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I have put the story series I was working on "on hold," for now, for several reasons, one of which is personal and the others of which are literary. In return, I offer you a longer story (sorry, I promise there's still a payoff -- and as always, please respond with criticism and feedback!) in a sci-fi universe with a demi-realistic theme (FTL, so more realism in biology and sociology than physics, sorry) involving a young man, fresh out of college, working a job with a very unusual requirement...

"Dog Star," by Rob Baird

Now (10/2012) anthologized and with a sequel, in the e-book _Matters Out of Place, for fun times and great justice!_

---

"Yeah, but why can't I stay human? I like being human." It wasn't that there was anything particularly unique about my own body -- average build; nondescript, except for the corrective optics in my eyes that made them sparkle in the right light. Now, though? Now, I was looking at my fingers like Leonardo da Vinci, entranced by the sinew and the smooth, bare flesh, downed with curly brown hair.

The recruiter was unimpressed. "Because that's not the way the program works, Mr. Westman. Didn't you study the details of the Kantaran Incident? I thought it would be required reading in ISR 270. Your transcript says you scored highly in that class."

My nails, I thought, were particularly splendid, smooth and sharp and pearly. Who else had nails? Yes, and how could one want to give them up? "I studied it," I said curtly. "Dr. Sauvajot, one of the survivors, was a guest lecturer. You don't have to remind me about it." Indeed, if I'd been smarter the Kantaran Incident should've been what warned me against a career in Interstellar Relations.

If you haven't taken ISR 270, or if you have a weak stomach and skipped that part of the lecture, the diplomatic mission to Kantaran was organized fifteen years ago as part of our noble plan to establish relations with the Urullathi -- felines; I suppose before the Progenitors got to them they were probably jaguars. They're what the taurish call gaal-gaalag -- flesh-eaters.

And fiercely territorial. An Urullathi warlord took the mission prisoner as soon as they'd landed -- they don't have much use for interlopers. Thing is, of course, humans can't really pronounce their speech -- so nobody in the mission was able to properly surrender, and the Urullathi wound up using them for medical experiments.

Linguistic and cultural assimilation was one reason the Proteus Corps was inaugurated -- simple comfort was another, since nearly everyone's most at ease talking to someone who looks like they do. This was particularly true of the more predatory species, who tended to regard speaking with "prey" as an affront.

Of course, knowing the reasons for Proteus didn't make it an easier pill to swallow. All the same, the United Nations Diplomatic Command was making an offer that could solidify any résumé, and the recruiter seemed to know this. "If I don't need to remind you, then you understand why a Protean commitment is a condition of your employment."

"Can't I volunteer for something with the Family?" Most of them were of prey stock; they were easy-going -- a plush assignment.

"We don't have any openings right now," the recruiter said. "Not, at least, for someone with your level of experience."

I grumped, but I was already paging through the frames of the recruitment contract on the computer sheet before me. "Experience doesn't help me if I get eaten."

The recruiter's laugh was light and easy. "Please, Mr. Westman! We have never had a single member of the diplomatic mission to Jandakh killed."

Now I set the computer down, and smiled thinly across the desk. "You know, the Ordòñez Affair is also covered in ISR 270."

This stripped the recruiter of his charm for a moment; the reply was slightly flustered. "Sofia Ordòñez was not a member of the mission, she was --"

"Did you know... in the Urgun Kholta capital, they actually still have some of the things they made with her skin on display? I think they're in the padishah's palace -- you don't suppose he'd mind if I stopped in, do you?"

"Well, I --"

"I want a guaranteed bracket elevation when -- if -- I get back." He nodded, and I dictated a new clause to the contract, which shifted before our eyes. My fingertip hovered over the sign here section of the thin computer, and I raised an eyebrow. "How long will you keep my real body in cryo for, anyway?"

From his Cheshire grin, it was clear the recruiter knew he'd already made the sale. "Why, Mr. Westman, as long as it takes! As long as it takes." When I signed the document, that grin only widened, and he told me to come back in a week to make my final arrangements.

They don't let you eat for a full 24 hours before cryo. They have their reasons, I'm sure, but the result is that you go in nervous as hell and without even a full stomach to distract you. A couple centuries ago, NorthAm (or what would become NorthAm) used to put people to death by pumping them full of chemicals, and it's a pretty similar experience. They strap you down, play some calming music, and then blanket you in cold, sterile medical equipment.

Then your brain turns off.

I woke up again in darkness, so that it took a minute or two for me to determine whether or not I was even awake at all. My eyes were open, but something shielded them to keep me blind. My hands still worked, though, and I brought them to my face -- where they meet a sudden obstruction. Sudden and painful -- as though it was part of me somehow. I yelped, and from somewhere next to me I could hear a woman's voice.

"You're awake, huh?"

"Gwurh du noush rhzz," I said -- the last sound came out as a strange buzzing. It was not what I had meant -- I tried again, with the same result.

"Can you understand me?" The voice had drawn closer.

"Gwurh! Gwurh!" I shouted, in a rising tone -- I was starting to panic. "Kudu shtungla du rhustosh!"

"Calm down," my companion said.

This was a tall order. "Nwueest cho!" Nothing I said sounded right. My tongue was manifestly refusing to obey the orders I gave it. I tried to get up.

The person put a hand on my chest and shoved me back down; they had the advantage of leverage, and I found myself pinned. "Calm down," she repeated. "Don't say anything. Nod if you can understand me. Can you?"

Trembling, I nodded.

"Good. Now take a deep breath."

It took me a moment to obey, but when I did I tasted something bitter, and before I could make any sound of protest unconsciousness gripped me once more. There were no dreams, only an endless night -- I have no idea how long it was until I came back around.

This time, mindful of what had happened before, I felt carefully for my face, starting from the forehead and working down. Impenetrably dark goggles had been placed over my eyes. They were secured by a strap that ran around the back of my head, but as I started to seek out its release a warm presence took my wrist and pulled it away.

"In a bit. Can you hear me?"

"Yes," I tried. "Oh -- thank god!"

"Mm. Sometimes the programming results in aphasia."

"Aphasia?"

"Your brain's wiring is still fundamentally human, but it's trying to cope with a body that's completely different. There are.. hurdles."

The recruiter hadn't told me that -- maybe it was in the fine print. "Is the frocess conflete?"

"Pretty much."

"Frocess... con...flete..." I repeated, more slowly -- trying to enunciate. "It's not done."

Straps around my legs and chest were being released; my companion continued to talk as she worked. "Well, that's a consequence of physiology, I'm afraid. You're just not able to form those sounds. Not the way you're used to." She reached up; the strap behind my head gave way, and I could see again.

"Oh, fuck," I muttered. Four inches beyond my eyes I could see the end of my nose, now densely covered in a short layer of fur and tipped in smooth, black flesh. Beyond that, I saw mostly the inside of what I supposed was a laboratory, though the image was fuzzy, a blurry mess of computer consoles outlined with strips of blue paint. The rest of the interior was a dismal mess of grey, black and yellow. "Ny thision is awful."

I couldn't even really see the other person. They were bent over a terminal, brushing their hands over it swiftly. "I'm trying to correct your built-in optics, but there's not much to work with. You have to understand: we don't really know how the Progenitors made the Garm, and they didn't volunteer any DNA. You're an..." She paused, as if trying to find the right word. "You're ersatz. The body is derived largely from lupine stock, and their vision just isn't real good. I'm sorry."

"Couldn't you hath githen ne huwan eyes, at least?"

"Nope." With a few more taps at the console, the world came into sharper focus as the microcrystalline structures in my artificial cornea shifted, although most of what I could see was still the pale color of dilute urine. "You have much greater vision at night, and your color perception seems to be most sensitive around 450 nanometers or so. We have to assume that Garm culture is built around similar elements -- if you had human eyes, you might miss them." She turned and leaned towards me. "Clearer now?"

"Yeah." Clear enough, at least, to see for the first time what the other person looked like. Her hair was golden-brown, but she had yellow skin and grey lips -- because she appeared otherwise human I gathered that this jaundiced appearance was probably my fault and not hers. Either way it was not the skin that I really noticed; what I saw first were her eyes -- a bright, clear, Egyptian blue that stood out like a beacon. "Where an I, anyway?"

"The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea, United Nations Diplomatic Command. We've been underway for about four days now, though we're not quite to the Sol terminus yet. I'm the captain -- Rebecca Christiansen." She extended a hand.

After a moment, I found the presence of mind to reach out my own -- I was pleased to discover that I had retained my opposable thumbs. My fingers, as they closed on her hand, seemed to be much less sensitive, but not so dull that they failed to pick up the soft warmth of the skin beneath their touch. "Jesse Hwestnun."

"Westland?"

"Hwest... nun," I clarified. "'N' as in 'nail.' No... that didn't hwork. 'N' as in 'nagnet.'"

"Westman?" Her eyebrow was raised questioningly.

"Uh huh. Can I stand ut?"

Rebecca stepped back and away from the upraised bed I had been strapped to. "Yeah. Just don't move too quick. It's about eighty percent Earth normal on the walls, but until you adapt, movement'll probably make you nauseous."

Lovely. I stepped from the bed, getting my feet beneath me. After my first, disastrous experiment with speaking I had been a little concerned about my motor control, and indeed there seemed to be a slight lag between deciding to move somewhere and actually doing so. "Hwy didn't they hwake ne ut dack on Earth?"

"'Cause you would've asked out of your contract," she said with a grin. "This way, you're pretty much committed. Don't worry, I'm told it gets better -- do you know where we're going?"

I shook my head, noticing the weight of my ears as they shifted with the movement. "Ny orders're sealed. I can oten then, dut I don't know hwere they are. Hwere are hwe goin'?"

"I don't know. They said you'd tell me. This is my first time in command of a diplo mission; I've just accompanied, before. And I had help."

"Ask the crew?"

Rebecca laughed, and disappeared for a moment behind my bed. When she returned, she pressed a computer into my palm. "Orders. Let me know where to, so I can program the Perle gate for transit. As for the crew... well, there aren't any. Just me."

"Great." I took the computer, and turned it over -- trying to focus on the screen, and not the awkward paws that held it. "Oh, hwat the fuck."

"Problem?"

"It's frint-locked."

"So?"

Gripping the computer in one hand, I held the other up so that she could see it. Thin fur and pads like callouses had replaced my skin. "I don't hath any fingerfrints." Rebecca blinked -- and then giggled. "It's not funny!"

She stopped abruptly. "No -- no, of course not. Um. Well. I mean, it kind of is..."

Probably, but even if it was, I was far too engaged in the business of feeling sorry for myself. "No, not ethen a little. God dannit, I really hwish I could fucking talk."

"I've never actually really met one of you before, but the assimilation manual says if you touch your finger to your..." Her brow furrowed as she tried to find the right word. "Face? Or muzzle, right, I guess? You can kind of replicate what it would be like to move your lips like a human. For those sounds." She demonstrated, letter by troublesome letter, and -- since it wasn't as though I really had any dignity left -- I followed suit.

"This is awkward."

"You sound okay."

"I probably look like a clown," I groused. "I'm getting fur on my tongue, and I probably look like a clown."

"You look like a wolf," she offered. "So at least you're a fierce clown."

"Without fingerprints."

"Yeah. Fucking bureaucracy, right? Hold on, I think they have something for that." She handed me a small, cylindrical container.

When I opened it, I frowned -- or tried to; I don't know what it looked like. "This is a severed finger. Is this my severed finger?"

"I think it's cloned."

I took it, turning it over in my claws. "Well. That's not creepy at all." But the finger, when touched to the computer, unlocked it, and I tried to think of the flesh as just another tool. "We're going to meet with the Harrat Dagan. They're a tribe on one of the southern continents, if I remember correctly."

"Yeah? How is your command of... Harrat Daganese, I guess it would be called?"

"Tarrak Uharrat," I corrected. "Poor, but they'll probably speak Ujandakh, too, since it's the lingua franca on the planet and the two are related. My spoken Targa Ujandakh is alright, but like other humans -- well, when I... was... human -- we can't communicate in any of their languages."

"I thought some of the traders did?"

"Targa Unengelsk is a pidgin; only merchants use it. It would be incredibly offensive to use it in a diplomatic setting. Most jandakh cultures are dense, byzantine mazes of protocol and ceremony. They live by it -- die by it, too. About twenty years ago, the padishah of the Karkulla Empire failed to render the exact proper honors in a ceremony when the prince was being recognized. His own cabinet deposed and gutted him, then installed his son while the body was still warm."

She made a face, which was the desired result, I guess -- I was trying to show off my knowledge a little; to drive home how alien the people of Jandakh were. Then it backfired, and in the expected way. "So what happens if you screw up first contact, Jess?" I froze, and she snickered. "Yeah, exactly. So tell me, why can't I speak Garm? And is that what they call themselves?"

"No. They can't even say the letter 'm,' remember? In Targa Ujandakh, they call themselves Khur Ijanda, or just Khur. As to why you can't speak it... well, if you're meeting someone important for the first time, the appropriate formal greeting in diplomatic Targa is arrukh gakash, rin gakesh, oton ukagu. Roughly speaking, it means 'I come as a brother, as you are a brother to me, and I mean you no ill will; lay down arms.'"

"Arrukh kakash rin kakash, oton ukagu." Rebecca echoed, attempting to enunciate the words clearly. Her voice was soft, and far too musical for the guttural language of the Garm. "It's not so hard."

"It's not. But as you just said it, it means 'I am your superior, and you are alive only because I leave you alive, and I won't hurt you if you surrender immediately.' That can be the wrong foot to get off on."

"Yeah?"

I shrugged. "There's a lot of aggressive talk in their culture -- jockeying for position and stuff. To be more polite, when you say arrukh gakash your ears have to be back and your lips have to be almost all the way closed. Then, when you say rin gakesh, your lips still have to be closed, but the ears have to come up to a half-perk."

"I don't have ears that can do that," Rebecca pointed out.

"Yeah. That was Sofia Ordòñez's problem, too. Ujandakh has a reputation as being difficult to learn because posture has syntactic value. That's also why they never developed telephones. Their telecommunication has always had a visual component."

"And you know it?"

"Linguistically? A bit. I'm sure I'm supposed to solidify my muscle memory on the trip over."

She laughed. "Good luck. Or maybe, when you meet them for the first time, you could just give 'em a bone and play some tug of war? You're kinda built for it."

I tried my growl on for size. "Oh, to hell with you. You think I like this body? Or this posting? Fuck." I snorted angrily, balling my paw into a fist that pressed my claws hard into the palm of my hand. "I put in for Wuntharra, but UNDC isn't handing out Family assignments for people just out of school. So now I'm on this thing for... what, a month?"

"Five Terran weeks, yep."

"Five weeks. Losing muscle mass and packed on a diplo junk, eating rehydrated food without even a shower?"

"You got it," she admitted. "Though there is a shower, at least."

This I found difficult to believe; the interior of The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea reeked of human habitation -- body odor and unwashed flesh, covered up halfheartedly with chemical disinfectant. "Yeah, but is it working?"

"I took a shower this morning."

"Oh."

Rebecca craned her head to sniff at her armpit self-consciously, and the skin of her face darkened to a deep bronze. "Is it really that bad?"

I caught myself, and forced my ears back to look submissive -- a good habit to get into. "Oh, uh... no... of course not... it snells thine, I'n just deing othersensitith. Oversensitive," I repeated -- momentarily too embarrassed to form the right sounds. "Sorry, it's okay."

"Good," she murmured, although the flush still remained. "I, um. I'm going to go dial in for the Perle gate. Might as well get to it, right?"

So that was good. I had to spend five weeks with Rebecca, and I had already offended her. It did not bode well for my diplomatic skills, and I was forced to make the excuse that it didn't really count because I was still flustered.

That evening -- ship's time, which Rebecca observed and I had no reason to disobey -- she brought two packages out from the back, setting one before me. "Dinner," she said. "UNDC picked carefully for us."

"Thanks." The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea was a Singh design; long and straight, it rode the space between worlds on a bed of surf formed by the massive Perle gate whose terminus in the Sol system would, after a journey of some weeks, be matched by one outside Jandakh. Now there was nothing to do but feel the dull thrum of the waveriding engines, and I took my time in opening the package. "You've got to be kidding me."

She leaned over. "Kibble?"

"I hate the United Nations. I hate it."

Rebecca grinned -- she herself was eating what looked remarkably like quiche and smelled like everything I currently wanted to have but could not. "It's supposed to be good for you, according to the Assimilation Support Manual. You probably can't get all the micronutrients you need just from human food, what do you suppose?"

The little pellets, which I ate by lifting the dish to my muzzle and letting momentum spill them against my tongue, tasted inoffensive enough. It was the indignity that stung. "I wish they thought I deserved utensils."

"For the moment, it's better if you don't." When I looked at her, trying to raise my eyebrows in surprise, she produced a spoon and slid it across the table. "Try it."

It took a moment to pick the thing up -- I had to hook one claw under the handle, and the first two times I tried to lift it, it slipped from my grasp. Finally I was holding it -- sort of -- but the spoon quivered, and the grains of kibble spilled back into their bowl before I could bring it to my muzzle.

"Your fine motor control still needs work." Her voice was soft, and comforting.

I ignored it, and chose to make a second attempt. I focused all my efforts on the spoon, trying to steady it to no avail. Balling my hands into fists, I slammed it back to the table with a sharp clang of metal on metal. "God damn it!"

Still soothing, she held up her hands to placate me. "It's okay. Really. We'll work on it tomorrow. It's not going to take too long."

"I don't want to work on it," I said -- without my realizing, my voice had taken an offended jandakher's guttural growl. "I don't want to be here. I just... god damn it," I repeated; my hands shook, and I pressed my thumb hard against the spoon's handle. It snapped almost immediately -- a clean break in the metal. Fine motor control, indeed.

Rebecca permitted me to stew for a few minutes while she worked at her dinner -- leaving me staring belligerently at my bowl of cereal. Having apparently written the spoon off, she still spoke kindly. "You seem to be pretty sensitive about all this, you know? Didn't you know it was going to be like this? Why'd you become a diplomat?"

Truth be told, I didn't really know the answer; after a pause, in which the situation failed to become any clearer, I did the easiest thing and blamed my diplomat parents. "Folks were foreign service -- NorthAm, though. They helped set up the Canada franchises in Golarna. Every ISR student wants a job with the Family. You know, you get told it's unlikely... nobody cares, though, 'cause when you're a student they're always saying shit like that. 'It's gonna be so much harder in the real world.' Fuck. Nobody says anything like 'you won't be able to talk like a human being without putting your finger to your lips like a head case,'" I spat. "They just tell you not to go feral."

"Feral?"

"Oh, yeah. Guys will get assigned a new race to work with, and they'll get so attached that they don't want to revert. That's a hazard in the Proteus Corps. They treat it officially like it's this horrible thing, but they don't really think so. 'Cause the way they say it, they make it like... 'Oh, it's so cool, you could want to give up your Terran body forever!'" I shrugged -- now that I had actually made the plunge, my college innocence seemed particularly stinging. "Of course it goes the other way, too. In Toronto, where I grew up, there was a lot of old Taurish and Carwyn folk who'd taken our... 'Our,'" I scoffed, and shook my head. "Who am I kidding? Your appearance. They'd taken your appearance, and didn't want to give up their skin, so they just stayed looking like that."

"Could you tell by looking at 'em?"

"Sometimes. But the Family guarantees off-worlders' safety, so it's not like they had anything to worry about. Sometimes, people just like the change..." I sighed, and stared at the mass of little brown pieces, each the size of a marble and approximately as appetizing. The striped uniform Rebecca wore, I realized, was probably UNDC, which meant that the ugly yellow sash that crossed it would've been a glorious scarlet to human eyes. Damn it all. "You? How'd you get into this?"

"Liked the stars, I suppose," she said. "I've never set foot on an alien world; I just run the ships. But it's interesting to see new constellations. The new cruisers are so easy to keep surfing that they only need one person to run, and I was put up for this after I got my certification. First trip alone. I think I'll keep doing it, though. UNDC starfaring service, you know, there's a lot of strange things out there."

"Like me?"

Her laughter was pleasant -- like she was in on the joke, rather than mocking me. "You? Oh, you aren't the strangest thing by a long shot. My first solo watch, about... a year and a half ago, Earth time? I remember I was on a big UNDC cruiser headed for Tannach Ser-Danru -- you been out that way?"

"When I was four. I don't remember it."

"Well, there's no direct route between Earth and Tannach. There's a junction, out in the middle of nowhere, where the Perle terminus from Earth ends, and there are gates where you can either dial in to Tannach or to... Narkirra, I think? It's another carwyn colony, anyway -- we were carrying a bunch of car' diplomats. And we were coming up on the terminus, and here I am, alone on the bridge. It's my first time soloing a dial-in, and I am all nerves." She laughed again, with a self-deprecating shrug; it was a lovely sound and a needless gesture. "Worried I'll screw it up, right, and all of the sudden the collision alarm goes crazy. Now, a cruiser has so much bulk that it can't really maneuver, especially not when it's surfing, but I burned the retros anyway. You're not supposed to do that in J-space, I know -- but I panicked. And I'm sitting here, glued to the scope, and all of the sudden there's this... this moaning."

"Moaning?"

"Yeah. Moaning. You know, your ears are perked up."

Reflex. I didn't have the muscle control to lower them again -- and in any case I was interested in listening. "Color me curious."

"It's fine. It makes you look really cute, actually. Don't hold it against me. So anyway, this moaning... it's quiet -- at first I thought I'd hallucinated it. But then I heard it again. It was like... distant whalesong, is the only way I can describe it. Eerie -- really eerie. But I managed to focus, and... checked to make sure that we weren't actually going to hit anything on the scope. We weren't, so... I throttled up and we made it through the terminus and into the next Perle gate just fine."

"Did you figure out what it was?"

Rebecca took a moment to answer; her eyes, from what I could see of them, were focused well beyond me and the wall of the ship. "Yeah. So it turns out there was a carwyn wagon train -- uh, a convoy of settlers -- headed for some world they were terraforming, and just inside the junction they got ambushed."

"Rekkuthi?"

"No. Avallini, is what I was told."

"Jesus." The rekkuthi -- large cats with massive upper canine teeth -- sometimes stalked the corridors and were an acknowledged threat, but they at least had the decency to attack ships for food and materials. Avalinese hunters killed for sport.

"No survivors, of course. Anyway, the ships drifted out of the lane and broke up. I was hearing the sound of a pressure hull imploding. The lower components reflect almost perfectly off the chronocline at the boundary of the corridor and the Charrash multifold. What's left are... echoes -- three-century-old echoes. They're getting weaker every cycle. Someday all that's going to be left is the debris field."

"Did anyone else say anything?"

"Nah. I guess it's common knowledge. The carwyn used to think that human traders were crazy -- then they thought they were cursed. You know, when they said they'd been hearing things. Carwyn can't make out low-frequency sounds, so it doesn't bother them." She finished her quiche with a flourish; the end of dinner and the end of her story having coincided, she laughed once more. "So like I said, strange things."

"You're an explorer."

"Aren't you?"

"I'm an idiot," I said. "Mostly. My dad always used to talk about how great foreign service was. But he was a businessman, you know? Working for NorthAm, not UNDC -- it's so different. NorthAm treats its employees really well. UNDC... it's a fucking joke by comparison. Most people get into it 'cause they really believe in all this Family unity..."

"You don't?"

I stalled my response by taking a mouthful of the kibble, crunching down heavily. They were bland and tasteless, but my nose filled with the scent of cooked meat. It took me a moment to remind myself that I didn't want to enjoy the smell. "The Family is a lot like the UN -- mostly bickering. If the... the wolves are at the door, so to speak? They can pull together. You ever think about why nearly everybody in the Family started out as prey? I mean, yeah, yeah, sure, the Progenitors fucked with them, fine, but they're basically all, you know... deers, or cows, or buffalo, or rabbits..."

"Well, there's the shash. I was in a bar on a Family trading station, once, and a shash came in. Just drinking, but when she laughed... oh, those teeth! She must've been two and a half, three meters tall? Besides, aren't the, uh... who are they, the el-druzna, aren't they supposed to be genetically, uh, chipmunks or something?"

"Squirrels. Sure, some of the ethnicities in the Family are omnivorous, like us. But for the most part, it's all prey animals. And you know why? It's a herd, that's all it is, a fucking herd. The rekkuthi show up, or there's warnings about a formigan encroachment, and the Family gets into a fucking circle and everything's beautiful. The rest of the time? Useless. They told us about that in one of my ISR classes. One of the first times terrans got involved in the Family was negotiating a deal on selling grain to a starving taurish colony -- and I mean starving. It took three years to close the deal. Hell, it takes them eight hours just to get through dinner."

"But you joined up anyway."

"My parents thought I should go into the family business. But if you want to work for NorthAm, you need to go through business school, and I couldn't make the math prereqs. Anyway, a lot of UNDC veterans go to work for the corporation eventually, so it's kind of like a detour."

"And the corporate guys don't do the Proteus thing, right?"

I shook my head. "Nah, they stay human. NorthAm doesn't really trade outside the Family much. That's why I wanted the Wuntharra posting -- Family work looks really good on your résumé. The deal is that UNDC will post me there after I solve this problem. I just... really wish I'd known what I was getting into. I wish somebody would've told me that I wouldn't be able to use a spoon."

"It's okay, really. You'll get through this -- I swear. I'm here to help, remember?" She grinned, and I found that I was starting to get used to the odd color of her face. "When you're finished with dinner, you should probably start getting ready for bed. I know you're not tired, but the first day out of the box is really draining on your system."

This left me laying flat on my back, peering into the darkness of the small alcove that surrounded my bed. Presently I discovered that I could see shapes -- dim ones, to be sure, but Rebecca had told me that the alcove was completely lightless. To humans, no doubt; to me, these slight patterns were unnerving distractions, and they lingered in the fringes of my thoughts.

Every sensation was muted but unmistakable. My ears twitched to the sounds of recirculators and the rhythm of the ship's maintenance systems; to the soft tread of the captain's feet as she went about her rounds. Periodically, the neurostimulator lightly attached to either side of my head disturbed a piece of fur in just the right way to provoke a slight itch -- but they had been precisely calibrated, and I was not supposed to touch them.

I dreamt of madness, and awoke feeling ever so slightly disconcerted.

"Here." Rebecca handed me a deep bowl, with handles cut out of the edges to account for the poor grip of my fingers. "It's just water. You can either tip it back like a bowl of soup, or you can... don't take this the wrong way, okay? You can lap at it. I don't know if you know how to do that, though."

"I don't."

"Okay. Well, so your tongue is anchored further back in your mouth than a human's would be, if you haven't noticed."

I didn't exactly mean to growl, but this was nonetheless the sound that emerged. "I noticed my speech impediment, if that's what you mean."

"You're sounding better, actually," she said -- no doubt, I suspect, as encouragement rather than a statement of fact. She pulled out a small computer, tapping a few times until she found what she wanted. "Anyway, it says here in the ASM you want to curl your tongue backwards and down to scoop up the water, and then draw it quickly into your mouth."

I took the bowl hesitantly, favoring the captain with an arched, suspicious eyebrow. It was easy enough to figure out what she meant, although the timing was difficult -- on my first attempt, most of the water ran back out of my muzzle and into the bowl; on the second, my haste to close my mouth nearly cost me the tip of my tongue. Soon enough, though, I got the hang of it, and when I had managed a few solid mouthfuls I set the bowl aside, dabbing at my muzzle with the back of a finger. "It's a bit messy."

"You can't win every battle, Jess. I'm going to go get breakfast ready. Keep practicing?"

You get to understanding a new body the same way as you get to Carnegie Hall. Rebecca had not returned by the time I had drunk my fill, so I experimented with other uses of my tongue, which was not as strong as a human's would be, but seemed to be more flexible. I discovered, to my (begrudging) delight, that I could use it instead of a finger to make troublesome human sounds like "m" and "b" and "p." This, if nothing else, kept me from looking as though I was perpetually trying to stifle a sneeze.

After twenty-four hours, I found I was more resigned to my new form, and this permitted me to treat breakfast as a learning experience. The UN served up kibble for me, again; fortunately for my sanity the pancakes Rebecca had been provisioned with looked more like roadkill, and I didn't find myself tempted. For the first few bites -- before hunger asserted itself -- I picked up the bits of food one kernel at a time, trying to gauge my manual dexterity.

"So dainty," Rebecca observed, stabbing at a blob of pancake with her fork -- still no utensils for me, even though I had resolved not to try breaking them again.

"It's harder than it looks," I admitted. "My fingers don't come together right. Is that just another thing I'm going to have to get used to? No... no, it must not be. I saw a jandakher using chopsticks once. Is that something you're supposed to train me on, I take it?"

"Not chopsticks, specifically. Reflexes, though. It can wait until after breakfast -- I don't really want to try my luck."

"Try your luck?" But she didn't elaborate further, and I returned to the process of consuming my breakfast. Part of me wanted to just shove my muzzle into the bowl, like a dog might -- I beat this down, and continued in my laborious way until I had eaten all I cared to.

With the plates in the recycler, Rebecca and I returned to the storage area of the ship. The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea was a standard light diplomatic vessel -- a rotating cylinder a little over a hundred and twenty meters wide. In the cargo holds, the sensation of immensity was unmistakable; in the quarters, low ceilings prevented one from becoming disoriented on account of the artificial environment.

"Try not to let your focus wander." Rebecca's eyes, I noticed, were fixed firmly on the ground in front of her. "If you get distracted, you're liable to be sick."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Alright, stay there, okay?"

I came to a halt. "What are we doing?"

Rebecca turned to face me; then her arm drew back, and something went soaring up into the cylinder. It was a bright yellow against the utilitarian grey of the ship's bulkheads, and its demure arc gave me plenty of time to reach out my hand and catch it. Didn't want to try my luck, I recalled her saying.

"Really?" I raised my voice to call across the space between us. "A fucking tennis ball? We're playing fetch?"

"It's part of your transition kit, Jesse. It's written into the Assimilation Support Manual. Toss it back here."

Objectively, I suppose, the United Nations had a point -- but it seemed a bizarre and slightly cruel joke to train my reflexes with a tennis ball. I lobbed it back to Rebecca, and was slightly dismayed to see it swerve past her, so that she had to catch it on its rebound. I felt my ears draw back, apologetically and entirely of their own accord.

"It's alright," she said. "You're still training your muscles. I'm going to throw it a bit faster now, okay?"

I grabbed for the ball, as it came at me in a yellow blur, but my fingers closed a half-second too late. This made it my turn to scramble for the thing -- a spectacle, no doubt, for my ears caught the sound of Rebecca trying to stifle her laughter. My return throw, however, was a little closer to the mark, and she caught it without difficulty.

The problem was one of aiming. My depth perception had generally faltered, and I found that I could only clearly focus on a very narrow area of my field of vision. This meant that while I could keenly see the movement of the ball, I was not able to accurately judge where it was going until it was too late. Then, when it finally entered the range at which I could make the estimate, a sort of lag affected my ability to position my hand. Catching the ball required being able to anticipate this, and I was falling short.

Despite my best efforts, and Rebecca's constant reassurances, I grew increasingly frustrated. Finally I could take no more of the abuse, and after one final attempt left me skidding across the floor of the starship, I growled and sat down heavily. "Fuck it. I'm done with this."

The captain joined me, waving her hand to brush off my profanity. "No, it's perfectly understandable. Let's take a break."

"Sure. I'm sure the Assimilation Support Manual has something brilliant for the next part of the agenda. Tug of war, maybe? You have a cat for me to chase?"

"Have you been reading ahead in your study-book, Jess?" At my disconsolate growl, she laughed softly. "You aren't a 'dog person,' are you?"

"No," I admitted. "I'm not."

"Parents didn't have one growing up?"

"They did. A purebred Canadian silver shepherd." Argent, the fuzzy and dimwitted companion of my youth -- and it was not as though the memories were particularly bothersome. I just hadn't thought of the dog in some time -- not even on waking up, and seeing what I looked like. Argent, I think, might've recognized me for kin. "Mom got him to guard the house. She was kind of paranoid that way. I don't think it would've mattered. He was too damned friendly to threaten anybody. That, and he spent most of his time licking his..." I caught myself. "Cleaning himself. He spent most of his time cleaning himself."

She chuckled. "Have you tried it? Maybe you're missing out." Rebecca looked at my expression, and laughed again. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself. So if you're not a dog person, what are you? Cats?"

"Iguanas. I really like iguanas. Have since I was very young."

"Yeah?"

"When I was a kid, NorthAm used to send mom and dad to meetings down in a Corporation enclave further south. I had a lot of free time, 'cause they were always busy. I spent it in the arboretum, and... there were lizards there, if you knew where to look for 'em. We spent so much time together." I tried to laugh, but the sound was hoarse and alien.

Rebecca either didn't notice or, in her perplexing way, found the sound charming; she smiled, the way we do on recalling childhood memories. "You know, nobody on Chechenurra is Family, are they? You could've put in for there."

"No." I tossed the tennis ball lightly back and forth between my hands until it finally struck me what bothered me most about that statement. "No, see. That's the biggest fucking problem with the whole goddamned Proteus Corps. Just because I like iguanas doesn't mean I want to be an iguana. I don't get why people don't understand the difference. Being human is really great. Then I get this." I gestured to my body; the thick, dense fur shielded only by the shorts the UN had provided to preserve some modicum of my decency.

The movement cost me my grip on the tennis ball, and Rebecca grabbed it before it could roll away. She turned it between her fingers slowly. "You really weren't meant for this, huh?"

"I'm meant for the diplomacy. Just not this... not this assimilation bullshit."

"Do you even know what your assignment is?"

"Yeah. It's just negotiating a parity swap. If that goes well, maybe a full diplomatic mission."

"Parity swap?"

It was a common concept in the discipline, but I had forgotten that not everybody followed the nuances of interstellar trade. "Basically, the Family... because the Family is all-loving and all-forgiving they don't really mind us eating meat. They just don't like seeing us raising cows for slaughter, especially 'cause the uororongo are so powerful in the Diet."

"The who?"

"The taurish. They call themselves uororongo," I repeated -- giving the vowels their proper nasal character and the long intonation with which the taurish spoke. I finally had the resonance of a proper muzzle, and the effect made Rebecca giggle. "They call us, uh, nauroula dorondoron urjumono ungon dororongona gaal-galag. It means, euh... something like, 'the flesh-eating monkeys who are somewhat like us, but are also not like us and are small and weak.' So if you ever wondered why it takes so damned long to negotiate with them, it's because that's what all of their words are like."

She chuckled softly. "I didn't know. Carwyn isn't that bad, from what I've heard." She stared at the tennis ball like a scryer, rubbing at the fuzz with her thumb. "They don't make us learn other languages. Everything's in English. But I get it; you mean the taurish. And they don't like us farming cattle, because they feel some kind of kinship with them?"

"Yeah. And I mean, it ain't that uncommon. The always say, you know, you hae to remember that sapients and non-uplifted animals aren't the same. Subconsciously, though? Fuck. We didn't trade with the el-druzna for twenty years after we learned they were subjecting their australopithecines to medical experiments."

Those embargoes had only been lifted two years previously, and from the way Rebecca shuddered I gathered that she remembered the ad campaigns that had lobbied fiercely to keep them in place. "I heard somebody say that the only reason the Family took us in was 'cause the Secretary-General at the time was Indian, and he convinced them that we weren't all cow-eating barbarians. I guess that's why we're going to Jandakh now? They're ranchers?"

Close enough, I supposed. "They're not all hunter-gatherers or raiders like the urrulathi," I explained. "The southern continents, especially, raise a lot of livestock, so the UN thinks that we can get some goodwill in the Family if we draw back cattle ranching here and buy the difference off the Harrat Dagan. Thing is, if we buy so many million tons of cattle off them, they're losing fertilizer and biomass to us. The trick is to find a balance that will keep both colonies evenly matched. In ISR, it's called a 'parity swap' -- you want to make sure neither planet feels they're jeopardizing their long-term survival for a short-term trade."

Rebecca nodded. "That makes sense. I know they make freighter captains weigh in and out; check to make sure everything balances every few cycles."

"It's something you don't think about, sometimes, but... it's important, in the long run. I'm actually kind of looking forward to the negotiation... I always scored well in our mock debates, back in school." I gave a quiet laugh -- a soft, chortling whuff of breath; the university seemed so long ago now.

"I thought you didn't want to be here?" The captain's eyebrow arched, and she nodded to the tennis ball as a token of my distaste.

"It's not that. I like the diplomacy. I just don't like the idea that it has to be in this body." But it was more complicated than that; I sighed, and tried to explain myself. "I feel like nobody really understands that. Like I'm... like I'm missing something important."

"Maybe," Rebecca agreed. "I bet a lot of people think you're ungrateful. Or they would, if you said that. Most of us, you have to remember, we don't know what it's like -- we just know that the Proteus Corps is incredibly prestigious -- and yet here you are, throwing that out. And we get fed these lines, all our lives, about how interesting it is to 'see the world through somebody else's eyes' or how you can only talk about somebody once you've 'walked a kilometer in their shoes.' You've got the opportunity to do that in a way that nobody else ever has. Isn't that a good reason to be just a little envious?"

Perhaps it was, at that, but I still found the thought more than slightly trite. I took a long look at my big, ungainly paws -- the short, misshapen fingers, covered in alien brown fur and so unable to grip a pen, or play a piano. "What was your favorite animal, when you were growing up?"

"I liked cats. Tigers, especially. There were tigers all over my bedroom wall, when I was a girl."

"So would you want to ship out to the Ran-ra-tan sector?"

She looked at me thoughtfully, her clear blue eyes soft and pensive. "I'm not sure," she finally admitted.

"I understand the opportunity. I really do. But... two years as a dog? Four or six with comp-opt?" I shook my head. "Fuck that."

"Hey, now, a wolf. And four or six with what?"

"Comp-opt. You sign up for a two-year term, but if they decide they need you, they can extend that up to three additional times. Most times they only do it twice, though. 'Compulsory optional re-enlistment.'" I found myself growling. It was one of the stupidest in a line of stupid oxymorons in the United Nations, and... "For me? First diplomatic mission to the planet? Yeah, I'm going to spend at least six fucking years as a... fine, a wolf, if you think that makes it more noble or whatever. I could get over it if it wasn't so damned frustrating. My fingers, my eyes... everything's worse. It's like I've suddenly acquired this massive disability from nowhere and people are trying to make it like it's some goddamned miracle instead of --"

"Everything's worse?"

"Haven't seen anything yet that wasn't."

"Catch," Rebecca said curtly -- and then, before I could think, she flung the tennis ball hard at the opposite wall.

What followed happened in slow motion. It left my field of vision quickly, and then the ball struck home with a sharp thunk, and my ears swiveled -- zeroing in on its location with laser precision. I could see the bright-yellow motion blur streak back towards me like tracer fire, and my arm stretched out by reflex. Before I was truly aware of it, I felt the impact on my palm, and my fingers closing tightly around the ball.

"So. Everything?"

I was stunned by the speed at which it had all happened -- and the clean, razor-sharp focus and response of my reflexes, freed from the shackles of my self-doubt. "Well..."

"Everything?" she repeated, with a grin and an arch to her eyebrows that accented the sapphire beneath.

"I guess I'll clean up at jai alai."

It was a small victory, but since I had no choice beyond accepting my new body I took it for what it was worth. And I learned, with Rebecca's guidance, to find other things. There was, for example, the curious and intriguing interplay of high notes in jandakh music -- notes that Rebecca could not hear but seemed, after extended listening, to carry a subtle and profound beauty to my ears. It was not part of my official training, but Rebecca engaged me in games of hide and seek, and I discovered that -- properly attuned -- my sensitive nose made it impossible for her to hide.

By three weeks into the trip, painstaking hours of study had honed my command of language, Targa and English alike. I was reasonably conversant in both, and my speech impediments had mostly faded. My reflexes, too, had improved; on a good day I could catch Rebecca's tennis ball nine times out of ten. Manual dexterity took more time, but day by day I was able to fasten the buttons of my diplomatic uniform faster -- first ten minutes, with accompanying profanity, then five, then three; then finally I could do it nearly as well as a human being could.

At dinner, halfway through the fourth week, Rebecca presented me with a small box, wrapped in decorative paper and tied in a bow. I was growing less wistful for human eyes, as the memories of color faded; slight variations in the yellow of the paper led me to suspect it was probably decorated in bright balloons. She had knotted the ribbon ornately, and watched my struggles with a wry smile.

Finally, I was able to untie the thing, and the paper fell victim to my claw without much difficulty; when I opened the box, Rebecca grinned, and this toothy smile became an outright laugh as I lifted the concealed object from it. "Happy now?"

"I... you know, I am," I admitted. "Did the UN finally decide to give me this, or..."

"Nope. I found a pattern for a spoon in the rapid prototyping database, and made some tweaks. You should be able to hold it more easily."

The spoon had a deep bowl, and the handle was scored with hatch-marks so that the smooth pads on my fingers could find purchase. It was ideally suited for the pressed, dry kibble that I was still being compelled to eat and, after a few bites, it was easily possible to appreciate the difference. "Thank you," I said quietly. "This was very kind of you."

"Don't mention it. You've really been coming along, and I thought it was time you --" before she could finish, the lights went out and The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea was plunged into near-complete darkness.

"What was that?"

"How would I know? I don't know why it's still dark, either... the emergency lights should've come on by now." They had not; the ship was illuminated only by a few dim control panels and signal lamps.

I found, however, that this was sufficient to make my way around. "There's enough light for me to see by. Stay there for a moment, and I'll get a flashlight." I picked my way through the dull grey shapes -- glancing back, the way Rebecca's head turned to follow the sound of my footsteps told me that the darkness must, for her, have been absolute.

When I pressed the plastic flashlight into her palm, she turned it on immediately, let out a startled gasp, and dropped it to the floor. It took a moment of fumbling to recover it, and she looked at me guiltily. "Sorry about that. Your, um. Your eyes glow, in the light. It was disconcerting."

"I guess I can't blame you. Where are we going?"

"Forward. To the systems control room, or maybe the engine bay. It looks like they're both still pressurized, at least."

"How can you tell?"

The flashlight beam swung up, to a glowing amber lamp above the airlock. "'Cause the light's green. If it was red, that would be because the computer had registered a fault in the atmospherics."

"I'm color-blind," I pointed out. "That doesn't help me."

"We can register a complaint with the Equality Board later. For now..." She spun the wheel to unseal the hatch and stepped through, into a world of blinking lights that, so far as I was concerned, all looked mostly the same. "Oh, well... that's simple enough, then. I see the problem."

"What is it?"

Her nimble hands brushed over the panels -- the displays flickered and changed almost too fast for my eyes to follow. "Well, it's just that the life support system is offline, that's all."

My ears adopted an agitated perk, invisible in the dim light. "Oh, is that it?"

"Yeah. I just don't know why... you know, I hate software engineers. Look at this -- 'Error 516: General fault. User will never see this error! Tell Dan on the 4th floor.' Really? Well, Dan, I'm looking at it right the hell now."

"If the life support system is broken, how much oxygen do we have left?"

"Enough. Uh, day or two; this ship is big. CO2 is really the problem, actually, or... well, freezing. We could freeze. Can you move?" She gave me a nudge, guiding me away from another panel.

Subconsciously, my ears had lowered; my voice was a little hesitant. "How long until that happens?"

"Uh... twelve hours? Maybe sixteen? Look, Jess, you're great, but why don't you wait outside?"

Chastised, I made my way back through the hatch and slumped down the bulkhead wall. It had only been a few minutes, but I was certain that I could feel the oxygen content dwindling. My breathing was unsteady.

What the hell had I gotten myself into? I found myself wondering, morbidly, how the UN would handle the funeral arrangements. Would they bury both my jandakh and my human bodies? Presumably they would thaw out my human one for the viewing. I didn't want my parents to see me fur-clad, not when I was too dead to explain myself. But then, what would happen with this body? Cremated? Jettisoned out the airlock like so much garbage? How did the jandakh treat their dead, anyway?

It was in the course of hyperventilating that my nose caught the scent of something wrong in the air -- a slight chemical odor that I placed, after a moment or two, as the smell of something burning. Plastic, I thought. Fires in a spaceship were a serious affair; I judged this to be sufficient reason to unfasten the airlock, and did so to find Rebecca still swearing at the controls.

"What's up?" She was distracted, and didn't bother to turn and look at me.

"I think I smell a fire -- burnt plastic, anyway."

"What, right now?" She sniffed a few times, shaking her head. "I don't smell anything. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. It's weaker in here."

She followed me back into the adjoining section, and then shook her head. "I still don't notice anything, but... your nose is better than mine. Can you tell where it's coming from?"

The scent was, I thought, fainter than it had been, but there was still enough left to pick it up again. I paced the room carefully -- yes, it was definitely stronger in the forward half of the section, and stronger at head level than it was near the floor. "Is there any way to get up?"

"There's a space up there, with access to a junction box, but the ladder is electrically activated." She pointed to a ledge, two or three meters above my head, with the beam of her flashlight. "So I'm not sure..."

I swallowed, heavily, and tensed the muscles in my legs. Before I could allow my nagging doubts to still them, I sprung for the ledge, and caught it solidly in my outstretched fingers. Then it was simply a matter of pulling myself up, and I discovered to my pleasant surprise that, even after several weeks on a starship in lowered gravity, Jesse as a jandakher was still substantially stronger than Jesse as a human.

"Not bad," Rebecca called from below me. "The ladder?"

An electrical motor drove its extension, but I found that it wasn't too hard to overpower the resistance and unfold it by hand. As she climbed up -- with rather more difficulty than I had managed -- I returned to sniffing for the source of the burning. The access panel Rebecca had mentioned was decidedly well marked with the scent; I felt over it, found that it was not warm to the touch and pried it open.

The contents were dark, but the smell of melted plastic hit me in a rush. Jackpot. I had doubts about my ability to localize the scent, already fading, to one of the components nestled within, but the captain's flashlight beam swept over a small white box with evident black scoring, rendering the effort unnecessary. "Good work," she said, and reached in to remove the box, turning it over in her fingers. "I'd say this is it. You could really smell this?"

"Yeah."

She shook her head, holding the box close to her nose and inhaling deeply. "If you say so. It's the life support feedback co-regulator. It's an auxiliary module, and it's supposed to be impossible to break. Power surge or some stray radiation must've hit it just right."

"Can you fix it?"

"No. I'd have to ask Fourth-Floor Dan for that. But I can bypass it, no problem." She shimmied down the ladder and, after closing the panel access hatch, I did the same. Back in the ship's control room, she flipped a few switches and gestured to an impenetrably complex diagram on the monitor. "See? Now all we have to do is... close your eyes?"

I did, and was favored with a dull red glow as the ship's lights came back on -- dimly. When I opened them again, Rebecca was back at work, but the angry flashing that had marked our first entrance into the chamber had stilled noticeably.

"Now the only problem is going to be not freezing to death." Her voice had a starship captain's fatalistic cheer to it, and when she caught my worried look she grinned. "Fortunately you found the source of the problem early."

Praise was relatively far from my mind. "Why are going to freeze?"

Rebecca shrugged. "When you reset a big system like life support, the computer has to recalibrate everything. It takes anywhere from four to six hours to do a deep cycle. Oxygen recirculators and the scrubbers come up first. Heat last, because it's so sensitive."

"Sensitive?"

"Well, the ship generates heat right off the main reactor. So if it's miscalibrated, it could push this to a hundred degrees before you even know anything's wrong."

"That's heartening."

She nodded, and tapped at her controls for a few seconds more. The lights flickered, and when they returned she gave me a wry smile. "Now we just hunker down in the thermal blankets 'til it's over. Come along."

I followed her, through the dull lights of the wounded vessel's interior, past our normal living quarters and into a room that she assured me had its own oxygen supply and was insulated from the already noticeable chill outside the ship.

"Alright, strip."

"What?" Touched with surprise, my voice had a sharper tone than I'd initially intended.

Rebecca's uniform blouse was already unbuttoned and halfway off. "Are you not familiar with the term? Remove your clothes. The thermal blankets are better insulators."

Splitting my attention between unfastening the buttons and studiously avoiding looking in the captain's direction, I obeyed, and when I had divested myself of the last of my clothes she tossed a heavy silver blanket to me, gesturing with her head to an area of the floor that was heavily padded.

"Undo the fasteners, and climb inside. You'll stay warm, trust me."

The clasps were magnetic, and, having set the blanket down on the floor, I slipped inside it. There was a slight prickling sensation -- static electricity, I supposed -- but the accommodation was otherwise satisfactory. "Now what?"

"Meditate or something. Sleep, if you want -- or can. Computer, command dictation -- illumination, this room, five percent, end dictation." The lights dimmed further, until the room was nothing but shadows and dull, unmoving forms. Then she was quiet, and because I had nothing to say the room fell still.

"Does this happen often?" I asked, when the silence became unbearable.

"I don't know," she said. "Never to me before. I guess probably most times it happens, you never hear from the ship again." The slightest, most imperceptible hint of vulnerability had crept into her tone. "That happens a lot, I know. It's not as bad as it used to be, but everybody knows friends who've... vanished."

"Including you?"

Her voice was soft. "Including me. You know... the whole computer diagnostic system is based around that co-regulator being infallible. If you hadn't found it, we would've died. I'm not saying you should be happy with who you are. I'm just saying that... I am, because... I owe my life to it."

"I guess it's not all bad."

"No."

"I could probably live with this."

"For a bit, anyway. Do you have enough room over there to draw your head into the blanket, Jess? I don't want your nose to freeze."

"Enough room?" The blanket was voluminous -- far larger, I saw from a hasty glance, than Rebecca's was. "I think this was designed for a shash."

"They must've given us the wrong size."

I felt my ears go back, and in the traditional way of the hypochondriac I found myself convinced that I was getting colder. "Is that a problem?"

She clucked her tongue. "It's supposed to be closer to form-fitting. Not skin-tight, but... hmm. Well, needs must." There was more rustling, from her adjoining blanket, and in the soft light I saw a shade arise from the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Joining you."

"Are you --"

"Hush. It's already getting cold out here." A moment later, the clasps of the blanket popped open momentarily, and I was joined by a warm, solid presence. The clasps snapped closed, one by one, and I was reminded of the sound of a cell door closing. "Hey there."

I turned to face her; even in the nearly lightless room it was possible to see her warm grin. "Hello," I managed, and got out nothing further before she pressed herself right up close to my body. "Is this... you don't have to do this, you know."

"If I get to Jandakh and all I have to show for it is a dogsicle, they'll have my head. Besides, this is warmer anyway, right?"

"Right..."

She put both her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulder. "So deal with it."

After a moment to consider my options, I repaid her gesture in kind. Rebecca gave an appreciative sigh, as the furry warmth of my arms draped over her -- her breath tickled my fur, and I had to fight to keep from squirming. But things could be worse; the heat of her body was infinitely preferable to the dry, staticky friction of the thermal blanket at my back, and the rise and fall of her chest was a comfortable metronome. "Thanks."

"Mm-hmm," she said. "But I get something out of it, too. Everybody wins. It's a, mm -- what did you call it? A parity swap."

"Yeah." We settled back into silence for a time, although her fingers began to play along my upper back -- also ticklish. I opened my mouth to protest. "Er..."

Before I could say anything, however, Rebecca shook her head with a giggling laugh. "Fuzzy."

"What?"

"You're fuzzy," she said, and poked my back. "Like a big stuffed animal."

"Oh." The comparison hadn't struck me before. "I suppose."

Unswayed by the hesitance of my reply, Rebecca squeezed me warmly. "I've wanted to do this for a while now."

The attention wasn't exactly unwelcome; she was warm, at least, and it felt reassuring to have her arms at my back. Still, I was slightly perplexed. "Why?"

"Because you're cute."

"Cute?" I no longer recoiled from my reflection, but I had yet to find it terribly appealing.

"Mm-hmm," she said again. "Fuzzy little wolf man. Big wolf man. Whatever..."

It put me in a difficult place, as far as replying was concerned. I found Rebecca cute as well, but because this was in the sense that I found her attractive, and not in the sense that I found her adorable, it seemed an impolitic thing to admit. "Maybe that was the Progenitors' goal."

"Maybe," came the distracted echo. Silence again, during which the tickling dance of her fingers settled into something more like a rhythmic petting.

There was something soothing and very pleasurable about the touch of her warm, smooth hands at my back; I remembered the muscles of my tail long enough to give it a few thumping wags. I felt her laugh, rather than heard it, muffled as it was in the ruff of my cheek; it was a few minutes, still, until she spoke again, her finger prodding my side.

"I'm glad you feel the same way about me."

The statement itself was not untrue, but I wasn't sure how she had divined this information. "What?"

"You're, ah... evincing signs of physical arousal."

"Eh?" Her phrasing was not helpful, and my head tilted with the question. This time I heard her laugh; she leaned back, and her hand gave the fur of my back an affectionate ruffle.

"You have an erection, Jess."

Perplexingly, this took me by surprise, but when I let my senses wander down between my legs it did, in fact, appear to be true; now I did squirm, and it took a firm grip of her hands to still me.

"Stop. I'm not going to freeze because you got embarrassed."

"Ah, Jesus, though. I'm sorry, captain." My ears were back, as far as they could go -- I was mortified. It wasn't that I found her unappealing, far from it -- but I viewed my body admitting as much a cruel betrayal.

"It's okay," she reassured me. "I don't mind."

This was well and good for her; as for me, I was still reeling. "I really didn't... I really don't mean to be, ah, like this. I'm sorry."

Because she was a decent person, at heart, Rebecca at least refrained from teasing me; she remained still, and the soothing touch of her hands along my shoulder blades resumed. She was not, however, so decent a person as to refrain from sticking her tongue out at me and my words. "You mean you don't find me attractive?"

I swallowed. Think like a diplomat, I told myself. "Oh. It's not that, obviously. I do. But I don't -- pardon me, I don't mean this as insult, captain Christiansen -- consciously feel as turned on as... circumstances would suggest."

"Well," she said. "You're not erect erect."

No, but in the same manner as my parents' old Canadian shepherd, I could feel a few centimeters of bare flesh poking through the fur that normally concealed it and it was, of course, that very parallel that made the whole thing so much worse. "It sort of feels that way."

She patted my back softly. "Well, you can't help that. That's probably just the os penis." When I didn't answer -- not quite sure what she had said -- she explained. "You know, the penis bone."

"The what?"

"It's exactly what it sounds like, Jess. Which word don't you understand?"

I sighed. "I have... I have a bone in my dick? This is what I have been saying, Rebecca; the United Nations does not really prepare you at all for this service. They never sit you down and say, 'oh, and, you'll have a bone in your dick. Enjoy.' Never say that."

"Maybe they thought you'd figure it out on your own? It's in the 'physiology' supplement to the Assimilation Support Manual, you know."

"I haven't read it."

"Oh."

Actually, this posed a question. "Wait, though. Why have you read the parts of the physiology supplement to the Assimilation Support Manual that concern the bone in my dick?"

The light was insufficient to give Rebecca's blush the deep bronze color it would ordinarily have acquired, but her face still darkened, and her brow furrowed for a few seconds. "Idle curiosity?"

"Idle curiosity?" The tone of my question was a little more incredulous than hers had been.

"Well, you want to be informed. You know. Just in case."

"In case of what?"

The distraction had done wonders for my unwanted erection, which presently subsided, but the situation was still slightly uncomfortable. My sensitive nose, which had become accustomed to the way Rebecca ordinarily smelled -- enough to know that the scent was subtly different now -- allowed me to cheat a little, in the sense that I knew she had not been lying when she said she hadn't minded. This should probably have been gratifying; instead it was confusing -- I had a hard time finding my physical form appealing and saw little reason why anyone in their right mind would.

We spent the next few hours in silence -- not quite dozing, but not making anything more than idle conversation -- and when the computer chimed to announce the resumption of life support in the rest of the spaceship, we both left on reasonably quick terms.

The following morning, after uneasy dreams, I stood in the privacy of my cabin and peered curiously at the fur-downed bulk between my legs. A few hesitant strokes of my fingers along its length were sufficient to draw the pointed tip of my endowment forth -- this felt physically quite lovely, but I remained at a loss to explain why anyone might specifically seek it out.

Whether I could explain it or not, though, the fact remained, and the following days -- ticking quickly down to the end of The Ebb and Flow of an Immense Sea's journey at the Jandakh terminus -- passed awkwardly. We gave each other a wide berth, and when by accident we brushed each other in the corridor the resulting series of apologies sprawled like a tennis match, with the both of us moving quickly to demonstrate the sincerity of our regret.

Dinner, on our final night, passed in tense silence; I found that my visual acuity improved immensely when I did nothing but stare fixedly at my spoon, and for her part Rebecca made sure that every last bite of shepherd's pie counted, fletcherizing the poor thing with a vengeance.

"It's been fun," she announced suddenly, earnestly -- as though this could be used to open a conversation without seeming odd.

"What? Oh -- yes," I recovered, as quickly as I could. "It's been a lot of fun."

"You'll have good luck," she said, speaking to what remained of the shepherd's pie. "On the -- on Jandakh. The Garm planet. Dog star... thing. Good luck."

"Yeah. Lot of good luck. It'll be good. I mean, luck, that is. Will be good."

She nodded, still talking to her dinner. "And you'll have fun. Get to see some sights, right? Some, uh, some sightseeing?"

"I might."

"I bet they have beautiful sights, right? Very, um... pretty. You know -- scenic."

I was just now beginning to notice the textured surface of each grain of kibble -- so fascinating and unique, like a fingerprint or a snowflake. "Of course, I'll probably be very busy."

She looked up for the briefest of moments. "Oh, right, yeah."

"Also, I'm myopic and color-blind."

"True, good point. That's a good point. That's good... uh, ice cream."

My head cocked, though my ears remained most of the way back. "Ice cream?"

"I have some, if you'd like? If you like to eat ice cream?"

"I like to eat ice cream," I confirmed. We sounded like students picking English up as a fourth or fifth language -- but she seemed to understand, for she roused herself and vanished off into another section. She returned, a few minutes later, bearing two shallow bowls with a few generous scoops of something white and cold in each.

"I make ice cream on the, uh -- I mean, I don't make it... I have ice cream just before I transit the terminus. Like, uh... sort of to be in celebration of arriving. You know? It's just vanilla."

"With my mom, it was oranges," I said, taking a bowl from her. "I think it must be an old spacer's superstition, having something like that to end your trip. One time she forgot her oranges, so she made the pilot turn back for the surface so she could buy some more."

Rebecca nodded, and sunk her spoon into the unresisting ice cream deliberately. "Yeah. You can't be too careful with stuff like that. How is it?"

My spoon, which resembled the contrivances used in the consumption of certain asian soups, was ill-suited to the task at hand, and I spent a few abortive seconds pushing the ice cream around the bowl. Finally, giving in, I merely used the spoon to hold a scoop in place, lapping at it with an outstretched tongue. It was cold, and sweet -- I'd forgotten how good sweet tasted. "It's delicious," I said -- my head was tilted to the side, so that I could get my tongue between the spoon and the bowl.

Rebecca, of course, found this endlessly amusing, and passed her time in observing me until her own ice cream was soft and running like spilled paint. "It's not so bad, is it? I mean, the tongue. You seem to get by."

"I'm learning to manage." In the reflective surface of the spoon, my tongue was turning white but my face appeared -- maybe for the first time since I'd first awoken on the ship -- to be happy.

Back in my quarters, I packed my meager belongings quickly; then I had nothing to do but stare at the wall, and try to get ready for the following day. This entailed, as a matter of course, trying to remember my Targa and trying to ignore Rebecca, whose presence flitted unwanted through the corridors of my thoughts.

It was ridiculous, wasn't it? It wasn't my fault she indulged some strange inclination towards the khur. Was it just them? Was it also the shash? The taurish? And why did I care, anyway? What was so fucking shameful about it? The answer, which I knew and did not want to know, was that it was my shame, not hers; that it was my unwillingness to come to terms with who I was, and not her own.

But I was, after all, going to have to. Not carnally, of course -- that was not, so far as I knew, part of the diplomatic mission. But I was going to have to acknowledge my muzzle and my ears; to take into account the way my tail swept things from tables I happened to pass. Rebecca would be the last human I would encounter for some time -- and I was trying to ignore her because she liked me?

Hell, I liked her too.

I made my way forward intending to catch her in the mess hall or the common area, but as it happened she was on her way aft, back to her quarters. The corridor was narrow, and we each halted. She started to say something -- the platitude of a greeting, maybe -- and I let my instincts take over.

It had worked with the tennis ball.

I wrapped one long arm around her, to steady her and also to keep her from hitting the bulkhead wall I pinned her to. Then my muzzle was pressed to her lips, a hungry, deep contact made only slightly awkward by our disparate forms. Her eyes widened -- but she made no outward protest and, after a moment, she began to return the kiss.

Her lips parted, and I felt her tongue, skimming over my sharp white teeth. I repaid the favor in kind, teasing her with the flat, broad warmth of my own tongue, pressing forward to explore her mouth eagerly. There were hands, clutching at my sides and back, bunching up the fabric of my shirt, and I gave her the encouragement of a low, feral growl.

Her eyes went wide again -- that lovely, captivating blue, dancing with excitement. When we drew apart, her breath was coming in gasps. "What's gotten --"

"Oh, can it. You want this --"

"Well, I --"

"As much as I do," I finished, and twisted my muzzle in a canine grin. This admission sealed the deal, so far as she was concerned; our lips met again, and I felt her fingers at my shirt, saving me the trouble of undoing the garment. It was completely unfastened, and she was splaying her fingers into the fur of my chest, when I felt her draw back from me.

"Quarters," she mumbled breathlessly.

"Yours or mine?"

"Mine. Closer."

By a matter of meters, but it was a good enough reason. I disentangled myself from her, and followed her to the heavy hatch, spinning it open to reveal her room, in surprising disarray for a captain. The bed was covered in clothes -- laundry, I gathered. Either way they were soft, and served to cushion her fall when I guided her down and onto them.

She wore the same basic garment as I did, and many hours of practicing the dexterity of unfastening buttons served me well. The skin beneath I explored by feel; it was smooth and firm, the muscles taut under the touch of my short fingers. I pressed the shirt apart by centimeters, up towards her chest. My paws caressed her heatedly and she let out a moan -- a breathy sigh that left me flicking my ears with the inviting, musical sound.

I gave her bra perhaps five or ten seconds of awkward fumbling before she seemed to apprehend the difficulty and sat up, shaking her head and pushing me away. "Isn't fair," she murmured. "Haven't given you that lesson yet." It was gone in a matter of seconds, and I explored the soft, supple skin beneath with an eager paw. The teasing brush of silky, soft fur over her nipple fetched another moan, which deepened precipitously when I found the other with my tongue.

It was only for distraction, anyway; to keep her occupied with that soft, insistent touch, velvety and heated -- now circling her nipple, now favoring it with a long, insistent caress. Distraction, because my paws were unfastening her belt, pulling it apart and opening the catch of her pants. Perhaps consciously, perhaps by reflex she lifted her hips a little; either way it was enough to tug the slacks downward, which was enough encouragement to move on from her breast.

I favored her belly with little licks and nuzzles -- not having the lips with which to affect a proper kiss, one tends to find alternatives. Her long fingers found my ears, guiding me lower, until my muzzle rested at her crotch. Her panties concealed her only visually -- but I was no longer a visual creature, and the scent was intoxicating. I drew the fabric off with one claw, all the way down her long legs, rolling it into a ball that I discarded without ceremony.

Then I returned.

She parted her legs willingly when my muzzle nudged them wider, a soft, ticklish giggle and a squirm marking the touch of my whiskers along her inner thigh. I had more important things to do; stilling her with a firm paw at her hip, I worked along Rebecca's parted lips in a lingering first taste, putting enough pressure behind it so that my broad tongue splayed, blanketing her in soft warmth. She shivered, and her next breath escaped her in a moan.

I repeated the movement once, and then again, letting her experience my tongue fully, before I set to work -- lapping at her in quick, eager, urgent strokes that drew a series of hitching gasps from her tensing body. I gave her no quarter; she was, after all, the one who had taught me the movement in the first place, and I saw no reason why she should not benefit.

Her ragged breath was now broken, at intervals, by pleased, eager cries that could never have formed the shapes of words -- she was beyond those. Her fingers closed on my ears -- now stroking them, now squeezing with an effort that was almost, but not quite, painful in its urgency. Tongue curled, I pressed deeply inside her -- deeper, by far, than any human could, exploring her body hungrily.

Although the lights were still on, it was an experience far better suited to my own senses -- the sound of her cries, echoing off the walls of her cabin, with high overtones she probably did not even know she was making; the spicy musk of her arousal as it filled my muzzle and filtered into my brain like a narcotic. I needed more of it; nuzzling into her greedily, pressing the flat, smooth tip of my nose against her clit.

Rebecca's moans became abruptly deeper and more guttural; she stiffened, and I felt the captain tense and quiver around my tongue, buried deep within her folds. She cried out, and I worked my tongue into her, over and over, drawing out her climax until she gave my head a weak shove and I settled back on the floor, my panting breath nearly as strained as hers.

It took her some moments to recover; she seemed at times to do so, but then another twitch would animate her body and her breath would catch again. Finally she patted the bed next to her, and I pulled myself up and onto it, looking down at her with a grin.

"Fuzzy," she giggled, her breathing not quite back to normal, and reached up to caress my bare sides. "Oh, fuzzy, that tongue..."

"Straight from the United Nations Assimilation Support Manual," I teased.

"What does the Assimilation Support Manual say happens next?" She was grinning, and her bronze hair -- red, I suddenly realized, it must've been red -- spilled over the bed to frame her golden skin. She was not fuzzy, and no stuffed animal -- but god she was cute.

So I returned her grin, and waggled my ears playfully -- it was what she wanted to see, after all. "Well, you've read the physiological supplement..." I leaned on one elbow, and was pleased to discover that even in my distracted state I could undo my pants with one paw.

"Time for a hands-on lesson?" she asked, and I growled by way of answer.

When my densely furred leg nudged against the inside of her own, Rebecca's breath drew in quickly, with sharp anticipation. She parted her thighs gamely, and in some distant, non-feral part of my brain I understood there was no real chance of turning back. Not that I wanted to. I found my goal easily enough -- sodden, slippery and warm, it was hard to miss -- but the angle was wrong. I tried again, and this time felt the pointed tip of my shaft catch in the cleft of her parted lips. She gasped -- and then again, deeper, as, with a shift of my hips, I slipped into her.

This had been occasioned by the rigidity afforded by that bone, whose purpose I now understood. But it was not hard to figure out the rest; I rocked my hips deliberately in short, pistoning movements, sinking firmly into the wet, tight warmth between the captain's legs. Each thrust was deeper than the last, and each got me a pleased intake of breath from Rebecca, whose hands had returned to my back. She was feeling the same thing I was -- with every buck, I swelled larger, until my furry sheath was bunched up behind a long, thick, rigid shaft, buried snugly in the heat of Rebecca's body.

Instinctively, I wanted to lose myself in a frenzy of sharp bucks that I knew would end in a matter of seconds -- physiology supplement or no, nobody trusts dogs for stamina. I fought back my instincts and, muscles quivering with that restraint, started rocking my hips smoothly. Rebecca accented the wet, slick sound of each thrust with a gasping moan, and she matched my pace willingly, arching her back and rolling her hips to meet every stroke.

She felt wonderful; warm and yielding beneath my urgent thrusts, it was impossible to keep that slow pace for any length of time. Soon I began moving faster, bucking against her hips and the enfolding grip of her arms in the heady, desperate, rhythm of our coupling. She cried aloud as I plunged into her, rutting her with abandon, nibbling and biting on her bare shoulder to stifle my growls of delight.

I was, improbably, still growing larger, particularly around the base of my member, which now formed a pronounced bulb of aching flesh. Carnal instinct told me where this needed to find itself; I pumped my hips harder, grunting with exertion and desire, grinding in to hold myself deep inside and withdrawing only a few centimeters before repeating the process. After a few of these thrusts, I could feel Rebecca's body tugging at the base of my shaft, letting it go only with an effort.

I knew which thrust would be my last even as I made it; Rebecca's lips strained to take my shaft, yielding to it with a lewd, wet sound that told me, even as I started to draw back, that she would not be letting me go. My hips jerked forward in short, hitching thrusts, each forcing a wavering, deepening groan from my lover -- and then I felt myself snarl, unbidden, and shudder atop her.

Hips flush and grinding against hers as she keened in pleasure, I came. Locked deep inside her, my shaft jerked, and I began pumping her squirming body full of sticky canine seed. She gasped lewdly at each warm spurt; it took three, and then she was tensing as well, her sharp fingernails digging into my sides. She squeezed my shaft urgently, deeply, as my come spilled into her wanton depths in heated pulses and pleasure rolled through me with all the subtlety of a broken dam.

I slumped against her, pinning her heavy body in dense fluff, and, preoccupied with catching the breath that came in desperate pants against my pointed ear it took her a moment to find the presence of mind to press me onto my side. I was still trapped inside her, still spurting weakly, and she ran her hand down my back tenderly.

"How come you waited," she asked, "until the last day?"

Because I'm an idiot. But I didn't say this; instead, I laughed breathlessly. "Well, you see, I got this... this superstition, about getting close to the end of a trip..."

She snickered, and gave me a tight hug. "Sure you do." Her hips shifted a little, and she lifted an eyebrow. "Are you stuck?" She shifted again -- a provocative wiggle that I answered in the rumbling growl it deserved. "God -- you're still coming, too."

"Did you not read that part of the supplement?"

"No," she admitted, and sighed comfortably, draping her arms over my shoulders. "But I don't mind, I guess. You're going to make some Garm lass very happy, that's all I've got to say."

"Only diplomatically."

"They don't let you... you know..." In case I had any doubts, she gave my trapped member a squeeze, and favored me with a mischievous grin.

"It's not in the UNDC Diplomatic Codex. And if it isn't in the fucking Codex..."

She shook her head. "Find a loophole."

"Maybe."

"Mm. Promise me you wouldn't be celibate, at least?"

Now it was my turn; I ground my hips sharply against hers, and nibbled the curved rim of her ear. "Depends on how often you come to visit."

"When I can." She hugged me tighter, and a dramatic yawn left her.

Well, I was exhausted, too; I drew her close with my arms, and growled contentedly. "Make sure you do..."

Her reply was mumbled and indistinct, not coherent enough to craft an answer. Instead I just held her, stroking down her spine with the backs of my fingers, so that my dull claws caressed bare skin, over and over until darkness took me.

I awoke alone, and padded from the captain's cabin to find her in the mess hall. When I entered, she grinned, and nudged a plate of food my way. Eggs and sausage. She had set a pair of chopsticks next to it, and I made use of them as best I could. Rebecca grinned. "Sleep well?"

"I did. How close are we?"

"Dropped out of the terminus three hours ago. Lighter'll be docking... mm, an hour or so? Ready to make your big appearance?"

The sausage was, I think, spicy, though I could only tell this as a vague heat on my tongue. Regardless, the smell was delicious, and coming as it did on top of the previous night's activities I found myself in a deliriously good mood. "I am," I said -- firm, almost cocky.

Ninety minutes later, before the airlock, we said our goodbyes. She hugged me close, chin resting on my shoulder, and wished me luck. "And thank you," she added, "for everything."

"No," I grinned. "Thank you."

But why not both? I had saved her life, after all; she had given me mine. We stood, facing the hatch, as it hissed and swung open to reveal two figures, one my size and the other twenty centimeters taller at least. They looked like the ones I had seen for the last month in the mirrored surfaces of the diplomatic cruiser -- but more so, with bodies nicked and scarred from the harsh life on the jandakh surface. But their uniforms were no less ornate than mine, and their bearings were martial and calm.

"Arrukh gakash, rin gakesh, oton ukagu." I held my paws, palms out, to show that I was unarmed.

The Targa Ujandakh seemed first to perplex, and then to amuse them. They turned to each other, eyebrows lifted quizzically. The shorter one nodded, though he never changed his stance to show submission. "Ya-arrust, gerduna gakesh," he said, in flawlessly accented Targa. "Wery good, vrother of a distant star," he added, for Rebecca's benefit.

"Ya-arrust," his companion agreed, his voice deep and dark, a regal growl. He bowed to me, then, and gestured to the dim hallway behind him with a flat-palmed paw. "Chu udanya khot hagah."

So then let us begin...