Phwolfe Song (Golsidan Revival Series Book 1)

by Kimberly McLaughlin

  Des laughed. Luckily, you don’t remember our first meeting. I happened to be a lot smaller then.

  Anna’s jaw dropped. You weren’t an adult yet. But why did they send you?

  I researched the human medical facilities and fertility clinics. I discovered that your donated eggs possessed the genetic makeup we needed, so as a test for my healer certification they sent me.

  I beat on a kid with a stick. Anna felt mortified.

  I wasn’t that small. Des minded in a huffy tone. I stood about five foot three. I grew almost a foot in the last thirty-five human years and put on about fifty pounds.

  How could you bond with me at such a young age? You were just a kid by Golsidan standards.

  Tai’twains usually bond in their teens. My bonding to you at age twenty-four happens to be the oldest tai’twain bonding on record for the Ladreti Khwa.

  “Geez… I… oh, sorry Sato, sorry Fienu, Des has been trying to explain the differences between Golsidan and Human children to me. How do you carry something that weighs eighteen to twenty-six pounds without losing your balance?”

  “Have you noticed that sometimes we lean back on our tails?” Fienu said.

  Anna nodded. “Yes, Des looks good when he does that.”

  “Well, our tails easily support the child’s weight.” Fienu explained.

  “That makes sense.” Anna took a deep breath. “What about this mind-switching, body-borrowing thing?”

  “It bothers you?” Des asked, leaning over and pulling her into his lap.

  “I don’t really understand it. I only want to be with you and you say it will be you. But how can it be?” Anna asked.

  “Sato, Fienu, and I trance. We mind to mind in a very deep three-way meld. Fienu stays in the middle. He helps me and Sato change places. Afterwards, we switch back. It will exhaust Fienu, because it takes a lot of healing energy to switch us back and forth.”

  “What happens at the one month point?” Anna asked.

  Des mind touched Anna. Sato and I switch again. You and I make love. I reach to the child and the child comes with me when I leave you. It causes no pain love. It just feels like a slow, deep loving. You will like it very much, especially since a month has gone by without it.

  What do you mean by a month without it?

  Des’s mind touch shrunk as he tried to avoid answering her. Then his mind threw out engaging in sex while carrying the child is impossible.

  “What? I want you to explain that to me right now.” Anna said. She reached out and latched onto Des’s mind. Des?

  You need to carry the baby for a month. The child will naturally want to go with whoever loves you. If it goes too soon, it dies. We need to refrain from making love for a month. But we end up with a child because of that restraint.

  “You avoided telling me this earlier, because you figured I wouldn’t agree?”

  Des slowly nodded. “I really want to have a child.” He said pathetically.

  Anna mind touched him with a kiss. Okay love, but you need to be prepared to do a lot of snuggling, hugging, and back rubbing for that month. Also, you had better be ready to make it up to me when that month passes.

  “Sorry, again you two, this holds a lot more surprises in it than I figured on.” Anna sighed. “Oh, another thing. What about twins?”

  Sato shook his head. “What are twins?” He asked.

  “My brother and I are fraternal twins. Sometimes, it runs in families. I’m not sure how strongly it runs in mine.” Anna said.

  “I still fail to understand?” Sato said.

  “Des, what happens if I conceive twins?”

  “I also fail to understand this twins word. I know you often call your brother, your twin. But what does it mean exactly?”

  “Two children, carried at the same time, born at the same time.” Anna said. Des shook his head again. Anna mind touched him and showed him two fetuses in the same womb. He jolted.

  “Blesseds!” He exclaimed. “You are a Blessed!”

  “If blessed means twins, yes.” Sato grinned and Fienu looked positively overjoyed. “Okay, what makes blesseds so special to you guys?” Anna asked.

  “Six generations have passed since a blessed occurred in the Golsidan population. And I mean the whole population.” Des said.

  “They tend to be rare among humans, but not that rare. They happen about once in a hundred births, if I remember right.” Anna said.

  “We can only carry one child in a tail womb.” Sato said.

  “Shit!” Anna said. “So if I get pregnant with twins, what happens? Does one of them die?”

  “No, I get the second one.” Fienu exclaimed.

  “But how is that possible?” Anna asked.

  “As Sato’s tai’twain, I’m capable of carrying a child fathered by his body.” Fienu said grinning widely.

  “But, the first trance switch thing exhausts Fienu. How can he endure a second one? Plus, who acts as the healer in the middle helping, Des accomplish the switch?”

  Des smiled. “When I take the first child, I’ll sense a second life, if it exists. If it does, we switch back and I call central medical. They send healers to heal Fienu and help me switch with him and use his body to retrieve the second child. It is a small price for a clan to pay to get the treasure of having Blesseds.”

  “So, I take it that you wouldn’t mind it, if twins happen Fienu?”

  “Not mind, I would be overjoyed to get to carry a child. As a neuter, Des getting to father a child is uncommon. A neuter carrying a child happens even less often. Please, how likely is it?”

  “I don’t know Fienu. In some families, it happens every generation or every five or six pregnancies. In other families it only happens once, ever. It’s more likely to happen with me, than with someone who wasn’t a twin.” Anna shrugged. “I can only say that the possibility exists.”

  “Well, we need to cover that possibility in the birth contract.” Sato said.

  “Okay, onto the next set of questions. A birth contract gets agreed upon by the child’s parents. In this case, the four of us right?”

  Sato nodded.

  “The clan head and clan Elders need to approve the contract, right?”

  Both Sato and Fienu nodded this time.

  “The most common point of dispute revolves around who assumes the responsibility of raising the child.”

  Sato gave a wry smile and then nodded.

  “If Wolfe becomes a sub-clan, then the child goes to Wolfe. If Wolfe fails to become a sub-clan, then the child must stay in Satorae.”

  Sato looked at Fienu who smiled. “We totally agree with that.” Sato said.

  Anna took a deep breath. “What about a mother’s fee?”

  Sato nodded and asked. “I owe you my life. What do you wish?”

  “For the life debt, right now, I want nothing. Maybe a time will come when I’ll need to ask something of you. But for now, don’t worry about it. For the mother’s fee, I want teaching for the child. I want for you to agree to teach twice for me. If our child wishes to learn two of your trades, you teach them to our child. If our child wishes to learn one of your trades, you teach our child that trade. Plus, you teach a trade to another one of my children. If our child wants to learn none of your trades, then you teach two trades to my other children. I ask that for my fee.” Anna watched Sato closely for a reaction.

  He took a deep breath as his face broke into a wide grin. “I agree to that. Teaching a child consists of a huge investment of time. By putting it in the birth contract, you make a legal requirement out of something I want to do anyway. Your way, legally, no clan, mine included can object to me spending as much time as I want with the children, because they signed off the right to objection by granting approval of the contract. What else?”

  Anna thought for a couple of minutes. “Since it exists as a possibility, Fienu if you bear a child of mine, I want you to agree to teach two of my children also.”

  Fienu nodded enthusiastically. “I agree to t
hat.”

  “Des, can you think of anything else?” Anna asked.

  “No, I can’t. Let’s look at the contract and see if it brings up anything on it that we wish to discuss.”

  Anna mind touched him. In a hurry love, she gently teased him.

  Des nodded as he walked over to the information board.

  Since they had discussed everything, it took them only about ten minutes to read and fill out the contract. They each needed to handprint the glow board and then they forwarded it to the Elders Hall for approval.

  “Well, that’s done. Des call up the design page. I wanted to ask Sato’s opinion on something I drew up.”

  Desvren slid out of the chair. “Go ahead. I’m going to go get a couple of nets and glue them to the wall. I want to put up our marriage stick.” Des walked towards the door.

  “Des, sweetheart, if you see anybody please try to talk about something other than the stick. I swear you seem to get stuck on stick subjects.”

  “Only because the stick has something to do with you.” Des said as he left.

  “I hope he doesn’t drive anyone crazy with stick stories again.”

  Sato shook his head. “He won’t. It was a very nice ceremony. People probably want to ask him about it. Are you happy with your honor gift, hunter Phwolfe?”

  “Very. I felt worried that if Wolfe failed, I’d get separated from Des. Now, I know clan Satorae accepts me as Des’s wife and that no one ever plans to separate us. I felt more scared of losing Des than I did when I faced takosund.”

  “I am glad you no longer worry. I don’t remember you showing any fear of the takosund you hunted.” Sato said smiling.

  “I experienced a delayed reaction. It hit me after everyone safely reached the garden room. Then, I literally fell on my ass.” Anna pointed at the screen. “I wanted to ask you about this Sato. I’m trying to design an effective takosund tree barrier. I came up with three different designs. What do you think of them?”

  Sato pulled a chair over. “Takosund tree barriers?” He queried as he leaned over the screen. “Ahhh...you build them around the tree trunk. Well this one here.…” He pointed to the upside down cone. “This one won’t work. The bigger takosund would wrap around the bottom and crush it, then they’d wrap up further and crush some more, squeezing it slowly to pieces. Sorry!”

  Anna eliminated the upside down cone from the screen. “It’s all right. I felt unsure of that one working. Well, actually I feel unsure about all of them which is why I wanted your opinion and help. You know how a takosund usually reacts and what it can physically do against barriers.”

  “Well, I never would have thoughts of tree barriers. Unfortunately, this one here would also fail.” He pointed to the round platform. “Again big takosund, reaching out and grabbing it with their gripping arms and ripping the platform braces apart.”

  Anna eliminated the platform from the screen.

  “This one could work. Make it a little bigger, build the bottom platform out three meters from the tree, increase the cone angle in between the top and bottom platforms, lengthen the cone, and build the top platform out five meters from the tree trunk. Yes, this one would work.” Sato said pointing to the modified cone. “But, that’s a huge amount of work to protect one tree.”

  “I thought about using them in areas like Northwest 3. Only eight big trees grow close to the rail. If we put barriers on those eight and cutoff the limbs that intersect with other trees, we would have a safe place to harvest without watchers. Plus, if we build the top platforms strong enough, hunting from them becomes possible. After we finish harvesting it, Northwest 3 makes the ideal place to call in takosund and hunt them.”

  “Yes, this would work on Northwest 3. Do you have ideas on how to increase the harvests? As pack-runner, how will you get more time to harvest over the rail?”

  Anna laughed. “Remember, four little rolling wheels replaced me as pack-runner, Sato. I plan on calling Gresa and offering him a trade to modify the electrical field. If he made us some on/off switches, one at the top of the ramp, and another one on the garden room wall. We could use the carts. Just turn off the field, before you roll the cart across the walkway. Turn the field back on, when you reach the top of the ramp.”

  “We could just turn the field off during the harvest.”

  Anna shook her head. “I built a barrier across first level. But a large takosund could knock or rip it down. We leave the field on, except for when the carts roll on it. Plus, whenever someone comes out of the garden room with an empty cart, they visually check the barrier before they turn off the electrical field.”

  Fienu nodded vigorously. “Yes, you don’t want to give takosund a chance to surprise you again.”

  “I sure don’t, once happened to be more than enough.” Anna said and called up something else on the screen.

  Des came back in, carrying some nets with him. He waved and walked over to the wall and started gluing them to the wall above the bed.

  Anna turned back to the screen. “This would really speed up the harvest over the rail.” She showed Sato the rope slide and explained it. “Do you think two percent counts as a fair payment for someone to unsnap the nets? They could still harvest their own produce near the ropes.”

  Sato nodded. “To just unsnap the nets that equals a fair price. But what about when the cart gets full?”

  “I think whoever harvests over the rail needs to agree to take turns pushing in the carts. They’ll have to use marked bags to keep track of the harvest. I like using the nets because there seems to be more of them.”

  “If you harvested slower, the marked bags would work for you too. I agree with you about sharing the cart pushing.”

  A sharp knock reverberated through the door. Des answered it and the room filled up with the Elders and the Phsatorae.

  Des looked unsurprised. Sato rolled his eyes. Fienu grinned widely and chuckled.

  Anna wondered why Fienu looked so smug. “What’s so funny?” She whispered to him.

  “Sato owes me two broiled takosund portions. I bet him the Elders would show up, before we left.”

  “Why?”

  Kantuia stepped forward. “You asked for a birth contract to be approved by the Elders and Phsatorae.” They nodded.

  “The only issue we have with the approval concerns the unusual stipulation about blesseds. Why is it included?” Kantuia asked.

  “We wished to be prepared for all possibilities.” Sato explained.

  “You consider Blesseds to be a possibility?” The Phsatorae said and looked at Anna.

  Anna shrugged. “I am a twin. What you call a blessed, so the possibility exists.”

  “You are a blessed!” The Phsatorae exclaimed.

  “Yes. Sometimes, it runs in families. I don’t know if it runs in my family or not. We wished to cover that possibility.” Anna explained.

  The Phsatorae nodded. “In that case, the stipulation makes sense, preparing all of you for the possible occurrence of blesseds.” He turned to the Elders. They nodded and he turned back. “We approve of your contract. May your blood stay strong.” They filed out.

  “Wow! I guess they really want to get some children as fast as possible.” Anna said.

  Fienu nodded. “There haven’t been any children for a very, very long time.”

  “So do we start tonight?” Des asked.

  “Des!” Anna screeched.

  “What?” He looked at Anna and shrugged. “We agreed to the contract.”

  “Haven’t you heard of honeymoons, newlyweds?” Anna said.

  He shook his head. “No, what are they?” Anna shot some images to Des. He stared at Anna and slowly smiled. “You get to explain it to them.” He pointed at Fienu and Sato.

  “I am so going to get back at you for this.” Anna reached out, touched Sato and Fienu’s minds, and shot the images at them.

  Sato shook his head when Anna pulled back. “But the purpose of mating is to create children. Why would you want to mate wi
th Des? As a neuter, he needs to use my body to give you children.”

  Anna looked as Sato in shock. “He can’t mean what he just said. Does he?” She asked Des.

  “Males only think of the end product, children. The creating of children drives them sexually.” Des explained.

  “What other plausible reason could exist for mating?” Sato asked.

  Anna shook her head in disbelief. “No wonder, the males need to pay Mother fees.”

  Fienu gasped out a series of chuckles. “I will try to explain it to him and hold him off for the rest of today and two nights. May your blood stay strong, friends.” Fienu backed out the door, pulling Sato with him, still laughing.

  “How can Sato be that dense?” Anna asked.

  “All the males feel that way, to them sex only matters as a means to make children. It is satisfying to them, because of the thoughts of children. When you agreed to a birth contract and then wished to have sex with me without the use of Sato’s body.” Des chuckled. “Sex simply for pleasures sake lies beyond any male Golsidans understanding.”

  “But don’t the males realize that the neuters are popular with the females because of sex?”

  “Oh yes, they realize that. But they feel no concern about it, because it creates no children. Luckily for you, I’m the one fathering our child. Like most of the males on board this ship, Sato has never fathered a child which means he’s never had sex. None of the males seem to miss it. They only feel a sense of loss in the lack of children.”

  “Unbelievable! A ship load of virgin males uninterested in sex.” Anna shook her head.

  Des pulled Anna towards the bed. “Come love, today is our day off and many hours remain in the hot.”

  They went to bed and proceeded to do things that would have shocked poor Sato. When they finally woke up and managed to make it out of the bed, the time read eight twenty-eight.

  Anna called Jatlo and asked him to come over. He said he’d head right over. She went over to the information board and pulled up a trade chief contract. She researched for a couple of minutes. “Des, would you get upset if I contracted Jatlo as my trade chief?”