Shepherd (7 page)

“We can't afford to have that happen. Unless you have contraception.”

“I don't need it. I will conceive only if I choose to.”

He looked at her. “Then what is the problem?”

“I will choose to.”

Shep pondered that. “Oh, you mean the sheep lust is so strong that it will override your preference?”

“No.”

“Elen, I think you will have to tell me directly, because I know I am missing something.”

“In a moment. But first I need to be sure you understand the risk you take.”

“Risk?”

“Shep, I have necessarily teased you twice, by putting you into me without culmination. I do not wish to tease you further.”

“There's another challenge?”

“In a manner.”

“Elen, you're teasing me right now with your obscurity! What are you trying to tell me?”

“You desire me.” It was not a question.

“I do.”

“I will give you all the sex you want. But there is a risk that you will fall in love with me, unless you can do it without emotional commitment. Then you will lose. As with the holddown.”

Shep laughed without humor. “I think I have already lost.”

“No. You are not in love with me, nor I with you. You are in lust, and when the sheep breed, I will be too.”

“Lust, but not love? There is a significant distinction, but I don't think my heart has honored it. You are the most remarkable woman I have encountered, Elen, on any planet, and I wish I could be with you always.”

“You can make that distinction by satisfying your lust. Then that will no longer deceive your heart. I offer you that. But the risk is that by the time the distinction is clear, you will indeed love me. Then you will want to marry me.”

“And I can't do that.” He smacked his fist into the mattress. “Damn!”

“You can do it.”

“And then leave you here, in effect a widow, when I exchange back to Earth? Leaving you with the lout? I would not do that to you, Elen.”

“You would not have to leave me.”

Shep gazed at her partly in bafflement, partly in hope. “You have something in mind?”

“I do. But this requires a commitment beyond what you may wish to make.”

“Spell it out.”

“Exchanges such as the one you made are rare. There needs to be special reason, and the participants need to be highly qualified.”

“Yes. I was the only student in my class selected this term, because I am training for planetary management.”

“Which means you are the smartest and best connected person in your class.”

“Yes. Also most committed. I worked hard to earn my place.” Shep smiled. “Then it seemed it was being thrown away watching sheep. How little I knew!”

“I am also the smartest and most committed person in my class,” she said. “I long to visit Earth and learn more of it first hand. But I am not well connected. No colony native is.”

“True. Almost by definition, colonists are secondary citizens. I have never heard of a colonist achieving an exchange as a primary figure. Only as a secondary one, like my present host.”

“There is an exception. The spouse of an Earth exchangee can qualify.”

“Well, yes, so that married couples can go together. If I were married, my wife might have been able to come here with me. We'd both be in foreign bodies, but our relationship would continue.”

“I believe there is an obscurity in that regulation. It does not say the spouse has to be a resident of Earth.”

Shep laughed. “Well, it doesn't have to. How can it be otherwise?”

Elen merely gazed at him.

Then it dawned. “That's why you want to marry me! Because I am of Earth. So you can exchange to Earth!”

“That is why,” she agreed.

“You have been playing up to me to make me amenable to such an arrangement.”

“Yes.”

“Not because you really liked me for myself.”

“True.”

“And now you are offering me endless sex, as an inducement.”

“No.”

“No?”

“You can have the sex without marrying me. Then you can leave me.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it will work out long-term only if you love me.”

Shep shook his head. “I don't know whether you are being supremely generous, or supremely cynical.”

“Both. The sheep gave me my chance. What I make of it is up to me. But I do not want to take you by subterfuge. You must understand and accept it.”

His head was spinning. “I'm not ready to digest this right now. I will need time to ponder.”

“Of course.”

“But I do have one question. You want my love, but you do not love me. Is that fair?”

“If you come to love me, I will allow myself to allow you.”

“
Allow
yourself?”

She nodded. “I am under siege. You possess the qualities I want in a mate, and you are of Earth. My body and mind want to love you, and will do so if I yield. But to love you only to have you leave me would be heartbreak. I must avoid that, just as you had to avoid being taken by the vamps.”

The parallel moved him profoundly.
She could love him!
“You haven't even met my real body on Earth!”

“Women are more practical than men about these things. I can accept your body as the host of the man I love.”

“Whereas you use your pretty body to besot my foolish male nature.”

“I would not put it that way, but yes.”

Shep sighed. “It is true. Men are fascinated by appearance. I am typical in that respect.”

“And I am typical in judging by your position and mind.”

“So our cards are now on the table. You want to marry me for my position. I want your body for sex. Probably most marriages are of that nature. But I think I am not ready to make any kind of decision at this moment. You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor.”

“Shep, there is no need. Take my body now, without commitment, as long as you recognize the risk. There is no need to torment yourself.”

He considered, then reversed the call. “Do
you
want sex with me?”

“Yes.”

“Because I wouldn't care to force it on you.” Then he did a double-take. “You said yes?”

“Yes. I get pleasure in it too. I hated holding off to win the holddown, and to shield you from the vamps, but did it because it was necessary. Now it is not.”

“You actually want to have sex with me, without commitment?”

“Yes, now that we understand one another.”

“You like sex for its own sake?”

“Yes, if I respect the man. My interest may not be as extreme as yours, but I certainly would enjoy doing it with you.”

He knew she was not one to deceive him in a matter like this. “Then I take you at your word. Let's do it.”

She moved into him, and kissed him ardently. Her hand found his member and guided it into her. Then he was thrusting and spurting with abandon, and she seemed to be climaxing with him.

“Oh, Elen,” he said as he ebbed. “I have longed to do that since I first saw you.”

“I, too.”

He had ejaculated, but his excitement was unabated. “Let's do it again.”

“Can you?”

“Let's find out. Maybe if you help me.”

She wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him passionately. Her responsive vagina kneaded his member. Soon a second orgasm formed in the distance, expanded, and erupted in a slow and long culmination.

It finally faded, and they fell apart. “I never did that before,” he said. “I mean not so rapidly.”

“I think some of the pheromones remain, facilitating it.”

“That must be it. Oh, Elen--”

“Do not speak of commitment. Wait until you have properly considered. We are merely relaxing now.”

“Merely relaxing,” he agreed. “Stop me when you get tired of it.” He started kissing her, first her mouth, then her face, neck, and breasts. He paused.

“I am not tired,” she murmured. Then she started kissing him, starting innocently, proceeding to un-innocently. He loved it.

Soon they were connected again, for a third mutual orgasm. Then they drifted off to sleep, holding hands.

It was quite a night. By the time dawn arrived, they were both exhausted. So they slept on into the day.

Meanwhile his mind was going. Could he actually marry her, and qualify her for exchange as his spouse? Or would it turn out to be too complicated? For one thing, this would be the first interplanetary marriage, with the groom not even present physically, only in a native host. Earth authorities might not consider that to be valid. Whose law would govern: Earth's or Colony Jones's? What would be the citizenship of the baby?

“You are troubled,” Elen said. “Do you wish to tell me?”

He told her.

“I think that if we do it, we shall need a lawyer,” she said. “This is further reason for caution.”

“My father has connections. He can get a lawyer. But it's not just that. You will need a host on Earth. I'm not sure what woman will want to exchange into a pregnant native woman.”

“I must be pregnant. Otherwise the lout's family and mine will block the marriage. My baby will represent proof of consummation.”

“Could we return and broach the matter, and go for the baby if that turns out to be necessary?”

“No. They will isolate us from each other to prevent any such contamination.”

“Contamination!”

She looked him in the eye. “Shep, they will oppose this union. There is prejudice on either side against the other, and against Earth. Only a
fait accompli
will prevent that interference.”

“So we have to be truly committed before we return.”

“Yes. To marry me will complicate your life.”

Yet his love was burgeoning. “Elen, I think I am ready to--”

She cut him off with a kiss, and followed immediately with sex, preventing him from saying it. She wanted no hasty decision. But he doubted that made a difference.

Two days later, after more sex than he had ever imagined, she was ready to talk. “The sheep are about to mate. They have settled on their partners.”

“That means a telepathic barrage of sexual urgency?” he asked.

“Yes. We will be having almost continuous sex. So now we must decide whether I should allow it to take. Do you wish to marry me?”

“I do,” he said without hesitation.

“That was a question, not a proposal.”

“And an answer, not an acceptance.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“And you wish me to have my baby, though it will not be of your genetic stock?”

“Yes.”

“I can not persuade you otherwise?”

“Never. I love you.”

She sighed. “I have tried.”

“One caveat,” he said.

She was startled. “This is conditional?”

“Yes.”

He could see her brace herself. “What is your condition?”

“That you allow yourself to love me.”

She melted. “I will.”

“Then let's make it formal.” He took a deep breath. “Elen Elf of Colony Planet Jones, will you marry me?”

“Shep Shepherd of Earth, I will marry you.”

Then they kissed. They did not have sex at this time, knowing that more than enough would soon be coming. They merely embraced and slept, resting before the siege.

It came a few hours later. Deep, rutting, sexual urgency overwhelmed them both, as the telepathy of the conjoining rams and ewes intensified to the point of no denial. They yielded to it, letting it take them on waves of desire so intense that it became painful rather than pleasurable. To resist it would have been agony.

Indeed, when the first wave abated with temporary satiation, they got up and walked around the cabin, and saw Vulture and Python in sad state. They had had no partners, so had had to suffer through it.

Within an hour the second wave came, and they clutched each other on the bed, locked in seemingly endless orgasm. Its passing left them gasping.

“We have two weeks of this?” Shep asked.

“Two weeks,” she agreed wearily. “Unless--”

“Unless?”

“Unless I am already pregnant. When my body knows it, the sexual urgency will abate, because I have been bred.”

“And what of
my
body?”

She smiled. “It will continue. But do not be alarmed; I will continue to accommodate you.”

“Even when your desire has cooled?”

“Yes. I do not want you to suffer.”

“Thank you,” he said wryly.

And by the end of the day she knew. “It has taken. I have been bred.”

“You're pregnant!”

“Yes. I am with child.” She smiled. “I hope you do not change your mind now.”

“Never,” he said, kissing her. But he feared the obstacles they would have to navigate.

Chapter 7:

Return

Two weeks passed, and the ewes were finally bred. The mating urge, satisfied, faded. It was time to return to their normal pasture.

Python, Vulture, and Shep were bedraggled, albeit it for different reasons. Elen was fine. They went to the boat.

But the sheep were not there. So Shep and Elen went looking for them. They were placidly grazing. The rams were not far off, watching them. They would move in if there were any sign of interest by a ewe. In fact every so often one would approach, only to be bleated off. The ewes had no further use for them. So why were they remaining here, instead of traveling? They were well fed and ready.

There was a rumble, then an explosion. Shep saw a column of smoke rise into the air. A small volcano was erupting, from the direction they had come here.

Now the sheep walked toward the boat. They must have been waiting for that. Maybe it would have been dangerous, had they been near when it happened.

But when they assembled by the boat, Shep got another feeling. “We can't go back the way we came here,” he said.

“I know it,” Elen agreed. “That route has been blocked. That's bad, because it was the only route I really knew. Now we'll have to travel cross-country.”

As if they had been on a clear highway coming in. Shep was not comfortable with this. But what alternative was there? “We'll cross the water, then circle the lake until the sheep indicate the way to go.”

They boarded, all ten of them. Shep and Elen stripped, and took their places at the paddle pedals and the seat before it. He fitted himself into her, knowing how much he would need her shielding. Sexually sated or not, he would respond to the massive pheromone assault of the vamps.

“The song!” she said, remembering. “We'll sing it again.”

“Yes! But let's hold our places here, just in case.”

“Of course.” She clasped him tightly, outside and inside.

He started pedaling, and the craft moved out into the lake.

The vampires came. “Come join us, virile man!” Lova called. “We hunger for your penetration!” She hovered, spreading her arms and legs wide to display her breasts and open cleft. “We have so much to offer!”

“I am already committed,” he called back.

Then they swarmed in close. Shep barely got his mouth on Elen's before a vamp could kiss him. Their hands and bodies touched him everywhere as they pressed their breasts against the back of his head and neck, and stroked his buttocks and scrotum. The pheromones formed a dense cloud. His member, well worn from the breeding cycle, surged into rigidity, filling Elen's channel. It wanted to burst through her and reach a vamp so it could be endlessly potent.

He kept pedaling, and the boat kept moving.

The vamps started kissing him everywhere they could reach, especially his scrotum and anus. Each kiss excited another section of his flesh.

He pedaled.

The urgency continued to build. When he feared it would overwhelm him and make him wrench free of Elen's closure, he lifted his head and started singing. “He who is noble...”

“Excrement!” Lova swore. “The beast remembered!”

Elen joined him. “...pure and simple hearted.”

The vamps definitely were not that. They retreated, hurling vile expletives. They were furious, but could not handle the stirring music, or the spirit it evoked.

They made it across and landed at the proper site. The sheep walked off the boat, followed by Vulture and Python. Only then did Shep and Elen disembark, still closely connected as he carried her. Once they were safely on land, beyond the reach of the vamps, they were ready to separate.

“Unless you wish to complete it now,” Elen murmured.

The pheromones still surrounded them. “Actually I do, to make up for all the prior frustration. Do you mind?”

She squeezed him, just so, and he jetted powerfully into her. That established her dominance over the vampires, because now he was able to climax instead of remaining rigid while his blood was sucked.

There was a chorus of expletives from the vamps still hovering over the water. His climax was his parting shot, leaving them angrily frustrated.

The sheep had waited patiently while Shep and Elen finished their business. Then the sheep walked beside the lake, avoiding the way the party had come. About a quarter of the way around they struck out across a barren landscape. It might once have been a grass field, but now it was desiccated stubble.

Vulture flew up, circled, and returned to earth, troubled. Shep saw smoke ahead, and smelled burning. “Uh-oh. I think we have a grass fire. We don't want to get caught in that.” Python seemed nervous too.

But the sheep were marching right toward it, unconcerned.

“Trust the sheep,” Elen said.

“Of course. But sometimes I wish they could speak our language, and tell us what's coming.”

“They communicate well enough. They don't need our kind of speech.”

The fire loomed closer, being blown directly toward them. Gusts of wind brought the smoke down to swirl around them, making them cough.

Python slithered rapidly ahead. Vulture followed, half flying. There was something.

Then they saw it: the opening of a cave. Shelter from the fire! Provided it didn't harbor some predator waiting for prey to be driven into its lair. But of course the sheep would not blithely walk into that.

It turned out to be a series of caves, linked by tunnel-like apertures as if a river had once coursed through it. Now it was bone dry. The sheep formed a file and walked on into it, leaving the light of day behind.

“Trust the sheep,” Shep echoed. They followed closely after the last ewe, and Python and Vulture brought up the rear. The sounds of the sheep's hooves told them where to go.

An hour later they emerged from the caves and found a completely different landscape. Green grass bordered a slow stream, and there were a few fruiting trees. It was a comparative paradise, a fine place to spend the night.

The sheep had known.

That night Shep and Elen clasped each other in the holddown mode, kissing and making love without sexual completion. It seemed natural.

In the morning they were ready to resume travel, but the sheep were not. So they waited. Sure enough, a ferocious storm crossed suddenly over them, deluging them with water and raising the level of the river close to overflowing its banks. But in another hour the torrent cleared and they were able to resume walking.

The rest of the journey was like that. Only the awareness of the sheep made it feasible without severe problems. But because Shep now truly trusted the sheep, accepting their judgment without question, the return was relatively easy. In several days they reached the human village where Shep's host lived.

And that was it. The sheep disappeared into their pastures, leaving the four other members of the party behind. The mission had been accomplished.

“I guess that goes for you too, friends,” Shep said to Python and Vulture. “You are free to resume your natural lives.”

But neither animal departed. “I think they have been tamed,” Elen said. “They prefer to stay with us.” She smiled. “And I welcome it. I feel more comfortable with them than I would at home.”

Oh, yes. “Because now we have to marry, and face the opposition of the two families.”

“Yes. Python and Vulture accept us as we are. They know what we've been through.”

“We'll just have to explain that we are a team, and they are part of it. As long as they don't attack human beings or their pets, it should be all right.”

“Yes. I think they won't attack anyone unless there is an immediate danger to us.” She faced the house. “I think you and I must explain some things to people who will not be pleased to hear them.”

“Yes.” He considered briefly. “I am not properly conversant with social customs on this world.” He smiled. “I came here to study them, but got distracted. But I know that sometimes things that shouldn't make a difference, do. We have gotten messed up from hard traveling. Can we—make ourselves more presentable?”

She laughed. “Excellent thought. Looking travel worn is fine, but you should be obviously healthy and I should be pretty.”

Elen got to work on the both, and soon their appearance was much improved.

“And I think we will need to introduce Vulture and Python,” he said. “As evidence of the mission we were on. That may be why the sheep put their need to stay with us into their minds.”

“Yes.” Elen knelt beside Python and stroked her neck. “Trust us,” she said. “We will safeguard you from our kind.” She did the same with Vulture.

Then they girded themselves and approached the house. Shep knocked on the door.

In a moment it opened to reveal Cora Peterson, his host's mother. “Brian!” she cried gladly. Then she paused. “Or is it you?”

“I am the man from Earth, Amber Shepherd,” Shep said. “I have brought Brian's body home safely. The sheep have returned and I am free to pursue my original mission. But there are complications.”

Now she saw his companions. “An elf. A python. A vulture,” she said faintly.

“We are friends, bound together,” Shep said. “None of these creatures will harm you. It is a legacy of the mission with the sheep. We need to talk.”

The woman seemed about ready to faint, but collected herself. “Come in. All of you. We will talk.”

They trooped into the house, where Brett, the father, greeted them. “We know that the sheep change folk. You surely have an interesting tale to tell. Make yourselves comfortable.” If he was nervous about the presence of Vulture and Python he did not show it.

Shep and Elen took chairs, and Vulture and Python settled quietly behind them. “This is Elen,” Shep said. “The sheep selected her, as they did me and the others. It was a considerable experience. Now Elen and I need to marry.”

Cora put her hand to her breast as if suffering a heart attack, and Brett looked grim. “I think you know we would not approve of that.”

“Going with the sheep was not my choice, or hers,” Shep said. “But we had to do it. Now we are in love and must marry. We ask for your support.”

“Must marry?” Cora asked faintly.

“I am pregnant,” Elen said.

“You are not our son,” Brett said to Shep. “He can not be bound by what you do.”

“But she is with child,” Cora protested. “By our son's body. The child must have a father.”

“Marriage to an elf was not part of the deal!” Brett said.

“Here is what we propose,” Shep said. “We will marry, and Elen will exchange with a young woman of Earth so she can remain with me on the other planet. That Earth woman will keep company with your son, in Elen's body. She will not be his wife; he is not committed to that, as you say. But she will bear his genetic child. Six months later, I will return and so will Elen, to resume our marriage here. It will be known that this was not your doing, but the result of the mission of the sheep. No blame will attach to you.”

“But our son!” Cora protested. “With this elf woman! With child by him!” She was having trouble getting past that.

“With an Earth woman in Elen's body,” Shep said. “They may have whatever relationship they choose.” He smiled briefly. “Brian may have developed a taste for Earth women by the time he returns.”

“You know it must be,” Elen said. “My family will be no better pleased than you by this union. Elves and humans seldom marry. I hope both families will make the best of it.”

“I ask your indulgence,” Brett said. “Would you show us your body, Elf?”

Elen opened her cloak and showed them. Both Brett and Cora looked. “You are beautiful,” Bret said.

Elen shrugged. “Nature made me that way.” She closed her cloak.

“More beautiful than our son would ever be able to attract on his own, human or elf. You would play the part of his lover?”

“I am Shep's lover,” Elen said firmly. “I will not touch your son.”

“But the exchange Earth girl—she would love our son?”

“Unlikely,” Shep said. “She wouldn't know him.”

“But the two bodies would be married, by our custom,” Brett said.

“Elen and I would be married,” Shep said. “Not Brian and the Earth woman.”

“But they would live together.”

“I suppose they would,” Shep agreed.

“They would act married,” Brett said.

This was evidently important to the man. “Probably they would, publicly.”

Now Cora saw where Brett was going. “And if they fell in love, they could marry—Brian and the Earth girl. Completing it. No shame about the baby.”

“If they fell in love,” Shep agreed cautiously.

Brett smiled, looking at Elen. “Could any man be close to this body, whatever its occupant, and not fall in love with her?”

“Not if he's like me,” Shep said.

Elen's face was composed. That could be mischief. She had no interest in the lout. But she knew she would not be occupying her own body in Shep's absence. She would be with him on Earth. She could endure that. “My body will be at the Earth girl's disposal. So long as she does not harm my baby.”

Both parents nodded. They seemed to have hammered out a compromise of sorts. But Shep knew there was one huge uncertainty: could they find an Earth woman who would agree to keep company with the lout? To make a marriage of appearances that would satisfy the relatives.

“You may stay here, using Brian's room,” Cora said. “Until you marry.” Which would give the parents the semblance of some control over the situation.

“Thank you,” Elen said, seeming genuinely grateful. She knew that the Peterson's interest was in appearance, both social and physical, rather than the technicalities of host versus visitor, but that acceptance counted for a lot.

“Now we must broach the elf family,” Shep said.

Brett laughed. “Lotsa luck!” He understood perfectly how the elves would react.

They walked to the other village, accompanied by Vulture and Python. Elen knocked on her own door. “Mom, I have awkward news.”

There was a scene, of course. In the end, the elves agreed to the marriage. What else could they do? Not only was their daughter keeping willing company with a vulture and a python along with a man of Earth, she was pregnant and in love.