Do was visible, a fourth magnitude star in the middle of an asterism that Do’utians called Gi’ab. The constellations toward one’s home world looked the same, if a little smaller, Drin thought; the strangeness lay beyond. There was a splash, and a hot body attached itself to his lower right leg.
He sent his tongue down and lifted her up to his shoulder, where she was able to find a foothold.
“You must be very cold.”
“I can handle it for a while. It’s beautiful out there. Gonna take me a starship trip one of these years, if I don’t get myself killed first.”
“Earth?”
“Yeah, and Tau Ceti. My great greatgrandfather came from a region of Earth called the United States, and his great-grandfather came from a town in England named York. His name was Samuel Pearce, and we’re told his great great great-grandmother was raped by a Viking—a kind of human barbarian—in a war with Norway some six centuries before that.” Mary laughed. “Except, if she were like me, it might not have been rape. That’s as far as I can go back. You can’t see Sol from here, but I think Tau Ceti—it’s near the bright star by the south galactic pole.”
“Godro,” Drin named the south galactic pole maker, “in Do’utian, Beta Ceti in English.”
“Actually,” Mary chuckled, “that’s Greek and Latin, and to further confuse you, the star is also called Diphda, in Arabic.”
Drin grunted. “It’s Bogdo’ilda in Brogilla’a, the nation of our southern continent that started space travel.” So a chance star gave reason to contemplate the vastness, both of the cosmos and of history. “We both carry the memory of our ancestors toward eternity, to give their lives meaning.” Drin felt Mary shake. “A fearsome responsibility,” he added.
“I’m not afraid of that, Drin. But I think I’m about to admit I’m freezing. Help me down?”
He set her down, and she immediately sprinted for the hot pool and knifed in cleanly.
After a few minutes she got out and looked around. “Any towels?”
As if in answer, she was bathed in deep infrared from projectors so cleverly concealed that Drin hadn’t realized they were there. “Hey! OK, I’m dry!”
Drin slipped back down to the floor and considered Mary with his right eye, and thought about the various modes of bonding in his own species. The territorial jealousy of a beachmaster was legendary, but, away from the beach, such Do’utian men went about collective affairs with a formal dignity that often verged on admiration of each other. Unmated Do’utians who avoided the beach were the backbone of his species’ science and industry. In civilized times, formerly mated or mated females who avoided calving tended to dominate arts and politics—displacing their creative and nurturing drives, the theory went. They worked well with unmated males, and often rose to the second levels of leadership. The first levels were almost always mated males, however.
Where, Drin wondered, did Mary fit? Where did she want to fit?
The room shook, seemingly with the thought, and warm water sloshed from the pool. Mary looked up to the curved ceiling far above, suddenly tense and aroused. Subtle bulges in her body reminded Drin of how much of her tiny body was bone and muscle—incorporating any Earth land life into the Trimusian ecology had been fraught with problems due to the genetic heritage of evolution in high gravity. Here, Earth life ran with blinding speed, took incredible leaps, and, people said, could drag away burdens of many times their body weight.
Drin tried to imagine Mary dragging him away and allowed himself a low, rumbling chuckle, glad to be distracted from less easy currents of thought.
“Don’t worry about the temblor,” he said. “This is quake and volcano country, and we build for it. What they told me as a child was that you could take this whole complex and drop it a charter unit, the whole length of my body, without breaking it.”
Mary shook herself, some last drops of water flying from her hair and laughed nervously, “Glad to hear it. Drin, you seem to be thinking deep thoughts. About me?” She walked up to him and placed a hand on his beak.
Exchange of affection by bumping and touching was common to both species. In Do’utians, it was between anyone, but in particular women in the same harem, or on the same project—the feelings of security and trust created by mutual touching were particularly strong. In humans, Drin was fully aware, it led, in private situations, to a performance of their mating act, which in civilized times served to create greater-than-ordinary emotional bonds between the people that did it. They apparently enjoyed it.
Did Mary expect him to pleasure her? Humans mixed affection and reproduction. But the Do’utian mating act was utterly different in feeling and purpose. It was a two-step process and not at all fun. Quickening the ovaries was something a beachmaster did instinctively to maintain his harem —it released hormones in the cows that helped make them subservient.
The beachmaster’s reward was subservience, beak dipping, and staying. The act itself was very mechanical, not pleasurable, though for some, the feeling of power was. Later, taking and fertilizing the eggs was a compulsive, messy, and humiliating procedure that had to be done or the bearing female could die. The female was grateful, the male would typically feel the need to go on a long feeding swim. In primitive times, he would return to dominate, protect and feed his harem. Civilized Do’utians discovered in vitro fertilization a long time ago.
Drin needed to make some response to Mary—not doing so would be impolite. He opened his beak and laid the hand of the right branch of his tongue on her shoulder. Drin was quite happy to touch Mary and display his regard and affection for her. But he did not want to turn her into a subservient cow—that could be dangerous in a crisis.
Of course, she was human and that wouldn’t happen. But how would he feel when it didn’t? The idea didn’t work for him that way, not at all. But why was he so fascinated by the idea? Intellectual curiosity? Did he want to seem human to her, the way she seemed to try to be Do’utian with all the time she spent in the water? He found her unnaturally warm, smooth, dry flesh strange, fascinating. Would he ever be able to talk freely of these things with her? What instincts of hers were coming into play, and what curiosities?
She seemed cheerfully aware of the esthetics of her body. Mary smiled at him. “Drin, if I can feel beauty in a horse, in a swordfish, in a cat, or in you, then you feel beauty in me! I don’t have to look like a Do’utian. Don’t question it so much; enjoy it!”
Drin moved his hand down her arm, acknowledging. She covered her hand with his and guided it. This was between them, and harmed no one. Except that it took time.
“We need to go to work, Lieutenant,” he said.
Mary took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Right.” She touched her lips to his hand, dropped it and scampered to the pool side. Quickly, she got into the olive body suit she wore to work in the salt sea and on the frigid polar land.
Drin gratefully turned his mind to the problems at hand. “Mary, Gonikli’ibida apparently doesn’t want to be questioned. I was warned off, very strongly.”
Mary nodded. “While you were out, I did some information gathering. More gray area stuff, but I’m taking your position that the house computer is not a sentient being and the question of testifying against itself or breaking its confidences does not arise.”
Drin chuckled. “The only time the currents say anything about how someone passed from here to there is when they carry a body.”
“Huh?”
“Ibgornia let you have the data.”
“Oh. Well, Drin, there are currents of ice not far from here, and they carry a body. Could Gonikli’ibida’s reluctance be personal? Something between you and her?”