The Sarran Senator

by A. C. Katt

  “You and I have a lot in common. I lived with nuns too. My parents sent me to Catholic boarding school through high school and I wasn’t an orphan. I rebelled when it was time for college and attended Columbia. I was happy to get a place at Manhattan General when Dr. Stern was Chief of Staff.”

  “Where did you go after your residency?” Anya sorted through the visual aids. They didn’t have holos for the class, although some fems suggested that their Warriors record an actual birth for the archives to use for future classes. The council fem agreed it would be useful as an example to the others.

  “University of New Mexico, Sandoval Medical Center. They needed doctors in New Mexico, especially doctors who took Medicaid. I wasn’t interested in making a fortune, only in helping other fems.” Lisa chuckled. “I keep wanting to say women despite the translator chip. I actually love the term fem. The word woman is a derivative of man.” Anya nodded her head in affirmation.

  “Fem is a word unto itself and puts us in our own place, not as an appendage of a man,” Anya said.

  “Huh, I never thought of it that way before.” Amused, Lisa smiled. “Even the Sarran language treats fems as equals. That’s why I came.”

  * * * *

  Academy Grounds: The Tierest Tree 10:00 tines

  “I enjoyed the class now that I know I may have to use the skill,” Tarin told Sam. They held hands while walking to the Tierest tree on the grounds of the Academy.

  “This tree is important to many Sarrans. The legend is that it was the first tree planted by the Goddess after the ClanWars and because of its connection to the Goddess it has been reserved for Sarrans only. Many a WarriorPair formed their bond under this tree.”

  ::Did you and Nezier…::

  ::I wouldn’t do that to you, my fox. No, Nezier and I met on Starlight, one of the ships of the fleet. He flew fighter light slips and I worked in Engineering. We were quartered across from one another. I had just made lieutenant and he was an Ensign. We were very young. It hit us right away, but I didn’t feel like my heart had stopped like I did when I met you.::

  ::I felt the same, my love. Tomorrow we go to meet our destiny. May our fem be sweet and kind. Let’s go and pick up our Asta glasses. I want to go home and love you in our new slumber chamber. I’m glad you put the navy leather sofa in our study. It’s special to me because we first made love on it,:: Sam said in reflection.

  ::There will be certain things we only share with each other and certain things our fem will only share with one of us. This is as it should be. Each of will have needs that only one of the others can fill. The couch is for you and me. The slumber chamber is for our fem.::

  “I think Syn’s right. Our destiny awaits us next rising at the dance.” Sam nodded his head in emphasis.

  “All the more reason for us to make love now, under the Tierest tree. No one will disturb us. I put a white hanky on the edge if the hedge that surrounds us.” Tarin took Sam in his arms and laid him down on the soft blue-green grass. He undid the fastenings of Sam’s flightsuit but didn’t take it off. He unfastened his own.

  Sam grabbed Tarin’s neck and brought him down for a kiss that seemed like it lasted forever although it was only a moment. Tarin moved his mouth down Sam’s chest, now devoid of its small patch of hair. He stopped at his nubs pinching, laving, licking, and biting until they stood up.

  Sam trembled in his bonded’s arms. Tarin took out Sam’s shaft and began to lick and suck around the sides. ::I’m going to embarrass myself when we leave here. My flightsuit will be soaked with slick, you make me want you so much. I long for you to be inside of me with me inside our fem. I dreamt of our fem last moontine. She had hair as dark as the moontine sky and blue eyes that saw right through to my soul. She has a cat that she brought from Earth. The cat is sentient.::

  ::I too dreamt of her. She is petite and beautifully made but doesn’t think she is, there is something wrong with her aura that Syn will have to fix. However, right now, I want to fix you, my fox.::

  Sam’s plunged his mouth down on Sam’s shaft moving it up and down in conjunction with his right hand. With his left hand he kneaded Sam’s balls. He took his mouth from Sam’s shaft and went down to lick his perineum barely touching the rim of Sam’s hole with his tongue. Sam was on a hair trigger. He erupted. ::You didn’t give me a chance to touch you.:: Sam complained.

  ::That’s because I wanted to give to you this rising to show you how much I appreciate what you gave up to come here and how lucky I am to have you as my bonded.::

  ::I was fated to be here with you, as was Sara with Mark and Juraens. I must have done something right to be favored by your Goddess. She gave me you, a gift I can never repay. You mean everything to me. This, what we have, won’t change with the addition of our fem, will it?::

  ::No, my fox, we will still have alone time and our fem will only strengthen our bond. You’ll see.::

  ::Let me take care of you now.:: Sam pleaded.

  ::You already did. I came when you did, just from the taste of you. Let’s teleport to our home to change our flightsuits. We still have to pick up your things at the tailors and your boots at the cobblers in Vineleaf. We need to look our best next rising.:: Bron took Sam’s hand and kissed his knuckles.

  ::Yes,:: Sam smiled, ::We do. I want to dazzle our fem so she comes to us without reservations.::

  * * * *

  Fem Barracks: 18:30 tines

  Margaret Mary O’Neil was fussing over her dress. She was thirty-six years old and this was her first dance. Meg, as her mother used to call her, didn’t have much in common with the other fems she met on the ship. They had lives they lived; they’d experienced dates and dances. She, on the other hand, had cared for her abusive, drunken father and never had anything of her own. Sarran was heaven to Margaret Mary.

  I can’t believe this place exists…a place where women receive respect from the men around them instead of verbal abuse and a cuff on the ear. Every man, oops, Warrior, I meet is unfailingly polite even when I ask stupid questions.

  Meg always wanted to be a dress designer but on Earth her father forbade her to go to school. She took in washing and mending, but she made her own clothes.

  After seeing the commercials and reading the print ads, she made the decision to go to the relocation center. Her neighbors mocked her. “What would they want with a dried up old prune like you? They want women who can breed,” one of her more spiteful neighbors said.

  Meg didn’t listen. “If they don’t want me, they’ll tell me, not you.” The neighbor was in shock because it was the first time Margaret Mary had ever stuck up for herself. Margaret Mary was tired of being someone’s whipping girl. It was bad enough she had to put up with abuse from her father for twenty years, she wasn’t going to put up with any more from anyone else.

  The Warriors came and picked her up. They had a six-month old pure white kitten with them. Margaret Mary thought she was losing her mind when the kitten spoke into her head. ::I’m Snowy. This is Tartel and Bonju, they’re a Sarran WarriorPair. Nod if you can understand me.::

  Meg didn’t know what else to do, so she nodded. One of the Warriors spoke aloud. “Is that the first time you ever used your psy?”

  Margaret Mary nodded again. ::Don’t be afraid to use it, it’s strong. The WarriorPair who bonds with you are going to be lucky indeed, we’re sorry it’s not us.::

  Nor was it anyone on board the Brightstar.

  Snowy stayed with her, telling Meg, ::You are my person. You have a bonded Warrior on board but he needs to find the other half of his pair before they can find you.:: The petite kitten hadn’t steered Meg wrong so far, so she sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  When they processed the fems on the tarmac, Margaret Mary approached a Warrior named TeZaron and asked, “If no one bonds with me, can I stay? I’m a seamstress and can design clothing.”

  He took her out of line and said, “What is your name, honorable fem?”

  “My name is Margaret Mary O’Neil, but I prefer M
eg.”

  “Our fem is Cynthia but prefers Syn. Meg, all of the Earthen fem on the Brightstar are welcome to stay on Sarran permanently, bonded or not.”

  In the short time that she was on Sarran, she had earned one-hundred credits. She mentioned to Zaron that her sewing machine wouldn’t work and he brought Bron along to fix her sewing machine and adapt it to Sarran electrical current. He told several of the pregnant Ta that she designed and sewed dresses. The council fems paid her twenty credits each to sew one of her designs for them to wear to the dance.

  She finally did the work she loved.

  Now she’d earned enough credits for her designs and sewing to buy material for her own dress.

  Looking through the holos of Sarran designs, Meg adapted one of the Sarran styles to a pattern she drew of a gown she envisioned as coming from ancient Greece. She used a length of navy blue silk as an under gown with a length of silver tissue for an overlay. She trimmed her waist and bosom with silver cord. Even though she was thirty-six she had kept up her figure.

  She finished the hand sewn seams just before it was time to get dressed. To go with her gown, she made a shawl of silver tissue trimmed in navy and silver cord and bought silver stilettos for shoes. She hadn’t wanted shoes so high but TaSyn insisted she try them on and they were as easy to walk in as sneakers.

  Margaret Mary didn’t know how to put on makeup, so she asked one of the young fems to help. They agreed because she’d uploaded hundreds of her dress designs to the fabricator and they were all able to wear something different. Meg had a portfolio of designs she had sketched over the last twenty years. Her mother had promised to send her to Paris, but she died and Meg promised her she’d take care of her Da. He finally died six tides ago after putting Meg through hell for nigh on twenty years.

  Snowy showed up to escort her to the hanger along with a large male Maine Coon kitten Snowy introduced as Midnight. A Warrior, a Captain she thought, came in and startled her. “I’m here to make sure there are no stragglers.”

  “I’ll only be a few minutes. I’m almost done…if you will excuse me.” She went into her bathing chamber and straightened her hair. She called Snowy and Midnight and they escorted her out of the barracks by herself, with the Captain staying behind to make sure she left. She thought that was curious, but she was new on Sarran and wasn’t sure how things worked yet.

  Although she helped out the younger fems with their dresses, she really didn’t fit in because there was so much of an age difference. There was one other fem who, although young, had an offspring who was ten cycles, but she was hurt when she came on board. A few times Meg watched Jimmy while his mother Sherry went to the healing center. When Sherry got a cat of her own—Zorah, an Abyssinian—Zorah told Sherry that she’d found her WarriorPair. Sherry got excited but it was only a few days to the dance and Sherry confided to Meg that she wanted to be fully healed when she met them. Meg designed a dress especially for Sherry who was grateful, but she wanted to enter the dance hall alone. Sherry was a romantic and wanted to lock eyes with her Warriors across a crowded room like in musical theater.

  Meg just prayed that her Warriors were kind and would let her continue to sew and design. Nothing she had seen on Sarran made her wary, but she needed to be careful. She didn’t want another one like her Da. Another twenty years of that would completely squash her spirit.

  Although the young ones in her barracks didn’t socialize with Meg, they were kind. On the other hand, the council ladies asked her to coffee after the dance which was lovely; although in Meg’s opinion, they’d deliver their bebes long before it was time for her to come over for coffee.

  Back in the present, Meg followed Snowy through the crowd who took her over to a corner of the room near a door. ::Wait here, Meg. Midnight and I’ll go tell your Warriors that we’re here.::

  * * * *

  The Hangar Dance: 20:00 tines

  Syn, Zaron, and Bron came into the hangar and it was at that point Meg discovered that they were the Triad that headed the Council of Elders. Syn made an effort to stop and chat. She introduced Meg to Sara, Mark, and Juraens. Meg hadn’t met Sara yet. She was newly arrived, just as Meg was. She found Sara charming and was disgusted when she learned how Mark and Juraens found her. Syn and the others moved on, but Sara remained chatting to Meg.

  It was interesting that Sara’s father, Samuel Johnson, a man who could have been the President of the United States, came with her. Meg used to read the paper after her father finished and she knew Samuel Johnson was an important man. Da couldn’t stop me from following the news. Yet Senator Johnson encouraged Sara to come to Sarran and actually came with her.

  Da would have forbidden me to come. The Senator must be a very loving man. His daughter is a lucky fem. Such a good looking man too. I wonder if he will find a bond.

  Since the Senator was of Irish extraction, his exploits were followed avidly in Ireland. He had fans and Meg was one. I wonder if I’ll get to meet him this moontine…ah, here comes Snowy with two Warriors. Ow, the light is in my eyes. Well, they say faith is blind and faith is what brought me here.

  * * * *

  Sam and Tarin had arrived at the dance fifteen minutes late and found an impatient Midnight waiting for them. ::We need to go to the door near the retiring room. Snowy says we can’t leave her there by herself, she’s shy. She’ll get nervous and run back to the barracks.::

  Sam and Tarin hurried across the room. They soon saw the fem talking to Sara. The bond was immediate and fierce.

  ::My love, she’s beautiful, just as I told you. She has large blue eyes and hair as dark as Midnight’s coat. I can’t believe she’s ours.:: Sam’s face radiated joy.

  ::I feel the pull, love, it’s intense. Do you think she feels it too?:: Sam asked Tarin.

  Sam and Tarin stepped out of the spotlight. Meg looked at them wide-eyed, let out a small hiccup of surprise, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

  Sam ran and picked her up. ::Where?::

  ::The retiring room at the back of the council chamber.::

  ::Sara, get Mark and Juraens and come to the retiring room in back of the council chambers.::

  Sara started to run in a panic. ::Our sires’ bonded is Meg O’Neil and she’s just fainted at their feet. Daddy needs us in the retiring room.::

  Sara broadcast on another channel, ::Syn, Meg O’Neil just fainted. We’re on our way to the retiring room. She may be overwhelmed. She may need you, not Mark.::

  ::I’m on my way:: Syn took off across the room, followed by Zaron and Bron.::

  Meg was just opening her eyes when the two Triads arrived. She turned bright red. “I’m sorry, I’ve been so much trouble. I never expected…” She burst into tears.

  Sam held her close to his chest while Tarin held her hand. ::What’s wrong little one, what can your Warriors do to make your world right again?:: Tarin moved his hand to stroke her forehead.

  Snowy strolled in and jumped up on the couch. ::Males, whether they be feline or humanoid, are dense. She never aspired so high. We all know that you two are headed for council as soon as you bond. She’s led a very sheltered life. I’ve read her. She had a controlling, emotionally and physically abusive father who passed just six tides ago.::

  Storm clouds covered both Sam and Tarin’s faces.

  ::It was an act of incredible courage for her to come to Sarran. She’d never been out of her village, Ballinagree, in County Cork; of course she’s frightened. Her psy is strong. I heard her call from Ireland and I had already transported to the Brightstar.::

  ::Why didn’t I hear her? I was aboard the Brightstar. I could have allayed her fears,:: Sam asked, looking at Zaron and Bron.

  ::I didn’t hear Syn except for a slight buzzing in my ear. I had to wait to be reunited with Bron to see her and my psy was fully awakened. You had no experience with bonding. You wouldn’t have known the signs,:: Zaron assured Sam.

  ::I convinced her to come even though she thought she was talking to herself. Now it’s up
to you two to convince her that she’s worthy.:: Snowy delicately jumped down from the couch and began to wash her face.

  ::Snowy, are you sure this is right, that they have the right fem?:: Meg frantically sent to Snowy.

  Sam stroked her hair, ::So beautiful…dearheart, you are broadcasting on all channels. Let me show you. Sam sent her a picture of turning down a light.::

  ::Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! TaSyn, TaSara, I’ve taken you away from the party.::

  ::No worries…the WarriorPairs and fem will do what needs to be done without our help.::

  Another knock came on the door. TeWell and TeAllen entered the room with Sherry, their newly bonded.

  “Sherry was concerned. Meg is a friend. She minded our new offspring, Jimmy while Sherry went to the healing chamber.” Well’s face darkened at the memory of what Sherry suffered.

  Meg sat up. ::I’m sorry I caused such dislocation. I better go back to my sewing machine where I won’t cause such trouble.::

  ::Dearheart, you are no trouble at all. You are a gift from the Goddess. If you want us, we are yours. But I warn you, we will be lost without you.:: Sam held her tighter.

  ::You’re Sam Johnson and you are the Honorable Commander Tarin, the engineer who invented the bebe monitors. I barely finished secondary school and wasn’t permitted to go on to the third form. The Goddess must have made a mistake. You are educated men. What are you going to do with me?::

  ::On Sarran education is free. You may choose to get more or not, as you desire.:: Sam kissed her nose as Tarin kissed the inside of her wrist. Meg drew in a long breath. ::See, you feel the pull. I doubted when I left Earth. I left to be here for Sara and Michael and I found Tarin waiting for me.::

  ::I didn’t want to go to the moontine meal at Bron’s but the Goddess told me to go. I did and now I have Sam and we have you. You’ve made us very happy this moontine. You’ll need time to get used to us. Let’s have some of the buffet and get to know one another. Mark, do you want to look and see if she’s okay?::