Message-ID: <11500eli$9805221914@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: Citizen@GalaxyCorp.com (Citizen) Subject: {Leeson}"Under the Moons of Eden" ( MF tg ScFi ) [4/4] Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <35705648.22190267@mail.mindspring.com> UNDER THE MOONS OF EDEN Copyright 1996, by Christopher Leeson (Send notes and comments to cdl25@usa.net) Chapter 11 *Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, But Lust's effect is tempest after sun.* VENUS AND ADONIS Along with everything else, Dr. Lowry had to address a sort of hysterical anxiety among the expectant mothers that their babies might be born mutants with alien DNA, or some other abnormality. I understood easily enough where such fears could come from -- someone had played with the women's genetics outrageously, and it was only a small mental leap from there to begin wondering whether they would be giving birth to monsters. All Sebastian could do was to keep reassuring them that, as yet, she could detect no hint of abnormality in any of the fetuses. Everything that I learned from the doctor about the physical and dispositional changes that pregnancy brought reenforced my predisposition to play it chaste. I found it hard to understand how any woman could actually want to become pregnant or, if she had experienced it once, that she would ever allow it to occur again. But I thought it wise not to take a superior attitude upon the subject. After all, I had already accepted a male lover and who knew what other changes of attitude Klink might have programmed into us? It troubled Dr. Lowry a great deal that we had such a paucity of pediatric-specific supplies. Forget the pharmaceuticals which we didn't have. We even lacked baby powder and so faced a future in which our days and nights would be rived by the cries of sore and chapped infants. Though we still had a little of the adult equivalent, its medicated dust, according to Lowry, would be too harsh for an infant's delicate lungs. Cornstarch would be the best solution by far, but -- alas -- Klink had no corn. We were also bereft of much in the way of strong, absorbent cloth to use for diapers. To meet this crisis, I resolved to pursue my tree-bark-to-fabric theory as a personal project. I sought out the advice of everyone who had some botanical knowledge but, alas, none of our troopers had anything useful to suggest. Determined to do good nonetheless, I went about, sometimes accompanied by Alan, sometimes alone, taking samples of bark from every local species which I could find. After each day's search, I made a fire and subjected each to boiling and subsequent beating, just as I had read about primitive tribes doing long ago. I felt like some medieval alchemist conducting experiments on the basis of almost zero knowledge. As it turned out, no amount of boiling and pounding ever reduced any slip of bark that I found into anything resembling cloth. In less than two weeks I had ruled out every species of tree -- a term we used to describe any large, trunked Klinkian plant -- which we had so far identified. But then I recalled having seen many trees growing up on Woolenska's Hill, and so suggested another sample- collecting outing to Alan. He agreed -- perhaps because my returning to Woolenska's Hill bothered him, or perhaps because he realized that the trip promised to afford us two a little privacy. # Alan was unshaven when he called at my hut that morning. "My razors are all dull," he explained. "Some of the guys are shaving with utility knives, but I didn't want to turn my face into hamburger just before meeting with you. Anyway, I always used to wear a beard in college, before I got drafted." I nodded resignedly. One by one the amenities of civilization were falling away from us. But even more disheartening than the prospect of the 54th turning into a tribe of cave people by inches, was the thought of kissing someone who might soon have a beard like a 'Forty-Niner. We hiked up to the hilltop and, being very tired by then, sat down in the shade of a white stone outcropping and refreshed ourselves from our canteens. Out of the sun, it did not take Alan long to become frisky. He sidled up close to me and took my hands in his. Once more managing to fight down my residual queasiness about intimacy with a male, I rested my head on his sweat-dampened shoulder. Powerful memories came rushing back to us as we sat there quietly -- memories of our last time upon this bluff. The fact that I was still drawing breath I owed to Alan alone. I owed him more than I could ever replay, and also believed that our shared experience had forged between us a bond stronger than Tosolian steel. "Alan, what's going to become of us?" I asked suddenly. "I don't know. It's best to take things slow." "I guess you have your reservations, too." "I suppose so. I just wish I had the nerve that Roberts does, to be open about what I feel, no matter what anyone else thinks." I looked up at him. "Do you think this business doesn't require nerve from the women, too?" "I suppose it takes even more," he conceded thoughtfully. "You know," he added, "it's getting harder and harder to remember that you ever were our rangy, square-jawed commander." "But I was," I sighed. "We've got to work through that fact, as hard as it is for both of us." After a moment's reflection he asked: "What do you feel when you look at me?" I gazed into his unshaven face, into those soft, powder-blue eyes, and replied with more lightness than I felt, "I like what I see -- mostly." "Mostly? Come on, level with me!" "It's hell," I confessed as I slumped back against the white stone. "How can the sight of any male affect me the way you do? I can't stand the idea of being laughed at for weakness, or being thought queer." Alan's expression suddenly sobered. I realized too late how much my words must have wounded him. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded," I pleaded. He nodded somberly. "I know you didn't." To make amends, I nestled closer. He put his arm around me and drew me in. His hug felt good, but a kind of internal dichotomy still told me that I must be doing something wrong. After a while, Alan grew restless and suggested: "Maybe we should check out these trees." Reluctantly, I eased myself to my feet. "It's as hot as Antares up here, but I came prepared." I unbuckled my belt and dropped my trousers. Alan's eyebrows went up when he noted that I had worn a loincloth instead of my usual baggy shorts. While he watched, I arranged my shirttails and, from my breast pocket, took out a second bootstring to bind about my waist. "Is this an attempt to seduce me?" Alan inquired with a big, wide grin. "It's for freedom of movement," I said matter-of-factly, "and it's much cooler." "You could sunburn those beautiful legs, Major." I turned, exasperated. "Don't call me Major! It puts a distance between us, and -- and I don't want us to have any distance." "Like I said before, I'd rather call you Major than Rupert. It's too unfeminine. It puts another kind of distance between us, and I don't want that either." "Don't be so pig-headed, guy! On this planet Rupert will probably become known as a woman's name." "I hope not!" he said glumly, then instantly brightened. "Say, I know -- what was it that your mother would have called you had you been a girl?" The question had caught me flat-footed. "I don't know," I equivocated. "Come on now, Major, every woman who's ever wanted a child always has both a boy's and a girl's name picked out. Your mother must have told you. Mothers always enjoy humiliating their sons that way. I would have been Diane, in fact." "On this crazy planet, you could be Diane tomorrow!" "I hope not. That would spoil a lot of possibilities. But don't change the subject." "Like I said, I don't know!" He took my hand and pulled me down beside him. "What now?" I scowled. "I'll show you what now!" He started tickling my ribs. "Stop that!" "Not till you tell me what I want to know!" I fought down the urge to shriek. "If I told you, you'd start calling me by it!" "What's wrong with that?" "It's not dignified!" "Would it be dignified if I put you over my knee and paddled you till you came clean?" "Don't try it!" He let me go then. "Look, what's the big deal? All the women are changing their names." "Not the officers!" "Bull! Captain Tritcher is calling herself Jasmine now." "She is?" I shook my head. "She looks like the king of Elfland's daughter. If I had her face and build, I'd call myself Eveleen, or Daphne, or something sylvan like that." "Do you like one of those names -- Eveleen or Daphne?" "Don't even think of it!" "Come on, sexy. If you don't tell me your girl's name, I'm going to pick one for you myself." "Stow it, soldier!" "You know, your hair looks so much like those Gypsy girls in those old movies that I think I'm going to start calling you 'Gypsy.'" I gave him a punch in the shoulder. "There, that's what I think of your damned Gypsy!" "Gypsy-Gypsy-Gypsy!" I took another swing at him. He ducked and grabbed me about the waist. Once he had my arms pinned, he started tickling my ribs again. I yelled wildly, struggled to get away, but he was too strong for me. I was breathless with laughter by the time my captor deigned to show mercy. For a while he just reclined there, gazing down at me with a long stem of grass between his teeth. "You hayseed!" I rebuked him. "Show some deference, woman, or you'll get some more." "Don't call me a woman, you -- man!" His fingers were on me again. "No, stop!" I laughed. "Then tell me what your girl's name is." "No!" He kept at it until I had had enough. A person can only endure so much torture. "-- Mom said she'd had 'Katherine' picked out," I gasped, then added: "Don't you ever call me that!" "Kathy-Kathy-Kathy!" he started hectoring me until, exasperated, I swung at him again. This time he caught my roundhouse, pulled me forward, and pecked me on the nose. "Damn you!" I cried, "Show some respect to your commanding officer or I'll have you court-martialed!" "You've got to decide whether you want to be loved or just obeyed, Kathy. Besides, who'd ever convict me for tickling the sexiest girl on the planet?" "I said, don't call me Kathy! And don't be so complacent -- officers are bad asses and they'll nail you for me if I asked them to. Besides -- Ames is much sexier than me." "No, she's not." "Give me a break!" "I don't think that there's anybody on Klink sexier than you." I had to admit, he had the knack for mollifying me. I finally got around to asking Alan whether he had felt any of Dr. Lowry's supposed pheromone effect that night we had been together during the Madness. "And how!" he exclaimed. "It was the hardest thing I ever did, not touching you." "You could have touched me just a little," I suggested. "You're crazy!" "Do you know anyone who has a better reason to be?" Instead of answering, he kissed me. I knew then that it was going to be hard smooching with someone wearing a beard. Worse, he tried to sneak his tongue between my teeth. I squirmed away with a wry face. "You're moving too fast!" "Too fast? At the rate we're going, Rip Van Winkle would wake up before he missed anything. What sort of sex life did you have in your last incarnation anyway, Kathy?!" "A sex life a lot different from this one!" "Well, at least you're learning to answer to your name!" "Oooh!" I cried, shoving him furiously. He took that as a challenge and his hands were suddenly all over my body. When he had worked his way up to my shirt, he opened enough buttons to slide his hand within. I gasped in surprise as he fondled my breasts. Not long before, I had been embarrassed to have that pair of jugs pushing out in front of me all the time, but now I was fast getting to know their possibilities in lovemaking. I also was becoming aware of how easy it was for a woman to be persuaded by someone whom she really cared about to go too far, despite her apprehension about the well-attested consequences. # What to do? By being stubbornly virginal I felt that I was cheating Alan. I guess he felt the same way, because he suddenly asked, "How did men control themselves before contraception?!" "They didn't. They sired a lot of bastards. A few used sheep guts for condoms, like Casanova." "Did it work?" "He only had one bastard -- at least only one that he knew about. Not a bad record, considering his life style." Alan directed an intense gaze my way. "Our children wouldn't be bastards, Kathy. I'd marry you in a minute." Children? The idea was mind-boggling. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked. "Are -- are you proposing to me?" "I suppose I am." I bit my lip. Marriage? Wifehood? Possible motherhood? "Major?" I rolled away, shaking my head. "This is crazy, Alan. If I became a man again tomorrow, all this would seem like weird dream." "A sexy dream." "Okay, a sexy weird dream." He reached out, but I eluded him and got up. "We'd better buckle down and examine these trees," I proposed, eager for a subject which I could handle better. He sagged backwards against the stone. I could almost hear him thinking, "Women!" Well, there was no help for that. I turned toward a hilltop grove to see what I could see. Some species there I recognized, though most had no names as yet. I suddenly began fantasying myself as Adam, naming the animals, or at least the trees. To the human mind names are such important things. Every living creature, object, or artifact has to have its own name. But aren't names always just an illusion? For millions of years Klink's trees had grown very well, oblivious to the fact that they were nameless. Also, calling me Kathy or Rupert changed nothing about the sort of person that I was, down deep. Alan and I took samples of whatever bark appeared unfamiliar, but they inspired us with little hope that we were close to finding a source of cloth. Then, getting warm and tired once again, we returned to the shade of the white-rock outcropping. Only now as I knelt beside it did I bother to take a good look at the stone. I pushed my thumbnail into it and noticed how soft and greasy it felt to the touch. Suddenly I had an idea and asked Alan for his knife. He obligingly handed me his utility blade and I dug its point deeply into a joint, prying off a big flake. Once I held a sample in my hand, I found that I could easily cut the stone, even chip off bits with my nails. "What is it?" the soldier asked curiously. "I think it's talc!" I exclaimed. "Do you know what this means!" Laughing, almost cheering, Alan read my thoughts: "Baby powder!" # Sebastian was pleased with our discovery and I felt elated that I had finally made a positive contribution to Klinkian civilization. People suffering from chapping and heat-galling, or from the tearful cries of unhappy babies, would be thanking me for ages to come. Afterwards, Alan kidded me that posterity would erect a statue to "Rupert Breen, Discoverer of Baby Powder." But that would never happen, not unless we first discovered writing paper to discoveries as earthshaking as mine. That night, still euphoric from a day well-spent, I took a walk. Gazing skyward, I noticed that the moons were at their point of conjunction yet again, the silvery orbs seemingly separated by less than the thickness of a playing card. All of a sudden, a disquieting thought fluttered through my mind. The moons, I recalled, had also been going into conjunction just before the first transformations had occurred, and then again just as the Madness had struck. Both events had had to do with sex, and so there seemed to be a disturbing symbolism in the orbiting bodies. To a primitive mind, the conjunction of the moons each thirty-seven days might have suggested heavenly entities mating. Did Klink somehow time its weird phenomena to the phases of its moons? A single coincidence does not a rule of science make, true, but my insight motivated me enough to cross the trampled grass of the camp to knock on Alan's barracks-room door. "Gentlemen?!" I called from without. Recognizing my voice, the medic met me at the threshold. "Major, you wanted to see me?" he queried respectfully. Some of his mates were within earshot and we were still trying to be cagey about our affair. "I was hoping I could see you tonight, Kathy," he whispered once we were off by ourselves. "That's nice," I said, "but I had a special reason." "What's up?" I explained, but he didn't seem to take the matter of the moons too seriously. In fact, my idea had begun to sound a lot like astrology and suddenly I felt foolish. "Well, as you say, the conjunction is tonight," Alan remarked noncommittally. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything happens." "I'd feel better if I didn't have to wait it out alone." He smiled and, his hand resting lightly between my shoulders, he guided me to my door. Once inside the hut, I snapped on the lamp, brought out the cards, and we played a series of poker hands. It was hard to keep my mind on the cards, and it wasn't the moons which were preoccupying me. ******* Chapter 12 *But virtue, as it never will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, Will sate itself in a celestial bed. . .* HAMLET It was getting late and the solar battery was dimming from want of a recharge. I had begun to feel silly about my alarmism when, suddenly, a strange shiver ran through me, like a taut cord plucked 'way deep in my psyche. Alan looked up from his cards. "Major?" "It's starting again!" Alan sprang up so quickly that his chair fell backwards. He grasped me close to his chest, and he meant well, but his embrace only threw fuel on the very fire that I was trying to suppress. "Kathy! What can I do?!" "Don't let go of me!" Alan quickly realized that he had only one recourse, and so he dragged me to the bed and began tying me down as before, over my desperate protests. How I fought back, knowing from experience the long hours of torture that lay ahead! Alan only bound my hands to the frame of the cot this time, steadying my kicking by keeping hold upon my knees. I withstood my raging need as long as I could, then cried out: "Fuck me!" "Kathy, I love you so much," Alan declared, "but you don't really want that!" "Drew!?" a woman pronounced suddenly and we both turned toward the door; Sebastian was standing there. I knew that she must have heard Alan's avowal of love for me, but, in my state, didn't care. "D-Doctor," stammered Alan. "Are you all right?" "The whole camp is going up," she said urgently, "except for the pregnant ones. How's Rupe?" "It's bad. I can't leave her alone tonight." Dr. Lowry nodded. "There's not much anybody can do. But I have to help Philbrick monitor this thing. You do whatever you can -- whatever you have to -- to pull the major through." "I will," he promised. As Sebastian vanished, how I envied her! If being pregnant was the only antidote for this torment, I wanted to be pregnant! As the time passed, I was only really conscious of my own feverish tumult and hardly grasped the magnitude of Alan's dilemma. Everything he might have tried to ease the suffering of a patient or friend -- a kiss, an embrace, soft words -- would only serve to incite my incendiary need. Standing there, he watched me agonize; it seemed like hours passing. Then, with grim resolve, he commenced to unbuckle my belt, stripping me from the waist down. My breathing held in abeyance, I wondered at his follow-up. While still holding one of my thighs pinned, Alan slipped a finger between my nether lips. I gasped at the boldness of the act, as well as at the physical sensation. He agitated his digit lightly against my sensitive inner lining and I moaned. "Does this make it better or worse?" "Don't stop!" I rasped, too far gone to be ashamed. My vulva became wet as it entertained his back-and-forth motions. I felt like there was a tungsten bulb between my legs, glowing brighter and hotter. My body became covered with a coat of perspiration. As the beads of it ran down my flesh, tickling me, and also cooling me in the draft of the hut. The sheet under me grew progressively more damp. He persevered. I felt the muscles of my thighs quiver like jelly and my vagina expanded and contracted in spasms, alternately hugging Alan's fingers in welcome, and then relaxing to invite them deeper still. My clitoris felt hard and stiff, giving me the illusion of possessing a male erection. Warm pulses were being sent from the very center of my being up to my shoulders and down into my toes. My breasts had become twin pyramids of blood-suffused excitement, sensitive against the coarseness of my shirt. Then, after a period of ecstatic build-up, there came a release -- a surge that swept through me, from end to end, like a warm wave in a pool. The torrent scudded me into a swirling backwash, and I went suddenly limp. Relief. "Are you better now?" Alan asked hopefully. "I don't know. Don't leave me!" I murmured. Despite my best hopes, no sooner had my original craving eased off than it started mounting yet again. "It's coming back! Do something! Please!" "I don't want to take advantage of you!" I began to sob, to tear at my bonds. I pulled my knees up, as if to go into a fetal position. Maybe it was Alan's desire to help me, maybe it was the pheromones assailing his resolve -- probably it was both -- but he suddenly changed position, urged my knees apart, and I beheld him through the V of my open thighs, bowing his head as if to humble himself before me in prayer. "Y-Yes!" I yelled as his tongue touched me and my hips reacted electrically. As much as I wanted it, the very act of cunnilingus served only to turn up my sexual heat, like a burner on a cooking range. Possessed by erotic madness, I attempted to tear my hands from my bonds, until my wrists burned and my shoulders ached. As his mouth ministered to me, I could feel my juices begin to flow once more. Blood pounded in my temples and my breath came in short, ragged gulps. My incited pelvis ground my sex against Alan's mouth. It felt something like fellatio, but it was evoking a wider, more all- encompassing, response. His actions were hurrying me on to a second orgasm. I shrieked at the top of my lungs as a renewed wave, stronger even than the last, sloshed through me like a tsunami. I finally sank back, softened like heated and beaten metal. Alan drew away, allowing my mind time to clear. "I shouldn't have done that," he said roughly, as if his throat was parched. "No, it was good." "How -- is it now?" "Better," I whispered, "but, God, I -- I think it's coming back!" Alan groaned softly, unsure what to do. In mere moments the desire had rebuilt itself enough to be uncomfortable. "Please," I pleaded, "I have to touch you." "You shouldn't. You could lose control. . . . I could, too." "Please!" I think his sense and his compassion wrestled in desperate urgency. "Please. . . !" Resolvedly, his hands went to the cords that bound my wrists. In but a minute I was free. I got up on my knees and then threw my arms around him, pulling him down upon myself. I frantically fumbled open the buttons of his shirt, then crushed my mouth against the blond hair of his bared chest. Then I got an idea -- or the compulsion of instinct -- to kiss every square inch of his entire body. "Please, Kathy. I'm your medic." "You're my lover!" Reluctantly, Alan allowed me to press him to the cot while I painted his torso, arms, neck, and shoulders with kisses. I began to tongue-bathe him, my saliva flowing like a fountain. I could taste his human flavor, the salt of his perspiration. Images of the women whom I had been with filled my mind. In a strange way, they had prepared me, like unintentional teachers, for this hour. I had not only received pleasure, but also, instruction in giving it to another. My hands went to Alan's belt; he tensed, but let me strip him to his briefs nonetheless. I lavished my kisses upon his legs, tracing a trail of osculations down over his knees, along his shins, down to his feet. I especially kissed his feet, assailing them as if I thought I were the most abject of oriental odalisques. Now I passionately repaid the tickling that Alan had given me up on Woolenska's Hill. He shivered as my tongue teased at his feet, his fists clenching large handfuls of the bedclothes reactively, his heels digging into the tick. I culminated my pedal assault by putting his big right toe into my mouth and sucking it with long, deep pulls. I kept at this lengthily because it met a need within me, to have him inside me, but it was still not enough. I looked up. Alan's erection, still constrained by his skivvies, had tented the material strongly. A feral urge now swept through me as his manhood proclaimed itself a shrine that called out for worship. I had been taught well by those I had been with before him, and so I put one knee on the bed and began pulling his shorts down. Then, as if by afterthought, I started taking off my own shirt with its piping of superior rank. I wanted nothing to remind him that I was anything other than what I needed to be for him tonight. He tried to hold me off. "You'll hate me tomorrow if I let you." "I'll go insane if you don't," I warned -- and at that moment believed it, too. With parted lips, I captured the crown of his manhood and stroked its under-side membrane with my harlot tongue. His pelvis shifted in natural response and he let loose with a keening breath. A penis, I found, did not have much taste to it -- a fact which made performing my first fellatio all the easier. I took in as much of him as I could, then applied friction by bobbing my head up and down, swishing him with my firmed-up tongue. Fantasies of my male self making love to the Nameless One returned while I worked, especially the fantasy of the barbarian princess brought to a warlord's tent. Then stripped naked, cowed, and she was made to serve upon her knees, on pain of death. And serve she did. I did. My hands were clenched around the lower part of his manhood, their heels resting in the forest of his pubis. I had supposed his organ to already be as large as Nature allowed, but I could feel it getting larger yet within the confinement of my mouth. Encouraged, I began working the point of my tongue against its tiny slit, as if trying to enter it. Alan's moans let me know that I was achieving what I sought. He commenced to thrust his hips involuntarily, making me lurch back lest I choke on his vastness. Then I started pulling on his organ with my hands, pumping it back and forth, experiencing a strumpet's pride in the cries he uttered into the close, humid air. My right hand at least released his cock to massage my own stiffened clitoris. I was rapidly approaching my second climax by now, driven by a frenzy that all but bereft me of conscious thought. My lips had by now sucked in his phallus in all the way to the back of my throat and Alan could no longer constrain himself. The hundreds of millions of the microscopic spermatozoa that defined his virility were suddenly rolling over one another in a mad rush to freedom, filling my mouth with a tumultuous burst. I coughed, swallowed reactively, but in such a state of erotic excitement I felt no repulsion. The culmination brought my own orgasm on and I spasmed, savored its throes, then fell aside, gasping for breath. By the time our mutual release had quelled, Alan was sunk breathless in the tick and I had rolled gasping upon him, my head pillowed upon his hard, firm abdomen. # Like a caring physician, Alan stayed with me all through the dark hours. Never properly conquered, my infernal need fiercely rebounded, like Antaeus, again and again, but each time it waxed less pitilessly because Alan and I met it dauntlessly, sating it together. Then, sometime in the night, driven beyond my limit and utterly spent, I passed into slumber. I woke up in the half-light of dawn and I looked down from my too-narrow cot to see Alan asleep on the floor. The buzzing bee of shame waited for only just a moment before it stung. I sprang up to flee away, but Alan had just awakened. "Kath -- Major!" he exclaimed. I froze, but was unable to turn and look at him. What was he thinking as he looked at me? What should I be thinking about myself? Tears burned my eyes. "Don't," he said gently, though his tone was strained. Then, rising, he pressed up against my back and stroked my hair. "Don't hate me!" I muttered, knowing that I had betrayed and demeaned him. "It's all right, Kathy. That wasn't you last night. I don't know if it was me either." I broke down entirely. He turned me about and held me close, until at least some of the hurting had gone away. # As the light grew stronger, we belatedly remembered our responsibilities and, with a supreme effort, pulled ourselves together. Hurriedly dressing, we ran to the infirmary to get Lowry's report. Philbrick was already there. Simultaneously confronting the two people whose esteem mattered most to me, I was suddenly afraid to glance Alan's way, lest some guilty look incriminate us. Irrationally, I swung toward the mirror on the wall, worrying that my aspect somehow betrayed exactly how I had passed the night. I only appeared disheveled and a little red-eyed. "I hope you're all right, Major," Philbrick remarked. I turned sharply. "What do you mean --?" Then I settled down by shear force of will. "Report," I said. The second Madness, it seemed, had been very much like the first, except that this time we had had more than a dozen sane women on hand to help our men resist the passionate advances of the others. This they were glad to do, especially when the man involved was their own husband or lover. The males, better prepared this time, had displayed sturdier discipline, also. The Madness allowed a couple new pregnancies to be discovered, obviously having occurred between one Madness and the other. We knew we could expect even more pregnancies now, since a good deal of sex had occurred, despite all. When I told Lowry and Philbrick about my moon-conjunction theory, neither scoffed. Two incidents might just represent a coincidence, but three presented a subject for serious inquiry. But now, accepting the hypothesis, we had to address the knottier question: if the moons were somehow involved in Klink's sexual phenomena, how and why? # Needing rest after such a harrowing night, I returned to my hut alone and flopped down on the cot. I slept for an hour and a half before waking again, to consider how to face the world as a perhaps- changed being. As little as I liked it, I had to face Sebastian. I reached the infirmary door feeling like a guilty cadet about to call upon his superior for reprimand. I found Dr. Lowry in bed with her sleeping-room door open, which caused me to wonder whether she was only exhausted by her sleeplessness, or whether pregnancy was taking a lot out of her. "Come on in, Rupe," my comrade beckoned wearily. At least she hadn't called me 'Kathy.' "What's on your mind?" she asked. "You didn't mention what happened last night." Sebastian regarded me keenly. "I didn't know you wanted me to bring it up at a staff meeting. Are we going to have to worry about any serious -- aftereffects?" "No!" I exclaimed, flushing hot. Then, collecting myself once more, I said, "But it would bother me if you started looking down on me." She gave back a weary grin. "What are you talking about? Can anything be worse than what I did myself last month?" "I don't know," I replied contritely. "What I did was pretty bad." She sat up and extended a compassionate hand. I accepted it and sat down beside her. "Rupert, don't be embarrassed. People are taking lovers all over the place and we've got to accept it. Somewhere along the way you picked up the idea that you're the only one of us who's made of steel. Nobody believes that except you." "I just wish I were a little less human." "But you're not and, that's a good thing -- believe me." "What should I do?" She took my hand and squeezed my palm. "I say hold on to that guy. He's a prize. In fact, I admire your taste in men." "I can't believe we're having this conversation!" "Am I to understand that you're calling yourself Kathy now?" she queried wryly. "You know how it is," I hedged, glancing away. "It's a good name. I'd even say that you look like a Kathy." "Oh, great! I'm a Kathy!" "Don't sweat it, Rupe. I'll probably be changing my own name one of these days. If I have a son, he can be Sebastian." "You could call him Stanley instead," I quipped painfully. "Oh, please!" I put one arm around her. "I'm sorry you don't have anybody yet, Sebastian. It's hell when you do, but I think it's even worse when you don't." "You're probably right. I'm keeping my options open, though," she assured me. "I'm such a good catch that I can afford to be particular." We both laughed at her display of mock-conceit and then moved on to other topics -- topics which weren't quite so sore and personal. Lowry ventured the theory that the moons may have once been sacred to an indigenous race, which perhaps still lived unseen, or which was now extinct and represented by nothing more than a lot of automated equipment left behind. As I had suggested earlier, perhaps the "mating" of the moons of Klink had represented the sexual cycle in their culture, a kind of St. Valentine's Day love-fest which was held every month. The Klinkians could easily have timed their sex- and sex-drive-altering equipment to follow celestial rotations. I thought about that proposition. A Klinkian month. Thirty- seven days. That was all the time we had until our next little plunge into Hell. I was at just that moment that our appreciation of Klink changed forever after. Alan burst into the infirmary, crying, "Major! Doctor! Crawford and some of the detachment are back -- and they have strangers with them!" Chapter 13 *There's place and means for every man alive.* ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Crawford's party was just outside. My first impression was of strange clothing that some of them were wearing -- a kind of off- white, pull-over tunic on most of the women and one of the men. My next eyes next lit upon a couple of short-haired, quadruped pack tethered animals standing behind the returnees. Crawford, to my relief, still wore his familiar, craggy shape. On the other hand, I knew none of the women by sight, correctly assuming that they were transformed soldiers -- with the possible exception of a pair who stood out from the others. These were elderly and, so far at least, none of our men had ever transformed into old women. There was also an old man, the one in the tunic, who certainly never had been part of our group. Philbrick, now arriving, saluted Crawford, and then the two of them grasped hands in camaraderie. "Ted," blurted the former, "it's been four months! Where in hell did you find other human beings?" "There's a whole village of them, Ben -- more than one, in fact! I have to talk to Major Breen." I stepped forward. "I'm Major Breen, Captain," I informed him tonelessly. Crawford swung my way and I saw the surprise writ large on his face. I sighed silently. Authority figures were supposed to be like bronze statues -- constants, unchangeable -- adjectives which simply didn't fit reality. "I've turned command over to Captain Philbrick," I explained in a flat voice. "For health reasons." "Yes, Major," acknowledged Crawford with a sharp salute. I glanced uncomfortably toward the remainder of his party and Crawford took that as the cue to begin the introductions, commencing with the three strangers: "This is Casimir," he explained, indicating the one unknown male, "and this is Irina and Natalya. They were originally from the Protos II agricultural colony, which was mostly Ukrainian. Only Casimir speaks English." "You're all very welcome," Philbrick assured the newcomers with a cordial nod. "Thank you, General," Casimir responded, his English thickly- accented. "I'm Captain Philbrick," our camp commander corrected the man's error politely. At that point Crawford reintroduced us to our transformed comrades. Given leave by Philbrick, Ames stepped up and welcomed back the women -- most of whom looked uneasy, probably from all the attention they were attracting. The female captain coaxed them away for debriefing, but the returnee males and the three Ukrainians remained clustered behind Crawford. We had long suspected that Klink might hold other human prisoners taken by the Asymmetrics, but here at last was the proof. I had a thousand questions, and so I invited my senior captain, along with Philbrick and Dr. Lowry, into my hut to confer. The captain quickly filled us in on what all had befallen his detachment during the nearly four months since we had last seen it. As anticipated, the daily disappearance of men had proven to be the bane of the journey. Whenever a pair of troopers vanished, Crawford left volunteers behind to wait for their reappearance. At first, the auxiliaries were instructed to escort the transformees back to our base camp, but before the first week was out, the increasing distance had rendered that option impractical. Subsequently, Crawford's volunteers had to bring the transformees forward to rejoin the main group with all possible haste. But transformation was not his only problem. With his detachment so fear-ridden, Crawford had to walk a narrow line, not yielding too readily to his subordinates' panicky whims, while yet trying to avoid such conflicts as might provoke a blow-up. Before too long, the captain had exhausted his stock of auxiliaries and chose to remain behind with the last of them himself, while Lt. Morrow took the main body forward. Crawford had conveyed instructions that should any of the men be transformed thereafter, they must wait along the marked trail until he and his group, advancing from the rear, arrived to assist them. Thereafter, encumbered by a growing number of traumatized women, Crawford proceeded in the wake of the detachment at a deliberate pace, watching for the stakes left behind by Morrow to indicate where additional soldiers had disappeared. During its progress, Crawford's group was being steadily augmented by volunteers coming up from the rear with earlier transformees. After a couple weeks, Crawford's band finally reunited with the main detachment. These, he discovered, had utterly given up, demoralized by their inability to find any geographic limit to the transformation phenomenon. Morrow, it turned out, had persuaded them to cease their pointless flight and to wait in place until Crawford should catch up. Crawford reorganized the camp and waited for the last stragglers to come in, until the whole original party was accounted for. By that point the sex-ratio had been equalized at "Camp Reunion" and the transformation phenomenon suddenly ceased. Not understanding what had happened, but grateful anyway, Crawford was about to lead his detachment back to our camp when his foragers found signs of unknown human life. This spoor was carefully followed, and the captain's scouts discovered four strangers -- Earthers -- two males, two females. These spoke only Ukrainian, but were decidedly friendly. Crawford quickly grasped the idea that they came from a village, and so he and the entire detachment accompanied the Ukrainians to their home, reaching it after a march of days. The settlement, as it turned out, was one of five in the area, established seven years previous by the evacuees of Protos II. Like the 54th, the Ukrainians had soon became acquainted with the phenomena of transformation and the Madness. But, fortunately, they already had a high proportion of natural-born females and so the occurrence of transformation, while startling and mystifying to them, did not devastate their community psychologically, as it had devastated ours. Transformation, in fact, still afflicted the villagers occasionally, whenever a population imbalance toward the male side arose, or when too many men inadvertently congregated at too great a distance from any sexually-balanced enclave. As a preventative, the Ukrainians had learned to travel only in sexually-balanced groups. Over the years, the Protos II colonists learned that only transformees were affected by the Madness, though those who were pregnant or suckling infants were seemingly immune. Interestingly, the colonists had observed, transformation did not strike male children before puberty -- and, previous to puberty, Klink's phenomena seemed not to include male youngsters into the sexual- balance equation at all. Women, contrariwise, were never transformed (neither into males nor into more nubile women), and males who wandered alone and lived as hermits remained unchanged. Crawford was able to add the observation that in all their several years upon the planet, the colonists had not so far seen any transformee revert to his original sex. I took in this last bit of intelligence with a sharp sense of disconsolation. Though I had taken it for granted that I'd have to face the rest of my life just as I was, this experimental confirmation served to dash my every hope of ever returning to normality. On the other hand, the news that normal children were being born to transformees on Klink would serve to set our worried mothers-to-be at ease. Regarding other matters, the Ukrainians, like us of the 54th, had not been revisited by the Assies since landing. Nonetheless, the colonists had occasionally stumbled across other parties of human evacuees and POWs. Whenever possible, they exchanged goods and skills with the strangers, but it was the civilian groups which had the most to offer. Soldiers were good at short-term survival, naturally, but were generally devoid of the skills that communities needed to thrive over the long term, being largely composed of young males with narrow life-experience. The arrival of Crawford's party naturally caused a great excitement in the villages. Their hospitality was effusive, and the Ukrainians also dealt sympathetically with the transformees. Crawford filled his new friends in on the fate of the 54th, and the community leaders debated the best means of extending aid our way. When the first Madness struck, the villagers saw to it that the transformees did not suffer more than was absolutely necessary. Crawford discovered that the villagers had been domesticating wild plants and animals, and had also acquired new ones from humans who had been dwelling on Klink even longer. It was a European Union group which had provided a beast that the Ukrainians had rechristened the "byerblyood" -- the species of draft animal which was even now grazing on the camp grass outside. At this point, Crawford mentioned that the sex-change phenomenon never seemed to affect animals, not even the dogs and cats that had accompanied the colonists from Protos II. Once things had settled down, Crawford at last felt free to return to our camp. The village council had already voted to send three of its citizens back with him. Crawford, for his part, had decided to leave most of his detachment behind, since a significant number of the women were still seriously traumatized, while others, both male and female, had been offered schooling in a large array of homely skills which the captain recognized would be of great value to us in the long haul. # Now back where he belonged, Crawford accepted command from the more junior Philbrick and, as his first act in his new role, requested that I, Lowry, and Komisov (who happened to speak a little Ukrainian) take charge of our visitors. After renewing our acquaintance with them, we stored their packs, broke out some rations for their refreshment, and escorted all three to a shaded grove for rest and debriefing. Casimir was a small, wrinkly man with white hair, but he was spry for all that. Irina, a woman of about fifty, was plump and motherly, while Natalya, leaner and a little older than Irina, gave the impression of a keen practical intelligence. After the initial courtesies and homilies, our conversation turned to the subject of what assistance our communities might exchange. The women's enthusiastic flood of words had to be interrupted sometimes by Casimir, lest they race too far ahead of his plodding efforts to translate. It didn't take us long to realize that the villagers offered us much more than we could ever reciprocate. What they most needed was drugs, medical knowledge, and training. While the planet had so far disclosed very few diseases which affected humans, there were some minor infections that the colonists had brought along with them, or had picked up from other exiles, and which had persisted in the population. Beyond this, there was the occasional accident and degenerative illness, such as heart disease and cancer. But they were most of all interested in reducing birth- related losses. Interestingly, it was the transformees who seemed to suffer the fewest childbed complications and miscarriages, and fewer of their children seemed to be afflicted with birth defects. Apparently, Klink knew how to build a topnotch child-bearing machine. Because of our own group's need, Dr. Lowry explained that she could not soon visit the Ukrainian villages. We would, nonetheless, share some drugs and medicines, though these were scant and precious. But Sebastian conjectured that Alan might profitably spend some time in the villages, instructing our new friends in first aid and battlefield surgery. I grimaced. If my lover found himself amid a bevy of natural-born women, I wondered if I might not end up looking very second-best. If Alan were actually sent away on such an assignment, I was bound and determined to go him. That we could offer so little to these generous people made us seem like mendicants. Besides material things, there was the knowledge that our visitors offered to share. Casimir himself was a farmer with a knack for coaxing yield from stubborn land, while Natalya was primarily a midwife, and Irina a woman possessed of many useful domestic skills. Our "girls," the latter said, must begin at once learning to support our "village" with food preservation, gardening, making of yarn, as well as weaving. I smiled, knowing that "woman's work" wouldn't sit well with any of the soldiers. In a subsistence economy, however, men's strength, speed, and endurance were best applied to such tasks as hunting, plowing, and lumbering. Women, physically weaker and often burdened with children in need of continual supervision, logically assumed the work of processing raw materials, becoming in effect the "industrial arm" of the community. When you thought about it without prejudice, there was nothing undignified or demeaning about this mutually- supportive division of labor. The detachees who still remained back at their villages, the Ukrainians told us, would be returning in the spring, educated with skills which would allow them to take the place of the volunteer teachers -- teachers who would be joining us in a few weeks. It amused me, if only slightly, to think that our formerly-panicky and near-mutinous detachees were away at "college" learning to be good housewives. "Most important of all," Casimir went on, translating for Natalya, "we came because we wanted to help the young mothers." I perked up and made inquiry upon this point: "You were so dead-certain that we would have mothers that you came all this way?" Before the detachment had departed, I knew, not even Hitchcock had as yet been discovered pregnant. Natalya laughed and Casimir translated: "Dear little dyovawchka, there are always many, many young mothers wherever you soldiers are!" I grimaced, the observation being well-taken. At that juncture, the midwife approached Sebastian and proceeded to feel her breasts, her belly, and hips. The Ukrainian woman then cheerfully announced "Byepyemyennaya!" Sebastian looked my way perplexed, guessing correctly what the word meant. Perhaps she was chagrined that a stranger could tell how "byepyemyennaya" she was, even though it had not yet begun to show in her girt. The midwife next turned her attention my way, her fingertips playing lightly over my body, just as they had over Sebastian's. Her thoughtful expression brightened, and she tripped out a long string of incomprehensible syllables. "Natalya says that you are not pregnant now," explained Casimir, "but thinks that you will have an easy time of it. Your baby shall have good room to grow, and you shall make much milk." Swallowing hard, I told Lady Natalya that this was very good to hear. The woman then hugged and kissed me as if I were a child of her own. Ukrainians, as we were learning, tended to be very demonstrative in their affections, affections which they seemed to extend very generously. In the course of that same conversation, we also discovered the name by which the colonists knew Klink. "We call it, 'Ray,'" Casimir remarked. "In your English, 'Eden.'" I nodded, contemplating the irony. Eden had been the mythic garden country where God had made the first woman from the body of the first man. As it worked out, "Eden" was soon accepted by us as the best name for the planet, while "Klink" was demoted to being merely the name of our camp. The exchange had been so intriguing that before we realized it twilight had darkened into night. We escorted our guests to those huts already set aside for them, and the Ukrainians bade us to tarry there for just a moment until they returned. To our surprise, they reappeared with gifts. Casimir presented Captain Komisov with a bronze dagger, while Sebastian received from Natalya a large shawl decorated with vegetable-dyed, crocheted flowers. Irina gave me a tunic much like the one she, Natalya, Casimir, and some of our returnees were already wearing. We accepted our gratuities gracefully and the Ukrainians sent us off amid another barrage of hugs and kisses. # Walking with Sebastian to the infirmary, my friend started talking about her idea for eradicating infectious diseases on Eden. "If no one incubated an active contagion of, say, flu," she explained, "flu would utterly vanish. As long as the population remains small, circumstances present us with an incredible opportunity." Well, that might have been true, but I had more immediate matters on my mind. I cut short my friend's excited chatter by asking her to wait a quarter hour and then send Alan to my hut. She flashed back a wondering smile, not at all reluctant to do what I asked. Still thinking about all those Ukrainian girls that Alan might soon be meeting, I changed my clothes, arranged my hair, threw on my robe, and then waited for my invited guest. When Alan arrived, he looked just a little unsure of himself -- and maybe a little unsure of me -- after what had happened in the night. Much to my relief, he began his conversation nonchalantly, asking about the interview with the Ukrainians. Perhaps he thought I had only sent for him to fill him in on that subject. After giving a quick summary, I pointedly mentioned that I had received a gift. "What would that be?" he inquired innocently. I opened my robe and let it drop to my feet, displaying the Ukrainian tunic I wore. "How do you like me in peasant-girl chic?" I asked with a nervous smile. Alan gave a breathy whistle. "You make one hell of a fine peasant girl, Kathy!" "Thanks -- I guess." "-- Except for one little thing." "What?" "That hem could be higher." That irritated me. "The hem's high enough!" I flung back, but then softened my tone: "You don't really want me giving those baboons out there everything that I'm giving you." "I sure don't!" he exclaimed, letting me know by his emphasis that I had put my foot into my mouth yet again. He but his hands on my hips and drew me up against him, whispering: "After last night, I was expecting a bawling out and a court-martial." "Rupert Breen might court-martial you," I said lightly, "but I'm just his dizzy sister Kathy." "That's exactly who I want you to be," he murmured into my ear. Chapter 14 *For I am he am born to tame you, Kate, And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate Conformable as other household Kates.* THE TAMING OF THE SHREW Just a few weeks and one Madness later, our camp welcomed eighteen more visitors from the Ukrainian villages. Intended to act as instructors in home crafts, animal husbandry, and agriculture, they even brought along livestock -- small beasts which could be raised like rabbits, flyers with clipped wings to be bred for meat and eggs, and several more of that miniature, camel-like beast that the Ukrainians called the "byerblyood." Though not a pupil myself, I spent a great deal of time monitoring our guests. Early on, Irina located a patch of the "pahlatnaw" plant, a native growth which the Ukrainians had learned to harvest for fiber. When the seeds ripened in autumn, we would gather them for springtime cultivation. Pahlatnaw, our guests informed us, was the source of the light-colored cloth that the Ukrainians wore. Anyway, now that we had the raw material for making yarn, we required looms for its weaving. Marduke's carpenters did yeoman work constructing several of these under Irina's supervision. One problem that confronted us was that none of our women liked the idea of accepting domestic chores for their daily routine. It wasn't that these duties were so outrageously disagreeable in themselves, nor even in many cases different from work which had been expected of the soldiers since basic training. It was just the idea of being stereotyped into a role that they were still psychologically resisting. Fortunately, our expectant mothers were somewhat more obliging; it had already dawned on them, if not yet on all the others, that they would be needing plenty of new skills before they could confidently rear a needful infant. While I fully understood the rejectionist sentiment, what was the alternative? If we tried to join the men at their heavy labor, erecting additional huts and sheds or grubbing land, we really would have felt like weak sisters and a lot of important work would have gone undone. I envied the future girl-children of Eden, who would grow up without their mothers' ambivalence about "women's work." Crawford finally issued an order requiring the troopers to accept the craft-training assigned to them whether they liked it or not. His stern decision resulted in some grumbling and indignation, but I appreciated the need for it and so tried to smooth things over. Counseling was not a role which I had practiced much before, but under the straits of necessity, I discovered that I had an aptitude for it. Besides merely jawboning the women, I learned the basics of weaving myself, to mollify the dissidents by example. The best one can say of weaving is that it allows one's mind time to wander. No wonder that history continually referred to women at the loom -- it just takes so much time to make even a single diaper-sized item. But as the months passed and the waistlines of some of our comrades grew, we were all conscious of the importance of our work. While many of us studied, a few were engaged in teaching. Dr. Lowry began training four of the colonists in medical procedure. One of these, a personable Ukrainian, had been a veterinarian on Protos II and so already possessed a solid background. To everyone's amusement, he seemed to take to our lovely young doctor from the first day, and every time Sebastian turned around the man was there at her elbow -- and neither tact nor bluntness seemed to put him off. Another Mad Moon, as we now called our monthly affliction, came and went -- and that was the last straw for me! I was sure there had to be a way to deal with Eden's curse without giving in. So, inspired by my past reading, I decided to take a page from the lurid book of Casanova, at least as I remembered it. I appropriated a few entrails from the carcass of our first butchered byerblyood and proceeded to boil them sterile. After that, I cut them to length and sealed one end of each, first by tying it off, then searing it with fire. Full of anticipation, I presented my creations to Alan. He seemed to share my enthusiasm for empirical experimentation and so we decided to embark on the study together. I was all jitters. While the two of us had already engaged in a lot of foreplay, the idea of offering a male lover coitus still gave me pause. It seemed to imply a kind of submission, a rite of passage into a way of life which I was instinctively reluctant to undergo. Yet, if I wasn't able to give 100% of myself, Alan might eventually find another who would. My guy began his lovemaking by running his fingertips lightly across my breasts. My nipples stiffened at the touch, tingling with tiny pin-pricks. Sensing my excitement, he buried his face in my hair, nuzzling my scalp. Alan always loved my curls, so I had kept them longish, though they were forever a terror to wash and comb. "My Gypsy," he whispered, spreading kisses over my forehead, temple, and cheeks, savoring the scent I wore -- flower petals soaked in distilled spirits, a concoction of Natayla's. He took little nips of my ear lobe, gradually making my body ache with building need. But I was too overwrought to be much more than passive. Alan's weight pressed me deeply into the narrow cot, his muscular arms engulfed me, flattening my breasts against his chest and my lips against his mouth. I released a small cry as I felt his index finger probe between my thighs. I writhed and, as if obeying some unconscious dictum of Nature, spread my legs wide both in submission and invitation. At last Alan, with his lips still held fast to mine, took his penis by its midsection and rubbed the tip of it along the length of my vulva. A shudder ran through me and after a couple minutes, sensing that the moment had come, Alan inserted himself carefully. I gasped; this was the crisis that I had for weeks feared and delayed. He grew harder, pushed himself deeper, began to move inside me. I wasn't sure whether I liked the feeling or not, but his endurance was something to admire as the process continued. He slowly brought me along, like a fire-maker coaxing flame from the merest smolder, and Alan's lovemaking waxed ever more intense, more kinetic as he went along. Finally, I began to respond to him in earnest. He wouldn't let up until suddenly a hot rush went through me. Alan permitted his own release at that point, and feeling him spasm deep inside me registered as a shock. Even so, I knew that I was cheating Nature with my condom and so felt quite safe. Afterwards, we lay panting, arm-in-arm, overcome by a euphoria which still pervaded our bodies, leaving us breathless. "I can't get enough of you" he whispered. "I've got plenty more byerblyood guts," I reassured him. "There aren't enough byerblyood guts in all the world for the way I feel about you." I smiled, closed my eyes, then slept peacefully against him, like a tabby cat, for the rest of the night. If this was part of being a woman, I thought, the future didn't seem half so bad. # I took a good hard look at myself in the morning. Who was this clear-complected young woman reflected in the shaving mirror -- she with the aquamarine eyes and the cascading curls? Was she nothing more than a two-dimensional fantasy dreamed up by a teenager and brought to fruition inside the mind of a career soldier? Were those feelings, desires, and drives which moved her real? Was she just an alien creature imposed upon me, or was she my twin? Was he just an emotional complement of myself? Had she existed for only these last few months, or had she always been with me in spirit? Were those qualities which defined her new, or were they only the expression of a second nature which had always been with me? I sighed with resignation, but without much understanding, and tried to give the woman in front of me some sound advice: "Your emotions are out of control. You trust too easily. You take risks. You could get hurt." She wasn't listening. She had stars in her eyes. # Alan and I continued experimenting with our byerblyood entrails every day, until the supply went bad. I had saved just one makeshift condom, in a bottle of distilled spirits, as an antidote for the torture of the next Mad Moon when it came. Alan kept proposing to me, but I couldn't agree to marry him -- not as long as I was unwilling to commit to its every implication. Taking a lover was only an emotional and physiological safety value, and so it came fairly easily. Accepting wifehood, on the other hand, was tantamount to promising to be something that I was not yet prepared to be. Still worse, the idea implicit in marriage, the establishment of a family, was so alien to my outlook that my every instinct revolted against it. But it was even more than that. It was a sense of inadequacy. I felt that a mother had to be a pretty terrific someone. I just couldn't believe that I was good enough or smart enough to make the grade. When the Mad Moon came, our fifth, numerous other women about the camp went spontaneously crazy, as expected. But, to my surprise and horror, I wasn't one of them. At first we couldn't understand it, didn't want to understand it. When the terrible truth could no longer be denied, I was thunderstruck. Alan held me close, tried to reassure me, told me that he'd love and care for me always, no matter what happened. But not only was I frightened, I was infuriated. To have my life turned on its head by something as trivial as condom failure! Damn those rotten byerblyood guts! I had been cheated, double- crossed by Fate. I talked urgently to Sebastian the next morning. "Why didn't you ask my advice before you went into the condom- making business?" she admonished me sternly. "Even the best materials have a sixteen percent failure rate. Using a makeshift is like playing Russian Roulette." "I don't need this!" I protested. "All right, Rupe, no use getting unstrung until we know the worst. Get under the scanner." She checked me out, shook her head, then wished me her hearty congratulations. "Is that all you have to say?!" I snarled. "What else should I say?" "Tell me what to do!" "Take things easy, eat well, and get plenty of exercise." "I don't mean that!" "Do you mean you want to terminate?" No, I didn't; I was aghast at the very suggestion. "Pregnancy is only phase one," Sebastian commiserated. "In nine months your problems are really going to begin." "Thanks a lot!" I growled, swinging to my feet to dress. But soon anger was gone and worry was back. I was absolutely staggered at my fate, but once I settled down I realized that I was actually much better off than those women who had been shanghaied by the Mad Moon. I was pregnant only because I had made love to the man of my choice -- and not just once but many times over. Even so, how could I resign myself to motherhood when I had never even given serious thought to becoming a father? On the positive side, Alan and I could now make love any way we wished, as often as we wished. Thus, though in bondage to my biology, I also found in the situation a kind of liberation -- or at least a freedom to practice my proclivities with abandon. During the following weeks I came by insights which had always eluded me before. As a man, I had always marveled at a woman's capability to bear a child, but from my current perspective that seemed to be like nothing compared to the sorcery which a man could effect over the life of the woman who loved him. I found myself nursing a kind of awe of Alan, and, indeed, of the whole male-based creative power. But sorcery was one thing and everyday practicalities another. We both agreed after a week's time that there was no longer any reason to put off the inevitable. We asked Ames to arrange our marriage. Somewhat to my exasperation, Ames decided that the major's wedding had to be the best ever. Besides, she said, we were long- overdue for a party to honor our Ukrainians friends. No sooner had the news of my impending nuptials been spread around camp than people began to speculate upon whether or not I was knocked up. "Is she or isn't she" even became the subject of a drawing. All right, so it was a circus. I would have preferred to have had just a quiet little ceremony, but Ames wanted an elaborate program featuring song, dance, Shakespeare, and comic skits. And she also wanted to hold that oldest of army traditions -- a drag show. Of course, that was only a euphemism for what it really amounted to - - a girlie show. When the Ukrainians heard about our upcoming espousals, they treated the earthshaking news as something to gladden the heart, but nothing out of the ordinary. I felt they were trivializing the whole thing, but, worse, I couldn't hide from Natalya the fact that I had become slightly "byepyemyennaya." But now that that was up front, I at least felt free to pump her for advice about enduring a pregnancy, and also the care and feeding of a child once it came. # Irina make me up a veil out of bug-netting and Casimir requested the privilege of giving me away. I invited Sebastian to be my best man -- or, I should say, my maid of honor. All that was left to do was to tie the knot officially. On the morning of the big day, Natalya helped me prepare, arranging my hair, adorning my gift-tunic with flowers, scenting my flesh with perfume, and applying a simple makeup to my face (mainly talcum powder and red-berry stain for lipstick, with a bit of vegetable-oil-and-malachite eye-liner). I felt silly, but if I wasn't willing to do this bride thing all the way, I might as well have been married in my uniform -- and that would have embarrassed Alan. There was no point spreading the mortification around; I was already toting around so much that a little more couldn't hurt me. Alan got a clean shave that morning from Pvt. Sandrino, who had already demonstrated wonders with a utility knife, and who seemed to be turning into the village barber. With butterflies, among other things, in my stomach, I was led to the officiating Captain Ames on Casimir's arm. Alan was already there, at the side of Pvt. Harrison, his best man, both of them dapper in their best togs. Sebastian pushed a bouquet of white and violet flowers into my arms, and my husband-to-be took my hand while I stood there more or less dazed. Ames commenced the "We are gathered," part, but I wasn't really listening until she got to: "Do you, Katherine Breen, take this man, Alan Drew, to be your lawfully-wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love, honor, and cherish, until death do you part?" I did and he did. "You may now kiss the bride." The battle group still had some photographic film left, so wedding pictures were taken. When I looked at the prints immediately afterwards, they only made me cringe -- like viewing the evidence of one's own fiendishly-contrived initiation. But it was not many days before I came to regard them in a very different light, as irreplaceable keepsakes to preserve with the greatest of care. Afterwards we partied. The Ukrainians led us in a frenetic dance that they called the "prizawek," and we retaliated by roping them into a square dance. Only a single round of "vinawe," as the Ukrainians had named their fermented beverage, was served before the main show began -- the supply of it being much too small for a congregation as large as ours. As far as the performances went, the Ukrainians, who loved to sing and dance more than any other people I'd ever encountered, gave us of the 54th a tough act to follow. Our guys put on series of celebrity impersonations, some pretty good, some absolutely awful. Cheers went to our "chorus line," some of our girls taking a fling at the can-can. With the help of a couple Ukrainian ladies, Ulad Jami, now called Sonja and married to Nathan Michaels, had thrown together a little belly-dancer outfit and her earnest undulations almost did justice to it. Following Sonja's performance, there were presented three comic scenes from Shakespeare -- including the famous quarrel between Kate and Petruccio from THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. After that, a local writer presented an original skit involving a wife hiding her lover when her husband comes home unexpectedly. Let's just say that Shakespeare was scarcely put to shame. The showstopper had to be Ames' act. Billing herself as "Melissa," the captain emerged dressed in her best uniform and then ground out a striptease. (Her fantasy girl, it seemed, had been an ecdysiast.) Some of the officers looked uneasy as Melissa did her thing, but the privates loved it. Still, I wondered how Ames expected to ever again function as a figure of authority after such an exhibition. And I also wondered what Crawford would have to say to her afterwards, or for that matter, what did her lover, Philbrick, thought about it all. Next it was Alan's turn. A born ham, he had volunteered to sing some of those old-time songs of his. I squeezed his arm to encourage him, but to my surprise he took a firm hold of me and dragged me up to the stage behind him. When he let go, I immediately attempted to run for cover, but Alan would have none of that. He set me down upon a stool and drew up another for himself. "Just sit there, honey," he told me. "I'm going to serenade you." "Wait till I get you home, you snake!" "Ladies and gentlemen," Alan addressed the assembly, "I guess you don't need to be introduced to our other guest of honor, Major Rupert Breen. But, excuse me, we've got to get used to calling her Major Kathy Drew now. Anyway, I want you to know that this little lady has gotten to be a large part of my life, and that she's getting larger every day." The mob tittered evilly. I could have punched Alan out just then! "When a man loves a woman as much as I love Kathy," my new spouse went on, "plain words just can't say it all. A fellow has to have poetry. So, here's a song that expresses I just exactly what I feel about the person who means everything to me. It's called 'The Heather and the Broom.'" He took his seat and balanced his instrument -- a sort of guitar that one of the Ukrainians had been teaching him to play -- on his knee. Smiling across my way, he began to strum and his song was the one that I had heard him practicing all week: "I come from the land Of the primrose and ling. I saw the fleet falcon And heard the lark sing. I mimicked the warbler And whistled its trill; I watched the clouds drifting As I climbed up the hill. "You loved me so kindly You loved me so well, You showed me the magic You could weave with your spell. Your grace stilled the storm, Your kiss quelled my woes, And your eyes mirrored the gleam Of the stars as they rose. "We journeyed together Through seasons of love, As proud as the eagle, As calm as the dove. We felt our joy growing Through trials forlorn, I stood by your bedside When our child was born. "You loved me so kindly You loved me so well, You showed me the magic You could weave with your spell. Your grace stilled the storm, Your kiss quelled my woes, And your eyes mirrored the gleam Of the stars as they rose. "We'll pale like the hoar frost That withers the rose. We'll fall like the leaves do When life finally goes. But remember, my darling, The heather and broom, Whose beauty in springtime Shall spread o'er our tomb. "You loved me so kindly You loved me so well, You showed me the beauty You could weave with your spell. Your grace stilled the storm, Your kiss quelled my woes, And your eyes mirrored the gleam Of the stars as they rose." As he sang the last reprise, my eyes misted. His song had driven home to me the surety of loss and bereavement, the fact that one of us must go on alone some day. Such was the mortal's common fate and it could never be avoided, but I vowed then and there not to let even a single day of the life we shared be wasted -- especially not these precious days of our youth. His serenade finished, Alan gave me a hug. The crowd clapped quietly in empathy. I thought the act was over and so stood up, but Alan nudged me back into my seat. Addressing the audience again, he said: "I can't sing any more sad songs -- I'm just too happy. But there's an old tune that'll fit this occasion much better. I've written some new words to it and I hope that all of you, and especially Kathy, will enjoy it. I call it, 'Major Breen.'" 'Major Breen'? My ears pricked up. This sounded like a dirty trick on me, and so I braced myself for the worst. "Tra-la-la-la-la la-la-la Happy Birthday, Major Breen Happy Birthday, Major Breen! "Tonight's the night I've waited for, Because you're not our C-O anymore You've turned into the loveliest gal I've ever seen. Happy Birthday, Major Breen! "What happened to that stiff hardcase? Our camp commander now wears paint on her face. I can't believe my eyes You're just a soldier's dream! It must be magic, Major Breen! "When you were on our backs, You were worse than ague. Then when we hit Helene, We thought we'd have to frag you. "Every night and every day, You made us toe the line. But Fate's gone and changed you, Life's rearranged you, From now on you're going to be mine! "So, if I smile with sweet surprise It's just because you've filled out Right before my eyes. You've become the only woman I could love, Thank you angels high above! "If I smile with sweet surprise, It's just because you've filled out Right before my eyes. . . ." The music trailed off and Alan finished his song softly and a cappella: "You've turned into the prettiest girl I ever knew . . . ." I'll never forget the look he was casting into my eyes. ". . . Let me tell the world I love you -- Kathy Drew." I let Alan draw me close, and then, with the whole world watching, we kissed a kiss that shut out everything else in the universe -- everything, that is, except ourselves. ******* Epilogue *True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.* KING RICHARD III With only a few more pages in my journal, I should bring this memoir to its close. But my decision to end it here is more than just a matter of writing material. Were I to go on beyond this point, my narrative would cease to be the story of a man of Earth named Rupert Breen, and become, seamlessly, that of Katherine Drew, a woman of the planet Eden. It is not that I believe that Katherine's life must be an uninteresting one -- far from it. I have, in fact, begun recording the chronicles of the 54th upon clay tablets, using a space-saving shorthand which I have developed. But Kathy's story would be impossible to present except as a kind of diary. Unlike Rupert's life, Katherine's has only begun to unfold -- at least I hope that that is true. I shall now summarize the more important events of the last few months. Except for a few detachees who chose to marry and remain at the Ukrainian villages, all of our people have returned to us. Klink is just one of several hamlets about this area now. Casimir convinced us that it would be wise to establish a number of different settlements, so that our men would not have to journey so far each morning to reach the fields. And it takes many large fields and a wide hunting ground to provide for over five hundred people. A new spring has come around and, though it seems as if they arrived only yesterday, most of our Ukrainian friends have already departed for home. Among those who have remained behind are Casimir, Irina, and Natalya. These three have no families to return to, and perhaps they understand just how much we still need them. They have become the grandfather and grandmothers of all of us, and we consult with them often -- whenever the wisdom and good sense that comes with a long life is called for. One can scarcely believe how often that is. Another Ukrainian staying with us is Mikhail Chatilov. Widowed childless after five years on Eden, Mikhail has dearly wanted a new wife and family. His efforts have won the hand of one of our women, she who now chooses to call herself Rachel. I have to confess that I played a matchmaker's role in this affair, advising Mikhail on the subject of his beloved's tastes and how to get on her good side. My intervention must have helped, for his courtship flourished after that, despite its very rocky start. It was hard to suddenly have to start calling Sebastian Lowry 'Rachel Chatilov' -- but, no doubt, accepting me as Mrs. Katherine Drew had been equally difficult for her. I think that the match will be a good one for Rachel. So far, at least, she has voiced no complaints about her partner, either as a companion or a father. Yes, a new Sebastian Lowry is now with us. I think, and I pray, that this gift of Eden will heal the wound that Rachel has endured since the loss of her original family. Anyway, between her husband, her infant, and her work, she will have little time to think beyond the moment. But the first child born in Klink was actually Lucy Roberts. Mary and Harold still hope for a son and have decided that should they have more than one, the first should be a Roberts and second a Hitchcock. Otherwise the name of Hitchcock would disappear forever, and that would not be fair. Alan likes their plan and suggests that we should do the same. So, God willing, there may yet be established a house of Breen upon the planet Eden. I might also add here that Mary's little girl has never lacked for milk, though her mother once feared her starvation. Melissa lately got pregnant and she and Philbrick were married. Crawford seems to be serious about a Ukrainian woman named Nadezhda, whom he met during his stay at her village. Alan and I, by the way, passed some months in the Ukrainian hamlets ourselves, training their best and brightest in medical procedure. My technical role there was as an official liaisons between our settlements, but I was pretty much obligated to act the part of Alan's nurse-assistant all that while. In result, I probably learned more about medicine than any of the students whom Alan had come to teach. Living away from the battle group was quite an education in other ways, too. For one thing, there was the novelty of observing and interacting with youngsters of all ages. Sebastian was right it now seems; there is an undeniable magic in children, one which must be experienced to be appreciated. Then, too, I learned a lot about how real women think by sharing in their society from day to day, but yet I have to say that I still feel more comfortable in the company of men. Alan attempted to realize Sebastian's -- Rachel's -- program for eliminating infectious illness upon Eden. We may actually have made some progress in this regard but, despite all we do, who knows when the population may be reinfected by a new batch of exiles dropping down from space? Anyway, Alan and I are now back where we belong. Despite my early fears, he was not lured away from me by any Ukrainian temptress. There is much that binds us together after all, not least of which being the child whose tossings and turnings I feel within me even now. Soon, very soon, I shall behold my son or daughter face to face -- and then I shall know that particular pride of the life-giver which has decided the course of so much human history. Even if I were not facing imminent child-rearing, there still would be no lack of things to do. Though I'm sure that Crawford would return command to me for the asking, the privileges and burdens of rank no longer hold any special appeal for me. Life seems full and rich enough without them and, besides, Crawford fits the image of an all-purpose "tribal chief" than ever I could -- at least the way that things have worked out. I hear hail-fellow voices and laughter all around me. Yet it is never far from my mind that sorrow must from time to time turn joy to mourning. Our cemetery so far holds but two graves, but with the march of time there shall be more -- many more. The closer I come to bearing life myself, the more conscious I am of death's overawing shadow, even though it seems small at this moment, like the shadows cast by the noonday sun. The more my contentment grows it appears, the more I recognize that sadness and separation is the inescapable destiny of all mankind. When I visit our little graveyard, as I sometimes do, I think of all the future families of Eden -- the Breens, the Lowrys, the Chatilovs, the Hitchcocks, the Drews, the Roberts, and so many others, but I feel a deep, dull ache to know that there shall be no Olsons, no Woolenskas. These two young people didn't have to die -- at least not so soon, so foolishly, and so uselessly. They never knew, and no one of us was as yet wise enough to tell them, that they feared only the unknown. It is an awesome thing, the unknown, but while it must be faced, it never should be feared. The unknown which destroyed these fine soldiers turned out to be nothing more terrible than the possibility of immortality. I speak not, of course, of the immortality of the individual. The grave must eventually receive the whole of the 54th, since, as Xerxes once lamented, the greatest of armies must quickly turn to dust. It is not armies, but families which are eternal. My generation shall pass away, as have all others before it, but we will yet live on in our children's flesh, and in their memories. If we live well, then perhaps we shall be remembered well. None of us expected to leave a legacy when this strange adventure began. We of the 54th had been like sterile seeds fallen upon dry and barren ground. But, as if by magic, that has ceased to be true. We have become instead the seedlings of a mighty forest that is yet to be. We have, in fact, discovered ourselves in the midst of a miracle -- the miracle of Man in partnership with Woman. Today we plant whatever we find at hand, but who knows the name of the harvest? Not four thousand years separate the farmers of Jericho from Earth's colonies in the stars. In four thousand years more, what will the seeds of Eden have yielded? Villages, city states, kingdoms, nations? Another empire in the sky? The possibilities are too awesome to contemplate. I, Katherine Drew, Rupert Breen, or by whatever name I might call myself, wish that I might live those four thousand years, might see it all happen before my eyes. But, sadly, my fellow castaways and I may do no more than lay the foundations upon which others must build. There is much we can do in the short span granted us, of course, and much that we must do. But we should never forget precisely what we are building, and whom we are building it for. Now my log is nearly full. Let me end the story of Rupert Breen with this single thought: Nothing that we dream, nothing that we aspire to, nothing that we achieve has any purpose -- unless its purpose extends beyond ourselves, unless it seeks for the well-being of future ages, unless it strives to reach out and clasp the hand of Destiny. . . . . . . . Unless, I mean, it is for the children. 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