Shrtz became distracted by the sky. She pointed a tentacle at the clouds.
Cassio and I turned to look. Another pod.
The three of us became projectiles, running toward the craft as it floated down and set itself gently on the ground, just as Cassio’s pod had done.
When I palmed the glass to reveal the occupant, I was stunned to see a ceph. The first thing I noticed was that there were no suction cup nipples. And in fact, no breasts. This one was male.
After releasing the suspended animation switch and releasing the canopy, the tentacled man climbed out easily, took one look at Shrtz, standing a few feet back from the end, and froze.
Shrtz blurted, “Badorkilskoot!” which I assumed was the ceph’s name, and they were suddenly in each other’s arms. All sixteen of them. Tentacles were everywhere and Cassio and I had to take a step back, as if afraid of some type of ceph-explosion.
“Oh my darling Shrtzherg! I am so glad to see you again!”
So this must have been the ceph she was with that night Shrtz got caught by the militia. It had never occurred to me that Shrtz had been with a male, that night we were captured. Perhaps gender was inconsequential to Shrtz.
Regardless, I knew right then and there my days of tentacle sex were a thing of the past.
While the thought was a sad one, I glanced over at Cassio’s expression of goofy amusement and remembered that she and I had shared quite a number of satisfying carnal delights. I was certain I would not be without that sort of companionship.
And as I watched Shrtz and her boyfriend, I realized how much better it might be for her to be with another ceph. They shared a history I would never fully understand.
Once the reunion had waned, and the tentacle-flailing had calmed, we gave the new ceph—Bador, as I had already decided to call him—the scoop on what had happened.
The four of us headed back to the campsite, with Cassio and Bador experiencing for the first time the wonders of this pristine planet. I assumed the expression on my face had been much like theirs. I glanced over my shoulder at the sky, wondering if there would be other pods.
As we all settled around the fire, and Shrtz handed out plates of fish and fruit, I sat in a position that allowed me to watch the sky. Cassio took a seat beside me and made lovely humming noises at the taste of the food. My eyes swept over the clouds. If two survived, there must be others.
Finally, the feeding frenzy dwindled and I glanced at Cassio, who leaned over to kiss me. “This food is the wizzle! And I’m so glad to see you again, Story.”
I smiled, squeezing her hand, and noticed Bador and Shrtz making their way to the ship. I didn’t think it was going to be a tour. They were about to have a proper reunion.
My eyes back up in the sky, I saw it. Shooting from the log we sat on, I raced through the trees to the meadow and heard Cassio’s fleet footsteps close behind me.
Once the third pod arrived, the others broke the atmosphere and soon it seemed to be raining pods. I counted forty-six. Perhaps every pad that had been sucked into space when the ship was damaged.
A few hours later, Cassio and I discussed what we would tell them, and then had them all gathered around the campfire eating fruit. The tree was picked almost clean. We would have to do lots more fishing and find other trees to feed them all.
Cassio got them all settled and attentive in a circle around the fire, and I began the process of telling them the story. Once the pods started raining from the sky, I knew I didn’t want to tell them our adventure one at a time as the emerged from the pods, I’d have to do it as a group.
As a Lieutenant serving directly under Cassio, I knew some of them better than others. Darsha, Hassik and Jorn were squad leaders. All great soldiers for the cause, some more pleasant than others. Fento, Mythic and Kaz usually took care of maintaining the Clan camp. They were each as sweet as they could be under the circumstances. The rest of the group were the rank and file, or refugees who did what they could to help the soldiers on the front lines.
“Okay, everyone. Here’s what happened. We were all taken that same night at Double Zero. We all ended up on the same transport ship to Sintori-5. I woke up on the ship and my pod was open, and all but one of the other pods had been spaced...”
When all heads suddenly turned in one direction, I spun to look behind me.
The cephs had emerged from their coupling in the ship, and were standing in the doorway, gawking at the new additions to our clan.
Darsha made a primitive sound and tackled me and the Merkel. She was hell bent on blasting the cephs in the doorway. She’d always been a little trigger-happy.
We scrambled to our feet and she tugged at the weapon, growling, while I struggled to keep it away from her. Soon Cassio tackled us both and wrenched the Merkel from Darsha’s grip.
“No!” she barked, her palm toward Darsha, who was splayed out on the ground next to me. “They are friends! Stand down!”
Darsha’s face showed no understanding. Fearful things were fired upon. Full stop. That’s how she had always been.
“You haven’t heard the details. Story was about to tell you how Shrtz—she pointed at the door of the ship—the female ceph—saved her. The ceph is the reason all of you are alive and able to live here on this beautiful planet with everything you could ever need. So stand down, hear me?”
Darsha released a breath and stood up, dusting off her skinsuit, and reached her hand out to help me up.
Cassio handed the Merkel back to me, and motioned to Shrtz, still quivering along with Bador in the ship doorway. “It’s okay, Shrtz. Come on out. Just a little misunderstanding.”
The two cephs stepped out of the ship and shuffled slowly toward the group, their tentacles clinging to one another with trepidation.
As all eyes gawked at the cephs, they took a seat next to me on one side, and Cassio sat to my other side. We were all facing the rest of the clan. Placement was important in a clan, I’d learned that much.
Boundaries and rules were also important. To that end, I cleared my throat. “I had the same reaction when I first met Shrtz. But we were trapped in that ship together, drifting in space, and I got to know her. I’m telling you she saved my life and she saved yours, because here you are. Now, if anyone lays a hand on Shrtz or Bador, except in friendship, you will have to answer to me.”
Cassio nodded when they looked at her. “And me,” she stressed. She looked at all of them. “Are we clear?”
Nods all around. Cassio looked at me. “Tell the story....” She smiled.
This time, the tale took longer, because there were questions from the clan. By nightfall, everyone was on the same page, though a few still seemed standoffish toward the cephs. They’d warm up in time. They knew better than to cross Cassio, and now, I supposed, they knew better than to cross me.
“I want to see the books!” Mythic said. “My grandfather told me about them. I want to see the books.”
“You will,” I said. “You all will. Everyone here will be encouraged to read every day. There is everything we need to know in that library...and there are narratives, too.”
Cassio nodded. “We have a new life to build here, peeps. It’s what the Sister Resisters have always wanted to do, and here it is. So don’t fucker it up.”
“I have a suggestion—” I looked at Cassio, and she waved me on. “I think each of you should decide what you want to learn the most, and read all you can about it. That way each of us will have a skill to offer the clan that will benefit us all.”
Cassio smiled and patted me on the back, and leaned into my ear. “I knew you were leadership material.”
Suddenly Darsha was standing in front of Shrtz. She held out her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.
She’d just advanced herself in my eyes.
Hairless eyebrows pinched together with emotion as Shrtz lifted a tentacle to the offered hand. “Thank you.”
Darsha smiled and gave me and Cassio a little salute, before heading back around the
fire. Cassio patted my leg and got up to wander off.
Shrtz sighed heavily and said, “I have a theory about the pods.”
“Tell me.”
“I believe they are self-contained space vessels, and the uploaded data also went into their banks. They must also have the homing beacon as well. Perhaps Professor Weller made them that way for just this reason. As a failsafe.”
“So...that’s why everyone survived.”
“I should think if he went to all the trouble to make them space-worthy, he would have included life support systems suitable for interstellar travel.” She frowned in contemplation. “Although, there are still unanswered questions about the time-travel factor. I will continue to study the problem.” Another moment’s thought, and Shrtz added, “I also believe the pods must have had identity beacons keyed to the original homing beacons from the ship.”
“So...they followed us?”
“They were drawn to us, as if tethered to the ship, yes. And moreover, I believe they appeared a month later because they were also circling Uranus, gathering fuel.”
It made perfect sense. “Well then, that man was a genius.”
“Indeed. I shall spend some time accessing the data in the pod drives, and investigate my theory.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I was now distracted by Cassio, standing near the ship. She was bobbing her head toward the ship suggestively. “Um...Shrtz—”
Shrtz saw Cassio. “Go to her. It is a time of reunion.”
I squeezed her tentacle and headed toward the ship.
She wasn’t waiting for me just inside the hatch. I had to stroll along the main corridor and look in every room. She was, of course, in the last one. But agreeably, she was already on the bunk naked.
“You look good in that Leathereen, but it’s time to take it off.”
I obliged, and soon was skin to skin with her, reveling in the familiar feel of human flesh against mine. Cassio was a strong woman. Not as strong as Shrtz, of course, but strong enough to last. She also, for the first time, invited me to have my way with her. It was the one thing that had been missing from our couplings. Perhaps then, she thought it was necessary to maintain her position as leader, somehow. But now, things had changed, and she guided me, telling me what she liked. I made a thorough examination of each fold, each soft wet place.
We took our time. Another change. On Pangea, couplings were always rushed. We never knew when the guards might find us and rush in. Now, we were able to enjoy a slow, detailed examination of each other’s bodies. There was no where we had to be, and nothing we had to do except this.
After, I lay in her perfectly acceptable two arms, with no suction cups.
17
By morning, everyone gathered in the bunker by the torchlight that Shrtz and I had gradually added to over the last month, and most of the clan spent the day selecting books to read, and scattering around outside reading, where they could enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Luxuries never enjoyed by Pangean citizens.
Shrtz and Bador had fetched a couple of the pods and placed them back in the podroom on the ship, and were diddling around with the metadata, hoping to find useful information.
Shrtz came over to the fire to make herself some tea, and watched Fento follow Hassik around, always placing himself within viewing distance.
I headed for the tree Fento braced himself against, his short-cropped hair making his head look fuzzy. He had a book in his hands, but his eyes were on Hassik, sitting against a tree, also with a book, several meters away. I’d known for a long time that Fento had a crush on Hassik. He wasn’t a warrior, like Hassik, but the Sister Resisters had been a haven as much as a citizen militia.
Each time we’d return from an excursion on Pangea, Fento would be at the clan house, and his eyes would light up when Hassik came through the door. I wasn’t sure Hassik even noticed him.
When Fento saw me, now, he lifted the book dutifully, appearing to read. Aside from the obvious crush, either he didn’t enjoy reading or the problem lay elsewhere. I had been watching him and was fairly sure what the issue was.
“Hey Fento,” I said, dropping down beside him.
“Story.” He batted at an insect trying to make a landing in his hair.
I reached over and turned the book upright to let him know he’d been reading it upside down. He blushed.
“So what’s the problem?”
“No problem. It’s good. I like it.” He turned the page, as if to illustrate.
“You never learned to read, did you?”
He sighed, dropping the book on his legs.
“It’s okay. Not everyone had the opportunity to learn on Pangea.”
“How can I do my part if I can’t read?” he whispered.
“You learn to read.”
With a tangle of tentacles, Bador approached us. “Hello Story...and...Fento, is it?”
Fento nodded.
“Shrtz noticed that you have had some difficulty and she sent me to help. I was a teacher, you know.”
I grinned and got to my feet. “You’re in good hands...” I glanced at Bador with the correction. “Tentacles.”
Bador smiled. “Would you like to learn to read, Fento?”
The young man looked up at him. “I would. I really would.”
“Very well then.” He sank to the ground facing him. “Let us begin with some basics...”
I left them to it and headed for the ship to scrounge for more things we could use. I’d been salvaging from the ship for some time.
A few hours into my acquisition mission, I carried my full pack down the corridor and as I reached the main hatch, I saw Hassik. And behind him, Fento. Maybe Hassik had recruited him to help salvage.
I was about to greet them, when I saw Hassik grab Fento by the back of his neck and shove him against the ship wall. He mashed himself against Fento’s back and murmured something in his ear. Perhaps Hassik had grown tired of Fento’s admiration.
I was about to step out and interrupt this encounter, when Fento turned his face my way, eyes closed, a big smile on his lips.
Not what I first thought.
Normally, this would be the time for me to give privacy, but instead I stepped back a few paces into shadow. The gentle Fento might forever avoid my gaze if he knew I’d seen, and with his face turned toward me, he’d surely see me if I tried to slip away.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been witness to carnal couplings in the clan and I imagined it wouldn’t be the last. I’d heard Darsha and Kaz many nights; Kaz, with her helpless cries, and Darsha, grunting.
I kept to the shadows and held my silence as Hassik jerked down the pants of Fento’s skinsuit, shoved down his own and was soon humping himself into Fento, who continued to smile like he’d received the best gift in the universe, even while wincing periodically at the aggressive thrusting.
I waited until it was over, enduring the burn their coupling had caused in my own carnal places.
Soon, Hassik pulled up his pants and stepped out of the ship, leaving Fento to gather himself and leave, still smiling.
My only thought now was Cassio. I needed a taste of what Fento had enjoyed, and Cassio was always happy to provide.
At the open door of the ship, I dropped the pack and caught her attention, giving her that cocking of my head that told her I wanted company. She dropped what she was doing near the campfire situated halfway between the bunker and the ship, and strode quickly toward me.
The ship, it appeared, was being used for both salvage and as a coupling hut. While Fento and Hassik didn’t make it to one of the crew quarters, Cassio and I did.
The transition from tentacle sex to a more conventional type had not been as difficult as I imagined. It was just another variation of pleasure, and one which felt far more familiar to me than coupling with a cephalosapien. Cassio’s tongue, in fact, felt very much like a tentacle.
I was happy that Shrtz had found another like herself to enjoy. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever menti
on it to Cassio. While carnal needs were an accepted part of our lives, I didn’t want her to feel strange about Shrtz. It was simpler to keep it to myself, and call it what it was. Two beings on a suicide mission, who came close to losing hope, and took comfort in the delights of the flesh, and then, of course, continued the coupling as they learned to survive on a strange new world.
The only difference with me and Cassio now, was that I felt we were equals. She no longer seemed like my commanding officer. The power dynamic had shifted, both in our clan situation and in our coupling. She even relaxed on the bunk and allowed me to minister to her.
We parted ways a few hours later, and I found myself walking around the camp, thinking. Maybe Shrtz had been right, and sex freed up some extra brainpower, because now I was thinking of logistics. How we were going to feed everyone. More than that, a cool breeze reminded me that we had to figure out a way to store the food for the winter, when there would be less of it to find. I looked up at the sky, feeling the cool breeze, and had to assume that at some point the weather on this planet, as all planets, would change. And if the Auel book was a representation of early peoples on Earth, we had things that needed doing. It had been getting colder, especially at night. And while we had two perfectly good shelters for everyone, we couldn’t spend all our time indoors, nor did I think any of the clan would prefer to do so after a lifetime of tight spaces and artificial air with very little sunshine.
No, we’d be needing food and lots of it, and a way to store it. And we’d need clothing other than the skinsuits. I was the only one in regular clothes. We’d need the new clothing to keep us warm.
I found the cephs at the stream, and told them my concerns, and what the Clan narrative told me.
Shrtz told me she had found more information about Weller in his journals, and had figured out that while the Space-Fold had got us to the Earth, something called a BraneGate had been the way we reached it.
I didn’t understand what she was getting at, and finally, she put it in terms I could grasp.
“Story Book, the BraneGate was a portal to a parallel universe. We are not on the original Earth, but another one.”
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