“Don’t be afraid.” The words were breathed close to his face. He felt warmth on his cheek and his neck. The scent in his nostrils was achingly familiar, forever-familiar: Leah.
Something warm and soft was placed on his stomach.
His clothing was loosened, cut away, eased from his unprotected body.
Chan struggled against his bonds. It would do no good to cry out. If any or the other team members had been able to help him they would already be calling to him, asking where he was. The forest around him was as still as the grave.
His clothing had been taken, leaving him naked and defenseless. Another touch came on his chest, different but equally soft. It moved lower. There was a strange little laugh in the darkness above him.
Chan’s chest felt a warm breath, and soft lips. Gentle fingertips were drifting gently across his midriff and wandering slowly down his abdomen. The caresses became more intimate. Minutes ago Chan had been terrified and feverish to the bone. It seemed impossible that in these circumstances he could become physically aroused, no matter what the stimulus. But it was happening. The scent of Leah was like a drug, lifting him away from his own body.
In the darkness the succubus above him slid close. Chan felt warm flesh pressing on him. He could not move, to resist or to encourage the embrace. The fragrance in the air was stronger, mingled now with an unfamiliar musk. As he became more aroused he felt an urgent breath along his neck, and an increased tension in the body that moved above him.
“Relax,” whispered Leah’s voice. “This is as it should be. Don’t try to resist. Let yourself flow.”
Beyond his control, Chan s body was moving along its own road, drawn by the action of the partner silent above him. She moved more strongly, lifting him irresistibly towards a climax. Chan shivered and shuddered, straining upward to match the unseen pressure.
The critical moment was nearing. Nearer. It came, and his partner groaned, flexed hard against him, and cried, “NOW!”
There was a roar in the darkness, a whirr of invisible wings. Chan, in the moment of most intense ecstasy, was buried under a pressing clutch of tiny bodies. They swarmed over him, covered his eyes and ears, blocked his mouth and nose. Chan, still straining upward in climax, could not breathe.
He was choking.
He writhed, uselessly. The agony of asphyxiation was deep in his chest. He shuddered to draw a last breath, knowing that he was dying, dying … dying on Travancore.
And in that moment he could breathe again — breathe, even though his nose and mouth were still covered.
He could see, but not through his eyes.
He could hear, but not with his ears.
Chan had left his body, sucked away into a no-man’s-land of non-identity. With one set of ears he listened to the ultrasonic song of jungle creatures, sending their far-off calls at frequencies far beyond human senses. With one set of eyes he studied the microwave emissions from the forest floor, tracing the faint dark swaths that told of water beneath the surface. With other eyes he saw the bright thermal outline of two coupled humans, the woman kneeling astride the man. He was surrounding them, feeling them from every side, their bodies warm to his antennae. He was filled with multiple sensations. The soft forest floor on his back, the legs gripping tight around his thighs, the damp carpet of mold under his (her?) knees, the exciting touch of a body (Chan’s body!) pressing up against her. Closeness. Warmth of touching.
“YOU ARE WITH US,” said the same soft voice. But now it was inside him. “YOU CAN UNDERSTAND, DO NOT LISTEN. FEEL FOR US.”
The world went silent. For a few moments Chan felt an intolerable level of input. He was drowning in a torrent of emotions and memories. Then the data stream steadied, the pattern cleared. He found himself swimming deep in the middle of a single consciousness, like a fish in a clear, cold stream. Within that stream, and part of it, were the other swimmers. He could sense them: The cool, observant Angel, smiling at him, allowing him for the first time to see the form of the mysterious Singer within (but it was not the Angel that Chan knew). The Tinker, the master-linkage, good-natured and tolerant conduit to serve the whole group, surrounding them all like a warmer current (but it was not Shikari, the Tinker that Chan knew). The great, benign form of a Pipe-Rilla, crouched close enough to arch above both Chan and Leah. The love and kindness shone out from her (but she was not S’greela, the Pipe-Rilla that Chan knew).
And there was Leah.
It was Leah. No matter what illusion the Morgan Construct might be able to create within a human mind, Chan was sure that it could not do this. The consciousness touching him was filled with memories that only he and Leah shared. She was deep inside him, even though he could see her, still sitting astride his body and smiling down at him. She was naked, and her skin glowed — with a color that Chan had never seen before. He realized that he was seeing her through the Angel’s thermal infrared sensor.
Tinker components were fluttering at his bonds, loosening them. Leah squatted back on her haunches, took Chan’s hands, and helped him to sit up. She was smiling at him. As she moved close and kissed him on the mouth he felt a new stirring of multiple pleasures — in himself, in her, and in the other three members of the group.
She put her arms around him, and they hugged each other close.
“They told us you were dead,” he murmured. “They said that you met the Construct, and it destroyed you. We believed them, believed that Nimrod had killed all of you. I should have had more faith. You killed Nimrod.”
NIMROD? The feeling through Chan’s body was like an intense electric shock, yet its current was bright laughter, direct in his mind, CHAN, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. NIMROD COULD NOT KILL US. WE COULD NOT KILL NIMROD. CHAN, WE ARE NIMROD.
No more words, but in their place images and raw information, an intense, mind-stretching torrent. WE MET THE CONSTRUCT. WE WERE AFRAID. AND WE CHANGED. SEE THIS (FEEL this, KNOW this). Everything at once, an explosion of parallel data inputs bursting inside Chan’s head …
IMAGE: …the Alpha Team is frozen in position. Above them, floating down with all weapons ports open, the Morgan Construct.
Too late to flee.
This is the moment for Ishmael the Tinker to fall apart in independent components, for Angel to stand useless and immobilized, for S’glya to seek futile escape in the bounding leaps of a terrified Pipe-Rilla.
The group coalesces…
FUSION: …every component of Ishmael flies to a new position, embedding Leah, S’glya and the Angel within the Tinker’s extended body. After a split-second of chaos, combination takes place. Instead of a pursuit team of individual members, a single mentality exists…
IMAGE: …the Morgan Construct is ready to obliterate everything. Weapons ports are glowing with impending energy release, while the air shimmers with electromagnetic fields. Ionization forms a violet-blue nimbus around the broad head and latticed wings…
EVALUATION: …the Mentality formulates and reviews a score of options. It holds within it the structure of the Morgan Construct, together with all the separate and combined capabilities of the pursuit team…
ACTION: …the option is selected. A tone, loud and pure, emerges from the communications box on the Angel’s midsection. At the same time a second note, precisely placed in pitch, phase, and volume, comes as an octaves-higher scream from S’glya, and a higher overtone from individual Tinker components.