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The Dark Horse encounters an arms merchant, offering the chance to fortify themselves against the slings and arrows of a hostile sector. Maddy does, after all, like things that explode. As long as she's not one of them.

Hey hey, let's have some porn! It's more "Star Patrol" stuff although, if I've done my job right, you should be able to jump in without knowing anything other than it's silly sci-fi. Stick around for some synaesthesia smut! Thanks to Spudz for preventing any warp core breaches on this one.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

_Tales of the Dark Horse _by ** Rob Baird** S2E2, "The Diplomatic Affair" Stardate 66477

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Captain's log, stardate 66477: As we move deeper and deeper into unknown space, I'm starting to feel the pressure. We're only one ship, and one tiny crew. It's true that we've made some friends, and we've mostly avoided making enemies--but even on a mission of peaceful exploration, it's awfully hard not to feel outgunned.

Lieutenant Shannon Hazelton had acquired a reputation for incendiary behavior. By this, observers didn't mean the raccoon was prone to outbursts, to insulting people or to saying obscene things. They meant, literally, that where Shannon went fire often followed. A report on one such incident, for example, was titled "Unexpected demolition of asteroid during routine testing scenario of experimental torpedo."

One relevant line read: warhead yield was anticipated at 70 kilotons and achieved 955 kilotons.

Another read: crew were highly surprised.

Not all of the crew had been surprised. During the following inquiry, Shannon was able to produce a memo she'd directed to the ship's captain, which specifically predicted the new design would be stronger by a factor of ten. It was, after all, her idea in the first place. In the end she'd been absolved of any blame.

Blame or no blame, her reputation accrued. The engine room of an obsolete star cruiser, in the end, was a good place for that sort of personality. The old hands who knew how to run her reactor were long since retired, or dead. Hazelton got to learn from scratch, and to add a bit of her own flair to the work.

With the Dark Horse out beyond the frontier, there was nobody to tell her 'no' except for their captain, and Madison May could be relied on as an ally to the raccoon. It wasn't that May didn't understand the word 'no'; she just didn't understand why it was used so regularly.

"You've been working with the crystals we acquired from the District, I take it?" May asked. One of their most recent trips had been to a settlement producing tetradianium crystal--an excruciatingly valuable mineral with tremendous potential that Confederation scientists weren't able to synthesize in usable quantities.

"I have indeed. What you're looking at right here, Mads, is the first prototype for a completely revolutionary deflector. They're still writing equations on the wall back at Giap Ge College, and we've got a working model!"

"What's revolutionary about it?"

"For one, we're using the crystal to amplify the effect of the capacitors--you don't really want to know the technical details, Mads, don't worry. We're also testing a new resonating device, which would be vastly more effective against certain kinds of impacts."

She neglected to explain further 'technical details,' adeptly understanding that Madison May was more of a big-picture thinker. The akita cared less about the material properties of tetradianium, and more about the idea that it could make things go faster, or create larger explosions.

Shannon and her assistant, Spaceman TJ Wallace, were splitting their time between building the prototype and readying a paper for publication. They'd discovered a means of using the crystals to reflect, nearly perfectly, any radiation absorbed by the shield--given a sufficiently precise analysis of the radiation's frequency.

The import of this would have been lost on the akita, concerned as she was with practicalities. Indeed, she boiled down what Hazelton had said to its essence. "So the new design will be stronger? Is stronger? You've already installed it?"

The raccoon, rather proud of it, nodded sharply. "We have! By our calculations, it's three times as strong. And when TJ and I get the bugs worked out for the resonator, ten or twenty times. We'll be almost impervious to energy weapons."

Madison liked the sound of impervious. "And you're confident."

"Of course!"

Hazelton spent the next half-hour walking May through the engine room, explaining some of the changes she'd already made and the experiments she wanted to run. Given that she was not supposed to be running any experiments, it was understood by both parties why the meeting was one-on-one, rather than involving the rest of the crew.

The rest of the crew couldn't be deferred indefinitely, though. Madison's communicator alerted her to an incoming transmission. "Commander May, this is the bridge." The voice was Leon Bader, their tactical officer who was standing watch.

"Go ahead..."

"Long-range sensors are picking up weapons fire, less than a light-year distant."

"On my way," the akita said, before closing the channel. "What do you think, lieutenant? Ready for a test of your new shields?"

The CSS Dark Horse could cover the distance in around four hours. Any battle would have been over by then, but May ordered the ship to maximum speed anyway. Even the aftermath of a space battle offered lots of interesting things to study. Hazelton promised--three times, because May made her swear to it--to have the shields ready for a first test, just in case.

They dropped out of hyperspace with the ship on full alert and everyone ready for what 'just in case' might've been. There was no ongoing battle, and before they got around to looking for signs of one everyone noticed something far less subtle.

The space station evinced its lack of subtlety in a few ways. It looked to be massive, for one thing, taking up much of the ship's viewscreen. And the side facing them glowed with all kinds of bright, colorful lights, flashing and dancing in eye-catching patterns.

May's head tilted, observing the display. "Well, they're not trying to hide, that's for sure. It's huge... right? That isn't just an optical illusion?"

Spaceman Alexander, the Abyssinian running the ship's sensors, started tallying up what those sensors were telling her. "No, ma'am. The station is an irregular prism, twenty kilometers by sixteen kilometers by four kilometers. Its density suggests the structure is largely solid--or, at least, heavily armored."

David stepped into his traditional role as the voice of caution. "And the weapons fire?"

"It's hard to say, sir. There are indications of debris, however."

"Reconstruction of the debris's trajectory point to them having been larger, more concrete objects about four hours ago." Barry Schatz, science officer of the Dark Horse, bit his tongue to keep from saying anything more about the reconstruction until he was asked.

David knew what he was getting into, but saw no choice. "More concrete objects, ensign?"

"Spectral analysis points to them being composed of titanium and composite material, under acceleration at the time of their destruction, which seems to have been from an internal source--it could be produced by the failure of a reactor in the range of--"

"They were starships," Maddy cut him off. "That's what you mean?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Mitch Alexander checked and double-checked the flashing indicator on her console. "We're being hailed, captain. The modulation's unfamiliar, but we can decode it easily enough."

Signs of a recent attack were alarming; even Madison worried they might be getting themselves into some kind of interplanetary war. Those had to occur, after all. "We don't recognize anything about the station or the... remains of whatever was attacking them? Ensign Schatz?"

"No, ma'am. They're unfamiliar."

Everything was unfamiliar--it was why the Dark Horse was even exploring, so far beyond the frontier of the Terran Confederation. Maddy flipped an internal coin. It came up, as always, on go for it. "Open hailing frequencies, Spaceman Alexander. Let's see what they're getting into."

"Channel open. Good signal--we have a visual component, too."

"On screen."

The bridge viewscreen flickered and the station disappeared. A fuzzy creature stood before them. Firmly in the terran mold, it had two legs, two arms, and two rather piercing eyes. A blunt nose, and short horns, made the figure look like a bull--a bull with spiny blades on its exposed arms, and a suit of skin-tight armor that rippled and shone as it moved.

"Greetings. I'm Commander Madison May, of the Star Patrol cruiser--"

The figure's demeanor changed immediately. Its eyes brightened, and it grinned. "Star Patrol! We meet at last! I've heard so much about you. Welcome to Kupiniria! I am President Kupin, your host."

May liked friendly people; the akita was accustomed to thinking of herself as a friendly and approachable sort. The change in attitude led to some new questions, that was all. "'Kupiniria' being..."

"Only the sector's most well-known, well-respected and well-stocked technology emporium! But you're new--your home is very far away! It's to be forgiven. I forgive you. You've just missed today's demonstration, I'm afraid, but there'll be another showcase soon!"

"'Showcase'?"

"A preview of the defense equipment we have for sale. You can have a look at the specifications, though, if you're impatient. Please--please, come aboard. We have room for your ship, right in docking bay eleven."

May didn't have to wait for Bradley's protest. "We appreciate the offer, Mr. Kupin. Can you give us a moment? We'll call you right back."

"Oh, of course! Take your time."

Bradley double-checked that the channel was actually closed and they could speak privately. "Chipper, isn't he?"

"Most salesmen are. He didn't take it personally when we said we needed to think it over, though." Madison didn't think she would've made a good salesman; she wore her emotions on her sleeve, and she wasn't good at taking advantage of people."

This got the Dark Horse into trouble, in the sense that it occasionally led others to take advantage of her. In her self-appointed role as ambassador of all things terran to the cosmos beyond, May took this as a necessary sacrifice for friendliness.

But she also granted the need for caution. "What are we going to do? Ensign Schatz, your memory crystal from that... robot-ship thing you were playing around with... it doesn't have any information on this emporium, does it?"

The memory crystal was a database they'd acquired from a living starship, tens of thousands of years old. Accordingly, it had tens of thousand of years of recollection, and wasn't easily searchable. "Not in the records I've seen, captain, but I have to manually search them and it could take some time."

Maddy knew from experience with Schatz that what the Border Collie viewed as an acceptable value of 'some time' might be days or weeks for the rest of them. "I don't want to go in blind. Can anybody tell me anything? CCI?"

Spaceman Alexander--solely responsible for the Communications, Computers and Intelligence station on the undercrewed starship--had to disappoint the akita. "Not much, ma'am."

"It isn't exactly our first encounter like this," David Bradley said. "Maybe we should think twice about volunteering for another one."

He referred to one of the first aliens the Dark Horse had encountered, transmitting a signal that declared their willingness to trade with outsiders. In the end, they'd taken the chief engineer hostage and tried to destroy the ship. Bradley didn't want to go two-for-two.

"If I might say something?"

Maddy and David turned around to face their tactical officer, Leon Bader. The akita nodded to him. "Go ahead."

"There are three other ships docked, all in unfamiliar configurations. I performed a tactical scan in case it became necessary to defend ourselves from them. Their weapons are quite distinct from one another, but all of them are unpowered and I think they've been that way for at least a day."

Neither the captain nor the first officer were surprised Leon had taken it upon himself to scan the ships 'in case it became necessary' to shoot them. Paranoia came as second nature to the shepherd. It had its uses. "So they must be kind of peaceful, is what you're saying."

"Precisely, ma'am."

And so they landed; the cruiser disappeared into the indicated landing bay, dwarfed by the massive emporium. Despite its size, Spaceman Alexander's sensor scans didn't indicate many life-forms aboard. Huge warehouses occupied most of the space, instead.

Their host wanted to meet them as soon as they disembarked, and to take them into the habitat area of his station. He said it seemed more friendly than using robots for the job. Commander May consented, and asked Bradley to join her. She asked Dr. Felicia Beltran, too; the leopardess was the only trained ambassador and the only one to know the actual protocol May was going to be ignoring.

In person, Kupin was both more polished and more genial. He was the same height as Madison May, the same weight, and the same degree of boisterous. Next to him stood a slightly shorter alien, whose robes and white fur gave her a slightly angelic appearance. Kupin introduced her as Korbo, his assistant and chief negotiator.

"She'll keep me from giving away the store. I bet you're pretty crafty negotiators yourselves! You'd have to be, all on your own out here like this. You're a long way from your home territories!"

It obviously wasn't a genuine compliment--just self-deprecating humor. At the same time, it also obviously wasn't a threat. "We are," Madison granted. "And you said you'd heard of us?"

Kupin nodded. "Of course. Now, they've only been rumors. Someone who traded with someone who traded with someone who traded with the Terran Confederation--but in my line of business, that's what we call a lead."

"Your business is technology," Dr. Beltran suggested.

"Yes... yes," Kupin repeated firmly. "A specific kind of technology. Kupiniria focuses on defense--the best way of keeping a starship like yours safe."

"You're an arms dealer, then."

"Guilty as charged," Kupin answered the akita, though he didn't seem to be admitting any sense of actual guilt whatsoever. His friendly smile widened. "It's not such a bad thing--I'm sure you've had your share of unpleasant encounters."

"Some, yes."

"Well, I'm sure we can help. Kupiniria is trusted from Okelari to the courts of the Kings of Minro. Why, right now we're treating the Supreme Defense Council of Parixia. They've been fighting a brutal insurrection for almost forty years now--they think I can help them end it. I can--you'd agree I can, wouldn't you, Korbo?"

"I'd agree they trust you to do so," Korbo allowed. Her long tail, which ended in a feathery tuft, swayed; besides this she betrayed no emotion. "They asked for Kupin by name, after all."

"Hitava Pinon Kupin the Seventeenth--but don't worry, that isn't the name they asked for and it isn't the one you have to use! Just 'Kupin' is fine, like it was for Hitava Pinon Kupin the Sixteenth. We've been doing this a long time."

Dr. Beltran tucked away the generational nature of the business, and the air of insouciant boisterousness he affected, for her records on his species. As long as they were still making small-talk, 'species' was a good place to start. "Has Kupiniria always been here? We do not, as you know, have records on your species, nor where you come from."

"Not everyone has the good fortune to stumble across us! Those who do, though, always leave happy!"

He hadn't provided any new information to Felicia. She considered how to rephrase the topic, in case it was a sensitive one. Madison took the leopardess's silence as an opportunity to ask her own question. "What do they look for? What do you sell?"

"A few hours before you arrived, I showed how effectively lasers can deal with attack drones of quite impressive size--that always gets some interest. Beyond that, it depends on your needs! Everything from personal-defense weapons to..." He laughed, and leaned in conspiratorially, as if trying to speak directly to Madison May. "Well, I don't officially have any Hano planet-busters, but I've got the next best thing--at the best prices."

He hadn't lowered his voice, so of course David and Felicia overheard, but neither of them knew what a planet-buster was any more than they knew who the Parixians were. It was all so much bluster. David Bradley found a different question to ask. "Based on who all you trade with, you must have pretty detailed tactical information on the inhabitants of this region..."

"Sure! But I'm no spy, Mr. Bradley--customer confidentiality is key! We don't talk about things like that."

"I wouldn't ask you to. But you would be able to tell us what we could expect to encounter, right? Maybe suggest a countermeasure or two?"

Kupin beamed. "That, yes, we can absolutely do! Korbo, what are your thoughts? Would you be interested in brokering a trade?"

"Yes," Korbo said. "I think so."

With the two of them agreed, and Bradley pacified, May and Kupin agreed on the next steps. She took him and Korbo on a tour of the Dark Horse, with Lieutenant Hazelton accompanying them.

David, Leon Bader, and TJ Wallace--Hazelton's only assistant, a freewheeling otter from the equally freewheeling planet Clearwater--were given a copy of the station's catalog to peruse.

There was a lot to peruse. Kupin sold every kind of weapon Bradley had ever heard of, and many more beyond that. He also sold various sensor assemblies, shield generators, and something dangerously referred to as a 'predictive defense AI' that immediately had Leon and TJ's interest.

"Maybe that's just marketing language," David suggested.

TJ selected an option marked 'More Information.' Revolutionize your battlefleet with the XP-57 Tactical Artificial Intelligence. The collected insights and personality matrices of twelve hundred military geniuses combined into one predictive AI, capable of targeting prioritization, firing solution calculation, weapons employment learning behaviors...

'More information' went on for another two minutes.

"Could be useful," TJ said, meaning could be fun to play with.

David looked back at the item's summary. "It's sixty-two million nok."

"Yeah, but what's a 'nok'?"

"One atomic torpedo is twelve thousand nok," Leon said, speaking from memory--the weapons had been the first thing he went looking for. "So it might be out of our price range."

"Ow. Steep, dude, never mind. What about the torpedoes? Any good?"

The torpedoes were good enough Leon wanted them added to the shopping list, and they stayed near the top while the three went through the rest of the catalog. By the time they finished, there were plenty of items to be negotiated over, at least.

Madison summoned David with a page to his communicator, saying his help was needed elsewhere. He left Leon and TJ to prioritize the list to the best of their ability, and went to see what was going on.

May and Korbo were waiting outside the door to the archive office on the Dark Horse. The ship's computers were networked, and could be accessed from anywhere, but the office had plenty of screens and the offline backups.

"Commander May," David said, nodding in greeting to his captain. "Can I help you?"

"We need to figure out a few minor details. The ship's power configuration, our free space... plus, to see if there's any declassified intelligence we might be able to trade to Mr. Kupin. Ordinarily, I'd make that Ensign Schatz's job..."

May didn't have to finish for her first officer to know what she'd meant: ordinarily, it would've been his job, but she wanted them to finish before anyone grew old. "Of course, captain. You have a list of what you need?"

She'd briefly scanned the document, to check that nothing in it seemed too sensitive or troubling; nothing caught her attention. "Korbo does. I also have our own shopping list. It should be pared down a bit."

Based on the last version David had seen--before Shannon Hazelton got her paws on it--the golden retriever had no doubts about that. He tapped his entry code into the office, and let Korbo in while May went off to begin the business of paring.

"You have an impressive ship, Mr. Bradley," Korbo said.

"Thanks. Some would say it's kind of an acquired taste."

Confederate Space Ship Rocinante had been commissioned in 2567, and represented state of the art technology at the time. Of course, her systems hadn't been updated much since. That, he explained, was a consequence of having been put into storage in 2700 and forgotten about for a century.

Being assigned to the Rocinante--now the CSS Dark Horse, because in the intervening centuries the Star Patrol gave her original name to a new ship--seemed at first to David like a punishment. The longer he stayed, the fonder he grew of the old cruiser. "Wouldn't give it up, not now. But she's still a handful."

Korbo nodded. "And you have served on the ship for all that time?"

The retriever laughed. "No. It's two hundred years older than I am."

Then his head tilted. In general build, Korbo reminded the retriever of a chinchilla: large eyes, a short muzzle, and what certainly appeared to be two big ears. They were fringed with black, feathery fur. The rest of her, where he could see it on her face and arms, was pure white.

Or, it had been. David could've sworn that, at the sound of his laughter, her fur had turned ever-so-slightly blue. "Did you just change colors? A little bit?"

"Oh. Yes. We do that--I hope it doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't bother me. It was a bit... surprising, let's say. What does it mean?"

She held out her arm, straight, and a wave of dull bronze rolled down it, ending at her fingertips. She held the color for a few seconds, then went back to being white once again. "It's partly subconscious; partly under our control. A sign of our emotional state."

"Your people?"

"Yes. We have very good vision. Unlike other races, we don't need to talk quite so much--perceiving the meaning of color like that is quite important for our communication. Not that we rely on it... we can't, really, not with other cultures. Just a habit, I guess. You really don't mind?"

"I don't mind, no."

She believed him, or accepted his answer, and the two went over the list of information Kupin had requested and May had volunteered. Most of it was prosaic: the limits of the power regulators, for example. Navigation charts and cartographic records from the Terran Confederation. And the crew roster.

"Your crew is quite interesting! I'm surprised by the diversity..."

"It might not be quite as much as it seems like, at first. Everyone here is a terran species, pretty much. I mean, one of them was completely engineered, but even he's based on a terran organism."

This was a matter of simple practicality. The Confederation was almost exclusively composed of Terra and her colonies; there were other races in the Confederation, but it was always easier to design a ship around standard atmospheric parameters, sizes and weights. Nothing on the Dark Horse was well-adapted to, for example, the Nizirish, who were three meters tall and had wings.

The alien was more focused on other parts of what David had said. "Kupin was very curious about the soldier, Thorsen."

"Sabel? I can see why. He's probably the most unique of us."

Korbo nodded. "He has computers integrated into his biological components, from what I could tell. They augment his senses, but they don't seem to affect his behavior. That's not the case for many cybernetic creatures. Kupin himself, for example."

"He's cybernetic?"

"Indeed. His memory, and some of his reflexes, are enhanced by neural implants. A more skilled surgeon might've been able to install them without impacting his personality as much as they did, but..."

David cocked his head, wondering what she was getting at. "Do you mind if I ask what you mean?"

"He used to be less... boisterous," Korbo finally settled on a word. Her fur dimmed, shifting from white to a faint, light lavender. "Not that I mean any offense to him, but he can be a little much."

The golden retriever burst out laughing, and the alien's fur rippled softly orange at his outburst. He waved off her look of interest--or concern--with his paw. "No, no. It's just that I know what you mean. Commander May is like that, too. Without any neural implants... well, without any that I'm aware of."

"Oh... yes, I see." Her fur went back to its customary white. "Well. Anyway, do you have any information on Sabel Thorsen's biology? Listening to him, I had the sense, almost, that he was created rather than being born."

"Yeah. He was. It was some kind of an old secret program to have trained soldiers ready in case your ship was boarded. It's a lot faster than having to train your sailors for that sort of thing."

"My people tried. They abandoned the effort as being... cruel, and unnecessary."

"Are your people related to Kupin's?"

"Not even distantly. It was the reason for the experiment's failure, actually. My people, the Yara, are viviparous, like you are. Is there... is there anything in your paleobiology about the--" Korbo's speech ended in a burble of melodious, incomprehensible tones.

"The universal translator didn't pick that up."

"Sorry." She looked thoughtful; her fur went from white to orange and then a dull, deepening bronze. "I don't know how to explain it, then, because it's named after one of our scientists. We found, in looking at alien organisms, that out of everything, there are relatively few biologies that are truly common."

Of course. David didn't know the term for this paradox either--Barry Schatz would've, but if the golden retriever asked him he knew they'd be in for a half-hour digression. It didn't really matter, now that he knew what she meant.

Out of everything, all the inhabited planets with all the possible life-forms inhabiting them, certain patterns recurred too often for random chance. There were too many multi-legged cold-blooded aliens, too many radially symmetric invertebrates who used their mouths to manipulate objects; too many four-limbed creatures who walked on two legs like most terrans.

In fact, the most unique thing to any given planet was its dominant species' explanation for the phenomenon. In the Terran Confederation, opinion split between an ancient progenitor and self-selected convenience. If you perceived the world through a narrow slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, stood about two meters tall, and lived for about a hundred years, you wouldn't be primed to look for six-centimeter aliens who saw in x-rays and lived for months.

"That's what you're talking about?" David asked, after his brief summary of the two options.

"Yes. Our scientists started surveying this the moment we made first contact. We group the galaxy, so far, into a hierarchy of forty-seven major subdivisions. You're warm-blooded bipeds who reproduce sexually and give birth to live children. So are Yara. Kupin's kind are in the same kind of tree, but they're egg-laying, and their neural configuration is different."

"I see."

"Exactly," she said. Her fur, which had gone back to being white, momentarily flashed pink with her excitement. "You do. You and I perceive roughly the same frequencies of light and sound. You even have recognizable auditory organs. Yes?" She lifted the golden retriever's ear. "You hear this way, don't you?"

"Yeah. Those are also your ears?" He didn't touch, pointing instead to the broad, fur-fringed things he'd assumed were ears, by instinct. Korbo confirmed it with a nod. "Do your scientists have theories as to why?"

"No. In our culture, we've been content to organize our hierarchy instead of engaging in wild conjecture. There's not enough evidence to come to any firm conclusions. If there were, we'd certainly use it!"

"'Use'? In what way?"

"I forget that you're new here," Korbo said, smiling. "Yara are widely respected in this part of the galaxy for our medical expertise. Even races that don't hire us as surgeons certainly respect our knowledge of biology... to say nothing of our technology."

Reviewing the list gave the retriever a chance to reflect further on biological similarities, when after an hour or so the alien rose and stretched, turning in a slow circle to work the stress from her muscles.

She is, Dave admitted to himself_, kind of cute_. This wasn't a very appropriate thought, so he redirected it in more productive ways as best as he could. That's interesting, right? Obviously, she wouldn't be attractive to me if I was a hexapod. It's not like Kupin would've planned to use a negotiator who... well...

The robes, in particular, were a fetching touch. They were slightly reflective, and loose-fitting; they appeared to have been designed to leave the alien's arms exposed. Given that she was of a species reliant on being able to see their conversation partner's bare fur, it was purely logical.

For a golden retriever on a starship with limited prospects and a very long mission, logic gave way to a momentary mental diversion into what even more exposed fur might look like. Fortunately, the diversion didn't last long: she turned about quickly, tilting her head at the dog as if he might've given something away.

"I was thinking! There's not much of your cultural artifacts in here," Korbo said, returning at once to business.

Reassured that the cover of his propriety hadn't been blown, Dave shifted back into the negotiation himself. "Cultural artifacts?"

"Well--cooking, for one. Don't you cook?"

"Oh. Huh. Yes..."

Korbo came around to his side of the desk; he called up a database of recipes from Earth. Cooking didn't matter on the Dark Horse: they didn't have a chef, and the food was all artificially synthesized.

What I wouldn't give for... the realization that what David really missed from Terra was poutine seemed almost as untoward as the way he'd briefly eyed Korbo. French fries and gravy were hardly the repast of a civilized, proper Star Patrol officer. He quickly found a recipe for gumbo, instead.

"Onion," Korbo said. She leaned over the desk so that she could stare at all the pictures. "Looks like something on our planet. Is it sweet?"

"Not really."

Still peering at the gumbo, she cast a sideways glance towards him. "I should tell you about--" At once she stopped, as a tiny device at the lapel of her robe began to hum and buzz.

"Korbo." The speaker had been designed to broadcast its sound directly at the listener's ear; proximity left Dave close enough he could hear Kupin's voice clearly.

Her fur flickering pale blue, Korbo quickly straightened up so he could no longer hear anything. Her head tilted down towards the device. "Sir? Ah. Yes, sir. Of course. I'm on my way. I need to return, David, I--"

The retriever's own communicator came to life. "Commander Bradley, please report to the bridge. We're going to State Red."

"The station is under attack," Korbo explained. "I must be going. I--I can find my own way."

Against the better judgment of security protocol, he trusted her. He ordered the ship's computer to escort her out--just in case, it would lock the bulkheads behind her and sound an alarm if she strayed--and they parted ways.

Spaceman Alexander, who had summoned him, had gone the rest of the way in taking the ship to alert stations by the time the retriever reached the bridge, a minute and a half of sprinting later. He took his seat next to Commander May and fastened his safety harness. "What's going on?"

"Eight ships dropped out of hyperspace and are approaching very quickly. Ensign Bader says their weapons are charged. So are ours," the akita added. There wasn't much else she could tell her first officer: Kupin had instructed them to stay put, then cut off all communication.

"We're not moving?"

"No, sir," Lieutenant Parnell called back from the helm. "The docking clamps are still engaged. We think that energizing the shields will free us from them, but it would also damage the station."

The retriever understood the subtext: it meant they'd be taking a side in any confrontation, and it wasn't likely to make Kupin happy. Maddy went a step further: much as she didn't like being trapped, she thought the arms merchant would have the situation under control.

"The incoming ships have opened fire," Leon reported. "They're concentrating on the station's understructure."

"Are the deflectors active?"

"The station doesn't seem to have deflectors." The German Shepherd found it academically curious, although not intrinsically puzzling. Armor worked just as well, and it couldn't be disabled by a badly timed power failure. Kupiniria's armor, which was at least several meters thick, performed admirably. Leon saw no damage.

And then it was Kupin's turn.

By the time the shepherd saw the power surge, it had already done its job. Four of the attacking ships disintegrated, vaporized by some sort of directed energy beam. Two seconds later, the station fired again, and the remaining ships disappeared from the sensors.

A minute elapsed with no sign of further activity. After another minute, Madison figured nobody else was coming, and ordered the ship to stand down from action stations. Who had they been? Why had they attacked Kupiniria?

May, like the rest of her crew, had plenty of questions and no answers. She decided to call a meeting of the senior staff, gave them half an hour to prepare, and went to her ready room to collect her own thoughts.

The akita liked exploration. Her short time on the Dark Horse was already the most memorable of her career in the Star Patrol. She knew that, like Shannon Hazelton and indeed like most of her crew, she had a reputation. She also knew that it hadn't been unearned.

She could be a bit rash. She did rely on her instincts too much, and her instincts told her something was amiss with Kupin, Korbo and the whole affair. She just didn't know what. David Bradley would never, ever have told the akita to her face she was in over her head.

He wouldn't have told anyone that; despite her flaws, he respected the akita and wouldn't have wanted to undermine her authority. In turn, she respected the retriever deeply. Still, she knew he thought it. She wasn't surprised when he arrived early to the meeting.

"What's your gut feeling, Dave? About these guys... you didn't want to get tangled up in it to start with."

"Well, I was thinking about our earlier encounters. This is a proper trading outpost. Of course, they trade in weapons, so maybe they don't have so many scruples as I'd like."

"Kupin doesn't seem to have any at all, no. What about the other one? His assistant--did you learn anything from her?"

The soft twitch of David's head accomplished two things at once. To Bradley, it was a subconscious way of expressing a curiosity over whether or not May had set up their meeting specifically for that purpose. To May, it was a signal the akita hadn't lost her ability for intuiting how best to set the right conditions for serendipity.

Her smile confirmed David's suspicion, so he paused and gathered his thoughts to give May a better answer. "She's more reserved than Kupin is. I have the impression she's fundamentally decent."

"Does that mean he is, too, or does it mean she doesn't have enough reservations to challenge him?"

"I don't know."

The entire table in the akita's ready room was one big computer screen. She brought up a map of the galaxy, and zoomed it in so the two of them could see the Dark Horse in relation to the Terran Confederation.

Three months into the ship's voyage, even long-range communications were growing difficult--they were limited to low-bandwidth, short-message encoded transmissions from the Admiralty. CONTINUE MISSION GOOD LUCK was all the last had said.

"There are a lot of things we don't know," Madison May said. Looking at the map magnified just how large space was, and just how insignificant their knowledge of it was.

"We'll do fine. You'll do fine."

David was answering a question she hadn't posed, and offering reassurance she hadn't asked for. Nonetheless, she was grateful for it--and, as the door's chime announced, the others were starting to show up. It was time to put her doubts aside.

May cleared the map, returning the table to normal, and waited for everyone to join. She'd asked for Ensign Bader, Ensign Schatz, Lieutenant Hazelton, and Dr. Beltran for a sprinkling of diplomatic insight.

"Alright, thanks for coming. This attack is a bit mysterious, and we need to figure out what kind of information we have. I know we don't have concrete answers. You can be honest with me: this is all conjecture." May wrote the word on the wall, so they didn't forget it. She added another, right below it. "Pirates? Mr. Bader, were they pirates?"

Leon had mixed feelings about the captain's conferences. He liked the way she solicited his honest opinion; he disliked the way he felt that opinion was often judged. Loyalty, though, meant he always gave it anyway. "I don't think so, ma'am."

"Why not?"

"I'm just going off what I saw. But their ships were identical, and appeared in good shape... no leaking radiation, nothing to suggest a quick patch job. They seemed professional. In my opinion."

David figured more than just repairwork argued against a pirate raid. In his experience, a successful pirate life was also a cowardly one. They stuck to undefended transports and colonies. "Attacking a fortified trading outpost is also pretty bold, for pirates."

May shared her first officer's distaste for criminal scum like that, and also his conclusions. She crossed out 'pirates?' "What, then?"

"Mercenaries, maybe? Hired guns?"

The akita wrote down 'mercenaries,' and used the time to think it over in her own mind. "That explains their equipment, and why they'd be attacking... if they were paid enough. Of course, we don't know anything about mercenary factions in this area."

David Bradley, recalling how Kupin described his emporium as the largest in the sector, began to second-guess his suggestion. "Of course, you can pay mercenaries, but only so far. Eight small ships is still a suicide run against an installation this size."

"Can I speak?"

Maddy nodded to their science officer, if a bit warily. "You noticed something?"

"Yes. Uh, of course, we don't know how the other aliens communicate--we don't know any of them, naturally--but we do... um. Mm. Sorry, let me start again." He was trying to get better about his scattered thoughts; the weary expressions around the room were good reminders of why. "We are familiar with Kupin's communication protocols. He switched to the attackers' method quickly, but we did pick up a transmission I was able to decode. It said, uh: 'that wasn't part of the deal.'"

"'Part of the deal'... dissatisfied customers?" Madison wrote 'customers' on the wall, but added a second question mark after it. "Came back to complain..."

"Didn't like the answer they got and attacked," Bradley finished. "Maybe they were bluffing. Leon, were those warning shots they fired?"

Ensign Bader resolved to go over their logs as quickly as he could. For now, it was--as his captain had clearly said--all conjecture. "I don't know. They were fairly powerful, so I don't think so."

"Would they have been a threat to us?"

"No, ma'am. I don't believe so."

"There's some good news. Now, for the moment, we'll presume we don't have any disagreements with Kupin, and he doesn't have any with us. What if that changes? What if we need to escape?"

Shannon Hazelton chose to answer. "The docking clamps weren't designed to hold anyone against their will. Fortunately," the chief engineer clarified. Given the strength of the average starship's thrusters, it was 'fortunate' for both parties--that kind of torque was a good way to break a ship in half. "Raising our deflector shields would completely disable them."

"And Kupiniria's weapons? Could they hurt us?"

"Anything can hurt us, Mads," the raccoon said. "Given enough time. Our escape strategy should be to charge our hyperdrive, power the shields, and escape. With a precalculated course, it'll only take thirty seconds. The shields should hold."

"The new ones are ready?"

"Yep. Pretty much." Shannon knew May wouldn't want to know about the minor details about what 'ready' meant. The akita was already writing escape plan likely to succeed on the wall.

This sufficed to reassure the captain, who agreed to resume negotiations with Kupin--and agreed to take David with her, as a brake on her more reckless tendencies. "Not that I think it's necessary," she said. "He seems straightforward enough."

"It's always the ones who seem straightforward," the retriever answered.

"Fair point. We'll keep this short, and get out."

Kupin and Korbo were waiting in a clean, well-lit, and sumptuously furnished meeting room. "I must apologize for the inconvenience," the merchant said. "Sometimes things like that happen, in my line of work."

"What did happen, anyway?" David asked not because he expected Kupin to tell the truth, but because he hoped to glean some information from whatever lie the arms merchant might've told.

The alien sighed, adopting an appropriately terran custom to convey his sense of regret. "I doubt that you'll be sympathetic, Mr. Bradley. Perhaps it was my fault, too. They were former customers of ours--I don't recall exactly the circumstances. Korbo, do you?"

She shook her head. "You said you hadn't heard of their race before."

"Itinerants, probably. They had some difficulty integrating a sensor array I sold them into their computers--now, mind you... mind you, I said that installation wasn't part of the deal, but they seemed to think it should've been."

"They attacked you for... that?" May didn't mean to sound suspicious, but it sounded at best like an overreaction.

Kupin sighed again. "They did. Hoping to get my attention. This--for the two of you--is the part you won't find sympathetic. I know that you're from more civilized territory. Out here, it's important not to show any weakness. Besides, my customers need to know that I can protect them. They wouldn't trade with me, otherwise."

"And it makes for a good demonstration of your wares," David pointed out. Kupin was right, in that the retriever didn't find the explanation particularly sympathetic. It was honest, though. Perhaps, he thought, Maddy is right about him.

Maddy certainly hoped so. Based on the catalog she'd been browsing, Kupiniria stocked a wide range of missiles that would fit into the Dark Horse's torpedo tubes nicely. That would allow them to be more flexible in the event unpleasant situations needed to be resolved kinetically.

Leon Bader, back on the bridge of May's cruiser, tended to have similar inclinations about preparedness. At any other time, the shepherd would much rather have been with the captain, so he could provide his insights on the arms merchant's wares.

For now, his caution had been channeled in a different direction. While the rest of the bridge idled--Lieutenant Parnell was on watch and Ensign Schatz worked at his own bizarre ends at the science station--Leon reviewed his logs from the attack, looking for anything surprising.

To start with, he examined the weapons used by the raiders. To even a tactical officer's well-trained eye, they were ordinary plasma bolts. Not an uncommon technology, even for corvette-sized ships. He had no reason to expect they would prove to be distinctive, but he ran the power signature through their database just in case.

The computer showed a possible match, and Leon cocked his head sharply to one side, in shepherd fashion. Then he saw what the match was, and his head cocked all the way over in the other direction. He did it a few more times, to see if anything changed.

And then he called for help. "Hey--Ensign Schatz?"

Barry jumped, startled from some wandering distraction he'd already forgotten. "Yeah? Ensign Bader?"

"Can you look at this?"

The Border Collie secured his computer and walked over to the one next to it; the science and tactical consoles were adjacent, placed at the back of the bridge with a view of everything that was going on in front of them.

That kind of wide view was intended to improve situational awareness--an operations station on Leon Bader's other side had been placed there for the same reason, although with the Dark Horse's small crew it stayed unmanned. In any case, Barry didn't need to look any further than Leon's screen to know immediately what the shepherd had found. "You see it too, don't you? Is it a coincidence?"

"Maybe... but probably not. Let me bring up the metallurgical analysis--you did run a level three scan on the docked ships, right?"

"Of course. We need to know what we're up against."

For once, Leon's overcautious preparedness in a world of predators and Barry's overcomplicated thinking in a world of chaos meshed perfectly. The science officer brought up the data from the high-resolution scan, plotted it against their new data, and pointed at once to the telltale spikes.

They were telltale to him, at least; the shepherd tilted his head anew at Barry's graphs. "I don't understand what you're showing me. Isotopes?"

"The same ones. What about the comm logs? Maybe we can decrypt them."

Despite Barry's initial optimism, there was nothing to decrypt. The attacking ships began some kind of hail directed at the station, which was immediately answered in kind: a broadband, high-power transmission. Barry observed there didn't seem to be much of a pattern to it, nothing for the decryption algorithms to lock on to.

"It must be more complicated than we think. Let's try a three-dimensional transform and set the noise floor to... well..."

"It looks like it's all noise." And when he heard what he'd said, the shepherd's face went slack. "It is all noise. This isn't comms traffic, Ensign Schatz."

"It's a jamming signal," the Border Collie breathed. "They don't know..."

"They don't know," Leon agreed, his own voice far more firm. He tapped his communicator. "Captain, this is the bridge."

Aboard Kupiniria, May was deep in negotiation and not in the mood to be bothered. She closed the channel and shot David a look: Take care of it.

Kupin had been explaining the performance of the missiles he had in stock--performance that would've impressed even Shannon Hazelton--and David was as interested as his captain. He excused himself reluctantly, stepped out into the corridor, and hailed the Dark Horse. "Commander May is busy. What's going on?"

"Is your location secure?"

The question shot Bradley full of immediate, cold adrenaline. "Yes. But I don't know if we're being monitored. I guess... activate security protocols."

He felt a little twinge in his ear. "Done. Commander, Ensign Schatz and I have discovered something worrying."

"I gathered, or you wouldn't be making this production out of it. What's going on, Ensign Bader?"

"The ships that attacked the station use the same technology as one of the ships that's docked there, the Parixian corvette. It's the exact same kind of weapon and the same hull alloys. He must've been trading with them, too. The attackers started to transmit on their own frequencies and Kupin immediately jammed them. Ensign Schatz and I think they were trying to tell the other ship that Kupin is playing both sides of their war."

"Do you know that? Or you think?"

"Speculation, sir. But it is concerning, don't you think?"

It was--deeply so. David closed the channel, and turned off the security protocols. That was a neat trick of the universal translators. Anyone eavesdropping would only have heard random, constantly shifting gibberish.

May, listening to Kupin detailing bulk discounts on the missiles, barely noticed her first officer's re-entry. Korbo did, giving him an odd look that made David wonder if he was wearing his emotions on his sleeve. If so, Kupin said nothing. "Everything's good, Mr. Bradley?"

"I think so. I'm a little curious. I just heard you talk about the bulk sales. Is there anything you won't sell? Or anybody you won't sell to?"

Kupin gave a little devil-may-care shrug. "No weapons of mass destruction, naturally--I have standards. No biological weapons, nanoweapons... nothing targeting a particular species. It would be very distasteful."

"But the Parixian rebels who attacked you earlier... you sold to them, for example."

Madison tilted her head heavily enough to do Leon proud. "They were Parixian? I thought you said they were outsiders, and you didn't really know them."

Kupin gave no sign that he was surprised, or off-guard in any way. "They are, after a fashion, outsiders."

Though it might've been true--the akita didn't know the politics--lying still grated on May's sense of honor. "So you... you sell shields to the Parixian rebels, and you sell weapons to defeat those shields to the Parixian military?"

The merchant shrugged again. "I think you mean that I empower the Parixian resistance to defend itself in its struggle for independence against their age-old oppressors. And, naturally, that I give the legitimate Parixian government the tools to preserve order against a lawless insurrection that wants to plunge the system into chaos."

May did not mean that. "No. I--"

"Look, captain. Everyone sees themselves as the heroes in their own story. Why would I care? Yes, yes, it's better that the Parixian authorities don't know--for their own good, not mine. I sell the best goods in the sector, captain. They want those goods. The jamming--yes, I jammed the signal, fine, Mr. Bradley--gives them plausible deniability. Everyone's happy."

"Well. Not the rebels."

"Exclusivity wasn't part of the deal. I told them that. They weren't happy. They're idealists. Maybe you think you're an idealist, too, Commander Madison May--with your warship and your engineered soldiers and your request for more powerful torpedoes. Here's a secret my father passed down from a dozen generations ago: it's awfully hard to measure idealism in gigajoules of particle cannon energy. So which do you think wins?"

Madison could see his point, in a certain cruel sense, but she couldn't see it strongly enough to agree. "I know what you mean, Mr. Kupin. Don't take my surprise the wrong way."

"We can still deal?"

May did not want to; David wouldn't even need to persuade her. The akita didn't know what Kupin would do when he found out, though. "I think so," she lied. "The only problem is that our laws forbid us from involving ourselves in foreign conflicts."

"That's not the only problem," David muttered.

"It pretty much is. I need to talk to our diplomatic official. I think--you'd agree, Dave, right? We're not really joining the civil war, we're just aware of it."

David wasn't used to acting from the akita, which paradoxically made her good at it: he reacted genuinely. "I don't think Dr. Beltran will agree, commander. Due respect."

"Due respect, we'll talk it over and maybe she will. Can we take a short break, Mr. Kupin?"

The merchant bowed graciously. "Of course."

Madison didn't want to arouse suspicion. She invited him aboard the Dark Horse to conclude the negotiations over dinner, six hours off. That would give them time to prepare for a clean break--for Shannon to finalize her work on the shield emitters, and for the crew to get some rest.

David was one of the crew she wanted rested. He didn't protest, and even dutifully set an alarm, but he was in no mood for sleep. Lying on his back, he started going through the possible scenarios in his head.

The best was that Kupin let them go without any protest. The worst was he tried to take some form of revenge. Their helmsman, Eli Parnell, said the Dark Horse could be back in hyperspace in only thirty seconds. How long would it take Kupiniria to get a firing solution on them?

This depended on how trusting Kupin was. If he was sufficiently naïve, the merchant might not have made any plans for an escaping starship. On the other hand, if his paranoia was anywhere near Ensign Bader's, he probably had a full suite of powerful weapons trained on them at all times.

At least we'll have the element of surprise. With any luck, he'll be getting ready for dinner with us, and that buys us a few more seconds...

"Mr. Bradley," the computer announced, in a voice calmly designed to wake him from his nonexistent slumber. "You have a visitor."

The retriever sat up and stretched. "Who is it?"

"Unknown."

Software bug, is what that meant. The ship had forgotten its own crew. David pulled on his shirt, deciding this made him presentable enough. "Open the door." It wasn't anyone in the Star Patrol. "Korbo? What the hell?"

"I was sent to negotiate," she said.

"How did you get on board?"

"It wasn't that difficult," Korbo demurred. "Please, commander, can we talk?"

She looked unarmed; at least, the thin robe that hung from her shoulders didn't indicate any place to hide a weapon. David assented, if warily, and let the door close behind her. "Talk about the spying, right?"

"What? No..."

It was the only thing he could think of. "You got aboard--you must've hacked our security codes somehow. And you must've bugged--what, me? You bugged me?"

"No."

"You knew what story to give Kupin about those attackers to... to tell us the conclusion we'd already come to. You must've known what we were talking about in the ready room. You bugged me. Was that why you wanted to get close?"

"No! Commander. No, I know it sounds..." Her fur shifted to blue, made darker by the dim illumination of his cabin. "It sounds that way, but..."

As he watched the color changing, his mind snapped back to the archive room. The way he'd strayed to the curve of her back, where her slinky, tufted tail began, and she'd turned around with a strange expression. That, too, was convenient. "But it's not. You're--"

"A telepath, yes."

"You--"

"Yes, I knew you were going to say that. We can go through this later. Commander, Kupin is planning on attacking you."

"Why? Because the deal's off? As far as he knows, we're still--unless... you told him, of course, didn't you?"

"No. He's also slightly telepathic, and your captain doesn't lie well. He knows you won't trade, but it doesn't matter. He wants Sabel Thorsen."

"What?"

"Yes. He knows you wouldn't agree. He... his neural implants are imperfect--particularly the ones he uses for his own telepathic senses. He thinks Sabel's technology might be the key."

"You can get better at telepathy?"

"He hopes. He knows he's gotten too reliant on being able to detect bluffs, but he has to be physically close--that's why he does all his negotiation in person. He told me he thinks that Sabel's implants would let him transcend that."

It came out of nowhere; David digested the news as quickly as he could, and still didn't understand. "Why are you telling me? I mean--I'm thankful, but--he'll know you betrayed him."

"Yes... the trade is... you let me escape with you. I don't want to be here. Yara are pacifists, commander; I find taking life abhorrent. Kupin told me he was just a salvage merchant--I didn't know until he'd confiscated my money and my ship. He needed a surgeon. To... fix him. I thought I could do that, too, but not... not what he wants to do now."

"To us? To Sabel?"

"Both." She shuddered and closed her eyes.

She wobbled, too. David reached out to steady her, and as soon as his paw touched her shoulder he felt a sense of dread grip him. He jerked back; the sensation faded.

"I'm sorry," Korbo gasped. "I should've warned you."

"That was yours? You think that?"

"Yes."

The retriever went for his communicator. "Attention all hands, this is the first officer. Stand by to go to action stations. Commander May, meet me on the bridge."

Lieutenant Parnell was standing watch; Madison had been in the mess hall, and beat David and Korbo to the bridge by a few seconds. The akita looked over at the pair, immediately figured out that something was amiss, and guessed the right questions to ask on the first try.

"Why are you here? What is Kupin planning?"

David strapped himself into his chair, and pointed to a free station next to Leon Bader. "He wants Sabel Thorsen."

Madison had the same response, at the same intensity, as her first officer. "What?"

"Dead or alive, yes. Also, he knows you were going to cancel the deal."

"He does?"

"Apparently, you're a bad liar."

"I won't pretend I'm not insulted. Sabel, though?" May's eyebrows lifted, exaggerating the look of faint concern her mask always lent the akita. "Everything we have to offer, and he wants... him?"

"It's a complicated story. Are we ready to go?"

At the tactical station, Leon Bader made a few final checks. The shepherd was thinking that he kept being called paranoid, and he kept being right. It's not paranoia if the galaxy really is a hostile place--is it? "Shield emitters are charged and standing by."

Maddy filed that in her 'ready to fight' checklist, then remembered her conversation with Lieutenant Hazelton and paged the raccoon. "Engine room, bridge. Are your new shields ready?"

"Yep. I've already swapped the emitters."

"These are the ones that make us impervious to energy weapons?"

An uncomfortable pause ensued. "No. Those are ready, but right now the weapon frequency has to be known and set manually. Do you understand?" Naturally, Hazelton knew that Maddy didn't. "I'll send the instructions to Mitch, and she can explain it."

Mitch Alexander looked at the schematics. The Abyssian was an old friend of TJ Wallace, Shannon's assistant; they'd gotten into plenty of trouble playing around with ancient electronics back on their homeworld. "I see," Alexander said. "Yeah. It's still pretty complex." The documentation, which TJ had presumably written, had a lot of lines that were marked 'fill in later.'

Madison May wasn't the type to read much documentation, anyway. "Fine. We're ready to depart, though, yes? We power the shields, kick the engines in, and jump to lightspeed. Simple. Helm?"

"I have a course laid in, captain, and a full navigation plot." Eli knew her captain expected absolute precision; the wolfess muttered a quiet chant, trying to convince herself she was in fact ready.

"Shields!"

"Shields up. We're free of the docking clamps," Bader said.

"Helm take us out."

Eli pulled back on her controls, angling the cruiser's prow towards deep space. With one strong pulse of the main drive, they began to move. All they needed was a few seconds, just enough to get free of the station's gravity well.

"We're being hailed," Mitch called out. Considering that the Dark Horse had disintegrated the docking clamps with her shields, the hail wasn't likely to be friendly.

It was not. Kupin's face filled the viewscreen. His smile was gone. "Where are you going?"

"We've decided to cancel our trade, Mr. Kupin," Madison answered. The akita was on solid moral ground, behind full-strength deflectors, and on an escape route--a perfect time for bravado. "We can discuss compensation for your broken equipment, if you--"

"Oh, we will. You're staying," the merchant said darkly.

"We are--"

The Dark Horse lurched to a sharp halt, overwhelming the inertial compensators; everyone on the bridge was grateful for their restraints. "We're caught in some kind of... strange field, captain." Barry was the first to figure it out, and his knowledge was imperfect. "It's generating a differential gravity component in exact opposition to our engines."

"A tractor beam," Mitch Alexander suggested. She read a lot of adventure comics; they were full of things like that.

"Now," Kupin continued. "Why don't you return, and we can discuss this like civilized people."

Madison bared her teeth. It wasn't a gesture she consciously practiced, but the akita was a natural. "Ensign Bader, ready weapons. Set torpedoes for a narrow spread, and target the station's control structure."

"Firing solution ready."

Kupin was plainly, obviously unimpressed. "Is that really how you want to end this?" He reached out of view, manipulating an offscreen control.

The Dark Horse rocked again. "Direct hit to our ventral deflector screen. Shields are holding," Leon said. "Ninety-seven percent."

"Of course they are. That was a warning shot. This is not."

The strength of the impact seemed to be magnified by the grappling beam in which they were ensnared. "Seventy percent, captain." A look at the weapon's power signature worried the shepherd: it was obviously not being deployed at full strength.

"Increase power to the deflectors. Mr. Kupin, I don't know what you expect to--"

"Shields at twenty percent, captain."

Kupin sneered at them, his face huge on the viewscreen. "The weapon was at one tenth of its ability. Surrender, Madison May."

"No."

"It is now at full power. Madison May, you will be annihilated."

Leon checked his console and ran a quick scan. "He's not bluffing, captain. The beam energy will be completely off the scale."

Maddy skipped over 'bluffing'--she was apparently bad at lying, anyway--and went for the subject of the second sentence, instead. "Wait. Beam energy? He's using energy weapons. Oh, Kupin... I forgot. This is your first time meeting us."

"You forgot what?"

"Spaceman Alexander, activate the modified deflectors."

"Modified deflectors?" Kupin asked.

Mitch Alexander knew she shouldn't ask the same question, but she badly wanted to. They hadn't been able to finish the conversation about how the shield worked--Mitch assumed they'd be able to escape first. The deflectors had already been activated, but it didn't matter because they didn't work. Period.

"Spaceman, explain to Mr. Kupin, why don't you?" May said, oblivious to the Abyssinian's panic. As with any number of complicated technological phenomenon, the akita was given to assuming any problems could be solved by equally complicated technological jargon.

Alexander took a few seconds to remember that. Her first thought--oh god, she does think they're operational--only deepened her certainty that they were about to die. Then she got an idea.

It wasn't a very Star Patrol idea. Mitch was from Clearwater, raised on a diet of comic books, chemicals and troublemaking. She joined the service for adventure, the way her captain had.

Mitch chose her words carefully. "It's an energy reflector. It uses a core of tetradianium crystal in a resonating amplifier to absorb and immediately redirect any energy weapon back on its target." The formula she'd chosen was: catchy phrase, technical detail, catchy result.

And sure enough, Commander May heard catchy phrase, catchy result with a chewy center of science words that implied some kind of support for the catchy bits. "You see, it is the ideal defense. If any destructive energy touches my ship, a reaction of equal strength is created, destroying--"

"This is nonsense," Kupin interrupted.

"Destroying the attacker. The more powerful the attack..."

"You're lying."

"I'm not. I'm too bad at it for that."

Only Alexander knew that May was, in fact, lying. Since the Abyssinian had more practice, she stepped in to help. "The Terran Confederation has been at complete peace for two centuries thanks to these deflectors. No attacking vessel has survived."

Leon now also knew something was afoot. Mitch had made the story up--the shepherd surmised, correctly, that it had been borrowed from one of the comic serials she read. He tapped his finger distractedly at the edge of his console, trying to find any spare power for the deflector shields. The new alien next to him unbuckled her harness and padded quietly over.

On-screen, Kupin's eyes narrowed and he looked between Alexander and May. "Even if you had such a device... a reflector wouldn't be enough. You'd need some way to tune it against your enemy's weapons or it would be useless--ha! I knew it!" A brief flicker of emotion on the akita's face had betrayed her.

"You don't think we're that stupid, do you?" Mitch spoke out of turn, trying to distract him. "The crystal is embedded in a resonating matrix, composed of a top-secret alloy known only to Star Patrol scientists."

"You never mentioned such a thing."

Maddy was bad at lying because she tended to take others sincerely. In this case, she didn't think Mitch was making anything up. It was just as likely that 'a top-secret alloy' was just one of those things Hazelton had spared her, and it offered a simple way to reply. "Of course we didn't. It's top-secret," she shot back, glaring at Kupin. "Now, let us go--or if you'd like, escalate this... to your own destruction."

Instead, Kupin reached off-screen again. A minor impact jolted the Dark Horse--and the station, too. The merchant's eyes went wide.

"Make your choice, Kupin. I'm getting annoyed at your foolishness."

Kupin glared, growled, and waved one of his arms. The channel closed, and the ship lurched again. This time, it was for more fortunate causes. "We're free," Eli Parnell said. "With a clear trajectory out of the station. We can jump to lightspeed in fifteen seconds."

"Do it," May ordered. She shook her head. "Served that bastard right..."

Maddy, of course, felt no surprise at what had happened. Served that bastard right completely summed up her thoughts. Everyone else was baffled. In the engine room, Shannon Hazelton was baffled that one of her experiments had panned out on the first try, and without anything exploding. At CCI, Mitch Alexander was baffled that the shield behaved just like in her comic books. Leon Bader, blinking at the shield configuration section of his tactical console, was baffled that he'd somehow programmed the right settings for the deflector.

Thorough debriefing would come later. Once they were back in hyperspace, Madison May started out with the most pressing issue, calling David and Korbo into her ready room. "I guess we owe you," the akita said. "For warning us."

Korbo repeated what she'd told David, about Kupin's plans for Sabel Thorsen. "There are others like him--it's a franchise--so they might be looking for you. Yes, captain, I'm reasonably familiar with the alien races in this sector. I can give you a quick rundown."

May canted her head. "How did you know I was going to ask that?"

"I'm a telepath. To answer your next question, I can detect emotion from a fair distance, and read thoughts in the same room. If I'm even closer, I can sometimes retrieve memories. And... sometimes implant thoughts, as well."

"Mind control?"

Korbo shook her head. "Nothing that complicated. Nudges. I... nudged your tactical officer to tell him the frequencies of Kupin's weapons."

"That was you?"

"Yes, Commander May. I hoped it would convince him that you weren't bluffing."

The akita's ears flattened. "I didn't know I was. I guess we really owe you. We can't really offer much... we can guarantee you safe passage back to your homeworld, if you can tell us where it is."

The alien stretched out her soft, clawless fingers. Her fur took a subtle orange hue. "I can tell you... but there is something you could offer. I'm asking for asylum. I'd like to join your crew."

Maddy pricked her ears back up. David did the same, with an equal curiosity. "Why?" the retriever asked.

"You seem like good people. The galaxy doesn't have enough of them. I would much prefer being with you than another merchant like Kupin. Also, you need a doctor, don't you? I'm trained in xenobiology... if I can read up on your species, I'd be able to treat you. I'm sure of it."

"We could use a doctor," May agreed. "But if you joined us, we'd probably only be going further and further away from your home. And, as you see, it isn't always safe."

Korbo smiled and, apparently sensing May's inclination, her fur whitened again. "Yara aren't necessarily adventurers, but we are explorers and scientists. I'd love the opportunity."

May looked for any objection from her first officer; he offered none. "Well, then we'd love to have you. Dave, why don't you get her settled in? We have plenty of free rooms."

"Dr. Beltran should probably be consulted." Lieutenant Commander Bradley used the passive voice to refer to this consultation with their diplomatic officer, since he already had the feeling May would make him the one to do it.

"Ah, yes, probably," the akita granted. "But you can do that later, in the interests of hospitality."

David picked a free cabin close to the others--one advantage of a nearly-empty ship was everyone getting their own rooms--and walked the alien to it, explaining the cruiser's basic layout as they went to keep her from getting lost.

"It's a big ship, but then... Kupiniria was a big station. I found my way around there quickly enough. And with your help, this won't be any more difficult."

"I'm sure it won't be. These are your quarters--Spaceman Alexander is next door, and I'm about six cabins down. The engineers and Sabel stay closer to the reactor, but the rest of us are up here."

"Thank you, Mr. Bradley."

He unlocked the doors, and the environmental computer ran through a quick checklist to make sure the room was habitable. "Don't mention it," the retriever said, making conversation while they waited. "You can call me 'Dave,' if you want. What about you? I guess we should call you 'Dr. Korbo'?" It had a certain mad-scientist sound to it. Shannon Hazelton would be jealous.

The alien shook her head, having adapted quickly to terran gestures--being an empath had plenty of uses. "My real name is Ayenni. 'Korbo' is something I made up when Kupin asked, so that he wouldn't go after my family if I displeased him."

A few centuries had elapsed since the cabin's last occupation, but hermetic sealing kept it in good condition and it was pristine. The retriever stepped in first, looking around to satisfy himself nothing was amiss before returning to the conversation. "He'd go after your family?"

"It was easier not to take risks. 'Korbo' is a bit of a joke. There's a Yara myth where it's a magical potion doctors can use to cure any disease or heal any wound. When Kupin hired me, I was young and boastful. I'll be happy not to hear the name, but it was useful while it lasted--in the myth, everything's spoiled, too, when it turns out to be ordinary water and the placebo effect."

"Well, then it's not inaccurate, either," he pointed out. "If you consider that you were apparently our 'top-secret alloy.' Wait until Lieutenant Hazelton hears her shield runs on... 'Korbomium,' I suppose." The raccoon, unlike May and Kupin, was not likely to be fooled. "Well, Ayenni, welcome. I'll let you get settled in."

"Thank you," she said.

He started to leave, and paused at the doorframe. "Can I ask you something?"

"You'd think the answer was silly."

The retriever frowned. "Can I ask you two things?"

Ayenni smiled, her fur shimmering a mirthful red. "Yes, Mr. Bradley, to your second question. It's respectful in Yara culture not to read minds without consent--I forgot, in Kupin's presence, but don't worry. You can tell your captain I won't in the future, not without asking first. As to your first question... you would think it was silly."

"I guess you know. But I'd like to hear it anyway. Why did you want to join us?"

The alien's pelt faded to orange. "Kupin wanted your crewman, Sabel Thorsen. I had a suspicion before I asked you that you would say 'no.' But I wasn't expecting how strong it would be. Out here, there aren't many big empires. Everyone's sort of... on their own. The way you both instinctively, absolutely rejected the idea of giving him up. It was kind of... it was like you were a family, and he was your kin. Even though he's not. Even though he has no family."

"I don't think that's silly," David said.

The tint of Korbo's fur deepened as she looked him over. "You don't, do you..."

"Read my mind, if you're not convinced."

"I think it's not necessary." She stepped closer to the retriever, and patted his wrist. "You are good people. I want to be one of you. Thank you for having me."

When she'd touched him earlier, in his own quarters, David had sensed the acuteness of her terror at the threat Kupin posed. Now, involuntarily, he felt her conviction, too. "You're welcome. I hope it turns out to be a good match."

"I think so." She let him go. "I appreciate you saying it... I just have to will myself to believe you."

"Is that tough?"

"Telepaths sometimes have a difficult time, believing people without knowing it for certain. We can grow very reliant on the insight we ordinarily have."

"That's why I told you to read my mind," he reminded her.

"You don't want me to, David."

The retriever didn't have enough familiarity with telepathy to even guess what she meant. "Why not? Wouldn't it be easier than just... trusting?"

"Yes." A faint hint of blue, and then green, started in the white rims of her feathery ears and began to spread. "But your thoughts are complex, and you're conflicted about them. It would embarrass you. And myself, sympathetically. As you see."

He did see--saw the color, anyway, though their meaning was guesswork. "The shading of your markings. Green is embarrassment?"

"Sort of. The Yara concept is a little more complicated than that."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I do trust you."

The green deepened, until her ears were emerald and her face had started to take on spring colors of its own. "Among other things, you also harbor curiosity about our biological compatibility."

Had Dave been able to change colors himself, the retriever would've gone scarlet instead of gold. His ears flattened to the point of disappearance. "Those aren't the thoughts I meant!"

"I know," Ayenni said. "And see? You could've trusted me, and we could've dropped the matter. But you didn't."

"Are we biologically compatible?"

"Sort of."

"What does that mean?" Ayenni started to turn green again. "Well... if you don't mind. I'm curious."

"More than curious," she muttered. The green stayed, and flashed deeper for a few heartbeats. She did not suggest that he wasn't the only one; she didn't have to. "Physically, yes. Obviously."

"Oh? Why is it obvious?"

"You find me attractive. I find you... attractive," she admitted. "Those parts of the brain that drive our mating urges are responding to subtle cues in our body shape, our movement. I didn't find Kupin desirable... you don't find... you don't find this arousing in any way." She pointed to a random object in the room, an old bronze sculpture of a terran cactus. "Do you?"

"No. Good point. I follow. There's a catch, right?"

"At least two. You're conflicted, to begin with. I think you... you're not comfortable with your feelings. Perhaps because I'm an alien? Or we've just met..."

"Also, I... uh. I had the impression it was, um. Something you planted in my head, earlier. In the archives." To make him more distractible, he felt. The deception did complicate their conversation now, but it reassured him to think he wasn't the sort of Star Patrol officer to think unclean thoughts about every new species they came across. He was better than that--more staid.

"No," Ayenni said. "No, that was all your doing."

Damn it. The retriever's ears and tail drooped, until he realized it freed him up to take the present scenario more seriously. "Maybe I'm not conflicted, then. What's the other catch?"

The alien stepped close--very close. He could see into her deep, dark eyes. Her fuzzy, dry nose nearly touched him. "This is what your culture means by kiss, yes?"

"Pretty much. You'd have to go a bit--"

Before he could say further, she let their lips meet. Briefly, that was all he felt: the warmth of her mouth, and a pleasantly familiar softness to her lips, alien or no. Then, like live electric current, he felt a buzzing heat tease his mind.

It was hard to think. Instinct was easier. The dog's arms looped around her, hugging tightly. His head canted, and his muzzle locked tighter with her own. His tongue felt for her lips--as soon they touched a splash of pink light sparked through his vision, and Ayenni jerked back heavily.

She was panting; her fur pulsed a soft, fading violet. "You... you see?"

"Not... exactly. No. No. Not at all," he decided, getting his scattered wits back.

"Yara have good, highly acute vision. Our sense of touch isn't so developed. It's a bit overwhelming to feel the thoughts of a species that isn't... like us."

"I think I see, yes. You didn't enjoy it?"

"I didn't expect it. I'd have to experience it a second..."

She trailed off, anticipating by telepathy or simple logic the kiss that followed. Now, their muzzles stayed pressed together. And now, David too knew what was coming. His tongue pressed to the alien's lips, the light flickered again... he kept going...

Her own tongue was soft like his; narrower, more flexible. Stronger. It pushed back, the pink sparks shattered into arcing fractals that only brightened when he closed his eyes. The humming buzz in his thoughts grew. It became pleasure, in ever-shifting forms--summery warmth, the sweet taste of honey. The scent of honeysuckle. Rainbows.

All of it was nice. None of it, he was dimly able to recognize, seemed anything like an ordinary kiss. By the time it ended, his thoughts filled with the burbling sound of a brook near his Vancouver home, David settled on nice, but definitely: "weird..."

"Yes," Ayenni agreed. "Yara don't do that."

"Because you don't really touch."

"And it's unhygienic. Yes."

Dave found an irony in the alien's unfamiliarity with touch, because Ayenni felt quite pleasant. Her fur, though short, was dense and lush. He could quite happily have spent hours stroking it, reveling not just in the feel but in the shifting colors that followed the movements of his fingers. "If you don't touch, then..."

They were so close she was reading his thoughts unintentionally, he learned, and though he paused to find a diplomatic way to phrase his question the telepathy made the effort futile. "Yes," she confirmed. "We do physically couple, when we mate. It's just... probably not like yours."

"More... colorful? Vibrant?"

Ayenni took a deep breath, and her coat rippled into striking coral. "You see this? How about now?"

"Did something change?"

"To us? Yes. Subtly, but..." She leaned against him, wrapping her arms around the retriever in an echo of his own embrace. Her eyes rolled back, momentarily, the deepening contact overwhelming her. The coral lightened a shade or two. "Was that clear?"

"That, I saw... yes... pretty sure."

"For me, it's very dramatic. Your species has its own ways, I guess." Her eyes refocused, and settled on his. "You are thinking... you're thinking about them. About... knotting me."

He had the alien close, his arms snug about her. Her body heat radiated against him; every touch was warm, and soft with her thick fur. Even without the hint of her soothing thoughts, filtering into his mind as involuntary, empathic echoes, the retriever was short on honest denials about what he was thinking. "There isn't really a point in lying, is there?"

Ayenni smiled. "There isn't, no."

"Well. Then you already know the answer."

"I suppose we should find out." She stepped away, freeing him. "I suppose your kind doesn't have to, but..." She shrugged her shoulders, and her robe spilled from them in graceful billows to the floor. "Would you mind taking off your clothes, at least?"

Even distracted, he complied, but his focus was definitely elsewhere. He watched, captivated, as she walked the short distance to the bed and took a seat. Ayenni's arms and legs were the same flawless white as her face, ordinarily, and had changed to pink with the rest of her. Her slim torso, by contrast, was ringed completely by a half-dozen thick stripes, starting below her shoulders and ending above her belly.

The stripes started out purple, but as he took off first his top and then his pants, they changed one by one to less subtle crimson. "Well," she said. "At least you aren't... completely alien..." She was looking at his crotch, where the golden retriever stood strikingly, stiffly erect.

The comment, far from bizarre, was quite reassuring. It kept him from further hesitation. He padded up to her, bent over, and gave her soft nose a kiss. And then, leaning forward, he began to guide her down and onto the bed.

There was some, brief resistance, but she settled back, beneath him. As his weight settled into the mattress, Ayenni got the rest of the idea, hooking one leg under the retriever to let him fall between her thighs. Her fur melted into cornflower blue; her head tilted. "Is this... hmm... I see..."

"What?" He still had enough rational thought for proper confusion.

"I was going to ask if..." Carefully, still unfamiliar with the practice, she slid her gentle fingers over his side and hugged the retriever gingerly. "If this was how your kind mated. But it must be..."

"You don't?"

Her fur brightened, going orange for a second and then settling back into coral. "Normally the male is beneath, or behind... it's easier, visually. But this is interesting... we should try this... we should..."

As her voice softened, he felt her move. Then he felt her fingers on his length. No claws, no pads--just her glorious fur. Stroking the retriever... tugging him... at the second we should, David's pointed tip prodded not fur but soft, moist, comfortingly familiar heat.

Hesitantly, slow and smooth as he could manage, he entered her. Caution was prudent: they weren't made for one another, after all. There was no guarantee he'd even fit! But caution faltered quickly as he sank deeper, and silky wetness spread around his tip to surround his cock in ripples of tantalizing warmth.

He kept pushing on instinct for a few seconds, grinding the retriever against the luxuriant fur of the alien's hips, before realizing he was all the way in. Ayenni trembled, and her pink fur shimmered subtly. Her eyes, wide, were shimmering too. "More than interesting," she managed. "Better than interesting. Are you... finished?"

"No. Bit more involved. Takes a bit longer."

Even having said that, the dog felt he couldn't quite guarantee how long. David drew his hips back and started to thrust in gentle, full strokes that he hoped might let him pace himself. Pulling himself free until only a few centimeters joined them, he held for a moment, then rocked back in, his sloped tip parting her folds around him as he pumped in to the hilt.

Ayenni's face flushed a brighter pink, in time to the fluid bucking of the retriever atop her. Even he could see the colors changing--a paler, lighter pink when he slid from her, brightening back up as he worked her full again. It matched his tempo precisely, the pulsing beat growing faster when his movements did.

And he couldn't keep his pace from picking up, careful and reserved as he'd wanted to be. His instincts lost their sense of curiosity at the alien's shifting, vibrant palette. Alien or not, weird or not, the pleasure she drew from him was plenty natural. She was so good--so delightfully snug, so enticingly hot and wet...

The strength of his thrusts grew until he was lifting her supple hips up as he drove himself into her--her weight bearing down right on the bottom of his cock, accenting a novel thickness that was quite familiar to him, and quite unknown to her. For the moment she took the knot easily enough.

And the pressure, the constriction of slick warmth clasping the base of his shaft, coaxed the retriever's rising tension into a much simpler aim. That, the basic urge lending a new insistence, seized Ayenni's attention; her pelt flashed a confused violet, and her eyes widened. Her own instinct faltered, but instead of obeying them she wrapped her limbs tighter around the dog and his wild movements.

He heard himself growl, and in the effort it took not to do it a second time the retriever lost the battle to keep a restrained rhythm. And then he lost the battle not to growl, too. Caught between her hips and the constriction of her legs, he rammed into her in short, lunging strokes that kept his rapidly swelling knot buried until biology trapped it.

He kept bucking anyway, unable to help himself. Between the tie and the frantic pace of a canine rutting his way into sweet release Ayenni lost her own concentration. Even as David felt the familiar, thudding pressure peaking it was joined by the electric buzz from earlier, the tense current of the alien's emotions surging into his own mind...

It sang out as climax overcame him, a strange chaotic shout that flooded his thoughts. He snarled with that first convulsion of ecstasy throbbing in his cock--but Ayenni was snarling too, the sound guttural and high in her smaller throat. And as the wave of release raced up his shaft to erupt in a sticky, hot gush deep within the alien, her pelt went a pure, bright crimson.

Time and again, as he grunted in sated feral pleasure and pumped his warm retriever cum into her, her coat pulsed from pink to scarlet. The colors changed slower and faded as his peak did, but a full minute later, the gentle twitches of his member echoed in the shade of her fur.

David came back to his senses gradually. Ayenni took longer, staring up at the ceiling and blinking irregularly, as though in need of a reboot. Finally she blinked one last time, more firmly, and her fur went back to white.

"That was... odd."

He pushed himself up on one elbow, to make it easier to look at her. "Odd in a bad way?"

"Odd in an overwhelming way," Ayenni said. "I wasn't expecting it. Nor was I expecting you to experience it in that fashion."

"Er. What fashion?"

She still seemed slightly confused by the whole affair. "Your sense of touch. It makes sense now, only... well. Overwhelming, that is the best word. And I think, perhaps, a bit messy."

"Kinda. It's different for you, you mean?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

His sense of academic curiosity asserted itself--after all, they wouldn't be going anywhere for a few minutes. "What's it like? Different senses?"

"Yes. Not ones it would be easy for you to..." She stopped herself. "Not exactly, but I could try to share it with you, if you'd like?"

The retriever nodded. Ayenni brought her paws up to his temples, and as her fingers sank through his fur the light started to dim and brighten with his heartbeat. As he watched, the alien's pelt softened from white into slowly darkening pink. And...

And the more he looked, the more he saw that it wasn't one color, after all. There were little patterns, subtle ones--an aura at the fringes of her fur. If he stared, and he couldn't help staring, the complexity built up more strongly the longer he looked. He could see her...

Are those her nerves? Am I--_it certainly _seemed like it, as though he had gained the ability to amplify his vision down to the microscopic level. Her neurons glowed a bright, vibrant magenta. Ripples of electric energy coursed through them. He didn't know how fast; he was losing his ability to sense time.

The universal translator in his ears had shut down, or been bypassed. Ayenni murmured quietly in her own tongue. It sounded like a melody, quick and complex. At every tone the whole scene shifted--as if the light of the universe itself was being tuned. It went blue--then emerald green--then soft purple.

The purple deepened for a flickering second, taking on a strange, warped appearance and he had the jarring thought it was his brain trying to make sense of ultraviolet. He tried to speak, and brassy, flashing saffron spilled from his open muzzle.

Ayenni's fingers tightened against his head. Below him, the alien's fur had gone a brilliant ruby red. He could hardly bear to look at it--at the same time he couldn't look away, either. Sparks of scarlet flew from her fur.

And then they stopped going out. They lingered, and as more of them joined the light became fierce and all-consuming. He could see nothing anymore--nothing of the room, or of her. One final flash, like a star exploding, and everything went white.

"Hm," Ayenni said. He could understand her again. "That wasn't so bad."

His world was still featureless white. "Uh..."

She laughed; disconcertingly, he found that he'd been hoping to gain some visual confirmation of this, and was disappointed. "Let me guess, David. It was 'odd'?"

"Very. Also, I'm kind of... blind."

"Now you know how I felt." He felt her fingers brushing at his ears. "It will come back soon enough. I might've lost control a bit. I'm sorry..."

If he concentrated very hard, he could convince himself he was beginning to see vague outlines and shapes again. "Well. It was definitely a novel experience." Just like her fingers, he felt rather than heard her voice. In a bad way, David? "In a different way."

Not what he'd been expecting, in other words--exactly as she'd told him. Sure enough, his ability to see again gradually returned. For another few minutes, he thought he still had a heightened perception of the alien's colors. It was hard to tell whether she was actually becoming white again, or whether he was losing the ability to see a difference.

"Would it have been different, if I was one of you?" It was a silly question, and he deserved the laughter he got. "How, though?"

"Does your species have reproductive cycles? I think some do, right?"

"Yes. Sure. Estrus."

"We don't," she said. Her paw ran over his cheek, and sure enough, for a moment he could see the shade of her fur again. "When we mate, it involves a sort of telepathic bond. You can see all the subtle detail in your partner's colors... you see things nobody else would. That's how you know there's a good match. And you start to be able to evoke those colors for them."

"Like a hallucination?"

She nodded, then tweaked the retriever's ear. He watched a twirling helix of neon blue whirl its way down her arm, disappearing when she let go. "Yes. But mutual. That process of shared vision is what stimulates conception."

The helix lingered in his thoughts. "It sounds beautiful, to be honest."

"It is, of course, pleasurable in its own way."

"And less messy. More, ah... hygienic."

Ayenni smiled at his teasing. "Yes, there is that."

"Do you suppose you can teach me?"

The alien lifted his paw, guiding it to the side of her muzzle. From where he touched her, a faint red ripple spread across her body. "It's worth a try. And I suppose we'll have plenty of opportunities."