Galaxy of Terra

She paused to see how he'd react. He didn't yet.

"That's why Novus sent me," she continued. "When intelligent species are on the brink of extinction, Novus admits them to its breeding program, to repopulate destroyed planets."

"It's impossible," A'yl said. "We're too different."

"Not genetically," she reminded him. "Even though we look different, we're enough alike that Novus technology can combine your genes and mine.

"The baby won't be one of your people, and it won't be one of mine," she continued. "It'll be something completely new. But it'll be ours, and I can carry it in this."

Unclasping the metal band around her midsection, she revealed the control panel and its red light.

"Don't even ask me what the little tyke is going to look like when it's born," she said, smiling a little. "But whatever it is, it'll live on after we're gone. Something from both of our planets will survive."

A'yl peered at her. "But this new creature would be the only one of its kind too. Where would it go?"

"To live with the offspring of other destroyed planets. All of them together on a brand new world, finding a way to live together somehow."

"This is reason you came?" A'yl's voice suggested a kind of awe. Terra nodded. "You didn't even know who I was..."

"I knew you were a survivor, and that I was the only one who could come."

It started to rain, the droplets trailing smoke through the atmosphere.

"Is it necessary for there to be...contact between us?" said A'yl.

Terra blinked. He sounded embarrassed. "Not much," she said. "The implant just needs some samples to work with. It'll combine yours with mine, and then..."

"But there SHOULD be contact," A'yl said. "It wouldn't be right to have a spawning without it."

Terra shifted a little, suddenly glad that A'yl probably couldn't read her body language. "If it's important to you," she said. "Although I'm not sure what we can do."

"Tell me how people on your planet made life."

Now that was tricky; how to explain the birds and the bees to someone who didn't know what a bird even was? Terra did her best, making something of a mess of the details. A'yl stood in astonishment when she was done. "Your world was very strange," he said.

"Alien."

Then he said, "Do you trust me?". Terra nodded. "Then do as I ask you next," he replied.

One of his gigantic crab claws reached out, and she was careful not to flinch as he picked her up and set her on top of his shell. She found the surface smooth to the touch, and up close she realized he was covered in many tiny glittering granules, like microscopic jewels.

Then a seam opened. She'd always known, of course, that the shell was something his species built to protect itself; the real A'yl was inside, a swirling mass of liquid. Almost all of his body was simple water, like hers. Now he had revealed himself, naked and vulnerable. When he spoke, the surface of the liquid rippled.

"Come down to me," he said.

Terra had no idea what was going to happen next, but she did as he asked, climbing into the interior of the shell. It was hot and muggy inside; this felt like the most intimate thing she had ever done. At his invitation she dipped one toe into the liquid alien's body. Testing the waters...

"Now," he said, "dive in."

The suggestion startled her, but again Terra was quick not to give anything away. She put a hand over the panel on her side for a moment. "All right, if this is what you want." She paused. "A'yl? This time...I am afraid."

"Don't be."

"Okay," she said. "I trust you." And she jumped.

Although she'd braced herself for a disgusting feeling, like being covered in goo, it turned out to be no different from floating in a clean, salty ocean. She sank to the bottom of the shell, as A'yl instructed, submerging herself in him. His voice came from all around her now.

"Open your mouth," he said, "and swallow."

Terra paused. Was he sure? Seeming to read her mind A'yl added. "Yes, I'm sure."

Doubts and memories jostled in Terra's mind: She remembered Treaty Day, and then the day she first visited the ruins of Earth, and her first day at Novus, then the tests, the evaluations, the surgeries, seven years of training, the long voyage in deep sleep, alone on her ship as it swam through the great empty blackness of space to this one tiny planet where, that entire time, A'yl had all by himself...

She swallowed.

And as soon as she did she was astonished to find herself somewhere else. Or maybe nowhere at all? She seemed to be standing, but on a surface she couldn't see. Everything around her was soft and white and gauzy, a kind of gleaming nothing place.

Looking herself over, Terra found she was all still intact, naked in this blank space. But where was this? How did she get here? And what had happened to A'yl?

"Is this what you had in mind?" said a voice behind her. Terra turned around and was stunned to see a human man. She tried to talk but could only gape.

"Did I get it right?" he said again, and although it was difficult Terra finally recognized his voice.

"A'yl?" she said, walking up to him. She put a hand on his arm; it felt real and warm. "What...what did you do?"

He smiled in an uncertain way. "This is only happening in your dreams," he said. "And in mine. We're dreaming together. I did my best to imagine a body for myself here like the ones you remember from your own world." He paused again. "So did I get it right?"

Terra looked him up and down. "Yes. It looks like it. But I'm still not sure I understand what's going on?"

"You understand well enough soon," A'yl said, slipping his arms around her waist. "You've sacrificed so much for me--for my planet, my brothers and sisters, our future. Although this is very strange to me, it's the one thing I can do for you."

At the feeling of being in his arms Terra shifted her weight and leaned into him. She ran her fingertips over his smooth skin and lean muscle, tracing the delicate hairs. "Is this really happening?" she said.

"No. I told you, it's a dream."

"I know it's a dream. But is it happening?"

"It can happen for us, if we want it to."

Now Terra examined A'yl's human face, even putting her hands on it too, feeling it out like a blind person. "You look like someone I used to know."

"Who?"

"Everybody."

"Ah. Well, from what you told me there is a traditional start to these things, isn't there?"

Lowering his head a bit, A'yl leaned in. Terra hesitated for only a moment before tilting her head up and back for him. His lips hovered above hers for a moment. "You, um, may have to help me," he said. "I've never done any of this before..."

Lacing her fingers through his hair, Terra pulled him in the rest of the way. The first kiss was like a warm, deep sigh, settling into the comfort of each other's company.

The second was like electricity, turning them alert and alive to overlapping sensations of each other's bodies close together.

The third was like falling into the current of a river and being swiftly but gently removed from the shore and from everything you left behind there...

Terra lay down and pulled A'yl after her, careful the entire time not to break their kiss. His lips and mouth tasted like almost nothing at all--of course, she realized, he'd never used them for anything before--but the kisses were good and warm and alive. She grabbed two handfuls of his hair (silky, soft, new) and pushed his lips down to her neck, where the feeling of his wet tongue made everything inside of her stand up and sing.

When she opened her eyes again the sky above them had turned blue. They were on a beach--not the hot, red, stagnant beach at the crater where they always met, but a place of white sands and green seas and beautiful rocks, with the circling black shapes of birds wheeling in the sky.

Collecting a handful of the glittering sand, Terra watched the grains slip between her fingers as A'yl kissed her body, painting her naked skin with a million tiny, hot caresses of his mouth. Terra writhed and squirmed and mouthed the almost silent word over and over: "Oh...oh...yes...oh..."

"This is right?" A'yl said, reaching underneath her to cup her rear in both hands and squeeze.

Terra giggled. "Yes, this is very right. You're a natural."

"I have a very good teacher. I think...I think I like this, yes. It's strange. But I like it."

"Everyone says that their first time. Don't stop..."

Now suddenly they were in a field, with grass so deep they sank into it, and countless bobbing white and yellow flowers waved overhead.

"How are you doing all of--OH!--how are you doing all of this?" she said.

A'yl, occupied with sucking her alert and pointed pink nipples and drawing them out with his pursed red lips, took a while to answer. "I'm not doing it," he said, "you are. It's your dream. I'm just coming along."

Terra blinked and they were in a bed with billowing curtains, and A'yl pressed her down into it with a hard, never-ending kiss...

And then they were somewhere on a mountaintop and his hands were everywhere on her body at once, touching, stroking, squeezing, caressing, until she trembled and shook, overflowing with gasps, thrashing her head from side to side...

And next it was night and the moon was full and their bodies glowed blue under the soft illumination as they clung to each other and pulled at each other, fingers clawing at bare backs and mouths meeting, melting into kisses, then retreating only to catch one another again, cool skin warming and then heating and then turning white hot as they both became damp with sweat.

Panting and sore but giddy with the heat of anticipation, Terra rolled over and pushed A'yl underneath her, closing her legs around his body and splaying her hands across him, the pads of her fingers teasing the muscles and sinews as his chest expanded in and out with panting.

She sighed and said, "I can't remember the last time I felt like this." She snatched him up for another quick kiss, then whispered, "Are you ready?"

"I think so," A'yl said. He circled his arms around her waist again, cupping her bottom in both hands as she swiveled her hips around and around on top of him. "Although I suspect I won't really know if I'm ready until afterward."

"Shhh. I'll take care of you," Terra said, stroking the side of his face and then, as gently as she could, she lowered herself down and slipped him inside.

Her body clenched around the smooth, hard sensation of his upright cock right away, and the pair of them quivered and shook, holding onto each other as Terra began to ride him, her thighs flexing up and down as she leaned over and kissed him as hard and deep and long as she could, her wet hair clinging to her.

"You're strong," she said as he squeezed her tighter.

"So are you."

She bit his lip, then whispered against his mouth again as they writhed against each other faster and faster. "More like that," she said. "Oh, I love the feeling of you."

"You love this?" A'yl said, pushing upward with all of his strength so that he went even deeper inside of her. Terra gasped and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, that," she said. "But also everything. All of it. All of you."

"I love you too." A'yl said, and he kissed her once more and then they melted together, and the dream turned into a hot blossom of color, heat, and feeling, where they became the entire universe together.

***

Terra woke up. The orange sky was turning black with night. The rain had stopped. Judging from the stiffness in her limbs she'd been lying here asleep on the stony lakeshore for some time. Rising, she rubbed her neck.

With a start she realized that A'yl was here too. Or at least, his shell was. It lay next to her, the tide lapping at it. It was still open, but she saw no movement inside. Putting a hand on the side of the huge spheroid, she found that it was cold.

The creatures on this world always died after mating. She'd known it would happen, of course. He had too. Sighing, she laid her cheek against the side of the shell.

"Oh, A'yl..."

There weren't many funerary customs here to speak of. Most of the physical remains would have evaporated within hours. The shell was to remain where it fell and serve as a monument. Nothing else was needed. Rubbing the tears from her eyes, Terra kissed the side of it once.

Back at the ship she skipped the diagnostics bed and ran straight to the ship's computer, plugging it into the panel on her abdomen. Her heart raced and she held her breath while the results came in. Please, please, please, she thought...

And then she sagged with relief when the word flashed onscreen: "Successful."

The little light on the implant turned green. It had worked. Somewhere inside of her something had begun, a joining of cells, a merging of one planet's history and another's, into a future that nobody could predict.

The pilot's chair squeaked as she leaned back with her hands on her belly, thinking; it would be another long space trip back to Novus. She pictured the little life growing inside of her the whole time, traveling in a darkness and space all its own. When she finally arrived there would be tests, on her and on the baby. She'd have to make reports, possibly hundreds of them.

But after all of that was done...

"After that it's just us," she said to the little light. "You and me, kiddo. I don't know what you're going to be or what kind of future we're going to have. But you're going to grow up to be very good and very brave. Just like your mother and your father."

With that she told the computer to prepare for takeoff. They had an entire galaxy to get through before they were home.