Meet Me at Infinity (15 page)

“It so tight,” Boley complains. And then, “Oh! Great! Ahhh-hh.”

“Are you all right?” Loomis whispers worriedly into her ear. “This is suitable?”

“Yes… yes… suitable, but… rare.” Her blurry eyes find his face, she smiles. “Stop if I cry out.”

“We will,” he assures her. “Boley, be careful. I sense she is very vulnerable.”

“Right,” says Boley thickly, and plunges himself home.

There ensues a time which afterward she cannot remember coherently, only as a smoldering montage, punctuated by the brilliances of orgasm. Pressures that are delectable pain, long-drawn suspensions over delight, quivering hot explorations of ecstasy, hot limbs, mouths, fingers, hair, everywhere around her body, weights that alternately squeeze her and release her, synchronous tender battering that becomes counterpoised, languorous wrestlings to utter urgency triply fulfilled…

She has never felt her body so totally sexualized. All of them…

There must, of course, be intervals—but of these she can only remember one, because of what is said. The air is pervaded with a warmth and tenderness which is far more than merely the spectacular physical fires. An awareness has been with her so strongly that she voices it, dreamily.

“You love each other.”

Boley looks up; his tongue has been meeting with Loomis’s through her fingers. “Oh, yes. We’re married, too. But we’re not supposed to say so on Terra.”

“Well, men can have good sex with each other, I’m sure.”

“We tried that, the changemaster told us.”

“It’s no good,” Loomis agrees. “We miss our third too much.”

“Third?” Languidly, she puzzles.

“Yes, on Thumnor it takes three.”

“He means we have three sexes,” Loomis explains. “We’re not really the same sex, you see. But there aren’t names for them.”

“Ohhh… so I am like your third?”

“Almost,” Loomis tells her. “Really almost, at moments. But these bodies…”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Don’t be, my dear. We knew what we were in for. This has been wonderful.”

“Yes, it
is,”
says Boley. “The changemaster told us it was physically possible, but that females like you are rare. We’re godlost lucky.” He hugs her.

“So am I.” She strokes them both. “I know you’ll find more, if that helps.”

“Oh, it does. And meanwhile we have you, our first, you darling little alien!”

And they were off again.

The deep sleep of blissful satiation finally claims them. But Sheila awakens early to one more experience which still lives in her mind today.

The other two are locked in the unshakable slumber of their boys’ bodies. She thinks it would be nice to leave them some time together, so she slips out from among their intertwined limbs, over the foot of the bed. That luxury tub-room holds all she needs to dress, she need only open her handbag for a fresh disposable teddy—and her notepad.

She is standing, dressed, at a little ornamental shelf, to write affectionate good-byes, when an unframed holograph catches her eye—evidently propped up there to remind them of home. Curious to see the real forms of her alien lovers, she picks it up.

She is really surprised. Most aliens are fairly ordinary, after all. But the forms looking out at her from a volcanic landscape that must be Thumnor present such a distraction of what?—golden horns, metallic blue-green scales, great membranous wings, vivid crests, huge eyes and nostrils—from which unmistakable tiny plumes of smoke or stream are rising—fierce fanged jaws, talons, monstrous, glittering, armored bodies, with heavy tails—why, she has been in bodily union with dragons! No wonder their diplomatic service rents other bodies.

The creatures are so fantastic that for an instant she wonders if it can be a holo of their favorite pets? But no, looking closer, she can see Boley’s bright green eyes, made huge, and Loomis’s dark gaze. The third has eyes of a celestial blue; that must be their missing partner. To her Human eyes, no genders are apparent, outside of slightly different scarlet-edged drapings of scaled skin. But she knows that aliens find it hard to distinguish men and women. And in the foreground, evidently caught in motion, are two much smaller dragons—their kids. She’s looking at a pleasant family party, perhaps a backyard picnic, in what to her is an ashy blasted wilderness.

On impulse, she brushes the image lightly with a kiss before setting it back. She must finish her note and scoot out, not forgetting to leave a desk call for them so they won’t miss the shuttle.

She does so, and books a simple sleeper in which she can finish her wait and have a meal in bed, and is soon herself asleep again. It is not until she wakes for good, and realizes that Boley and Loomis are long gone, that she begins to feel a trifle thoughtful.

She has just had what may well be the peak erotic experience of her young life. Will sex from now on be a bit… anticlimactic? There is no hope of repeating it; meetings and partings on the starways, over such immense time distances, are likely to be once in a lifetime. In fact, she won’t even know their full names, nor they hers. Even if she calls their embassy, on her return, it will be far too late.

She sighs, smiles tremulously to cheer herself. Perhaps, back on Terra, they will have left their mark, maybe she can found a club. Dragon-Lovers Anonymous.

Well, she had gone and returned successful, and all these things had proved true—except of course the joke club. And now so many years later, she has by chance come on an address for them in the Hyades Complex, and is writing them a little note. Is it folly?

You can never step twice in the same river.

She knows that. But would it hurt to wave?

“Dear Bolingbroke, dear Loomis,” she tells the letter-writer, and notes, from the corner of her eye, the colors of the rising Earth in Luna’s black sky. “Perhaps you remember the Human female you met at Cen-taurus Junction so long ago. This is just to tell you that she remembers you, and wishes you most warmly well. With love,

Sheila.”

And adds, like a lost mariner sending a note in a bottle,

“Of 209 Silver Terrace, Luna City, Sol.”

In May of 1983, Lonnie Barbach offered Tiptree a spot in her anthology Pleasures: Women Write Erotica, a book of vignettes based on personal experience. Alii was unable to contribute at that time, but in 1985 was invited to write for Pleasures II, this one a collection of erotic short stories by women. “Trey of Hearts” (one of many titles considered, along with “Junction at Centaurus,” ‘The Star-Traveling Saleswoman,” “The Star-Traveling Saleswoman and the Love-Sick Dragons,” and “Discovery of the Sleeper”) was completed in May 1985 and sent to Barbach. It was longer than the editor could use, and she returned it with extensive, line-by-line suggestions for shortening. Unwilling to make that many changes Alii politely withdrew from the project. Virginia Kidd felt that this specialized a story wouldn’t suit the SF market, and Alii agreed to retire the piece. This is its first publication.

It’s my fault, all of it and Kamir is dead.

But something must be done.

Now it is afterwards and I am recording this on shipboard so that you will understand. Much of this belongs in a Second Contact Report. Much more does not. But I am too torn up and tired to make a formal report. I am simply talking out what happened so you will see that something must be done.

It started while I was lazily cruising along just outside an island coral reef, on the beautiful sea-world unimaginatively christened “Wet.” I see it now: turquoise sea and creamy small breakers, and across the green bay the snowy expanse of sand, backed by the feathery plumes of that papyruslike plant I learned to call
cenya.
The sun has started down, so I start my motor and go along the reef, looking for a pass. I find one, and cautiously zigzag through; my little new-rubber dinghy is too precious to risk hitting that sharp coral. Once through, I stop and turn, watching. Something has been following me all afternoon. I don’t want to spend the night alone on a strange beach without checking out the creature.

Will it follow me in here?

I am, so far as I know, alone on Wet. And I’m tired. I’d been on a very strenuous year-long tour as Sensitive on an Extended Contact party six lights away. It’s hard work, building up an FW—First Verbal Vocabulary—and the aliens I was dealing with had complicated, irritable, niggling minds. The niggling made for an accurate vocabulary, but it was tiring for the lone telepath on the team. And it was a high-gee planet, which made for more fatigue. I had earned my post-tour leave. When we passed near Wet, I opted to be put down in a lander for weeks of restful solitude.

Wet has been visited only once before, by a loner named Pforzheimer, who stayed only long enough to claim a First Contact. His notes in the Ephemeris say that there are humanoid natives, confined to the one small continent, or large island, on the other side of the planet from me. Besides that, what land there is consists of zillions of small islands and islets, mostly atolls, long looping chains of them everywhere, archipelagos forming necklaces around friendly seas.

Wet seems to be in an interglacial period with the ocean at maximum height, and only a tiny ice cap on the south pole. And its sun is yellow, like Sol but smaller, so that even here near the equator the noon heat is merely pleasant. A tropical paradise in this season. There is even a magnetic field; my compass works. I left the lander at my base camp due south, and have come exploring this pretty chain of islets.

Ah!

In the pass I am watching there bobs up a round head, rather like a seal’s, but glinting a fiery pink in the sunlight. The creature is following me into the bay.

What to do? Is it a predator? If so, it has had plenty of chances to make for me while I was diving, but did nothing. More important, is it a marine animal or an amphibian? Much of Wet’s wildlife seems to be amphibious, their lives and bodies undecided between sea and land—a natural development here. If my follower stays in the sea, well and good; but if it comes ashore, I won’t have a reposeful night.

As I look, the head swivels, apparently spots me, and submerges again. A ripple in the water shows it coming on in. I float quietly, undecided. Perhaps it is merely curious. That might imply high intelligence. But what persistence! It has been around me, now near, now farther off, since noon. What should I do?

Then something happens! A swirl in the water behind the creature, and a glimpse of something white. I have a notion what it is—one of the giant white crabs I have seen (and avoided) on the reefs. Our passage must have attracted it.

At this moment the creature accelerates to a very respectable speed and heads straight toward me. The swirl of the crab accelerates, too. I receive a mental flash of excitement, mixed with a trace of fear. Clearly the creature is racing to get away from the crab; but why toward me? Does it feel I am somehow a refuge?

I check my impulse to start my motor and take myself out of the path; I feel responsible for my follower’s plight.

I shilly-shally until there is a commotion in the water alongside. The alien creature has arrived right by me. Then two pale green arms shoot out of the water and grasp the dinghy, and, so suddenly I have no time to react, the creature boosts itself up and tumbles into the bow of the boat—with a startlingly Human laugh!

Can it be Human? No—a humanoid, I see as I get a better look at its waving feet. Long membranous flippers are folding themselves around its toes, and the fingers are webbed. But the form is Human—quite beautifully so, I notice. And the creature is sending out a wave of excited pleasure.

I have evidently encountered the hominid inhabitants of Wet.

My first reaction is—damn it all. I’m in no condition to exercise my special talents, to do a Contact routine. But somehow the laugh beguiles me. I don’t need to do more than a minimal scan to grasp that my visitor is in no way hostile.

But there’s no time for more—a big white pincer-crab claw has lashed across the boat and is coming at the alien. I fumble for my harpoon.

Before I can find it, the situation is solved. Still laughing, the alien expertly grasps the claw and whips out a shell knife from its belt—yes, it is wearing a belt and loincloth—and runs the knife down the claw; severing its “thumb,” or lower pincer. The thumb drops to the bottom of the boat, the now-harmless claw batters about a bit, and a second, smaller claw comes aboard. The process of dethumbing is repeated. For a moment both ex-pincers are battering and waving, and then the great crab, seeming to grasp its trouble, gives up and slides back into the sea.

The alien, grinning, bends and retrieves the thumbs, shaking its flaming red hair back from its face. With its knife, it scoops the meat out of their shells and leans aft. It is offering one claw meat to me! I take it, puzzled. It is like a big white banana.

The alien pops the other piece into its mouth and bites, nodding and smiling at me. Good! Cautiously, I taste it without swallowing. It is delicious—but alien food like this can contain an infinity of hazards. The crab’s flesh could be laced with something lethal to me—as simple as arsenic—to which the locals are immune.

Regretfully, I lay the luscious white meat down on a thwart and gear my mind up to communicate the thought, “Thank you. It is very good. But we are very different. I come from another world.”

To my inexpressible surprise and relief the alien, its deep blue eyes fixed on mine, sends back, “I know, I know.” So they are natural telepaths! How rare, how wonderful!

And more is coming: “Other one came from sky a long time past.” A foggy picture of what must have been Pforzheimer forms in my head, evidently a passed-on image. “Are you like that?”

Mind-questions are hard to ask. The alien does it by superimposing a figure I see is me, and flashing back and forth fast to the Pforzheimer image with an eager feel. “Yes,” I send. “We come from the same world.”

The alien eats more crabmeat, considering this.

Then comes another, more complex question I don’t get. Foggy flashing images of Pforzheimer opening and shutting his mouth, blurry pictures of what might be planets of different sizes and colors… “many worlds …” I am roused to make the effort to probe for the alien’s verbal speech, and try a guess.