Integration

by A. C. Ellas

  “I do trust you. I just don’t trust myself, not while I’m in rut.” Yeri sighed and closed the course. He was too wound up to think about advanced engineering.

  “Get on the bed,” Lee said abruptly. “Belly down.”

  Yeri didn’t question, he just obeyed. He stood, stretched then padded over to the double-width bunk. He climbed onto the bed and scooted to the wall before lying down on his stomach as requested. He turned his head toward Lee and waited patiently.

  Lee sat down on the space beside Yeri then set his hands on Yeri’s back. Lee’s skilled fingers soothed tense muscles, imposing relaxation on Yeri. Yeri felt the purr building up, he made no effort to contain it. Lee continued to massage him, and Yeri could feel sleep slipping up on him. He knew what his human was doing, he just couldn’t stop it, Lee’s hands felt so good, so warm, and he felt so good, so comfortable...

  * * * *

  Lee lifted his hands from Yeri’s back once the Rovani was truly asleep. It was a trick he’d learned long ago and only took advantage of when his partner was too wound up about something, like the upcoming mating season.

  He knew what Yeri feared. It was, honestly, a fear he shared. He had scars from the last time Yeri had turned on him—the enraged stud had damn near eviscerated him. It hadn’t been Yeri’s fault, of course, the mating hormones driving the rut state were to blame. The Breedmasters had tried and tried to fix that problem but, thus far, had been unsuccessful.

  He stroked Yeri’s back one last time, just to feel the soft fur under his hand, then stood up and pulled a duffel from the storage cubby. Packing wouldn’t take long, but he might as well get it out of the way. He was just finishing when the door chimed, announcing a caller. He glanced at Yeri, but the Rovani was still in the deep sleep state he’d imposed. Good.

  He strode the few steps to the door and opened it. A young cadet stood on the other side. Lee could tell that the young man was frightened.

  “Yes? May I help you?”

  “Sir... doctor... uhm, is Cadet Nathizo available? I have a message for him.” There were beads of sweat on his brow now.

  “I will give him the message for you,” Lee replied dryly. His status at the academy was confusing to the cadets. He wasn’t a cadet, and he wasn’t an officer. He was a medical doctor, a doctor of Rovani medicine, a Breedmaster, and according to the Space Corps, he was also Yeri’s spouse. No wonder the cadets were nearly as in as much awe of him as they were of Yeri.

  The cadet offered up a folded piece of paper. Once Lee had taken it, the young man said, “Thank you, sir,” and beat a hasty retreat.

  Lee snorted, closed the door, and set the paper on Yeri’s desk. He didn’t bother reading it, it was Yeri’s business, not his. He sat down at his own desk and checked his messages. For once, there was nothing urgent pending. He wrote a few replies to carefully worded questions from the medical staff of several spaceships who now had Rovania aboard. These were general questions about Rovani medicine, not requests for specific treatment information, and so, he included a small, searchable database of general Rovani health issues and their usual treatments. He had written it in the first year after their awakening when he’d discovered that he was the only doctor of Rovani medicine left. The Breedmasters had lost nearly as many souls, proportionately, as the Rovania had. The perpetrators of the massacre had indiscriminately gunned down humans and Rovania alike.

  He sent off the last reply just as his reminder alarm chimed. He stood, walked over to the bed, and set a hand on Yeri’s shoulder. “Wake up, Yeri.”

  Yeri stretched and yawned before opening his eyes. It was very catlike, one of the many reminders that he was far more felid than hominid, not that Lee needed that reminder. At last, Yeri’s green eyes opened and focused on him. “Master?”

  Lee sighed aloud to add emphasis to the exasperation he knew Yeri could smell on him. “Stop calling me that.”

  Yeri slid to the edge of the bed then sat up. “Why?”

  “Lots of reasons and you know them all,” Lee replied sharply.

  “We’re alone in here. I should be allowed to call you master when nobody else can hear us.” Yeri stood and opened the cabinet that held his cadet uniforms.

  “By calling me that, even if we’re alone, you’re self-reinforcing the habit.” Lee crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Yeri’s back. “And if you call me that when we’re not alone, you send a message that we don’t want sent. It undermines our efforts, Yeri.”

  “You’re adorable when you get all logical on me,” his Rovani retorted. Yeri pulled out one of the cadet uniforms and proceeded to dress. Pants went on first; practice enabled him to thread his tail through the hammed slit.

  As Yeri was fastening the waist, Lee reached out and ran a hand down Yeri’s long tail, smoothing the fur back down. The tail wrapped about Lee’s wrist twice as soon as he grasped it, but he was used to this reflex and didn’t let it stop him. He slid the tail through his hand until the tip fell free and smiled a little at the look Yeri was giving him. His Rovani still didn’t like having his tail handled.

  Yeri put the shirt on next, carefully settling it over his fur before he started to button it up. He was a beautiful creature to begin with, and the uniform didn’t hide that. In fact, Lee was of the opinion that the uniform enhanced Yeri’s beauty. It changed the focus from the mesmerizing pattern of Yeri’s coat to his impressive physique. Even pushing two hundred, Yeri was as muscled as a gladiator and as flexible as a dancer. Of course, he spent plenty of time working in the gym to keep his muscles strong and his joints limber.

  Lee approved of this. The last thing either of them wanted was for Yeri’s very mild case of arthritis to get any worse. Arthritis was the bane of the older Rovania—it was debilitating, painful, treatment options were very limited, and invariably ended in death. Or it had... Lee didn’t know if the current laws would permit voluntary euthanasia.

  Once the shirt had been tucked in, Yeri put on the black leather belt and the uniform jacket. Invariably, he left the one item of clothing that he detested until the very last. The boots. He pulled the first one on with a grimace then stamped to settle his heel all the way down. “All this technology and scientific advancement, and this is the best footwear they can come up with?”

  Lee chuckled. “Those boots were fitted precisely to your feet. They provide the proper amount of support and traction with a minimal loss of flexibility.”

  “You try wearing them then.” Yeri gave the second boot a disgusted growl as he pulled it on.

  “I can’t. They’re made for Rovani feet and won’t fit me at all.” He couldn’t resist the tease. “I find my boots to be very comfortable.”

  Yeri sighed, snatched up his cap and set it on his head. He noticed the paper on his desk. “What is this?”

  “A message for you. A very young, very nervous cadet stopped by with it while you were sleeping.”

  “What did it say?”

  “I didn’t open it. It was for you.” Lee shrugged at the exasperated look Yeri gave him.

  Yeri put his glasses on and opened the message. “My request was granted,” he said a few seconds later.

  “What request?” Lee was double checking that he’d packed everything. “We’d better hurry or we’ll miss the shuttle.”

  “There’s no rush. I requested permission to use one of the trainers for this trip so that we wouldn’t be held up at Orbit Control for two or more weeks waiting for the next shuttle back here.”

  “They’re giving us a private shuttle?” Lee could only smile at Yeri’s cleverness for asking that.

  “Only because I’m already qualified to fly one,” Yeri replied smugly. The smugness was well earned in Lee’s opinion. One of the flight instructors had told him that Yeri had broken every record worth breaking in the piloting classes. He was checked out in, and licensed to fly, every class of spacecraft from the smallest fighter all the way up to a scout.

  “I think
it’s more likely that they want to keep you happy. It gave the Corps a hell of a PR boost when word got out that you had joined up.”

  Yeri shrugged a shoulder. “Does it matter why, really? We can leave when we’d like and return when we’d like.”

  “I’m ready to go,” Lee replied. He didn’t mind being in space, and he appreciated being with Yeri, but he missed home with an intensity that sometimes surprised him.

  Yeri nodded. He picked up his tablet and stuffed it into the duffel then grabbed his bouzouki case. “Let’s go home.”

  Lee picked up the duffel before Yeri could and gestured to the door. “After you.”

  They walked to the hangar deck together. They turned right at the junction, heading away from where the monthly shuttle from Orbit Control was currently docked.

  A flight officer, one of Yeri’s former instructors, intercepted them. “Cadet Nathizo, Doctor Tavlakis, how can I help you?”

  Yeri held up the note. “Instructor Johnson, we were given permission to use a trainer for our trip to Greece.”

  “I heard about that. Mating season, isn’t it? You’ll make better time there and back this way.” The instructor gave them a tolerant look. “I’ve stocked and pre-flighted Mantis for you.” All the trainers had insect names, though Lee had never asked why.

  “Thank you,” Yeri replied. “I liked Mantis the best when I was training with them.”

  “Mantis is the best bug we have. Bring him back in one piece.”

  “Not a scratch,” Yeri promised.

  The instructor handed Yeri the key and waved them on. It didn’t look like a key, not as Lee understood the word, but the shuttle wouldn’t even turn on without the pattern imprinted into the neurocrystal in Yeri’s hand.

  Mantis was waiting shy of the launch tubes, in an open bay. It wasn’t a shuttle, it was too small. “What is this?” Lee asked.

  “It’s called a bug. It’s a trainer for the shuttles, same cockpit, without the mass and bulk of a real shuttle. It also has VTOL capability. If we want, we can fly straight to Ikaria in this. The downside is that there’s not a lot of extra space—it’s a two-seater.”

  Yeri opened the rear-facing hatch. There was just enough space for one person to stand in the small compartment. There were cabinets to either side of the hatch. Yeri quickly stowed the bouzouki case in the overhead bin and moved into the cockpit to give Lee room to enter. Lee followed him and managed to fit the duffel in beside the instrument case. He closed the bin then pulled the hatch closed. It had the standard wheel lock, so Lee spun it closed, nodding as he heard the bolts thunk into their sockets. He went into the cockpit and sat in the unoccupied seat.

  Yeri had already started the pre-flight checklist, bringing the bug’s systems up in a methodical fashion. Lee strapped in and waited. He appreciated Yeri’s meticulous attention to detail—after all, their lives would depend on this small spacecraft. If he’d known how small it really was, he would have opted for the slower, but far more comfortable, shuttle. He listened to the soft murmur of the Rovani’s deep voice as he communicated with the control room here at the station. He’d never flown with Yeri as the pilot before, and god, this ship was small. He hadn’t realized he’d crossed himself until he caught Yeri looking at him.

  “Trust me,” Yeri said softly. “We are ready for departure. It will be... abrupt. You might want to hold onto something.” As Yeri spoke, the bug slid forward into the launch tube.

  He’d observed lots of launches from these tubes, but he’d never experienced one. The passenger shuttle was large enough that it didn’t use the tubes. He gripped the arms of his chair. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re really not,” Yeri replied dryly. He touched a button.

  A giant, invisible hand slammed into him and tried to mash him into the seat. The bug shot down the tube, faster and faster, propelled by magnetic fields until it was shot clear of the station. For a moment, the pressure vanished, then Yeri touched another button, and they were slammed back into their seats a second time.

  Yeri didn’t seem bothered by the pressure, he was touching things in rapid sequence. “Trajectory is in the green. Acceleration is optimal. Cutting thrust in ten seconds.”

  Ten long seconds later, Yeri touched the button again, and the immense pressure vanished, replaced by the sensation of falling that marked zero-G. Lee oriented himself and spoke firmly to his stomach. He’d been in zero-G enough to learn to deal with it. He relaxed and turned his attention back to Yeri.

  “Perfect,” Yeri murmured in Greek. He tapped the holographic display, causing it to rotate. A thin green line spun through the display. It wasn’t a straight line, but it appeared to run from the asteroid belt all the way to Earth.

  “Is that our course?”

  “Yes. It will be a long trip—nearly twenty hours.”

  Lee shook his head, remembering his frequent flights from Greece to America and back, an average of fourteen hours one way for the five-thousand-mile trip. “That’s not bad considering the distances involved.”

  “I know.” Yeri grinned at him, the amusement sparkling in his green eyes. “It’s one hundred and sixty-seven million miles to Earth, and I’m complaining about it taking only twenty hours?” His smile faded, and he shook his head. “You should get some rest. The seat does recline into a bed of sorts.”

  * * * *

  The trip was as long as Yeri had calculated and as boring as he’d thought it’d be. They slept as much as they could, and when they couldn’t sleep, they studied. Yeri finished the advanced engineering course and turned to read about more of the physics discoveries and research he’d missed while in stasis. Lee did likewise, but his area of expertise was medicine.

  Eventually, they got close enough to Earth that Yeri had to go back to work actually piloting their small craft. When he’d set the course, he’d opted for speed over efficiency. That meant he had to start slowing them down or they’d whiz right past Earth. He spun the bug using the attitude jets and fired up the single, small ion engine along the precise vector he’d calculated. It wasn’t a large amount of thrust because it didn’t need to be.

  The next event to occur was contact with the Orbit Control station. After quickly confirming his identity and original flight plan, he expressed a desire for a direct landing on Ikaria.

  “There’s no suitable landing facility listed at that location.”

  “The Lineage Compound has the required facilities, and as a member of the Rovani Council, I am able to authorize our landing there.”

  “Please hold, we have to confirm with the Lineage.”

  Yeri rolled his eyes, which was pointless since the control officer couldn’t see it, but he resisted snorting, which would have been audible.

  “You knew they’d check,” Lee said in such a reasonable manner that Yeri heaved a sigh in his direction. “You’re cute when you’re impatient,” Lee added.

  “And I still don’t claw the furniture.”

  Lee barked a laugh at the reminder of an incident occurring years before the massacre when he’d taken Yeri back to America to fix the wayward weather. The Psion Squad had put them up in an elegant, upscale hotel, which had taken a dim view of hosting a Rovani slave. Lee had assured the concierge that Yeri didn’t have fleas or claw the furniture. Yeri had gotten his revenge later, assuring the hostess at a restaurant—who was actually reacting to the sight of him, not Lee—that Lee was housebroken.

  The control officer came back on the line. “Mantis, you are cleared to land at the Rovanis Compound. Do you need guidance assistance?”

  That was a reasonable offer since the training bugs had a minimal guidance computer—on purpose. Cadets were expected to do the math themselves. “Negative, Control. I have already calculated the descent. We will keep clear of all commercial and military flight paths.”

  Orbit control left him alone after a brief acknowledgment, but Yeri knew they’d continue to monitor the bug all the way down to the
ground. He double checked his heading and his speed. He was still centered in the optimal path. They would feel the bite of atmosphere in a few more minutes. He offered a brief prayer that the descent wouldn’t bother his ears. He had reason to be hopeful since the turbulence of atmospheric transit in the large shuttles wasn’t that bothersome.

  A few minutes passed quickly. He switched off the ion drive at the exact moment he’d calculated and repositioned the nose of the trainer for the descent. A few seconds later, he felt the first minute shudder of air passing over the frame of the bug. The bugs were designed for atmospheric travel because it didn’t make sense not to give them that capability. Shuttles were expected to land on planets, so the bugs could, too.

  Yeri kept his attention on the instruments and was able to ignore the discomfort being generated in his ears. It was more noticeable in the bug, he decided, but he had work to distract himself with.

  Lee stirred, the scent of his unease growing. “Yeri?”

  “Not now,” he replied shortly. He didn’t have time to reassure his human, all his attention was absorbed in monitoring their unpowered descent. This was the tricky part. The ion drive was off, and it was too soon to engage the magnetic coils that would enable them to land. If he’d calculated wrong, he’d have to use the backup system, a jet turbine engine that would be hell on his ears.

  They dropped lower, their velocity decreased, the turbulence grew more pronounced, the pain in his ears grew worse, but they remained in the corridor.

  There was now a lot of fear in Lee’s scent as well as worry, but the man was silent. He wasn’t sure why his human was frightened, but it bothered him. Guiltily, Yeri muttered a reassurance, “We’re doing just fine. There’s no danger here. We’ll be home soon.”

  Lee shook his head. He was only slightly calmer. From the corner of his eye, Yeri could see Lee’s white knuckles as he clenched his hands on the armrests.