Archive for ‘Aquarius’
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It was a very wide corridor, vast, empty, and smelling of industrial steel.
Two shapes moved in the distance, and their voices echoed metallically as they made their way along the endless length of drab hallway. From one came the sound of echoing footsteps and a calm, confident voice, a human male voice that, seemingly, was well accustomed to being listened to. The other had a soft, purring sort of voice, entirely feminine, and made no noise walking. As she neared, one could see glimpses of a languid tail waving behind her.
“Peter, are you being sarcastic?” inquired Edie politely.
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to be talking to passengers about this.” he replied. “I’d hate to see the nice kitty kept on a leash at all times, ‘kay?”
Edie’s ears went back for a moment, then she remembered that this Peter was to be her boss, indeed was the ship’s master and as such was everybody’s boss. Perhaps it’d gone to his head. She tried again.
“I’m sure you’re joking,” she purred, “about the leash. That is NOT in my contract. However, were you joking about the dragons? I refuse to believe there are actual dragons in the main hold. Unless some dragon totemized people went swimming?”
“When you understand, that’s the last you’ll mention swimming. There be dragons, I say again. Believe me,” said Peter, growing more serious, “you’ll wish they were dragons. Dragons are pussycats by comparison. No offense.”
“None taken,” muttered Edie. “Peter, if you don’t mind my asking, are there other totemized people like me? Or will I be putting up with th… I mean, will I be seen as unusual?”
“Everybody but me,” remarked Peter. “Surprised? Oh, that’s not counting the passengers, they might be anything.”
Edie blinked. “Actually, I am. Why is that? What sorts do you have here?”
“Well the usual mostly. You cats seem to benefit from some sort of inherited reflexes, and I have a lot of you working for me. The usual foxes, wolves and so on. So you might think of it backwards- a normal human would be out of place, I’d be leery of hiring one.”
“We’re still human, Peter,” snapped Edie, and immediately restrained herself. “Er, don’t you follow the news?”
“News? How so?” he asked, with a surprising naivete, rather out of place in such a competent person.
Edie felt herself bristling slightly, and made a pretense of scratching her ear with one carefully designed pawlike hand, to smooth down the fur on the back of her neck. “Oh, it’s the same old story. Still some people out there who don’t believe in totemizing. That’s putting it mildly, actually. Ever since the Red Flag there have been no atrocities…”
“Oh, that, of course. Some of my people spend a lot of time following that stuff. Seems kinda strange on a tanker millions of miles away from any of the planets involved, but I wouldn’t think of trying to stop them. Their jobs keep them from getting too distracted with politics.” Peter grinned, wryly, with a certain look in his eye, and Edie spotted it and lifted a feline eyebrow.
“Just what are you hiding. Peter? This wasn’t in the job description. You’re acting like this is a high-risk job, and I’d thought the main problem would be boredom.”
“Oh, it can be, don’t get me wrong,” said Peter. He looked Edie over appraisingly, until she felt quite uncomfortable, his eyes inspecting her furry body with a seemingly amused disinterest. “You won’t be bored.”
“Then what have you been hinting about?” she continued, flustered. “Dragons? I mean, come on now.”
“We call them denizens, kay?” said Peter. “You’re working for Aquarius now, you need to know more than the travel brochures admit.”
“And just what does that mean?” snapped Edie.
“Settle down, kay?” remarked Peter. “You’re bristling. I was about to tell you. Don’t get your tail in a knot.”
Edie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Tell.”
“Look at it this way. Aquarius serves two purposes. There’s the cruiseliner. You’ll know all about that, we’re famous for it. I heard there was even a TV show set here…”
“Two.” corrected Edie.
Peter pretended not to notice. “So there’s a facade in place. Think of it as a world-class hotel… to rival any hotel on any world… but it’s the size of a world, basically. Sculpted like a Japanese garden- in fact Aquarius is better suited to the travel needs of koi people than any known planetary facility…”
“I’ve never understood why anybody would choose not to have arms,” noted Edie.
“They can afford to. Look, stop interrupting me, kay? I mean it. You cats are always independent, but you don’t seem to understand that we’re already underway. I like to keep a casual attitude, because my people work better that way, but understand right now that you are working and your job at the moment is to listen. Is that understood?”
The cat-girl looked startledly at him, taken aback at the sudden tone of command. She blinked, seemed about to say something, and then gulped and simply nodded, remembering certain passages in the contract she had signed, passages that had not seemed important. ‘The ship’s master is the final authority and law aboard Aquarius, and while a voyage is underway his authority is absolute, his judicial decisions answerable only to a board of inquiry at the conclusion of the voyage…’
Edie didn’t notice for a moment that Peter hadn’t begun talking again, for she was imagining herself chained to a wall in a jail cell… and so, when a firm hand touched her furry shoulder she nearly jumped out of her skin. Peter’s hand massaged her shoulder, her neck, rather impersonally, but expertly, showing a disquieting knowledge of cat-people behavior. She wasn’t used to anybody handling the scruff of her neck but a lover, and nobody fit that description at the moment.
“Settle down,” said Peter very firmly. “I know exactly what you were thinking about just then. In fact, I might be able to tell you the part of your contract that you’d just remembered. About one in six new staff have a moment like that. You can see in their eyes when they realize they were sassing God, for all practical purposes. Let’s drop Aquarius for a moment. Are you able to deal with the idea that I won’t normally be bossing you about, that I keep a fairly loose rein on my staff, but could shoot you or anybody aboard in a really desperate emergency and answer only to the hearing held when Aquarius returns to Earth? Have you ever been under military discipline? Aboard a working ship as staff? I need to know, right now, whether you will be able to handle this. Some can’t. You have to understand this- there is no higher authority. Period.”
Peter had stopped rubbing Edie’s shoulder midway through his statement and stood patiently waiting for her to respond. He looked ready to wait for a long time for his answer. Edie fidgeted a little, shifting from paw to paw, and thought hard. “Have you had to do that? Shoot somebody, I mean?”
“I’m not going to tell you, Edie. There are situations where I would have to. Take your time- but answer. If you can’t deal with this then you can have a comfortable trip as a passenger, no charge, but you won’t be working for me in any capacity.”
“I can deal.” decided Edie. “I really wanted this job- and you say you keep a loose rein. I honestly think my judgement is good enough that I won’t be in trouble. How’s that?”
“Good. I like that answer, Edie. You were hired for your judgement, and I’d be a fool to try and run every operation on the ship personally. Frankly, I doubt you can get in any trouble worth punishing- I don’t want you running scared. But I run a risk with every new staff acquisition, and I have to be sure before I’ll bring you up to speed with what’s happening.”
Edie’s tail lashed frustratedly. Finally she asked, in a very small voice, “So what’s happening?”
Peter resumed walking. “Back to Aquarius. You already know about the cruise-ship side of things- that’s the surface. Literally- passengers aren’t allowed down here. You’ll also know that Aquarius doubles as a water tanker that serves entire worlds, and I imagine you figured out that our gravity is supplied for us by the mass of water in there. Ever consider the logistics of transporting oceans worth of water? Technically, many times that much.”
Edie thought. “Well, you’d need Bergenholms, of course, or it wouldn’t move. It would be impossible to go anywhere without setting up waves that would destroy the ship. Even with the Bergenholms and no inertia, you’ll need lots of power just to push the ship through normal cosmic dust… the size of Aquarius is pretty outrageous.”
“Which is why this ship takes three times as long as a normal transport to get anywhere. That’s not the point. What filtering would you use?”
Edie blinked. “Filtering? You can’t. Well, you can put up big screens that keep out the larger fish- maybe even small enough to get most of them… but there are too many tons of water being transported…”
“That’s putting it mildly. And you’re overlooking plant life, which will clog up screens faster than you would believe. Most worlds end up using heavy screens with holes between one and eight feet wide. Zoo uses six inches, but of course they are trying very hard to maintain a specific ecosystem, and they’re failing. And they still take five times as long to load as any normal fleet, because of that. Aquarius was really meant for terraforming, of course.”
Edie thought more. “Which water worlds do you load from, and what screens do you use?”
“Very good question. All of them, and none. Getting the picture?”
Edie was. “Denizens. How big is the biggest portal you use to take on water?”
“I could tell you, but it would be misleading. Familiar with hydrophilicus garylarsoni?”
The cat-girl winced. “Point taken. That’ll grow to take up any given space in a matter of weeks. Days, sometimes.”
“Nope. The denizens eat it.” remarked Peter.
“Must be a lot of them.”
“Or a couple really big ones.” suggested Peter.
“Or a lot of really big ones?”
“Now you’re getting the idea.” said Peter. “Understand why this is classified? Not for passengers to hear about? You’re working on the inside. You have to know. Doing okay with it so far?”
Edie considered that, and figured as long as she didn’t focus too much on the reality of what was under her feet, she could avoid screaming. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Now a little background. Think of Aquarius as an orange. The subs we have for keeping things in line can go down about as far as the peel, and we can sense a little farther than that. Biggest thing we’ve ever sensed is about the size of an orange seed. That would equate to not quite as deep as the sub can dive, just to go from one side of it to the other.”
Edie gulped. “How does that equate to me, standing here?”
Peter looked at her levelly. “Too big to comprehend. About half again larger than the largest cities on Earth, including outlying areas. If you ever run into one, your best bet is to pretend it’s a submerged island or the sea bottom. You won’t be able to get deep enough to approach it anyway, and it’s not real mobile. Does a great sea bottom impression. It has tendrils that can reach up to your max depth. Avoid them. They can’t possibly outmaneuver you but it’s psychologically dangerous to have a tendril as thick as a office building coming at you.”
Edie froze in her tracks. “Stop. Please.”
“You’re programming, Edie. You won’t have to deal with this day in and day out. You may not ever have to dive below the surface.”
“Is…. is it okay,” asked Edie hesitantly, “that I want to run back the way we came and never come down here again? I’m sorry… I can’t go another step right now… what are you going to do with me?”
Peter walked back to where the cat-girl was stuck, shivering, frozen to the spot. “Take it easy, ‘kay? You’re imaginative. You’re also programming, not a pilot.” He rubbed her shoulders very gently, ruffling the silvery fur under his thumbs absently. “Your reaction is normal, Edie. My guess is you’ll be able to go on in a few minutes, and you may not understand it, but I’m very reassured by this…”
“Why?” asked Edie, trying not to think of the expanse of bottomless ocean under her paws, hidden by cold steel.
“Some people aren’t frightened by Aquarius, and they’re dangerous. Enough of that, it won’t help. What are your hobbies? Anything you’ll want to do up at the surface? As staff you get unlimited allowance on a lot of the games and rides and stuff they have up there.”
“Why do you say they?” asked Edie, beginning to relax but disconcerted by Peter’s gentle massagings. “If you’re the ship’s master, I mean.”
“Subcontractors.” explained Peter. “The cruise ship side is dealt with by people who are suited to that. You outrank all of them, by the way. Anybody from inside is very important topside. Makes breaks more enjoyable.”
Edie decided to risk it. “Peter, are you trying to pick me up?”
Peter did not stop rubbing her shoulders. “Not if you begged me. You’ll be finding emotional support very soon, Edie. In fact, I suspect I’ll have a headache or two over you, simply because you are a very attractive cat, well proportioned if one likes that sort of body type with the digitigrade legs and all and no proper breasts to speak of, and I can name at least three people who will be very, very interested. However, right now you have no such support, and you are shaking in normal fear and unable to go on. I have to get you back to Center, or turn around and go back with you and find you a place topside. And I badly need my computer tech team back to full strength. Am I bothering you? My guess would be that I am not, and that it’s helping.”
Edie nodded. “It is. Do you do this sort of thing a lot? Seems like a strange thing for the lord and ruler of all this to be doing.”
“I’ll repeat. You’ll be finding emotional support very soon. Right now you are alone in a long corridor leading to Center… which, by the way, we normally use cycles to travel, hence the width of the corridor… and you are on foot, or paw if you like, because I wanted the time to observe you in person. This corridor tilts downward, and you really get the sense of descending when you traverse it on foot. During the time it takes to walk it, I can generally figure out who’s going to be able to adapt. You might be sore tomorrow from the walk but you won’t be scheduled to start working for a while.”
Peter grinned faintly, and continued. “If so, you’ll have to find somebody else to give you a backrub. I will not be available to rub pretty kitties. However, it might be a convenient way to meet some of your colleagues. That’s not an order. It’s a suggestion. Now, ready to go on? I can spare up to an hour or so here. No more than that.”
Edie nodded, and the two continued down the long steel corridor. It was a very long time before they were lost to sight.
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“Do you think he was telling the truth?” purred Edie dreamily, sprawled limply on her belly across her bed. She wriggled a little, then relaxed again.
The fox’s thumbs were just short of cruel, working out the knots in her back, her legs. “Hah! You don’t know Peter very well. Peter has a wife on Earth. Peter sees his wife once every few years, but he’s only happy commanding Aquarius- he’s just that type, as I’m sure you’ll notice. You said he rubbed your shoulders,” remarked the fox, moving to Edie’s shoulders. “Did he rub like… this?”
“Hey!” protested Edie. The fox was massaging her back with one hand, and grasping her scruff tightly with the other, forcing her to go limp. Hearing her tone, he let go, remarking “Obviously not.”
Edie gave him an annoyed look. She’d met Rick in the cafe, and she’d gotten a lot of sympathy and curiosity simply by limping painfully in and getting a cup of tea. He’d been with some friends, but had dropped everything, zipped over and helped her to her seat. In conversation he’d suggested that she was in desperate need of a backrub, and she had to admit technically that was true.
She’d insisted on her own place in hopes she could retain the moral advantage, but it seemed to make little difference to Rick. So she simply focused on keeping her tail held straight rather than held to the side, and kept an eye on him. As his massaging hands moved once more to her feline bottom and began taking a bit too much of an interest in the inside of her thighs, she brought back the conversation again. “He has a wife, then?”
“Sure does,” continued Rick, “a canine morph. I’ve seen a video clip- she’s really cute, like a cocker spaniel morph. I’m sure she doesn’t lack for company while the captain’s away.”
“Maybe she doesn’t look for company.” pointed out Edie.
“Spare me,” smirked Rick. “Though I do have to admit Peter doesn’t look for company either. He can’t, because of his position. The poor guy has to settle for groping beautiful cats in corridors. I feel sorry for him.”
Edie tensed. “If you don’t approve of groping, get your thumbs away from there. Now.”
Rick did so. “Okay, okay. I do approve of groping, though…”
“I don’t.” stated Edie.
“If you really didn’t, you’d be less warm to the touch, kitty. Rick’s well-practiced temperature-sensing thumbs tell no lies. You’re sure, now?”
Edie squirmed away, and sat up. “Thanks- my back does feel much better. Yes, I’m sure. Feel like going back to the cafe now? I’d like another cup of tea.” Her eyes tracked his movements warily.
Rick shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “Sure. No problem.” He sat up, and Edie’s eyes widened- he’d been letting himself go, and now was visibly preening, showing off his body’s voluntary reaction. People normally didn’t do that- one of the adaptations to totemized bodies had been control of those conspicuous reactions. Except, of course, when one didn’t want them controlled. Edie gulped, looking away.
Rick glanced at her. “Second thoughts, pretty kittycat?”
Edie stood. “I hope,” she purred sweetly, “you don’t mind heading to the cafe in your condition. I feel like having that other cup of tea immediately. Come along now.”
She promptly opened the door and stepped out, to wait in the corridor… and blinked as Rick came out after her, letting her shut the door. She’d been certain he was going to sit there until he was decent. “Don’t you feel… conspicuous?”
Rick grinned. “Half of the people we meet will be reminded of happy memories. The other half won’t even speak to me. Come on.” He headed off cheerfully.
Edie followed, marvelling. If he was not so unconcerned with her rebuff, he would be alarming, but he seemed to have written her off sexually already. This was reassuring, as she’d been responding to his massage and really didn’t want to be driven hard by her instincts. Sometimes it was very hard to be a cat, but Rick didn’t press too hard- he kept on making delicately provocative remarks, but it stayed purely on a verbal level and she could sense that, unless she made an effort to get his attention again, there it would remain. By the time they got to the cafe, he wasn’t conspicuous, and she’d decided she sort of liked him.
As they entered, a few heads turned. The yellow cat-man, David, seemed to be appraising the two of them, and a wolf whose name escaped her looked extremely disapproving. He then noticed Edie looking at him, and looked away bashfully.
Rick left Edie’s side immediately and collared David. “Come along, David. I need you to soothe my hurt feelings.”
“Hurt feelings?” grumbled David. “You barely have feelings at all, hon, you expect me to believe that?”
“Well then,” continued Rick, “you can soothe other things. Please? I am rejected, scorned, I stand before you, a fox who doesn’t appeal to cats.”
David gave him a look. “You know that’s nonsense.”
“Oh? Well, then, come help prove it’s nonsense.”
“Rick!” hissed the cat-man. “What’s the matter with you? You drag this new girl off, get frustrated, and now you have to drag me off right this instant? You might have thought of that before you walked out on me, just now. What gives you the right?”
Edie winced, noting that many of the people present were watching this exchange. They seemed to take it for granted, though the wolf looked particularly disapproving again. Rick drew himself up haughtily for a moment, looked about to speak, then drooped, patted David’s bottom, turned, and left.
Edie found herself exchanging an embarrassed glance with the wolf-man, and as she was left standing in the middle of the room, she padded over to join him. “Is this seat taken?”
“No, no, by all means sit down,” he stammered. “Pleased to meet you.”
“What was all that about?”
The wolf glowered. “David deserves better than that guy. That’s all you need to know, er..”
“Edie.”
The wolf nodded. “I’m Walter. Anyway, that Rick is trouble, stay away from him.”
“Really?” blinked Edie. “I didn’t think he was dangerous. I had him in my room and he still took a no. You’re telling me that Peter will let dangerous people work for him? Or is he a passenger?”
“He’s no pilgrim. He’s a pilot. That’s not what I meant,” explained Walter, looking frustrated. “Maybe you’re that kind, in which case never mind, pretend I didn’t say anything…”
Edie blinked again. “Whoa, hold it. Pilgrim? Pilot? What kind? You’re not making sense.”
The wolf sighed. “Sorry. Which do you want explained first?”
“I’m what kind?”
“Okay, maybe you’re not, in which case good. At least, that’s the way I feel about it. You saw what he did to David? David is his lover, or at least ought to be for sheer loyalty… look, see that?”
Edie followed the gesture to see David’s tail disappearing out the door.
“One guess where he’s going. And it’s such a waste, Rick will drag off anybody and doesn’t care. He explained it to me once as backups, like the backup systems in his sub. David deserves better than to be somebody’s spare part…”
Edie thought she’d figured it out. “Are you sweet on him, hon? You can tell me. It’s okay.”
Walter spluttered a bit, then regained his composure. “Absolutely not… well, I’m a good friend of his. He’s turned to me sometimes. Not for that! I don’t swing that way, actually I don’t swing at all, but David really needs a friend…”
Edie nodded. “And so Rick treating David that way upsets you. I’m sorry I was part of it, Walter, I honestly didn’t know. I can imagine how it must have looked.”
The wolf grinned, just a bit. “Looked like Maggie all over again.” He looked about furtively, but evidently didn’t spot Maggie, and he continued in an undertone, “For the first month she dragged off a different person every night, sometimes a couple times a night. Naturally it was Rick a lot, they’re the same type. I guess you’re not that way, hm?”
Edie shook her head. “I’m no prude…”
“Never met a cat who was,” grinned Walter. “I am, but that’s just me.”
“But,” continued Edie, “I have no desire to drag somebody off to bed the first night I’m here just for the sake of it. I’m not attached, and Peter did say that he thought some people here would be interested in me, but there’s no hurry about meeting any of them.”
A slender vixen, passing by, paused with a wicked smile. “Don’t know who you are, but you obviously have, kitty.”
“Alice!” protested Walter. “Cut it out!”
Edie blinked. “You? Sorry, but I’m boring like Walter, not interested in girls. Even foxy ones. Pun intended.”
“Oh, this is going to be good,” continued the vixen. “Can I speak with you a little, kitty? Er, your name is?”
“Edie, and say what you want right here. I’m not going off anywhere.” said Edie, flustered.
Alice smirked. “Forgive me. I’m being horrible. It’s not me, I have similar tastes to yours. It’s this hulking wolf you’re talking to, the biggest wallflower on board…”
“Which is none of your business!” snapped Walter, becoming more and more embarrassed.
“Who also has a, how did he put it?” continued Alice. “Dreadful?”
Walter got up and made for the door, startling Edie, who cried “Stop! Don’t go!”
“Don’t mind him, he’s all right.” continued Alice. “Dreadful weakness for little cats. Now, he’s what, six two? And you look to be about five feet…”
“Four eleven. Why did you do that?” protested Edie. “I was talking to him! Now he’s all upset, and all I wanted to do was be friends.”
“Edie, Edie,” chided Alice. “I’m one of his closest friends. Largely because I’m also a pilot, and I have a mate, so I’m not a threat to him. He’s not that upset. He’d be more upset if he talked to you for six hours straight as I’m sure he would have done. You had no way of knowing that you were his secret fantasy come to life.”
Edie felt extremely exasperated. “Are all you people sex-crazed weasels?”
Alice giggled. “Of course not. You also didn’t know that the Cafe is the sex-crazed weasel zone…”
“Hey, I resemble that remark!” came a voice from the back of the room. Edie looked. Sure enough, a weasel. Or perhaps a ferret-person.
“You hush, Bill,” called Alice, “you aren’t crazed enough.”
“Aw, shucks.” answered Bill with a grin, and returned to his conversation.
“He’s not?” blinked Edie.
“Nope, that one’s my mate. Plenty of us just come here because it is the most colorful place to hang out. But this is the center for the swingers, you know, and you have to take that into account.”
“I’d rather not,” remarked Edie, still unsettled. “Alice, why were you trying to fix me up with this Walter? You hardly know me. Do you expect me to be publically wanton?”
“Hm?” said Alice. “More and more I’m thinking you’ll make a good friend to Walter. Please try to remember, hon, that I love Walter dearly and know what’s best for him…”
“Forgive me for not caring,” said Edie. “In fact, forgive me for leaving and going back to my room… alone! It’s like I’ve fallen into a soap opera in outer space…”
“The correct term,” said the weasel, who’d noticed her mood and come over to join them, “is Peyton Place in Outer Space.”
“Peyton what?”
“Bill, chill.” chided Alice. “Please don’t go, dear. Look, come back over to our table and join us? Bill and I and Sandy and Arthur have a regular table, and we’re not going to put moves on you. We’re really quite stolid ordinary people and if you go back to your room now you’ll lock the door, which you shouldn’t feel like you have to do.”
“I guess she’s not Rick’s type, eh?” remarked Bill casually.
Alice grimaced. “Obviously not. Just as well, one Maggie’s enough. Don’t tell her I said that. She is certainly Walter’s type, though, isn’t she? It’s incredible.”
Edie allowed herself to be cajoled into joining the little group at their regular table, which turned out to be tucked cozily away in a sort of alcove, a little oasis from the quiet hubbub of the Cafe. Besides Alice, the vixen, and Bill, the weasel, there was a mouse-person, barely four feet tall, who smiled cheerfully at Edie and said, “Arthur. I trust you are not troubled by predatory urges?”
Alice grinned. “Knock it off, Arthur, you’ve been making that joke for years now.”
“And rightly so!” continued Arthur. “After all, this one’s even bigger than the last one was! If she is going to pounce upon me, I demand fair warning!”
“That was years ago too,” grinned Alice, “and that was Maggie as we all know perfectly well.”
“But lest ye forget, she did pounce upon me.”
“You outweighed her by about ten pounds. Hardly an alarming prospect.”
“Ah, but she wanted to eat me!”
Alice hrumphed. “And did, too- that was before you met Sandy, of course. Let’s not talk about Maggie, okay? Edie here is not cut from the same cloth, thankfully, and she’s already dealt with Rick and been narrowly rescued from Walter…”
Arthur peered at Edie, ostentatiously examining her. “Poor Walter.”
“Look,” said Edie, settling in among her odd new friends, “what is all this about Walter? He seems nice but I don’t find this obviousness appealing. And what is it with this place, that everybody’s constantly saturated by lust?”
Bill spoke. “Walter is very dear to all of us here, Edie. He really is a prince- and he’s in a bit of a tough space now since he’s staying away from the singles scene and the singles scene is chasing him very hard.”
“That I can believe,” replied Edie, “as the singles scene here looks like it’d chase a lamppost or a trouser leg. I think I’ll follow his lead. Why would they chase him, if this Rick will drag off anybody on a random whim?”
“Diameter.” smiled Arthur.
“Arthur!” chided Alice. “Edie did not ask for that information, do you think you could make allowances for a newcomer? Pretend it’s really Walter sitting here, she’s just as prudish as he is.”
“I am not!” protested Edie, suppressing a wriggle. “Maybe I’d better try and get used to the way things work here, you shouldn’t be censoring yourselves on my account. I mean, I am a cat, after all! But I just find this blatant dragging-people-off distasteful.”
“Of course,” soothed Bill. “Most people here don’t go in for that sort of thing.”
“Do I get the impression,” blinked Arthur, “that somebody has been trying to sell you on Walter? I saw you talking to him, and his tail wagging over it, but then when Alice joined you he became upset and left. What did she say?”
Edie sighed. “Basically that I was his fantasy come true. Which is particularly disconcerting after that business with Rick.”
“You went off with Rick?” blinked Arthur bemusedly.
“And came straight back again,” said Alice, “and she says Rick didn’t do anything. Which makes sense, Rick never pursues if it takes a serious effort.”
“Well, believe me, he was ready to do things.” said Edie. “I thought he would be embarrassed to go out into the hallways in that condition, but no, he didn’t seem to mind.”
“Pointy or blunt?” asked Arthur, with a mischevious grin.
Edie blinked, stammered, and said “Pointy.”
“Then you are telling the truth,” smiled Arthur, “and Bill owes me a glass of ginger ale.”
“Damn, that’s right!” said Bill. “Be right back.” He zipped off to fetch it.
“What??” gaped Edie.
“We made a small wager, Bill and I, upon seeing you leave the Cafe with Rick, that within an hour you’d see his silly weenus.” smiled Arthur. “My compliments to you on turning it down. As I understand it from the rumors floating around, Walter’s is far better in all respects.”
Edie just stared at him. “How would you know? And why would you know about Rick’s… Excuse me, I am just a bit overwhelmed, okay?”
“My apologies.” said Arthur kindly. “One develops a certain nonchalance about these issues from hanging around in the Cafe for years. As for Rick’s weenus, he is exhibitionistic as you learned, and everybody has seen it, whether they relished the sight or not. As for Walter’s, once he was carnally active, and it became known that his girth was majestic and imposing, and ever since he has been sought by exactly the type he shuns, poor fellow.”
Edie winced, and ostentatiously remarked, “Remind me to be careful never to let anything develop. I have no intention of getting myself injured.”
“Look over there.” suggested Alice.
Edie looked, to see a tiny cat girl with Siamese markings blatantly prowling into the room. She was possibly a little taller than Arthur, but Arthur had a bit of a potbelly and this kitten was slender as Siamese often were. She very nearly made Edie feel inadequate by the sheer felinity of her movements, by the sensuous grace of her silent prowl, the lively flicks of her tail. She walked like she was in heat.
“Maggie.” said Alice.
“Since Maggie was the last person to carnally know Walter, years ago, and the source of the rumors thereafter,” added Arthur, “I think your concerns of injury are unfounded. In fact, she enthused over how slow and careful he was. Which surprised none of us who know him.”
Edie tried to keep from staring at her. “She walks like she’s in heat.” she said very quietly.
Alice looked faintly disgusted. “She probably is. She does go into it, you know. It wouldn’t be that difficult to treat it, adjust it. Take me, for example- I don’t go into heat, got it fixed, the drive is spread out and dissipated…”
“Not too dissipated,” grinned Bill.
“Thank you,” continued Alice. “As you can see, it’s not really an impediment, it just means I don’t get sick with it like that one does. She wouldn’t last a minute like that as a pilot, I can tell you that right now. But as a programmer, she can get away with it.”
“I’m amazed she’s so open about it,” said Edie quietly. “Where I come from you can’t display it like that.”
“Where do you come from?” asked Arthur.
“Oh, Vermont. That’s Earth, you know. Right back where it all started. Where does she come from that’s so different?”
“She comes from oppies,” remarked Bill wryly. “Rich ones, at that, even for oppies. I think the planet was Verdant, I’m not sure. In any case, her background is certainly different from yours.”
“Programmer?” winced Edie. “I’m going to be working with her?”
“Don’t fret,” reassured Bill. “She’s okay, even if she is a bit hard to take sometimes. She’s one hell of a programmer, anyway, and she’s not that hard to get along with. I think some of the other female cats said she tends to get more-feline-than-thou, but that’s not a major problem. Or is it?”
Edie pondered that for a while, and a smirk stole over her face. “I think not.”
“Oh, Edie,” grinned Alice. “What does that smirk say?”
“I’m sorry,” smirked Edie. “I may not be a public spectacle, but I assure you that nobody out-cats me. On any grounds. Not even that kitten.”
“Well, then,” smiled Bill, “sounds like you’ll be fine…”
Arthur had been studying Edie’s expression, and cheerfully interrupted. “Pardon me, but might I venture a guess? Are we to take it that when you become sick with heat yourself, you might turn to our dear Walter and simultaneously relieve his longings and transport yourself to heights of yowling ecstacy?”
Edie stared at him aghast. “I beg your pardon!”
Arthur blinked. “No offense, I hope?”
Edie dropped her eyes and could not face any of the others. A normal human would have gone chalk white and then bright red- as she was totemized and wore fur, the first part wasn’t visible, but the second part translated to her bristling dreadfully.
With over ten years of covering her shameful but natural condition, ten years of taking great pains to hide it so she could avoid the hospital and going on permanent medication, she’d been unmasked here in ten minutes. Probably Rick knew too. They called it EI, it stood for estrus-intensive, and it was not okay. It was treated as a sickness. You had to be able to cover it up. So much for that.
“Good god.” said Alice, taking in the situation. “Arthur, I think you stuffed your paw in it up to the elbow.”
“I better leave,” stammered Edie, trying to rise, but Alice caught her hand.
“Please sit, Edie. I apologize for Arthur- you are beginning to learn about him. This is a safe place and you are welcome here. It’s true, then? I also apologize for my own thoughtless remarks- please don’t go away shamed!”
Edie gave up trying to rise and sank back into her seat, her head in her hands. Nobody spoke, not even Arthur, though he gazed at her with great curiosity.
Finally, she spoke. “It looks like I’m out of the closet. For God’s sake, don’t tell that Rick. Or Walter! Let me have a little self-respect.”
“We respect you, Edie.” said Alice quietly.
Edie gave her a look. “You’ll forgive me for not believing that right off. Where I come from it’s not acceptable. And you don’t have a lot of respect for that little kitty prowling around over there. She’s being conspicuous- it’s not good enough.”
“You’re not the same as her,” said Bill, “and we joke about her but she’s an all right person underneath. What I’m wondering is how you’ve made it this far if your environment was that disapproving?”
Edie sighed gently. “Being estrus-intensive is not the same as being provocative. Where I come from one doesn’t really talk about those things. I know how to repress it.”
“But…” said Alice.
“And, I might add, I know how to groom myself three times a day if necessary so I don’t look bedraggled and ravaged…”
“But…” said Alice.
“And know which deodorants are effective against it.” finished Edie.
Alice heaved a deep sigh. “It sounds like you have all the bases covered. Can you tell me if you’re dealing with this now? In which case a lot of our conversation has been very cruel. When I was going natural my rating wasn’t that high but I still remember times when mere conversation made me a little frantic. Are you being hurt by our careless talk?”
“No, I’m not.” said Edie. “And yes, if I was then it would be cruel. But it looks like I’ll have to adapt to it somehow.”
“It must be hell.” said Bill. “Why do you deal with it?”
“Well, for starters, I don’t like playing with my own chemistry,” said Edie. “No offense, I hope, Alice? I can see that you need to in order to do your job.”
“No offense at all, Edie. I wouldn’t get very far imposing my values on everybody around me.”
“Well,” said Edie, “here’s hoping you don’t end up making me the butt of jokes like this Maggie.”
Alice blinked. “I guess I deserved that. Edie, part of it is that Maggie puts tremendous effort into being the most sexual thing on Aquarius, which is sort of childish, really. After all, we have Rick for that.” She smirked.
“Might I ask what the rating is?” inquired Arthur politely.
“You may not.” replied Edie.
Bill blinked. “That bad? You’re kidding.”
“It’s no concern of yours. I can handle it. You’ll never know.”
“Peter does know?” asked Alice. “Because you’ll catch hell for it if you hid something like that. You’d be out so fast it’d make your…”
“Alice, hon,” chided Bill, “of course he knows. You’re seriously thinking he couldn’t find something like that out? Besides- she’s a programmer. So is Maggie a programmer. Peter knows what he’s doing.”
“He knows,” nodded Edie. “He even played on it a bit when I panicked coming down here, and put up really clear boundaries around it, too. He’s very pragmatic, isn’t he?”
“You’d be surprised,” noted Bill. “Did you know that there is a correlation between intuitive problem solving and EI? It’s not an accident that he hired Maggie- she is phenomenal. Fantastic spurts of concerted work, like lightning flashes…”
Edie nodded. “That’s me, too. I guess they can deal with me, huh?”
“Is that why you prefer not to treat your condition?” asked Arthur.
“It’s not a condition!” snapped Edie defensively. “It’s the natural way my body wants to operate!”
“Edie,” chided Alice, “that doesn’t mean people always enjoy it. I’ve heard even Maggie complain at times. Tension, obsession, a degree of intensity that is virtually intolerable…”
“Stop it.” hissed the catgirl.
“Sorry.” said Alice. “But as you can see, we’re fascinated. Is it really just respect for the natural order of things, is it really something to endure for the sake of the brilliance that can sometimes accompany it? Is that all there is?”
Edie looked angry for a moment, untrusting and hostile. Gradually it faded, and the cat-girl looked back and forth, between the very professional vixen, the friendly weasel and the curious and unworldly mouse, and slowly a delicate smirk stole over her kittenish face.
“Guess.” she purred.
“Well, then,” grinned Alice, “never mind. You’ll do.”
Edie’s smirk faded. “Oh? I hope you’re not going to start talking about Walter again. I should think you understand now that such talk isn’t fair to me. I want to be friends, f…” She flushed.
“F?” grinned Bill.
“Forget anything else,” purred Edie sweetly. “If he’s so wonderful to know he’ll make a terrific friend. As for the EI, there’s inanimate objects, grooming and deodorant.”
Alice sighed, then unexpectedly giggled. “Poor Walter. It’s no use, you’re as stubborn as a cat. Promise me one thing, Edie?”
“What?”
“Use the deodorant. Don’t torture our friend. He’s a wolf and he has the sensitive nose. And he has his little quirk. Please don’t make his life a living hell, okay?”
Edie paused, embarrassed to hear somebody else saying such things. “Okay.”
Arthur stirred. “And I’ll suggest to him that he do likewise- in case you develop a matching quirk. One can’t be too careful. I believe I can phrase it in such a way that he won’t suspect.”
Alice grinned. “If she develops a matching quirk, they’ll both be too careful.”
Bill grinned as well… and whispered to Alice, “If she develops a matching quirk, it doesn’t matter a damn how careful they are anyways.”
It had to be Rick. Of all the people it could have been, it had to be Rick.
However, he was surprisingly discreet about it. Edie barely recognized the predatory swinger of the night before. Even his voice seemed different- the insinuating tone was gone, and he spoke with an authority that reminded her vaguely of Peter.
“You understand that it has to be fitted to you, Edie? This might seem a little silly to you, but whether you think you need it or not you get a Pisces assigned to you, and we’re about to adjust it so it’s ideally suited. Then we’re heading over to the computer center so you can see the equipment you’ll be working with.”
“You mean you’re going to adjust the seat?” asked Edie. “Sure. I probably could do that myself, though.”
“Nope. You don’t really understand how adjustable these are. Hop in- this is the hatch control, but don’t close it yet.”
“It’s very close,” noted Edie, as the sub fit her like a glove, it seemed.
“Well, that’s not surprising, I preset it for you.” The fox grinnned, and a glint of his lavascious side showed through as he said, “I have pretty good figures on that lovely feline body. I think I got your butt to within a few microns. Fits, does it?”
Edie glared at him, annoyed by the remark. “Sure, it fits. How convenient. So what else is there?
Rick’s mood passed tracelessly. “Just a moment.” He adjusted the pedals with a wrench, bringing them up half an inch to her paws, thoughtfully appraising her sight angle and shifting the seat a few degrees this way and that until he was satisfied. “Okay, now see that lever? That’s your throttle…” he turned a switch, “and pull it back firmly. As if you were going to go to top speed.”
Edie did so, noting that it offered a resistance when moved.
Rick looked at her, made an adjustment without asking, and said, “Again.”
This time it was smoother, more like an extension of her arm. “Better,” she said.
“Need it lighter? I think that’s about as light as it should go, for you.
Edie considered that. “You can make it easier still? Wouldn’t that be better?”
“No, absolutely not. It’s tight for a reason- having the throttle shift unexpectedly could be a bad idea, and if it was loose like you’re thinking of, your own acceleration or shock waves could move it. That would be unacceptable.”
Edie blinked at the fox. “Shock waves?”
“Pressure waves. Denizens, the wake of other subs. You’ll note there are straps.”
Edie nodded. “Indeed there are.” She blinked as Rick began strapping her in. “Hey, I’m not ready yet! Or am I?”
“Take it easy, kitten. I have to strap you in for this. Take the throttle and pull back as hard as you possibly can, with a desperate yank.”
Edie blinked once more. “I beg your pardon?”
The fox smirked, a bit unkindly. “If you think you’re going to hurt it you’re out of your mind. This arm, little kitty,” and he grasped Edie’s upper arm, “is the arm of a programmer. I’m tempted to say ‘a lover, not a fighter’, but we’ve been through that. Do as I say.”
Edie glowered at him, and promptly grabbed the throttle and tried to yank it out by the roots, hauling back with all her strength.
Rick was hidden from sight, reading some sort of measurement and adjusting controls, and then reappeared. “Okay, that was great. Do you want to know why I had you do that?”
“Perhaps because you enjoyed saying ‘do as I say’?” purred Edie, with a dangerous sweetness.
Rick was no fool. “Take it easy. I got a full effort out of you by annoying you. You seemed the type that might not really put out unless provoked. That is an emergency throttle adjustment, Edie, and it is set to an acceleration rate that will black you out temporarily. We have to have it at an extreme effort level… all you have to know is this: if you are ever in a situation where you have to go scat, that throttle’s there. You can pull it all the way back in normal use and not risk passing out. But if you’re panicking, if you really have to get away from something fast, it’s tuned to respond to the emergency level. No extra switches. Just yank for all you’re worth.”
Edie just nodded, and asked, “Are there other adjustments you will be playing mind-games around?”
“No, there are not. That’s the only one. You understand, right? Some pilots can be counted on to haul on the throttle for all they’re worth at that point- they have something to prove, and secretly hope they can break it. That, actually, wasn’t me when I was in your position.”
“Hm. Then what did happen when you were in my position?”
Rick slowly grinned. “Peter was in my position. I’m not sure you realize how long I’ve been aboard.”
“Peter?”
“Yeah, Peter. And, you know, he pulled exactly the same trick on me, only worse. I’d flirted with him early on, so he knew about me… squeezed my bicep and told me his boyfriend was probably stronger than I was. Unbelievable. Anyway, I saw red and tried to break the throttle, and he made the adjustment and explained things like I’m doing now. The man was, and is, just unbelievable. So that’s where that trick came from- right from the top. Peter.”
“Well, I’m glad there’s nothing else you have to do like that,” grumbled Edie.
“Yeah- enough history. We’re running behind schedule. Next is orientation- I’m going to ask you a question, and please think about it seriously. Which do you find most natural, an airplane, a car or a motorcycle?”
Edie blinked. “How so?”
“I’m trying to tune the rudder versus aileron controls. Airplane is unlinked. Car is linked and rudder-oriented, it’ll give you some side acceleration. Motorcycle is linked and aileron-oriented, and the linkage is fairly strong- with the linked ones you’ll have the controls trying to move together with servos, though you can still sideslip if you have to. What’ll it be? Think about it.”
Edie remembered the hours spent playing with the flight simulator on her old computer. She winced a bit, remembering that her idea of fun was to fly it nearly out of control, and that she’d drilled holes in the ground over and over trying snap rolls while flying under bridges and radical sideslips to lose altitude enough to go into the giant sewer system. Still, it was pretty clear. “Airplane. Definitely. No question about it.”
Rick looked a bit startled. “You sound sure of yourself. You understand that the linkages are very helpful to inexperienced… Pardon me. I’m just not used to seeing programmers choosing airplane. They actually seem to prefer motorcycle.”
Edie smirked. “This programmer worked on Auger In. Developer. Don’t worry about me, dear.”
Rick blinked, then grinned. “That’s what I train on. What kind of system did you get to run it? Fancy developer stuff?”
“Just my own, but it’s an ABM, three screens, full yoke. Two gig, one point five tera, nice little setup.”
Rick grinned more. “Leave me out of your competitions, you programmer type. I can’t compete. You’ll babble on about it for hours if I give you a chance, and we haven’t got time.” He adjusted some hidden controls. “How twitchy do you want the yoke? I better not second-guess you.”
“Oh, I like it tw… hm. Maybe not quite so much. How about a notch below twitchy? Actually, how does it compare with Auger In? I had that nine point six, nine point seven, eight point five.”
“Got it.” said the fox, and started adjusting things.
“Hold it- go with nine, nine, eight. You have it marked that way?”
“No, I just know these subs. Why the cutback? Your settings were pretty impressive- those are pilot-level settings. Especially unlinked.”
Edie sighed ruefully, then smirked. “Well, you know Auger In?”
“Sure.”
“I did. Frequently. Nine-nine-eight were my safety settings, if I wanted to fly around and not crash I’d go with those. The others were what I used most of the time, and I crashed quite a bit. I would go pretty wild. It was a good way to burn off tensions after work.”
Rick nodded. “Fair enough. You’re not going to be crashing here, are you? If you get killed and wipe out a sub, Peter will kill you, then he’ll kill me, and then I will kill you. Sure you don’t want to back off some more? That’s still pretty twitchy.”
“I’m sure,” said Edie. “I logged a lot of time on Auger In. Hmmm, do you have the physical feedback for this? I suppose you would, since it’s real. Is this all electronic, or servo assisted, or even mechanical?”
“That was my next and last question, servo assisted, and how much centering do you want? I’m guessing not much as you’re small and light, but I don’t care what you did with Auger, you’re getting some centering here. It’s not safe to have no kinesthetic feedback.”
“Oh, I told you I had full yoke. Can you give me template C with a touch extra on the pedals?”
“Sure. That sounds like a good setting, though once again it’s twitchier than I’m used to giving a programmer.”
“I have a light touch, and that’s what I’m used to.”
“Are you sure you’re considering the situation? There are going to be times when you’ll not be entirely focused on the controls. You won’t be always flying when you’re in the mood to, sometimes you’ll be preoccupied. How about a hair off the twitchiness, and some extra centering?”
Edie thought. “Leave the twitchiness alone, but okay, more centering. Say, halfway to D, or the equivalent. I think I could fly that in my sleep.”
“You’re not going to be sleeping. I’m just trying to make concessions to reality here.” He paused. “You’re too pretty to waste.”
Edie blinked. “Er, thanks. How much more is there?”
“That was it.” He flipped a few switches on the control panel, then pressed a button and the sub emitted a harsh mechanical yelp, then settled down to a penetrating whine of turbines. “This button here is the hatch open- don’t worry, it’s failsafe. You ready to follow me? We’re heading over to the computer center.”
Edie gulped inconspicuously, and nodded. “I’m ready. Er, what would you do if I wasn’t a pilot?”
“I’d fly you by remote. Do it all the time. Want me to?”
“No.” said Edie, determinedly. “This I can handle. It’s just a little intimidating. This thing’s going to take my ears off, you know that?”
“When you close the hatch, it’ll cut off. Now, follow me.”
He pressed another button and ducked his arm out of the way as the hatch began to close, latching with a hiss as the cabin pressure kicked in. The turbine whine virtually disappeared, and she looked about, marvelling at the huge field of view. Rick was getting into a matching sub, and she looked it over from the slender tail structure to the stubby ‘wings’. Interesting sort of submarine, she thought. It was obviously a maneuverable design, well suited to navigating a water world with no bottom to it.
Rick’s voice came over speakers in the cabin, mounted behind her head. Surprisingly, his voice was localized and came from the sub he was in- she blinked, thought ‘Binaural’, and listened.
“Turn on your lights, marked ‘lights’.”
She did so, silently approving of the interface designer, and the front of the room was bathed in light. It seemed to flash on suddenly and then build itself to a usable level, as rapidly as her eyes could adjust. She watched Rick’s sub as its lights went on and decided that was exactly what was happening. Another nice touch. She liked this odd little submarine already.
“Your rudder and throttle are linked to the wheels while you’re on a surface. Do what I do- orient yourself and charge out the door, ten seconds after I do.”
Edie watched as a very large hatch opened, revealing mostly steel bulkheads, a sort of ceiling that vanished into the distance. She couldn’t see the water but figured it had to be kept under hatch level, or the floor would get wet.
Rick’s sub moved forward, angling itself carefully, and then its turbines let out a deafening shriek, buffeting her sub with its thrust, and it flung itself out the hatch, dropping out of sight, momentarily illuminating the roof of Aquarius as the lights flashed to full brightness.
Edie waited a careful ten seconds, and then began guiding her sub toward the opening. It handled eagerly, as if longing to fling itself across the deckplates, and she warily held it in check, not wishing to rip one of the ‘wings’ off on the hatch side. When she was satisfied that it was aimed properly, she took a breath and pulled back cautiously on the throttle, rolled smoothly out the door, and dropped like a stone.
At first she could not interpret what was happening. It was as if she was hanging in air, unsupported. The sub had pitched forward, but her speed was just enough that it didn’t go end over end. In shock, she stared at a readout that said her airspeed was increasing dramatically, and looked at the still water hanging before her eyes.
She saw ripples. They got bigger. When she realized they were waves, Aquarius-scale waves, and heard Rick shrieking over the speakers at her, she understood, and yanked back on the yoke until it was pinned, hearing the faint scream of the wind rushing by the canopy, grabbing the throttle, and she hit the water with a glancing blow and was knocked unconscious.
When she came to, her body was being shaken by the sub’s continual bouncing across the waves, and her hand was still gripping the throttle. She noticed confusedly that it was pulled fully back, and then realized Rick was still screaming at her. “Pull up! Pull up!”
Edie heaved a deep breath, and carefully pulled the yoke back. There were a few more buffets as waves caught the sub, and then the wings bit air and lifted her away from the water. She took it up a safe distance from the water, and unsteadily said, “Yes.”
There was a moment of silence from the speakers.
“So you’re alive. What the hell do you think you’re doing? I should have turned on the goddamned fly-by-wire.”
Edie gulped. “I thought…”
“You didn’t think, and you didn’t do what I said. And so you went out at what must have been half speed or less, and damned near went straight in. I can’t believe I listened to you. I should have turned on the goddamned fly-by-wire.”
“Is it broken? The sub, or plane, or whatever it is?” managed Edie. “Are we going to make it to wherever we’re going?”
Rick sighed loudly over the speakers, and paused again, getting control of himself. “Ten to one it’s not broken, Edie. These subs are built for that kind of thing. You are not. Now, you’re going to tell me right now, and tell me honestly, just exactly how much you were bullshitting me back there. Now!!”
Edie blinked. Rick had pulled back and was now flying beside her, almost close enough for her to see his face. She was glad she couldn’t, quite. She could make out that he was staring out the side of the canopy at her, and she felt a rush of shame, then of anger at her embarrassing mistake, and became determined to stop him right there.
She took a few deep breaths, resisting the temptation to experiment with the ailerons to get the feel of them, muttered a quiet prayer to anything out there that took care of stray kittens, and snapped the yoke sharply to the side, watching the horizon spin around her, and snapping back with a touch of overcorrection almost immediately, centering the stick, catching her breath. That, she thought, was really a very good, crisp snap roll, and I hope he peed himself watching it.
She waited, without saying a word, for Rick to respond. He was silent again for a while, and then simply said, “No loops. Follow me.”
His sub clawed at the air and flung itself forward, and Edie grabbed the throttle and fell into formation just behind and to the side of him, taking pains to do it smoothly and reassuringly.
The endless, unvarying sea beneath them screamed by.
“You should have been a pilot, Edie.” said Rick teasingly. “That snap roll was just sick. No wonder you wanted twitchy.”
“I thought you’d wanted to see me transported by slow boat, after that first business?”
Edie and Rick proceeded down the hallway, leaving the subs parked in the rather large docking bay. Edie was still a bit shaken from her near-disaster, and she continued, “I swear, Rick, it’ll never happen again…”
“Hang on, hang on, kitty!” soothed Rick. “That was my fault. I should have remembered you were new here. Obviously nobody told you that there is half a mile or more of air space surrounding the water, and you thought you were going to be traveling underwater. We always refer to them as subs…”
“I wouldn’t have guessed they’d stay in the air, even,” noted Edie. “Those tiny wings- it’s pretty incredible they’re even capable of flight at all.”
“Remember the gravity is somewhat lower than you’re used to… and you’ve seen how fast the subs are in air. There aren’t any obstructions to worry about. Oh- one thing? You did notice the grid pattern on the roof?”
Edie nodded. “What about it?”
“Learn it. Remember I said no loops?”
“You did. The sub won’t stand the G-forces? That seems hard to believe.”
“No. How shall I put it?” said Rick. “Well, on Earth the ‘ceiling’ of an aircraft is the point at which air density isn’t enough to support the weight of the aircraft.”
Rick grinned, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “Here the ceiling is what you smash into approximately a third of the way through your loop.”
Edie winced. “Right. So there’s no way at all to pull off a loop?”
“Forget it. Don’t even think it. Not even at low loading, when there’s a bit more airspace. What you gain in air space and lowered gravity you lose in air density. There simply is not enough room to come close. By the way, it’s smart to not try loops with the bipes up on the surface either. Those are just barely capable of it in the right spaces, but you have to be dragging the ground at the start and effectively stall out at the apex. Nine out of ten attempts end up hitting the glass…”
“Glass?” blinked Edie. “You’re putting me on.”
“So all right, layered achromatic ceramic composite. Am I over your head yet?”
Edie blinked. “Okay, so glass. I always thought that was artistic licence on the TV shows, and then when I got here I was thinking paint and little lights hanging from the roof. You’re saying all that is transparent?”
“Yeah- you get whole cooperatives of oppies together and they can finance anything. Ask me sometime how they keep it from hazing with normal cosmic dust and micrometeorites. It’s pretty outrageous- anyway, here we are.”
A fugitive smile played around Rick’s face as he ushered Edie in through the surprisingly large doors. When she entered, she understood his amusement. He’d watched the reactions before.
Edie’s eyes widened in disbelief and scanned up, down, around, taking in the dizzying array of networked computers, identifying component after component as stuff she thought she would never see, blinking at the shocking size of the fiber-optic networking lines linking it all together… she tried to estimate the total power of this setup, and found herself unable to even guess at it… and finally, she realized she was holding her breath, exhaled, and looked over to see that Rick’s fugitive smile was now a very amused grin.
“Welcome to Christmas Morning,” he said.
Edie took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s for sure. This is incredible!” She smirked. “That’s not bad. Christmas Morning. That’s a good one.”
“No, seriously. That’s its name. Christmas Morning. I’m not a programmer type, but what else would you call it? Look…” he said, and hunted through some printouts, coming up with some sort of purchase order, and handing it to her.
Edie read it. “Fiber junction strip, optical gating at twelve gigs a second, requisition for Christmas Morning LV5 network subassembly. Wow. There’s no price?”
“If you have to ask, you don’t even get to read the specs,” grinned Rick. “They don’t call it Christmas Morning for nothing. The catalogs and data sheets you get here don’t include prices. You just pick what’s best.”
Edie’s eyes widened, and she shivered a bit involuntarily, which Rick did not miss.
“Hmmmm,” grinned Rick. “I might have known. I shouldn’t have given you the backrub, I should have brought you here and shown you the networking. You’re smelling nice.”
Edie flushed. “Then I need to get back to my room. Damn it. Why are there no other people here?” She kept a wary eye on Rick, but it was plain he was just being verbal again.
Rick seemed not to notice her brief outburst. “Because most of the work is done remotely. You could do it in your room, but it’s better to team up with the other programmers, get to know them, meet them face to face. Peter doesn’t want gnomes hiding in holes.”
“I suppose not,” noted Edie. “That’s okay with me, I can play it either way.”
“Since there currently isn’t anyone here,” said Rick, “do you want to just go straight home now?”
Edie gave him a look. “I think that would be best. You aren’t looking for an excuse to stay here longer? I’m impressed. And surprised.” She turned and began padding out the door, her tail restless and lashing about to betray her mood.
Rick followed, and he kept at an ostentatious distance from her side, looking irritated. “Look, can we talk for a second here?”
Edie stopped, flustered. “How do you mean, talk?”
“Better still, you listen. I’ll talk. Edie, you are EI. You go into heat. It’s not that hard to spot if you know the signs. You’re not in it right now… yes, I can tell that too! However, you are typical EI in that you’re on a hairtrigger. You don’t act like a healthy EI feline, instead you repress it and wind up with all your nipples standing up over computer networking widgets.”
Edie bit her lip, rather hard. She hadn’t noticed, but she didn’t have to look to know he was speaking the truth. She didn’t dare try to adjust her fur to cover them better. Hopefully only the top pair were showing- it still made her want to turn her back on the fox.
“Obviously you come from some very repressive place, and it’s warped you… hold it, I’m not finished! You don’t seem to understand that I personally have five different cats I can turn to if I please. I don’t intend to watch everything I say around you for fear of upsetting you. My personal opinion is that you should get a grip, figure out that this is not Earth and you don’t need to be ashamed of your perfectly natural drives.”
Rick glowered at her in sheer exasperation. “However, I can make one thing much simpler for you. I wouldn’t screw you if you begged me. Understood?”
He turned and stalked off. Edie was speechless for a moment, then hurried after him, alarmed. “You’re not going to leave me here? I don’t know my way around!”
“No,” said Rick more calmly. “I’m going to lead you back to quarters. Then you will go your way, and you’ll run back to your room and soak yourself in disinfectant, and I will go mine.”
“Why are you so furious?” stammered Edie. “I’m not used to being yelled at like that. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You did.” said Rick quietly. “You brought an attitude here that I thought I’d escaped, and you threw it in my face. I am not furious. Actually, that’s a lie, I am furious, but it’s not at you directly. I’m furious at the people who took a delicious, sensuous feline who was born to make love, a beautiful girl-cat with silky grey fur and green eyes and a body that will haunt my dreams, someone who could flare up incandescently at my touch alone… and these people taught her shame. And she came here, and she tried to teach me. Be offended at what I just said. I don’t care.”
Edie tried to say something in response, but Rick wasn’t listening and she didn’t even manage a coherent word. When they reached the subs again, he said “You do remember the drill? I can run over it again if you forgot anything.”
Edie nodded, then shook her head, and managed, “I remember, you don’t need to go over it again.”
Rick looked carefully at her, as if assessing her mood and deciding whether she was fit to fly the sub. His eyes were chilly. Finally he shrugged. “You need to do something about that shiver, kitty. If I was you I’d know what to do, and thank God I’m not. But you ought to be able to handle getting back to quarters.” With that, he turned and got into his sub, and the canopy lowered over him.
Edie found some comfort in getting into her sub and doing likewise. The canopy lowered like an insulating shield. Rick’s voice was dispassionate and businesslike over the speakers. “Ready?”
“Go ahead,” said Edie steadily.
When they got back to the main docking area, Rick directed her to a specific spot to park the sub, saying that she should try to use that spot whenever she returned here. It was a bit out of the way, and as she walked back to the entranceway it was plain that Rick was already gone. Edie wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was a relief not to see him, but knowing that he felt the same way about her was not reassuring. She walked slowly back to her room, locked the door, and spent a minute just looking at herself in the mirror. Then she blinked, shook her head like a cat, and began to tidy her fur and cover the signs of her vulnerability, as she had done thousands of times before. The ritual of it soothed her, calmed her nerves- there was something very protective and safe about it all. It didn’t demand anything from her.
When she was decent again, without a hair out of place, she padded over to her boxes and suitcases and dug in them, hunting for her tea. Finding it, she decided that now was as good a time as any to put away some of her belongings, and foodstuffs seemed like a good place to start. The tea brewed cheerfully on a ceramic burner as she organized the cupboards according to her habitual system, and by the time her tea was done she’d moved everything to the cupboards, with an approving nod at the roominess and luxury of her accommodations.
As she was finishing, there was a knock at the door, and, opening it, she was startled to see Peter standing there. She tried, in a glance, to discern what his purpose was, but it was no good. The man was too calm- it was impossible to read him.
“Is it all right if I talk with you a little bit, Edie?” he said.
Edie gulped, her heart beginning to pound. “Rick.”
Peter smiled a little. “You’re sharp. You’re also panicking- stop. Hear me out before reacting.”
Edie let him in, and sat on her bed, looking up at Peter, who chose to stand. She didn’t trust her voice, and let him speak first.
“Rick is one of my best pilots,” began Peter, “and one of my biggest headaches. He just sent me a note about you. It seems you really got to him. That’s rare, and it only happens when I get somebody new who doesn’t exactly approve of his lifestyle, and he makes a play for them. Are you with me so far?”
Edie nodded.
“Just out of curiosity, did you lecture him?”
Edie shook her head.
“Settle down, okay? I don’t give up on a person easy. If I did, Rick would have gone long ago. However, he is not gone, and you are very new, and you’ve got him as insecure and tense as I’ve ever seen him. Did you play along for a while and then switch on him?”
“No,” said Edie. “Not really. He gave me a backrub, and I stopped it right there. Nothing else.”
“You do understand that on this ship you would not have been punished or ostracised for going on from there?”
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”
Peter gave her a look. “Hold it right there, okay? I’m not implying anything. You just assumed that I was telling you what was expected of you. I now know what happened to Rick, from hearing the tone of your voice just then.”
Edie shut up, and Peter continued. “I don’t expect you to break the habits of a lifetime and pounce on Rick, or anybody for that matter. What I expect is that you will learn to get along with the other people here- even Rick- without unthinkingly hitting their weak points every time you turn around. This is in the first day, Edie, okay? To be fair, I knew as soon as I saw you that Rick would go after you, but I didn’t know how you would react.”
Peter was not pacing, but he gave the impression that he ought to be pacing. “You could have been jaded and cynical about your world’s standards, in which case you might still be in bed with him, or with somebody. Or you could have been mature and self-confident, in which case you’d have gently rebuffed his backrub. Instead, I find that you are inexperienced in dealing with the off-duty aspects of this place, that you gave him mixed signals, and suddenly one of my best pilots is getting haughty and trying to tell me my job, and you are his scapegoat. That’s not a crime, okay? But I’ll tell you this- I’m going to give you plenty of time and patience. And you are going to learn tolerance. Or you are going to be eased out of here very gently, for your sake and the sake of the others here.”
Edie gulped, a very small and frightened sound, and Peter, hearing it, dropped to a crouch, at eye level with her. He looked earnestly into her eyes. “Edie, calm down. I don’t give up on people easy, and I really believe you can handle this, okay? I’m just telling you right up front that you can’t let it slide forever. Get used to this ship. Get to know some of the people who you have more in common with. You’ll be less threatened if you know you have friends here. If you feel like you’re the only one with, I don’t know, morals or whatever you want to call it, then you’re going to be hell to deal with because you’ll be defensive all the time. You need to do better than that. I’m not asking for it overnight- I won’t even put a deadline on it. Just know that you need to work on this. Think of it as an order from the ship’s master. It is.”
Edie waited a little, her head spinning. You have no idea, she thought to herself. “Is that all?” she asked, very politely.
Peter betrayed the hint of a smile. “It’s more than enough. I’m asking you to look at the habits and attitudes of a lifetime. I think you can do that, but I’ve been wrong before. There will be plenty of time to wait and see.”
With that, he quietly stood, nodded at her as if to say ‘You understand, of course’, and walked calmly out, gently closing the door behind him. Edie stared at the door for a moment, then sprang to her feet and started pacing, shaken. After a few circuits of the room, she shook her head as if to clear it, and was out the door, heading for the Cafe. Maybe there was somebody there who wouldn’t turn her nerves to violin strings.
As she entered the Cafe, she hesitated a bit- it was even more crowded than before, a constant babble of voices washing over her, the varied tonalities of cats and foxes and squirrels and wolves chattering away to each other. The lights seemed a little dimmer than they had been earlier. Every now and then, a strange voice of one sort or another would appear in the chatter, leaving her to guess what sort of totemized person had spoken. Could that one be an avian of some sort? And what of the snakelike hissing voice, or the startlingly low rumble that might be anything from a dragon to a bear? Clearly there were people here with illegal body mass… no, it would not be illegal here.
She very nearly turned to leave, but then there was a brief lull, and in it was a dryly humorous tonality she recognized, then a unconcerned laugh that soothed her nerves just hearing it. It could only be Alice. Edie couldn’t see the usual table Alice and her friends sat at, but judging from the location of the sound that was where they were. Edie cautiously entered the room, slinking silently past oblivious crowds of people, and made her way to the table in the corner.
Alice looked up as Edie approached, and grinned in the wicked way only foxes seemed able to manage. “Speak of the devil!”
Edie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, nothing. Sit down.”
Edie looked back and forth. Around the table were Alice, Arthur… and Walter. Walter’s expression was hard to read, but Edie tried to avoid looking at him which made it still harder to interpret. She weighed probabilities in her mind, came up with ones that didn’t reassure her, and began backing away. “That’s okay… I really ought to be going…”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” insisted Alice stubbornly. “Not until you’ve told us what you did to Rick! It’s so rare that anybody takes him down a notch. Did you scratch his nose?”
Edie blinked. “Ye gods, how’d you hear about that?”
“He blew into the Cafe in high dudgeon, and announced that the new cat was going to have everybody’s balls in a vise.” explained Arthur cheerfully.
Alice giggled. “Maggie was terrible. She told him he was just bent because you were going to ruin his feline batting average. It’s surprising how poorly they get along. He started to bluster, and then Walter got upset and demanded he take it all back.”
Edie blinked. “You’re kidding.” She looked at Walter, and he looked away, embarrassed.
Alice regarded her with mock sternness. “Sit down, Edie. You don’t have to sit with your knight in furry armor. Join us. It sounds like you had an interesting little scene with our notorious fox, and we are dying to hear about it.”
Edie gave in, choosing to sit next to Alice.”Walter got upset?”
“He was being rude,” muttered Walter. “Unpardonable.”
Alice grinned wickedly again. “That, my dear, is when Rick left. And he left in a hurry, didn’t he, Walter?”
Walter’s eyes lifted, and a wolfish grin gradually stole over his face.
“In a hurry?” blinked Edie.
Walter kept grinning and stretched his arms out as if to get more comfortable, pretending nonchalance as muscles knotted and bulged under his coarse gray fur. “Can’t imagine why. Silly bastard. No offense, Edie.”
“None taken,” gulped Edie. “Yes, I suppose he left pretty quickly, at that.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt him,” added Walter quickly. “Would I, Alice? I mean, come on, you know me.”
“I know that,” grinned Alice. “You know that. I don’t blame him for getting out of there, though. He knows you don’t like him, and I saw you. You may not have noticed, but you bristled at him and also stood taller.”
“Oh, not that again?” protested Walter.
“No, it’s true. You slouch and when you do you see eye to eye with him. You stood up and he was eye-to-eye with your neck. Not a reassuring sight for our dear, ravenous fox. So he took the better part of valor and tried to pretend he was stalking off with dignity…”
“Except,” noted Arthur with amusement, “his tail tried to stalk off with dignity quicker…”
“And left the room firmly between his legs!” laughed Walter. “Damn, that was good. I don’t think he’ll be troubling you any more, Edie.”
Edie had to giggle at the thought. “That suits me. Except… you don’t think he’s going to complain to Peter again? I don’t like that very much. I have to get along with him, you know.”
“What did you say?” asked Walter, his expression darkening. Alice, too, looked concerned.
“He complained to Peter about me. Peter told me I have to get along with him, even though I don’t have to like him very much…”
Walter glowered for a moment, looking very intimidating, and then he got up suddenly, reaching over and taking Edie’s hand. “Come along. We’re gonna stop this right now.”
He set off, pulling Edie helplessly behind him. Alice half-rose, protesting, “Walter!” and then sat down, banging the table in frustration. As Edie was dragged inexorably away, she heard Alice grumbling, “… damned white knight, but at least he can’t get in…” and then her voice was lost in the babble of the Cafe.
Edie struggled as Walter strode down the hallways, but she wasn’t big enough to budge him. She was nearly ready to scratch him really hard when he swung aside, opening a door and ducking in, dragging her behind him.
Peter had been sitting at a desk, but as Walter stormed in the ship’s master reacted to the intrusion by dropping his pen, coming to his feet in a single fluid motion, and leaning over the desk, matching Walter’s fire with cold control. They faced off, and there was a moment of silence.
Peter broke it. “Don’t tell me. Rick again.”
“Damn right. What are you going to do about it?”
“Two things, okay? You’re going to tell me what he did. Quietly and calmly. And you are going to let go of Edie’s hand. Now!”
Walter dropped Edie’s hand. It was as if he’d been unaware he was dragging her. Edie had been determined to escape, but now she was hypnotized by the drama of the situation, and she stood quietly, taking a cautious step back and watching.
“You can’t let him act like that, Peter,” said Walter, more quietly. “It’s not right.”
“You’re not telling me what happened, Walter.”
“He got you to frighten Edie! He just waltzed in and managed to get you to…”
Peter slammed his hand down on the desk, making Edie jump and freezing Walter in mid-sentence. He stared at his desk for a moment in silence, and then looked up.
“I might have known. Nothing happened. Sit down. Sit down! You too, Edie.”
Walter sat down on the plain sofa that the room had to offer, his expression a mixture of outrage and embarrassment. Edie looked around but there was no other chair. She hesitated, then at a curt nod from Peter, sat next to Walter. The sofa was narrow and pressed their hips together, which was an intimacy Edie didn’t really appreciate. She contented herself with not leaning against Walter, and paid attention.
Peter stepped out from behind the desk, and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking at the two of them dispassionately and with a faint overtone of disapproval. He spoke, in a very businesslike tone, the sudden flare of anger gone from his voice and attitude.
“Walter, you’re out of line. I spoke to Edie because she has to learn tolerance for some of the other viewpoints on this ship. If she doesn’t, my job will become a lot harder. I will dismiss her if she totally fails.”
Walter stirred, and Peter froze him with a look. Edie felt his thigh tense against her. “Hold it! What you don’t understand, Walter, is that I expect her to be able to do that. Did I see Edie come rushing to my door to complain about what I require of her? No. Instead I get you, and you are dragging, literally dragging her behind you, because you feel my rule is unjust. Edie, do you think what I asked is too much?”
Edie hesitated, and shook her head, being too disconcerted to say anything.
“That leaves you, Walter. Do you think y…”
“Naw,” muttered Walter. “I don’t think it’s unjust, I guess.”
“You’re not listening. I wasn’t going to ask you that. I was going to ask you something else, Walter.”
Walter was startled. “Huh?”
“Do you think you are indispensable?”
Walter didn’t answer, and Peter continued, patiently.
“Walter, you came with me when I signed on to this ship. You’re one of the best pilots I have… yes, Edie,” he said, “him and Rick both. I could name maybe three more of the same caliber, it’s not idle talk.”
“In any case, Walter, I won’t deny that you’re useful, even vital, to our work. However, you just dragged a new crew member into my cabin to complain about the way I run things. That’s not going to happen again, is it?”
“No, sir.” muttered Walter, and began rising as if to leave.
“Hold it. I’m not finished. What I had to say to Edie applies every bit as much to you. Do you understand what I was saying, or were you not paying attention? Did you just get outraged and rush off without stopping to think?”
Peter glanced back and forth between Walter and Edie, and the corner of his mouth turned up for a moment. “That’s a rhetorical question. You rushed off before you could think. Don’t deny it- I’m not a fool. Sit still, and listen.”
He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Okay. My job is composed of two main parts, not counting damned paperwork. One, as you know, Walter, is technical. I coordinate the technical side of our work, overseeing the systems people, and I put a lot of work into the Pisces. Some of the pilots like tinkering with their subs, and I have to watch that to make sure they don’t tune the things so finely that they become unstable.”
“Whether people understand it or not, I have to watch over the crew as well. You don’t tune a crew with screwdrivers, though lord knows I wish I could sometimes. You tune a crew with words- and rules- and again, the thing to watch for is not the obvious failing components- those are trivial and simply dealt with- but the synergistic effects, the ways it can become unstable. There are limits to how much you can worry about that, but being aware of it can be useful. With me so far?”
Edie and Walter nodded as one, glanced at each other, and nodded a second time, asynchronously.
“Now, what I told Edie was pretty simple. She needs to develop tolerance regarding some of the lifestyles here. Actually, it wouldn’t be much different topside, but here you report to me and so I have the authority to order you to work on it, if I think it is important enough. I do, for a number of reasons- and most of them apply to you as well, Walter.”
“Such as?” inquired Walter politely.
“I don’t need to tell you my reasons, okay? Think about what I’ve just said. My reasons should be obvious. What I need to tell you is my expectations. I need to tell you those if I am going to expect any better from you in the future. I have fallen short in that- I haven’t spoken to you because you do have a lot of time onboard this ship, and because you haven’t been much of a problem. That was a mistake, and I should have spoken to you before, okay? So I’m speaking to you now. Same deal as with Edie. Same advice. And, Walter? Same consequences.”
Walter gulped. “What advice?”
“Oh… get some tolerance. At least make an effort to learn some tolerance. I can’t have you two stirring up half the crew and causing disturbances. I could tell you that you aren’t the only ones who’ve been told that… the point is, you are on the list. I’m not answering questions about who else I’ve talked to. Okay?”
Walter nodded, but Peter had already turned away, seating himself again at his desk and resuming his paperwork. He did not look up from the work, and it seemed that he would not, that the visit was over as far as he was concerned. He did not say goodbye as Walter and Edie slipped out the door.
Returning to the Cafe seemed the reasonable thing to do- they didn’t even exchange words about it, they just headed back the way they came without a second thought. It occurred to Edie that she could make an excuse and part ways, but seeing Walter taken down a notch had made him seem more human- her previous experience had left him in a niche charitably described as ‘Large Virile Wolf Type’, which didn’t leave a lot of room for personality. It was a convenient way of writing him off- reducing the person they called Walter to little more than the bearer of a lupine phallus, something that appealed to her body but was easily dismissed by her mind, mostly. Edie had learned to not condemn secrets, but was damned if she’d reveal them…
Edie blinked, confronted with the dissonance between her comfortable stereotype for Walter and the unexpected ease of being with him, and at that point he interrupted her thoughts and just made matters worse.
“I’m awful sorry. Look, I guess you’re going off to the Cafe, right? Want me to go away? I had no business draggin’ you around like that. There’s some work I could be doing on my sub…”
“No,” answered Edie impulsively, and then she was stuck for words, trying to find some appropriate way to say ‘But…’. It showed in her little cat face, and Walter quickly read it there, showing more sensitivity than she’d bargained for. He drooped visibly, and began to turn away, muttering about work he had to do, and Edie unthinkingly caught his hand in hers, and both the hulking wolf and the dainty cat froze.
Edie thought fast, very fast, and, dropping his hand, said “Come on!” in a cheerful tone. She started off towards the Cafe once more, biting her lip gently and trying to walk in a perfectly normal fashion. Now was not the time, she felt, for a demonstration of feline hips swaying like a ship in heavy seas.
Walter caught up with her, and she immediately took control of the conversation as well. “Are you going to be in trouble with Peter? I’ve never seen him like that. Of course, I’ve hardly ever seen him at all, so that shows you how little I know, doesn’t it?” She chattered gaily, determined that no weighty silence should arise. “So are you going to be in trouble, or not?”
“I don’t think so,” said Walter. “I may not be indispensable, but I’m damned useful, really. I’m the sort of dependable type he can lean on a lot, and he does. I’ll tell you, I never thought he’d go off like that on me, though.” Walter seemed relieved at the chance for a normal conversation.
“Does that happen often? It was a little frightening.”
“It mostly happens when his people aren’t working right.” said Walter. “Never happened much to me. Frightening? Don’t be too hasty. What was it, that intensity he gets? Is that what frightened you?”
“Well, not quite frightened,” noted Edie. “Something like that. He wasn’t directing it at me, you know. He was very low key when talking to me. To you he was different. I’ve never seen anyone dominate so totally, and he barely raised his voice half the time.”
“Well, now, that’s a ship’s master for you. They’re always like that, the good ones, anyway. He’s actually very good at what he does. Some of them are a lot scarier. Peter’s likable if you accept that he’s God.” Walter grinned.
“Would it be better if he wasn’t so, I don’t know, overbearing?” asked Edie. “Or, well, I don’t know how to describe it, but he seems to be on such a different level, I can’t imagine being with him socially.”
Walter grinned again. “I can, I’ve seen it. He’s the same. Everybody behaves. You’d have to have a little background. I’ve served with other types of ships’ masters. There was one who was really popular. He was really one of the guys- this was on the Adriatic, regular freighter ship. We got nailed by a meteorite, incredibly bad luck thing. Know what he did?”
“What?”
“He fainted. Literally passed out. Suddenly the screens were lighting up red everywhere, and everyone was looking at him to know what to do, and thud. I’ll stick with Peter.”
They entered the Cafe, and made their way towards their back table, where Alice and Arthur were still sitting. “What happened?” asked Edie. “I mean, obviously you survived, so how’d they fix it?”
Walter muttered, “Well, I was the first mate…” and slid in next to Arthur, who made room for him.
“Did he kill you?” asked Alice wryly. “Or just maim you or tie your tails together or something?”
Walter looked abashed. “Nope, didn’t kill us. Er, I mean kill me.”
Edie chimed in, “He was very stern, but fair, I think.”
“I just have to put up with Rick better.” said Walter.
“Sounds rewarding,” smirked Alice. “How much of him do you have to put up?”
“Knowing Rick,” remarked Arthur, “Walter could put him up as easily as Edie can. What will you do with him once he’s up?”
“Wait, wait a minute. As Edie can?” interrupted Walter.
“Yes,” explained Arthur, “Edie has put him up at least once. Thankfully, she didn’t know what to do with him once he was, otherwise he’d probably still be strutting around boasting.”
Walter bristled, and turned to Edie, seething. “Is this true? He got a boner at you? I’ll kill ‘im.”
“Easy, Walter.” chided Alice. “Name one person on board whom he hasn’t been exhibitionistic toward. You missed us talking about it. Also, you’re not taking Edie’s feelings into account. She spurned him, and you know he never pursues if it takes an effort.”
“I don’t know that.” snarled Walter. “There’s always a first time. Lock your door, Edie.”
Arthur blinked. “Surely you are being unreasonable?”
Alice glanced sidelong at Edie. “Very unreasonable. Walter, trust me on this, okay? He is not going to be seducing our friend. You should have figured that out by now, after the scene he put on.”
“He could be covering one of those fatal obsession things…” insisted Walter stubbornly. “Or imagining things in his head about her.”
Edie was getting uncomfortable. “Walter, please, I can take care of myself. Oh, and I normally lock my door anyhow, though I’m not sure what is normal on this ship.”
“Also,” reassured Arthur, “there’s nothing he could imagine that he doesn’t already suspect.”
Alice shot a sharp look at Arthur, as Walter blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“None of your business.” stated Alice. Edie looked away.
“She’s got a boyfriend?” said Walter. “Here? Or no, wait, that wouldn’t be what he was imagining, or maybe it would, the sick bastard. But still, what?”
Nobody answered. Walter looked around, and nobody would meet his eye but Alice, who stared right back at him defiantly.
He continued, awkwardly. “I sure wish somebody would level with me. Arthur just said there is nothing Rick could imagine that he don’t already know. Now, I know Rick, so that worries me. Are you talking about something really shameful? Please don’t make me sit here wondering.”
Alice paused for a moment, glancing at Edie. “Edie hon, I think you’d better trust Walter with it. He’d find out anyhow and our beloved Arthur has stuffed his paw in it again. If you don’t, I’ll explain things anyway, otherwise Walter will imagine much worse than the truth, trust me.”
Edie stared at the table, bristling slightly from sheer embarrassment. She said, quite softly, “EI.”
Walter blinked. “That all? What rating?”
“Four thousand.”
Walter blinked again, speechless, and Alice’s jaw dropped. Edie kept looking at the table.
“Sweetie,” said Alice, very quietly, “any emergency room would take you with priority status over that. Particularly if it was peaking. Don’t you understand a rating like that is a severe health hazard?”
Edie’s head snapped up to glare at Alice, her eyes crackling with fury. “It is not! I can handle it! Don’t even talk about hospitals taking me and changing me around! I am not going to be maintained on medication the rest of my life.”
Alice met her glare. “I can’t believe you conned me, talking about grooming and deodorant. You can do all that, but I happen to have some nursing training…”
“Which I shall not be needing,” put Edie.
“Which tells me,” continued Alice inexorably, “that a heat of that intensity left untreated can be physically debilitating to the point that you’d barely be able to stand.”
Edie’s eyes dropped again, and she bristled in embarrassment even more at the word. “I have very strong willpower. And don’t call it that.”
“Okay,” agreed Alice. “Estrus of potentially life-threatening intensity. Have you ever fainted, or had chest pains? What is your blood pressure, and has it been monitored during the experience?”
“Leave me alone.”
“She could die?” said Walter, aghast.
Alice managed a half smile. “Technically, the danger rating is nearer six thousand, and she’s mentioned coping skills that would work.”
“Grooming and deodorant?” asked Walter, confused.
“No.” said Alice. “Other coping skills.”
“Well,” remarked Arthur, “I was wrong. I doubt Rick could imagine this.”
Edie felt horribly drained from all the unmaskings. “He knows,” she said quietly. “He knows. He talked of temperature-sensing thumbs. He can’t not know if he has any experience with it.” She thought of his remark earlier, the bitterness at being deprived of a lover who flared up incandescently. With all his experience, it seemed he had never considered what it felt like to flare up in such a way. Instead he simply warmed himself before it.
Edie thought, years back, to a time when she had been with a wolf who was, in many ways, very like Rick, someone who had found it arousing to stimulate and tease and deprive her, who withheld the cleansing thrust and gratified himself by seeing how wild he could drive the sobbing, begging kitten first.
She never forgot what Chuck had done to her that night, the time she’d snuck out to be with him and he’d played with her instead of mating her like usual. It had given Edie sharp chest pains, and she had also lost consciousness and bitten her lip until it bled. She had never realized how dangerous it had been, for even then she shunned doctors. Chuck may have known, but for him it was the most glorious experience he’d ever had. Afterwards, he took photographs of her unconscious body and gave them to his friends proudly. Afterwards, he spoke in glowing, earthy, explicit terms of her ferociously powerful responses. Afterwards, she slunk out as soon as she could walk, feeling charred, and never returned to him again.
Edie, coming back to the present, glanced at Walter and was startled to see how furious he was. “What’s the matter?”
“Temperature sensing thumbs…” snarled Walter. “I will kill him.”
Both Edie and Alice instinctively objected, cutting each other off, and stopped again, leaving Arthur to chime in.
“But, Walter,” said the mouse-man politely, “that’s just Rick. Nobody cares, and Edie is not going to permit him any liberties.”
“But what if she just can’t help herself?” argued Walter. “What if she’s gonna keel over and die if she don’t?”
“I am not!” said Edie stubbornly.
“Walter, you’re exaggerating.” said Alice. “If you were listening, I’d conceded that it’s not life threatening in her case, and more significantly she practices coping skills.”
“Like what?” objected Walter. Alice glanced at Edie, and Edie rose to the occasion.
“Masturbation.” purred Edie, looking Walter right in the eye. “Perfectly safe, under my control, and whenever I need to. Do you?”
“He won’t tell you,” said Alice, amused. “Anyhow, Walter, in my opinion as a trained nurse, that is an important safety valve and if it were not there I’d worry for her. Since it is, she’s not likely to be helplessly driven to assume the position for Rick…”
“Or anybody…” added Edie for the record.
Alice lifted an eyebrow eloquently, shrugged, and continued. “And so you needn’t kill him. Besides, we’d hate to lose you- it wouldn’t be a fair tradeoff for having Rick out of the way. Rick isn’t the monster you think he is, he’s just selfish and childish.”
Walter was struggling with the main concept. “Let me get this straight. Edie, you want to stay clear of all that? You get, well, sick with it, but you want to be left alone? Just be friends with everybody, then go home, and, well, get it out of your system?”
Edie was not at all sure about that in the long run. However, she wasn’t about to admit it. “Pretty much.”
“I can understand that. The last time I had a lover she ripped me up inside. I feel exactly the same way. In fact,” grinned Walter, “I even have the same outlet, but don’t tell anybody.”
Edie suddenly smirked like mad, but refrained from asking him what sort of dildo he preferred. Better to picture that silly image, one which would horrify the wolf, than picture the reality and end up shivering. “I promise not to tell anybody, Walter.”
“There,” grinned Walter. “Now we got an understanding. You’re our kid sister! We’ll make sure you stay out of trouble.”
Alice gaped at Walter in horror. “What? Walter, dear, you’re insane.”
“I’m what? You have any other ideas? You’re going to lead this little darling over to Rick’s room and knock? We owe her better than that, we’re her friends.”
“Your notion of reality,” suggested Arthur, “is unusual. But I admit we’re used to that.”
“My notion of reality,” grinned Walter, “is fine. I always wanted a kid sister. A cat kid sister is perfect. Edie makes a perfect kid sister, I already feel protective of her.”
Alice began laughing. “You’re serious! Talk about defenses. Okay, I give up. I know how stubborn you are. Here’s hoping it doesn’t kill you.”
“Kill me?” objected Walter. “Kill me? How ridiculous. A kid sister is the best thing I could possibly have at this point. And I make a damned fine big brother, I’ll have you know.”
“Big brother?” blinked Edie.
“Very.” noted Arthur.
“Shut up.” grinned Walter. “Not around Kid Sister. Her little ears are delicate.”
“This is ridiculous,” laughed Alice. “Well, it’s getting late- I need to be getting home.”
Edie nodded. “So should I, I’m beat. I hope tomorrow will be easier. I don’t start work until the day after tomorrow.”
“Will you have breakfast with us, Edie?” asked Arthur. “Different time, same place. The Cafe is more peaceful in the morning.”
“Sounds wonderful,” purred Edie, “I’ll be there.”
As Alice rose to leave, her eyes twinkled wickedly, vixenishly. “Walter? You’re not going to escort your kid sister home? Give her a goodnight kiss?”
“Why, of course I will. More like a hug, though. Kissing your sister, ewwww. No good brother does that.” quipped Walter.
Edie giggled, and found herself purring quietly.
“Well, sis?” inquired Walter, grinning and standing up.
“Sure.” purred Edie, stood up, padded over and tucked her arm under his, and without further ado they departed. Arthur, too, was going to bed, but before he did he stood with Alice a moment and watched the little cat and the hulking wolf go.
“Her hips are held more loosely than normal,” observed Arthur, “but her tail is not held to the side in coital readiness.”
Alice giggled. “And Walter’s tail is wagging. Oh, look, they just bumped hips skirting around that table. Do you see?”
Arthur blinked. “Interesting. See how aware she is of her nonverbal signals? Her tail went hard left for a moment, but now it’s back again. One might have thought it nothing but a twitch.”
“Yeah, but we know better. The poor things!”
“Perhaps,” suggested Arthur reasonably, “there is no other way they can behave.”
“Probably.” noted Alice wryly. “Well, this should be interesting. You’re working with Edie, right?”
“On some shifts, yes.”
“Then try to keep Maggie from bugging the poor dear. I’m going home, and unlike those crazy people I’m going to make love to my mate if I have to perch on top of him while he sleeps.”
“The one time Sandy did that,” noted Arthur, “I dreamed it was Maggie.”
Alice winced ostentatiously. “Yeah, I think eventually she understood that was a form of compliment. On second thoughts, I’ll wake Bill. Otherwise he’ll probably dream I’m Edie. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like a frustrated cat for getting under people’s skins. I feel so sorry for Walter.”
“He’s going to have a wonderful time,” reassured Arthur. “He’s as stubborn as she is, and she has no idea what she’s up against. He will have a glorious fantasy and will walk around in a dream world and will be safe from actually having to defile her purity. You’ve never properly understood the male viewpoint, Alice.”
“And he’ll be shattered when she finds some other sweet wolf who isn’t stark raving mad.” commented Alice wryly.
Arthur thought about that a little. “I don’t think so. You overlook her hostility towards Rick and his ilk, and she will be around Walter often if she is one of us. Also…”
“What?”
“Walter didn’t remember to bathe, Alice, and he smells like a wolf. A distinctly male wolf. Surely you noticed. Not unpleasant, but quite noticable.”
Alice giggled. “Now that you mention it, yes. The poor kitty. Somebody really should speak to him, I think this time he’ll listen. But maybe it wasn’t getting to her. How can you be sure?”
“A cat girl’s tail is a sign of her mood. As she left, she was keeping it straight by sheer willpower, yet when she pressed against Walter’s body while skirting around the table, her tail immediately assumed the hard-left position of coital readiness in spite of her efforts to control it…”
“Arthur, promise me you’ll never start talking about coital readiness in front of them, okay?”
Arthur nodded. “But you see my point. Edie is already succumbing to Walter’s charms, despite her most concerted efforts.”
“That’s an interesting definition of ‘charms’,” smirked Alice. “I see your point, though. I remember back when I was going natural that scents could really set me off. I suppose we could try to protect Edie, but it might be redundant. Walter is going to help protect her. From him.”
Arthur nodded. His eyes twinkled. “I shall advise him that, should she assume a position of coital readiness in earnest, her life will be in peril if he doesn’t carefully plumb her deepest depths.”
Alice broke out laughing and couldn’t stop for a while. Finally, she managed, “Better put it in writing and have me sign and date it. And he still won’t listen.”
“Then we will have her sign it.” suggested Arthur.
“Poor things.”
They’d been right- it was quieter in the morning. As Edie padded down the corridors toward the Cafe, she welcomed the solitude. Nobody else was up and about this morning. It gave her time to consider things.
Walter was clearly quite mad, in the nicest of ways. As he’d walked her home the previous night, it had become obvious that he wasn’t shamming, that he really was going to treat her like a kid sister. He’d hugged her goodnight just as he’d said he would, and she had been unable to suppress a shiver feeling those arms wrapped around her, but he did not react in the same way. A large part of the reason she’d shivered was the part of him her lower belly’d pressed against, but that made it even plainer that he did not respond, not in the slightest. It certainly made things easier for her, assuming she wanted him to stay clear.
It occurred to her that such an assumption wasn’t too thrilling when she was not the one in control. Having Walter mooning over her and being frustrated was gratifying in a selfish way. However, having Walter treating her like a sister was vaguely insulting. He simply couldn’t resist her so damned easily, she thought- even if she wished to be resisted, he should at least make some pretense of being tempted. He might not be the sort to sneak off and be with, but it was maddening to not even have the chance.
It was all very confusing.
As she entered the Cafe, she blinked, for it was nearly deserted. At the table in the back was Arthur, Bill, and Walter. Walter grinned happily and waved her over with an expansive gesture. Edie caught her tail twitching to the side again and repressed it with practiced skill, padding over to join them and keeping her gait decent.
“What’s for breakfast?” she inquired.
“What would you like?” asked Arthur. “If it is not unduly exotic I believe you can be accomodated.”
“An omelet, perhaps?” suggested Edie. “Who’s cooking?”
“That’d be me, sis.” grinned Walter.
Bill looked startled. “Sis? Walter, have you flipped out?”
“Nope. Edie’s going to be like my kid sister, Bill. I always wanted one.”
“You have flipped,” grumbled Bill. “Must you be weird so early in the morning?”
“Yup. Back in a moment!” said Walter, and disappeared through a set of doors.
“He’s the cook?” blinked Edie.
“No, breakfast is potluck around here,” explained Bill. “We get staff from topside for dinner sometimes. Don’t miss it if you have the chance, it’s essentially a luxury-liner chef’s command performance. Doesn’t happen often. Speaking of topside, do you have plans?”
Walter returned with a softly rounded small omelet, and Edie blinked at him again. “That was awfully quick.”
“For an omelet? Sis, the only way to make omelets is with no hands. It should only take seconds. This isn’t the sort you make with a spatula, you know.”
Edie prodded the omelet with a fork, and it gave way resiliently and softly. “What’s the glaze on it?” she asked.
“Beurre noir. Or, if you don’t study culinary history, browned butter. Go on, try it. Bill, what were you saying about topside?”
“Oh, I just got a message on my notepad. They have too many bipes up at the zipline lounge, and their staff is tied up, they’re wondering if any of us could come up and help shuttle them back to where they came from.” said Bill.
“Now,” said Walter, “you know they’re not supposed to be asking that. And they’re sure not supposed to be paging…”
“It wasn’t a page,” explained Bill, “it was just a mail. See? Lowest priority, too. Of course, you’re right, but you know the way they operate.”
“Yeah, I do. How many do they want? They’re nuts if they expect more than maybe two, and they’d better not be expecting underside staff to be shuttling bipes all day.”
Edie swallowed some omelet and inquired, “What are you all talking about? Shuttling bipes?”
“It’s like this,” explained Walter. “You’ve probably heard of the Zipline Lounge. Several miles high, with a zipline leading down into a valley- it’s a popular place and you might want to try it someday. The question is, how do people get up to the place? There are stairs, but only lunatics climb them- the common way is flying one of those little biplanes up there. Then the person rides the zipline down, leaving the bipe parked up there, and a staffer takes the staff elevator up and flies the bipe back to where it’s needed.”
“There’s an elevator, but only for staff?” blinked Edie.
“It’s supposed to not be easy to get to.”
“Er, okay…” said Edie, but Walter wasn’t finished.
“The thing is, the fools have gotten tied up in some stupid logjam somewhere, they’re all frosting cakes or giving pedicures, and they’re asking us to come and fix their little problem. If Peter knew about this they would be very unhappy, I’ll tell you. However…”
Bill continued, “…the Zipline Lounge is a really beautiful place, and we could do a lot worse as a way to kill an afternoon. And the bipes are great fun. Can you fly, Edie?”
Edie smirked. “I bet they are fun. Sure I can fly. Is that what we’re going to do today?”
“Not I,” said Arthur firmly. “I have coding to do.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Bill. “And Edie’s probably never seen the Zipline Lounge. What I’m proposing is this- we go up there, take a few bipes, fly around for a while, then have lunch. How does that sound?”
“Sounds lovely,” purred Edie. “Walter? Are you going to come along?”
“I prob’ly shouldn’t… but yeah, all right. You talked me into it.”
“When do we leave?” asked Edie.
Walter grinned. “You just finish your omelet. If they weren’t frantic and in a dreadful hurry they wouldn’t have mailed Bill like they did- but they had no business doing it in the first place, it’s against their regulations.”
“Is it against ours?” asked Edie, addressing the omelet again.
“Our regulations regarding topside privileges can be summed up in two words,” noted Arthur. “Carte blanche.”
“You mean sashe noir,” corrected Bill.
“Yes, that’s right. Edie,” asked Arthur, “do you have the black sash?”
Edie finished off the omelet, licking her feline lips, as it had been marvellous. “What black sash?”
“There should have been a black sash, a silk one, included with your things.” said Bill. “You wear it when topside as a sort of badge. The topside staff have all different colors, but anyone from underside wears the black one. You don’t want to skip it, it shows you outrank them.”
“Oh, that,” said Edie. “I did notice it. It came in a very nice box, and I’d seen topside people wearing sashes before, but I didn’t understand about the black ones. Do I have to wear the uniform it goes with?” Edie shuddered- wearing clothes over fur tended to be uncomfortable and left her looking disheveled. and fur was really perfectly decent.
“Did a uniform come in the box?” asked Walter, grinning.
“No, it was just the sash.”
“Well, there you go. Tell you what, why don’t we go get our sashes and I’ll meet you back here in five minutes. How’s that?”
It was easy to find the sash- Edie had packed it neatly away in the closet. However, it really didn’t look right without the uniform- the sash went over a shoulder and was tied at the hip, and Edie had to move carefully to keep it from slipping off.
As she returned to the Cafe, the first thing she saw was Walter, the long black sash tied around his head like an absurdly long bandanna. It looked quite rakish. Bill also wore his in the same way, though on him it looked vaguely bohemian.
“You’re not going to wear it like that, are you?” chuckled Walter. “We don’t have to follow dress codes.”
Edie blinked. “Well… in that case…” she purred, and swept off the sash with a flourish, twining it around her waist and tying it, then seating the trailing ends over to one side and settling into a decadent pose, hips canted elegantly to show off the decoration, tail flicking about absently.
Arthur, witnessing this performance, blinked, but said nothing. Walter gaped for a moment before remembering she was his ‘kid sister’, and Bill just said “Wow!”
“Pretty special, huh?” purred Edie.
“Well, actually, a lot of people wear it that way,” said Bill, “…but it was the way you put it on! Very nice, Edie.”
Edie realized how provocative her pose was and straightened up hastily, glancing at Walter. “Well, I try.” she purred, a little defensively. “How do we get there?”
“The obvious way.” said Bill. “We fly to the underside location of the lounge, then take the elevator.”
Walter hesitated. “You did say you flew, didn’t you? Are you comfortable handling the subs in air? We’ll figure out something if you’re not, like fly-by-wire…”
Edie smirked. “Quite comfortable, thank you. Just lead the way.”
As the three got into their subs and prepared to leave, Edie was grateful for her earlier misadventure- it meant that she wouldn’t have to make mistakes in front of Walter. That would be intolerable, because it would make him even more protective and condescending, treating her like a kid, or possibly a pet kitten. Edie wriggled in her seat, and realized that her thoughts were drifting again. It must be the seat, she decided- normal chairs were all very well, but when a seat was so carefully sculpted that it grasped one’s body as if to fondle it, there was a certain reaction that could slip in without her planning it. Rick had been right- he had gotten the trim, angular curves of her feline bottom to within a few microns, and she could feel the accuracy in the way it grasped her. Of course, it had to be that way for safety reasons, so she’d have to deal with the side effects. One could quite like the side effects if it wasn’t for having nothing to do to remedy them… Edie noticed that the other subs were heading out the opened door, and hastily got her sub pointed in the right direction, yanking on the throttle with conviction and focussing her wandering mind on flying.
Falling into line with the other subs, Edie wondered how long it would be before they arrived, and, glancing over the controls, found the radio. “So how far is it?”
“Not all that far,” came Walter’s voice over the speakers. “Do you mind if me and Bill fool around a little? We won’t actually be dogfighting, that’s inadvisable. But we like playing tag. Will that bother you?”
Edie smirked… and reached for the throttle.
With one sudden yank, her sub went scat and flashed out ahead of the other two, and she giggled into the radio as she twisted and dodged her pursuers. It was clear that they were not pushing things too hard- they avoided getting overly close to each other, and didn’t try and approach her too closely either, though Walter tried a few pranks like flying upside down when the altitude was safest. As he did so, he told her sternly to do as he said, not as he did, and she giggled and did a snap roll to tease him, and dived down to skim the water, and as she did suddenly Bill was saying ‘Hey. Hey! Get up! Now! Both of you!’
“What is it?” asked Edie, reasonably.
“Oh, shit…” said Walter, over the speakers. “Edie! Up!” She glanced at where the sound was localized and noticed that he was heading for the roof. She glanced at her instruments and saw a large blob on a radar-like instrument she hadn’t been taught how to use yet. As she drew back the stick and started to ascend, the landless sea bulged impossibly as a continent broke the water just in front of her.
Edie kept her head, though her heart had decided the situation was surely fatal and pounded violently. She yanked back hard on the stick, rocketing up, and just at the moment that both Bill and Walter panicked and began screaming at her, she countered by pushing forward just as hard. The ceiling rushed towards her and leveled out, becoming a dizzying streak of marker lines racing by. Carefully, she let her sub drop until the racing lines seemed less close, and looked around, to see Bill and Walter falling into formation beside her. She looked back. It wasn’t really a continent. It was more like an area code, or perhaps a small city. It was also gray and featureless.
“Sorry…” said Walter, after a little pause. “I didn’t know you were ready to correct that climb. You’re good.”
“Hell,” said Bill, “she’s as good as you are. Well, better than me, that’s for sure. I’d have hit the thing if it was me.”
“So what is it?” managed Edie. She felt thankful she’d managed to keep the trembling of her body out of her voice.
Bill bought it, and began, “Well, this is a smaller version of…” but Walter saw right through her and interrupted him. “Save it. Edie, you okay? Rise up a little, it helps. These things don’t breach much more than this. I’m scanning deep and there isn’t anything else for miles…”
“I’m all right,” insisted Edie. “Nothing else for miles?” She instantly felt stupid, giving away her mood like that.
“It takes a little getting used to,” said Walter reassuringly.
They flew on in silence for a minute, until Edie, frustrated at the silence, grabbed her throttle again and shot off at full speed in what seemed like the right direction. “Tell me when we’re getting close,” she purred over the radio.
“We’re getting close.” came Bill’s voice.
Fortunately, she had plenty of time to slow to just over a stall and aim for the landing area. Edie thanked heaven that she knew how to use the flaps, for without them the very act of landing in a long bay in the ceiling would have been far more difficult.
By the time she found a parking space she was over her fright.
The elevator was not impressive. It wasn’t anything like the TV shows suggested. It was a little cramped for three people, and it was quite undecorated, and as a final touch it was somewhat dingy and dusty.
Edie considered this. So far Aquarius had been a mind-boggling assortment of failed hype and unguessed astonishments for her. None of the luxury was apparent from underside. The long steel corridors so clearly showed the cost restraints in building a ship the size of a planet- there was a grim fuctionality in their exposed struts and gray unfinished surfaces.
“I never saw anything like this on the TV shows,” noted Edie. “On those it was all incredibly luxurious, but I can imagine they’d sugarcoat it a little.”
“Oh?” grinned Bill.
“Well, yes. You’d have to be familiar with some of the techniques. The light temperature is a little warmer than it would normally be, it’s a flattering sort of light you don’t get from flourescents or incandescents. It’s a simple trick you can do with color-sync…”
“Warmer?” blinked Bill.
“Kelvin.” remarked Walter offhandedly.
“What?” said Bill, and Edie blinked in surprise. “Where did you learn about color temperatures, Walter?”
“I’m a photographer.”
“Oh, of course,” grinned Bill, “and now that’s his cue to persuade you to pose naked for him, right Walter? Works every time.”
“What?” stammered Edie, as she and Walter glanced at each other and then looked away.
“Worked with Maggie, and the pictures- wow!” continued Bill blithely.
“Bill, stuff it!” snapped Walter.
Bill seemed unwilling to quit teasing Walter right away. “Well, Edie’s already naked, so all you need is a camera!” He laughed awkwardly. “Uh, sorry about that.”
Edie bristled slightly in embarrassment. Walter was refusing to look at her all of a sudden, even though she wasn’t any different. She surreptitiously checked to make sure her nipples weren’t showing through the covering fur, and of course they were not. “Oh, no problem.” she said. She felt an odd satisfaction at the thought that Walter was once more seeing her as a sexually arousing feline. It was still embarrassing to have him looking away, though. Anybody would think her private parts were showing. And she was even more careful to brush her fur so it covered that.
The elevator continued to rise in silence for a moment, then Walter broke the silence. “Yeah, you might say the pictures of Maggie were ‘wow’. I mean, she was my lover at the time, and that kitten is absolutely shameless. She wanted everyone to see those pictures. It was all I could do to keep her looking fairly artistic.”
“Oh, you succeeded, all right.” said Bill. “Amazing work.”
“A little too amazing.” said Walter. “Did I ever tell you what the last straw was?”
“Nope.” said the weasel. Both he and Edie relaxed, seeing Walter begin to talk comfortably again.
“Well, you know that picture of her face over my shoulder? With her eyes closed? That wasn’t the last straw. It was the only picture like that I ever agreed to shoot.”
“You mean..” said Bill.
“Yeah.” said Walter quickly. “You get it. Surprised she didn’t tell you, she told everybody.”
“Told them what?” asked Edie, expecting the answer.
“Let’s just say it was ‘why is this cat smiling?’ and leave it at that, okay?” said Walter, uncomfortably. “The last straw… er… let’s say it was ‘why is this cat smiling and why is the face over her shoulder smiling?’”
Bill burst out in laughter, which he quickly controlled. “Oh, jeez! I might have known. So that was it, huh?”
Edie blinked, and guessed “She wanted a picture of Walter on her back?”
“Edie…” chuckled Bill, “you don’t know Maggie. She wanted a picture of Walter on her front and somebody else on her back.”
“Rick.” snorted Walter in disgust. “That was the last straw.”
“Oh!” giggled Edie. “That’s very, er, daring of her, right? Wouldn’t it be physically demanding?”
“You don’t know Maggie.” chuckled Bill. “I can easily believe she’d want to be locked to two males, instead of just one. She’s unbelievable.”
Edie gulped and looked away, fighting her imagination. Imagination plus memory was a terrible thing, and she desperately wanted to maintain the cozy fiction of prudery. Walter kept becoming more of a friend to her, elbowing out the alternative.
“Bill, you’re embarrassing Kid Sister,” chided Walter. “Quit it or I’ll spank you. We’re almost there.”
“Yeah,” purred Edie, brightening. “You stop that naughty talk or I’ll have my big brother beat you up, so there!”
“Okay, okay!” laughed Bill. “Sheesh, you two are impossible.”
“So anyway,” said Edie, getting back to a safer topic, “were the TV shows exaggerated or not?”
“Seriously?” asked Walter. “You haven’t been here very long. Have you ever been topside?”
“No, I came on board through a sort of service entrance, and Peter met me at the docking area. We went straight to your main dormitory, or whatever it is.”
Walter chuckled quietly. “You’ll have to make up your own mind about that. We’re almost there- here we are.”
The elevator stopped, and the door opened, revealing another dingy corridor. There was a large sign right by the door, and it said ‘POLISH’ in large letters. Somebody had scribbled ‘Fuck off’ over it with permanent marker. Edie boggled at the sign.
Bill noticed her confusion. “Be grateful we get to wear the black sash. The regular topside staff are just about slaves. That sign is to remind them that if they don’t behave with polish and refinement at all times, they’ll be punished. There’s no room for individuality- did you know that some of them are required to speak from phrasebooks? They’re paid very well and for that they have to be virtual robots.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not even slightly. And if we meet any be very nice and be careful what you say. Don’t say anything like ‘I wish I had a little biplane like this only painted silver to match my fur’, if you do it’s very possible that somebody will be ordered to paint one or find one like that. If there are pilgrims watching, it becomes almost certain.”
“You’re kidding!” blinked Edie. “That’s crazy!”
They hadn’t moved from the entrance of the elevator, and Bill turned earnestly to Edie with a glance at Walter. “It’s money, Edie. The pilgrims keep all this going, and you haven’t yet seen what that means, not completely. There are a lot of them and when they pay enough to buy a medium-sized building just for a trip to another star system, they expect to be catered to for the duration, all the more so because the trip takes many months, years for some legs of the journey.”
“Pilgrims?” blinked Edie. “What are these pilgrims, Roman emperors?”
“To the topside staff, yes, exactly…”
Walter interrupted him. “It’s just the topside name for oppies, Edie. You know, old and spiritually delicious and wonderfully enlightened, which is proved by the fact that they own ninety percent of everything not nailed down.”
“Oh, god, those.” grumbled Edie, her ears going back noticably. “They’re not that old, really, they just act superior.”
“Yeah, those, and I’m sure we all feel the same way,” said Bill, “but they’re paying the bills and they know it.”
“Okay, so I can see why they have everyone running scared,” admitted Edie, “but why call them pilgrims, of all things?”
Walter grinned wryly. “Supposedly it’s because they are all on a grand, glorious pilgrimage to other places. The real reason we call them pilgrims is sarcasm. They tend not to notice sarcasm when it’s subtle.”
“So do we have to kowtow to them too?” asked Edie, less than happy about the prospect. “It sounds like it.”
“No, no!” said Walter. “What we do is stay clear of them. If they give orders to you, pretend not to hear. Wear the sash, they do know that black sash wearers don’t count. We’re supposed to be maintenance people, doing very important things behind the scenes, and most of them understand that though they’ll still have you serving drinks if you let them.”
Edie glanced down the dingy corridor. “So that’s why we’re waiting? So you can explain that to me?”
“Mostly to explain what not to do, and to stay out of the way of the topside staff. And the oppies. Hell,” said Walter with amusement, “stay out of the way of everybody. We’re there to see the sights, and…. oh! Don’t tell anybody we were asked to move some bipes. Not a word. We’ll just see them and pretend we just decided to fly around a little. I know where to take them so we won’t need to ask.”
Bill nodded vehemently. “Not a word about the bipes. We’re there just by random chance, we’ll tell ‘em you wanted to see the Z.L.”
With that, Bill headed down the corridor, and Edie and Walter followed.
It was difficult for Edie to describe what was happening… as she continued down the corridor the very air seemed to get fresher, and the walls seemed to be better cared for. As they passed a sort of kitchen, suddenly the walls were wallpapered, and the next thing she knew her paws were sinking into thick shag carpeting. There was a twist in the corridor they were approaching, and a distant babble of voices lifted in cheery shouts, loud demands, drunken slurs. The twist in the corridor grew nearer, and then they were upon it.
Edie staggered, catching hold of Walter’s arm, as she tried to look everywhere at once. Walter chuckled and continued to walk, and Edie padded along with him, wide-eyed in amazement.
It was just like TV, only a lot bigger- that was her first impression. Everything was built on a grand scale, from the swooping, curving bar to the vast, crystalline windows looking out on dizzying vistas, yet even the smallest details reeked of luxury. Outside the windows, it was fairly dark, for there were no nearby stars, yet somehow great swathes of landscape were lit to dramatic effect by light that made the greenery glow with unbearable perfectness. It was all luxurious enough to cause heart failure. It was full of evidently very rich people chattering merrily to each other. Many of them were traditional humans in form, but Edie spotted several felines, one totemized person who seemed to be a kangaroo type, and a very convincing centaur.
Edie pointed in wonder at a particularly striking use of area lighting, and then gasped and stared at her own arm. The color effects on the TV shows had not been special effects- suddenly her own arm was part of the magical spell. Her silver fur seemed to shimmer bewitchingly, looked too beautiful to be real. Edie looked down at her body and the rest of her was equally radiant. She glanced over and saw that even Walter’s shaggy fur had taken on a touch of glamour, and Bill’s looked much like her own. She then noticed both Bill and Walter were staring at her, blinked, and drew away from Walter a little, embarrassed.
“Nice lights,” she said lamely, and then giggled. “I should come here more often.”
Bill elbowed Walter in the ribs, and Walter erked, and stopped staring.
“Get a grip,” said Bill kindly, “I thought this might happen.”
“Uh.” said Walter intelligently. “Well! Shall we go refresh ourselves at the bar, then? Before we go and just happen to find bipes and fly them around?”
“Would they have tea?” asked Edie. “You’re not planning to drink and then fly a biplane, are you?”
Bill grinned. “Edie, he’s a pilot, what do you think? Walter is an ex-military pilot. If we weren’t flying I might have a beer, but where’s the need when I’m in such excellent company?”
“So they’ll have tea?”
“They have everything. Be careful what you ask for! They’ll have something nice on hand, just don’t specify.” said Walter.
They went up to the bar, which was largely unoccupied, as most of the pilgrims were mingling in the ingeniously designed conversation pits. There were a few humans at the bar, a very scruffy coyote with a ring in his ear and a subtly spiked hairdo, and (Edie blinked) a strange birdlike creature, absolutely emaciated but with very nice brightly colored feathers. Walter and Bill picked stools well separated from the other people, and left a stool between them, obviously for Edie’s use.
Before she had even settled her feline bottom on the stool, a bartender was before them, smiling like a movie actor. “Well!” he said. “The usual, Walter and Bill? And…” and he glanced rapidly below the bar, “Edie my dear, what’ll it be?”
“Do you have any tea?” asked Edie, taken aback.
“Just name it.” said the bartender confidently. Walter caught her eye and, almost imperceptibly, shook his head, reminding her.
“I’d like a cup of tea,” purred Edie. “Whatever Earth type you have handy, no special flavorings. Black tea, the regular sort.”
The bartender smiled. “Of course. And it’ll be coffee for you gentlemen?”
Bill nodded. Walter said, “Actually, I’ll try some of the tea. What Edie’s having.”
The bartender zipped off, returning amazingly soon with their tea and coffee. He then took up a position where he could see the whole bar, his eyes scanning his customers deftly and a little huntedly, the smile of a movie star still habitually on his face. Edie studied him and thought she had never seen anybody look more like a jolly bartender. He was almost too perfect to be real.
“How on earth did he know my name was Edie?” whispered Edie to Walter.
“Go on and ask him,” grinned Walter. “He knows we’re staff. He can tell you. In fact you might someday have work to do up here.”
Edie glanced at the bartender questioningly and the man scooted over, ready to serve her. Edie glanced around furtively, and whispered “How did you know my name was Edie? I’m curious.”
The bartender continued to smile, but Edie felt it suddenly become more honest. He leaned over and whispered, “It’s our computer system. Brought you up on the database. Walter and Bill have been here before and ordered coffee. I like you people, underside people tend to stick to stuff we have in.. just a moment..”
He zipped over to the coyote, before Edie even saw the coyote lift a finger. When she looked, she realized that he hadn’t. He looked up at the bartender’s approach, surprised, and then looked at his empty glass, and a coyote grin came over his face, and he nodded.
When the bartender was done serving him, he returned and deftly picked up where he’d left off. “Stuff we have in stock… it’s a big help. If you’re wondering what happened, a sensor told me his glass was empty. Shows up on the readouts, and it’s very useful at busy times. It’s a very sophisticated system.”
Edie glanced at his grizzled hair, and blinked. “That’s not real?”
“Bleached and dyed. Doesn’t matter if a sober person can spot it, it’s for atmosphere. A real old man wouldn’t be as good at handling a drunken centaur if things got physical.”
Edie blinked again. “Seems like you’re ready for everything.”
The bartender chuckled. “I’m paid to be. I should be getting back to ready position unless you need more of my attention.”
“Oh, by all means,” said Edie, and he faded back to his watchful position, scanning the room.
“Wow.” purred Edie softly. “Amazing. I was sort of expecting flunkies.”
Walter chuckled, and Bill drooped a little. “I guess we didn’t tell you everything.” said Bill. “These guys might be absolute puppets, but they are also the best. Period. They’re paid very well, but it’s not just that which keeps them, it’s also the chance to work at the peak of whatever profession they practice. Very few of them quit despite the rigors of the job.”
Walter nodded. “Sometimes we make fun of their being such puppets, but it’s good to remember where they stand, and why they put up with it.”
“But you couldn’t get me to put up with it,” grumbled Bill amiably.
“Hell, you’d never get through the first interviews!” laughed Walter. “You’re underside staff, Bill, there’s no getting around it. Look what happened to Maggie!”
“Yeah.” grinned Bill. “Just goes to show you.”
“Maggie?” inquired Edie, puzzled.
“Maggie originally applied for a job topside,” confided Walter. “Red sash. She didn’t make it but Peter spotted her records and grabbed her for underside work.”
“Oh.”
“So,” continued Walter, “shall we wander off and just happen to discover some little biplanes that need to be flown around and landed somewhere else?”
They got up and Edie followed Walter and Bill through the clusters of pilgrims, toward a sort of hangar-like area open to the outside air. The room was crowded, and she found it tricky to keep up, wriggling around groups of chatting oppies with a deft swing of her feline hips or a sinous twist of her body, her fur shimmering glamorously in the flattering light. As she got past the last group, and began closing the distance between herself and her friends, a hand gently caught hers, turning her around. She let out an eep of surprise, and stopped, looking up at the hand’s owner.
“Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” said the man gently. “Please come this way.” He spoke clearly and reassuringly, though Edie detected a whiff of alcohol on his breath, and his eyes were too bright.
He began striding calmly toward another door, quite relaxed, still holding Edie’s hand. She noticed Bill and Walter, who’d spotted what happened and were trying to rejoin her, but the crowds were in their way and they seemingly didn’t dare shove. Walter looked absolutely horrified.
Edie tugged on the man’s hand. “Who are you? Where are you taking me? Are you staff?”
The man chuckled. “Oh, you’ll like me. And I like you. I’ve never seen a more beautiful cat. I saw the way you moved, and that was it, I knew what I had to do.”
Edie gasped, trying to pull her hand free, as the other door got nearer. “Just what are you implying?”
“I’m going to sink my lovely staff deep in you, kitty.” said the man, with a glitter in his eyes. “I bet you are very tight. Do you squirm? I’d like that. I want to make you yowl in ecstacy. And I’m really wired, I’ll last a very long time, little one.”
Edie squeaked, a little shocked sound, and yanked away frantically. The man whirled. “I like it! Let’s play you’re trying to escape, that would be…” and then he looked over at Walter, who’d made it past the crowds and was rushing over, bristling horribly. Bill was close behind him. “What the hell is this?” said the man, indignantly, as if he was being cheated.
Walter glanced at the bartender, who was looking very worried. Edie backed away until she bumped into Walter, and shivered as Walter’s arm went reassuringly around her.
“Look,” said the man, “I’m a passenger here. I wouldn’t have hurt her, that would ruin it for other people. What the hell is your problem, Fido?”
Walter drew Edie closer, protectively. “Black sash. Not red sash. Please look more closely next time.” His voice was flat and rigidly controlled, his body was tense, and he kept darting glances at the bartender. He turned until his body shielded Edie from the man’s gaze, and together they began easing toward the hangar area.
“Same goddamn difference.” said the man angrily.
“We’re sorry.” said the bartender, seeming to relax a little.
The man withdrew, grumbling, to rejoin his friends, and as Edie left the place she could hear them comforting him, saying “No, they’re right, Robert, I just didn’t want to say anything in case it worked” and chuckling “Can’t blame you for trying, ya rascal- reooow! Ha ha ha.”
Edie pressed close to Walter, shivering, until they’d put some distance between themselves and the bar. She looked up at him. “I want you to tell me right now what job Maggie first applied for.”
“Heh.” said Bill. “You can’t guess?”
Walter snarled, a shockingly vicious sound that startled Edie, and hugged her tightly to him for a moment. “I could have killed that guy.”
“Hey, Walter, take it easy, it was our own stupid fault.”
“No it wasn’t.” Walter glowered. “That guy knew. Same difference, hell.” The hulking wolf looked formidable, and his body was still tense with repressed fight reflexes. Edie could feel the tenseness, and Walter seemed to not want to let her go again, though they were safely away from the scene.
Edie shivered again, letting Walter hold her for a little while, but then decided it was time to move past the current mood. Bill looked unhappy, and Walter was unreachable and furious, so it was up to her, but she suspected she could mend things pretty easily.
“Walter?” purred Edie softly, and when Walter paused and looked down at her, she turned and hugged him affectionately, pressing close to him and purring. Her tail flicked to the left, but she let it, this once, and just let herself go, focusing on how big and strong and wonderful he was and melting into a dreamy embrace. When she felt his body relaxing, she looked up into his eyes, and purred “Thank you.” with great conviction- and backed off, a little unsteadily.
Walter looked like someone had hit him on the head with a rock. “Er, of course.” he said, and then suddenly bristled like mad in embarrassment and turned away. Edie let him, for she knew perfectly well why he had to. She’d felt bulky stirrings against her belly, and had barely broken the clinch in time to spare his dignity.
She padded very slowly away, with Bill by her side, doing her best to regain her own equilibrium, which was shaken more than she cared to admit. As they slowly walked, giving Walter time to catch up when he felt decent again, Bill whispered, “My god. You do understand what you just did to him?”
“Yes.” whispered Edie.
“But…” whispered Bill, “well, I know it worked, but are you sure you intended to go that far? I thought you wanted to avoid that sort of thing.”
“I do.” whispered Edie.
“Then why?” whispered Bill.
“Because I knew it would work.” whispered Edie.
“You okay?” whispered Bill.
“Where did that man go?” joked Edie in a whisper. “I seem to be shivering, maybe he could suggest something to help it.”
Bill burst out laughing, earning a mild glare from Walter who was bringing up the rear.
“I could point you to a nice room…” whispered Bill very quietly. “I wouldn’t mind. I’ll go fly bipes or something.”
“No,” whispered Edie. “I need to think.”
“Be good.” whispered Bill, and then he called out, “Come on, Walter, get a move on. You look fine.”
Edie was immediately reminded of an aircraft hangar, and also of an aircraft carrier. The place was vast, even considering its purpose, and it seemed to be designed so planes could land from many different angles- which, considering the skill of the pilots found flying these planes, might be necessary. It opened to the outside, and near the outer lip the ceiling was extremely high even for an aircraft hangar. However, there was an overhang where the planes were parked, and there the ceiling was very low. Edie considered that this could prevent incoming planes from smashing into the parked planes, decided she was right and that was the purpose of the architecture, and cringed delicately. She decided to ask how bad the amateur pilots were- after they were all back below decks.
The biplanes seemed amazingly tiny, though the wings were fairly large and very thick. The planes were clearly supposed to be in a row… but there were too many of them. They spilled out onto the runway area sloppily, and there was a staff person, a fox type, shuffling them around. He… no, she… was lifting the tails of the biplanes and wheeling them around, trying to make room.
“Hey, Viv,” called Bill, “need a hand?”
“Oh, lord, could you?” said the vixen distractedly. “I have at least one definite incoming and five possibles, and three of those are in a cluster and could all be coming in at once…”
Walter blinked. “How tight a cluster?”
“Too damn tight. Way too tight.”
Edie blinked as Bill and Walter set to work wheeling the biplanes around. She went to help, and was surprised at how light the little airplanes were, and stood fretting and wondering where to tow the one she was wheeling.
The vixen noticed this and called, “Just pack them as densely as possible against the back wall.” She reached up to an intercom-like device at her ear and said, “Mike, Jill, Sky, please allow for space between you in landing- the landing pad is not meant for three planes to land at once. Do you understand?”
“Get back to your control panel, Viv.” said Bill firmly. “We’ll move the bipes.”
“Got it.” said Viv, and scooted back to an alcove in the wall.
Soon the little planes were as organized as they were going to get, and the three joined Viv in the alcove. The control panel there was most impressive- Edie immediately recognized what was going on in the local airspace. She wasn’t surprised to note that there were readouts showing the first names of the ‘pilots’, and also some notes. Three of the colorcoded arrowheads representing planes were very, very close together on the display. It was as if they were practicing stunt formation flying.
Walter spotted it, too. “Those three may not be heading here right away,” he said, “but they need to take more space. They professionals?”
Viv grimaced, a disgusted snarl revealing rows of sparkling vulpine teeth. “Hardly. All three are total novices. They’ve been falling all over the sky. They fly like that until they get near a hill, and then they scramble. It’s like they can’t concentrate on formation and where they’re going at the same time. They won’t listen to me, either. I’m going to have to fill out crash paperwork, I just know it. The med staff are on full alert and have been for over an hour.”
“Let me talk to them.” said Walter firmly. Viv looked at him, shrugged, and handed over her headset. “You’ll see.” she said resignedly.
“Attention!” said Walter, and Edie was startled at his tone. Suddenly his voice was conveying authority, even rank. He continued. “Attention, three planes flying in tight cluster formation in area RHE75! Break formation and proceed towards the valley you see to your right, maintaining a safe distance between your…”
Walter cut off without finishing, looking down at the console with a frustrated glare. He silently removed the headset, and handed it back to Viv, who took it with a sympathetic look.
“They ain’t just high in the air, are they?” said Walter with deep disgust.
“I’m sorry.” said Viv. “I thought they might do that.”
“Do what?” asked Edie.
“They laughed.” snarled Walter. He banged the console savagely with a open hand, making Edie jump. “Damn! I might have made them crash if I’d kept it up. They laughed so hard they couldn’t fly. I heard stall warnings going off. I had to stop.”
“I’m bringing Rob in.” said Viv decidedly. “This has gone far enough.” She pressed some buttons and spoke into the headset. “Rob? I’m afraid I have to officially ask you to come in and land at the Zipline Lounge. We have a situation going on… no, no, there is nothing wrong with your plane or your flying. We have three stoned pilots near your airspace who are potentially a danger… yes, I know it’s not recommended. No, nobody stopped them, and it’s likely that some people over at Vista are in serious trouble over this, but you know we can’t do testing without angering many passengers… No, it’s not that difficult, it’s designed so you can land with a lot of latitude. Lots of people land here. Now, what I need you to do is bank to your… great! You’re the sort of pilot I like to see in our airspace, and I look forward to telling you so in person in about a minute. Right… okay.”
Viv switched off her headset. “That guy’s all right. I’m glad I decided to bring him in, I’d hate to see him tangle with our three cowboys.”
“I can’t believe you got three of them.” remarked Bill.
“Actually,” said Viv with a weak fox-grin, “that’s been useful. They want to fly in formation. I believe they are tripping and are obsessed with formation flying. I have no idea how they all got through at once, but when it’s just one usually it’s a lot wilder. One stoned pilot tends to try and buzz things. Two usually try and dogfight, and usually clip each other and spin down. These three fly mostly straight, in formation, until they are about to crash into something, and then scramble until they have another mostly straight line to go in. The danger is more to other air traffic as these people aren’t really up for handling evasive maneuvers. God knows how we’re going to land them.”
“I don’t envy you your job, Viv.” said Bill.
“Well, look on the bright side.” said Viv. “Here comes Rob.”
Around a distant hill came a biplane, heading for the Zipline Lounge. Ediie blinked- it seemed to be going far too slowly, hanging in the air like a butterfly. Viv played on the control panel, and out of the floor came a network of cords, and then they simply watched as the tiny plane drew nearer.
Viv was on the headset again. “Looking good, Rob. No, you’re lined up fine, there is actually a lot of latitude in your approach, which is intentional. No, that’ll be okay, when I saw your flaps were down I expected you to increase throttle to get here. Your speed is fine. Yes, cut off the throttle now… good… and here you are.”
The plane grew, and as Viv said the last words the tiny biplane was gliding in, right at them and perfectly on line. Edie spotted that the pilot was a wolf person, and the next instant the plane thumped against the landing area. The mesh caught against the landing gear and hooks on the bottom of the plane, and stretched, and the plane was jerked to a stop with gentle force. Almost as soon as it stopped, Viv was up and hurrying toward the plane.
Edie and the others followed, and watched as Viv greeted the pilot, apologizing for the problem while clearing the shock cords from the plane’s landing gear. The pilot, Rob, got out, and looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be upset or delighted. Finally, delighted won. He wandered over toward Walter and Edie and Bill, as if he was still walking on air. “First time!” he said.
“Very fine landing.” said Walter seriously. “Keep it up.”
“Yeah!” added Bill. “And now, why don’t you head in to the lounge and relax for a while? If it was your first landing, you picked a tough place to do it.”
“I know!” grinned Rob. “I never meant to land here. But your controller lady wanted me to try, I had to try.”
“Well,” purred Edie, “congratulations, you did it.” She gave him a pretty smile.
Rob drew himself up to his full height, almost as tall as Walter, grinning ear to ear, and unexpectedly saluted Walter, then Bill, and then he bowed deeply and formally to Edie. With that, he turned and strode happily off toward the lounge.
Edie looked back to where Viv had untangled the mesh and was towing the plane back towards the storage area. “This isn’t actually a tough place to land. Just intimidating. I didn’t realize how slowly they moved in flight.”
Walter grinned. “I’m glad you didn’t tell him, because now he feels like he did something amazing. But you’re right, of course. This landing pad could just about handle one of our subs coming in, but the bipes are so light and the chord of the wings is so fat that they can almost hover in place. All the landing strips are designed in case the pilot forgets he has flaps and also comes in on light engine power.”
Viv called over from her control panel. “Our cowboys are heading over towards Green Hills. Now might be a good time for you to take off, if that’s what you were planning.”
“It just so happens we were,” called Walter in reply. “Any preference which planes we take?”
“There are two staff bipes up here,” called Viv. “If you could get them out of here it would be great, sometimes there are pilgrims who have heard about them and try to con me into letting them take staff bipes out. Which of course I can’t let them do.”
“Got it.”
The vixen continued. “Edie, I’m going to suggest that you take the pilgrim bipe. That’s because I can’t know anything about your abilities, it’s not a judg… what?”
Edie was looking faintly affronted, and Walter looked greatly amused.
“I think I’ll take that one.” said Bill resignedly. “I never claimed to be that great a pilot. It’ll still be fun.”
Viv glanced back and forth between them, foxish smile flickering in and out. “I missed something, but how badly did I miss it?”
“Edie wrote Auger In.” grinned Walter. “Heard of it?”
“Oh, now come on, I didn’t write it all myself!” protested Edie,
The vixen blinked. “You’re kidding! Really? Welll…” she smirked, “if that’s true… I’ll give you priority airspace anytime you want, if you’ll tell me some Auger In codes. Please?”
“Aaaaa!” yowled Edie, only half jokingly. “Everybody asks that. There are no codes! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to freak out at you, but there are no codes for Auger In. Not the sort you’re talking about.”
Viv drooped. “I’m sorry, Edie.”
“How about this?” purred Edie, relenting. “The internal switches for turning buildings to wireframes. You can also turn the landscape to wireframe but then it gets ridiculous. In wireframe you can fly through everything. It’s a programmer’s aid for aligning polys.”
“Sure! Why not?” said Viv, brightening.
“Okay- it’s option-D, option-E, option-V, and then B or L or P, then W. You can also go to F for flat polys with no textures, or T for textures but no smoothing, and so on, but that only duplicates the existing control panel. W is the wireframe views, and they are not available in the control panel because the collision detection for shots goes crazy when you use wireframe, and goes away entirely for your plane.”
Viv laughed. “You’re over my head, kitty, but thank you. Is there anything useful you can do with it?”
Edie giggled. “You can turn landscape to wireframe and fly under it to sneak up on somebody. If they see you actually doing it Auger crashes. And if you fire even one round up through the landscape, Auger crashes when the shot reaches the surface and tries to impact on the wrong side of the poly. But if you can get back up through the landscape without anyone watching, you can use it to sneak up on another net player. Frankly, the most likely situation is that somebody has you on their screen, and then everybody crashes. This visual mode was never made for gameplay.”
“Okay, I believe you.” said Viv. “Maybe I’ll try it. Anyway, I guess you rate a staff bipe all right… When you head out aim for the valley to the right, that will keep you clear of our cowboys. And wish me luck! I’m afraid we’ll need it.”
“You’ll do okay.” stated Walter. “You always did.”
Viv looked pleased. “Yessir.”
“Sir?” blinked Edie.
“Well, what else would you call an officer?” grinned Viv.
Walter looked oddly embarrassed, somehow. “Sergeant.” he explained gruffly. “No concern of yours, Edie.”
They split up and picked out the bipes they’d be flying, and Edie pondered things, primarily Walter. Why hadn’t he mentioned this? Edie, towing the biplane into a takeoff position and hopping into the cockpit, imagined Walter being a sergeant. Walter, striding around giving orders, perhaps a drill sergeant- but then Viv hadn’t seemed intimidated at all. Perhaps the sort of caring, tough sergeant one saw in movies, winning the hearts of his troops and leading them in their duties- she could see Walter in that role quite easily.
Edie suddenly realized Walter was staring at her, and a dreadful blush bristled her fur as she realized the direction her thoughts were leading her. He was still trying not to provoke her, trying to seem innocuous and big-brotherly, but she hadn’t realized how much of a stretch that was. Seeing his friends teasing him didn’t prepare her for understanding that his background was one of power and authority, though seeing him confront Peter should have given her a clue.
“We should follow Bill out,” he said, “since our planes are more powerful. Let him lead the way so he doesn’t get left behind. Sound good?”
Edie nodded.
“What were you thinking? You were staring into space.”
“Nothing.” replied Edie, reminding herself that she had not been fantasizing about Walter making love to her or sweeping her off her feet commandingly. That was just the direction her thoughts were heading, and she knew they hadn’t gotten there yet because her nipples were still hidden under silver fur, not peeking out. Small blessings… balanced against big distractions. She would have to do something about her wandering thoughts. Edie reproved herself bitterly for hugging Walter the way she had, earlier. Wrong message, and the wrong person for that sort of thing… it made things very difficult. Very difficult.
Walter had taken her at her word, and was firing up the engine of his biplane, watching Bill take off. Edie blinked, for she hadn’t even noticed it. The engines made tiny whines, like miniature versions of the subs’ turbines. They were far more muffled, presumably because quiet operation was one of the key points in the design of these topside vehicles. As Walter took off, she started her own engine and followed him.
She fell in beside Walter, behind Bill, and smirked gently as she realized they were in a tight formation themselves. Almost at the same moment, there was a shrill beep from the radio and Alice’s voice said, “Could you break it up a little? Everyone’s watching for a three-plane tight formation and you might confuse them.”
“Okay,” called Edie, and snapped her biplane nimbly to the right, pulling the throttle lever back all the way. The engine whined and there was a eager whoosh from the twin ducts that powered the tiny craft.
Edie marvelled at the difference between these craft and the underside subs. The subs were formidable, as coldly efficient and dangerous as a scalpel or chisel. One could get to love them for their sheer effectiveness. But these! Even with the staff version adding performance capacity, these biplanes were all personality and no ability. They showed strong intentions to remain on a straight course, requiring constant input to turn or tilt.
Edie examined the interior of the craft, learning more and more in the process. In stark contrast to the lean, high-bandwidth control panels of the subs, these bipes had virtually no instrumentation, and what there was appeared to be antique wood and brass only. It was too much to believe that the instruments actually were antiques- they were surely replicas, if that- the design seemed not old enough to qualify as a replica.
At any rate, the stylistic difference between the subs and these bipes was staggering. It left Edie with a puzzlingly fugitive feeling, that she searched after for a moment, and then identified: she’d visited a WWII sim fancier once, and felt culture shock at his computer flight environment. Her controls tended towards the modern and always had- and then suddenly she was immersed in an antique-plane environment, and the strange limitations of the Auger In WWII models suddenly took on real and palpable life around her, in a way that had never seemed appropriate when handling modern controls and sitting in a modern force-feedback flight-seat.
When she’d finished for the day, she’d wanted to go back the next day to fly the old rattletrap some more, but the fellow was a net-sim addict and he had responsibilities to patrol the borders of C country for a certain number of hours each day, so she gave up arguing.
Now she found herself in an aircraft that hinted tantalizingly of many themes of antiquity- yet it boasted a luxury level that was completely alien to the old warplanes she was reminded of.
“Edie!” called Walter, and she looked up, startled. How close was he?
Walter waved, at a safe distance. “We’re going to head this way so you can see the Airwalk. We’ve cleared it with control, special treat. Come on.” He banked away, and Edie followed, noting to herself that the biplanes, too, featured binaural broadcast. Sophisticated binaural intercom localization and brass altimeters. Quite a contrast- only on Aquarius could you find this strange and expensive blend of modern technology and archaic luxury.
As the three planes passed through a valley and began to bank around a mountain, Walter cautioned her. “Keep steady, Edie, and follow us.” She didn’t at first understand this strange warning- what else would she be doing?
The artificial mountainside gave way revealing a long ribbon stretching out into space, reaching endlessly across to another mountain in the distance. Edie boggled at it, remembering- the Airwalk, one of the many unnatural wonders of this world, the long main street of pricey shops and posh cafes floating in air. Just as she started to wonder what held it up, the world exploded with diagonal streaks of light reaching from the Airwalk to the sky, and then it was gone again. Edie gasped, remembering, tensing. Heavy monofilaments. Almost invisible, but deadly to air traffic. Where?
“Get down under the Airwalk,” said Walter. “The lines are above it in a ninety-degree arc. We’re a bit close but we should still be all right. We’ll fly under it, real casually, and land in the valley past this one.”
“How dense is it up there?” asked Edie nervously.
“Don’t even think about it. It’s a real web up there. I know- I’ve had to fly a bipe up to inspect moorings. When you get right up by the roof it’s not so bad really- the moorings are regular. Nothing compared to the Luge.” called Walter, from his bipe.
“The Luge?” called Edie.
“I’ll show you later. Not in a bipe- bipes aren’t allowed within miles of it. Picture a roller coaster with no supports. It’s all held together with mono lines to the ceiling, going off at all angles. Pretty nuts.”
Edie just nodded, following the other two safely down below the Airwalk and onward to their landing place. Looking around her at the unimaginable vistas that were to become her home, it seemed that her life here was destined to be woven from fairy-dust, surrounded with miracles, worked in magic.
“Well, she isn’t doing it right, Artie dear. Must want tutoring, she’s doing it so wrong it has to be a plea for attention. I think she’s trying to get in your pants. I know the type.” said Maggie sweetly.
Edie’s first shift wasn’t going easily. Arthur, who turned out to be the supervisor, was completely tuned out, trying to decipher the subtleties of some obscure interaction between networking protocols and a time-based glitch in the sub-router T-gate. Edie herself was thrown in at the deep end, asked to work with Maggie to get traffic around the ailing topology so a proper diagnosis could be effected. And Maggie- well, Maggie whiffed of heat, was extremely agitated, and was sniping at Edie every chance she got, for no immediately apparent reason. It was going to be a very long day.
“Okay,” tried Edie, “what am I doing wrong, Maggie? You know this better than I do.”
“That’s right. You can’t re-route like that. It’s going to go, fweeeeeee-BOOM and we are going to have mission-critical data all over the floor. Just step aside, let me handle this.”
Edie’s ears flattened. “I was asked to help you with it…”
Maggie’s ears were already laid back in obvious hostility. “You can’t. Get out of the way.”
Arthur looked up momentarily at the two bristling felines. “Maggie, stop that.” He resumed his trance again.
Edie swallowed back the sour taste that was creeping up her throat. “I’ll route it manually.”
“No, I will route it manually…” stated Maggie.
“No,” persisted Edie, “you need to merge it again past the traffic problem, and you know it. You’re the one who knows what gets to which busses. All I need to do is ride the splitter to keep the flow manageable. Three splits should get around this problem. Right?”
Maggie paused, glowering, and suddenly said “Do it. On three.” She took a position at a well-worn keyboard, attention so locked on a high-scan screen that her body seemed to vibrate with pent-up tension. “One. Two.” she said, and Edie scrambled to her own position. “Three!”
For half an hour there was nothing but the sound of tense breathing and the chatter of keyboards being hammered at. The two cats wrestled with a data-stream that was like a high-pressure hose, impossibly deflecting it while the strangely quiet Arthur peered at the faulty router software in the resulting lull, as if there was all the time in the world. Again and again, the temporary linkages would saturate, and just before they did, Edie would divert traffic to a new path and Maggie would catch it as it came through and weave it into the complex dance of purpose her data was undergoing. There was no time to blink. The warning signs were coming barely in time, even over the two hundred hertz high-speed scan CRTs. And all the while, Arthur wandered about, poking at bits of router, humming absently to himself, his eyes not registering the presence of either desperately struggling feline.
Finally, he typed in some commands, then some more, and with a little flourish, struck return, and Edie’s router paths dropped instantly to zero load. Edie knew better than to look up from the screen, for it could be only a fluctuation. Arthur noticed this with amusement, as he glanced back and forth from one tense feline to another. Neither would be the first to risk looking up.
“You’re done.” said Arthur, smiling. “Go get a cup of tea at the Cafe. That’s enough for one day. I can handle anything else that comes up, I promise.”
Edie blinked- when Arthur had said they were done, Maggie had collapsed over her keyboard in a heap. Edie began to get up and quietly depart, but Arthur cleared his throat.
“No.” he said, “not alone. Both of you helped fix this, I want both of you to go decompress. I saw what was happening, and you need to talk anyhow. Please? Now, go help Maggie. She’ll need help walking.”
“She won’t take it from me.” argued Edie.
“Yes, she will.” said Arthur gently. “Go.”
At his prompting, Edie stepped uncertainly over toward the stricken Siamese, wondering what to do. Arthur joined her, and prodded Maggie gently on the shoulder, producing a faint, rather pathetic mew.
“Maggie, Edie is going to take you to the Cafe for a cup of tea.” said Arthur, firmly.
“Don’t want a cup of tea.” whined Maggie weakly.
“Yes you do,” he said. “You always have a cup of tea after these things happen.”
“Don’t want to have it with her,” complained Maggie.
“Oh, now, she doesn’t want my help.” protested Edie. “I told you so.”
“That doesn’t matter.” said Arthur, in vexation. “She’s showing inexplicable bugs and you are going to solve them. I won’t have my people behaving this way, so run along, and you’re ordered to talk to each other and come to an agreement. I don’t care what the problem was, I just want it gone. You’re capable of being a great team and I refuse to waste that in personality conflicts. Go settle your differences, come back tomorrow with purrs and happy faces.”
Arthur hoisted Maggie to her feet, pushed her against Edie, and pulled Edie’s arm around the tiny Siamese catgirl. “There. Now go have tea, and leave me to my work.”
He watched, stubbornly, until the two felines were actually out the door.
As Edie padded awkwardly down the corridor, thankful that the lab they’d been working at wasn’t too distant, she concentrated on keeping Maggie upright. The tiny Siamese was barely able to proceed, her little body shivering violently, her legs trying to give way every few steps. Finally, they arrived at the Cafe, which was sparsely populated at mid-day, and Edie parked Maggie at a secluded table, went off, and returned with tea and some semi-appropriate junk food. She shook Maggie very gently, as the kitten had passed out again, and she sat across from Maggie and wondered where to begin. Finally, she just said, “So what happened?”
“Sometimes he would carry me…” said Maggie blearily.
“What?” blinked Edie, confused.
“Oh, it’s all right, it’s just my right to hate you for it,” said Maggie, “surely you must understand that. I had him first, dear.”
Edie’s heart began to pound. “Walter.”
“You won’t keep him, you know. He has funny notions about love. I would swoon away when he’d come to the lab, at times like today’s, and carry me home in his arms when I couldn’t walk… it was like I didn’t weigh anything at all to him…”
“You almost don’t,” said Edie, trying to divert the conversation.
“And then, instead of sitting here, alone, shaking… well, I don’t have to tell you, do I, kitty?” said Maggie bitterly. “I’m quite sure you know. Rick says you’re an EI too. Tell me, have you had all of him yet? It took me two weeks to get him to bury himself in me all the way. But perhaps he learned from that, perhaps you got every inch of that glorious bulk right away without having to beg and wheedle…”
“Maggie, stop.” said Edie, horrified, her hand beginning to shake.
“Why should I? It’s the only pleasure I can get from him anymore. Reminiscing. I am just feeling sick and rotten and jealous and I want you to wince, darling, to cringe at what you’re doing. Do you love the way he is so blunted for a canid? The way he has to shove to enter you, that huge blunt tip tucking into you and stretching you all at once?”
“Maggie, damn it, stop!” begged Edie, shaking. “You don’t understand!”
“How could I not understand?” said Maggie bitterly. “What part don’t I understand? The wild, heady dizziness of his movings inside me? The knot expanding until I was nearly fainting? The gushers of his release and the eager hunching motions he can’t repress? What part don’t I understand?”
Edie bit her lip, tears leaking from her eyes. She now smelt as bad as Maggie, and it made her want to run away and hide. The unwanted intimacy was not something she could defend against, it played on fantasies she couldn’t discard. Her arousal hurt, and it hurt badly.
“He won’t make love to me.” managed Edie, finally, for lack of any better way to explain it- and Maggie’s eyes glanced up suddenly, went to Edie’s eyes in startlement and confusion.
“What did you say?” said Maggie uncertainly.
Edie wiped away a tear of tension and frustration, feeling like she had no control at all over what was happening. “It’s a little complicated, but he won’t make love to me. You’re wrong, and don’t ever talk like that again! Don’t you know what it does?”
Maggie blinked. “Let me get this straight. You are, in fact, EI.”
Edie nodded.
“You’ve spent a lot of time with him recently, and he is just about ready to fight to defend your honor.”
Edie thought, and nodded again, wiping away another tear.
“But he has never made love to you.”
Edie shook her head. “Never!”
“Are you in love with him?” asked Maggie.
Edie whimpered faintly, and Maggie looked her over and said “Don’t even answer that. Do you have another lover here somewhere?”
Edie shook her head. Maggie began to look distinctly alarmed.
“What is your rating, Edie, and when was the last time you had lovemaking?”
“f… Four thousand, and two and a half months ago.” stammered Edie.
Maggie’s jaw dropped, and she reached out in a flash, clasping Edie’s paw with her own. “Oh my God. What have I done? You poor baby…”
“I want to go home,” managed Edie, and then she burst into tears.
Maggie struggled to her feet. “Oh, my God, baby, how can I ever… look, we’re going to get you home, then I will fetch anybody you want, and I’ll skulk off and probably find Rick…”
Edie didn’t want to get up, she wanted to stay crying on the table, but Maggie stubbornly set about getting her home. The little Siamese’s legs wobbled heavily, but it didn’t take too much effort- eventually they found Edie’s room, and Edie blindly, fumblingly unlocked the door and stumbled in. Maggie hesitantly followed, watching as Edie collapsed on the couch.
“Should I go?” asked Maggie. Edie shook her head, sobbing.
Maggie sat next to the weeping kitten, holding her and providing a furry shoulder to soak up tears. She petted Edie, softly and tenderly,and eventually Edie’s sobs quieted. Then, suddenly, Edie gasped and pulled away.
Maggie blinked. “That was only nipples, honey, petting down one row. Was that wrong? I understand girl cats. I can heal your hurts.”
Edie shivered, staring through wide, tear-streaked eyes. “Please, no? I don’t want you to make love to me. Maybe you should go now.”
Maggie blinked again, then again. “You’re a strange kitty, Edie. You mean that, do you? I won’t touch you there again. Unless you ask me to.”
“…good,” said Edie weakly, “because I still need a hug that isn’t dirty.”
Maggie said nothing in reply, just hugged Edie close for a few minutes in silence. Then, she murmured, “You need to do something about this, Edie-kitty.”
“Can’t.” sniffled Edie.
“Yes you can, and you will. Are you going to be okay to sleep, Edie?”
Edie simply nodded.
“Good for you. I’m sure not- I’ll probably settle for Rick if I can’t get anybody really good. No more crying?”
“Not right now,” said Edie softly.
“That will have to do. Poor kitten…” purred Maggie. “You don’t know how much I wish I could help you now.”
Edie blinked. “You hurt, but you also helped.”
“That,” purred Maggie, “is not what I meant.” She reached out to tickle one of Edie’s exposed nipples, caught herself in the act, and stopped herself. “I think I had better get away from here, sweet and moral kitten, because you aren’t the only one who needs soothing. You’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be all right.” said Edie quietly.
Maggie got up, wobbly but able to walk, and she padded to the door with the familiar gait Edie had seen her first night in the Cafe, prowling fluidly, tail held to the side without shame. She glanced back at Edie as if hoping for some kind of invitation, and when she did not get one, she was out the door with the flicker of a half-smile, and the wafting of feline perfumes which lingered impossibly, lingered until Edie figured out she was picking up her own.
Edie was so exhausted, she crawled over to her bed and simply collapsed. By the time she’d decided her body was too sexually excited to get any sleep without first reaching orgasm, she had fallen asleep anyway, and so her tensions worked themselves out in a series of wildly, feverishly vivid dreams, most of which were about Walter.
The other one was about Maggie, but Edie did not remember it past the moment.
The endless corridors of Aquarius could be very intimidating. Unswerving, cavernous, unlit except by remotely operated computer control, sterile and forever empty in a formidably unnatural way, the corridors stayed quite empty most of the time, with the staff of Aquarius tending to congregate near living areas as if huddling away from the distressing space of the corridors.
It was said that some weird person, shortly after Aquarius began its duties, had painted everything within a fifty yard section of corridor fluorescent pink, using a powerful spray gun. Granted, there wasn’t much to paint but wall panels and ceiling and floor. This section of corridor was still out there somewhere, and Peter confirmed it but would not give the location, saying that it would ruin some people’s hobbies to reveal the place.
Realizing that there were people who’d spent some years roaming Aquarius looking for a fifty yard section of corridor painted pink, and not finding it, really brought home the immensity of the place. It wasn’t simply the thousands of miles it sometimes took simply to get from one place to another, or the density of cross-corridors, sometimes only every hundred yards or so: the layout was also in three dimensions in many places, resulting in an average of three levels at any given point, though two was more common and some places boasted as many as forty levels, all of them echoingly, sterilely empty, a nightmare of solitude and personal insignificance.
On the other hand, thought Edie, when your personal life was far too complicated and your head was far too busy, the corridors were quite soothing in their uncompromising emptiness.
She turned aside onto 16F3-A8B8-C67B-3, more familiarly known by those who knew it at all as 16F3-A8B8-C67B, since level three was the main traffic level in the entire 1AC sector. Her paws ached and she focussed on walking steadily, with only a mile to go until she got back to where her sub was parked. Judging from her reflection she was maintaining a good prowl, actually rather attractive in her catgirl way, though the mirror not only had her looking yellow but was showing her back by mistake.
Mirror? Edie looked again. Of course there was no mirror: somebody else was also walking this corridor, another cat. She watched for a minute, curious, padding along very quietly to remain unnoticed, watching the other cat walk. She- no, it was David, Rick’s steady boyfriend, and somehow this decided her. She stealthily approached, ducked aside into an alcove which showed a cargo lift was available for use, and pressed the button, making the doors open and pretending she was exiting the lift.
“Oh! Hello.” she purred, as he turned. “Am I intruding?”
“Uh.” replied David, since the answer was apparently ‘yes’. “Er, well, I…”
Edie was taken aback, suddenly becoming aware that he was roaming such obscure corners of Aquarius for reasons like her own- privacy for private and difficult thoughts. She started to feel vulnerable again, her bit of social engineering falling apart mockingly, and she stammered, “P.. perhaps I’d better go?”
“No, wait,” said David. “What are you doing here?”
“Well… what are you doing here, then?”
“Asked you first,” he purred, with the hint of a halfsmile, though his eyes remained troubled.
Edie gave up. It was only fair to admit it. “Walter.” she replied simply, guessing that he’d figure it out. He nodded and in turn answered, “Rick.”
“Though,” he added, “I’m tempted to argue with you, because you’re not doing Walter at all. At least, I don’t think so…”
“And others do?” blinked Edie, rather affronted. It was true that Aquarius seemed a likely place to find gossip, but she hadn’t really thought about it very much. She wondered just how often her behavior was being discussed.
David was clearly a bright cat and followed all this without further clues- he appeared to be deciding whether to apologize or affront her further, and finally shrugged, the second idea winning out. “Absolutely. Why do you think I’m even here? Rick is driving me crazy, talking about you. He can’t get over the fact that you spurned him. He can’t talk about anything else, it seems. It’s become a popular subject. It’s become a lottery, even.”
“You’re kidding.” managed Edie.
“You don’t know Aquarius very well,” replied David. “Geez- sorry. That really bothers you, does it? If it helps, I bet that you aren’t, though I guess that’s partly because Rick is so stubbornly convinced that you are. Foxes!”
Edie sighed. “I’m afraid it does. You’re right. I mean, you’re right that I’m not sleeping with Walter, but you’re also right that it helps, your believing in me. How much do they know?”
“Huh?” said David. “Oh- believing that you’re not sleeping with him. As far as the people doing the lottery? People really don’t understand what’s going on, that’s why they find it so interesting. You’re an EI lady cat, but everything about you is unlike, well, Maggie for instance…”
“Good.” commented Edie.
“Now wait a second, she’s one of my best friends!”
“No, I mean…” sputtered Edie, then sighed. “You’re right. I’m not good at being fair to her. That’s not how I grew up, you know, and all my life my biggest fear has been acting like she acts. I don’t suppose you’d understand?”
“I did bet that you weren’t sleeping with him,” David pointed out. “I think I do understand.”
“But you’re with Rick!” blurted Edie, and David winced.
“Now you don’t understand. Do you see me acting like Rick often acts? Have you ever seen me act that way?”
“Certainly not… but if he hurts your feelings and doesn’t fit you then why do you stay with him?” asked Edie.
David unexpectedly giggled. “He barely fits. You wouldn’t know that part.” He became serious again, quickly. “How far does your, uh… dignity? go? I mean, do you believe all people must pair off in couples and be monogamous, or is it simply that public lewdness offends your sensibilities?”
Edie, rather off-balance, tried to explain. “It’s not dignity. Well… I see what you were trying not to say. I suppose I act like a prude, but I have my reasons. I haven’t been monogamous, but where I came from it was already pretty perverse to not be monagamous… but I had my work, and I guess I took the easy way out…”
David was nodding. “You sort of understand. Listen- I have my work too, but more than that, sometimes I can’t cope with being there for what you might call a ‘mate’. I choose to be poly, and I am choosy, but who is the main squeeze? Rick, because I can trust him to not want to tie me up. Well…” he chuckled, “in a way I want that, and in another way he sometimes wants to and I prefer not to play that way, but you get the idea, don’t you? With Rick I’m free. Hell, he’s held my paw while… but you wouldn’t care about that.”
“What?” blinked Edie, typically prey to curiosity.
“Well, imagine a wuf who’d fit me like Walter’d fit you,” suggested David, and then blinked himself, seeing her wince at the remark, figuring it out. “Oh. It’s not that you don’t want him, is it? Maybe I don’t understand enough.”
“No,” admitted Edie. “You understand a lot, though. But I guess you don’t understand why I’m not sleeping with him, because I’m beginning to lose sleep and concentration over him and can’t think of anyth… anyone else!” She bristled in embarrassment and turned away.
David gently reached over, finger under her chin, turning her to face him. Her eyes glistened with repressed tears and tension, and she trembled, meeting his gaze in silence, wanting to flee, wondering what he could say to break the terrible silence.
He said, softly, “Could you deal with a hug from a gay cat?” and suddenly she was in his arms weeping bitterly, shaking. “I’m so bad!” she sobbed. “I can’t control it! Please, please don’t tell anyone?”
“Can’t control what?” asked David gently, petting her scruff, her back, with an oddly non-sexual tenderness.
Edie sniffled. “Don’t tell anyone. I keep thinking about his… I want his sex… It’s Maggie’s fault, she told me so much about him that now I can’t sleep at night, but whenever I see him I have to be nice because we get along well and we’re good friends and he feels the same way I do…”
“I bet,” chuckled David. “What’s bad about that? I can see that something must be very bad about it, but you should tell me what it is, because I don’t know without your telling me.”
Edie pulled away for a moment to look into his eyes, startled. “No… I suppose you don’t know, do you? But you said people know I am EI, because of Rick, I suppose.”
“That’s right. There’s a problem with that? You must be afraid of how you might act if you were too overwhelmed by it? Doesn’t fit your persona?”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s a sickness.”
“No it’s not, and be careful to not say that around Maggie,” began David, but Edie interrupted him desperately. “It is! I know, that doesn’t apply here, but you can’t understand! I grew up with dangerous EI in a culture that would have stamped it out of me if they’d only known. I became such a good computer programmer, and such a good girl, because I had something to hide…” she broke off, rather overwhelmed at the sudden outpouring of emotion, the venting of her secret history.
David hugged her gently and cautiously. “Tell me more. I’m beginning to understand.”
“I sort of knew about it- other children told jokes, you know. They weren’t very nice jokes. But I’ll never forget that night when I knew for sure… I’d been increasingly edgy all week and couldn’t settle down, and kids even made jokes about me, saying that I was catching EI and could they have my phone number, which window was mine, that kind of thing…” and she paused again. David hesitated, then prompted her gently, “And?”
“I woke up and I was shivering even though it wasn’t cold, and I had a terrible itch- in my pussy.” admitted Edie, “and all my nipples were standing up, and I should have known, but I was still half asleep, and before I really understood what I was doing, I… scratched. Oh, God, did that wake me up- suddenly I was wide awake and so aroused I wanted to scream, to yowl at the top of my lungs and go out and… well, you know. And I could wake up my parents and they would take me to the emergency room, and I knew that, but that would take time and I was just simply going to die right there and… and there was this candle.”
David repressed a chuckle, because he knew how purely jealous Rick would be of him at this moment. He also knew how important this was to Edie, and let her continue when she felt okay with it. For a minute he thought the horrible admission, that there was (gasp) a candle being used for carnal purposes, had rendered her mute, but eventually she continued, as if she had to tell the whole dreadful story or burst.
“It was a… thick candle. I tried pushing it against me and it wouldn’t go, and I remember whittling the edges off it frantically, horribly afraid somebody would come in even though it was three-thirty in the morning. I was stepping over the line and I knew it, and the shame was unbelievable but I told myself I was going to die if I didn’t deal with it, that I’d never even make it to the emergency room. And I sprawled on my bed, shaking and breathing hard, and…”
Edie unexpectedly giggled, purring at the mere memory. “Well, my God! That was when I knew I was an outlaw. It still didn’t fit, and I went crazy with a throttled yowl and forced it into me, and oh my God! The next thing I knew, I was writhing on my bed, mewling and biting my lip as I clamped on the thing like I was exploding. The top of my head was just about coming off from orgasms, it was unbearably intense. I was bristling all over in surges, which I didn’t even know was possible. I bit my lip until it bled, somehow managed to not scream out… let it subside long enough to listen and be sure nobody was coming for me… and, uh… well, I didn’t sleep at all that night. I started experimenting with how that candle felt when it actually moved in me, and I spent several hours in continuous orgasm, and slunk into the bathroom bowlegged before anyone else got up, to cover up what I’d done. That day I stole deodorant from the store… and my life was never the same again.”
David didn’t repress the chuckle this time. “I’ll say!”
Edie giggled, herself, and purred smugly. “Well, can you blame me? Swear you won’t tell anybody?”
“But, Edie,” said David, “it doesn’t matter here. I promise I won’t tell Rick, okay?”
“Don’t tell anybody!” begged Edie. “It matters to me.”
“But surely eventually there were people who knew? You never dated, had lovers? Ever?”
“No no… I had that. But I had to handle it a special way- because I knew when they made love to me they would know. I’d done some reading and researched it and I knew I was right up at the danger point… well, over it… and, well, you know whores? Well, it turned out that cat whores with EI like mine could charge literally anything. There were freelance cat whores out there who were positively rich because of the way they went mad when a male plugged into them. Sometimes you heard about one in the hospital with heart failure- her heart would give out from the intensity of it, and they’d bring her back and, well, spay her for her own good, and you’d see a rich cat whore weeping brokenheartedly on the evening news, because of what they took from her when they gave her back her life. I had to sympathize, but of course I didn’t dare admit it…”
“But you said you did have lovers?” blinked David, confused.
“I slummed.” admitted Edie, turning her face away. “I slunk off to bad places and bad people- and I would find a lover, seduce him, and swear him to secrecy. It didn’t matter because they would never know where I lived, but even when I was slinking down to the docks to be humped by a wolf with a knot the size of both of my fists held together, I wasn’t about to have his friends know it. I picked well- I had to. None of them exposed me. I only changed lovers when one got killed, or drank himself to death, or went crazy and wanted to marry me. One teased me one night until I almost had heart attacks like the cat whores on the news, and I dropped him for it. One found out where I lived… and he died when the police came for him… I should have known they would shoot. Of course I had to seem relieved about it… I had to learn not to care much for any of these lovers, because they would come to bad ends. I think they are all dead now.”
David seemed stunned. “Unbelievable. Your life was like that?”
“Is.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was eyeing Rick, only he’s obviously a talker. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a good male, preferably a wolf for that archetypical male-female thing you can get with a wolf and a cat, preferably really hung, and he has to be quiet. I can’t help it- I can’t stop, and I’m getting pretty desperate. I’m still looking for a wolf like that, to slum with in secret.” admitted Edie.
“Like Walter?” asked David unthinkingly.
Edie abruptly burst into tears again. “No! I’m in love with Walter!” she wailed, and wept, clinging to David hopelessly.
“Oh, my God.” he breathed quietly to himself. “I thought I had problems…”
Work was slow. It often was in the computer industry- Edie knew quite well how maintenance ended up being either hysterical scrambling in desperation, or utter boredom. She had no priority design work to do, was bored with Quake Eternal (as Maggie trounced her regularly- the tiny Siamese turned into a terrifyingly cunning predator on the virtual playing fields), and was even bored with Auger In, as she’d just spent four hours teaching a delighted Maggie and Arthur how to sideslip violently enough to get into the giant sewer systems, and how to read the direction signs inside it to avoid flying into a dead-end and crashing.
And so, bored out of her restless feline mind, and edgy with the first hints of a wave of estrus to deal with, she began to take Maggie into her confidence, in such a roundabout way that the little Siamese was totally perplexed, at first, over what Edie was trying to reveal.
“Does David keep secrets?” blinked Maggie. “Not that I know of. He’s actually quite honest and reliable. I mean, he is a little quiet, but that’s just him. If you got to know him, maybe he would open up to you more. Don’t worry, he’s a yowler not a grunter, you don’t have what he wants in a lover…”
Edie headed the smaller catgirl off at the pass. “No, no! I meant, if I confided in him, would he have told everyone, or would he keep it to himself?”
Maggie hardly hesitated. “Hmmm! Well, you can’t tease me like that- what did you confide?”
Edie went silent, and the little Siamese waited unperturbed, then coaxed, “I’ll keep secrets if they are important. I just don’t keep any of my own, dear.”
“I’m all right,” said Edie. “It’s just hard to start talking about this.” She glanced around as if to spot secret listening devices, and went on. “You know about how I am EI?”
“Yes, but that’s not a secret. Is it that you’ve finally taken up with Walter? Is that your secret?”
“That’s my problem,” purred Edie wearily. “I only told this to David. I guess I’ll just tell you, because I certainly don’t know what to do. Do you know what slumming is?”
Maggie listened, fascinated, as Edie went on, and didn’t even try to interrupt as the silver catgirl, sitting pertly and looking utterly proper, told of sneaking off to secretly meet with lovers down by the docks- of playing with wolf-pack biker gangs and ‘pulling the train’, of the terrible strain of maintaining a double life and the irresistible lure of that wilder side… and by the time Edie was done, the tiny Siamese looked faintly stunned, even though she tried to hide it.
Finally, she spoke. “You’ve lived some stuff I’ve only play-acted. What is it like?”
“It’s very tiring,” answered Edie.
“But I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this. I don’t understand why you hide it like you do. You have to be yourself, after all. Are you ashamed?” inquired Maggie, puzzledly.
“Very much!” admitted Edie. “I’m having a really hard time getting used to this place! My shame made sense where I came from. It protected me, but I’m not there any longer- and I can’t let go of it. And I’m coming into heat again, which is going to be torture because I don’t have docks to sneak down to this time. I don’t know the bad people here, I only know good people, and they scare me.”
Maggie’s ear flicked, and several conflicting expressions crowded onto her face. “You don’t seem scared by me. Does that mean I’m bad people? I don’t think I’ll buy that.”
Edie hastened to explain as best she could. “You’re like me! I could see you doing what I’ve done. You say you’ve play-acted it. At any rate, you can understand why heat’s driven me to do these things. Can you understand that I liked it, even though it was bad?”
Maggie mrowled softly. “Oh, that’s not a mystery! Someday you ought to tell me bedtime stories if I am frustrated and want to masturbate- you have some real rousers, honey. I can understand you liking it. I don’t understand why that’s bad. You did suggest that the world you grew up in was more repressed than the one I grew up in. I guess you believed it? And does all this explain why you won’t do the sensible thing and sleep with Walter?”
Edie was taken aback. “I thought you were jealous of me about that.”
Maggie smirked merrily. “Maybe I can hold your paw and watch and listen sometime.”
“No!” protested Edie, becoming upset, and Maggie seized on the reaction at once. “And why not, silly kitten?”
Edie tried to regain control, with some success. “You know, it’s a funny thing,” she managed, “but you could fit in both worlds…”
“Exactly! I am a cat, more specifically a totemized person with Siamese cat derivation. As such, I can fit in both worlds, and you know it, and I love it. I can go from being the center of attention in a rousing orgy, to talking over tea with Peter or the most polite people imaginable, without ever feeling out of place. That’s my birthright as a cat, damn it, and I’d like to know why you can’t?”
Edie shrugged weakly, rather overwhelmed by the passion of the smaller feline. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. I can, but they mustn’t connect in any way. It’s sort of complicated…”
“Well,” said Maggie, “I guess I can figure some of that out. In fact, I bet I can tell you some of the things that are bothering you. Walter is one of them. He’s about as far from your wolfpacks as you could possibly imagine…”
“That’s right,” nodded Edie, “and I can’t easily picture him accepting that about me.”
“Oh, honey, you aren’t being fair to him!” protested the little Siamese. “Take it from an old flame of his, okay? I still miss him. I tormented you once with the things I miss about his body, and I’m sorry about that, but I’ve come to know and like you a lot better since then, and I’d want him to be happy and you to be happy. And I have to tell you, you’ll never find a kinder, sweeter, more forgiving and compassionate…”
She broke off, in consternation, staring at Edie. Edie realised she was making a face, and composed herself, but too late. Maggie’s eyes narrowed, and she inquired pointedly, “Why are you looking like you just tasted something bad?”
Edie’s face twisted, and her eyes filled with tears. She felt as helpless as a tiny kitten, with her last secrets being stripped from her, and simply explained, “Because that’s a horrible turnoff. But I still love him. Can you help?”
Maggie was left speechless for a while, and then shook her head in amazement. “Maybe you’d better explain yourself a little more. Don’t worry, I won’t bite you. Unless you ask very nicely,” she teased, and it seemed to bring Edie out of her shell a little bit.
“I’m glad you fit in both worlds,” said Edie, wiping a tear away, “maybe you can help somehow. I don’t know what to do. I’m in love with him, but I’m in lust with his body, and I can’t make the two meet, and he’s not helping at all…”
“He wouldn’t,” added Maggie. “From what I hear, he’s being sickeningly virtuous.”
Edie nodded fiercely. “And I just can’t stand it! He’s being all the wrong sort of person to drag off and screw, and I don’t know how to do the normal person thing. Dating, introducing him to the parents, arranging a little wedding with me all decked out in white and looking like butter wouldn’t melt in my…”
“I get the picture,” giggled Maggie. “Wooo! You have more in common with me than I thought! But aren’t you a little old for bringing the wuf boyfriend home to Mommy? Surely you’re a free agent now? Help me out, I have a hard time understanding this part. I grew up in a polyfamily and my Daddy held my paw while I had my first lover, so I wouldn’t be frightened. I learned from watching him and Mom and sometimes Aunt Janine too. I guess that is a little different from what you’re used to.”
Edie blinked. “You could say that. Actually, what I did was bury myself in computer programming. My parents worried that I wasn’t dating, but eventually they said that if I wanted to be a computer nun that was my business. They didn’t know about the docks, of course.”
“That would have been something to watch.” remarked Maggie wickedly.
“Or listen to.” answered Edie, with matching playful wickedness.
“So how do we get Walter down by those docks for you?” inquired Maggie, and Edie’s face fell.
“I don’t think you can. Can you? He’s just not right. Oh, he’s wonderful,” added Edie hastily, seeing Maggie getting cantankerous again, “but how can I explain it? Maybe I’m too old to change. All those years, I slummed, and I don’t know if I can be with a good person now. They just don’t connect, I can’t accept that from somebody I’m being friends with. My lovers have to be scary people… It’s like I’m addicted to that primal edge, the risk and danger of it. How can you understand if you haven’t been there? Your big troublemaker here is Rick, and all he does is screw around like mad. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be seized, scruffed, taken like an animal when you’re in heat and feeling like one anyhow? Feeling dozens of hungry eyes devouring the sight of you as you writhe in orgasm? Do you know what it’s like to be fought over, wolves with switchblades fighting for rights to your body? I knew I’d be losing that when I signed up for Aquarius, but I was ready for the change. I saw what happened to some of the others… do you know what a ‘mama’ is? That’s what I would be when my looks faded and I wasn’t worth fighting over anymore- I’d be just following those rough boys around begging for more rough treatment, and they’d be less and less excited about it, and eventually I’d be nothing and it would all be over. Well, I had the computer side of things, and I just jumped- I left my biker boys behind while they still longed for me and fought over me, and I came here, so I could at least earn money and be socially acceptable.”
Edie’s face twisted, as she was utterly caught up in what she was saying. “And now, you expect me to be turned on by a nice wolf Boy Scout? Oh, hell… I’m too damn outlaw at heart to go for that! His body makes me weak in the knees, every now and then I get a spark of fire out of him, but is there anybody here who compares to what I used to have? It’s either Boy Scout niceness, or totally empty group-sex where nobody really cares who does what or who! Do you know how unimpressive that can seem after you’ve been a prize in a duel to the death, and a snarling ragged wolf has killed his rival to win you- and then claimed his prize right then and there?”
Maggie had bristled at this diatribe, but as it went on the Siamese looked more and more stunned at the revelations- yet she did not flinch or condemn. She held Edie’s gaze, unwaveringly, and eventually it was Edie who looked down and sagged a little. Maggie continued to stare with frank feline curiosity at the silver catgirl, who, after her outburst, looked shamefaced and surprisingly adolescent.
Finally, Maggie spoke, with a quiet certainty in her voice. “Edie, you have left that behind now. You said that if you’d stayed, you’d have lost the glamour of it, and I believe that. Here, things are more civilised, and the civilised part of you can find a home. If you can’t be turned on by civilised things, that’s just too bad and you’re going to have to grow up. I think, what with the EI and all, you’re going to have to settle for a nice guy for a lover, because, my dear, Peter doesn’t hire violent punks, and the oppies aren’t like that either.”
“If it helps,” added Maggie more gently, “I can sympathise. I know a lot of people, and so does Rick, who like play-acting all that sort of thing. It must seem awfully tame, but at least there are people to understand you here.”
“You’ll just have to settle for the more civilised pleasures. It’s really not so bad. What choice do you have?”
Several thousand miles away, a man turned down a path in well-sculpted artifical woods, and followed patches of green spray paint rudely emblazoned on the finely cultivated tree trunks. He stepped carefully, wary of twisting his ankle, because the imitation forest floor was torn and rutted by tire tracks. He arrived at a sculpted hillside, and banged on a section of artificial rock which served as a door- and the rock opened, revealing a cavernous space, cold, smelling of industrial steel- and also of grease, exhaust fumes, sweat, beer, and vomit. There was a fire built in the middle of the bare floor, and the man approached it, catching the attention of a wolf wearing an unrecognizable scrap of denim vest and urinating into the fire.
“Hey, you got any more of that crank I got from you the other day?”
The wolf yawned, revealing an impressive set of sharp but rotting teeth. “You got the money? Good shit, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was really good. Makes up for how this cruise sucks.”
“Your problem, Robert, is that you’re a goddamn whiner.” proclaimed the wolf. “Have a beer, and shut the fuck up about your whining. What, did some girl spit in your face again?” He guffawed crudely and grabbed another beer from an untidy pile by the fire.
“Oh, man, you should have seen her. A cat, okay? Pure cat, right down to the body and legs…”
“No tits?” asked the wolf. “All covered with mange, a kink in the tail? That’s your type.” He guffawed again.
“No, man, you should have seen her. Little, like less than five feet tall, and this shimmering silver color, and she moved like liquid magic… I bet she’s a complete animal in bed…”
The wolf considered this, with a hiccup. “Well, now, drunk as I am and will be, I must say that your story sounds appealing. In fact, I had one like that once, and your pansy ass would never be able to handle a little fireball like this one I had. She’d pinch your floppy dick off, Robert.” He guffawed coarsely again and whacked the man on the back. “What’d she do, scratch your nose? Wuss.”
The man laughed weakly, knowing he dared not be offended with the other wolves around. “I mistook her sash, thought she was red sash to play with.”
“What fuckin’ difference does that make?”
The man shrugged. “Well, next time, maybe I can point her out to you, how’s that? She had some pretty tough-looking friends.”
“I,” proclaimed the wolf drunkenly, “have some tough friends too, and we’ll take anybody down, you know that. Hell, if she’s anything like the one I had, I’ll take her myself, and you can get in the damn line!” He guffawed.
The man was growing tired of being laughed at, and dared to ask, “If she was so great why’d you lose her?”
The wolf took a long pull at his beer. “Just disappeared one day. Damndest thing. And goddamnit, it was just after the most amazing performance she put on for me. I had that lil’ pussy shrieking like an alleycat taking a Clydesdale, man, she kept fainting, and I never felt such clampings in all my damn life. I was in love, man, just blown away, and she just ups and disappears. What can you do? There’s always others. But I tell you, Rob my man, if you get the chance at one like that, you take it, understand what I’m sayin’? Now, we gotta get you your crank, if you got the money.”
“Yeah, I hear you. And you know I got the money, you guys have the best shit. I don’t know what I’d do without ya, Chuck.”
“Same as you do with me. Talk a lot, and get no action!”
Chuck guffawed again, and headed off towards his ratty old tent, followed by his customer.
The water screamed by below the sub, not slower than Edie’s thoughts. Everything kept getting more complicated, patterns drawing close around her, a baffling dance of intentions… and either her own intentions were being ignored, or they were too confused to matter. Maggie had probably talked to Walter. She wouldn’t admit it, but she wouldn’t deny it either- she told Edie to get out of her own head, as if that was helpful advice. Edie’s heat had passed without event, demanding no more than a grueling series of private masturbations several times a day, and her blood pressure hadn’t increased dangerously. She was horribly confused about whether she even wanted to fantasize about Walter- once she’d even thought of Maggie, with startlingly successful results. She didn’t tell the little Siamese this, as Maggie was all too available, or possibly not, as she hadn’t been dropping hints lately. Intimidated? Disapproving? Edie had been dealing with a double life for many, many years, but somehow now that she had told her secrets to another person, things were spinning out of control, and where she once had seemingly infinite resources for handling her private life, now she was exhausted, and rapidly running out of…
…fuel.
The light glowed bright red, and Edie realized she didn’t see it come on. There was no telling how long it’d been glowing while she’d been lost in her thoughts- and, obviously, she’d screwed up even before that, because she should have refueled before leaving.
Edie pulled back on the yoke smoothly, her calculating feline mind now fully committed to the flight problem that threatened her. The sub gracefully bit air and soared easily up to the roof, thousands of feet above the limitless expanse of water. Instead of scanning for denizens like a newbie, she was scanning visually and checking her navcomp for bases, refueling points, even a rest area. The first thing was to find a place to refuel, so nobody would ever know she’d been irresponsible. Had she passed one recently? The navcomp showed nothing, so she allowed her mind to go a step further- was there a place to land up there, fuel or not? A mile or so would bring her to an emergency dock. This was simply a safe place to land, with a hatch into the endless corridors of Aquarius, no refueling provisions, but the sub would be safe there. She cut back throttle a bit more, biting her lip gently, hanging on to her control with a cold determination.
Before very long, the emergency dock was in sight, clearly marked along the vast ceiling. Edie’s pilot senses went on automatic, as she tenderly fed the little sub a bit more throttle, trying to make the trajectory, her mind coolly picturing the gentle arc as if picturing it from outside, a tiny silvery craft with its tiny silvery occupant destined to put in just this much throttle, throttle giving altitude, elevator only affecting angle of attack, the unorthodox landing plotted in her mind as if it was proceeding along computer-plotted lines in a simulator.
Edie grew very still as the engine faltered, sputtered- and quit.
The line in her mind split, bisected into two as her thoughts raced. One for desired trajectory, one for what she might be able to get out of a near-stall… These subs were no low-speed handlers. The emergency dock was this far away, at this much airspeed, given that angle of attack, which if increased might give her this much extra lift while blowing that much energy on drag… and the little cat, frozen in calculation, nursed the flying sub up to the top of its arc, and stared, stunned, as the ceiling roared by, just a few feet too high to reach. It might have been a hundred- Edie knew she couldn’t get the sub any higher, every instinct in her screamed that she was on the edge of a stall, and there just wouldn’t be room to recover from it in this craft. It wasn’t like the bipes, there was barely any wing and it wanted to go terribly fast or fall out of the air like a rock. Without blinking, Edie sailed past the unreachable docking area, allowing the ceiling to fall away teasingly, facing the distant expanse of water below.
Auxiliary tanks! No, there weren’t any. Where was she? No time to type into the navcomp. The world resonated around her, too sharp, like a fantasy of a bad training session. It didn’t seem anything like real. Control effectiveness? Yes, it wasn’t too hard to maneuver- the craft was so very small that losing power didn’t hurt the controls much. But what airspeed did she want? Obviously she couldn’t smack headlong into the water, she had to do the normal almost-stalling maneuver but completely without power. Normally these subs were landed under power, even onto the water, because they flew like damned bricks without it, but she had enough velocity to manage it anyhow… she dove gently to build up a bit more… radio! Damn it! There wasn’t time…
Against the limitless expanse of gray water and the endless but unreachable steel ceiling above it, with only the sound of waves reverberating ceaselessly around the miles and miles of emptiness, a tiny craft sped across the water, just above it, keeping clear of the waves. Its speed gradually diminishing, the sub clung to the air feebly, until a wave touched its streamlined shape with a sharp crack of water against sculpted metal- then another, stealing speed from the heedlessly rushing craft- and then, the little streamlined thing scudded across the waves, rapidly slowing- and vanished beneath them.
With a horrible grinding thump of her heart, Edie realized she didn’t have any time at all. This was a sub as well as a plane. It was made to go down into the water. It could also go back up- if you had engines. She didn’t have engines, and her sub was obviously trimmed to be heavier than water, and it was going down. It would go down until it was crushed by the pressure- or until it stopped, and who could find her deep in the water with no power and nobody anywhere around? In an instant, she reacted- there was a sort of float built into the cabin, and she grabbed it, flipped up the emergency hatch release and punched it, barely remembering to take a deep breath.
The world exploded in sound and bubbles. For a horrible second she saw them rushing upwards and away from her while water filled the cockpit and the sub pulled her ruthlessly down with it- then she remembered her flight harness, clung to the float, released the buckle, and suddenly she was with the float, being pulled fiercely upward, while the sub, its cockpit air vented, dropped towards the center of Aquarius with redoubled speed.
It could only have been a second of confusion, because by the time Edie thought to open her eyes the surface of the water was near, and in another second, she broke the surface, spluttering for air and clinging to the float. Alive! Edie gasped for breath, giving in to the shakes, hanging on to the float like it was her whole world. Scrabbling at it, she discovered it had been cleverly designed to support even an unconscious person, like water-wings, and she wriggled into position, sneezing as she got some water in her nose. It was a very bright yellow. In fact- yes! There was a switch, a wonderful switch on it! They really thought of everything. It was a beacon! Edie flipped the switch, rejoicing in the glow of a little LED. Looking around, she noticed her cat vision kicking in: the minimal lighting of the ceiling dimly illuminated the scene, with the water quite calm- she could see quite a way. Surely by this time her poor sub must have hit the bot.. the b…
Her sub would not be hitting the bottom anytime soon.
Edie whimpered as it hit her. Her sub might be thousands of feet down by now, and still dropping, and there would be no bottom. Eventually it would be crushed by the pressure and still it would not be hitting a bottom- this wasn’t a pool she was in. Not a lake, not even a sea. She was floating in the central water tank of Aquarius, a tiny speck on a ball of water the size of a planet, and she hadn’t even managed to put out a distress call before she crashed. She might not be found… or she might not be found before something found her.
She looked around, terrified, at the blank expanse of water and steel sky. How could she know? Would she have warning if she was attacked? Through the waves of terror, she reasoned: there aren’t any waves. The big things, they make waves when they move. You’ve seen them. The vast mountain-sized bulk rearing out of the water… but there aren’t any waves. Hard to say how many Things are in the water nearby but there’s nothing large… big things would have to be, let’s see, how far away for the water to be this quiet?
Edie found that thinking about how far away they’d be wasn’t helping, either. Her mind refused to grasp the immensity of her situation, but the scale, the reality of it, beat upon her relentlessly. She bobbed gently up and down- up and down- trying to focus on the water right around her, trying not to think of how far below her the hapless sub must be…
…and the first minute passed.
She shivered, taking a chill from the water… even if no cold slimy things with teeth came for a furry snack, the water itself had a bite. It had a horrible patience to it that made Edie grateful for the clever float. Of course, that was not to say there weren’t cold slimy things with teeth, or tentacles, or God knew what coming for her, for that matter she might freeze to death floating there afraid to kick or move, but at least she didn’t have to tread water while doing it…
…and the second minute passed.
In ten minutes’ time, Edie could no longer tell if it’d been ten minutes or ten hours. She floated, shivering, in a fear trance, her mind seemingly expanding outward to encompass the whole endless ocean- except that it wasn’t an ocean at all, and even with her consciousness stretched that painfully far, the space around and beneath her still smothered her with its unyielding vastness. It was artificial, yet it felt as if it had existed since the dawn of time, would always exist. Her awareness, reeling with vertigo, kept expanding…
The waves started to pick up by twenty minutes. The little cat, floating entranced with horror, first saw the horizon begin to undulate. It was a phenomenon only to be seen on Aquarius, though she was not in a condition to appreciate it: there was no chop, or smaller waves, just a quiet swell on a scale to dwarf any ocean’s wave, sustainable only in water depths as great as these. Edie stared, uncomprehending, as the world seemed to contract, until she floated at the top of a huge hill of water that sat there in defiance of logic- then, the world gently changed shape around her, until she was at the bottom of a shallow basin of ocean. It all happened with impossible slowness. Somewhere, far beneath her, something the size of a country was steadily moving past, with this its effect. The expanse of water shaped itself around her like a sedate Surrealist nightmare.
Half an hour after the crash, the monstrous swell had mostly passed. It had been useful- it was something for her to focus on. She could not stop shaking with cold, and her trancelike serenity was beginning to fray. This place was just too big… it was all right when it didn’t seem real, but she couldn’t hold on to that. A wind had come up, from somewhere, blowing her whiskers about and chilling her ears, even whipping up water-spray that lashed her. It dragged her back to an intolerable reality, placed her unforgivably in the middle of an endless plane of real water, in a real place. The huge swell that had passed by was, somehow, a real thing. It was produced by some horribly vast creature that was also real. Kind of thing that was psychologically dangerous to have a tentacle the size of a house coming at you…
Something touched her paw, a tiny fish, a floating thing, or perhaps she just imagined it, and suddenly Edie was screaming, trying to climb out of the water by force of will, her mind a tatter of fear. All the horrors of her imagination were alive under her paws, and she fought futilely until her strength gave out, and sank back into the grip of the water and the support of the float, still weakly yowling out of a cat voice gone hoarse and cracked. The air seemed to reverberate with her screaming, it didn’t die away. It was amazing to think that her screaming was so loud that it could echo through a place the size of a planet.
The sound kept happening, and Edie suddenly realised it was the engine of a sub, the scream of turbines.
Her mind froze in shock at the sudden reprieve, and out of the distance came a little speck of silvery metal, coming on fast, so very fast… and with a shriek of tortured wind, the sub blasted right by. Had to be going at full emergency speed… Edie’s brain stopped working for a moment, and then ground into action again- the switch, the LED, the beacon! Where was it? And yes, when she’d been thrashing around in hysterical terror, she’d hit the switch and shut the beacon off.
Edie flipped the switch, saw the LED come back on, and floated there over unimaginable depths, the imminence of rescue awakening her unbearably to her fear. Out there somewhere was the sub. It probably was for her- at least she hoped so- but until it lifted her out of this horrible water, she was still freezing, floating in it, prey for any big predators that might come for her. She hung on not so much because it was the thing to do, but because she wasn’t capable of doing anything else.
When the sound returned, and the silvery speck appeared in the sky again, Edie found herself keening, her mind falling apart with terror that in these last seconds something terrible would come out of the depths, those intolerable depths, and devour her. Somehow it seemed impossible that she could be delivered from this- she felt death all around her, from the shaking of her chilled body to the spaces below her, filled with denizens. Her sanity hung by a thread as the speck grew larger, swooped lower, came in for a landing much like hers… she briefly imagined what it would be like if it sank too, drowning its pilot, and then suddenly the craft was beside her, the water around it churning with the force of its engines keeping it above water.
The hatch popped open, and Walter shouted, “Hang in there, Edie!”
Edie thought, all right. She thought, get me out of this NOW! She thought, wouldn’t it just be you? But she wasn’t able to do more than keen a pathetic mewl, and she couldn’t stop, even as Walter hastily threw her a rope, leaned dangerously far out of the cockpit to help her loop it round her, pulled her effortlessly from the water, and settled her on his lap. She had time to wonder if he could fly that way, before she fainted.
The water roared around her, monsters came up from horrible depths with jaws gaping under her, and Edie came awake screaming and clawing in the grip of something…
“Hey, hey! HEY! It’s over, hear me? You’re safe!”
It was the grip of Walter. He’d got her out of the cockpit somehow, they were at the dock closest to home, and he was trying to hold her up. A fairly large crowd had gathered, including even Peter, who looked both vexed and worried at the same time. She was still pretty soaked, which outlined her body much more explicitly than dry fur did, and Walter was telling her she was safe and holding her up. Edie, overwhelmed, burst into tears and clung tightly to Walter. Behind her, there was a quiet ‘awwwww!’, a bit of clapping, and also a bit of ‘shush!’ followed by Peter’s voice, addressing the crowd: “That’s enough- we’ll keep you posted on how she’s doing, it looks like she’ll be okay, folks.”
Walter got her home, though the journey was blurry and confused for Edie. By the time they got to her door, she realized Walter was carrying her curled up in his arms, but she didn’t remember when that had happened. It made her feel very small, but somehow safe. He opened her door with a pass-key, presumably supplied by Peter, and she felt briefly embarrassed as she’d left ‘toys’ in sight. He seemed not to notice.
He sat her on her bed, grabbed towels out of the bathroom and scrubbed her down vigorously until she wasn’t soaking anymore, in the process making her fur a total rumpled mess, as he plainly didn’t understand grooming or drying with the direction of the fur or any of that cat stuff. The little silver cat was too exhausted and weak to care, allowing Walter to dry her all over, impersonally, as if she was no more than a kitten again. Then he pulled up the blankets over her, saying, “I’m going to go get the doctor, all right?” and stopped as one dainty paw came from under the covers and grabbed his.
“Stay?”
Edie shivered, as much from nerves as from cold and looked up at Walter, all vulnerability. She fumbled for words, barely even knowing what she wanted- but her mind said, ‘Stay with me. I don’t care if it turns me off, I don’t care if we haven’t solved anything- I feel about two years old right now and need to be held, even if that doesn’t fit with my image. I’m not sick, I just can’t bear to be alone after all that…’
Out loud, she managed, “Please stay and hold me so I can sleep?”
Walter hesitated, troubled, but couldn’t resist. He muttered, “..’lil sister…” and looked very uncomfortable, tried to move onto the bed with covers between him and Edie, realised that was no way to hold anyone, and finally crawled under the covers, curling around Edie in spoon-fashion.
Edie shivered, and nestled back against him. Her last clear thoughts were that they fit wonderfully, and that she needed to not wiggle against him enticingly or he’d be upset. Anyhow, she didn’t need or want a lover at the moment- she needed comforting, and he’d come through. As his arms went around her and the warmth of him surrounded her, Edie fell into an exhausted sleep.
Walter kept visiting. It wasn’t surprising, really- while Edie was convalescing, he’d evidently appointed himself her nurse, or whatever you’d call a hulking solicitous wolf bearing piping hot soup. Edie was informed that she must stay home for a week, and do nothing exciting or stressful, for two reasons: to recover physically, as she’d caught an awful cold from the chill of the water, and to recover psychologically.
Peter explained this in a visit. “Your experience was serious, ‘kay? This has happened before, and we don’t want to lose you as a worker. Arthur and Maggie are very fond of you, and your work, and they want you back. Well, in order for that to happen, you have to work through your trauma, ‘kay? We’re not gonna put you back in there as if nothing had happened.”
“Why not?” asked Edie. “I mean, I’ll do as you ask, but I’d like to get back to work. I left the hydraulic load balancing code for the Zipline Lounge in a complete mess! I’ll forget what I was doing.”
“Maggie’s got it, ‘kay? You need to have at least a day or so to just be with your feelings and begin to process them. This has happened before, and you’re not gonna be allowed to just bury yourself in work, never dealing with the memory of the endless cold ocean with no bottom and things moving miles beneath you…”
“Stop it!” pleaded Edie, ears flattened.
“I won’t mention it again, ‘kay?” said Peter. “When you go back to work nobody will be reminding you of it at all. But you’re gonna endure some thought of it now, in a safe place, because it’s not wrong for you to have those feelings, but you’re gonna have to have them now. ‘Kay?”
Edie felt ruffled and vulnerable, and snapped, “Why? You need to let me get rid of that stuff. I need to do my work, and forget about it. That’s what you do.”
“Not on my ship, Edie. That’s an order, if the suggestion wasn’t enough. You’re confined to quarters, and I’m having Walter look after you.”
“You’re what?” stammered Edie, caught off guard by this. “That’s your doing?”
“Of course. I’m not all bad, programmer-kitty. He’s got more than enough work to do, but I’m letting him clear off part of his schedule for you. It would be cruel to ask you to work through your feelings without being able to decompress with a l..”
Edie broke in. “Are you about to say a lover? What gives you the idea he’s my lover?”
Peter soothed her. “Settle down. Call it what you like. The point is, he’s elected! And I hope that in a week you’ll be back with Arthur and Maggie and well restored and rested, ‘kay? And I’m not going to argue it with you- and I gotta go, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Edie. You’re a great member of the team…”
The next time Walter came to look after her, she’d not only hidden all the toys, but ran the ventilators at full blast and spritzed deodorant around, and sat demurely without a hair out of place, prepared to play ‘kid sister’ to the limit. He seemed not to notice.
“So- how’s our little patient?”, he said jovially.
Edie made a face. “Not. Which is to say, impatient. When can I get back to work? This is driving me up the wall. I have too much time to kill and I can’t stop thinking about it, I mean the water.”
Walter promptly dropped the fake-hearty manner. “I know, it’s rough to go through. You’ve got to trust that this is the right thing- we have a lot of experience with main tank psych cases. Um…”
“That’s what I am? A main tank psych case?” Edie bristled.
“No, no, it’s okay! Maybe it’d be better to say, that’s what happens to people in that situation. By the way, three cheers for lil’ sister for wanting to get back to work like that- you’ve got a lot of personality, Edie, you surprise me. A lot of people are laid up for weeks with this, but not you!”
The silver catgirl sulked, tolerating what felt like condescension. “Look, enough with the good-kitty. For that matter, enough with the little sister. Right now, I want to get back to work, and I have load balancing code that’s a complete pigsty and I’m telling you, I can’t wait a week to get back to it, I’ll forget where I was. Can’t I work from here?”
Walter regarded her with a curious mixture of approval and wariness. “No, you can’t. Peter warned me about this, you know. I always knew you were strongminded but I guess it never really registered completely, and now here you are, recovering from a horrific psychological shock and an upper respiratory infection, any normal person would be a quivering pile of nerves but you? You want to go work. I’m impressed, amazed. In fact I applaud you,” and here he briefly clapped and cheered in a comical manner, “and you’re a real soldier like few I’ve ever seen, but this you will not do.”
Edie bristled, but kept her cool. “Fine. I even understand the reason, though I think it’s completely stupid and cruel besides! You refuse to let me distract myself, well fine! In that case, can I at least do something to deal with the load balancing code?”
“That depends on what it is, Edie.” Walter regarded her speculatively. “You don’t look like you’re about to make foolish suggestions- and you obviously understand the conditions. What do you have in mind?”
“Send me Maggie! She could get it under control if I can just tell her what I was working on, and what I was trying to do with it. She even knows some of my personal commenting habits by now.”
Walter looked puzzled. “What, like ‘that girl’s fur grooming is atrocious’?”
Edie snickered, amused in spite of herself. “No! Programmer stuff. You know, like typing two slashes and then the rest of the line or block shows up in red and isn’t used in the program? I do things like type three poundsigns to mark stuff I’ll need to change later… sometimes three poundsigns and then numbers to indicate execution flow… if there’s three poundsigns and then an exclamation point it means the kluge has to be dealt with before any other changes propagate through the class structure…”
“Way over my head, hon, but you’re saying Maggie can do this for you if you brief her?”
Edie nodded emphatically. “I’m sure of it! It would be a load off my mind, Walter. Can you send her to see me?”
The big wolf considered, seriously, cautiously, but above all briefly, and in a flatteringly prompt response, said “Sure!”. It was as if something clicked for him, as if he’d expected to coddle a helpless patient or chide a recalcitrant ‘little sister’, and suddenly found himself confronted with an adult, responsible personality much like his own. Enthusiasm building, he added, “When do you want her? She’s been asking about you anyhow, and I’m sure she’d like to see you. Want me to bring her when she’s off work today?”
Edie considered this, and nodded. “If she hasn’t got other plans.”
Walter chuckled, at that. “Maggie always has other plans. She’ll break ‘em. I ought to know her by now, you know. Dated her for months, and I know what her priorities are.”
“Um, meaning that she loves to come look after sick kittens?”
Walter guffawed at that. “Meaning that she loves to talk shop! Surely you’ve noticed? She likes nothing better. Maggie will interrupt anything to sort out a software problem she’s responsible for. I’ve had her talking shop on the phone and fixing bugs by proxy while she was TIED… um.”
At this, Walter realized who he was talking to, and his face wore an expression of mingled chagrin and confusion. Glancing down, abashed, he remarked, “Anyway- I’ll bring her. Will this afternoon do?”
Edie struggled to restrain a smirk. “Admirably. You will find me at home,” she replied, as Walter departed. It was interesting to see- he was discombobulated, but still standing tall, and he was wagging without thinking about it. Edie realised she was a bit flushed herself, then shrugged and dismissed it. That time of the season was approaching, and she knew Maggie wouldn’t bat an eyelash- she could even scatter toys about, if not for the possibility that the terrifyingly direct little Siamese would want to use them.
When Maggie entered, she clumped in with a wolfish, Walter-parodistical gait, attempting to boom “And how’s our little patient today?” in her harsh little Siamese voice. Edie promptly dissolved into hysterical giggles.
“How did you know? Maggie, you nut! That’s almost exactly what he said!”
The Siamese snickered, and coughed to clear her throat, strained from the attempted wolfish baritone. “Well, he said he gave you the ‘how’s-our-little-patient’ and some soup.” Maggie scampered over, gave Edie a hug, and said, “So how much is it shop talk and how much is it about Walter?”
Edie looked sideways at Maggie for a moment. “You are just far too good. I’d better get used to it. May I ask how you know?”
Maggie looked scornful. “Now come on. We’ve talked before- and when he rescued you, he carried you home, so I’m told, and stayed with you for hours. Now he’s on abbreviated duty to look after you. You have to have something on your mind. Unlike virtually everybody else, I know that it’s more complicated than it looks. Did you get to have sex?”
“No,” admitted Edie. “But look- the hydraulic balancing code is also important, can we deal with that first? I swear I’ll lose it if I have to leave it for a week.”
Maggie brightened, and the two felines animatedly discussed extremely arcane programming details for a good hour, putting Edie’s mind at ease that she’d be able to return to a sensible and reasonably current workload. All the details tidily accounted for, Maggie at last turned to Edie as if no time had passed, and remarked, “So, no sex, huh?”
The silver cat wilted. “As a matter of fact, no, but now he’s making me soup and checking up on me, and officially my… well, something. I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you know what you want? No, scratch that, you don’t. Any chance you know what you want to want?” purred Maggie, playfully.
Edie cuffed the giggling Siamese. “You! But it’s nice to not be taking this so seriously, in two minutes it’ll seem horribly important again. No- I’m very confused.”
Maggie considered this solemnly. “Him fussing over you must be a big turnoff.”
“Damn right!” Edie didn’t mention the recent conversation- it was too novel and hard to fit into her picture of how things worked. Walter as neither thug nor Boy Scout didn’t make sense.
The Siamese considered further. “I have no idea how you’re going to react to this. Let’s see. Do you want me to take over for Walter with the kitty caretaking?”
Edie blinked, and re-blinked. She opened her mouth, and shut it without saying anything, all observed by Maggie with great amusement. Finally, Edie replied, “…not on your life!”
Maggie purred in delight and hugged her friend again. “You see? You do want something! You just don’t see how it can be. That’s a different problem.”
“It sure is,” remarked Edie, dismayed. “What on earth am I supposed to do?”
“Beats me,” said Maggie. “I know what I’d do. Well, did. Maybe you need to try things a different way.” She winked at Edie. “I discovered something that maybe I shouldn’t tell you about, but I’ll check it out for you. Topside there’s a rough crowd on this leg of the trip, or so I’m told. I’m gonna get an introduction, and I’ll tell you if they’re any good.” The little Siamese looked very smug.
“Maybe I saw them,” said Edie. “There was this one who grabbed me and tried to take me to a room. Very glittering eyes, blond, humaniform, dressed very well?”
Maggie nodded. “Yeah! His name’s Robert. The eyes are because he’s on drugs. He’s not really that good, but he says he knows a rough crowd.”
Edie considered this, critically, picturing the people she saw in the lounge. “Um- yeah, I suppose they were. You be careful now!” she purred, rapidly reaching the conclusion that it was a crowd of weekend roughnecks. There was a vibe, an atmosphere that she was intimately familiar with, had been half-addicted to, and she knew that the expensively appointed lounge contained absolutely none of it.
Maggie’s eyes danced. “I will! I’m bringing extra lube and everything.”
Edie giggled, and purred, “Oooo- here’s hoping you don’t need that!” and privately thought- how civilised, and is that such a bad thing, really? For her, it’s not about pain and humiliation and status and shame. She has special lube just to make sex more comfortable.
Maggie snickered and purred, “Maybe I hope I do. Anyway, I’ll check it out for you.”
“A picnic?” said Edie, with every evidence of disbelief.
“Come on- you’re sounding like you’ve never gone on a picnic before!” chided Walter, still trying to jolly her into agreement.
The silver cat regarded him suspiciously. In fact, she hadn’t- her family hadn’t been the picnic sort, and there weren’t that many parks where she came from in the first place, but she didn’t want to begin explaining this, as he might start feeling sorry for her, which would be far too exasperating. “Then- why now?”
“Because it would be fun, and because you’ve been cooped up in here for days. Just because you’re not back at work doesn’t mean you have to be a hermit, you know. I just thought it would be fun,” he repeated.
Edie considered this. It was true- she was bored. Maggie had been visiting, but hearing about her ever-impeding plans to go frolic with her ‘rough crowd’ was getting frustrating. One of the reasons it was hard to hear about that stuff was the timing: Edie’s EI was coming on, coloring everything with an edgy, tense overtone of unrequited lust, and this made a proposed picnic with Walter seem like a seriously misguided idea.
But she was very bored, and properly groomed, and wasn’t worried that the deodorant would give out, and anyhow it was apparently in the open air, or as open as you got on Aquarius. “And where were you figuring on having it?” she asked.
“It’s been a long time since I was there, but there’s this hillside that they did very nice- you can get to it from underside, through sort of a warehouse for parking maintenance machinery when they’re working on the area. Naturally, they picked an out-of-the-way spot for it, without much of interest nearby.”
Edie quirked an ear. “And the reason you want to take me to an out-of-the-way spot is…?”
“Now hold on there!” said Walter. “Haven’t I been good? You’ve been very clear about what you wanted, and you know I respect that.” He harrumphed. “Cats! What am I supposed to do, huh? Don’t even start with that, Edie. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”
“Oh, how I know it,” remarked Edie, and wondered how Maggie was getting on.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” replied Walter, and Edie realised she’d screwed up.
“Um, what I mean is… you’re… Oh, I’m sorry! I don’t give you nearly enough credit, and I’m really sorry. You are a good guy, and I get too cynical and… and complicated to appreciate it…” Edie prattled on, thinking as fast as she could and trying to stay ahead of the conversational chessgame, while Walter eyed her, his hackles slowly lowering as he saw how frantically the little catgirl was trying to appease him.
Finally he harrumphed again, and regarded Edie levelly. “Okay, okay. Whatever. Just- will you do one thing for me, Little Miss Complicated, if it isn’t too much trouble?”
“What?”
“Come on a picnic,” said Walter, and his eyes twinkled as he presented this horrible fate.
Edie phewed, and said, “Okay!” and squeaked in startlement as she was abruptly swept up in a wolfish hug. Just as quickly, Walter let her go, and looked her over. He was beaming, but the pleased look drained away from him rapidly.
“You’re sure not fooling about being complicated. I admit it might be harder, but do you think you can tell me what on earth is the matter? Your reactions are just… Edie, I’m okay with whatever works for you, but you act like you’re walking through a minefield. Are you like that with everybody?”
Edie sighed, feeling trapped. She tried to think of how to phrase it. “Um… there are some times that are not easy for me. I don’t really want to get into it, but if you need to know more about it, I can explain the matter…” Beside her, her tail twitched and flickered with nervous energy as she came closer to admitting her dilemma to the wolf that haunted her libido.
Walter unexpectedly darted out a hand- and grabbed the flickering cat tail, and held it. The contact sent a jolt through Edie, and she could only stare at him, bristling with shame as her body kicked into gear, overwhelming the deodorant with a fierce waft of cat-heat and causing her vision to go distinctly rosy and fuzzy. She knew that she would present for him if only he asked, and the knowledge humiliated her but further inflamed her, and yet he just kept looking in her eyes.
Finally, he said, with great seriousness, “Edie- good isn’t the same as stupid.” With this, he let her tail go, and she grabbed it defensively, and just about curled up in a little ball, but she had to listen to him, and hear what he had to say.
“Do you think I don’t know where you’re at? That I’m some dim Fido to be conned by self-control and a lot of stinky deodorant? And that’s right,” continued Walter, “I said stinky deodorant- I hate that stuff- it smells like chemistry sets and drain cleaner and all it’s for is to cover up the smell of you, which is something specially wonderful. Why? I mean, I know why, it’s because you’re trying to get rid of a sexy cat scent. I suppose you’ve got some notion that you don’t want to make things harder for me, is that it?”
Edie stammered, “I didn’t realize…”
“No, you didn’t! I’m sorry, I’m getting too excited. And that’s another thing about how complicated you are- your body seems to like that, but you don’t. All of a sudden, when I’ve lost patience with you, suddenly you’re in overdrive. I’m gonna leave you alone to deal with that, because I know very well that you don’t want me dealing with it for you, but mind explaining why you can’t agree with yourself there? Huh?”
After a brief silence, Edie said weakly, “I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t? Help me out. I swear I’m one of the good guys, I told you. I like to do the right thing. Well, it’s like, with you there is no right thing. That can’t be right. That can’t be true.”
“Maybe it is true,” said Edie, touched by Walter’s obvious concern. She wiped her eye absentmindedly, and realised she’d been crying without noticing.
Walter growled softly, distressed. “No. It is not true.”
Edie had no reply to this.
Walter shifted in his seat, uncomfortably. “Damn it, the last thing I wanted to do was upset you. I wanted to cheer you up. Okay, I told you I wasn’t stupid, let me try to be smart here. I’m gonna assume that even though you’re, well, desperate right now, you don’t want me to make love to you. No, wait, let me put that another way that’s even less stupid. Whatever’s getting in the way is still very much in the way. Is that it?”
Edie nodded, unhappily.
“Okay, understood. I’d better be brief because I need to leave you to your own devices, pun intended- from the scent of it, that must hurt…”
“No shit it does.” said Edie. “You’ve known all this time?”
“No, of course not. But I figured it out. You’ve got everyone acting all furtive about it as well, even Maggie, which I wouldn’t have believed was possible. I just can’t understand why. I can see it, I can see how important it is to you, but I don’t understand what’s making things so complicated for you. Look, I can be perfectly well-behaved around you, whether or not you use stinky deodorant… and it looks like that comment didn’t help at all, did it? Something about that you didn’t like.”
The little silver cat, aching with heat, didn’t deny this. She felt helpless to resist as Walter got closer and closer to the truth- but then, unexpectedly, Edie was let off the hook. Walter got up, breaking the tension.
“This is no good, I can’t be grilling you like this. I’m really sorry, Edie, I’ll be going… huh! You are the most complicated feline, suddenly you look unhappy that I’m leaving! Jeez, I’d give you a hug if you weren’t such an unexploded cat right now. For what it’s worth, I am damned well going to be your friend, no matter how complicated you are. That okay with you?” asked Walter, with exasperated humor.
Edie nodded. “Yes!” she replied, and Walter visibly brightened.
“Then are we still on for the picnic? I was going to suggest today, but not right now. How about tomorrow? Meet me at the main sub dock? Thrash your tail about once for yes, and bite me on the leg for no.”
Edie giggled, in spite of everything, and grabbed her flickering, telltale tail. “I’ll be there.” she purred. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to.”
“Oh, how I know it,” sighed Walter, and he winked, and departed.
That morning, Edie glanced warily at the deodorant, as if it was some sort of bad habit. She’d bathed, and was getting ready to go on the picnic, and was still whiffing of heat, which left her with an extremely strong desire to deodorize it away. Yet, she kept remembering the way Walter’s nose wrinkled in disgust just talking about the chemical stink of the stuff, and she had to admit there was an antiseptic note to it. She’d never thought of it in that way, because all her life the important thing had been to somehow cover the vivid, piercing scent her body produced at these times. The idea this could be appreciated by someone without it leading to immediate action had never occurred to her.
When she padded out into the corridor, she was immaculately groomed- but free of deodorants and chemical scents, which brought back memories of late nights sneaking down to the docks. This time, she was sneaking off, just as herself, but to be with the good people instead of the bad people. The freedom of this was intoxicating, although it was terribly unfamiliar.
Walter met her at the sub docking bay, and he immediately quirked an ear and sniffed the air. “What’s this? No horrible chemicals?”
“Were they really that horrible?” asked Edie.
“Well, yeah. I guess you had your reasons. Ready to go?”
Edie blinked, taken off guard, as some part of her was all set to purr ‘I trust you’ in order to defuse the deep and lustful sniffing, drooling, and other crude reactions she found she was expecting. It occurred to her that she had no grounds for expecting this from Walter at all, and surprisingly, she found herself annoyed, as if she was entitled to a certain amount of uncontrollable, crude slavering to rebuff. Denied this, she covered her pique by asking, “What’re we having?” and promptly raged at herself in her head for tacky, suggestive remarks, but Walter didn’t seem to notice that, and gave her a straight answer.
“Just some sandwiches. Made some chai tea, because I know you like it- that’s what’s in this bottle. Set your navcom for L1-3F-VS, or you could just follow me but we might as well both have the set destination.”
“What’s the subsector location?” asked Edie. “That’s pretty general.”
“You won’t need it- there’s virtually nothing in the whole sector but the place we’re going. The sector itself only goes up to R4 at its highest point. That’s one of the reasons it’s so nice- it’s a sort of lowlands, the ceiling is very high there. There’s a field reinforcement node there- so far above you that it looks like a star. Nice place,” said Walter.
They entered their respective subs, and, with a shriek of tiny turbines, plunged through the hole in the floor into the main tank, bound for L1-3F-VS.
Walter’s voice burst in over Edie’s radio. “Shit! I wasn’t thinking at all. Is this bothering you, are you okay? I could fly you by wire…”
“No!” said Edie. “I mean, I’m fine! Let’s just go. Anyway, you’re with me.”
“Absolutely! Sure you’re okay?” came the voice.
Edie smirked a bit, flying straight and level without a waver. “I had to go back into the tank someday. And please believe me when I say that I checked my fuel gauge very carefully and compared it to the length of the journey before I even hit the throttle in the first place…”
Walter laughed. “You’re a hell of a kitty! All right, good for you. I’m going to stick close by- and I was trained in the service to check that before launching. Mine’s good, too.”
When the destination approached, Edie found she was flying rather too close to the ceiling, and checking her fuel obsessively. There was no comment about this from Walter- probably it was only to be expected- at any rate, she felt enormous relief as the arc of her final approach intersected neatly with the landing bay, and her wheels hit sturdy metal. Shortly thereafter, Walter came in for an equally neat landing on the vast docking space. Edie considered for a moment how handy it was that Aquarius structures could be built so absurdly large, while she taxied for the elevator that would lift her up into that vast ceiling.
Walter joined her in the sub parking area, which was very empty- no other subs at all, no machinery. She blinked, however, at something that wasn’t often seen in these echoing, empty steel caverns- litter. There was an empty beer can lying by the wall. “What’s up with that?” she asked.
Walter looked surprised. “That’s not regulation,” he said, and jogged over to pick up the bit of trash. He jogged back, and the two headed for the freight elevator that was the only inter-level transport available.
It dwarfed them ridiculously, but Aquarius wasn’t short of energy and it made a kind of sense to Edie, as yet another huge steel room bore them patiently upward- it was simpler to have one elevator do everything, in low-traffic areas like this, and simpler was better: less to break down.
At the top of the ride, another cavernous steel room came into view, and it was all wrong.
Walter’s ears were bolt upright in alertness. “That’s the smell of vomit! Someone’s been sick?” Edie tensed, as well- though her sense of smell was not as finely honed as the wolf’s, the scent was awakening memories in her. Vomit, stale beer, something that had been burned, unwashed wolf… inexplicably here, in this vast steel room. A glance around showed more trash, the remains of a fire that had been lit on the floor, the place where someone had been very sick…
Edie trembled. “What do we do?”
“We’re gonna call in the janitors,” answered Walter, “they’ve got another lovely job on their hands.” He tossed his beer can in the direction of some of the randomly strewn garbage. “Some picnic spot! Sometimes I just can’t believe those oppies. This is disgusting. I’m sorry about this…”
“But aren’t you sc… alarmed?” asked Edie, who plainly was. “Who did this?”
Walter set down the picnic things, and took her by the shoulders. “Edie, nobody travels on Aquarius who isn’t meant to be there. We can track any living thing on the whole damn ship. There is no such thing as space pirates! This is the result of some filthy dumb oppies who had a party. It’s somebody who has money but no class at all. We do get those from time to time. Now, let’s go out and find a nice clean spot to have our picnic, and by the time we’re done, they might have gotten around to sending someone to clean this up.”
Edie relaxed a little. “No pirates, or bug-eyed monsters?”
“Maybe they’ll be bug-eyed when I tell them off- politely- for unnecessary littering, which I hope I get the chance to do. It only causes work for the maintenance staff, and there are plenty of better places where they could party.”
Edie and Walter headed for the entrance to the cavern, which was conveniently open. The area was indeed pretty, but there was evidence of more partying- the ground was far from immaculately groomed, and there was more garbage scattered around here and there. Edie began to get very nervous, while Walter’s look got harder and harder, and finally, he said “This won’t take a moment. Come with me, I really need to ask these people to be more considerate. It’s gonna take some poor maintenance sap hours to clean all this up.”
He began to head up over a nearby hill, following the signs of foot traffic, the occasional bit of garbage, and Edie came along, but her heart pounded and she began to hear indistinct sounds in the distance…
The air was split by a cat-shriek of fear and pain, from a voice that would be hard to mistake for any other, a harsh soprano scream, and Walter froze, and then dropped the picnic things and charged over the hill.
“Maggie!”
Edie froze in turn, everything coming into focus in an instant of horror as she realized what Walter was about to do, and she shrieked, “No!” and raced after him desperately- too late.
Gasping, she rushed into a clearing, in which Walter was at bay, encircled by ragged, mean-looking wolves. At one side of the clearing, surrounded by grinning wolves, was Maggie- and she was pulling the train. There were wolves over her, under her, taking her in every way, soiling her fur with semen and with spit- she had found the real thing, somehow. They had her by the throat, as well, and her eyes sought out Walter and Maggie in shock and terror.
Then Edie saw the alpha wolf ambling forward, totally confident, with a beer in his hand, and her brain short-circuited for a second, and all she could say was “You.”
Chuck looked her over. “Where the fuck did you go? It’s been years.”
Beside her, she saw a grinning wolf flick a lit cigarette at Walter, and hissed at him with desperate intensity, “Don’t! do! anything! Don’t even move! I’ll handle this!”
“They’ve got Maggie!” hissed Walter back, in agony. He was shaking.
“Damn it,” hissed Edie rapidly, “they will kill you if you start anything, you be still!” She hastily returned her attention to Chuck, who seemed interested but unhurried. The other wolves continued to circle.
“I had to go, hon, you know how it is,” purred Edie appealingly. “What brings you here?”
“Edie..!” hissed Walter, and she hissed, “shut! up! soldier!” back. This seemed to work, and she returned her attention to the gang leader.
Chuck yawned, showing rotting teeth. “We’re going to Verdant. We made some money, traveling in style. Makin’ some money on the way, too. And havin’ some fun.”
Walter was just about creaking from intolerable tension, and a circling wolf moved in, clearly intending to poke or shove him. With a glance at Chuck, Edie scooted around to interpose her body and shield Walter. She was limp with fear that someone would get through, would cause Walter to swing on one of the pack, any one, it wouldn’t matter. All that was keeping him alive was the fact that he hadn’t attacked anybody. One slip and he would be dead- she knew the code and had seen it played out over and over again. You attacked one of the pack, and you had all of them on you at once.
Chuck smirked at her. “You want a turn? It’s been a long time since you were with us. And this one doesn’t have the fire you had, baby. You were the best there ever was.”
Unexpectedly, there was a flurry of motion, as Maggie writhed and yanked and burst free of the wolves around her. The pack’s attention snapped to her, but at that instant Chuck snapped “Hey, chill!” and Edie hissed “No!” at Walter, and their combined authority was enough to keep a lid on things. It wasn’t clear what Chuck wanted, but it was certainly clear that according to him Maggie wasn’t worth much, and also that he wasn’t intending to punish her attempt to get away. The wolf under her tail slipped out easily enough, but Edie winced as the little Siamese yanked against a wolf-tie, pulling free of what turned out to be a substantial knot. Edie winced again as she realised that she’d had that one herself.
Maggie staggered weeping into Walter’s arms. Sniffling, she caught sight of Edie, and sobbed, “I don’t LIKE your kind of fun!”. Edie didn’t dare look at Walter’s face. She bristled with embarrassment, but held her ground, thinking to herself- so far so good, now if we can all get out of here alive…
“Come on, babe. For old times’ sake?” wheedled Chuck, which did not go unnoticed by the other wolves. They regarded her with interest- an even better cat, and Alpha’s Choice as well. Edie saw this and took advantage of it, purring “Can you ask your boys to give us some space, hon? For old times’ sake?”
Chuck glanced sharply at them and jerked his head. That was all it took- the other wolves cleared away, taking positions behind him, leaving Edie, Walter, and Maggie alone.
Walter muttered thickly, “She’s hurt, Edie.” while holding Maggie tight. Edie glanced rapidly at the little Siamese while trying to hold Chuck’s gaze at the same time, and saw that one of Maggie’s ears was torn and bloody. The silver cat lifted an eyebrow questioningly at Chuck.
The alpha wolf snorted. “That was Jeb. He’s an asshole. You’re an asshole, Jeb!”
“Fuck you!” snarled an emaciated wolf in reply. His eyes were frightening, and he had a slight tremor that never entirely went away.
“You’re an asshole, you don’t know how to fuck a cat nicely. Shut up, asshole.” replied Chuck. “This a friend of yours, Edie?”
Edie nodded, standing her ground. “This is a friend of ours.”
“I can smell that you want to fuck, too. Come on, honey- look, if you ride for a while, tell you what, we’ll fuck Jeb up to pay him back for what he did to your friend when he fucked her…”
“Fuck you!” screamed Jeb, shaking. Edie could see he was one of the mean ones- there was a definite type who always were in there when the train was being pulled, and who got a special kick out of blood and pain and humiliation. Jeb was clearly a hairsbreadth away from attacking someone, and Edie took a moment to hiss to Walter with desperate urgency, “Stay!”
Chuck turned slowly to look at Jeb, who snarled horribly, twisted his head, and finally looked away. Finally, Chuck growled, “Oughta fuck you up anyway. No class. Look at you, ripping up her ear like that, make her ugly, and she’s a friend of this fine pussy useta be one of us. Asshole.”
Jeb snarled, not meeting Chuck’s eye, and Chuck barked, “Asshole! Go around hurting our honeys, make ‘em not pretty anymore, what the hell good are they then? No class asshole.” He turned again to face Edie. “So you had to go, huh? Assholes like this one get too much for ya? You were always a match for ‘em, that’s what I liked about ya.”
Edie nodded, not looking at Walter, picking her words carefully. “I had to go. You know how it is. I went out and started working. Left the planet.”
Chuck nodded. “Yeah, I know how it is. Hey, I keep seeing ya not exactly padding over here to get fucked, huh? Asked ya three times. You sure you don’t want any? I got Bob here, he’s fuckin’ hung like a horse, would that be nice? You like that, babe.”
Edie stayed where she was, and purred carefully, “You know how it is…”
At that, Chuck grumbled, “Yeah, yeah. So… I guess you want to take your friends and get the fuck out of here, is that it? Shiiiit.”
“I’m sorry, Chuck,” said Edie. “May we go?” She watched carefully, keeping an eye on the other wolves who clearly weren’t happy with that proposal, but remembering the way Chuck had a weakness for feline politeness and protocol. It was the contrast he’d liked, between that and the vision of the same feline going wild with the whole pack- and Edie thought there was a chance to get through to him in that way.
She added, in all sincerity, “Please?”
At that, Chuck lifted his head, looking disappointed but strangely dignified. He took a leisurely glance over his pack, as if to remind them who was alpha, and then he said, “Yeah. Damn. Good seeing ya, babe. You’re the best. You may go.” A slight stirring of discontent in the pack was stilled by a sharp glance from its Alpha, and silence fell.
Edie hissed at Walter, still nervous, “Back away slowly. Do not run, do not turn your back until we are out of sight.” They did so, Walter supporting Maggie, who was very wobbly. Slowly, they backed away over the top of the hill, until they were out of sight- and then, rushed back the way they had come, Edie glancing nervously in every direction.
They went down to the sub docking area without speaking, and then Walter, his face unreadable, said, “We need to get her to the infirmary- we’ll want dock B. I’ll walk you back to your place then. While we’re flying back, I’m going to get security brought up to speed.”
“Are there jails on Aquarius?” asked Edie.
Walter snarled harshly. “You don’t understand. If they could pay for a ticket, they can buy and sell any justice, any lawyers- it’s just as if they got rough with a red-sash. Security needs to be warned so they can contain any damage. We’re left to pick up the mess. Let’s get Maggie somewhere safe.”
Edie nodded, and they got into the subs, Walter awkwardly flying with Maggie on his lap, and fled the place with a scream of small turbines, covering the endless miles back to their home.
The nurse was a pretty vixen, and she dropped her clipboard in shock as Walter helped Maggie through the door. “Holy… here, let me help you! What on earth happened?”
“Some pilgrims play rough,” said Walter levelly, helping Maggie onto an examining table.
“Who did this?”, asked the vixen, going over Maggie carefully. “Somebody’s hit her in the mouth, and that ear’s lacerated and the tip is missing, and yes, we have bite marks and I’d better check for internal bleeding, is that okay honey? Can you tell me what happened?”
Maggie had regained some of her usual style. “Too much fucking fun!” The vixen blinked, and the little Siamese corrected herself. “I mean… okay, do you want the short list or the long list?”
“Tell me everything that has to do with an injury,” replied the nurse soothingly. “If you need to talk, I’m here to listen.”
Maggie earflicked, and mewed in pain as it was the torn ear. “Okay- it was group sex- well, in a way it was, that’s what I thought it was- the one that tore my ear is also the same one that bit my arm. It was claws that hurt my thigh, but wuf type so they weren’t that sharp. I remember one of them doing anal was just too big…” She seemed prepared to shamelessly recount absolutely everything that had to do with an injury, but then stopped abruptly as she saw Edie and Walter beginning to depart, at an awkward distance from each other, and looking uncomfortable. “Stop, wait! Make them stop!”
They did, and Edie asked, “What is it?”
Maggie looked at Walter, and at Edie, earnestly. “I’m sorry… I mean, I had no idea that you knew him, and, well, I know what you two have been going through. It seems like this might have made things a lot harder for you… me, I’ll heal up, and in the line of work I originally wanted you run that kind of risk, and anyway I think I’ll look pretty good with one ragged ear, huh? All streety and stuff. But I don’t want to live that way really.”
“No,” said Edie carefully. “I don’t, either. Not now.”
Maggie continued determinedly, in spite of the protestations of the vixen nurse. “But I wouldn’t want to think that I made things harder for you! Ow, my mouth. Leave me alone, you, I’m talking to my friends!”
The vixen came right back at her with, “Well, finish it up quick, you crazy moggy, so I can make you better! Or I’ll sedate you!” She put her hands on her hips, tsking in gentle mockery.
Maggie smirked. “I’m in trouble! Ow. Okay, okay- but listen, Edie, Walter, promise you won’t be mean to each other! Or something. Oh, I don’t know! You’re too complicated! Just be good, okay? Promise you’ll be good.”
Walter nodded, and shortly after, so did Edie.
“Well then.” said Maggie. “See you later, I’m going to let this nice vixen fix me up.”
“Good!” said the nurse, and resumed fussing over Maggie, as Edie and Walter slipped out into the corridor, and the long walk home.
They walked for a while, until Edie broke the silence with “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” replied Walter, brooding.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it? All right.”
“Wait. What?” said Walter, brusquely. “I’m not in the mood for complicated.”
Edie sighed. “I’m sorry I wrecked your image of me, and go ahead and write me off. We needn’t talk about it any more…”
“It was pretty dumb anyway,” said Walter. “But why should I write you off?”
Edie bristled in shame. “Because I’m a horrible little slut? Not a good kid sister?”
Walter took a moment to reply. “I think I’m beginning to understand…”
“You’d better, because my cover is blown, Walter. It’s true, all of it. I was with that pack, when I was younger.”
“Made an impression, too, didn’t you? You really are something kinda special. You dealt with that all yourself…”
“I was saving your life!” snapped Edie. “I’m sorry I had to treat you that way, but they’d have killed you! I couldn’t let that happen. I destroyed my reputation but it was to save your life! If you had taken even one swing at even one of them…”
“Slow down, Edie. I think I understood what was happening. Didn’t I do as you told me? And it was the hardest thing anyone’s ever asked me to do.” said Walter.
“It wasn’t fair to you!”
Walter harrumphed. “Of course not. Seems like there was a reason for it, though. And did I, or did I not, come through with flying colors? Edie?”
The little silver cat nodded slowly, still padding along. “As a matter of fact, you did.”
“Thank you,” replied Walter. A little while later, he added, “So did you.”
“Flying the colors of a raving slut? Why thank you, good of you to notice…”
Walter whirled and firmly pressed Edie up against the wall. “Stop!”
“What?” gasped Edie, frightened. “Don’t hurt me!” To top it all off, Walter’s sudden fierceness hit her below the belt, and her legs suddenly went wobbly with desire. Edie began to cry, all her barriers falling away.
The hulking wolf looked her over, his hands on her shoulders trembling from some strong emotion. Presently, he let her go, but grabbed her hand and resumed his walk, saying with great seriousness, “Walk with me, and listen.”
Edie did so, though her legs were still unsteady. There wasn’t much else she could do.
“I think I understand almost everything now, it all makes sense for the first time. Just listen to what I have to say… first, you came there with me to have a picnic. Understand? You were coming on a picnic, and you weren’t going to do anything else, either. I knew that, and I was happy just to be with you. Am I going too fast?” asked Walter.
Edie shook her head, and he continued.
“Secondly, there was a cat there who was getting gangbanged by a group of wolves, and knowing her, she started it on purpose- I think I’ve heard her talking about that, actually, how she was getting in touch with some rough crowd. Well, she did that, and got it every which way, and she was so covered in spoo and spit and dirt that I had to wrap a tarp around her to not get filthy when taking her home. And Edie? That cat was not you, doing that. It was Maggie. And I bet the appeal’s worn off, too,” added Walter, brusquely.
Edie nodded. “It does.” she said, weakly.
“That’s what drew me to Maggie in the first place, you know. The sheer wildness of her! The trouble was, she just kept on doing it. I didn’t mind it that much. I didn’t even mind that I had to share her, because that was always a given, and where she comes from, that’s no big deal. But she wanted to teach me to be that way as well, and there are some people I just don’t want to bump uglies with, you hear what I’m saying?”
Edie sniffled. “Uh-huh.”
“This… Chuck, was it? What drew you to him, and why are you not there anymore?” Walter kept walking, and didn’t press for an immediate answer.
Eventually, Edie said, “The wildness of him. The whole scene. I have very strong heats, and at the time it seemed like a good idea to just run with it. It was so primal. There were times when he half killed me with my own libido. It was like nobody else in the world got to get off the way I did. It was like I was special.”
“But you are.” said Walter softly.
“Where I come from, they take you to the hospital and spay you for being like that,” said Edie. “I couldn’t let that happen, so I led a double life. Finally, it got to be too much. Chuck drove me one night so hard that I could have died. As soon as I could walk again, I snuck out and I left. And I left the scene, and I left the planet, and my whole culture, and I came here- because it was over, I couldn’t live that life anymore. I’d never even said goodbye. It wasn’t the sort of thing where you said goodbye when it was over…”
“And you left all that.”
“No, I didn’t!” cried Edie. “When I got here I was still wanting to hook up with bad people, but there weren’t any! Rick is a talker, and everyone is so open, and there was nowhere to hide so I couldn’t! I’ve been so frustrated…”
Walter’s steady stride hesitated. “But…”
“But what? It’s true!”
Walter stopped. “But you didn’t want me? You wanted people like this Chuck?”
“Like hell I didn’t,” said Edie. “Slutty little cat desperately wanted you, but you’re good, it doesn’t fit the program. You don’t hide, you’re upfront, all that. I’ve been sick with want for you, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Then… You could have had Chuck, there, for the asking. He asked you what, three times, to come and be treated like a slut? Edie, why didn’t you go, and leave me to take care of Maggie? I would’ve done that for you. I lo..”
He stopped, abruptly, choking off the word, falling silent, and Edie floated helplessly through the silence, with everything that she knew adrift and no use anymore. There wasn’t an answer, and she saw Walter’s eyes fill with yearning and his need for an answer, and finally Edie had to say, in a little voice, “I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” said Walter, “I know the feeling.”
This was unexpected enough to jolt Edie out of her self-absorbed haze a bit, and she found herself asking, “Why do you know the feeling?” And, amazed, she saw Walter go bashful and uncomfortable in turn.
“Used to think I had a type,” he mumbled. “Used to understand that pretty well. On the one hand, all naughty, and on the other hand little and cute, maybe innocent, I don’t know. That’s never worked out that well for me, you know. Why is it that all of a sudden when I see you being so capable, dealing with that Chuck guy and being in control of the situation, something clicks? I’m supposed to like you better if you’re innocent or faking it, that’s the type.”
Edie blinked, wiping a tear, her programmer brain coming to the fore. “You have a type, but it doesn’t work? You can’t pursue it anymore?”
“Nope.”
“Me either.” said Edie, and silence fell again, but this time it was a very busy, thoughts-whirling silence, and Edie broke it first, purring, “But… that’s too easy!”
“You think?” said Walter. “Wanna bet?”
“But… it doesn’t feel right!” said Edie.
“Compared to what?” replied Walter, promptly. Slowly, a grin began to sneak onto his face.
“But… that would be crazy!” said Edie, beginning to feel so giddy that she feared she’d leave the ground.
“Compared to what?” grinned Walter. Suddenly he let out a yelp of delight, and grabbed her, and they were hugging each other, whirling around and laughing and crying and shaking as the emotions cut loose.
Finally, Walter put her down, beaming, and Edie looked up at him, glowing. She noticed her tail was hard left, and straightened it with an air of feline fastidiousness, and looked up at him again, with great curiosity.
“But… you love me even though I DON’T set off the old chemistry?”
Walter replied with a soft, deep, lusty growl that nearly toppled her where she stood, yet she held her ground. “Silly! I mean, I can still think. Can you still think, too?”
He nodded, smugly. “Absolutely. And, good for us!”
“So,” purred Edie, “what now?”
Walter took her hand. “Well, let me hazard a guess. You will continue to be not helpless or innocent at all, and that will turn out to suit me just fine. I will continue to be civilized and understanding, and amazingly enough, that will turn out to suit you just fine too. And, in conclusion…”
Edie smirked, amazed at the sense of freedom- everything was strange and utterly unfamiliar, and yet she’d never felt so grounded. “In conclusion?”
Walter put the final touch on all the unexpectedness, by petting her for an answer- he, who had never touched her in any suggestive way, ran an affectionate touch down her front, down her chest, down her belly… Edie gasped and sagged against him as the touch teasingly stopped just a hairsbreadth short.
“In conclusion,” said Walter, “let’s get you home.” His eyes twinkled at her reaction.
“That,” managed Edie, “will do nicely.”
They set off, and Walter inquired solicitously, “Can you walk?”, his tail wagging like mad.
“Hell, I’d drag you.” replied Edie, breathlessly.
Rick wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going, heading on autopilot to the Cafe, when he heard the cry.
It froze him in his tracks. Some heady, sweet, feline wail from somewhere, speaking of lewd yearning beyond most people’s ability to even imagine. He realized that he’d started to get an erection just from a single, brief sound that went through him like a beam of pure lust, and he slowly turned, reading wall markings, to get a sense of where he was…
…and yes, he just happened to be walking by Edie’s rooms.
Rick stood there, stunned, in the middle of the corridor. Was that a deep growl from behind the door? And, all at once, he knew what he was going to do. It wasn’t his usual style, but… the fox crept very quietly up to the door, and hungrily pressed his ear to it, silently begging his heartbeat to quiet down so he could hear more of those sweet, sweet sounds, no more able to resist than a salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
There was a little pause, and then a high, keening, desperately yearning sound absolutely glued him to the door- answered by a sort of interrogative rumble, and then Rick’s eyes went very wide as he listened to a desperate, breathy wail that suddenly transformed into a paint-peeling yowl.
Transfixed, he listened avidly and thought he heard those inevitable words, ‘Are you okay?’, but it was hard to be sure, as the caterwauling didn’t stop. Right after that, he was sure he heard a deep “Ohmygod! nhh!” and privately noted: Walter, knew it all the time.
The riveted fox continued to listen at the door, quite shamelessly, as the sweet, feline song of lust played on. As it developed, it seemed to somehow gain fervor- it would die away for a moment, and then flare up to a wild, bold yowl. At some point, the wail began to break up into rhythmic yowls and gasps, and what caught Rick’s attention most about this was the way it was accompanied by little yelps- he thought he could guess what was provoking those, and figured he’d probably be yiping too if it was him. The caterwauling built and built in power and intensity, taking on a glorious shameless resonance, and began to be accompanied by deeper groans and growlings… until all at once, Rick was nearly blasted away from the door by an eruption of shrieks and howls beyond anything he’d heard. Stunned, he sagged against the door in amazement as it went on and on, and then the yelps quieted but the yowling carried on relentlessly, exhaustingly, and… yes… began gently to lose its alarming force, gradually quieted and came in for a very gradual landing, until finally Rick was listening hungrily to long, trembling moans of ecstacy, beautifully shameless and passionate, sweetly and slowly fading to a quivering silence in which he could hear only the excited pounding of his own heart.
Silence filled the corridor, and Rick realised his ear was still pressed to the door.
He looked down at himself, looked at the door, and headed off down the corridor, in search of somebody.
Anybody.
