“Yes,” said Janer, without much interest. Ten paces from his door and he turned to study what was revealed of his cabin between the ceiling and floor of flesh. It was an oblate bone-yellow sphere from which extended organic-looking struts to pierce the flesh, these in turn held by ropes of grey muscle. How like parasites were humans in the uterine living spaces of the Graaf snairl — squirming endoparasites, gall wasps. A little way further along he could see some of the next cabin and a face at a plastiglass portal. That would be Asharn the merchant. Somewhere in this snairl was stored his cargo of exotic organics — synaptic chips, non-specific human augmentations like eyes to see in the dark, guaranteed multiple orgasm vaginas, cetacean capacity lungs, and other things the merchant had hinted at with nods and winks and meaningful looks at the hornet. Crime, if it was to be committed successfully, had to be done so away from prying eyes, especially if they were faceted. Janer had displayed his lack of interest in anything the merchant might have, well aware of a feeling of huge amusement coming through the hivelink.
“The storm closes,” the link hornet told him. “I see it now, an anvil of cloud walking on legs of lightning.” Janer closed his eyes. He really wanted to go there, where the other hornets and the rooks were. Would the mind let him, as its eyes were already there? He asked.
“Later,” the mind told him. “First I want to see the inside of this snairl during storm.” Janer wondered exactly what it was the mind wanted to see. Did it want to observe the orgy purported to take place? What possible interest could it have in human sex? Or was he just missing something? Had he not been told something? He walked aimlessly then in the body of the snairl and thought about his first sight of it. It had drifted through the sky, a faerie castle in the clouds, only the flicker of rotors on the Lower Shell betraying its motive force. Sunlight refracted through the spiral of nacre helium chambers revealing them like the internals of some diatom. The living body of the snairl clung chancrous below, its tail thrashing the air as angry as a cat, grey and silver tendrils treeing up into the shell and fading. One creature: ugliness clinging to beauty, tenaciously.
Crew ceased working at their tasks, as Janer walked by, and watched him with evident surprise. The slime on the walls thickened and some arteries were hung with glistening ropes of it. In one such place he saw two crew members coupling ferociously and stopped to watch. They were oblivious to him; tightly wrapped in an embrace and foaming the slime with their frenetic movements. Damn the mind, he thought. He was going to find Eller. Ever since he had come onboard she had been dropping broad hints. The last hint had been too broad to ignore. He headed in the direction of the cyst-cabins of the crew, hoping to find her there.
“The storm is around us,” said the mind, “and now the snairl holds its position. It will not move on now.”
“What do you mean?”
He was definitely not being told something. There was no reply and he was about to ask again when Eller stepped out into the artery before him and beckoned. He hurried towards her and stood in front of her. There was a thin layer of slime on her body and her black hair was slick against her head. Nictitating membranes blinked over her eyes and when she opened her mouth he noted her tongue was pure white, like the lips of her vagina. She reached down and inserted her fingers in the top of his trunks.
“Why these?”
“I’m not used to nakedness,” he told her.
“You’ll get used to it.”
She tugged him through the cervix in a fleshy wall and into her cabin.
Once within the narrow confines Janer looked around. Slime coated the floor and walls and no personal objects were visible. The floor was soft under his feet. He sensed the curiosity of the mind and it voiced no objections when he removed the box from his shoulder and placed it on ridge of hard flesh protruding from the wall. Eller stood at the middle of the cyst for a moment inspecting him from head to foot.
“I was to be with Ableman,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I like the exotic.”
This was hardly how Janer classified himself, but at that moment he was almost without thought. She stepped forward, took hold of his trunks, and pulled them down to his ankles.
“Ah,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his penis, then scraped her nails down his thighs. He grabbed for her and she slid away. He grabbed again and she allowed it, then tripped him to the floor. The slime was warm. She sat astride his chest, slid back, then reached between her legs and slid his penis inside herself. Janer did not last very long and was immediately aware that something else was operating here. He had never reacted like this before. That he had come did not seem to affect her as she rode him, her eyes rolled up in her head. He was hard again in a moment, but not inside her. She didn’t stop. He got hold of her and threw her down on the floor, mounted her, her legs locking behind him and her ankle spurs scraping his skin. His mind was a white blur of pleasure into which the hivemind spoke a few unheeded words.
“Aphrodisiac in the slime. How interesting.”
The hornet scuttled back into its box and fastidiously cleaned itself. The substance had no effect on a creature without gender.
They rested in an oozing tangle, foamed slime all about them. At last able to think Janer reacted to the hornet’s words.
“Why? Why is it in the slime?”
Eller sat upright, glanced from him to the box, then lay back with a squelch, a dreamy smile on her face.
“It is not normally there,” the mind replied. “Rumours of increased sexual activity during storms are greatly exaggerated. This activity does come during a time of slime production, this production being for other reasons.”
“And what are they?”
The mind was silent. Janer looked to Eller for an explanation, but she was looking at him in a particular way and he quickly lost interest in the subject. He reached for her but she caught his wrists in her rough palms.
“Slowly now,” she said.
Janer nodded mutely then glanced around as he felt the cabin shift. The storm; it was buffeting the snairl. He hoped it wasn’t just a squall as Eller took hold of his head and pressed it down between her legs. The slime didn’t matter. But for a faint peppery taste he hardly noticed it. He hardly noticed anything but what he was doing. Eller moaned and dug her nails in his head, hooked her leg over his shoulder and dug her spur in his back. Abruptly she pushed him away and it was her turn to sink down and take his penis in her mouth. She worked on him with her lips and white tongue, brought him near to coming then stopped and backed away. They were both panting harshly. She slid away from him and lay back with her legs widely parted, rubbing at herself with both hands, her moans louder. Janer saw that slime was actually being generated by the segmented flesh on the front of her torso. It didn’t matter. He pulled himself over her, entered her yet again, his fists against the floor either side of her hips. As he started to move he lifted one hand from the floor and ran it over that ribbed flesh. She went wild, writhing and yelling underneath him. Hardly in control himself he used both hands, pressing and caressing, and something gave. She yelled with ecstacy. Janer came unendingly. He felt as if she were draining him, as if his head would burst, as if his guts were spurting out of his penis.
As the wave subsided Janer looked down and saw with growing horror that his hands had sunk between the segments of her torso. He felt a sudden panicky revulsion and pulled away. She lay limp on the floor, her eyes glazed. Was she dead? Oh no, no… He glanced to the hornet on its fleshy shelf, unmoving in its box, an ornate piece of jewellery, all-seeing.