His response came from his whole body, his skin raising in tiny bumps, straining for contact. His hands slid down around her throat—but there was nothing there except corded muscle and stiff tendons. He knew there was no receiving tube under her tongue, either. He would only hurt her terribly if he let his hungry lips join hers, for he could not stop the reflexes now.
//Jindigar—// prompted Darllanyu, ready to take him and extract all that his glands could produce.
He had promised her. He had lit the marriage flame for her. He would not—did not want to—forsake Darllanyu. But he could not tear his gaze from Krinata. The Oliat would not let him tear his gaze from Krinata. //Dar… // It came out as half groan, half plea.
Darllanyu’s seven-fingered hands reached for his neck from behind. The filaments of her skin inserted themselves among the filaments of his skin, and she held the touch at that distance, seductively stimulating, infinitely promising.v,
The special warmth spread in waves from every gland she stroked, and through the linkages he felt Darllanyu’s glands responding and knew the incomparable sensation of mutual gratification. He wanted to turn and stroke her throat, lock his mouth over hers and let it finally happen, but he could not break away from Krinata. It was as if the very linkages had tuned to the fullsong, rich with overtones of the worldcircle and Dushaun, hot, urgent, and demanding that they satisfy each other.
Krinata was perfectly still with his hands around her neck, his fingers brushing her rubbery skin. Her eyes were half lidded, her lips parted in the barest hint of a Dushau woman’s invitation. The round humps of her mammary glands strained her shirt as she gasped with each of his movements. And with each aching wave through her body, oddly enough, her linkages came closer into balance, the strain on the dual-Oliat lessened. And faintly—oh, so faintly—under the fullsong came the shaleiliu hum, not the deep, grinding bass the four-way meta-Oliat had produced but the higher octave of Jindigar’s own Oliat.
That unheard sound tingled through their flesh. Krinata shivered, her skin prickling into little bumps. He knew that in a human it didn’t signify the ultimate sexual arousal, but when Jindigar’s fingers hesitated, she moaned in protest. Never had any woman meant more to him. Never had any woman’s plea-‘ sure been more important to him.
So he didn’t flinch when Krinata’s left hand rose to the base of his neck, seeking the sensitive spot Takora would know very well. And it was Takora’s touch. Relief spread through him, and behind it came a wondrous adoration.
At last he was flung into the upward spiral of final arousal, hardly noticing Dar’s fingers freezing at Krinata’s boldness. He surrendered to Krinata, barely aware when her tentative touch shifted to a firm, mature search for her own gratification from his responses. He didn’t care—he didn’t care about anything but that marvelous touch that derived its own pleasure from him.
The Oliat shuddered with him, urging him on. But it was slow, much too slow. The linkages were soaking up most of the energy that should have propelled him into climax. He felt only Krinata’s peaking sensitivity, felt the incredible satisfaction her fingers found in touching him—felt Dar’s gratification as if Krinata’s fingers were her own—felt Takora joining them, making them whole.
Dar’s body came against him from behind, her cheek against the side of his head, her hands guiding Krinata’s knowledge-ably, needing him to go on as much as he needed it, but he could get no farther. None of them could tolerate this anymore.
He had to end it. He sought to wrench free and turn to Dar, but he only managed to move his hand from Krinata’s cheek to Dar’s fingers. Dar’s mouth brushed his cheek.
And that was finally enough. His tongue tensed against the roof of his mouth, and his jaw fell open to release the bony tubes thrusting themselves upward from the floor of his mouth in the most powerful and satisfying reflex. He wanted Darllanyu with the perfectly startling need of the very first full arousal.
Yet he could not take his hands off Krinata, and he was afraid he’d forget, in the final moment, to avoid strangling her. It had been a long time since Ontarrah.
The three of them and the other two couples behind them hung at full extension, throbbing with primal need, yet not culminating, for all the energy drained into the linkages, raising their vibration. The volume of the hum escalated with every straining urge toward fulfillment.
//Jindigar!// sobbed Darllanyu, unable to take it anymore. //To me! You must.// Her frustration ate at him as much as his Own, and as much as Krinata’s.
All at once it came to him. Krinata held the key to their release. She, the other Center, was barely aroused. She enjoyed arousing him, but now she craved more from him than his touch on her neck could give her. Shaking with unresolved tension, Jindigar forced his hands to slide downward, closing his eyes to concentrate on the human sensations through the linkages, trying to convince his hands to seek lower for her sensitive places. He had to do it. He was aflame with a need to feel her responding to him.
Darllanyu’s whimper of strangled protest lanced sharply through him. She needed his touch—and he needed more than that from her. But if he turned to Dar, it would send the Oliat into wild oscillations and disruption as it had when they’d called Eithlarin back.
He let his hands cup Krinata’s breasts and felt the linkages respond, smoothly heading for Dissolution. He focused on her pleasure to swamp out his physical revulsion. She couldn’t help what sort of body she had. He wanted his hands to tell her that her body was as beautiful as she was, as treasured as she was. She was everything that a woman should be.
His hands remembered the skills they’d learned to please
Ontarrah, and without volition they dropped lower and lower. Her face tilted up to him, mouth open, inviting as she became wholly caught up in what he was doing. And it felt so good to do it to her.
The linkages fairly hummed with new energies, new tones and undertones, adding to the complex shaleiliu chord.
Suddenly the linkages tapped into the worldcircle directly. In that same moment both sets of linkages expanded to the ends of time, then contracted toward Jindigar and Krinata, compressing them together. For eternity all he knew—all any of them knew—was that at last, at long, long last, the intolerable tension gripped tighter, and then ever tighter, so good, so very, very good. In sudden, swift, satisfying rhythm, it broke into wave after wave of the delicious, anticipated catharsis.
They gave themselves to it gratefully, Jindigar glad he had lived to enjoy the end of Renewal onset once more.
But curiously he was still alive, as if something held him tight. There was still that nagging, doubling sensation, and the subliminal impression of a tiny white point embedded somewhere in his consciousness.
Melting onto the dirt floor, Jindigar buried his face in his hands, the taste of human saliva bright on his lips. The interior of his mouth rearranged itself with dismaying swiftness. He was dimly aware from the lack of a particular taste that the catharsis had not been the slightest bit physical. Yet, impossibly, he felt drained, at peace, specifically in the way he had not felt since last Renewal.
Probing as for a sore tooth, he found that the linkages were gone. And he was still alive. It took a considerable while for that to sink in.
Worried about Krinata, he struggled to focus his eyes and found Threntisn injecting the Rustlemother with serum. His other officers were picking themselves up, arranging their clothing and brushing off dirt, marveling to each other that they had all survived. They were totally inconspicuous among the dozens of Natives packed densely all around them. Some of them were still very involved in one another, while others were matter-of-factly preparing to return to work.
In front of Jindigar Cyrus knelt and pulled Krinata against him. She was crying and laughing simultaneously, and there was no blood on her mouth, / didn’t hurt her.
Cyrus’s eyes met Jindigar’s, and the human gave a tentative smile. But his eyes betrayed pain. How much had Cyrus seen? Would he ever understand?
Jindigar turned to scoop Dar up beside him, at last able to place his hand on her neck—where it belonged. Very deliberately, in Cyrus’s sight, he raised Dar’s face to his and covered her mouth with his own, putting all his long-denied yearning for her into the contact, trying to let it explain that he had not chosen Krinata—and never would. The touch didn’t have the import it would have carried but a moment ago, for she, too, was relaxed now. But neither did her mouth taste of satisfaction.
None of us had a physical release? The curiosity faded more rapidly than he could form the thought. All that mattered was’ the surge of mutual response engulfing them. Whatever release they had shared wouldn’t last long. Soon they could enjoy each other fully. And in private.
Before they could get too involved, Jindigar broke away and told Cyrus, with the greatest sense of satisfaction that he had ever known at fulfilling a vow, “Krinata’s yours now. Just as I promised. It’s not that I don’t care for her, Cyrus. Don’t ever think that I did—what I did—without caring for her. She is precious to me beyond all measure—” To Krinata he added the final words of the Aliom divorce celebration, “I’ll never stop caring.*”
She met his gaze levelly. When she intoned solemnly, “Through all of what must yet come, what has been will be as a flame extinguished,” he knew she recognized his words.
Everything that they’d ever meant to each other passed between them again. And somehow he knew they, were each thinking how very beautiful it was to give an ex-spouse into the keeping of such a fine new mate.
“I don’t think 1 like it,” said Cyrus, “when you look at her like that.”
Jindigar confessed, “I was thinking how very, very beautiful your woman is. But, Cyrus, I was thinking your woman.”
He turned to walk Darllanyu toward the door, more eager by the moment to reach the Renewal compound to rekindle their marriage flame. But Dar pulled back toward the human couple. “Wait–1 want to say good-bye.”
As she stepped back toward them she pulled her gold armlet off. Handing it to Krinata, she said, “I want you to have this. It’s been very precious to me for a very long time. Takora– understands.”
Krinata held it as if it were a fragile egg. “Oh, no–Dar– you it isn’t—isn’t it the First Renewal gift Jindigar…?” Her eyes went to Jindigar, and he nodded, wondering how she knew. She shoved it back at Dar. “I can’t, really….”
Dar put her hands behind her back. “It’s yours, because you have given me another First Renewal—a gift too precious to even speak of.” She turned away, then hesitated, adding, “Krinata, you’ve got to explain it to Cyrus—all of it. He really has a right to understand. And don’t forget—my zunre are always welcome in my home.” Then she came toward Jindigar, and his relief at that movement was incredible.
Threntisn covered the Rustlemother with a blanket and rose to follow Dar to the door. “Jindigar—wait. There’s something something about you—Darllanyu, may 1?” He gestured imperatively, signaling Jindigar to move aside as if he were tin apprentice caught doing something naughty.
Jindigar, feeling too mellow to protest, went, grateful that at last he seemed lo be over the emotional turbulence of onset. Perhaps now he could get on with the business of being their Active Priest and putting the Temple in order for the training of new Oliat. And soon there would be children to teach.
Threntisn cupped his palms around the edges of Jindigar’s eyes and peered into them. Out of nowhere there came a peculiar response that made Jindigar flinch.
“Hold still!” demanded Threntisn, his voice sounding doubled.
And it came again, raw, discordant, Jindigar wrenched his gaze aside and turned away, protesting, “Don’t—what are you doing?”
Threntisn stared at Jindigar, awe on his face and wonder in his voice. “Are you hearing and seeing double?”
“So what? After what we’ve been through I’m not surprised.”
“Close your eyes.”
Trinarvil pulled Zannesu over to watch Threntisn’s examination, medical interest overcoming Renewal momentarily.
Exasperated but humoring the Historian, Jindigar closed his eyes.
“Do you sense a bright dot or a spot of light floating off behind your vision somewhere?”
“Well, yes—Threntisn, it may be centuries before we under-‘ stand what happened to us—it violated all kinds of theory. If we suffer a few nervous aberrations for a while, that’s a small price to pay for our lives. Renewal will heal it all. Don’t worry.”
“Renewal won’t heal this,” returned the Historian ominously. “Jindigar, that light is a new Archive’s Eye, just opened and not properly sealed and structured yet. That’s why you’re seeing and hearing double—you don’t have the training to handle it.”
“Archive’s Eye…” repeated Jindigar.
“I don’t think you appreciate how rare an event this is,” Threntisn went on. “It happens spontaneously maybe once in a hundred generations, and then only to trained Historians who have just given up an Archive. It usually happens only when there’s been some great pivotal event to—oh.” He looked around at the Natives who were gathering to watch the knot of colonists.
Jindigar put in, “I conic from a Historian family. I know what you’re saying”
“Can you hear them?” Threntisn’s eyes flicked back to Jindigar, “Does your Archive pick up any of that?”
“No,” denied Jindigar, wanting to deny the whole concept. All he was interested in was Dar and raising a family.
“They’re saying that this is not a Historical event at all but an evolutionary one. The longest Whole Memory doesn’t reach back to when the last species was added to the hive. Now they’ve added five new species all at once. We are a new thing—a completely new thing on the face of this planet, a nine-species hive. A new Whole Memory—a really big Whole Memory is required.”
Dismay crept over Jindigar as he began to believe. “Threntisn, I can’t—I’m a Priest, not a Historian. I told you that once before.”
“Yes—but as I recall, you also told me that you would become a Historian when I became a Priest. And according to you, I have.”
“Apparently. But I don’t have the gift of prophecy. That’s Trinarvil’s—”
He traded glances with the Healer. “You did predict this, Jindigar. We’ve all heard you say it any number of times when the Historians’ persistence annoyed you.”
“I’ll train you to erect the Archive around your Eye,” offered Threntisn, “if you’ll train me to handle this duad.”
Jindigar surveyed the Natives silently watching them. Through Threntisn’s link to the hivemind they all understood what was going on in their hiveheart. Jindigar agreed to the exchange, adding, “It seems that’s the nature of this planet, combining disparate types to mutual benefit. If we wish to live here, we must learn the local ordinances of the Laws of Nature.”
But no matter what, I am an Aliom Priest.
About the author
Jacqueline Lichtenberg was born in 1942, three months after Pearl Harbor. She grew up in the fifties with all the potentials of nuclear power and all the sf novels of the horrors of mutation. With a degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, she worked abroad for a while, then got. married and settled down to raise children and write sf novels.
She won early acclaim for her Star Trek fan fiction, the Kraith Series, with a nomination for the Best Fan Writer Hugo, and was primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! as well as the founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee.
At the same time she was selling stories in an sf universe of her own, Sime/Gen. The second novel to be published, Unto Zeor, Forever, won the 1978 Galaxy Award for spirituality in science fiction. In addition to the three fan-originated amateur magazines dedicated to Sime/Gen, there are now eight novels in the universe, three co-authored with Jean Lorrah, and one Jean Lorrah original. Jacqueline plans many more books in this universe.
Her FIRST LIFEWA
VE universe was the result of editorial interest in something other than Sime/Gen, as was the current DUSHAU TRILOGY, and she would like to work in several other universes, as well as trying her hand at television writing.
She is the winner of the 1985 Romantic Times Award for Best Science Fiction Writer and says, “I enjoy blending romance with a touch of the occult and a strong science motif to ask hard questions about life’s most basic relationships.”
Currently, she runs the Science Fiction Writers of America Speakers’ Bureau, and is the one to contact to hire an sf writer to lecture to a group. In her spare time she gives tarot and writing workshops, attends Star Trek and sf conventions, and pursues studies in subjects such as vampires, Arthurian legend, astrology, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. She serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Time Festivals, Inc., which put on Doctor Who conventions, but she has had to put aside many fan activities in order to keep up with her book contracts.
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Outreach tdt-3 Page 24
