Fist-Held-Sideways was in the forward mess hall when Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed caught up with her. Now that the Ineluctable’s great fusion motors were quiescent, the false sense of gravity had disappeared. Fist-Held-Sideways was floating freely, her gray tail with its blue mottling sticking up above her in a most appealing way.
Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed hovered in the doorway, not moving, just watching her as she ate. Her chest opened vertically, revealing the inside of her torso, the polished pointed tips of her ribs moving apart as she split herself wider and wider. Fist-Held-Sideways used the arm coming out of the left side of her head to swat a large melon that had been floating by, directing it into her belly. Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed watched as the tips of her ribs came together, crushing the melon, a few spherical drops of juice floating out of Fist-Held-Sideways’s torso before she closed the feeding slit. A small mechanical cleaner, moving about the room with the aid of a propeller, sucked the juice out of the air and then demurely retreated.
It wasn’t easy getting another <hand-sign-naming-his-species>’s attention in zero gravity. On a planet’s surface, one might slap one’s tail against the floor hard enough so that the other would feel the vibrations through his or her own tail and feet. But when floating freely, that didn’t work; indeed, slapping a tail like that would send you shooting up toward the ceiling, banging your head.
Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed used the hand coming out of the right side of his head to push against the doorframe, propelling himself into the mess hall. As soon as he came within Fist-Held-Sideways’s field of view, she flared her nasal slits in greeting, welcoming his scent, then used both her hands to make signs. “Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed!” she exclaimed, hyperextending her fingers after finishing his namesign to convey her pleasant surprise. “Good to see you! No reply from the aliens yet?”
Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed balled his left hand in negation. “It’s still much too early. So far, I’ve just sent them one, four, nine, and sixteen over and over again; sort of a general hello, one sentient race to another. It’ll be some time before we receive any response.” He paused, seeing if his mate would pick up the hint.
And, of course, she did; Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed had heard from Palm-Down-Thumb-Extended, who had been Fist-Held-Sideways’s mate last breeding season, that she was wonderfully intuitive and empathetic—unusual, but very desirable, traits in a female. “Your quarters or mine?” signed Fist-Held-Sideways.
“Yours,” Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed signed back, flexing his wrist wryly. “Too many breakables in mine.”
The sex, as always, was athletic. Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed enjoyed the exercise, enjoyed the tumbling in zero-g, enjoyed the physical contact with Fist-Held-Sideways. But it was the actual consummation, of course, that he was waiting for. Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed was a biologist and, although he had indeed repeatedly taught students the precise biochemistry involved, it still fascinated the intellectual part of him every time it happened: when a male’s semen finally reached the female’s hexagon of egg-cells, a chemical reaction occurred producing a neurotransmitter that brought intense pleasure to both the female and the male, just as—
Yes, yes! Contact! The sensation washed over him, his tail going rigid in excitement, his twin hearts pounding out of synch, his rib points clamping together, as he was overcome by the joy, the joy, the joy…
Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed was a considerate enough lover to take additional pleasure from the writhing of Fist-Held-Sideways’s body. He squeezed her tighter, and they both relished the simultaneous climax of their intercourse. As they relaxed, floating in the room, the warm afterglow of the neurotransmitter washing over them, Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed thought that the Five Gods had indeed been wise. Only together could males and females experience such joy, and—oh, the gods had indeed been brilliant!—it happened simultaneously, compounds from his body mixing with chemicals from hers, producing the neurotransmitter. The simultaneity, the shared experience, was wonderful.
Of course, as usual, it would be a problem figuring out what to do with the new children. His race had been saddened indeed when it discovered that any process or barrier that prevented conception also prevented orgasm, and that, because of the neurological interdependence of the fetuses and their host, to terminate a pregnancy would kill the mother.
No, the only method to keep new children from being born was to avoid copulation altogether. And, well, when a female was in estrus, her pheromones—those wonderful, wonderful pheromones—were completely irresistible.
The <hand-sign-naming-his-species> had no choice. With an ever-expanding population, they had to find new worlds to colonize.
Darren’s next-door neighbor’s brother-in-law worked for Newsworld, the CBC’s all-news cable channel. He’d met the guy a couple of times at parties at Bernie’s place. Darren couldn’t recall exactly what the guy did. Director? Switcher? Some behind-the-scenes function, anyway; they’d had a fairly empty conversation last time, with Darren asking him if Wendy Mesley was as cute in real life as she looked on TV. Of course, at this time of night, he didn’t want to call Bernie and wake him up—“next door” was a bit of a misnomer; Bernie’s place was the better part of a kilometer up the country road.
But at that last party Bernie had held—back in June, it must have been—Bernie’s brother-in-law had had to leave early, to get down to Toronto and go to work. So he pulled the night shift at least some of the time, meaning there was a chance he might be at the CBC right now. But what the heck was the guy’s name? Carson? Carstone? Carstairs? Something like that…
Well, nothing to be lost by trying. He got the CBC number from Toronto directory assistance, dialed it, and was greeted by a bilingual computerized receptionist, which gave him the option of spelling out the last name of the person he wanted to speak to on his touch-tone phone. Fortunately, the system recognized the name by the time Darren had pressed the key corresponding to the fourth letter—the last name, as the system informed him, was in fact Carstairs, and the first name was Rory. Darren was transferred to the correct extension and, miracle of miracles, the actual, living Rory Carstairs answered the phone.
“Overnight,” said the voice. “Carstairs.”
“Hi, Rory. This is Darren Hamasaki—remember me? I live down the street from your brother-in-law Bernie. We met at a couple of his parties.” The words of the automated attendant echoed in Darren’s mind: Continue until recognized. “I’ve got one of those beards that a lot of people call a goatee, but it’s really a Vandyke, and—”
“Oh, sure,” said Carstairs. “The space buff, right? You were pointing out constellations to us in Bernie’s backyard. Say, nothing’s happened to Bernie, has it?”
“No, he’s fine—at least, as far as I know. But—but I’ve got some news to report, and, well, I didn’t know who else to call.”
“I’m listening,” said Carstairs.
The carefully devised Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, issued by the International Academy of Astronautics in 1989, had been based on the assumption that governments would control access to the alien signals, that giant, multi-million-dollar radio telescopes would be required to pick up the messages.