The party was definitely getting dull, Miko thought to herself, checking the clock for the dozenth time. Here, right next to the downtown spaceport of Tomobiki City, you'd at least have thought you'd see a little action. "Another saki," she waved towards the bartender. Normally she only had two, but tonight there was nothing else to do. The crowd was mainly human and feline; students and the assorted hangers-on that clustered around space docks, with Observers Book of Extraterrestrials tucked into their pockets. Just her luck! The only Inbound that whole week had been an emergency landing, with half its crew dead by all accounts. NOT the most promising circumstances for her to get her Xenophile badge in the Youth Pioneers Movement. In the dark and rain-wet streets outside, KK'zump smelt the faint scent of sugar and alcohol above the sour odours of rubbish piled into the alleyways. Only tonight had they cleared quarantine, after finishing temporary repairs to their ship. It had been a horrible piece of luck that a bulkhead had ruptured right next to the nursery and the Azahi quarters - every one of the poor things had perished. Not only was the ship in mourning, but its long-term mission was doomed. In only a few hundred years, KK'zump and the rest of the crew would be dead of old age, with nobody to take their place. Right now, she felt like getting EXTREMELY drunk. "Well, how about it, sweet thing?" Came the voice from beside Miko's ear. She turned, and her heart sank. The greasy wool of Asaka, her promised mate by arranged marriage, pressed against her. "Get lost," she spat "you've no right to see me till next year. If it wasn't for my parents, I'd be out of the Empire so fast you couldn't say Hairball." She looked up defiantly at the grinning male, his horns lacquered in the latest mode. "Asaka. GET - OUT - OF - MY - SIGHT." Mockingly, he blew her a kiss. "You be sure and keep your tail clean, Miko - if I find out someone's been messing with my property, I could just lose all my respect for it. And it might get broke. You hear me?" With a flourish, the ram swept out of the bar, more than one hostile pair of eyes burning unheeded on his back. "Oh, I'm glad I haven't got a Respectable Family like yours." The voice was Ahi, one of her human friends. Dressed in a loose shirt, only the neckerchief of the Youth Pioneers revealed their common bond. "I know it's illegal as hell - can't you get out of it somehow?" Miko's white wool seemed to turn grey in the dim light of the bar, as the buzz of conversation welled back up around them. "Ahi - there's no way on earth I can even TRY to. Asaka's folks have been my family's benefactors for centuries. We owe them every thing - if he wasn't such a total dungwad, I could put up with the idea. He wasn't even too bad until a few years ago...... then he changed. Folk keep thinking he'll change back, but I'm not betting a tail hair on THAT." Fleetingly, she almost regretted having ever been drawn to him. But on first appearences, a tall, well-muscled young ram, bursting with the right musks, was a sight and scent to get most ovine girls' tails twitching. Yeah. Great, she reminded herself. All I need is a strong dose of masochism and a lobotomy, and I'm sure we'll be a Perfect pair. There was a long pause. The sheep girl shuddered. "The thing is, he's such an arrogant bastard, he sees something and has to have it. But I'm his anyway - so he has to go one better." Ahi winced. "Ow. You poor girl. I hate to have to tell you, but Asaka's sort of acquired - Feline tastes. At least, that's what Mrrelsa told ME - I mean, she's built that way round. It's nothing I'd want my mate to be doing to me - it's a wonder cats ever get kittens, with little preferences like That...." The slender human's own "preferences" were somewhat obvious. A finely crafted prosthetic tail waved in invitation, and slim hooved shoes added six inches to her height and severalfold to her Ungulate appeal. Her eyes gleamed as they swept the tavern for any handsome two-hundred kilo minotaurs that had somehow been overlooked. Just then, the door opened. The bar was suddenly silent, apart from the thump as Ahi's Observer's Book Of Extraterrestrials fell from her nerveless fingers. In the doorway stood a centauroid figure, almost insect-like with a burnished black carapace gleaming in a thousandfold sparkle of beaded rain on the smooth black plating. Behind it, four more could be seen crowded behind. "Yay." Ahi had memorised this entry months ago. "They're AErornii, from somewhere out past Epsilon Eridae.... nobody knows where they go to - but when they pass an inhabited world, do they PARTY!" ** Major place, this! ** KK'zump waved her antennae enthusiastically at AM'koll, who had at last managed to strike a deal with the refreshment-vendor- behind-partial-barrier about the price of drinks. ** Cheap too. Only two of the Carbon-stones for a glass SO big! ** Her crewmate held up a litre of rice beer ** Analyses as good - maybe ten percent sucrose, plus ethanol - we'll take some of THIS back, eh? ** While AM'koll had been negotiating with the barman, the rest of the AErornii had watched the bipeds in their obvious leisure mode. There seemed at least a dozen varieties of Earth sentients here - in their clothing, it was hard to tell exactly, to AErornii perceptions. But some had fur on different places - and the legs and skull shapes seemed to vary quite a lot. Whether that meant different species, sexes or just cosmetic surgery, was something the ship's databanks were still undecided on. Still - they all smelled good - not unlike the dear Azahi creatures that they were all mourning.... "Go on," Ahi hissed, lifting the black-furred flap of her ovine friend's ear "Go and dance with them! You want your Xenophile badge, don't you? And I'm sure that's what they're suggesting." Miko hesitated for a second. The music was loud, and evidently suited the frequency range and the tastes of the visitors, judging by the way they were swaying in time to the beat. And two of the insect-centaurs were dancing, almost like horses doing dressage, in imitation of the people on the dance floor below. Every few seconds they would stop and look at their audience, compound eyes glittering in what looked like a quizzical expression. "Ok." Her mind was made up "Get that camera rolling - I'm going in." KK'zump broke off her involved manoeuvres with YR'kirr, her Chief engineering officer, as the native approached. There was an unwritten rule in this sort of situation; always go along with native custom unless it was obviously life-threatening. And other AErornii ships had reported the Earth folk as friendly, low-tech food growers who brewed a MEAN sugar solution, available for either pure carbon-stones or a kilo of any of the noble metals their native planet seemed so poor in. The native bent slightly in the middle - a gesture of greeting, maybe? - and offered its upper manipulative appendages to hold KK'zump's own. Right! When in ZZ'untia, do as the ZZ'untians - and DANCE! Miko hesitantly took each of the insectoid arms in hers. The crowd on the dance floor were doing a classic ElectroPolka right now, their Alpenrock costumes flying in a glory of bells and ribbons. She had danced with centaurs before, in the seedy Thailand bars her tour party had sneaked off to explore. But those had been native Earth dwellers, despite the forbidden Genemeld ancestry that had mixed biped and quad genetics - this was Very different indeed. The music luckily changed to a slow number, as she began to move in time with the beat. The alien's shell was not a hard unyielding armour like a mechsuit; it was slightly pliable, like the leather of a well-worn hiking boot. Polished, too - the naked skin on the palm of her hand was slightly waxy where she embraced her partner. "Maybe you can't understand me," she murmured, her voice lost in the noise of the band "but you're not doing a bad job of keeping my mind off things. And you're not a bad dancer, either - you folk seem to pick up ideas in a hurry...." Half an hour later, she was at the bar again. No more saki for her, though; this was an evening she truly wanted to remember. Turning round, she saw her friend bow to one of the aliens and teeter precariously over towards her in her high hooves. Miko wondered how much practice it had taken to learn to walk, let alone dance in them - the narrow, sharp hooves changed the way she walked into a rather blatant suggestion. As Ahi had said - "even without exercising, you can end up with wonderful calves..." Miko snapped back to the present as Ahi nudged her. "I've been looking these folk up on the Net - there's a few things on them that aren't in the Observer's Book. Hey, you know this is only the sixth AErorni ship to make planetfall? And they take folk along for the ride - seems there's a dozen species we only know of from their records." The human girl's big Manga eyes sparkled in the flashing lights of the floor show. "Seems they all volunteered, as far as we can make out..... anything with compatible chemistry, they don't seem prejudiced." "EK!" Miko's ovine ancestry had bad racial memories of big, fierce carnivores "You SURE they weren't taken along for in-flight meals?" Her friend grinned. "I'm sure. You see the official classification code here? Their species is physically "compatible" with our food, our atmosphere, and all that ... but here's an UNofficial classification." She pointed to a footnote in the databook's file, and Miko's ears rose in surprise. AErorni were "compatible" in more ways than that. And since it was written up in detail, it meant somebody had already chosen to find that out. The alleyway was dark outside the spaceport bar; rotting cardboard boxes and their spilled contents made treacherous reefs between the pools of light cast by dim street lamps. Miko had been unable to drag Ahi away; if she was to get up in time for work tomorrow, she had to get back home even if it did mean walking back alone. "Well now, if it's not a little lost lamb, eh?" came a voice from behind her. She froze, her paw a fraction of a second from the skirt holster - and then she recognized the voice. "Asaka," she said quietly, as the horned figure was suddenly silhouetted against the light. "I've told you - go AWAY. Or do I call for the gendarmes?" His grin was a rictus of sharp browsing teeth as he came towards her. "Now, I don't think you're going to do that. Not when you've got years of domestic bliss to look forwards to, say?" He was close enough now for her to smell the alcohol on his breath; not saki, but something stronger and cruder. "In fact, Miko-of-mine, I've decided you're getting a little taste of it right here and now." He gestured towards a pile of black plastic refuse bags in an alleyway. "Maybe that'll knock some of the starch outa your stiff hide." Asaka was almost in grappling range right now; he towered easily a head taller, not even counting the expensively inlaid horns. For one second she felt the logic of despair inside her. This is my chosen one. This is the one whose name is already written next to mine in the family records. This is the one who'll be fathering all my children - there's nothing he can do to me here that he won't someday be doing anyway..... She looked at the piled rubbish that in the next few seconds would become her bridal bed. Her skirt would be pulled up, and Asaka's paws would drag her clean white slip down to her hocks while she lay there passively, remembering those last instants when her body was still her own. And then - fiercely or casually, he would take her, holding her down while her white tail was ground into the sour garbage, until he was done with her. Miko shivered, with the sick fascination of a witness at a road accident. Within the next few minutes she would doubtless be alone again, but for what oozed across the split black plastic like some gargantuan failed condom, his dregs mingling with other stale spillings from discarded plastic cups and nameless rottenness below. And here she would lie, Miko Asada, one more piece of material used and abandoned by the grinning ram. Like hell I will! Miko was in the Youth Pioneers Gymnastics team, along with her other accomplishments. With every muscle blending into a sweep of her full power, her sharp hoof smashed shatteringly into his testicles with the impact of a sledgehammer - and then with the acceleration of a startled gazelle, she was sprinting away from her old life, back down the alleyway. "Ahi," she panted, staggering into the bar with more nervous than physical exhaustion. "Where'd she go?" The dance floor was still crowded, with the AErorni still the centre of attention. Their style had improved with practice, even in the twenty minutes she'd been gone - and every one of the patrons seemed to have joined in on the floor. But no sign of Ahi. "She left awhile back," the weasel bartender was taking the opportunity to re-stock his bottle bins. "At least, ahhh ..." he caught sight of the desperate expression on the ovine's face. For a moment their eyes met. Then the bartender shrugged, and looked at his feet. "There's a room in back I let them have. Hey, she's your friend, I wouldn't have told anyone else. But I don't reckon they'd really want to be disturbed, y'know?" He pulled up the bar top to let Miko squeeze past. "Room labelled 'Cleaning Supplies ' - on your left. They've got the key, but go next door and - " he suddenly looked embarrassed. Ten seconds later, Miko found out why. Through the one-way mirror in the closet, Miko stared transfixed at what was happening. Ahi had evidently decided that interstellar relationships needed improving with her own personal touches. "Definitely - that's the way!" the human girl's voice was muffled through the glass. She was bending over, her shoulders resting on a pile of boxes arranged like a gymnast's vaulting horse, one hand steadying herself, while the other reached back to caress her shaven belly - and what was inside it. For an instant, the horrible vision of a preying mantis and its prey flashed through Miko's head. Her friend was being gripped tightly by the arms and forelegs of the AErorni, the hold a natural-looking pose for the alien limbs. She imagined it grappling some beast the size and power of a bulldozer, more than capable of holding it captive until its purpose had been achieved. But Ahi was a more than willing captive.... The joints of the alien's carapace plates were linked by softer hide, more like shoe-leather than armour. And when she had danced, Miko had noticed a vertical joint between the front walking legs starting to widen, glistening. But whether her partner was a male or female, if such ideas applied, was more than the Observer's Book could tell her. Now it looked obvious! The plates between the front legs were now spread apart like a beetle's wing case, revealing a doughnut-sized ring of glistening flesh. It was if a normal Centaur had moved his horse-like pizzle forward to within range of his hands, or within range of what those hands could hold. "Keep it up... you're doing fine.." Ahi's eyes were closed, and her breathing coming in gasps "don't you worry, just ... AAAAAAHHHHHH!" With a shudder, she thrust herself back on her lover, as all four front arms grasped her tight and the antennae twitched wildly. Miko almost hated herself for watching this - but she could not tear her eyes away for an instant. Minutes passed as the insectoid held her friend gently - and then relaxed its grip, backing away with a deeply liquid note sounding richly in the musk-laden air. What had been the planet's latest import, pulled out of a satisfied customer with a liquid note, Ahi's long and swollen lovelips dragging on its ridged surface as if they were unwilling to see it leave. As the two Earth girls watched, fascinated, the concertina-like folds of glistening green-black mottled flesh retracted into its forward-pointing sheath like a reversed and accelerated film of a leaf going back into its bud. Ahi straightened up, and ran a finger down her flushed and sweat-damp stomach. She turned, and her eyes widened. Then she laughed. "Come on in, Miko - I'll unlock the door. It's not just the saki that's cheap in here - that mirror's not worth a yen at keeping secrets!" ** A most unexpected end to the evening ** KK'zump marvelled, as she returned to the spaceport under the grey light of approaching day ** One day, maybe we can recruit some new Azahi from this place. ** The antennae of UZ'dew, the ship's xenobiologist, trembled in warning. ** I hope you did nothing they will not be expecting - our relations with this part of the planet are precarious enough, without making them Azahi against their will. ** ** Against their will? Never! ** KK'zump's tone was scornful, as she turned to the male ** This isn't two million years ago, when we would take every herdbeast as food or Azahi. My young are fated to die within me, it seems - for they will NOT be given life unwelcomed. ** The young male looked sorrowfully at her, as she splayed her front plates and extended her Oyutu, still strangely scented and slippery with the native's secretions. KK'zump was right. They were civilised now, and depended on willing partners to mix Sijani and Oyutu since the homeworld had been lost. Which was likely to be the doom of their species yet. ** At least we managed to resupply ** he commented, his antennae going up in a half-hearted gesture of "good cheer" **Their drinks are pretty potent - some of them are full of high-grade sugars! Funny thing is, it's the ethyl alcohol that has that effect on them. And fructose sugar doesn't do a thing for them - they just oxidise it as fuel.** He gave a delicate shiver. **At least I laid in a few measures of something they call "Mead" - just in case we ever get any more Azahi.** "Yes, I'll definitely do THAT again as soon as I get the chance." Daylight was bright in the kitchen, as Ahi poured tea out for her guest. The two girls had returned to Ahi's apartment, and were sharing an outwardly calm breakfast. The human stretched, luxuriating in the calm feeling that morning had brought her. Suddenly she sighed. "But what are you going to do now? You can't split with Asaka - either he'll take it out on your hide, or your folks are going to be upset if you break up without a reason you can tell them. I wouldn't have put up with him in the first place." Miko was absent-mindedly looking through the Net entries on AErornii, trying to keep her mind off her immediate problems. Suddenly, one entry caught her eye, labelled in the "unsubstantiated" section. "Listen to this," she turned the databook so her friend could see it. "The AErornii are always found travelling with some other separate species, who they call Azahi, regardless of species type or homeworld. Two cases are known of Earth natives joining their ships, and returning several years later unharmed, carrying important strategic data and major troves of alien artifacts. Several other cases are rumoured, but since the ships in question have not yet returned, the safety of the Earth crew is unknown." The two friends looked at each other. Suddenly, the same thought came to them both. "YES!" On the newsnets that week, a major headline story was the departure for points unknown of Miko Adasada, who had been requested as replacement crew by the AErornii vessel that had so tragically lost all its children and non-aerornii members. "I have a duty," was Miko's statement "to my Greater Family of Earth, to be ambassador to the stars, greater even than my duty to my family and fiance. I am sure that Asaka realises how important it is, that I must leave even his charms, to serve my world." It had been fun writing that speech. Asaka's life without her would become as fun-packed as hers would have been with him, when Ahi sent the photographs they had taken to PlayBeing magazine next month. Certainly, the faces would be altered to anonymity - but her only regret was that she could not be around to see HIS face, when he realised what sort of charms she preferred to his own. The kick in the balls is something he'll recover from, she thought contentedly. But that size kick in the ego - I doubt it. "Now's the time to change your mind, if you're going to" Ahi had told her, more for form's sake than anything else, in the Azahi section of the starship. "I'd go with you - but they say they'll be gone an Earth year or two, and I've a lot to keep me here." Miko relaxed on the oversized couch. This was the scene of tragedy, where an escape hatch had unexpectedly ruptured and depressurised the section. But it had been thoroughly cleaned and repaired; only a few possessions of its former owners were stored as sentimental souvenirs. "I THINK I'll be all right," she grinned, her wool glowing with health. The temperature was high and humid, almost like an ant-warren - she had decided to spend the next year in her bare fur, onboard ship at any rate. "I've looked up Azahi in all the dictionaries. They're some sort of symbiotes - not slaves, or food. Those three Chinese girls who came back from an AErornii colony last year had spent two years as Azahi, and they weren't complaining. I hope to learn the language on this trip - and maybe that's not all I'll teach them." Ahi nodded. "There's something about not giving them fruit sugars in the unofficial Net reports," she paged down through the screen "funny, though - it says it ISN'T poisonous, or anything - the way it's phrased, is more like "if you give it them, watch out!". It also says it only works on the males." There was a silence. "You sure you'll be OK?" Miko's snout wrinkled in a wistful grin. "What do you think they'll do to me? By all accounts, they treat their Azahi like Queens - and I've proved I'm, well, compatible, with all their males. " She giggled. "Anybody'd think I was in one of those pulp sci-fi tales of a century ago - you know, "Martians Have Come To Steal Our Women." Their food's compatible too, but I checked their genes - no chance! Anyway - " she tapped the imperceptible bulge under the skin of her left arm, where the hormonal implant had been since her first fertile season "this has another five years left in it.... just in case...." Earth was a receding blue ball in the viewscreens, as Miko finally finished exploring the ship. It was about the size of a naval frigate of old; from her point of view, far less cramped than most starships due to the bulk of its centauroid designers. In one of the holds was stored the precious cargo. At least, she was assured it was precious; most of the hold was filled with small white boxes, plugged into the ship's power supply. ** Engineered micro-organisms, nano-technology products ** UZ'dew had explained, the crude translator round his neck flashing. ** Guaranteed safe in all environments - these need special balances of heavy trace elements to grow. Not used by other carbon-based life forms. If the nano-builders escape, they die.** In various tanks around the ship, she had watched the "demonstration projects". The spacecraft's hull was a light composite of carbonfibre and diamond, actually grown like coral by the organisms that had made it. New sections or repairs started with a mesh fabric of fine metallic mesh; the microbes clustered around the electrical field and grew in whatever shape the builders required. "You seem to manage things with biology that make our best gene cloning look like watching mold growing on fruit!" Miko was impressed. "How long have you been building this sort of thing?" ** Since before we lost the Homeworld ** UZ'dew's antennae drooped sadly ** We were an old, old species before that. Civilised for tens of millions of planetary years. Learned to use other's biology to help us - easier than your people, you have to do everything yourself.** The ovine girl nodded. They walked further on - and almost bumped into KK'zump and one of the others who she had seen on shore leave, in an open room off the corridor. AErornii, it seemed, had no taboos about mating in public. "Mind if I watch? I'd like to see your idea of good technique!" Miko's eyes widened as the two insectoids approached each other, face to face and their front plates hinged wide open. She could now tell male from female by the detailed shape of those plates, even before they reached arousal - and after that, there was No doubting which was which. KK'zump's Oyutu, as she had heard it described, slid out of its internal scabbard to point straight forward like a galley's jutting ram. And there Miko had a surprise - that concertina-like organ was half the length and twice the width from last time she had seen it, only the night before. "Well, well...." she breathed to herself, as the two aliens locked in a four-armed embrace and the Oyutu slipped into YR'kirr's glistening doughnut "He's actually adjustable - 'one model fits all needs'! Now, THAT'S what I CALL a natty piece of evolution." There was a bleep as a translator behind her was switched on. Glancing round, she studied the female xenobiologist who worked with her. It was easy enough to tell the AErornii apart despite their alien shape; the carapace was banded and mottled in individual patterns that might or might not be biological. **Old species, we are**, UZ'dew reaffirmed. **Had to adapt to many different child-bearers on the homeworld, to carry young.** Miko thought back to her own lessons in Historical biology. Earth had been lucky; civilisation had evolved only because of the lucky intervention of a recombinant virus that had blended the genes of the ancestral species with all the other mammals around - hence the fifty-three sentient species. With only one sentient species, inventions such as farming and cities were impossible; only by filling slightly different dietary niches, and being resistant to your neighbour's diseases, could dense populations survive. "So there's different sized races or something of you? "She grinned, eyes concentrating on the impressive display ahead. "I could see where it'd be an advantage... like with my friends Sapporo and Jikuki. They're crazy about each other - but HE'S a draft breed stallion, and SHE'S small even for a vole girl - there's not a lot they can DO about it. Still, it'd be horrible to have just one species - imagine if all your mates had the same biology..." She shuddered. **No, no. AErornii vary only slightly. But many different Azahi indeed.** But Miko wasn't listening. Which might have turned out to be something of a Bad Idea. Weeks passed, while the ship's Cosmic String Jumars winched them up towards the edge of the Sun's gravity well, ready for the leap into the Far Distance. From the observation windows in the needle nose, the view was starting to change. Bands of distorted stars showed where spacetime was bending as the gravitational drag increased, its bow-wave propagating across the aether in a way that would have a twentieth-Century physicist scrambling for her polaroid camera. Pretty soon, the ship would begin to nose up towards Lux One, ever more slowly, as gravitational drag increased towards infinity. But a practical spacefaring race had needed to get beyond that barrier - and a barrier that proved impenetrable, might still be jumped over. "In the early seconds of Time," Miko was lying in her hammock, reading a translated AErornii work she had found amongst the sad relics of the previous offworld crew, "the turmoil of Space and Time cooled, and set into the order that we know of, as water freezes to ice. And yet as in ice, there were tiny gaps between the crystals, where the former liquid resisted being shaped into that which was around it. This, we call.." Miko stopped, and frowned. ""Rich Vacuum "? That can't be right." She yawned, and relaxed. Beside her hammock, the data recorder was tapped into the starship's instruments, bootlegging a copy of the chart to the stars. By the time she got home, she would be a VERY rich little lamb. Her hooves flexed unconsciously as she thought back fondly to what she would return to. A family now wealthy and respected - she would be in a position to marry whoever she liked. And then a fierce grin split her ovine lips. "That's assuming I don't settle down with one of my NEW clan. Oh, wouldn't THAT just look great in the Citizenship register. They treat me like a hive-queen here, not a domestic servant. True, we'd have to adopt, but still..." she looked down at the book, and read on. "Though the joins between spacetime units were at first tiny, as Space expanded, they stretched to become great sheets and planes stretching across the Universe today. On a boundary like these, Space and Time behave in ways unknown elsewhere since those first instants. Engaging the Cosmic String Jumar there may flip a starship all the way to the next boundary, without passing through intervening space. Several hundred light years may be simply bypassed..." Her ears rose, and she quickly reached for the data lead to dump the file into her personal databank. The fibre optic cable swallowed the revelations with ease - and again she wondered at the AErornii talent for interfacing with other species' requirements. "Here I am," she murmured "on the trip of a lifetime, all expenses paid - and I don't even have to scrub the decks. " She frowned. Paying your debts was a strong point of honour with her culture, and so far the deals had all been one-sided. With a yawn, she took the databook and was about to switch it off. Suddenly she stopped. The spacedrive article had been read to the end of the file..... but past that mark, the screen was NOT blank. It was dim, but something was just visible there. It looked like stylus-written handwriting, in Cyrillic script. Eagerly switching her databank to Earth mode, she began to translate. The task took Miko six ship's days, as the Japanese ovine laboured over the ghostly, overwritten images on the half-erased file. The trouble was, it had been simply scribbled down like a piece of calligraphy - NOT as anything her translator could handle directly. But word by word, she typed up, and read. It was a diary - and as she read, she realised that she was not the first Earthwoman to rest her fur in that room. Katrina Ogosiov had been one of the crew of the ARCHANGELSK, a mining ship that had been exploring the deuterium-rich iceballs of the Oort Cloud, far in the darkness beyond Pluto. All had gone well on their two-year cruise, and the huge bulk carrier was preparing to head sunwards and home, when disaster struck. A micrometeorite the size of a dust grain had, some time in the last year or so, punched into the main drive windings. The diagnostic systems had not spotted anything wrong with the great superconducting coil that trapped the Nirva drive's hot nuclear heart and channelled it in a Promethian driving blast - for there had been nothing wrong with the conductor itself. It had simply lost a chunk of insulation. "Oh, Cthulu on a crutch...." Miko's eyes widened as she read on "so it held up until the drive was running... then the heat built up on the superconductor until... it blew." The magnetic bottle holding a gigawatt of hell-spawning plasma smashed wide apart! Only the hundreds of tonnes of slush deuterium in the tanks saved the crew from instant incineration. But that was a small mercy - their ship torn apart, all systems failing, nothing but weeks and months of choking, freezing death awaited them. "And that was our fate...." Miko read her translation of Katrina's diary "we had no power to signal Earth, even if they could have come in time. But better instruments than ours had seen, and they came while six of us were still alive being.." Miko frowned, as she pieced together the scraps of text. Between her translation problems and the overwriting by later files, the whole story had been lost. But what remained was intriguing. "Saw pictures of AErornii lost homeworld"... one fragment read "savage other carnivores still top of food chain even when spaceflight civilisation reached. Friends were scavengers, slight hunters, needed all intelligence to survive. But certain hopeless without clan structure evolved before intelligence. Saw herds of herbivores under AErornii protection from other predators. Only old and sick eaten - not viable as food source. Hunters look for food outside herds. Saw one or two pictures of all different herdbeasts like insect hippo or gazelle shape with eggs - and eggs all hatch out as our friends. Must be dominant genes - no trace of other parent. And will ask why no picture of AErornii carrying eggs. Will ask carefully. Religious taboos on depicting?" There followed several pages of Katrina's description of planets visited, and her growing contentment with life onboard ship. Miko chuckled at some of the scenes. There had been eight different species sharing this part of the ship, all carbon-based with right-handed proteins, as the Russian's mediscanner had confirmed, but of wildly different geometries. "AErornii say they doomed to extinct without us Azahi. AErornii evolved to protect their herds for good reason. Predators have to run, jump - homeworld harsher than Earth. Predator females cannot carry child, too heavy. Maybe started like Ichneumon wasp, lay egg kill host - but better if host care for young. Like if cuckoo drive off predators, make sure chick grow up with parents alive and willing to feed." A small fragment. "I decided to. Looked at other Azahi and wanted. Was very strange - thought breasts would swell. But not same as usual way. Maybe it not mine as such - but looking forward to see how turns out. Feel wonderful, anyway! Found out why traditional herds stay with predator species. Am not fearing anything now." But there was one last entry. And the smile dropped off her face as she read it, knowing what she did of the accident that must have been only days or hours later. "Am very pleased!" Miko read "We approaching Earth system, only days before radio contact. UZ'dew he say that we stay several tens planetary cycles. Time to visit home town of Magnyorsk, and little Katrinova come too. Folk never guess till I tell them whose! Was great surprise to me - but she learn speak Russian fast as any Earth cub. Will write when in orbit." Miko's ears drooped, and she silently said a prayer to Hastur, the great Space God. Nobody in this room had lived to see orbit - neither Katrina, or the mysterious Katrinova whose first mention in the diary had come in the middle of a long passage between star systems, with no way for anyone to have boarded the ship. That was one of the things she now understood - and now too, she realised why the diary seemed to have got the sexes of all the AErornii the wrong way round. Lying back in her hammock, the ovinette came to a decision. It was the off-duty time span, when KK'zump heard the banging sound on her door. That instantly identified it as Miko - the others on the ship scratched at doors, rather than knocked. She switched her translator on, as the white-furred Earth girl entered the room. "I felt... in need of some company", Miko said diffidently, shifting her weight from one side to the other, while a strange expression flashed across her face. The AErornii dimly remembered seeing that before - and recalled the description "mischievous smile" had been a fair translation. **Always willing to serve** her antennae dipped in the bowing-with-deference gesture. And then KK'zump's whole body twitched in recognition of an old familiar scent. "I brought a bottle of this, for us," Miko had been hiding something behind her back. "I've checked your records - you DO like this, don't you? Finest mead, like liquid sunlight!" **Cannot... not with you... beg apologies..** the AErorni retreated in alarm, though her antennae were trembling in excitement. The Earth girl laughed. "You've been worried too long. Ever since the accident, isn't that right? What you need is a little relaxation." She sipped at the fruit-rich nectar, and sighed heavily in KK'zump's direction. Besides.... we think it's VERY bad manners to refuse a social invitation - wouldn't you say?" Before KK'zump could respond, she flung herself at him and kissed him, mouth to mouthparts - and the fruit sugars passed from one to the other. "I THOUGHT you'd like that really," Miko said innocently, as the insectoid went rigid "come on, try some more - what are you worried about?" **It wrong of us to take advantage and you not know ... fructose has effect on us, made inside males when Azahi present and ready...** but before she could finish, Miko put the bottle to her mouthparts and lifted it - convulsively, the insectoid had no choice but to swallow. "Well, you could take advantage of me, if I let you.." Miko flashed a glance over her shoulder "it's a long trip ahead of us - who knows when you might get the chance to find any more - willing - Azahi like me." The fructose sugars were setting KK'zump's head spinning; already her front seam was gaping open, her Oyutu beginning to extend. But then she realised just what the Earth girl had said. **You KNOW? And knowing, you are willing?** Miko dropped to her hands and knees; her white tail flicked aside in a liquescent display of just how willing. "I can do the one thing you can't, with all your technology. And if you want, then yes, I'm willing." For a delicious instant her thoughts flashed back across the light-months. Where one mate would have taken her as of right, another had not even suggested that she do what she intended. This was her own right to choose. "I can see why you don't advertise how you're different from us - but really - if you just told people." She paused, and looked round at him, her eyes solemn." You might be surprised at the response you get." And Miko relaxed, her eyes closed and her sensitive nose breathing in a heady mix of sweet mead and alien hormonal brew. She felt the two sets of grasping hands hold her gently - and as a score of times before, the pleasure of the ovipositor gently entering her, knowing at last the secret of the race that she chose to bear. What seemed to be alien females were male; at mating their depths flooded with seed that was taken up by the flower-like head of a female's Oyutu which held the living egg until a willing host took it to carry for her own. "Yess..." Miko flexed herself after a sweet hour had passed. Her breath was coming hard, tail locked as far aside as it had ever been "now, Do it!" And for the first time she felt the eruption as eggs spawned in her womb, her AErornii child that carried the future of an ancient, noble race in the only way its evolutionary path could lead. That night, they lay intertwined once more while Miko planned contentedly how she would break the news on the day she - they - returned to Earth. Glancing at her Tokyo-built computer, ticking happily as it sat plugged into the ship's starbuilt systems, she suppressed a giggle. "Maybe I'll say something like this," she promised herself. "If you knew what these traders have got, you'd want it. And you might find out -" she paused - "just why they make a point of making EVERYTHING of theirs so VERY compatible.....!"