The Star Whorl (The Totality Cycles Book 1) (11 page)

    
And those of higher
ability, if they don’t go to Tertius, either,
he thought, feeling a cold
bite of dread.
Why? What’s behind this? There’s no reason, no logical
justification for this. Unless there’s something I’m not seeing...?

     He skimmed the Spheres, and
saw nothing but questions, people asking each other what the Initiative meant,
and whether it would affect them or anyone they knew. Some even called for the
Alighter, as if they somehow thought that the persona he had created to get his
message out would know what to do.

    
I can’t abandon them,
he
thought, and wondered that such a thought should occur to him.
What am I
thinking? It’s not as if I were in the Solidarim, able to affect policy, and
get this Initiative repealed. I don’t even know if I’m going to Tertius, for
certain. I’m doing well enough, and I should have the Nil’Gu’ua ability to
qualify... but ultimately, it is the decision of Mother and Father. But – I can’t
just go silent. However, if people of power are vuuing what the Alighter says,
and I suborn sedition... But I can’t condone it, either. What do I say?

     He considered, then made a
new alias Sphere.

    
:Alighter Seeker

     :Sisters and brothers of
the Spheres, we have been answered. But this answer only raises more questions.
Who will be affected by this Initiative? Why are our citizens being sent so far
away? What if we don’t want to go? What recourse do we have?

     :And what of those taken,
without a word, without a sound or glyph – how are we to receive this Initiative
when we have already seen it at work, and not in our benefit?

     :I seek the answers, much
as everyone does. But whom are we to ask? Where are we to delve? And most of
all – how are we to weigh our choices, given that we have the option to choose?

     :I have seen the quiet
desperation of purposelessness in the real world, I have tasted it. Does it
kill, or cause injury? Is a life without drive any more wasted than a live
given over solely to the elevation of others? Must these be the extremes? Or is
there a place of contentment in between, personal fulfillment without being
bound to the toils and rewards of those in power?

     :I, myself, seek such a
place, such a state of existence. How does this Initiative promote that?

    
It skirts the edge,
he thought, the knot coming back to his stomach as he deactivated his study-station
and sought his rest-pad. His elytra-pace clamped down, making his back ache.
The
edge of sedition, the edge of rebellion. Can they condemn me for asking
questions?

     The encroaching darkness
held no answers at all, to any of the questions that he had posed.

Whorl Thirty Three

     The five-turn seemed to
stream away, with no punitive action or response to his last post from the
Gu’Anin Magistrate Council, though those following his discussion thread did continue
to question, though not always in favor of his views. Only the prospect of enjoying
a dark-turn alone with Polista Zydeli’Kil kept him from sinking into complete
despair, but a despair of powerlessness, rather than indolence.

     Despite himself, Kreceno’Tiv
did feel a rush of anticipation once he reached Polista Zyledi’Kil’s domicive. She
admitted him with a huge smile, and he stepped into the modest vestibule. The
streak of trepidation he had been holding off all five-turn was back, in the
footsteps of the anticipation. Here was the quintessential close-hold,
sheltering famiya, not letting its youngsters socialize excessively, if at all.
This type of sheltering was typified by restriction of information from the
interlinks, and basically keeping the children ignorant of most social
situations and interactions, focusing mainly on education. But they were
allowing a daughter of the famiya to spend a dark-turn alone with a young male?
It felt wrong, seemed wrong. His parents had said nothing to him, but they did
not have to. He hoped he was wrong about the situation, and he was slightly on
guard as she took his hand and led him to a room which was tastefully furnished
in a quiet way. She had him sit on the double lounge and went to Nil-ize the wall
view-glyphographic. Then she bounced over and snuggled next to him, her glyph
seeming to wrap around him in the same way her arms did. Its allure pushed his
suspicions and trepidations away. There was a breathlessness to her, a flirtiness,
that titillated him, even as his concerns tried to raise their vuu’erio at him
again.

     “This is my favorite viewie
entertainment,” she said, turning shining eyes to him. He smiled, turned his
attention to the projection. But barely had it begun, than she shivered with
some internal fright, and he instinctively pressed her closer, stroked her arm
soothingly.

     “Kreceno’Tiv,” she
whispered, looking up at him. He gazed down at her, and she was so enticing, so
innocently demure, vulnerable, that he wanted to gather her up in his arms and
keep her safe. He touched her cheek, smoothed his finger lightly over the
slightest dimple in her chin. Her lips parted, and her eyes closed, her
vuu’erio stretching forward, a clear invitation. So he did gather her up,
framing her face, and he brushed his lips over hers. Her lips were soft, sweet
under his.

     He felt her breath catch,
and her arms flowed up around his neck, her skin silken, her fingers curling
deliciously through his hair. She pressed close, her heartbeat swift and her
breath short.

Her vuu’erio tennae curled
lightly around his own, and she was wonderfully yielding, wonderfully soft,
clinging to him as if she would never let go. Her chemi-scent turned from just
sweet to intoxicating. Finally, he let her down, a slight haze in his brain
from the kissing and caressing. Polista Zyledi’Kil leaned against him, and he
vaguely noted that he had gained a slight Po-induction.

     “That was wonderful,” she
sighed, running her hand over the velveteen smoothness of his deshik. “I really
like you, Kreceno’Tiv.”

     “Then I guess it’s a good
thing Ro-Becilo’Ran is such a mate-matcher,” he murmured. She laughed a little,
then without warning, she turned to him and drew him down to her, inviting him
to kiss her again. He did, and she was much more voracious, moving against him
in a dance older than sentience, exciting him in a way that he had not felt
before, and which vaguely alarmed him. Her glyph seemed to open, becoming
clearer, and her chemi-scent went from seductive to imperative, in preparation
of mating. She moved from his side to lying full on him, her legs straddling
his hips. His body responded enthusiastically, and he did not protest when she actually
opened his deshik and coaxed it off of him. Then she slid her arms around him
and her hands were on his elytra-pace, tracing the double lobes of it
enticingly. She was pressed full against him, weakening his resolve. When he
tried to restrain himself, she coaxed his hands to learn her form, her deshik
seeming to flow off on its own, and she cajoled him wordlessly to touch her, to
taste her.

     Pol-Kreceno’Tiv lifted his
mouth from hers, his own pulse quick. He wore her Polistar-induction, deeper
than just surface pre-mating, deeper than the Ropalir-induction that Ro-Becilo’Ran
had. Geni’vheris. He would have gone further, but for the recurring thought of
the lecture on the Tiers, and the nagging doubt it had raised. Only that kept
his hormones from getting the best of him, with Polista Zyledi’Kil almost
completely unclothed and willing in his arms.

    
This is moving too fast,
he thought desperately, shivering and instinctively fighting the deepening
transformation, even as his body yearned toward fulfillment of the pleasure and
mating. He touched her glyph, which was almost completely open to him, and felt
a mixed maelstrom of emotions – desire, trepidation, awakening sexual need,
reluctance. Relieved, he stroked his hands down her elytra-pace, and sat up,
easing her off of him but still holding her close. They had almost crested the Geni’vhal,
the point right before true-mating, Geni’vhor, but her reticence had enabled
him to pull back from that precipice of change.

     “Krece...” she said
breathlessly, half-query.

     “Zyle,” he murmured, stroking
her hair. “We’re Geni’vhes, pre-mated.” That said it all, that they were close,
and could conceivably get closer over time. Her colors on his body dimmed, to
the normal pre-mating intensity.

     “Don’t you want to...?” she
asked, moving closer again, bringing his mouth down to hers. He kissed her, and
smiled, though there was a touch of that something, that doubt, that held back
full pleasure in it.

     “There’s no need to rush,”
he replied, and it was strange that she had not picked up on the meanings behind
his words. “We haven’t reached full maturity. Our bodies aren’t really ready.”
That was not strictly true, as full mating could be achieved once a male was
able to respond to a girl’s chemi-scent. But mating before full maturity
brought problems, not the least of which were physiological.

     “But I don’t want to lose
you,” she said, and there was – the tiniest hint of fear in her voice. He
leaned back, to look in her eyes.

     “What do you mean?” he said,
raising a vuu-brow. “Why would you lose me?” The grim suspicions arose again to
lurk in his mind, trying to dominate his thoughts, but he held them away, for
the moment.

     Her eyes filled with tears.
“Krece, you are so – so beautiful, so confident, you could have any girl. And
you are practically guaranteed a place in Tertius. I want to be yours. But I’m
only Tatul’Nil’Gu, right at the entry level requirement to qualify for Tertius
– what chance do I really have, when you go?”

     “There’s more to me than
beauty and confidence,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “And I don’t
want just anyone. I want someone special.”
And I am not guaranteed to go to
Tertius, either, no matter my Nil’Gu’ua ability!

     She blinked at him, as if
not quite sure how to take his words. “But you could have had Gotra Pelani’Dun,
anyone. I thought – I thought you would want something more, after spurning
her.”

     “No,” he sighed, gesturing a
negative. “I don’t want – I don’t want to rush into mating, and you don’t have
to, to be my Geni’vhes. I think you’re special, beautiful, wonderful. All
right? We can take our time, see how it goes.” He caressed her cheek.

     She blinked again, then
looked embarrassed. Something else flashed in her mind, across her glyph, and
it was gone in an instant, but he still read it clearly – the Occupation and Service
Initiative. There it was, the thing that he had feared, that Gotra Pelani’Dun
had bared before all of Secondus. His famiya’s status, and the influence it
implied. Polista Zyledi’Kil was scared to molting her elytra-pace of being
forced off-world once she had completed Secondus, because her Nil’Gu’ua was not
high enough to keep her safe from the OSI. So she had tried to fix his
interest, and then...

    
Would she really have
tried to mate, so that we would be bound together?
he wondered, feeling
cold.
Does she think that will save her from the OSI?

     “Is that why you were
interested in me?” he asked, had to ask, though he did not want to know the
answer. Was there a member of her famiya in the Solidarim, or one of its
Ministries, someone who had warned her and her parents far ahead of the formal
announcement of the OSI? Had his precipitous actions forced her famiya to act,
and had they, in turn forced her to do this? He felt all traces of Polistar-induction
leave him. How could the success of his famiya damn him so, so that he could
not even have a friendly or a semi-serious relationship with a pretty girl who
was bright, sweet, and interesting? How could he ever know that he was valued
for himself? “Because of – my lineage? And my father’s position in the Solidarim?
Because you think that means I’ll go to Tertius for certain?”

     “No! I mean, it’s not the
only reason,” she said, touching his arm. “I like you, I truly do! I liked you
– even before the Initiative! I’m just not sure why you – why you would like
me!”

     “Many reasons,” he said,
gesturing disenchantment, despair, regret. He stood. “But not because you’re
willing to mate before you’re ready.” He picked up his deshik and pulled it
back on. Could he really sacrifice himself this way, for her sake, when she did
not truly love him?

    
Should I mate with her to
save her, to give her whatever protection Mother and Father can offer? She
qualifies for Tertius – just. Her parents will send her, they have no choice.
She’ll go to one of the Ministries, or get one of the low seats in the
Solidarim itself – something. Can I mate with her, like this, when there is
such a landform of doubt over us? Should I?

     “Oh, I’ve lost you!” she
said, sounding distraught. “I’ve upset you, and now you don’t like me!”

     “No, I still like you,” he
said, looking at her. “And I
am
upset, but not at you. I’m upset that
the OSI has you so frightened that you feel you have to do things like this to
avoid it.” He turned away, and prepared to leave. He felt old, older than his
actual orbises.

     Polista Zyledi’Kil jumped up
and ran up to him, reached up to kiss him. He kissed her back, but did not
respond to her chemi-scent.

     “Don’t be angry,” she said,
looking beseechingly up at him. “Please be my pre-mated, Krece! I really do
like you, regardless of your famiya!”

     He smiled. But he could not
go back to the sweet, innocent attraction that they had shared. “We can try,
Zyledi’Kil,” he said, but knew it was an empty pledge. He could not pretend
that her ulterior motives had not poisoned their interaction.