Flint had experienced orgasm before. Now he knew that no mating of his with Honeybloom could approach the enchantment of one with this alien. Because Honeybloom had a Kirlian aura of about one, or average: a washout as far as interaction with his own aura went. Llyana/¢le’s aura was about two hundred, matching his own. There was simply no way to beat that. Interpenetration of extremely intense auras, combined with the physical and emotional rapture of sexual mergence…
Then Llyana got smart—and Flint was able to appreciate how intelligent and disciplined she was, again because his nerves were hers. She concealed her origin and purpose by throwing herself into the mergence with full force.
And the climax was upon them. They drew together until the three were a tight, rock-hard ball, with only small portions remaining discrete, and there was appalling pressure. The urgency of completion was so great it seemed that their very substance would sunder.
And it did. Rapture became rupture. The ferocity of the explosion was soul-shattering. Impelled by the atomic nucleus of their triple overlay, they smashed out in three directions. There was an instant of exquisite pain as a gross chunk of flesh was ripped out of his body; then Flint was rushing through the water, incomplete yet completed. He agreed with the Sibilant: what an experience! Ordinarily the three participants of a union separated after climax, allowing their explosive impetus to carry them far from each other. Flint as the sire and Llyana as the parent had lost portions of their mass, and needed time to heal and regain full size. Both had already suffered from the accident that had made the hosts available, so recuperation was critical. Sissix, as catalyst, had escaped without loss, of course. If Flint chanced into another mergence as anything but catalyst, he would lose yet another portion of himself, and that could be disastrous. So he had to be careful, and to get out of the Sibilant zone as soon as possible. He understood now that these zones were not merely prudery, but necessary to the survival of the species. Uncontrolled matings could be fatal!
Nevertheless, he swam around to follow Llyana. It was a risk, but a necessary one. He had to be sure he had nullified her.
He found her, undulating along with an infant of her kind. The little creature was scarcely formed, and was technically a neuter, but recognizable by its lack of flippers or propulsion jet. Babies had to be sexless, or they would be inadvertently caught up into mergences and not survive into maturity. Like humans, they developed when they were ready.
“Well, happy motherhood,” Flint said. She spun on him, coiling like a snake. Undulants had more supple bodies than Impacts, and could bend more readily. In the absence of a catalyst she had no further specific sex appeal, but she remained an esthetic specimen. “Schlish!” she exclaimed.
He chuckled as well as the alien vocal apparatus permitted. “You can’t swear in Spican. There is no equivalence here, and the phonetics cannot be literally rendered. I believe what you’re trying to say is ‘fush!’ ”
“Schlish! Fush!” she agreed vehemently.
“Please—not in front of the child,” he cautioned her. “And you’d better let me show you out of the Sibilant zone, or we may encounter another roving catalyst. I don’t think you’d want to mate again so soon.”
She swelled up as if ready to explode. But his warnings did have effect. She swerved to follow him, and did not make any more intemperate remarks. Their infant swam docilely after her. Alien she might be—but her body was Spican, and the biological ties of motherhood were controlling, just as they were among humans, even when the child was the result of rape.
“Why did you do it?” she demanded more moderately.
“To force an admission of your origin from you,” he said. “That was successful, though I admit I didn’t quite pinpoint your Sphere. And I had to prevent you from trying to kill me or otherwise balk me from the performance of my mission. With a child to care for, you can’t go chasing after me, can you? Not to other Spheres.”
“Schl—” she started, then caught herself, glancing at the innocent infant. Flint was amazed at how readily he was able to accept this new reality: in just a few minutes by Sol time he had mated and become a father, and here was his child—by a completely alien mother. “There will be another time.”
“I hope so,” he said. “I’d really like to repeat this performance—in my own body, with you in human form. You’re quite a female.”
She was silent for a moment. “And you are quite a male,” she agreed at last. “I have not before encountered an aura to match my own. I underestimated you, assuming you to be a primitive of your kind.”
“I am,” Flint agreed. “I’m a Stone Age man. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“That is true.” Then she hardened. “But I shall not make that error again. Twice I have failed; that suffices.”
And twice he had let her live, when perhaps he should have killed her. If only it weren’t for the fascination of her aura, and his curiosity about her Sphere of origin. “Meanwhile, take good care of our baby,” he said cheerfully. “I believe it takes about six months, my time, to raise a neuter to independence. If my interpretation of the nature of transfer is correct, you do possess the maternal instinct and will not permit your baby to suffer—because your Spican host would not have done so. You can’t go home before it is old enough to be weaned, or it will die, and you can’t take it with you because its Kirlian aura is native to this planet and would quickly fade in another host. I hope your own aura will last sufficiently long?”
“You know my aura is as strong as yours!” she flashed.
“Good. Then you will have a full month’s clearance, and then you can go home and recuperate for a similar period, while I complete my missions at other Spheres. After that, there will be no point in your seeking me out to kill me. The job will have been done. Are you sure you don’t want me to send a message to your home Sphere to let them know you’re busy?”
“You have nullified me!” she cried angrily.
“This is music to my auditory perception,” he said, realizing that he didn’t have ears. His whole surface picked up the sound waves. “Well, I would have hated to kill so lovely a creature as you. Maybe after all this is over, we can get together again. It was a lot of fun this time.”
This time even the presence of the child did not restrain her. “Schlish!”
But now Impacts were closing in, their fringes bubbling a bit in reaction to the foul language they had just picked up. Flint knew he could not escape arrest. And he realized there was a hole in his plan: he remained an outlaw. They might refuse to listen to him.
“Now I’ll make you a deal,” he said quickly. “You do not press charges against me for involuntary mergence, and I will not tell them of your alien origin.”
“Fush!” she said. “I’ll not cover for you! I can make them hold you here until your aura vanishes.”
“All right—I’ll tell them all about it,” he said brightly, though he was worried. “And I’ll call in the Sibilant as witness.” He turned to the nearest Impact. “I am an alien sapience in possession of this Impact body,” he announced. “Your cultural rules do not apply to me. This Undulant is—”
“I agree!” Llyana throbbed.
“…is an involuntary victim of my ignorance of local custom. Please take me to the Council of Impacts for interrogation.”