days ago." I wondered how the
information had been worded. As a request, or orders? He
continued. "I would like to introduce various members of my staff.
This is Wilton Marchoff, my deputy director," I shook hands with
her, "Elizabeth Knight, my chief medical officer, and I believe you
already know my head of Physical Sciences, Victoria Stoneman."
I shook hands with Dr. Knight before bowing deeply to Victoria.
"Hello, Victoria. You're looking wonderful for eighty-two years."
"As are you, Ken." Her smile was dazzling. She held out her
hand and I kissed it; As I had realized earlier, her skin was thin
and fragile, projections of her great age upon her. I felt
saddened by her suddenly, just standing there.
Commander Scheider seemed slightly surprised by the familiarity
of the exchange, but he recovered quickly and said, "Well, let's
have your crew settled into their cabins. I understand that you
and your flight crew will be heading on to Moscow in a few days."
"The day after tomorrow, at 19:00 Greenwich Mean Time," K'meh
replied. Is there a problem with that scheduling?"
"Just give us six hours notification and we'll have a clearance
ready for you," said a broad-shouldered man standing with Commander
Scheider's party. "Does your ship require any particular type of
refueling or maintenance?"
"Not that it isn't already getting," Shtamed replied. "It's
the atmospheric insertions that really tear them up, and we have a
facility at New Boeing Field to do that sort of maintenance work."
As we were led into the underground moonbase (a trip which
involved a short hop in a tracked tube), I noticed K'meh glancing
about nervously. We were shown our temporary quarters, and when
the doors closed I dropped my bag and gave her a tight hug.
"Feeling claustrophobic?" I asked her.
"A little," she admitted. The quaver in her voice gave away
just how big "a little" was.
"We just spent four days cooped up in a Kangaroo. Compared to
that, this is spacious. It's bigger than the entire cabin!"
She smiled. "Forgive me if I don't trust Terran technology."
"Now, now," I chided. "Nobody has died from a hardware failure
in nearly two decades."
"What about that big blowout four years ago? A window and
three successive bulkheads all failed!"
"You know that was sabotage,"
"And that's supposed to make me feel more comfortable about
being in a Terran facility?" she replied.
"Nobody died from it."
"Two of their security officers were nearly frozen to death and
asphyxiated."
"They survived, didn't they?"
"They lost fingers and toes."
"They got them back," I said, giving her another squeeze. I
decided not to tell her about Victoria. "Besides, after four days
without a shower, I think we both need one. Maybe two."
She sniffed at herself delicately, wrinkled her nose and said
"If I was as much of a feline as I appear to these humans to be,
I'd lick myself clean."
I laughed at the gesture and said, "Would you like to take one
together?"
"That sounds wonderful," she agreed, stepping free of my arms
and locating that bathroom. From within I heard her voice say,
"Then again, maybe not. Have you seen the size of their
showerstall?"
I poked my head in and looked. She was right; it would barely
hold one of us, much less two. "On the other hand... take a look
at the water restrictions."
She read them carefully, sighing. "How are we going to do
this?"
"We take one together, pooling our ration so that you get as
wet as possible, we turn up the heat lamps in the bathroom, and
then we rinse off the same way."
"Okay, let's try it," she said, shrugging out of her flight
uniform. Inside, she did smell like an unwashed cat, a very
unwashed one. I was quick to grab the showerhead and play the
streams all over her body, turning on the shower massage portion to
drive the pressurized water under her fur. She giggled in places
when I did that. Once she was wet I ran it over myself just as
quickly, then turned the water off. "Do you have soap?"
"In the black bag," she pointed. "It's the brown bottle." I
found the wide, plastic squeeze bottle of soap, splashed some in my
hands and ran then over her torso, starting at her neck and sliding
down quickly. "Smells good," I said. "Is that clove oil?"
"Yep," she replied, purring softly as my hands ran down her
chest. Normally, I tend to think of pilots as being very thin,
light people. K'meh's body could only be described as lush. Her
hips were wide, her breasts were very full, and her shoulders were
broad. Her fur was an almost-white grey liberally polka-dotted
with teardrop-shaped spots of brown streaked with gray, the spots
thinning out at her neck and between her thighs, although they
seemed quite dense at the base of her spine. She was just as tall
as I was.
I had a hard time ignoring how alluring she was when I ran my
hands under her breasts to get the soap up against her pelt, and I
don't think she minded too much when I lingered there longer than
was necessary. I had her turn around and gave her back similar
treatment, rubbing my hands in small, tight circles to massage her
neck. She purred softly and leaned her head against the yielding
wall of the shower. "Rub harder," she purred pleadingly.
I pushed in harder, down around her spine and between her
shoulderblades, trying to ease the pressure of 120 or so hours of
flight time. Although the computers on board had taken much of the
effort off her hands, none of us were completely relaxed-- just
sitting makes me tense sometimes. She purred softly, collapsing
against the showerstall wall and letting me hold her up as I rubbed
her. I slowly worked my way down and began caressing her hips and
buttocks; the sounds coming from her muzzle were positively
ecstatic. She moaned softly as my hands pressed into the tight
flesh of her thighs, as much for the massage as for the soap,
kneeling down and working down to her calves and finally her feet.
"I'd like to do this part when we're dry."
"That sounds wonderful," she sighed. "Would you like me to
wash you as well?"
"Please... but be quick. I don't want the soap on you to dry
suddenly and give you a rash."
"It won't be that long," she replied, smiling and trading
places with me, running her soap along my chest with her paws. I
suddenly understood why she had reacted so vocally to my touch;
after four days of wearing the same clothes and sitting in the same
position, just to be touched by another person was sheer bliss,
never mind that she was massaging me just as firmly as I had her.
Her hands were just as sure, rubbing my neck, back, buttocks,
thighs. I nearly passed out, it felt that wonderful. I wanted to
sleep, and sleep for real.
When she was finally done, I turned around and grabbed the
showerhead. "In," I ordered. She smiled and got in as I again ran
the water over her head, her chest, teasing at the fur to get the
soap out of all of it. When she was rinsed, I turned the head on
myself and rinsed off quickly. "Whew," I sighed.
"Yeah," she replied. "After that, I feel ready for sleep."
"Computer?" I asked aloud. There was no response. "I thought
they had vocal-control computers on Tycho?"
"Maybe you need to address a terminal or something," she said
thoughtfully as she toweled off. Being furred, she needed more
time than I did to get the water off her.
"I'll go take a look." Without a concern for modesty, I walked
into the main room and found what looked like a keyboard terminal
with a condenser microphone. The wall appeared to be a wide-screen
display. I toggled the 'power' bar in the upper-right-hand corner
of the keyboard and the screen came up with a menu. "Computer?" I
inquired aloud.
"Listening," came back a flat and unpleasant male voice.
"Where is Doctor Victoria Stoneman?"
"Doctor Stoneman is in her laboratory," the computer replied.
"Can you please connect..." I suddenly realized that I was
still naked. I leaned far out of the chair I was sitting in to
grab a long nightshirt from my bag and slipped it on.
"Repeat, please," the computer responded.
"Can you please connect me to Doctor Stoneman?"
"I am inquiring Doctor Stoneman right now." I cursed under my
breath about stupid computers and computer programmers.
Finally the screen cleared and Victoria peered out at me.
"Ken!" she responded cheerfully, smiling.
"Hi, Vicki," I replied. "You're looking swell."
"You too," she said. "Are we still having dinner tonight?"
"When's 'tonight?'" I asked.
"It's only noon right now. How about eight o'clock?"
I closed my eyes and sighed, thanking a deity at random. I
think today's was Loki. "That would be wonderful. I need to take
a nap. Is there anything you want from me when I show up?"
"Just you," she replied softly. "See you in a few hours."
"Okay," I said. "See you then, Vicki."
K'meh chose right then to walk out; After setting the alarm
clock I turned to watch her walk naked across the room and dig
through her bag for a fur brush.
I stood up and walked behind her, giving her a gentle hug.
"Would you like me to help with that brush?" I asked.
"I sure would," she sighed, sitting down slowly on the edge of
the bed. Then again, in the one-sixth gravity of Luna, everything
seemed to happen in slow motion anyway. I started at the top of
her head, dealing with knots and tangles for the next half hour.
She purred anyway under my gentle touch. It didn't seem quite so
hard to concentrate on what I was doing this time, even though I
got a rather solid erection while I was brushing her breasts and
about her vulva. I gave her feet the massage I had promised, and
she did indeed fall asleep during it. I slipped under the light
sheets with her and joined her in complete unconsciousness.
- - -
At seven the alarm chime woke me up, making me blink and look
up. With a soft groan I climbed out of bed, careful not to disturb
K'meh who chose to stay solidly asleep. "Smart girl," I whispered
softly.
I decided to dress smartly, so I located my Pendor Interstellar
Fleet uniform and pulled it on, carefully buckling the various
snaps and frogs and such, pulling the collar out and adjusting the
cufflinks. I examined myself in the mirror and decided that I
looked reasonable after brushing my hair. I reached for the
keyboard and began typing in commands. I asked for a quick map to
Victoria's home, found it, memorized it as best I could and walked
out. K'meh, fortunately, slept through the whole operation.
I had to ask someone for directions anyway.
I approached the doorway with a hint of trepidation and pressed
the door chime. The door opened. Victoria stood before me,
looking wonderful in a simple light-gray monk's robe that folded
around her body and was tied around her hips. She wore the hood
up, but lowered it behind her head as I looked in. "Hi," I said.
"Hello, Ken," she replied softly. "Come in; dinner is still
cooking, so it might be a few minutes before it's ready. Make
yourself at home, look around."
I nodded and stepped through the door, hearing it close behind
me. She smiled and turned back into the kitchen to again pay
attention to her cooking. "I remember your penchant for beef, so
I'm cooking steak."
"Real steak?"
"Not really," she replied. "I'm told some people can tell the
difference."
"Depends on how different 'different' is."
"It's made by Solid Artificial Photosynthesis."
"I probably won't be able to tell the difference, then," I
said, glancing around her home qua laboratory. There were a
variety of instruments laying about, the most notable was an
authentic-looking brass reflective telescope that peered out a
large bay of windows at the stars. To the left of the windows was
a framed copy of her certificate from the Nobel Committee for
Achievement in Mathematics and Physics. There was a drafting table
in one corner, above which a carefully drawn illustration of a
house was taped to the wall; the corners of the drawing were
yellowing with age, and the paper appeared to have cracked in
places. Several tears in the sheet had been repaired with
cellophane tape, telling me this drawing had moved a couple of
times, but probably wouldn't survive moving again. "This house," I
said aloud, "You live there once?"
"I was going to," Victoria replied, two plates in her hands.
"Come, I've got dinner ready. Sit down." I took a seat at her
dining table where she indicated. From where we sat, we could look
out the windows at the stars overhead.
"You were going to? What happened?"
"I drew that back when I was young, and poor, and new to Luna.
Then the accident, and... " Her voice trailed off. "I haven't
been to Terra since then, you know."
"I know."
She laughed softly. "It's sad, isn't it?" she said, turning to
look at me. "I have all the money I could ever want, the affection
of everyone on Luna, but I just can't do what I want. I can't go
home."
"So, what happened to the house?"
"Oh, it never existed. I was just drawing it freehand to see
what I thought I wanted. It looked about right for New Hampshire,
huh? I guess I could have given the drawing to my daughter, but
she never could stand to live out in the country the way I wanted."
I nodded. Then what she said dawned on me. "You have a
daughter? When?"
"About forty years ago," Victoria said calmly. "About two
years after the accident, in fact. I wanted to get that over with,
and I decided that since I was going to be bedridden anyway, that
was the perfect time to have my child."
"That was before the birthright selection, right?" She nodded.
"What did you do with your second birthright?"
"I gave it to her. She's allowed three children. Four,
actually."
"Four? She bought a fourth?" I asked.
"I bought it for her. She wanted it, and I haven't got
anything better to do with my money." She laughed softly. "Most
of it goes to charity anyway."
I nodded, watching her move with a calm majesty I thought I
would never have. "You know, Vicki, you're as beautiful as you
ever were."
She smiled back. "You were never a good liar, Ken. When you
first knew me I was the overweight lonely girl with braces and
coke-bottle glasses. If I'm as beautiful now as I was then, I
think I'm in trouble."
"You know what I mean," I said. She smiled back at me and
said, "Yeah, I guess I do. You yelled at me, once."
"You pissed me off, once," I replied. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," she said. "Apology accepted," she said.
"I still think you look wonderful."
"Ken," she sighed slowly, "Let's face the face. I'm eighty-two
years old. And unlike you, I am not going to live forever. I'm
going to live a lot longer than my groundside relatives. My family
stock was always long-lived, and good food, a lighter gravity,
and--" she spread her fingers over her chest-- "an artificial heart
are all good reasons that I should live well past a hundred."
"That doesn't mean I don't find you beautiful, Vicki."
She smiled. "Do you really?"
"Yeah. Why shouldn't I? It's not like I find small
differences in body types a disadvantage."
"Yes, I saw your female friend. She's very pretty."
"K'meh?" I asked. "Yes, she is."
"So why do you want me?"
I looked around idly. "Because I came to visit you. K'meh and
I are just newfound fast friends, but she's not you, Vicki.
Besides," I smiled mischievously, "call it an ego thing."
"Ego? How so?"
"I did want to be the one to take your virginity."
She laughed. "You silly kid. You haven't changed one little
bit."
"Watch who you're calling 'kid,' youngster," I said, "I'm still
a hundred and twenty-eight years older than you are."
"Really?" she said, looking up. "I didn't realize... where did
the other twenty-eight years come from... or is that how long the
set-up took?"
I nodded. "Pendor took four point five million years to set
up. Although I spent most of that time 'in transit,' so to speak,
the monitoring and measuring of progress took twenty one years."
"And the other seven?"
"Building Centaurs."
"All by yourself. Tell me how that happened?"
"How what happened?"
"How you came to build Pendor. What happened? One day, you
were there... the next, you were gone. That hunk of junk you drove
was gone."
I sighed quietly and told her the whole story, starting, as the
White Queen once said, at the beginning, and going all the way to
the end, and then stopping. She was silent through the whole
thing, sipping from a glass of wine.
"And that's it?" she asked. "Someone decided you should be
God, and that was that? Suddenly you were?"
"Something like that. I mean, I know someone had to start the
process, but eventually it became a closed loop, me handing Fawn to
me, over and over eternally."
"Too bad we can't go back in time and do something about it."
"Maybe someday somebody will. Until then, we have to live with
it. Do you find what I did... repulsive? I know some people do."
She shook her head. "No, I don't. Predictable, for anyone who
knew you, maybe. You were never into power, really, so much as you
were into satisfaction. I like your solution."
I reached out and touched the back of her hand with mine.
"Thank you."
She pulled her hand away from me. "That's not the real one,"
she said. "Besides, I'm really too old for that sort of thing."
"To what?" I asked. "Be touched?" I grabbed her other hand
and held it tightly, being careful not to apply too much pressure.
"Everyone needs to be touched, Victoria. You do, I do, everyone
does."
"You're reading too much pop psychology, Ken."
"Am I?" I asked softly. "I've raised over a hundred children
in my household, given birth to eleven species. I think I know a
few things about people. Thing one is that all people need to be
touched." I was quiet for a minute. "Victoria... even though you
and I never slept together, I know how physical a creature you
were. Remember playing flag football in the mud in that field
behind the theatre?" She nodded, her smile distant and wistful.
"That was a long time ago." She lifted her right hand and
waved it in front of me. "That was before this. That was before
an accident took away my arm and my leg." She smiled. "It's
nothing."
"Nothing? You saved 82 people that day."
"Four people died anyway."
"Still... You're a hero. Don't dismiss that."
"Oh, I don't," she said. "Look at this room. It's hero
worship of a sort, Ken. They can't send me home; I'll die. So
they stick me in the most expensive nursing home in the galaxy.
They let this nobel-prize-winning cripple dote about her laboratory
and sometimes they visit her and thank her for being such an
important part of Moonbase Tycho."
I stood up, grabbed my chair and planted it next to her. I sat
down besides her as she looked away. "I'm not going to ignore you
or fawn at you or dote on you."
"No, you're worse, in a way."
"Because I'm twice as old as you are?"
"No," she said firmly. "No, you were always meant to live
forever, Ken. It was obvious from the day we met you. Although I
would like to have seen what you looked like with grey hair."
"I'll dye it the next time I stop by."
"Do that," she said, smiling. I leaned down to kiss her smile,
and she let me. As I backed away again she said, "No, that's not
it. It's because you haven't changed at all. You don't hurt me
because of what you are, you do because of what you were. I
remember you, walking around with a squirt gun, and shooting me as
I begged you not to. You remind me of what I had."
I stroked her cheek softly; her skin was wrinkled with age, but
the surface was still smooth. Her eyes were still bright. "I
still want you, Victoria. It isn't age, or beauty, or even ego
that makes me want you. It's simple honestly. I just remember
the beautiful black woman who spent a summer with me, who I held in
my arms the night she cried as her boyfriend left her."
She laughed. "And I used to think you didn't like me because I
was black."
"I hardly think race was stopping me from paying attention to
you. Look with what I sleep with nowadays."
She nodded, smiling. "I used to wonder when it began."
"When what began?" I asked curiously.
"When we stop being people and start being machines." She
tapped her chest again, through the monk's robe she wore. "Is it
when I get a bridge for my teeth? Dentures? Contact lenses?" She
smiled. "When do you start thinking of Grandma as a cyborg?"
"What brought this depressing line of thought on?" I asked.
"I was just wondering when I stopped feeling. Did you know,
Ken, that every six months Beth checks to make sure the age spots
on this arm match the ones on my left?" She turned to me. "As much
as I want to give you what you want, as much as I wish the feelings
were still there... they aren't."
I nodded. "Can I still spend the night next to you?"
She looked over at me curiously. "Whatever for?"
"How about for old time's sake?" I asked, smiling. "How about,
because I want to?"
She thought about it quietly. "Very well," she said, smiling.
"Maybe those feelings aren't so dead after all."
"Hopefully not."
"Are you tired?" she asked, surprised. "I am, but I assumed
you and your friend would be getting sleep since you landed."
"I didn't get enough," I said softly. "Your dinner filled me,
and I tend to get tired after a big dinner."
She smiled and nodded, rising. "Come this way, then," she
said, leading me through a small door into a dark room that lit as
we entered, the room behind us darkening and the door closing. Her
bed was large enough for two, I guessed, the same size as the one
K'meh and I were sharing. She turned around and said "You're
really determined to do this."
"Dammit, Vicki, this isn't necrophilia and it isn't altruism.
I want you. Is that so hard to get through to you?"
She shook her head and reached into her robe, tugging at a
short string that opened the whole thing to me. Underneath, her
skin was still clean, her breasts hadn't sagged all that much,
although they had perhaps lost some mass. The benefits of living
in a low-gravity environment. I smiled. "Do you still want me?"
"Yes," I replied, smiling. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Because you're so used to youth. All of your children, they
all look so young, strong, pure."
I walked over to her, my jacket and shirt unbuttoned, and
pressed my bare chest to hers in a tight bearhug. "Why should that
make a difference at all? They're that way because I don't want
them to die, Vicki, not because I want them to always be young." I
sighed rested my head on her shoulder. "I don't want you to die,
either."
She sighed. "I wasn't meant to live forever." I dropped the
subject like a stone. Every time I had discussed the possibility
of her Hallwalking, she told me to not discuss it. I stepped back
and undid my clothing, standing before her naked as she stood with
me. She smiled. "You look wonderful."
"As do you."
"Thanks," she said, taking my hand and leading me to bed. Her
hand felt frail in mine; despite the advantages of the lower
gravity, one of the problems inherent with it was the lack of
resistance; there was little reason for muscles to remain at the
strength they have on Earth. She turned on her side and I cuddled
up behind her. I held her close and together we fell asleep.
- - -
With dawn I awoke to find her still lying against me. I was
fascinated by her body, so different from anything I had ever
encountered before or probably would ever again. It wasn't that I
was erotically charged by her pronounced and visible aging, or that
I wondered what the experience she was going through was like, so
much as I merely found it so different that I felt it worth
exploring, worth touching. Like her.
She stirred as I ran my hand over her belly, her skin
responding to my touch only slightly. Her hand reached up to touch
mine, and her eyes opened slowly. "Maybe I'm not so old as I
thought," she smiled. "I had a strange dream last night."
"Memories of a man lying next to you?" I asked, smiling.
"No, not even that. Although having you lie next to me proved
to me how much I missed it."
"Enough to get out more often?"
"That remains to be seen," she whispered, squeezing my hand
tightly. I leaned over and kissed her softly, my left hand
touching her belly softly and then sliding down to probe delicately
between her legs, stroking through the thick, almost wiry pubic
hair, which I bet if I looked was a mixed silver and black as the
hair on her head. Her mouth felt warm against mine, warm and wet.
Her vulva was just as warm and just as human. With my fingers and
with experience, I parted her outer labia and slid a finger between
them, playing with her lips and her clitoris. She sighed slightly,
a high-pitched "ieee..." sound. She looked up at me. "I
forgot..."
"Forgot what?" I asked softly, stopping for a moment. "Don't
tell me you don't masturbate anymore."
She shook her head. "I thought I was getting to old even for
that."
I slid my fingers across the top of her clitoral hood.
"Victoria, you're never to old to play with yourself. Besides," I
said smiling, "You haven't got a heart to fibrillate." She smiled
at me and I kissed her lips again, sliding down her chin and across
her breasts briefly. There was an unfamiliar, musky scent to her
that I refused to categorize, even to myself. The scent was
replaced with a much more familiar scent when I slid between her
legs. I kissed the top of her mons and her hands clutched at mine,
my arms stretched out before me over her body.
She moaned again, that high-pitched "Iee!" sound. Her body
shuddered under my tongue as I licked at her cunny, trying (and
losing) my argument with her pubic hair as to where it belonged.
She began to thrust her hips upwards; I had to clamp my hands down
on her thighs to hold her in place. Her voice's pitch climbed
higher, reaching for notes even beyond my hearing. I was wondering
how much longer she could keep this up; her body was curling in
response to my every lick, until she finally answered my question,
screaming and pounding the mattress with her fists. "Okay!" she
gasped. "Okay, you've proven your point, damn you!" I smiled and
crawled up the length of her body, touching her gently as I slid up
to lie besides her.
She laughed softly as she wiped her brow of sweat that wasn't
there. "I haven't had a climax like that in nearly two years. How
could I forget?"
"I dunno," I said, smiling. She reached down with her real
hand, thin and frail, and wrapped it around my penis. "When I was
younger, I used to play with these things a lot."
"Before or after the accident?"
"Both," she said. "The accident never slowed me down, Ken. I
was boffing male nurses even before I had the borgings fit on."
I laughed. "That sounds like you. You just let age catch up
to you?"
"Age and depression," she sighed, her hand slowly stroking my
cock. "I got over the depression," she said, smiling, "But not
the age."
I nodded, slowly easing myself over and between legs. She
smiled up at me, her hands reaching up to my shoulders, as I slid
my cock into her. Her eyes closed fast, her mouth open, a soft
gasp. "Oh, yes..." she sighed. I made love to her slowly,
stroking deep within her cunny; she pressed her hips upwards with
every stroke. We began to make love with a little more urgency,
pressing up against each other, kissing as we made love and my
climax rose on soft cat feet to explode within me and her, a tiny
explosion of desire and pleasure.
I looked down at her and said, "Victoria, you're still a lovely
woman, inside and out."
She laughed brightly and looked up at me. "You're right," she
said. "Even at eighty-two I should have more lovers, right?"
"Right!" I laughed. "When I was your age I had a dozen
lovers."
"I should be thankful I only have you chasing me," she said.
"Oh!"
"Are you okay?" I asked. That hadn't sounded like a happy
"Oh!"
"Yeah," she smiled. "Don't go acting like I'm some frail old
woman just because I am. My back hurts once in a while, Ken. Part
of that's your fault, you know... It's been a long time since I had
sex with someone."
I smiled and leaned over to kiss her. "I missed you
sometimes."
"You have memories that go back that far?"
"Remember that biocybernetics is Pendor's premier science. I
can remember anything I want."
"'We can remember it for you wholesale.'"
"Something like that," I said, smiling and recognizing the
reference. "We should get dressed."
"Shouldn't we shower first?"
"What about the water restrictions?"
"I don't pay attention to those. I guess they figure I'm going
senile."
I laughed and shook my head, joining her in the shower. We
were efficient, however, and tried not to waste any water.
- - -
"Missed you last night," K'Meh said gently.
"I know. I just needed to..."
She reached out and touched my arm. "You don't need to
explain," she whispered, pulling me close to her. "I understand."
I smiled at her. "I'm glad someone does," I replied. "I'm
going to spend the day at the medical conference. Want to join
me?"
She stuck her tongue out. "Doctors. I'm going to go talk to
some of the pilots; see if I can convince one of them to take me up
in one of their 'Shoppers.'"
"'Shoppers?'" I asked. "What's that?"
"Short Hopper. It's what they call a vehicle that can just
make lunar orbit. They use them for all sorts of things."
"If it can make lunar orbit and back, theoretically it could
make it to Earth. That's no short hop."
"That's what they call them," she replied, smiling and
struggling on a new set of flight overalls. "I'll see you later,"
she said, kissing my cheek.
"See ya, K'meh," I said as she disappeared out the door. I
shook my head, pulled on a set of clean clothes myself, and then
spent the opening session of the day taking notes. Although I
found the medicine fascinating, especially when the subject of
genetics and drift came up, I was relieved when Commander Scheider
invited me for lunch.
As our lunches were served, Scheider started the conversation
with "So, how do you like our moonbase?"
"It's nice," I said. "The food's better than we have on our
starships. One of the problems with our starting out with an FTL
drive. We didn't bother to work on life support quite so strongly
as you did."
"Yes," Scheider replied. "Your materials technology specialist
has
been taking notes almost nonstop since you arrived. I must admit
that I find working with your people fascinating."
"Why is that?"
"The difference in technology and thrust." He smiled, slightly
embarrassed. "As well as the overwhelming evidence of their alien
origin. If I were dealing with you, I'd have trouble remembering
that you were from another planet. I can't forget it with them."
I grinned. "I can understand that. I can walk around
unnoticed. Tell me, have you had any complaints from atmospherics
life support regarding fur in the filters?"
"No," Scheider replied musingly. "Not that I know of. Then
again, there are only five of your people around. Do they shed
that much?" he asked.
"Not particularly. I was just making sure they weren't being a
nuisance. After all, ALS tends to be some rather critical, and
delicate, machinery."
He nodded as he dug into a rather typical hamburger. The
conversation was typical and light for the rest of the meal; I was
surprised that he completely avoided the subject of Victoria
Stoneman.
- - -
"Hi," I said, peeking out from the covers as K'meh came
tripping in, light as a feather even in one-sixth gravity.
"K'meh?"
"Huh?" she asked. "Oh, you're awake! I had so much fun today.
We went lunar buggy riding. That's insane! It was incredible!"
She laughed, and I laughed along with her. She stripped out of her
clothing and snuggled up against me. "So, Ken, are you going to
keep your end of the bargain?"
"What bargain?" I asked. "I said I wanted a roommate, not
backup."
"You said 'A little bit of both,'" K'meh murmured. "I think I
want a little bit of the 'up' part," she laughed. I laughed along
with her and turned over to face her. "You're in a brutal mood
tonight."
"Oh, brutal," she said, flinging the covers back and grabbing
my still-flaccid penis in her paw and stroking it slowly. It came
to life pretty quickly under her urging and the moment I was hard
she slid down over it, sliding it deep inside her, cooing loudly.
"Yes..."
I grabbed her hips and pressed up deep into her. "Oh, yes,"
she gasped against. My body complained at what I was putting it
through, and every thrust threatened to fling us from the bed in
the unfamiliar gravity, but we held together, her tongue hanging
out the side of her muzzle as we made love passionately, holding
onto each other until we both climaxed loudly.
She smiled down at me. "We'll have to do that again."
"Some other time." I smiled. "I'm still trying to get some
sleep."
She snuggled close and wrapped her arm around my back; I
shifted back to get as much contact between us as I could. I
sighed and closed my eyes. With a pilot's understanding of the
need for sleep, K'meh was already out, and I managed to fall asleep
almost as fast.
--
"Journal Entry 212 / 0164 [ Ambassadors ]"
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are copyright (C) 1989-1995 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Redistribution of
this work for profit is reserved to the author. Redistribution by
portable media (CD-ROM, floppy, paper, etc.) is expressly forbidden.
Any redistribution must include this copyright notice intact.
--
Elf Sternberg FUCK THE CDA! (Cohen vs. California, 1971)
elf@halcyon.com Where evolution is outlawed, only outlaws evolve
Public key available http://www.halcyon.com/elf/index.html