Part 5 (1/2)

The few MONeans I've met are pleasant but reserved around me. Whether it's my newness or my Tel status that holds them at bay I cannot yet say. No one is hostile though in thought or deed. Even a non-Tel can pick up strong emotions, observation being a large part of anyone's ability to understand those around them. Tels just have the capacity to confirm and get detail.

Tikki comes trotting up from the field and insinuates herself between my feet.

A light breeze whistles over my cottage, and I hum along with it tunelessly. I take one step toward Glim's cottage, and immediately trip over Tikki, who jumps on me, purring, as soon as I'm on the ground. I wrestle her off me and get up, heading for Glim's place, keeping an ear open for the zipper as I go. The gra.s.s brus.h.i.+ng against my boots as I walk and Tikki's purr are all I allow to announce my approach and possible ambush.

When I am nearly all the way to Glim's place, I can hear the cut of his broadsword through the air, his voice counting. I walk around his cottage and see him before he senses me and turns. He is covered with sweat, wearing only a pair of shorts. I smile. Tikki storms him, sword play being one of her favorite games, but he throws the sword down before she reaches him, Tikki goes and sits by the sword, attention divided between it and Glim.

I thought you were going to help with the harvest, he says, ignoring Tikki.

If the zipper ever comes.

Always so impatient, he says.

It comes from years of having to be someplace on schedule, I respond. You're just used to letting everything take forever.

Jurors learn that everything happens in its own time.

I send him a mental raspberry. You've only been a juror for five point two six years longer than I have; Earth-standard at that. Your problem is you've got too much money.

Not anymore, he reminds me. How he can be so -- mild-- about it still dumbfounds me.

Are you sure it was worth giving up? I ask.

What we have together is worth any price, he responds, walking toward me. I only wish we could live without having to hide it out here on the edge of the universe. There are places I would love to share with you.

But any place I am with you is perfect. I smile up at him.

Glim cups my face in his hands for the first time since we've landed without the numbing edges of a damper field around us, and time seems to s.h.i.+ft and blur. I smell his sweat mingled with the MONean flowers in an impressionistic symphony.

Our minds surf together in a wave, and I open my lips to kiss him . . . the world explodes in an orange and black and white flash of light and the screaming and I see them floating in the black and orange -two of them, they must be the Ellysians, I think --long hair floating behind them, androgynous in form and Glim's mind and mine embrace and I can feel the power in the joining grow and I feel the others, Serba and Eileen and Eckart and Homar, trying to separate us with their minds and flinching from the a.s.sault and I see MON through a black veil and-- how can the spiritual bond between Glim and me be this strong? What has happened? Why has it not happened before? How could I ever give this up? How could anyone ask me to deny it?. -- then Tikki is between my feet and I am falling and Glim tries to hold me but Tikki is between us, he loses touch, and the bond is broken.

I fall on my back, jamming my shoulder, and Tikki jumps on me, purring and robbing her face against my chin. The colors are gone. The screaming has stopped.

What in the living h.e.l.l was that? Serba demands.

I look up at Glim. He is staring at his hands.

The others are coming, I say. Are you all right?

He looks up from his hands. Are you all right? I ask again.

What happened? he asks. His question sparkles in my mind with shock and wonder.

I shake my head. I don't know. Are you okay?

It was so powerful, he says. Like we were fusing into one --

Are you okay? I shoot at him, worrying about personality subsumption.

Yes, he says, finally. Not subsumption. Mind s.e.x.

I can see the others, the Calcedorn in the lead, coming around the comer of Glim's cottage. Tikki settles down on my chest with her paws snuggled into my neck, the tips of her claws p.r.i.c.kling against the surface of my skin.