Book 1 Chapter 5

It was a relief to land back on earth.

Mitzep brought us in over the Missouri River, skimming up over the bluffs and flying up the creek valley, to land on the road next to the house. We only brought a few personal items this trip, one bag per person, and Chessec, Dave and I quickly went into the house. He was away again before we had the front door closed. I let Hobo loose to mark his territory. The house had a heavy, stale scent. We threw open all the windows, but closed the blinds so that nobody driving by on the road could see in. Dave called the sheriff’s station, to let them know he was in the house, then we adjourned for the night. I showed Chessec to the spare bedroom, then we went to our own. This night, the two of us just slept, enjoying the familiar scents, sounds and feel of being home again.

Early the next morning, I drove into town with the dog and got a paper, a thermos of coffee, and some donuts. The clerk said she hoped I had enjoyed the long weekend. I looked at the paper as I drove back to the house. It was the Tuesday after Memorial Day, and I had promised to return to work in about two hours. It was a hard choice to make.

The twins were both awake when I returned, and I shared the paper while I gave Marie the news. She said that there was plenty of work to do around the house, and she gave me a list of groceries to pick up on the way home. I reminded her that she was officially dead, and not to be seen outside. She reminded me that you could buy things over the phone by credit card. I left my by now well traveled laptop with Chessec, and gave her my Internet account password. She would research how best to sell some of that gold back on the mother ship, and see if anyone had noticed any UFO activity that looked familiar.

With that, I put on my tie and went to work. Everyone welcomed me back, especially my partner, who had been stuck with all my work. Several commented that I had lost weight, and that I looked a little pale. Other than that, it was back to work. Two hours later, I had done everything urgent, and decided to check in at home.

I called, "Hello, is this Fox Cleaning Service?"

A familiar voice on the other end replied, "No, we’re the guys stealing your television set."

"That’s right, I’d like all the carpets cleaned."

"We’re piling your clothes on the front lawn, and burning them."

"Thank you, I’ll be by there later." I hung up.

I barely remembered to pick up the groceries. At the store, I ran into my nearest neighbor, Don. He welcomed me back, and we talked about the tobacco and corn crops. He mentioned that he had missed being greeted by Hobo when he walked by the house in the evenings. I said that not only was he back, but I had brought back two big red dogs, too. I figured that would satisfy the casual observer.

When I got home, my two big red dogs had hung all the linens to air out, and were sitting on the back porch drinking iced tea. Each was wearing a pair of Marie’s sunglasses. The real dog was smarter than that, he was asleep under the porch. I unpacked the groceries and sat down with the two of them. They said they were both stir-crazy, and wanted to get out of the house once it cooled off. I suggested a drive to town, like Mitzep and I had done, but Chessec had another idea.

"Let’s go out for a hunt, tonight. With the moon almost full like it is, even you should be able to see."

Marie chimed in, "Chessec has been telling me about it, and I’d like to try it. Although I can’t imagine killing some poor rabbit, it sounds like good exercise to chase one. When I saw those boys back on Diyim’yi out with Hobo, it looked like fun."

Chessec explained to me that hunting small game was a popular pastime, and that even if we didn’t catch anything, the chase was exhilarating. I gave up at that point, and asked them not to make fun of me if I didn’t catch anything. I asked where they wanted to go.

"We’ll start up the ridge behind the house, then just see where the game leads us." I reminded Marie to tell Chessec that cattle and horses were not fair game.

We left about nine PM. I put on a pair of lightweight hiking boots, and some old fatigues. I was about do drench myself with insect repellent, but settled for some scented skin moisturizer that had the same effect. I brought my binoculars to aid my night vision. Marie, Chessec and Hobo were just wearing fur, and were ready to go. I opened the gate into the pasture north of the house. Hobo went through at a run, nose to the ground. In the darkness, the twins were two red-black shapes running through the grass behind him, and spreading out on either side. I followed at a leisurely walk. By the time I reached the center of the meadow, they were all three entering the woods on the far side. About that time Hobo found a fresh scent, and began barking. He sounded like he was going from left to right, so I angled right to intercept. This took me toward the top of the ridge, and I figured I could see any action better from there. As I reached my vantage point, Hobo had fallen silent, and I could hear running and crashing in the woods. A voice called out in Diyim’yi, in a forced whisper.

"Hobo lost the scent. I think the trail doubles back over there!" Realizing this was a good spot to watch from, I sat down on a rock and took out my binoculars. I could see both edges of the narrow woods, as well as the pasture I had just crossed and the adjoining one. From this elevation, I could also see some of the nearby farmhouses and outbuildings. A car’s headlights were briefly visible on the highway about a mile away. Scanning the treeline, I spotted the three of them working the edge two hundred yards from me. Hobo was easy to distinguish from the Diyim’yi. His attention was on the scent trail, as befitted an experienced farm dog. I could not tell the twins apart, but I could tell they were sentient just by watching them hunt. Where the dog was blindly chasing the trail, they would both stop, stand up and look to see where the trail was leading, before dropping back on all fours and resuming the chase. One of them crossed the trail of a second rabbit. A quick pause, then a faint shout and a hand gesture, and the two of them were off.

Hobo followed his own rabbit back to it’s burrow, and started digging. He did not have any hope of catching it, but was trying to force it out the back entrance. I spotted one of the girls in hot pursuit of another one, coming toward me. The rabbit was a gray blur, about twenty feet out in front. The Diyim’yi was running flat out, hind legs in front of forepaws, and had the speed, but not the agility. Right in front of me, the rabbit hooked a hard right, and ducked back into the woods.

Chessec braked to a stop and said, panting, "Hey, Lazy! You could have helped me there."

I pointed into the woods, "He went thataway." I heard a crash as Marie, who had been trailing by fifty yards, suddenly turned to pursue as the rabbit doubled back again, right in front of her. Chessec ran up toward the crest of the ridge to cut him off. The rabbit spotted her about ten feet away, and tried another reverse. SNAP! Marie caught him in her teeth. She looked about as surprised as he had been. Chessec came up and congratulated her, and picked it up in her paw and brought it over to me.

"You get to carry it back," she said.

"Why not eat it here?" I joked.

"Did you bring any barbecue sauce, because I sure didn’t."

Marie walked over, and looked at her kill. "That felt really satisfying, and it kind of scared me. I went out tonight thinking I would just run around for a while for exercise, but once I saw that rabbit, I just had to catch him. It wasn’t so much that my animal instincts were taking over, but that every sense and muscle was fully involved in the chase and kill." Chessec agreed. She said that the main use of hunting among her people these days was as a therapeutic release, that it cleared the stress of modern life better than any other sport.

I remarked, "Still, we can’t do this every night, or there won’t be a rabbit for miles." I had spotted Hobo heading back to the house with something in his mouth.

We walked quietly back to the house, and I cleaned and dressed the rabbit on the picnic table while the two of them brushed the worst of their burrs and tangles out up on the back deck. By the time I was done, they were ready to go inside and so was I. Hobo sat outside, chewing on his own rabbit, not offering to share at all.

The two of them went upstairs to the large tub to clean up, and I dashed in to use the downstairs shower before all the hot water was gone. I heard Marie use the phrase ‘bubble bath’, and I knew they would be awhile. I would have paid admission to see them covered in bubbles, but I resisted the temptation to walk in. When I walked by the door, I heard a fair amount of splashing, and unintelligible, muted conversation.

I grabbed a notepad from my office and went downstairs to the living room. I continued to work on my recruiting list, writing down any names I could recall of people who could help. Ideally, I wanted to select friends who presently had no connection to me, people I had known in the past. I also worked on some criteria for people to send to Diyim’yi. Since they would be off-planet, I was less concerned with the security aspect, and more interested in skills. I suddenly thought of a name that met both criteria. I wrote it down on my pad. It was almost midnight by then, and the girls were finally done. When they came down the stairs, I put down my work, and looked at them with interest. They were still wearing large towels, looking slightly damp, but definitely fluffy. They came over and sat on either side of me on the couch.

Marie spoke. "I’ve been thinking hard about this and after talking with Chessec upstairs, and I think we need to modify our sleeping arrangements. I want to have her share our bed, Dave. It’s cruel to keep her alone upstairs while she’s feeling everything I’m experiencing with you. I thought I couldn’t share you, but in one sense I already am. I’m willing to make a change if you will accept her."

"I will, dear. I have liked Chessec ever since we met her, but I respect you too much to have done anything. Please excuse the adolescent grin on my face. It’s an instinctive response, developed by men through generations of evolution. One important thing, though." I looked over at Chessec. "Marie is still my wife. She will always come first in my life." I put an arm around each of them. They smelled like wet dogs; bubble bath soaked wet dogs, but wet dogs nonetheless.

We sat for a while, then Marie stood up and led me into the bedroom. I could describe a night of passion and wild lovemaking, but that’s not what we did. We spent the night finding a comfortable position for three people to sleep on a king-size bed, while still touching as much of their bodies as possible. They had run hard that evening, spent several hours making a tough decision, and really, really just wanted to be held. I’ll tell you what, though: If I had died that night, it would have taken a chisel to get that grin off my face.

Sharing Dave with Chessec was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made. Not because I didn’t know how she felt: The problem was the opposite; I new exactly how she felt. I could tell from feeling her emotions that she was more uncomfortable with it than Dave or I was. In the end it was a selfish decision on my part. I knew that without a mate of her own, she would be continually frustrated whenever Dave and I were intimate, and the emotional backlash from that was spoiling my own enjoyment. From the incredibly vivid thoughts I’d received when she was sleeping with Luissen, I knew exactly what she was experiencing.

By pairing her with my husband, I knew exactly where she was, and who she was with. Plus, since we were identical twins, I knew just what sensations he was getting from her. Call me selfish, but I had been married to Dave for five years before I became a fox, and I didn’t want him even thinking about finding something different. So I pushed both of them into this match, and held my breath.

He took the changed situation like any man; in other words, like a kid with a new toy. When we woke up the next morning, I could feel a certain stiff portion of his anatomy against me, while my telepathic link showed that his fingers were playing with Chessec’s nipples. Only the alarm clock interrupted what could have been an all-morning affair.

While Dave was a work, I spent some more time talking to Chessec. I told her what marriage in the United States meant, explained the problems with having two wives, and what I expected out of our association. It was clear from our preliminary plans, that I would have to return to Diyim’yi for up to a year to shepherd our exchange students, and that she and Dave would need to learn to live together without me. I talked about my plans to have children, something I never expected in my other life. By the time Dave got home, we were discussing the tough things, like cooking, shopping and house cleaning.

After supper (rabbit stew), I announced that, while we would not be hunting tonight, we did want to go for a walk. "And that includes certain couch potatoes, too." I poked him in the ribs.

We walked up the road for about a mile, with Dave holding Hobo on a leash. Whenever a car approached, Chessec and I stepped back into the woods until it passed. We went by one neighbors house, and his coon dogs got a whiff of us, and started barking. Fortunately they were penned. It was a pleasant evening stroll.

Once we got back home, I decided it was time to pick up where we had left off that morning. Dave had sat down on the couch, and was just reaching for the remote control. I whispered a few words to Chessec, then we attacked. I jumped straight onto his chest and kissed him right on the mouth, forcing my tongue inside. I hooked my claws into the sides of his shirt, and clung to him like a leech. After initial surprise, he returned my kiss, and started running his hands down my back. I kept his mouth busy so he couldn’t say anything.

As I had instructed her, Chessec grabbed his shorts and pulled them off. She was out of his field of vision, which was blocked by me. I could feel from his reaction what she did next. The tips of her ears were brushing against my hindquarters, and I had a pretty good idea where her own tongue was. Dave quit struggling, and sprawled back on the couch. Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that when we were done with him an hour later, he didn’t know which fox had done what to which part of his anatomy, and that Chessec was no longer just a platonic friend. He was sound asleep, she was tired, and maybe a little more sore than usual, and the two of us were wondering how much more of this telepathy we could take. While Dave had been performing only a bit better than average, the double sensations shared by Chessec and I had been unbelievable. After I pulled the covers over him, I curled up beside her and lightly stroked her fur until we both fell asleep.

When I graduated from the Academy, I had one of those moments of reflection where I saw the course of my entire life mapped out ahead of me. I imagined fame and prestige as a galactic explorer, followed by a triumphant return to find the (then undiscovered) man of my dreams, have children, and grow old telling boring tales of my adventures in space. My first mission among the Lynx looked like the norm: a quick success, make a few friends, go home with a treaty. With that vision in the forefront of my head, I should have fled with horror from the alternate future that Marie has presented me. Instead, I realize both intellectually and emotionally that the bizarre, alien family she offered is the best part of my fate.

As it has become clear that our telepathic link is permanent, that we will always be joined together, I more and more see that a major part of her essential personality is a product of her bond with her husband, and that whether I like it or not, it is now a part of me. While she did not say it, I am sure she has absorbed some of my personality as well. I tried in the early days to fight our connection as some sort of illness, but finally came to accept that we needed to reach an accommodation.

For her to offer to share her husband was a tremendous attempt to reach out to me. I was not enthused. Frankly, Dave did not attract me as a mate, no matter how pleasant a working companion he was. It was only after I closed my eyes, and saw him through her, that I began to know what they saw in each other, and began to appreciate him.

Our relationship was an evolving, three-cornered balancing act. In the beginning, the two of them were clinging to each other in the natural shock of Marie’s sudden transformation, reassuring each other that they were still the same people inside. After Marie became more confident in her new body, and she and I began to explore the unique connection we had obtained, She began to assert herself as a more independent, active person than she had been in her previous life. I like to think this was some of my personality rubbing off on her.

Dave, on the other hand, started out suspicious of me, but gradually has come to respect me as a competent coworker. His relationship with me has grown more slowly. Once Marie made it clear that she wanted me in their family, he began to show affection, but always as a duty to her. He never showed any spontaneous emotion other than friendship, and I confessed to her that I thought he was going through the motions only. She encouraged me to take it slowly, telling me about the slow pace of their original courtship. Recently, he actually hugged me without hugging her first, but he could have just forgotten who I was in the excitement. He is not the husband that I expected, but the longer I know him, the more I think he is better than I would have gotten back home.

Biology has thrown us some curves, though. Marie and I are physically the same age, 23, but mentally she is in her forties. Having been childless as a human, now that she is fertile, she strongly feels the urge to have children. I know that she and Dave have discussed it. She has not told me how they plan to accomplish this, but did confess that they planned to time the delivery for after her return from Diyim’yi next winter. I assume that she will recruit a donor while she is there. I feel like I am young enough right now that I do not intend to become pregnant for at least another five years. At least with Dave, there is no risk of an ‘accident.’ I guess this will be the topic of a family discussion at some future time.

As far as the mission goes, the next six months will be key. We need to recruit lots of humans into sympathy with my race; a few to go back home to help us learn some of this earth technology, still more as friends here on earth, and some selected decision makers to pave the way for formal contact and a treaty. I must rely on Dave for this, as it will be many more years before I understand enough of the nuances of the language and facial expressions to dare negotiate, and possibly decades before we understand how humans think.

Because the blunt fact is, if humans get interstellar space travel within the next decade, they will be the most powerful race in the known universe. Lacking that one thing, their progress in the physical sciences has already outstripped both our own and that of the now-defunct Jaguars’ empire. And history has shown my people that we have no defensive weapon short of the annihilation we visited on the jaguars, and no one on all Diyim’yi wants to repeat that genocide. My job as a first contact specialist has always boiled down to a simple method: Meet the aliens, make them trust you, and learn what must be done to ensure we can trust them. Dealing with humanity, unlike the more primitive races: the M’raeenn, Nurnkh, Awlroo, Kahhf, Lippeth, and W’parl, we have no margin for error. The minute I first landed on earth I knew this would be my last, lifelong mission. I am here for the duration.