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Black Wolf

Chapter 7 – Casanova

Black found a suitable den near the end of the first full cycle of the moon since arriving at the place of the gods. It was west of the gate where the black trail turned south to follow the rocky ridge and far from where the Druid wolves wandered. It consisted of a small, low cave, just big enough for a couple of wolves, at the base of the cliff.

Black set about building a rock wall across the entrance to keep the wind, rain and some of the vermin out. He also made an enclosure for a fire with high sides he could place a spit on for roasting meat when he eventually found some fire.

But if he had to wait for another bird to fly into the web and burst into flames, however, he could be waiting quite a while so he took matters in his own hands. He collected some kindling, gathered dry grass and pilled it all up against the web, leaving a cleared area around it so that the flames would not spread. Then he stuck a dead crow that had been hit by the beasts on the trail onto the end of a long dry stick and pushed it up against the braided line. The bird burst into flames just as the stick caught fire. Black dropped them both onto the kindling and watched as the flames caught at the wood. Careful to stay out of reach of the web he tossed larger and larger pieces onto it until he had a good fire going.

To get the fire back to his cave he waited until it was mostly embers. Then he used a large piece of bark that he had soaked in the creek for a few days to shovel up a pile of the largest coals. The bark steamed but would not catch fire because of the water trapped in it, not right away, anyways. That way he was able to lope back to his cave and dump them on to the kindling that he had left in the fire pit. All that he had to do now was to remember to feed it the right kind of wood and cover it with damp moss or grass when he was away so that it smouldered without going out. It was a daunting task for a wolf on his own in a place with few trees but Black wasn’t worried; if it went out he could always start another on the web.

Black kept the secret of the cave to himself. He did not want Frost knowing about it and trading the information to prevent being exiled from her pack, nor did he want her to think that it was safe enough to move in with him. He had yet to decide what he wanted from life and he didn’t want that the commitment that taking on a permanent mate entailed just yet.

About half a cycle after finding the cave Black spotted Frost’s marker on one of several spots that they used for their trysts. It was a circle of bushes with a small clearing in the centre. He scouted the area first to see if Menace or his sons were laying in wait but found no sign of an ambush. Then he approached the hideout and sampled the air from downwind. Frost smelled a little different, he thought, maybe she had been rolling in the spring clover like his sister used to do. In any event there was no male scent in the air so Black put up his spear and crawled under the bushes into the enclosure.

“Hello, black wolf.”

He was startled by the strange voice, even though it was a female voice. He spun around to face the source.

Laying on the grass under the edge of the brush was a female wolf a few years older than Frost, but one that bore a familial resemblance. Its coat was dark like her sisters’ but instead of having white tips on it there was a wavy line of yellowish fur that started between her eyes and went up her forehead.

“They call me Flame.” She said as she slowly got to her feet. “My sister has told me a lot about you.”

“Where is Frost?”

“She is in the den. She’ll be staying there until the cubs are born.”

“Cubs?”

“Yes. She’s pregnant. The first pregnancy in out pack in over ten years. I’m jealous.”

Flame had been stepping lightly and slowly closer to Black as they talked. Now she was standing right in front of him with less than a grip between them. This close Black could easily pick up the familiar smell of desire coming up, his as well as hers. With his eyes locked on hers he reached out and moved her loincloth around a quarter turn so that it covered her hips but left her front and rear exposed.

It was warm enough now to wear one’s loincloth hanging down rather than wrapped around and tucked in. Having grown up with three females in a small den Black knew that during the warm cycles they wore theirs wrapped up only during the bleeding time, and they gave off an entirely different odour then.

He turned his own loincloth to keep it from getting entangled in his swelling parts.

After the first hasty encounter with Frost there was always been time for some licking and nuzzling before she dropped to her hands and knees in the traditional position for wolf mating. Black expected the same from her sister and was not surprised or disappointed when she raised her muzzle to lick around the corners of his mouth while her hand caressed his stiffening shaft. He returned her kisses and buried his hands in the thick fur around her neck as he drank in the scent of her.

He was surprised however by the intensity of her caresses after just a few breaths. One of her hands was still on him but the other was down between her own legs, rubbing frantically. Before he could ask her what she was doing she jumped up and against him, wrapping her long, strong legs around his hips.

He fought to keep his balance as she gyrated against him. He could feel her hard nipples rubbing against his chest as she raised herself up and guided his shaft into the wet, warm slit between her legs. Her sigh as she slid down it was as satisfied as any Frost had made when he took her from behind but the gasp when she came to a stop at the base was new and different.

Flame wrapped her arms about his shoulders and instinctively Black lowered his to grasp the twin globes of her buttocks. With her flexing her legs and pushing with her arms she was able to rise up on him and he assisted by taking much of her weight with his hands.

He had to widen his stance a bit but once they started moving in concert he found it easy enough to keep his balance. It very exciting mating this way, he thought, and more intimate than the traditional position. The other way, all the feeling was in his parts. This way the sensation of her body moving against his, its warmth and the friction it generated, filled him with passion. With their heads on each others’ shoulders they could nuzzle and lick also, which was nice.

Black was done before Flame was finished with him, but in his youth he remained strong and hard long enough for her satisfaction. With a cry stifled in the fur of his neck she drove herself down on him one last time.

Black could feel warm and sticky liquid running down his thighs and wondered if was all his. It seemed that she had contributed some at the end there. His legs suddenly felt weak and they began to wobble. Black used the last of his strength to lift her off and set her on her own quivering legs. She rested her head on his chest and hugged him tightly as they stood there surrounded by birds and bushes and sky.

It was a number of breaths before either of them spoke.

“So. Frost is your younger sister?”

“Yes, but not the youngest.”

“Oh? How many do you have?”

“There are twelve of us, all Menace’s daughters by his mate Thunder. I’m the oldest, and should have had you first, but Frost was so tenacious. We have an equal number of brothers, although there used to be more. Some left to become wanderers, others died in the hunt. One challenged father two winters ago and that was the end of him. There are several uncles and aunts in the pack too, my father’s sisters and brothers. Altogether we are thirty one.” She held up three fingers and then one finger to show how many.

“That is a lot of wolves. The packs in the mountains never get so large.”

“Perhaps it will get bigger.” She said, stroking his limp parts. Black sensed that she was making reference to more than the number of wolves in her pack.

“It takes time to grow ... the pack, I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

Flame dropped to her knees on the ground before him. She started licking his parts, as if she was cleaning a cub after their messy encounter. But she was much more tender than a mother cleaning an errant cub would be, and she was using her hands in him at the same time.

It felt good, and he could feel the blood rushing back down to re-inflate his parts. But before they were even halfway hard again Flame did something strange. She opened her mouth and took the shaft inside it, sealing her lips around it and moving her head back and forth on it like she was mating with her mouth.

Black had never felt anything like it before. It was warm and wet, and her tongue was moving around inside like a live snake. One of her hands was caressing the balls that hung below his shaft and the other was rubbing his tail hole, spreading the gooey liquid from their previous mating around on the sensitive ring of bare flesh. Black did not think that he could take it for much longer.

“Flame … I … I’m going to …”

She pulled her head back and released his balls. “Oh no you’re not. We’re not wasting any of that. Come here.”

She rolled on her haunches until she was laying on her back with her knees bent and her legs spread. Black could see the glistening pink opening at their junction. She beckoned him with outstretched arms and he dropped to the ground on top of her.

It was different from doing it standing and also from the wolf position. He had to take some of his weight on his knees and arms to keep from smothering her, but just enough so that their bodies were in contact all along their length. It felt good, sliding in and out of her as deep or as shallow as he wanted, and he could control the pace too. Every time he felt that he was about to go off he slowed down or stopped. When the urge subsided he began again.

She told him when to move up or down so that his shaft rubbed her where she wanted it too. She rocked her hips to meet his thrusts and bit him on the shoulder when she was about to explode. He slowed, and she gasped and then they continued again.

After a while she urged him to go faster and deeper than he had before. By that time he was ready to end it but he clenched his balls up against his shaft the way they did when he was almost squashed by the beast on the trail and that helped keep it back. He heard her catch a cry in her throat and felt the warm wet sensation around his shaft that told him he had done enough. He relaxed his balls and almost immediately felt the hot gush shot out of him and into her.

The grinding of his hips slowed but did not stop right away. Neither did hers, but each time his shaft rubbed against a nub of hard flesh at the top of her opening she shuddered and clenched her teeth like she was in pain.

He stopped moving. “Are you okay?” he asked, afraid that he may have broken one of her ribs when he was pounding away with abandon.

“I am great.” She laughed. “And so are you. Ahhh, mother told me that it could be good but nothing she described is anything close to this.”

”Your mother talked to you about this? Did she teach you that thing with your mouth?”

“Oh yes. Here in the southern packs where only the Alpha mates, if a female wants to stay at the top of the pack she has to keep producing cubs. That can be difficult when the Alpha gets old and needs a little incentive to perform. They can become angry and blame it on their mate when they can’t. Females have been killed because of it. Assuming that I would be the first to mate my mother taught me how to excite a docile lover.”

Black was hurt. “Am I a docile lover?”

“Oh no. But I don’t want you getting bored and wandering off to infiltrate a new pack, so I gave you a sample of what you’re in for if you stay a while longer.”

“But your younger sisters don’t know these, hum, techniques?”

“I’ll teach them, starting tonight, but they won’t be experts for another cycle or so. Long enough for me to become pregnant.” She reached out and began stoking his shaft again.

“Are you going to do that thing with your mouth again?”

“No.” She said, getting to her knees and pushing him onto his back. “I’m going to do something entirely different.”

“Let’s get to work then.”

* * * * *

Just over a cycle later Flame was replaced by Daisy, who liked to weave that kind of flower into her hair when it was in season. She also giggled incessantly while trying to apply the techniques Flame had taught her. Black found it amusing through and did not mind coaching her until she got them right. What he really liked about her was the way she mated with wild abandon once they were engaged. Her enthusiasm was contagious and Black found himself nearly exhausted after each encounter.

He was carful though to keep an eye and an ear out for Menace and his sons though. The Alpha had not forgotten or forgiven the black wolf, but now that the herds were moving north through his territory he and his sons needed to hunt to replenish their depleted stocks.

Meanwhile Black lived very comfortably by himself on the other side of the black trail. Larger game was more frequent on the trail and he was fairly overwhelmed with fresh meat. He preserved as much as he could to put aside for the long winter that would eventually come, even skipping a few visits to the other side in order to process as much as he could.

By the time the herds tapered off Daisy had caught. She told him that she would not be back, but that others would replace her. Black assumed that she meant her other sisters would come one at a time, but was pleasantly surprised to find that his next lover was actually lovers, twin females with circular markings on their cheats named Sun and Moon. Before removing their loin cloths they told him that the daughters of the Druid pack had come to the conclusion that he must be favoured by the gods for having survived so long in such good shape while living in their shadow.

As they squeezed him between them Black was inclined to agree.

* * * * *

“Wow, those wolves are really going at it!”

Meili looked over her shoulder. She was laying naked across the double bed in her dorm room. On the other side of the bead an equally naked Lijun was massaging her ass, trying to get her in the mood for a little lovemaking. And she was getting there, but she was not sure if it was because of his earnest ministrations or the sight of her black wolf mating with two females in their prime of health from the vantage point of a drone hovering over the clearing they had chosen to meet in.

She decided that the tactful thing to do was to shut off her tablet and enjoy her own moment of intimacy.

I’m lucky, she thought, to have someone from my home planet here. Someone who knows how I think, who understands the nuances and inhibitions of our culture. Because despite disagreeing with many of her home planet’s policies, Meili was still a product of her upbringing, and it was comforting to have someone close who understood her language, could interpret her moods, and knew when a smile meant ‘I’m terrified’ rather than ‘I’m happy’.

“He is quite the Casanova, your black wolf.” Lijun commented in English.

“Casa nova? A new house?” Meili translated with her limited knowledge of the Romance languages.

“Yeah, a real Don Juan.”

“Done one? He’s done them all.” She said, quite seriously. She was not prepared for his unexpected burst of laughter.

She allowed him time to calm down and catch his breath, although she was a bit irritated not to be in on the joke.

“Giocomo Casanova was a famous eighteenth century womanizer from Venice.” Lijun informed her, switching to their native Mandarin. “And Don Juan was a fictional Spanish Libertine of similar reputation. He was the subject of a story called ‘The Trickster of Seville’ in 1630 and also featured in subsequent tales. Mozart, who was an associate of Casanova, wrote an opera about Don Juan, which some believe was based on his Italian friend’s adventures. Your wolf,” he gestured to the blank tablet, “is much like them both. He goes from one affair to another with no qualms and no commitments, a lover of many but a mate of none. Sad really, because deep down, like the famous lovers, he’s probably very lonely.”

Meili thought about that last bit for a moment. It was an accurate description of the life her black wolf had carved out for himself. His behaviour was unprecedented in the history of wolf study, and she had been wondering how to categorize it. Perhaps new behaviour, she thought, deserved new appellations.

“Lupus Casanova.” She mumbled dreamily as Lijun inserted two fingers inside her to massage the sensitive spot he had discovered. “The Casanova wolf.” She believed that she had just discovered the topic of her next paper.

”Fuck yeah.” Lijun said switching back to English. “I’m going to do you like your wolf.”

You’ll need to develop some endurance and grow another grip worth of penis, she thought as she closed her eyes and let him mount her from behind. But it was nice to have someone from home around.

* * * * *

Summer was over and the herds were moving south again by the time the twins were both pregnant and Frost’s litter mate Silver showed up. She had a white coat with dark tips, the opposite of her sister. Otherwise she was the same, the same appetite for mating, the same preference for the traditional position, and the same ingrained belief in the sanctity of the gods. Black refrained from questioning her faith and concentrated on getting her pregnant.

The snow was already on the mountains when Fleet took over from Silver. She was a year younger and very lean. Black was not sure he would enjoy mating with her as much as with her sisters, but she made up for her lack of curves with an incredible degree of flexibility. She had also been Flame’s star pupil as far as Black could tell. She introduced him to the act of pleasuring a female with his tongue.

“Something to keep you busy while you regain your power.” She told him as she lay back with a paw holding his head where she wanted it.

She was not afraid to use her mouth on him either, and often did so while he was using his on her, once even while he was standing. He blessed the gods for her small frame during that session.

With the herds moving through their territory again the Druid wolves were busy hunting, more so with several of their females too pregnant to hunt with the males. That left a lot of time for Black and his current partner, but he had to hunt and prepare jerky for the winter, so he could not spend as much time with the athletic Fleet as he wished.

Hunting was a loose term for how he was getting his meat. Much of the larger animals were recovered from the trail where the eyeless beasts crushed anything smaller than a bull elk. Black knew that the game would be attracted to the natural salt licks and sweet grasses but both of those were found deep in the Druid territory. But Black visited them at night and scraped salt from the rocks with his axe and collected grass, both of which he left near the edge of the black trail before going to his den to sleep. In the morning, if he was lucky, he found corpses. Sometimes the salt and grass was gone with nothing to show for it, other times the bodies were too broken up to salvage much from, but now and then they had barely any damage and he had plenty of meat to prepare.

That meant butchering the game, slicing the meat in thin strips and hanging it just the right distance from the fire. Tending the fire and watching over the meat took a lot of time. And each session with Fleet was as exhausting as s real hunt, so he had to pace himself.

It took longer for Fleet to become pregnant. Maybe because Black was not getting enough rest or because she was enjoying their time together so much that she delayed admitting it for an extra cycle. By the time she was done with Black the snow was heavy on the ground and he had to use his snow feet to get around.

Crossing the trail was more dangerous now because the surface could be slippery. After a heavy snow a different kind of beast came by, one with a shield that scrapped the snow off the trail in a hail of sparks and a thunderous roar. Black could only imagine what would happen to him if he was caught by it between the high banks it left behind.

It was easier to avoid Menace and his hunting packs though. The wolves stuck to the trails made by the elk and bison that stayed on the plain over the winter. Still, Black worried that the big Alpha might find his tracks and lie in wait for him so he tried not to return to his den by the same route he used to get to his liaisons.

The longest night of the year had just passed when he saw the marker on the pile of boulders where he had first encountered Frost. It was one of the few places that were still suitable for meeting because it was sheltered from the worst of the wind and snow. When he entered he saw that the ground had been swept clear and that hides had been hung to provide more protection and so he knew that it was not Fleet waiting inside.

He was correct. The female that was waiting inside was the youngest he had encountered so far, barely mating age. She said that her name was Honey and grinned shyly when she admitted that it was a love of the sweet substance that had earned her the name, not her tawny fur. She was pretty and shy, almost scared. Black had the impression that she was only there because he sisters expected it. Black knelt beside her, close but not too close. He reached out and combed the hair between her ears with his claws.

“Are you afraid what your father will do to you when he finds that you have snuck out?”

She shook her head. “No. He hardly cares anymore, not with the new cubs to look after.”

“New cubs?” Black had hardly considered the outcome of his activities. He counted the seasons mentally. “Frost has had cubs?”

“Yes, two males. Menace pretends to be mad but he’s really very happy to have new cubs after so long. It might have been different if they had been female, but I think he has seen the potential of the one he calls the damned soul.”

Black laughed at that. He continued to caress Honey almost absently as she told him about the chaos having so many pregnant females at one had caused in the pack.

“The males go hunting even when there is no game, just to get out of the den.” She told him. “And it is going to get worse. Flame is due in a cycle, but she is carrying just one cub we think. Daisy is just as big as her already, so she probably has two. It’s too early to tell for Sun and Moon and the others. But by summer we could have six to eight new cubs. We’ll have to get to digging new chambers in the den as soon as the ground thaws.

She had loosened up considerably as they talked and was leaning against him by the time she ran out of things to say. Black lowered his hand to her muzzle and tilted her head up to his so he could touch his lips to the corner of her mouth. She was still at first but quickly responded by licking his cheek. Soon their hands drifted downward, rubbing a shoulder, brushing a swelling breast, lingering on a thigh.

“Flame has been trying to teach us how to be good mates.” Honey said when Black straightened up from licking her nipples erect. “But I ... I don’t think I learned enough.”

Black put a finger to her lips. “Shush. I’ve learned a thing or two from Flame and your other sisters. Leave everything to me.”

In many ways Black’s time with Honey was the best he could remember for years to come. Taking the role of teacher came naturally to him and she was an apt student. He was literally feeling his way along as he went, but each touch brought new knowledge and sensations, and he benefited from the lessons as much as she did. For one thing, concentrating on reading her reactions gave him more endurance than he had showed with her more exuberant sisters. He resolved to pay more attention to their needs if he ever had another opportunity to mate with them.

She was more submissive than any of her sisters had been, but willing to try anything he could show her. She even managed to impress him by suggesting some variations that even Fleet and Flame had not thought of.

“If I rest my shoulders and head on the ground and lift my bottom up toward you, could you not bend your parts down to insert them? Or would that be painful for you?”

“No, I can do that, but what makes you suggest such a thing?”

“It just seems that way there would be more pressure on that spot you found that day with your fingers. You know, the one that makes me cry out and squirt when you rub it the right way?”

It turned out that Honey was right, and not only invented a new position but also managed to remind Black that he was not getting as much exercise as he should; his legs were trembling something terrible by the time they were done. He vowed to spend more time exploring and improving his den and less time in the arms of the Druid pack females, after he was done with Honey, perhaps.

That day they were mating in the boulders, where one could see a slice of sky if one were laying in the right spot, on their shoulders with their buttocks up in the air for example. After they had booth had their satisfaction Black pulled out, sat down to relive his legs and wrapped a hide around himself. He invited Honey to join him but she stayed where she was, staring up at the sky.

“Do you ever notice those birds?” She asked.

“Which birds?”

“The ones that just hang in place, like that one.” She pointed with her leg to a spot where a single cloud was drifting across the gap in the stone. Centred on the cloud was a dark spot, something that hung in the sky like an eagle soaring on the thermals on the edge of a cliff. But all of its mass seemed to be in the centre. There were no wings that Black could see; maybe a couple of outstretched arms and legs, but that was about it.

“A big hummingbird, maybe?” He ventured, although he already doubted it.

“They fly south in the winter.” Honey reminded him.

“Some kind of hawk?”

“There is no wind today to hold it in place.”

“Then only true gods know what it is.”

Honey sat up and snuggled against Black’s chest when he opened the hide for her. “That probably explains it.”

Black was confused. “What explains what?”

“It’s probably some sort of servant of the gods, sent to watch over us.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because you are blessed.” She said, tapping the hard material of his collar. “The grandmothers say that when Menace and Thunder were young the gods’ ravens could be seen in the sky over their pack quite often. They are not like the ordinary ravens in that they’d not land to watch what is going on, but rather stay up in the sky as high as the eagle flies to gather information for the gods, flying back to tell them what they have learned. They have become a rare sight in the last few years, but we can often tell where you are, when you are with one of the sisters, when we see one hanging in the sky.

Black looked up more often after that and was surprised to see how often one of the gods’ ravens was hoovering about.

Maybe I am blessed, he thought. Either that or the gods are gathering enough evidence of my transgressions to condemn me to a frozen hell when I go up the mountain in search of paradise.

* * * *

Meili saw that black had finally noticed the drones and her translation of the female Honey’s explanation of their purpose was eerily accurate. Had they been too indiscreet with the wolf surveillance program, she wondered? She was grateful to Chuck and Mitch for allowing them to linger over the black wolf’s love nests on the pretext of calibrating the sensors, but maybe it was time to back off a bit. She knew that she could not perform with someone looking over her shoulder all the time, not that she was even halfway as daring as he and some of his lovers.

“Chuck, Mitch? Anybody over there?” She looked through the glass that separated the monitor room from the control booth and saw that it was empty. That was not unusual during meal hours when there were no special operations going on. Meili was about to go to the cafeteria for a bite herself when the light on the tachyon transmitter lit up, indicating an incoming message.

She looked and was surprised to see that it was a private encoded transmission for her. Puzzled, she opened the channel.

“Hello, Doctor Cheng here.”

The image of Chairman Dupuis filled the screen. His chocolate brow was wrinkled in worry. “Mary, its me, Robert. Are you alone?”

She realized that after over twenty years at EOS-1 he knew the routine enough to know when the technicians would be out of the control room, and that worried her even more than his Ernest appearance.

“Yes, I’m alone. What is it Robert?”

“Someone is trying to ruin the Wolf Study Program.”

“What? How?”

“I will have to show you. Private transmissions are a matter of record even though the contents are encoded, so anyone with access to the record will know we talked, but not what about. However, attachments sent across the tachyon transmitter are not, and they can be examined by order of the Director, so I’m going to show you an interplanetary web address, and a sample of the material found on it. Hang on a second.”

Doctor Dupuis fumbled with his tablet to turn it toward the camera. “Write this down.” He said.

Meili saw the URL on the screen and she scrambled to write it down. Her own tablet was back in her room so she had to look for a pen and a piece of paper to do it.

“Got it.” She finally said.

“Okay, now watch this.”

He held the tablet up to the camera so that its screen filled the viewing area. He selected the URL from a list of favourites and his tablet connected to the site.

The screen was filled with familiar images. They were still shots taken from Black’s collar and the drones that recorded his activities. But the only activity they depicted were his mating habits.

The screen changed. Video files showing some of the more active encounters they had captured of the black wolf in action began playing as scrolling text promised even more explicit and complete videos that were accessible for a low monthly subscription fee.

“The best wolf porn in the galaxy.” She read. “Overhead and POV full contact encounters featuring the Black Prince of the Wild and his harem of sex slaves? My gods Robert, what is this?”

Her predecessor put the tablet down. “It is a publicity disaster, if it gets out. Someone has obviously gained access to the project files and turned your research into some kind of porn site. The question is, is this the work of the C-F or just some creepy hacker trying to profit from people’s perversions. Either way, we have to shut it down as soon as possible.”

Meili looked down so that Doctor Dupuis would not see her blush. More than once she had found herself getting worked up while studying the surveillance video. When that happened she often went looking for her lover, Lijun, but sometimes, sometimes she took care of it herself. And when she did it was not her New Beijing colleague she imagined inside her.

“Do you think the leak is on your end or mine?” All of the data was automatically backed up at the Science Council via the sub-tachyon net. It was not instantaneous like the Tachyon transmitter but much less expensive, and the files were almost as up to date as those she had access to.

“I don’t know, but I’m using my power as Co-Chair of the Science Council to find out. As the investigation will be conducted under the administrative system there is no need to alert Co-Chair Binks. I’ll bury it in the paperwork, essentially. You should look into it on your end too, but watch yourself while you’re about it. Remember what I said about the C-F having agents everywhere.”

He signed off shortly after that, leaving Meili feeling betrayed and confused. Could someone here at EOS-1 have broken into her research files? Who would do such a thing? Who could do such a thing?”

She remembered something from a short course in criminology she had taken during her freshman year of university - crime was a function of means, motive and opportunity. Find out who had all three and you had solved the crime.

First of all, she wanted to see how recent the material on the website was. If she found material that had not been backed up to the Science Counsel yet that would show that the leak was here at EOS-1. Then she could start looking for the culprit. But if she did not find recent images it did not necessarily mean that the thief was not here, so until whoever it was was caught she would be eyeing everyone with suspicion.

Meili decided to skip lunch and go to her room to get her tablet. It was her own property and encoded with her ten-digit citizen code. Every Chinese citizen and anyone with a work permit for any of the Chinese planets had such a code. Most citizens used it as their private password because it was easier to remember and enter numbers on a western keyboard than the Pinyin form of Mandarin with its roughly 1,600 sound and accent combinations. Shorter PINs could be created by choosing numbers that sounded like a simple phase, like 5188 which sounded similar to the words for ‘I love Papa’.

When she arrived at her room Meili was surprised to find that the door was ajar. Each resident was responsible for their own cleaning so there was no staff with a passcode except for emergency maintenance. She eased open the door and peeked inside, wishing that she had a club-axe like Black’s at her disposal.

There was someone inside, laying on her bed, looking at something on her tablet. Someone familiar.

“Wang Lijun! What are you doing in my room?”

She expected him to jump when she shouted out his name from behind but he merely turned off her tablet, lay it face down on the bed and rolled over to look at her with a smile.

“You gave me a code for your room, remember? And I gave you one for mine. Your schedule has been so erratic these days, and you often come looking for me around this time after watching your pet wolf, ah, engaged in his favourite activities, so I came here hoping you would stop by. And here you are.” He patted the bed beside him. “What has your black wolf been up to now? Reinvented tea bagging, perhaps?”

“Tea bagging?”

“Look it up ... later. For now, why don’t we ...”

“Hang on a second. I need to think.” She went over his words in her head. It was true that her schedule was erratic, and she had gotten into the habit of seeking him out when she was worked up, but there was something off about this.

“What were you doing with my tablet?”

“Checking in with my office. I have a supervisor to answer to, unlike you, and don’t make my own hours. Fortunately, I can do much of my work anywhere I can get network access, so when we’re together I check in to say I’m working on the figures from the other sites and do the real work at night, when they’re up and able to respond right away. As long as the figures are submitted by morning she doesn’t care.”

She wasn’t sure what he was talking about. When they were together, and not actively engaged in sexual acts, they mostly talked about her and her work. She was not even sure what Lijun did here at EOS-1. So she asked him.

“I’m a liaison officer. Each of the ethnically aligned groups of colonies has pledged to clean up the portion of the planet their ancestors came from for eventual re-habitation. Not because there is anything worth anything left on this hunk of rock but because of the nostalgia factor. EOS-1 is sort of the headquarters for the whole operation and since I know Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish, Urdu, Swahili, Egyptian and several other languages I got the job of compiling all the production figures and coordinating the assets among the stations. Sort of a multi-lingual clerk and stock boy.”

“Why didn’t you use your own tablet, and how did you get onto mine?”

“Mine died.” He pointed to where his was resting on the recharging pad on her desk. “I guessed that you would be using your citizen number for your passcode so I logged in to access my email account. Look, I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking, but now that I am, I realize that it was a breach of your privacy.” He looked up with a fairly credible imitation of puppy dog eyes. “Unless you can find it in your heart to forgive me?” He patted the side of the bed again.

“You know my citizen number?”

“Sure, you use it all the time in front of me, and I have a really good memory. It helps when you’re studying three languages at once.”

Meili didn’t know what to think. Lijun’s explanations sounded reasonable. Her personal tablet did not have full access to the wolf videos, but her desktop unit did, and it was locked with the same pass number. He had opportunity, but what could his motive be? On top of that, she had seen him trying to edit his family webpage and he did not have the skill to create the site Doctor Dupuis had shown her earlier. Unless he was working with someone else?

More confused than ever, Meili told him that she had come to lay down because she had a bad headache and would prefer to suffer alone. Lijun nodded sympathetically, grabbed his tablet before she could think to check to see if it really was low on power and let himself out.

Is this the way it is going to be from now on, she wondered, suspecting everyone and able to confide in no one?

She suddenly realized how one could be lonely while surrounded by others, even those you were intimate with.

“Poor black wolf.” She mumbled as she began her research into the purloined videos. “So may to mate with but none to call your mate.”

Based on The rise of Black Wolf

Produced by National Geographic Television, © 2010 NGHT LLC