“One caveat,” he said.
She was startled. “This is conditional?”
“Yes.”
He could see her brace herself. “What is your condition?”
“That you allow yourself to love me.”
She melted. “I will.”
“Then let's make it formal.” He took a deep breath. “Elen Elf of Colony Planet Jones, will you marry me?”
“Shep Shepherd of Earth, I will marry you.”
Then they kissed. They did not have sex at this time, knowing that more than enough would soon be coming. They merely embraced and slept, resting before the siege.
It came a few hours later. Deep, rutting, sexual urgency overwhelmed them both, as the telepathy of the conjoining rams and ewes intensified to the point of no denial. They yielded to it, letting it take them on waves of desire so intense that it became painful rather than pleasurable. To resist it would have been agony.
Indeed, when the first wave abated with temporary satiation, they got up and walked around the cabin, and saw Vulture and Python in sad state. They had had no partners, so had had to suffer through it.
Within an hour the second wave came, and they clutched each other on the bed, locked in seemingly endless orgasm. Its passing left them gasping.
“We have two weeks of this?” Shep asked.
“Two weeks,” she agreed wearily. “Unless--”
“Unless?”
“Unless I am already pregnant. When my body knows it, the sexual urgency will abate, because I have been bred.”
“And what of my body?”
She smiled. “It will continue. But do not be alarmed; I will continue to accommodate you.”
“Even when your desire has cooled?”
“Yes. I do not want you to suffer.”
“Thank you,” he said wryly.
And by the end of the day she knew. “It has taken. I have been bred.”
“You're pregnant!”
“Yes. I am with child.” She smiled. “I hope you do not change your mind now.”
“Never,” he said, kissing her. But he feared the obstacles they would have to navigate.
Chapter 7:
Return
Two weeks passed, and the ewes were finally bred. The mating urge, satisfied, faded. It was time to return to their normal pasture.
Python, Vulture, and Shep were bedraggled, albeit it for different reasons. Elen was fine. They went to the boat.
But the sheep were not there. So Shep and Elen went looking for them. They were placidly grazing. The rams were not far off, watching them. They would move in if there were any sign of interest by a ewe. In fact every so often one would approach, only to be bleated off. The ewes had no further use for them. So why were they remaining here, instead of traveling? They were well fed and ready.
There was a rumble, then an explosion. Shep saw a column of smoke rise into the air. A small volcano was erupting, from the direction they had come here.
Now the sheep walked toward the boat. They must have been waiting for that. Maybe it would have been dangerous, had they been near when it happened.
But when they assembled by the boat, Shep got another feeling. “We can't go back the way we came here,” he said.
“I know it,” Elen agreed. “That route has been blocked. That's bad, because it was the only route I really knew. Now we'll have to travel cross-country.”
As if they had been on a clear highway coming in. Shep was not comfortable with this. But what alternative was there? “We'll cross the water, then circle the lake until the sheep indicate the way to go.”
They boarded, all ten of them. Shep and Elen stripped, and took their places at the paddle pedals and the seat before it. He fitted himself into her, knowing how much he would need her shielding. Sexually sated or not, he would respond to the massive pheromone assault of the vamps.
“The song!” she said, remembering. “We'll sing it again.”
“Yes! But let's hold our places here, just in case.”
“Of course.” She clasped him tightly, outside and inside.
He started pedaling, and the craft moved out into the lake.
The vampires came. “Come join us, virile man!” Lova called. “We hunger for your penetration!” She hovered, spreading her arms and legs wide to display her breasts and open cleft. “We have so much to offer!”
“I am already committed,” he called back.
Then they swarmed in close. Shep barely got his mouth on Elen's before a vamp could kiss him. Their hands and bodies touched him everywhere as they pressed their breasts against the back of his head and neck, and stroked his buttocks and scrotum. The pheromones formed a dense cloud. His member, well worn from the breeding cycle, surged into rigidity, filling Elen's channel. It wanted to burst through her and reach a vamp so it could be endlessly potent.
He kept pedaling, and the boat kept moving.
The vamps started kissing him everywhere they could reach, especially his scrotum and anus. Each kiss excited another section of his flesh.
He pedaled.
The urgency continued to build. When he feared it would overwhelm him and make him wrench free of Elen's closure, he lifted his head and started singing. “He who is noble...”
“Excrement!” Lova swore. “The beast remembered!”
Elen joined him. “...pure and simple hearted.”
The vamps definitely were not that. They retreated, hurling vile expletives. They were furious, but could not handle the stirring music, or the spirit it evoked.
They made it across and landed at the proper site. The sheep walked off the boat, followed by Vulture and Python. Only then did Shep and Elen disembark, still closely connected as he carried her. Once they were safely on land, beyond the reach of the vamps, they were ready to separate.
“Unless you wish to complete it now,” Elen murmured.
The pheromones still surrounded them. “Actually I do, to make up for all the prior frustration. Do you mind?”
She squeezed him, just so, and he jetted powerfully into her. That established her dominance over the vampires, because now he was able to climax instead of remaining rigid while his blood was sucked.
There was a chorus of expletives from the vamps still hovering over the water. His climax was his parting shot, leaving them angrily frustrated.
The sheep had waited patiently while Shep and Elen finished their business. Then the sheep walked beside the lake, avoiding the way the party had come. About a quarter of the way around they struck out across a barren landscape. It might once have been a grass field, but now it was desiccated stubble.
Vulture flew up, circled, and returned to earth, troubled. Shep saw smoke ahead, and smelled burning. “Uh-oh. I think we have a grass fire. We don't want to get caught in that.” Python seemed nervous too.
But the sheep were marching right toward it, unconcerned.
“Trust the sheep,” Elen said.
“Of course. But sometimes I wish they could speak our language, and tell us what's coming.”
“They communicate well enough. They don't need our kind of speech.”
The fire loomed closer, being blown directly toward them. Gusts of wind brought the smoke down to swirl around them, making them cough.
Python slithered rapidly ahead. Vulture followed, half flying. There was something.
Then they saw it: the opening of a cave. Shelter from the fire! Provided it didn't harbor some predator waiting for prey to be driven into its lair. But of course the sheep would not blithely walk into that.
It turned out to be a series of caves, linked by tunnel-like apertures as if a river had once coursed through it. Now it was bone dry. The sheep formed a file and walked on into it, leaving the light of day behind.
“Trust the sheep,” Shep echoed. They followed closely after the last ewe, and Python and Vulture brought up the rear. The sounds of the sheep's hooves told them where to go.
An hour later they emerged from the cave
s and found a completely different landscape. Green grass bordered a slow stream, and there were a few fruiting trees. It was a comparative paradise, a fine place to spend the night.
The sheep had known.
That night Shep and Elen clasped each other in the holddown mode, kissing and making love without sexual completion. It seemed natural.
In the morning they were ready to resume travel, but the sheep were not. So they waited. Sure enough, a ferocious storm crossed suddenly over them, deluging them with water and raising the level of the river close to overflowing its banks. But in another hour the torrent cleared and they were able to resume walking.
The rest of the journey was like that. Only the awareness of the sheep made it feasible without severe problems. But because Shep now truly trusted the sheep, accepting their judgment without question, the return was relatively easy. In several days they reached the human village where Shep's host lived.
And that was it. The sheep disappeared into their pastures, leaving the four other members of the party behind. The mission had been accomplished.
“I guess that goes for you too, friends,” Shep said to Python and Vulture. “You are free to resume your natural lives.”
But neither animal departed. “I think they have been tamed,” Elen said. “They prefer to stay with us.” She smiled. “And I welcome it. I feel more comfortable with them than I would at home.”
Oh, yes. “Because now we have to marry, and face the opposition of the two families.”
“Yes. Python and Vulture accept us as we are. They know what we've been through.”
“We'll just have to explain that we are a team, and they are part of it. As long as they don't attack human beings or their pets, it should be all right.”
“Yes. I think they won't attack anyone unless there is an immediate danger to us.” She faced the house. “I think you and I must explain some things to people who will not be pleased to hear them.”
“Yes.” He considered briefly. “I am not properly conversant with social customs on this world.” He smiled. “I came here to study them, but got distracted. But I know that sometimes things that shouldn't make a difference, do. We have gotten messed up from hard traveling. Can we—make ourselves more presentable?”
She laughed. “Excellent thought. Looking travel worn is fine, but you should be obviously healthy and I should be pretty.”
Elen got to work on the both, and soon their appearance was much improved.
“And I think we will need to introduce Vulture and Python,” he said. “As evidence of the mission we were on. That may be why the sheep put their need to stay with us into their minds.”
“Yes.” Elen knelt beside Python and stroked her neck. “Trust us,” she said. “We will safeguard you from our kind.” She did the same with Vulture.
Then they girded themselves and approached the house. Shep knocked on the door.
In a moment it opened to reveal Cora Peterson, his host's mother. “Brian!” she cried gladly. Then she paused. “Or is it you?”
“I am the man from Earth, Amber Shepherd,” Shep said. “I have brought Brian's body home safely. The sheep have returned and I am free to pursue my original mission. But there are complications.”
Now she saw his companions. “An elf. A python. A vulture,” she said faintly.
“We are friends, bound together,” Shep said. “None of these creatures will harm you. It is a legacy of the mission with the sheep. We need to talk.”
The woman seemed about ready to faint, but collected herself. “Come in. All of you. We will talk.”
They trooped into the house, where Brett, the father, greeted them. “We know that the sheep change folk. You surely have an interesting tale to tell. Make yourselves comfortable.” If he was nervous about the presence of Vulture and Python he did not show it.
Shep and Elen took chairs, and Vulture and Python settled quietly behind them. “This is Elen,” Shep said. “The sheep selected her, as they did me and the others. It was a considerable experience. Now Elen and I need to marry.”
Cora put her hand to her breast as if suffering a heart attack, and Brett looked grim. “I think you know we would not approve of that.”
“Going with the sheep was not my choice, or hers,” Shep said. “But we had to do it. Now we are in love and must marry. We ask for your support.”
“Must marry?” Cora asked faintly.
“I am pregnant,” Elen said.
“You are not our son,” Brett said to Shep. “He can not be bound by what you do.”
“But she is with child,” Cora protested. “By our son's body. The child must have a father.”
“Marriage to an elf was not part of the deal!” Brett said.
“Here is what we propose,” Shep said. “We will marry, and Elen will exchange with a young woman of Earth so she can remain with me on the other planet. That Earth woman will keep company with your son, in Elen's body. She will not be his wife; he is not committed to that, as you say. But she will bear his genetic child. Six months later, I will return and so will Elen, to resume our marriage here. It will be known that this was not your doing, but the result of the mission of the sheep. No blame will attach to you.”
“But our son!” Cora protested. “With this elf woman! With child by him!” She was having trouble getting past that.
“With an Earth woman in Elen's body,” Shep said. “They may have whatever relationship they choose.” He smiled briefly. “Brian may have developed a taste for Earth women by the time he returns.”
“You know it must be,” Elen said. “My family will be no better pleased than you by this union. Elves and humans seldom marry. I hope both families will make the best of it.”
“I ask your indulgence,” Brett said. “Would you show us your body, Elf?”
Elen opened her cloak and showed them. Both Brett and Cora looked. “You are beautiful,” Bret said.
Elen shrugged. “Nature made me that way.” She closed her cloak.
“More beautiful than our son would ever be able to attract on his own, human or elf. You would play the part of his lover?”
“I am Shep's lover,” Elen said firmly. “I will not touch your son.”
“But the exchange Earth girl—she would love our son?”
“Unlikely,” Shep said. “She wouldn't know him.”
“But the two bodies would be married, by our custom,” Brett said.
“Elen and I would be married,” Shep said. “Not Brian and the Earth woman.”
“But they would live together.”
“I suppose they would,” Shep agreed.
“They would act married,” Brett said.
This was evidently important to the man. “Probably they would, publicly.”
Now Cora saw where Brett was going. “And if they fell in love, they could marry—Brian and the Earth girl. Completing it. No shame about the baby.”
“If they fell in love,” Shep agreed cautiously.
Brett smiled, looking at Elen. “Could any man be close to this body, whatever its occupant, and not fall in love with her?”
“Not if he's like me,” Shep said.
Elen's face was composed. That could be mischief. She had no interest in the lout. But she knew she would not be occupying her own body in Shep's absence. She would be with him on Earth. She could endure that. “My body will be at the Earth girl's disposal. So long as she does not harm my baby.”
Both parents nodded. They seemed to have hammered out a compromise of sorts. But Shep knew there was one huge uncertainty: could they find an Earth woman who would agree to keep company with the lout? To make a marriage of appearances that would satisfy the relatives.
“You may stay here, using Brian's room,” Cora said. “Until you marry.” Which would give the parents the semblance of some control over the situation.
“Thank you,” Elen said, seeming genuinely grateful. She knew that the Peterson's interest was in appearance, both social and physical, rat
her than the technicalities of host versus visitor, but that acceptance counted for a lot.
“Now we must broach the elf family,” Shep said.
Brett laughed. “Lotsa luck!” He understood perfectly how the elves would react.
They walked to the other village, accompanied by Vulture and Python. Elen knocked on her own door. “Mom, I have awkward news.”
There was a scene, of course. In the end, the elves agreed to the marriage. What else could they do? Not only was their daughter keeping willing company with a vulture and a python along with a man of Earth, she was pregnant and in love.
Then they went to the Earth embassy to message Shep's parents. He knew they would be intrigued, knowing he would not have done such a thing without good reason. They would promise to see about a suitable Earth woman to be Elen's host, and a lawyer to arrange for the exchange, since the law was vague in this instance.
Messaging Earth was expensive and limited. They were allowed only ten words.
MARRYING ELF GIRL.
WOW! That would be his father talking.
MUST GET EARTH HOST, LAWYER.
WILL DO. GOOD LUCK, SON.
He had done it in only eight words, and his father had used only six. Shep was reassured; his family had resources, and he knew the matter would be competently handled.
“Oh, I want so much to go to Earth!” Elen said. “But now that it is being arranged, I can't help wondering what it will be like to occupy another woman's body, and to have her occupy mine. I wish I could have the one without the other.”
“I'm nervous too,” Shep said. “About what it will be like to embrace you in another woman's body, and what you will think of my own body. Suppose you can't stand it?”
“Then I will fake it,” she said, smiling. “You will never know the difference.”
“Why am I not completely encouraged?” he asked rhetorically. Then they made love. If she was faking her continued interest in that, he was unable to tell.
The banns were published, and in the following month they held the wedding. It was in an open forum between the two villages, open to any who wished to attend, and as it turned out, the majority of both villages came. They understood the significance: not of human and elf union, which was hardly encouraged, but of Earth and Colony union, the first. Supported by a wild vulture and python, an extremely unusual occurrence.
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