Rei was laughing uncontrollably. He sat down weakly and looked at her.
"I fail to see the reason for mirth," she said, frowning.
That night he dreamed of her.
And that night, she had a severe attack of the ripeness.
And on the following evening, they blended.
There was no religious taboo against it. There were religious taboos against many things, but not against blending during a period of false ripeness. It wasn’t that it was taboo, it was just that it wasn’t done. The Artonuee female wasn’t constructed that way. True, there was great joy in
the act of fertilization, but it was not for the joy that the act was performed. And there was little data on mergings which happened during false ripeness, for the unfertilized removal of eggs was a medical rarity. There was a certain sterility about the act. There was no possibility of fertilization, so the act was useless, a waste of time. However, she told herself, it was an experiment in racial compatibility, and as such, worthwhile.
The muscles in Miaree’s lower abdomen were long, smooth muscles which, in addition to encasing the digestive tract, formed a circle of very articulate tissue centering on her reproductive canal. In ripeness, the lower muscles were extremely active. Made lubricious by glandular secretions, the muscles moved when stimulated by contact with the male genitalia, simulating the rolling of continuous bands of softness which, during fertilization, moved the male organ ever deeper into the cavity. To Rei, who was not unaccustomed to sexual acts, the effect was miraculous. And the flexibility of the ripe, distended, rounded, lovely bottom of the Artonuee female allowed for approach from both front and rear. In the frontal position, lips pressed on lips, the female’s soft, erotically muscled rear twisted forward between her slim legs. From the rear, the softness pressed upward, engulfing all of Rei’s sexual apparatus.
But how had it happened?
It began with a discussion of poetry. "Poetry is beauty, and thus you are poetry," Rei said.
"There is a certain impreciseness of meaning in your language," Miaree said, watching the Fires in the dome, sipping jenk, fighting the ripe, full feeling, trying to drown, in jenk, the urge to run into the Great Bloom to find her chosen.
"You are poetry and can be translated," he said. "Would you like a demonstration?"
"By all means," she said.
"This is you," he said, lifting from his set of notes a duppaper sheet, hand-inscribed.
Your lips are caramel, my dear
Full, mellow, sweet, deep gossamer A myriad thing A plural one A juplee ripening in the sun.
Your eyes are innocent and low As arc burned briefly holds its glow And lashes sing And brows two plus Make triad tongue, gratuitous. You are, my dear, a lovely theme Artonuee music, endless dream Of light and sound And blended reeds And ripened scent of pleele seeds.
Part of a whole, yet idioblast Descended from a wholesome past Of strength to hope And sense to fear The march of doom across our sphere. But smiles, my dear? You have a few Each look distinct, vermillion hue They bridge the gap
And draw us close
And that is when I love you most.
"It has a certain rhythm," Miaree said.
"When a lady has a poem written about her, the poet expects more than cold analysis." Rei smiled.
"The lady is appreciative," Miaree said. Her eyes were light blue. Her smile was genuine. But had he noted the aroma of pleele about her? Had she told the alien that such an aroma had a significance? She couldn’t remember. Yet it was strange that he would speak of the scent of pleele.
She had been remiss in her duty. A simple order. A dosage of a prescribed drug. She had been warned. One out of five experienced the false ripeness, and ripeness, the most emotional experience an Artonuee female could have, deadened the brain, left it floating in the soft sea of desire.
"Would you walk?" she asked. He arose. As they descended the stairs he put his hand on her arm. Her soft fur was sweet to his touch, and his touch sent cascades of fire leaping through her veins. "Please," she said, pushing his hand away.
For the touch was an important part of the ritual, the ritual she’d missed, the pleasure of which she’d been robbed by duty.
And the Great Bloom was fragrant in her nose, soft under her bare feet. Her gown flowed. Her wings strained to be free, to show the glowing colors of ripeness. Well, she thought, why not? The alien did not know the symbolic meaning of freed wings. It was dark. The domestic staff was in quarters. No one would see. She loosed her gown, let the wings flow, flexing them.
"Lovely," Rei said. "Why do you ever cover them?"
"Tradition," she said.
"A foolish tradition, to hide such beauty."
She walked ahead, realizing, as she did, that her wings were forming
the curl of invitation at their lower extremities. But again, it would have no meaning for the alien. Only an Artonuee male would know, and there were no males about.
Head up, eyes measuring the evil gleam of the Fires, she ran lightly ahead, wanting to be alone. Her foot, as she ran, sought the earth, found only a slight drop as she ran over a depression, went down, down. She tumbled into the flowers and lay there, momentarily breathless. She felt strong arm’s lift her, heard his voice.
"Are you all right?"
His hands were heated as she sensed them through her sheer gown. His arms were powerful. His body and his breath warmed her. A vast, all-devouring weakness surged through her, and she opened her lips, keened a love song. It was eerily beautiful. It silenced him. He knew it wasn’t pain she sang, but he did not know the full meaning, save that it sent a wave of emotion through him.
"You’re not hurt?" he asked.
"No, no," she breathed, her lips parting, extending.
"What is it? What’s wrong?"
In answer she lifted her head, cradled as she was in his arms. Her long, sensitive lips touched. She keened through them, the beautiful love sound. And as he kissed her, her wings fluttered wildly, wildly, and her hand touched him, ran under his robe to press against his warm skin.
He carried her to the dwelling. Her lips continued to seek his, her mind overpowered, her body in command. Ripeness sent its sweet smell into the warm, night air.
"Thus, and thus," she instructed him, in the darkness of her room. His hand following her hints, caressing, feeling the smoothness of her fur.
"And thus," she whispered as, naked, she knew the joy of merge.
Chapter Fourteen
And so, my young friends, we have been introduced, through the conversations of Rei and Miaree, to the Delanian society. Discussion, please. Alaxender?
All the data is not in, sir. However, I see the Delanian society as being much like ours. It is based on trade and commerce among scattered worlds. The colonialization of distant star systems has been made possible through the development of a faster-than-light drive of some sort, although the Delanian star ships seem to be more severely limited in their range. I would suspect that the use of a fusion engine indicates that the Delanians did not possess anything similar to the blink drive. If they were using anything similar to the blink principle, such vast amounts of power would not be necessary. I would guess that the Delanians approached the problem by the application of brute force. There is a formula—
Yes, Alaxender, we know your Trojan genius for mathematics.
Brifley, sir, although small multiples of light speed are possible through the application of force, if one considers the Auguste Loophole, the results tend to diminish to the point of no return when the speed nears three parsecs per year. Giving the Delanians, then, a speed of light times ten, that would place the Delanian systems about thirty light years away from the Artonuee. If I am right in assuming that the translation equates all time and all figures and measurements to our standards, it took Rei three years to reach the Artonuee system. The fleet was about a year behind Rei's scout ship. I would assume the Artonuee galaxy to be roughly the same size as our own, about eighty thousand light years in diameter, so that places both of the civilized systems in one small sector of the galaxy, likely in one spiral arm.