Juanita Coulson - Children of the Stars 04

by Past of Forever

  He leaned toward Kat and said, “Did you ever hear the one about the spacer marooned on an asteroid station with seven Rigotians ...?

  To his surprise, she hadn’t. Firelight accentuated Kat’s blush.

  She swatted at him, a phony, chiding slap. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

  “Why?” He waved at the Whimeds. Kat listened a moment, then blushed even more deeply.

  “Sure, take it easy,” Sheila advised. “That’s what this is all about.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you think of it that way,” Kat snapped. But she didn’t move away when Dan put his arm around her.

  Some celebrants were teetotalers, for medical or ethical reasons. But they didn’t put a damper on the festivities. On the contrary, they joined in wholeheartedly. Unlike Fleet troopers on leave or indie haulers with credits to bum, team members who indulged weren’t interested in wiping themselves out fast. They set a leisurely pace, balancing intoxicants with snacks, horseplay, conversation, music, and a lot of pit hopping. There were few mean drunks. The tone was what everyone had hoped for—a generalized release of tension.

  Armilly chanted Lannon poetry, whether or not anyone was listening. Vahnajes owlishly reminisced, their heads waggling atop their long necks. Terrans, Whimeds, and N’lacs snake danced around the bonfires. A number of tipsy felinoids tried to embrace everyone, including Vahnajes. Dan saw very little of the interspecies standoffishness that had been so obvious on T-S 311. He wondered if Imhoff’s multispecies dig crew was equally able to throw away those chauvinisms dividing the races at their pit fits. This was the way things should be, throughout the sectors— humanoids, sharing, cooperating, putting aside those age-old fears of beings who were somewhat different from themselves.

  For a while Dan was part of a slap-happy chorus line, dancing between Praedar and Kat, then Joe and Sheila, then Armilly and Rosie, stumbling and weaving in a silly, impromptu folk stomp. Those on the sidelines cheered them on.

  A second and then a third refill of binge juice shot Dan’s coordination to pieces, as it did most of the partyers. They retreated to the pits, though some of the Whimeds continued dancing for another half hour.

  Terran, Whimed, Vahnaj, and N’lac children stuffed then faces and played together until sleep overtook them. The kids curled up in the pits, safe and close at hand while their parents reveled.

  The flicker of the fires, the camaraderie, the food and drink all lent a dreamlike quality to the celebration. Dan floated on waves of conversation. Kat talked with Rosie about a prank the two of them had pulled in their student days. Drastil and Praedar argued, without rancor, the fine points of Whimed philosophy. Sheila and Joe tried to outdo each other with graphic medical anecdotes. Rosie and Baines exchanged raunchy stories and prodded their hormones. A number of couples were doing that.

  The mood hadn’t quite reached the romping stage yet, however. Someone started a singalong, and the majority of the pits joined in. Whimeds and Terrans led the show. But Vahnajes, N’lacs, and Armilly often chimed in. The result was a jumble, both pleasant and discordant. Did Terran music mean any more to the aliens than their music did to humans? Who cared? Or... no matter, as Praedar would say.

  Dan contributed his baritone to the musical stew—an assortment of what he thought of as camp ditties.

  There were a dozen verses of the perennial complaint:

  “So excavate on the double-quick!

  Shovel and haul! Dig, dig, dig!

  We think this stratum’s too damned thick, What a hell of a way to do re-search!”

  Then they took a poke at the expedition’s long-suffering galley master:

  “Soup! Soo-up! Behave yourself, digger, Or it’s wonderful soup!

  Don’t gripe at Frank’s cooking.

  Don’t say that it’s foul, Or he’ll feed you fried bugs and say with a growl That you’ll get...

  Soo-up!”

  Kat shouted, “I’ve got a new one!” And she ripped at the team’s rivals:

  “Feo Saunder has a project That impresses man-y.

  He and Hope are selling hard, But we’re not buying an-y!

  Won’t acknowledge others’s data, Nev-er listen to us.

  Some folks say the Saunders won it. ..

  But I say they’re spur-ious”

  The final line brought groans, chuckles, and loud demands for more verses. Diggers improvised with wretched rhyme and worse meter. No one criticized. Each crude stanza triggered fresh laughter.

  N’lacs, not understanding what was so funny, but wanting to participate, shrieked gleefully.

  Dan felt as if he were two persons, one cackling idiotically, the other viewing all these intoxicated scientists from a lofty and detached position. Why were they all fooling themselves this way? Tomorrow the problems would still be there, staring them in the face. Getting drunk wasn’t going to make their troubles vanish.

  But... the problems could wait.

  Tonight they’d enjoy a timeless festival.

  Eventually the silly songs, drifted into nostalgia. Ruieb chanted a maudlin hymn to a long-dead Vahnaj hero. It left his fellow lutrinoids drippy-nosed with sorrow. Not to be outdone, the Whimeds offered a ballad extolling one of their epic giants. Armilly droned a lament for a motherless cub, searching the stars for his home world. Chuss, grasping the tone, led his people in thumping, melodic recital of their escape through the Big Dark. Inspired, Dan jumped in when the N’lacs’ song ended.He didn’t introduce his donation. That wasn’t necessary.

  “We’ve ranged across the light-years.

  Been to planets near and far.

  From Earth out to our distant stars, From sector fringe and back to Mars.

  And when our days are ended, No matter where we’ve roamed, We know we’ll die on Terra.. . because ...

  Every planet is our home.”

  Raggedly at first, then ever more strongly, humans blended their voices with his. The words were less than a generation old. But in that time they had been adopted as mankind’s unofficial anthem. The song touched hearts everywhere in Terra’s sphere of influence, with rare exceptions, like die-hard New Earth Renais-sancer proponents. Those bom on Mars Colony, Kruger 60, Settlements Clay, Vaughan, and Hung Jui sang and wiped tears away, ft wasn’t the best rendition Dan had heard, but it was one of the most affecting.

  “Some of us come from Old Earth, Or from Polk or Alpha Cee.

  Some never leave their planet base, And others live their lives in space.

  Yet when our days are ending, No matter if we’ve roamed.

  We know we’ll die on Terra... because...

  Every planet is our home.”

  The verses went on for a long time. The Terrans had plenty of emotion to get out of their systems.

  As the singalong began to falter, Dan noticed Sleeg sitting at the edge of the dud pits. The shaman refused to participate in the gathering. But he insisted on hanging around, scowling at Chuss and other merrymaking villagers. Dan could imagine the old e.t. mumbling “Nothing good will come of this carousing with off-worlders, mark my words!”

  No one paid any attention to the N’lac wet blanket. They were rehashing past triumphs and shortcomings, their memories made fuzzy by intoxicants and the night.

  More and more beings were dropping out. Tired parents were taking sleeping kids to the complex or the village. Some people snored, waking with a start when neighbors poked them and told them to tone it down. In many of the pits, inhibitions had been lowered far enough that sexuality was taking the reins. Praedar and one of his Whimed students were embracing passionately, the erotic nature of the encounter apparent even to non-Whimeds.

  Some team members, though, wouldn’t let go of scraps of lingering anger. That had to bum out before they could relax completely.

  “Remember that fight over lab assignments?”

  “Kroo-ger! What a brawl!”

  “A third of us packed quarters and moved up the valley, that time. Thought the whole expedition would come apart.” />
  “Almost did...”

  “And it still might,” Kat whispered.

  Dan leaned close, speaking in her ear. “We won’t let it.”

  She peered up at him. “Keep telling me that. Please. I want to believe we’ll win. I have to. But it’s so difficult. ..”

  “We’ll win,” he said obediently, wanting to make her happy. “When you say it like that, I think...” Kat forced a weak smile. “That tech specialist confidence. I can hear it. Must be part of that hidden reservoir Chen saw in you, those depths not even you thought you had.”

  “Good ole Saunder-McKelvey genes,” Dan joked, slurring the words.

  “The best of them.” She tilted her head back against Dan’s shoulder. “What you said that last night at the Assembly—about the high principles, the true spirit of your family...”

  “I don’t remember saying that,” he muttered, chuckling. “It was probably somebody else. Maybe a reporter.”

  “No, no, it was you,” Kat insisted. Her words were slurred, too. “You know, you’ve become my fav-favorite xenomechani-cian.”

  He laughed, amused that she’d had trouble with “favorite” but none pronouncing “xenomechanician. ” Alcohol made humans silly and erratic. Dan’s arm tightened around her as he said, “And you are my favorite xenosocio-socio-sociologist.”

  Kat nodded absently. She was trying to spot someone in the shadows, hampered by the bonfires’ unsteady glow. Praedar and his romping mate were barely visible in the dark recesses of the pit. But Kate saw them. She gazed at them intently for a long moment, then turned away quickly. “Make love to me, Dan.” Her arm stole invitingly around his neck.

  Rambling discussions and a leftover song session in nearby excavations became white noise, melting into the background. At this stage of the celebration, Dan couldn’t separate drunken fancies from basic sexual drives, and he wasn’t at all sure he could perform. However, his hormones prodded him to try.

  He and Kat slithered farther down into the pit. Other couples —and one trio—were doing the same. Firelight stabbed into the shallow openings, reflecting on sparkling eyes, bare skin, and Whimed crests, fluffy with excitement. Somewhere in the distance, Vahnajes cried in either pain or passion. Sheila was exhorting her partner of the night: “Come on, I’m not delicate...” In his memories, Dan heard the blonde making another statement: “I'll tell Olmsted what she’s missed and send her your way. She needs to cut loose. And she’s not going to get that from Praedar, not the way she wants it.”

  Had Sheila done that? Sent Kat his way?

  The thought evaporated as Kat kissed him passionately. He gave himself over to sensation, refusing to wonder how they’d arrived at this time and place together.

  “I’ll hate myself in the morning.” Kat giggled. “I’m drunk.” Dan caressed her. “So am I. We all are. Loopier than a Fleet scout on planet leave after a year-long tour. Wasn’t that the idea?”

  “Yes,” Kat agreed softly. She giggled again. “But we’ll have sand in the most inconvenient portions of our anatomy.”

  “It’s worth it, and I’ll be glad to help you remove yours...” Then he quit wasting breath on talk.

  To his dismay, the alcohol did get in the way. He was running as fast as he could and making no headway. Oddly, the same nerve-deadening side effect blunted his pride, so that the situation struck him as absurd, rather than a blow to his masculinity. He’d hoped for more intensity, higher peaks. But he couldn’t complain. It was fun, romping along like this.

  Kat, unlike him, was getting somewhere very fast. The binge juice had opened sexual and emotional floodgates for her, and Kat’s desire bore them both on that high water. Fuzzy-brained, Dan was enjoying a series of small highs, gratified that Kat had no complaints about his end of the deal. This was a good start. Another time, now that the ice was broken, they’d meet halfway or better in a thoroughly terrific coupling.

  It was a strange setting for lovemaking. Bonfire heat cooked one side of his exposed skin, and desert cold chilled the shadowed side. Other rompers of several species were nearby. Dan was mildly surprised at his lack of embarrassment. This was a semipublic arena, and ordinarily he didn’t go in for that sort of thing at all.

  Kat was gasping in ecstasy, murmuring in delight. Icy shock dashed the fuzz out of Dan’s head.

  She had spoken Whimed.

  He didn’t understand all the words. He got the gist, though. With difficulty, Dan kept himself looking into the darkness, seeking his rival.

  Flashbacks! On a ride home in the skimmer, Praedar had grieved that he would not live long enough to witness the completion of this dig. And Kat had stroked the alien’s crest, petting him as if she were his lover—as if the two of them were alone in the flyer. Dan had felt like a voyeur on that occasion.

  Sexuality across species lines happened. Every major Settlement had places where exotic practices could be bought or arranged among consenting legal adults of different races. There were always rumors that a certain diplomat, merchant, or spacer had an appetite for romping with alien beings.

  Dan had no inclinations in that direction himself. He’d thought he was free of bias against those who did.

  Apparently he was more prejudiced than he realized. Sheila’s blithe attitudes about polygamy raised non-Krugerites’ eyebrows, Dan’s included. But he’d handled that okay. Besides, she’d been talking about multiple human sexual partners; and the Kruger 60 citizens weren’t the first Homo sapiens to experiment with those mating patterns.

  Trying to envision startling alternatives, Dan pictured Kat and Praedar embracing...

  He reacted physically to the concept. Kat stiffened in his arms, asking what was wrong.

  “N-nothing,” Dan muttered. He’d been slammed into a mental wall and was trying to recuperate.

  “I... what did I. .. did I say something ... ? Dan?”

  “Nothing,” he repeated, working hard to rationalize his feelings.

  Kat didn’t have a crush on just any Whimed. Her unrequited love was aimed at a unique, admirable being. In fact, her ideal was admired by damned near everyone on this dig, males as well as females. That didn’t mean they were all quirky!

  The important thing was, Kat hadn’t sought out Praedar tonight. She’d chosen to make love with a Terran male. Dan’s being too drunk to fulfill his part of the arrangement didn’t figure in. If he’d been sober enough, he’d have made her forget fantasies and give her total attention to the man with her.

  “It’s fine, fine,” Dan said, salvaging his ego. Gradually Kat relaxed, accepting his assurances.

  They lay together among others in various stages of sleeping, cuddling, drunken singing, and romping. Dan’s thoughts were a-reel, dulled, sinking fast toward a half-doze. He decided he didn’t care that Kat was attracted to Praedar. Whimeds had that effect on a lot of Terrans. Under these circumstances, isolated and thrown together by common purpose, it was inevitable that a susceptible Terran woman could convince herself she was in love with the expedition’s leader.

  The shallow pits didn’t conceal much. Dan became conscious of his partial nudity and a twinge of modesty made him rectify the condition. Kat was straightening her clothing, too, shivering a bit. They clung to one another, sharing body warmth and soaking up heat from the fires.

  As couple after couple were sated, a drowsy mood fell across the excavations. Humans laughed softly or snorted; Whimeds purred; Armilly grunted happily at who knew what; N’lacs made comical “wheeple” noises; and Vahnajes twittered.

  Then something nudged at that somnolent, drifting attitude. Dan frowned, resisting a growing pressure within his skull. It crawled through his ears and eyes, an invisible probe, increasingly hot, increasingly painful. Pressure turned to hurt, rousing him.

  And a maddening itch gripped every square centimeter of his body.

  He wasn’t alone. Praedar, Sheila, Chuss, Joe... they were all scratching—the entire expedition.

  Those who hadn’t indulged in mood alterants w
eren’t immune. They also rubbed their temples and dug at their flesh. That urge was a juggernaut now, sweeping in, hammering, relentless. Dan drew blood, raking with his nails frantically. He had to stop this damned itch! It was like... like an invasion, an enemy, attacking them.

  The invader took material form.

  It weaved, advancing in an erratic zigzag, as drunk as the revelers. Dan squinted, straining to focus on the object.

  Spindly appendages were tipped by splayed, metallic feet. Metal limbs... tentacles? They were wispy, flopping things.

  How many legs and tentacles? Eight? Ten? More? Dan couldn’t be sure.

  The invader rocked crazily, staggering, sometimes moving in reverse or far to one side. It looked like a mechanical vid clown.

  But Dan’s reaction wasn’t laughter. Fear tightened his gut into an agonizing knot. Gooseflesh rose, warring with the itch.

  The thing was as big as Armilly. Its hide was a piebald patchwork of gleaming plates and rusty excrescence.

  Battered by the pain in his head, Dan groaned. It was a fight to keep his eyes open now and follow the invader’s unpredictable approach course. If only there was some feature to nail down and identify—a head, optical apertures...

  Suddenly the intruder was on top of the pits, tottering wildly, occasionally slipping off the edge of an excavation and stepping on people.

  People fled, froze, or gaped open-mouthed in dumbfounded disbelief.

  The hurt and a buzzing filled Dan’s head. He pounded his palms against his temples, desperate to shut out the assault.

  Baines stood on the rim of a pit, roaring defiance at the metal object. The xenogeologist was mother-naked and very, very drunk. The woman he’d been snuggling with grabbed at him futilely, begging him to get down and hide.