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Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 171 / 0100  [ Geographic: The Eternal Answers ]  (FF (fur))
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:10:05 -0500
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Geographic: The Eternal Answers

Elenya, Cerim 24, 0100

Christiane Sutpratthana leaned back in her chair with a mug in her
hands and her planner in her lap. Three days into the voyage of a
lifetime and already she had become stuck with a quandary. Her planner
was her way of keeping her life in order; it had traveled with her
through all seven continents of the Earth and had never failed her.
Now, however, it had become a source of confusion as she realized that
the dates on its pages held little meaning. Days were a phenomenon of
a spinning world; years of an orbiting one. Neither had any meaning on
this starship, especially not when the entire crew of the ship held to
a different clock and a different calendar. She turned the planner
over and admired the Geographic logo she had ironed onto its cloth
front. She had worked hard to acquire that logo and the associated
benefits that went with it. And now a career of capturing all manner
of humanity on film had been rewarded with this trip, this ultimate
voyage of discovery.

Around the rim of the logo was the motto, "To explore, to map, and to
photograph the world." She was going to be the first to photograph
another world. True, Geographic had run photos taken by NASA
satellites, but this time the photographs would be up close, and
personal.

She missed her cigarettes. She had kicked the habit six years ago,
shortly after her diagnosis with lung cancer. She had been lucky; the
cancer had been small and well-contained, and with surgery she made a
full recovery. She had had moments, especially in the past couple of
weeks, where the craving had hit her. This one was particularly bad,
but given that so far from Earth that it would take light years to get
from there to here, she would survive without them.

A knock at the door startled her and she looked up. "Come in?"

The door opened. She had been expecting Trellin, the Tindal who had
been assigned to her as an adjunct and guide. Instead, one who had
overnight become the most recognizable human now living, Ken Shardik,
stood there. "Do you mind company?"

She recovered quickly. "No, not at all." She closed the planner and
placed it on the table.

Her visitor took a seat around the tiny table crammed into the corner
of her cabin. He touched her planner briefly, his fingers tracing the
edges of the patch. "I wanted to come by and see how you and the rest
of your peers are doing, Ms. Sutpratthana. And I wanted to apologize
for my theatrics two days ago. I realize that I can be insufferable at
times. My people are willing to slap me around a little when I become
insufferable but I expect Terrans would be a little more timid.

"Would you like me to be less timid?" she asked.

"I would," he agreed.

She smiled. "I accept your apology."

"Good. So," he continued, "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

She thought for a moment. "I don't think so," she said. "I would like
an opportunity to talk further, if you would like that."

"I would. I'm free now."

She opened her planner and found a blank page in the back. "There's a
great secret surrounding Pendor. One concerning the geography itself.
Your collection of maps is entirely about Earth; there's not one
reference in it to Pendorian maps, cities, towns, or anything like
that. In some other documents there's mention of an Arc or a Ring, and
a mention of 'the first shadow of night.' That appears so often I
don't think it's poetic metaphor. Is Pendor really a world?"

She saw a look of surprise cross Ken's face, followed by a slow smile.
"You've been doing your homework. Yes, Pendor is a world. It's at
least as big as Earth. And there are some oddities with the geography.
We want to keep some of that a secret until we reached Pendor. I'm
feeling a flair for the dramatic. I'm sure in the first few days
you're there you'll be able to find more than enough to keep
yourselves busy for the entire year."

"It's at least as big as Earth," she repeated. "Is it any bigger?"

The grin grew large. "Probably."

"You won't tell me any more?"

"No," he said. "It's not in my nature to give away all my secrets."

She wrote that down in her book. "Do you have any children of your
own?" she asked suddenly.

"Um, No. My partner and I do not have any children. I don't intend on
having any children of my own genes at any time. The Pendorians are my
children."

"Your partner? I was under the impression that Pendorians don't
marry."

"Define 'marry' and come up with a universal definition. I've lived
with the same fem for some twenty years now and we've been very happy
together. We're not the same species nor are we particularly
monogamous. We just find that living together is very comfortable for
us. I love her and she loves me."

"But you're not monogamous?"

"I find it interesting that I mentioned that I was living with someone
who is not a human being, but you choose to focus on my lack of
monogamy. Anyway, no; monogamy doesn't make much sense to me. I know
monogamous people on Pendor but not many. Most of them engage in
serial monogamy; lifetime monogamy is as rare as the unicorn on
Pendor."

"Why is that?"

Ken smiled. "We're immortal."

Christiane almost dropped her pen. "You're what?"

"Functionally unaging. Barring exceptional gross trauma or willful
self-destruction, I will live as long as I choose. The first few
generations of Pendorians were a little more fragile than we are now,
but some serious medical improvements in the past thirty years have
granted us a lease on real immortality."

"How old are you, really?" she asked.

"A hundred and thirty-two years old."

"And you'll never die."

"Oh, I imagine I might someday," he said. "Probability will catch up
with me. That's one of the reasons why Pendorians have such low
fertility rates; they have to match the rate of willful or accidental
self-destruction, which at this point is actually quite low."

"But it does happen?" she asked.

"Of course. I would never stand between someone and their decision to
move on." His smile looked forced and uncomfortable. "That's our
euphemism for suicide."

"I see." She sighed.

"This is making you uncomfortable," Ken observed.

She nodded. "You too. It's a bit of a bombshell. The differences
between Earth people and your people will become much more pronounced
as time goes on."

"Your people are within a century of discovering the secret,
Christiane. It's really quite a simple secret, although the technology
to implement it is quite extensive."

She tried to think of what to ask next and came up blank. "I can't
think of anything else to ask suddenly."

"I'm sure you will eventually," he said. "Anyway, I'll leave you to
your notes. By the way, if you'd like your calendar to be printed with
Pendorian dates, just ask Jamie and she'll have some printed up for
you when you get to Pendor. On board, I'm afraid you'll have to use
the computer for it. We don't carry much paper with us."

She looked up at him. "Thank you, Shardik."

"You're welcome."
 ________________________________________________________________

She was still sitting there, trying to come to grips with that one
great secret Ken had told her when she was again interrupted by a
knock at the door. "Come in?"

This time, Trellin came in. "I wanted to see how you were getting
along."

"Are you really immortal, Trellin?" Christiane asked suddenly.

Trellin stopped. "He told you." Christiane nodded. "Yes, I am. I don't
intend to live forever. Maybe two hundred years. I'm already over
forty and I can't see wanting to go on for too long."

Christiane found herself envying this fem who had those kinds of
choices. She had been trying for the past forty minutes trying to get
the idea out of her head when she realized that there was no solution
for it but to accept it.

She made a note, then looked up at Trellin with a smile that stretched
from ear to ear.

"What?" Trellin asked.

"I just had an insight into your people that I didn't expect."
Christiane closed her notebook and zipped it shut.

"Oh," Trellin replied. "Was it a good one?"

Christine nodded. "An important one."

"Then I want you to tell me about it. Later. Right now, I wanted to
ask you if you had made any choices regarding an on-board exercise
regimen. While it's not compulsory it really is good for you."

Christiane sighed. "I'm sure it is. What do you have on board?"

Trellin looked up at the ceiling with an expression Christiane read as
clearly exasperated. She knew Trellin had listed the options before;
she had merely forgotten them all. "We have two jogging tracks, only
one of which is open right now. We have a very large swimming pool.
You don't even have to do laps; just spend an hour treading water if
you must. We have a weight room with a wide variety of equipment,
wider now that we've been to Earth, although some of it looks more
like torture equipment. There are even water polo and water volleyball
games. There are organized exercise regimens. We would like to have a
martial arts instructor on board but, unfortunately, they're both on
Terra studying under Terran masters who probably have a lot to teach
them. And a lot to learn from them."

Christiane looked up at her guide with a smile. "I don't have a swim
suit."

"What's that?" Trellin asked, surprised. "A suit for swimming in? The
pool isn't that cold. It should be around 30."

Christiane found herself thinking she'd been living in the United
States too long. Raised in eastern France, she had never thought of
swimsuits as a necessity before moving to the States. She smiled.
"Let's head to the pool."

Trellin nodded as Christiane rose. "What's a swim suit?" she insisted.

"Modesty suit."

"Oh," Trellin responded. "Silly humans."

"Silly Pendorians," Christiane mocked back in a ritual built in only a
few days of knowing one another. She liked Trellin immensely. "Show me
this swimming pool."

The swimming pool took Christiane by surprise. "It's big." It was far
larger than those she had seen on luxury cruise liners back on Earth.
It seemed a lot of water for such a small ship. "Why?"

"Dolphins use it," Trellin said, pointing into the water.

Christiane noticed two dolphins racing back and forth inside the pool.
Another surprise were the two apparently young children playing near
one end, a guardian clearly of a different species watching them
closely. "There are children on board?"

"Yes," Trellin replied. "We bring our families."

"I hadn't anticipated that. Nobody told us."

"We didn't announce it. It didn't make sense to do so; the parents
would make excellent hostages and the children were allowed down to
the surface only in secret."

"They've been on this ship all this time?"

Trellin nodded. "They're the only ones on this ship. I imagine it has
been hard for them but children are quite adaptable. I'm confident
they aren't harmed by this experience."

"Where do I put my clothes?"

"There are stations over there " Trellin pointed to a collection of
cubby holes "And there are towels there. Just drop them in that hamper
and someone will bring them in to be washed."

Five minutes later Christiane stood naked at the edge of the pool and
wondered if she really looked as awkward as she felt. Most of the crew
around her were both young and beautiful. She should have known to
expect that by now. Knowing that they never grew old, that they had
far superior medical technology on their side, and that these, at any
rate, were professional military personnel, exemplars of their
individual races, she should have expected them all to be beautiful.
She didn't even know what age would look like on some of the feline
species; at any age, cats tended to have a grace all their own. She,
on the other hand, had 40 years of Earth's gravity dragging down at
her body; even having a small chest hadn't saved her from the visible
effects of sag. She slipped under the water and hoped nobody looked
too closely.

Wanting to be invisible was unusual for her; she had never been afraid
of being the center of attention before. It was only amongst this
amazing array of furred and not-so-furred bodies that she felt
self-conscious.

A sleek, grey form slid past her in the water and she started. The
dolphin turned an easy circle and came back towards her, nose first.
She felt a peculiar sensation in her belly. Then a voice, calm and
self-assured, spoke to her. "You're one of those humans from that
Geographic magazine, aren't you?"

She turned and looked to see a small silver ball hovering next to her.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," the voice from the ball said. "I
just wanted to look you up close."

"Who are you?" she asked the ball.

"Me, here. The one in the water. You're talking to my remote. Which is
a bit like bending over to address someone's left hand."

She turned to the dolphin. "You?"

"Me. My name is a collection of whistles and clicks, so just call me
Bead. Which may not be a very musical chord, now that I think about
it." The dolphin whistled what Christiane took to be a laugh.

"Wow. What do you do on this vessel?"

"Security," the dolphin replied calmly. "Although most of it consists
of telling robots what to do, and not very much of that since I can't
remember us ever having a security problem. But this vessel needs a
set of living eyes to look over it and that is my job."

"I see," Christiane said, ever more curious. She felt the missing
weight of the camera about her neck.

"So you've met our venerable Bead." She saw Kennet Shardik swimming
towards her. Like everyone else in the room, he was stark naked.
"Heya, Bead."

The dolphin didn't respond in English, but instead directly clicked
and whistles to him. He nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. Are they?"
More whistles and clicks. "Interesting. But not a threat?" More clicks
than whistles. "I guess that'll do for now." Shardik turned towards
her. "Apparently Bead thinks your peers could prove restless and
troublesome."

"I don't think they're going to be that much trouble. It's a long
voyage; people get restless," she said. Unclothed, Shardik was
actually something of a handsome young human. Pale skin on his chest,
but his arms and legs were very hairy. He wore his hair long although
for swimming he had restrained it with the some kind of rubber band.

"True," he commented. "But you have to appreciate that the idea of
staying holed up in a vessel for several months is something that
hasn't been a normal part of the human mindset for decades. I believe
only Lisanne has done anything even remotely like it. And there's the
added stress of trusting us."

Trellin joined them in the water, swimming with a peculiar grace.
"Ken!" she said, grabbing him and pulling him down into the water with
a hug. When they came up, she kissed him on the cheek.

He sputtered and shook his head to clear the hair from his eyes.
"Trellin!" he said. The tone was angry but his eyes smiled. "Do you
mind? Not in front of the guests."

"They're going to learn you're a lovely and lascivious old man
eventually," she said.

"Maybe so, but hopefully not today." He hugged her close, then looked
up at Christiane. "I didn't expect you to find me in the altogether
quite so soon."

"I grew up in a country that didn't have quite the nudity taboos of
the United States, which I understand is your country of origin.
Although your command of both English and Japanese is quite
impressive, you're not a native of Japan. And I've seen analysis of
the slang you use indicating that you were born in the US rather than
the UK or an English-speaking province."

"I see," he said with a grin. "I hope you don't expect your experts to
have gotten everything down perfectly."

She returned the grin with a casual expertise. "No. And I won't pry.
It's not why I'm here."

"Of course it is." He turned his head. "The fem I came here with is
waving her arms to get my attention. I'll talk to you later,
Christiane."

She nodded. Trellin remained with her, shaking her head. "He can be
quite exasperating."

"So he said."
 ________________________________________________________________

Christiane found herself writing furiously in her notebook that night
after dinner. Her realization about Pendorian immortality had her
thinking. And something else.

A knock on the door again distracted her. Trellin walked in and smiled
at her. "How's your reporting coming?"

"Quite good," Christiane replied. "Although I seem to be getting the
lion's share of Ken's attention. I talked with Jack and Wolf and they
hadn't quite had the privileges Ken has bestowed on me. And that act
at the pool-- is he really that suggestive to all females?"

"Fems," Trellin said. "Sometimes. He does seem to like you, though."

"I see," Christiane said. Her heart was beating loud in her chest as
she decided to admit something. "Trellin, how do I deal with that? I'm
not... I'm a lesbian."

"You are?" Trellin responded. Christiane got the impression from
Trellin's tone that being a lesbian was hardly a big deal but not
knowing about it was something of an inconvenience. "Why didn't you
just tell him that the first time he tossed a flirt at you?"

"I didn't know what to do. You don't just tell the head of state right
out that you're not interested in bedding him, do you?"

"You do on Pendor," Trellin replied, somewhat angrily. "Especially in
a tight and forcibly intimate situation like the one we have here!
Jamie, are you there? Pass that note on to Ken with my signature,
would you?"

"Got it," the AI responded. "And welcome to the sisterhood,
Christiane." There was something like an electronic chuckle from the
speaker.

"What does that mean?" Christiane asked.

The AI responded, "It means that as I was maturing through
incorporation shock I chose a feminine identity and I seem to get
along with other feminine identities better than I do masculine ones.
It does not mean that I'm any less functional with mels, I just prefer
to have social banter with fems."

"Oh," Christiane said. She could imagine the Pendorians being queer
but the idea of their computers identifying as gay or straight
disturbed her slightly. She had come to accept Jamie as a part of the
crew, and even come to accept Jamie's chosen sexual identity, but that
the computer should therefore have a sexual orientation hadn't
occurred to her before. "Do you have sex?"

The computer giggled. It actually giggled, Christiane thought. "That
depends on what you mean by 'have sex.' I guess I would have to say
that I don't have sex. I just prefer to be in the company of women."

"Oh." Christiane swallowed. This was going to take some thinking. She
looked up at Trellin, wondering if the confusion was that clear on her
face.

Trellin apparently thought it was because she laughed. "Don't worry,
Christiane. You'll get used to us eventually. You have to realize that
even though some of us may look like you, we are not like Terrans at
all. We're a different culture with different behaviors entirely." She
took the seat opposite. "Can I ask you a question, Christiane?"

Christiane was taken aback. She hadn't expected to be the subject of
curiosity on the ship; most of the Pendorians had treated her
deferentially. "I-- Sure."

"If you're a lesbian, are you attracted to me? Before you answer that
I have to say something. I'm not asking that because I think all
homosexual people are always and only interested in sex. I understand
that a lot of people think that way-- on Pendor as well as Earth. I'm
asking because I'm finding myself interested in you."

Christiane looked at Trellin's face, trying to understand those
uncompromising green eyes that stared back at her, so disturbing
without pupil or iris to mark where Trellin was looking. Although her
face was covered in a light-blue fur and topped with a black nose, it
was still a face Christiane could read. And she saw both concern and
worry there. She reached out with one hand and took Trellin's. "Is
this called a hand or a mitten?"

"Either," Trellin said, looking down at the long, darkly-colored
fingers surrounding her mitten.

"I think I like you, Trellin. I can't say I'm wholly attracted to you
but I'm intensely curious about you, and for a photojournalist like
myself that can be an exciting feeling all its own."

"So " Trellin pulled Christiane's hand close to her lips and kissed
Christiane's hand softly. "Is this okay?"

"Trellin, what will happen if your people find out you're trying to
seduce me?"

"Probably nothing, unless my feelings for you or your feelings for me
get in the way of your doing the task you came to Pendor to
accomplish."

"Is that all? No hints of impropriety?"

"Making my charge happy is the most proper thing in the world,"
Trellin said with a voice matter-of-fact. "If you want, I can drop it
and forget about it and we can do our jobs efficiently. You aren't
going to Pendor to have sex after all."

"That doesn't mean I can't make friends with the natives," Christiane
said. "What-- what would it be like?"

"You'll have to find out for yourself," Trellin said with a grin.
"We're physically compatible, if you're curious."

"I think I knew that already." Christiane grinned as she said it.
"Even physically. Come here."

Trellin stood up and walked around the table, standing before her.
Christiane took her mitten and pulled her down into her lap. Trellin
sat with a smile. Christiane lifted one hand to the Tindal's face and
guided their mouths together.

To Christiane, Trellin kissed like she'd been born to do nothing else.
She's always had trouble finding lovers who kissed well, but Trellin
understood what she wanted a second after contact. Mouths partially
opened, lips caressing lips and tongues wetting tongues, Christiane
held her breath long enough that she felt dizzy when they parted. As
she gasped to take in air, she rubbed her cheeks, humming with
thoughts. "Your fur, it tickles me. A little. And it itches."

"That is a common problem with humans and furries. Or even with just
two furries. Rubbing fur the wrong way." Trellin smiled. She leaned
over and kissed Christiane again.

This time the kiss was more frenetic, more intense. Christiane felt
like she finally knew what she was doing here, at least in the small
little room with this curiously wonderful woman in her arms. She had
known many lovers over the years and the assignments; from India,
Africa, and of course America, as well as many other places, she had
taken many beloveds and many of them she still called friends. They
had come in all shapes and sizes. But none of them had ever had fur.
She wondered if she should perhaps consider her act bestial.

But the kisses raining down on her from Trellin's mouth distracted her
from such thoughts and she found herself responding in old familiar
ways. She nibbled on the curve of Trellin's chin; Trellin kissed her
cheeks, her nose, her forehead. "You have beautiful hair, Christiane."

"Your people have good shampoos."

Trellin giggled. "We had better."

"I can see that," Christiane murmured. She pulled Trellin close,
allowed herself to inhale the warming scent of Trellin's fur. There
was no artificiality about it, not a hint of the kinds of scents used
in shampoos or soaps. Trellin's scent was all her own and Christiane
found it fascinating. She bravely slid one hand up between Trellin's
legs, and the Tindal squirmed under Christiane's probing. "If you're
going to do that," Trellin sighed, "We should move to the bed."

"Then let's do that," Christiane agreed softly.

Trellin rose and led Christiane the short distance to the bed.
Christiane wondered if it was large enough for the two of them, but
she'd made love in smaller spaces and in crazier places. Well, she had
made love in places where both she and her lover could have been
killed for holding hands, but she doubted any place could be crazier
than aboard a starship in the middle of a trip so many millions of
kilometers long.

Christiane sat down on the bed but Trellin remained standing. She
shook her way out of her jumpsuit with a single shrug and stood before
Christiane without a word.

Christiane found herself wondering what she was looking for. Without a
doubt Trellin was both very feminine and very alien. She had wide hips
and a bit of a belly; her shoulders looked strong but from them hung
two tentacles that sometimes reminded Christiane chillingly of snakes,
especially in the way they moved. She had a short neck, large ears,
and right now a very wide grin. "What do you think?"

"I think I'm in for the experience of a lifetime," Christiane replied.
"Come here."

The naked Trellin sat down again in Christiane's lap, but this time
Christiane had a chance to run her fingers along her lover's naked and
furred back. Trellin seemed to purr slightly as she ran her fingers
down her spine, finding familiar shapes hidden beneath all that fur.
Her lips poised to kiss Christiane's and they both welcomed the
renewed kisses and touches of the evening. "I want you," Trellin said
softly.

"For how long?"

"Tonight," Trellin said. "Tomorrow we'll review."

"That sounds right," Christiane agreed. She shifted her weight
slightly and allowed Trellin to fall down onto the bed on her back.
She stood up herself and removed her own clothing. She had taken a
ship's pants and jacket, wondering how Trellin dealt with the task of
removing the entire jumpsuit to use the toilet. That was the one thing
about those jumpsuits that she thought would drive her crazy.

She got into bed next to the naked Tindal. "So, are there any real
differences between us?"

"Not really," Trellin asked. "I have a lot more fur, maybe."

"There is no maybe about that," Christiane chuckled. "But what else do
you have?" She ran her fingers up Trellin's leg, against the lie of
the other fem's fur, upwards to that sacred spot between Trellin's
legs. She hoped that Trellin had been telling the truth, that there
were no differences. As she got closer, her hand became warmer as she
could feel the heat coming off Trellin's vulva. Trellin seemed to hold
her breath; Christiane was determined to get it out of the other fem
and kissed her hard. Trellin gasped as Christiane's hand cupped her
sex; she parted her legs to give Christiane the reach she wanted.
Christiane felt the soft lie of fine fur and the moisture of a woman
in heat. Whatever differences there were between them, that was not
going to be any different. Trellin's body squirmed against her own;
the fur tickled at the edges where their bodies met but otherwise she
could find only the wonderful thrust of an experienced lover pushing
back at her. The muscles between Trellin's thighs tensed repeatedly as
Christiane massaged her mound. She eased one finger between the
swollen lips of Trellin's vulva and found both familiar wetness and
familiar shapes. She slowly eased her hand away from the blue-furred
fem's body and lifted it to her own lips.

Trellin gasped. "What do you think?"

"You're very beautiful," Christiane said. Her hand strayed downwards
again, this time hovering over Trellin's breasts. Christiane found
them very soft and for some reason the texture of Trellin's breasts
made her smile. She leaned over and kissed those breasts, feeling the
fur on her lips, finding one of Trellin's nipple through it and
nipping it. Trellin moaned.

Christiane parted Trellin's legs just a little more, enough to get
between them fully. She found Trellin's vulva looked very familiar;
the flesh was pink and fully flushed; her pubic hair was little
different from the fur on her breasts and belly; perhaps it was a
little thicker but also finer.

She kissed Trellin's mound and Trellin pulled her knees up into the
air. "Yes, Christiane. Please."

Christiane kissed around Trellin's mound, sliding a finger into
Trellin's opening. Inside, her body felt even more similar to a human
woman's. She found Trellin's clit and teased it with her tongue.
Christiane glanced upwards along Trellin's body and surprised herself
with the look; with her eyes closed, the smell and taste were very
human but now, looking up, the great expanse of blue fur drove home
the alienness of the woman she was making love to. Christiane closed
her eyes again and pressed her mouth hard against Trellin's vulva,
enjoying the taste and smell of the Tindal's sex.

Trellin's moans were soft but insistent. Christiane wanted to hear the
satisfying sound of a woman in need; she flicked her tongue over
Trellin's cunt and the Tindal moaned louder. Christiane tried not to
smile too much as she kissed and loved Trellin. The Tindal's orgasm
came hard and fast, a shuddering of lovely limbs and the sound of a
desperate voice. Christiane dragged it out as long as she could.

Trellin sat up and pulled Christiane's face to her own, kissing and
licking her juices off Christiane's willing smile.

"Oh, Fah, you are great," Trellin gasped. Trellin eased Christine down
next to her, holding her close. "Thank you, Christiane. Thank you."

Christiane hummed briefly, accepting the praise. She caressed the
blue-furred fem gently as they held one another, then felt Trellin
release her. "You have such a beautiful body," Trellin said softly.

"Don't lie to me, Trellin. Compared to everyone else on this vessel
I'm the one who looks ancient."

"No, you don't understand us," Trellin said, smiling down at her. "I
like the way you look. Because we live so long our bodies are made to
not change. Humans Terran bodies change with time. You wear your
history on your outsides and that's what's so beautiful." She kissed
one of Christiane's breasts softly. "You're so beautiful. You look
like you've had so much life." Her mouth touched Christiane's belly,
then her mound.

Christiane parted her legs, taking Trellin's words to heart, putting
aside all the thinking she'd have to do much later. Right now
Trellin's mouth was sending waves of warmth through her belly and she
heard moans before she realized they were her own. Trellin's mouth was
talented but she wanted more. "Your mitten, Trellin-- can you?"

Trellin looked up, her face creased with thought. "I think so. Do you
have anything slick?"

"Bag under the bed. Blue and white tube."

Trellin found the container Christiane mentioned, squirting a small
amount of the stuff onto her mitten. Christiane felt that mitten
squirming against her opening, Trellin's opposable thumb opening and
pressing. Trellin's mouth again found her mound and the twin
sensations of Trellin's warm mouth and her probing mitten made
Christiane's head swim. Again the alien sensation of Trellin's mitten
brought the strangeness of tonight to clarity in Christiane's mind, a
clarity was easily swept away by Trellin's insistence. Christiane
moaned loudly and pushed down, letting Trellin's rolled mitten sink
into her sex. That alone drove her over the brink; she couldn't hold
back the scream that tore itself out of her as she came. Her climax
rolled on and on through her body for nearly half a minute before she
could even begin to recover.

When she could look up, Trellin was lying next to her. The Tindal
grinned and said, "You were amazing."

"Me?" Christiane replied. "You were perfect!"

Trellin kissed Christiane warmly. "I'm glad to hear that," she
whispered.

The two women cuddled for a while. Christiane couldn't help but smile
as they lay together, but eventually Trellin roused herself and sat
up. "I'm going to go back to my quarters, Christiane."

"You sure?"

"The bed is too small," Trellin. "And I'm still a little-- I still
want to keep us apart, not a couple. I just wanted to help you feel
happy."

Christiane reached up with one hand. Trellin took it. "You did that,"
Christiane agreed.

"Then I've done what I wanted. I'll do it again if you like."

"I will like. Soon."

Trellin nodded. "See you tomorrow. We'll talk."

"Yes."

As the door closed behind Trellin, Christiane settled down onto the
bed, letting out a deep sigh, letting go of tension she hadn't been
aware she'd been holding in. She rose from the bed and sat at her
table, taking out her notebook again. She tried to get her thoughts in
order. She looked down at what she had written and continued her
earlier writing.

If pregnancy as we knew it fifty years ago was an imposition we could
no longer tolerate, then death as we know it is also an imposition
that Pendorians have decided they cannot tolerate either. But one of
the purposes of contraception and abortion is to give women the same
power and rights over their bodies that men have-- the right to not
have children. If that difference in power between men and women is
addressed by reproductive technologies, what imbalance does
immortality address to Pendorians? Maybe it's that one imbalance that
will always exist, no matter what: us versus the universe. Even
granting immortality barely tips the scales, these people are so much
a part of the physical world around them, just like us.

And Trellin-- she told me that she adored my body because it changed
with the passing years. There's something infinitely sad about a
people who never change. I feel a little like Wendy in the Land of the
Lost Boys. Trellin is clearly grown up-- but does she ever get past
it? I suppose avoiding the midlife crisis is a plus. I wonder if aged
maturity is all it's cracked up to be.

Make a note: look up the oldest Pendorians. Not the tleel (check
spelling) or centuries (same) but the children of those. The ones who
grew up and are a hundred years old. What are they like? Do they have
their own children? If I can find a few who are ninety years old who
have children who are twenty-- The lack of difference will be
shocking.

She closed the notebook and put it away again. Exhaustion finally
overtook her and she lay down again. She wondered if Trellin would be
as lovely to her eyes, and if she would be as lovely to Trellins's, in
the morning.
 ________________________________________________________________

The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related
Tales are Copyright (C) 1988-2002 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution
limited to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All other rights
are reserved to the author.

The complete Journal Entries collection is available at:
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf

--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf
EAC Department of Corrective Phrenology

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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