The Altian Plague by DM Arnold (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

I was sleeping beside you I made love with you in my dreams.”

He kissed her chin and neck and she kissed his shoulders. “I hope they weren't scary dreams,” he replied. She held his hand against her breast and Nyk could feel her heart.

“Oh, no ... they were sweet dreams...” She coaxed him onto his back and knelt, straddling his hips. “Have you thought about me?”

“Of course I did.” He caressed her thighs through the nightshirt. “This fabric is so smooth.”

“Like I said -- Earth clothes are fun.” She smoothed her hands down his chest and abdomen, then up and down his arms.

“This is a first for me,” he said.

“First for what?”

“Suki used to ask me what I wanted her to wear to bed. I told her Florans sleep nude and make love nude. Feeling you through this fabric ... now I wish I had... I'm sorry -- I'm talking about her and...”

“It's all right, Nyk. I understand.” She led his hand in circles across her chest.

“You feel ... so ... smooth...”

“It feels good to me, too. Maybe it's time to...” She sat up, grasped her hem and began to lift it.

“Dyppa -- don't,” he said.

“That's right. You said I needed to wear a shirt.” She lay back onto the bed.

Nyk knelt beside her and smoothed both of his hands along her body, savoring through the satin the softness of her breasts, the firmness of her muscles and the shapes of her ribs.

Dyppa's eyelids drooped. Her lips parted and her breathing grew heavy. She unbuttoned her nightshirt to her navel. Nyk pulled it open and slipped it off her shoulders. She guided his face as he kissed her collarbone and down between her breasts. Then, she embraced him, caressed his hair and held his face against her chest as he kissed her. The taste of her skin filled his mouth and her scent his nostrils. He lay his face against her breast. She caressed his cheek and kissed the top of his head.

She led his hand onto her knee and up her thigh. He slipped his arm around her waist and held her. “Oh...” she said, “...oh, Nyk... you're like Lom -- you're one of those...”

“One of what?”

“You know how to touch for me. So did Lom. Most men touch for themselves, but you're touching me for me...” She tightened her grip on him. “Oh, Nyk...” she panted. “Do you ... have any idea ... how good what you're doing ... feels?”

He gazed into her eyes. “As man, I am doomed to jealous ignorance of what you feel ... of what pleasures your gender can experience. I'd give anything to know... Describe it to me.”

“I can't...” Her nails began to dig into his skin. “I'll try ... when you hold me like this... and touch me like you are ... I feel it ... in my heart...” She placed her hand behind his neck, drew his face to hers and kissed him. “I'm ready for you, Nyk.”

He lay on his back. She slid his briefs from him, then lifted her hem and lay atop him. He held her across the small of her back and ran his hand down to her buttocks; then up again and under her hem to caress her skin as he pressed his hips against hers. She slipped her arms around his shoulders. He felt pounding in his breast. If it was his heart or hers, he didn't know.

Dyppa cradled his head and kissed him. He felt the muscles in her abdomen heave with her breathing. “Oh, Nyk... it's been so long ... so long since...” He held her tighter. She rocked and rotated her pelvis, then lifted her face. “Ohh...” she moaned and panted.

“Ahhhh!” he gasped to regain his breath.

She squeezed him and nuzzled his neck. “Mmm,” she sighed.

“Oh, Dyppa -- I am so sorry.”

“Sorry? I hope you don't mean it. Nyk, I wanted this. I think you wanted it, too.”

“It was wrong for us. We shouldn't have.”

“Do you really feel that way?”

“Yes...”

“Then, Nyk -- I apologize ... I'm sorry for starting it...”

“No, you didn't start it. I did -- I lost control.”

“No, you didn't. I started it, and I shouldn't have.”

“Dyppa, I distinctly remember starting it.”

“Nyk ... we both started it. We both wanted it and we both started it.”

“Why don't we agree that neither of us started it -- it started by itself.”

“All right,” she replied. “It started by itself.”

“I promise it won't happen again.”

“No, Nyk. Please don't promise that.” She rolled off him and lay beside him with her face on his shoulder. He put his arm around the small of her back. “I won't have trouble falling asleep now.”

“Maybe I will. Oh, Dyppa... I didn't want...”

“I did. Nyk -- I been wanting this since that night we were together.”

“To be honest,” he replied, “so have I. But I didn't want to complicate matters... This is the first time I've ever done something like this.”

“It can't be the first time for you, Nyk.”

“It's the first time I've ... I've violated my own rules ... given in to urges ... lost control...”

“Nyk -- stop criticizing yourself. I feel good about it.”

“But, Dyppa -- when we were on the relay station ... you said you wanted it to mean something.”

“It did, Nyk. We just made beautiful, life-affirming sex.” She squeezed him and kissed his cheek. “It was a gift. It's been so long since I've savored such delicious intimacy.”

“Doesn't it change how you feel about me?” he asked. “Before -- you said you didn't love me.”

“Hmmm... In a way -- a barrier is down.” She ran her hand along his arm. “No -- I remember how I felt with Lom. I don't feel like that with you ... not yet at least. I could ... but I need more time.”

“That's the problem,” he replied. “I don't love you yet, either. We got it backwards. It's supposed to be love first -- THEN sex.”

She nuzzled his neck. “You really ARE the sweetest man I've ever known. Look at it this way... Ever since we met, I've been wondering what it would be like with you. Now I know. We can go forward without curiosity hanging over us.” She snuggled against him. “Bon'noka, Nykkyo.” She closed her eyes. He could feel the muscles in her arms and legs relax, and her breathing slowed and deepened.

“Dyppa...” He ran his hand along her shoulder blade. “Oh, Dyppa...”

7 -- Sanitized

A ray of sunlight fell across Nyk's eyes. Dyppa lay beside him, her back to him. He stepped into the bathroom, showered and dressed. As he stuffed yesterday's clothing into his case he noticed her eyes were open. “Bon'matina,” he said.

“Bon'matina. I didn't hear you get up.”

“You were sleeping rather soundly.”

“Mmm... It was luscious sleep.” She closed her eyes and lifted her face. “Mmm...”

“No bad dreams?”

“No -- nothing but sweet dreams.”

Nyk lay on the bed beside her. “Dyppa -- about last night...”

She pressed her finger to his lips. “Don't mention last night.”

“But, Dyppa...”

“No. It was what it was.”

“I'd feel better about it if we agreed you and I are now amften.”

She looked at him, then put her hand to her mouth. “Amften? Wee, sweet friends? That's what the word means, isn't it?” She laughed. “It's what children call each other.”

“Dyppa -- amften is a tradition on Floran ... a cherished one.”

“It's not one on Altia.”

“It's when...”

“I know what it is -- two friends share the gift and then consider themselves bonded. On Floran you enjoy the luxury of playing silly games. On Altia we have more important concerns -- like surviving from day to day.”

“Please, Dyppa. If we made love for amften, then it wasn't just...”

“All right, Nyk...” She took his hand. “...you and I are now amften. Feel better?”

“Yes...”

“Is there anything else to this tradition? Are there any sweet little verses we must recite to each other?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He smiled. “I suppose there's no sense making the tradition any more lame than it already is.”

She smiled and nodded. “Now -- you and I have a job to do, and I need to take a shower.”

She pulled back the covers and headed into the bathroom. “I'll go check out,” he called to her. “Then, when you're done -- we can have some breakfast and head over to Marxo's lab.”

“Okay,” she called back. He heard the water running.

Nyk stepped to the front desk. “Checking out,” he said.

The clerk looked over the bill. “Any phone calls?”

“No.”

“Was everything satisfactory?”

“The sofa bed in that room is broken,” Nyk replied. “You might want to make a note of it.”

“I'm sorry -- I hope it wasn't an inconvenience.”

“Well... it was a minor one.”

Nyk parked the car in the lot of an industrial center. He approached a door labeled FloranCo, withdrew a key and opened it. Dyppa stepped in behind him and he surveyed the room. “Look -- sprouting beds dried out. Nothing salvageable.”

“Nyk -- why have a lab here? This is on the edge of a desert.”

“The plant breeders thought we might need euphorbias.”

“Euphorbias?”

“Yes -- latex-bearing spurges. Many desert plants are members of the euphorbia family.”

She nodded. “I recall, now. Euphorbias are important to our organic chemical industry.”

“Yes -- did you know an important ingredient in healing salve comes from a euphorbia?” Nyk began opening drawers. “If you see anything from the homeworld -- set it aside. We'll pack it into cartons and ship it.”

“Ship it where?”

“To your lab in Wisconsin.”

“Here's a drawer full of stasis capsules,” she said.

“Stuff like that. I'll see if I can find a carton.” He looked around the lab. “Here -- put them in here. We'll have to find a post office or United Parcel around here. At one time I'd have put all this into a suitcase and checked it onto the airplane, but since the Trade Center, I don't dare...”

“What do we do with this?” She pointed to a laptop computer.

“That we can take on the aircraft.”

She picked up another object. “What's this?”

Nyk took it from her and turned it over in his hand. “It looks like an Earth handheld computer.”

“It's like a handheld vidisplay.”

“Yes -- without the communications ... and storage ... and computational power.” He slipped it into his pocket. Dyppa powered up the laptop. “What are you doing that for?”

She shrugged. “Maybe there are some orders from the plant breeders we should know about.”

“Good idea.” Nyk began rummaging through drawers. “A pair of stasis canisters. Those have to go.” He opened the lids. “No cultures inside.” He opened the door to an incubator. “Oh, gross!”

“What?”

“Hold your nose -- cultures rotted and moldy.”

“Yuck!” She pinched her nose. “That smell is enough to make me gag.”

“I'll dump them outside.” He carried the incubator tray at arms length and emptied the contents into the shrubbery lining the building.

Nyk stepped back into the lab. Dyppa was manipulating the laptop computer. “Find anything?”

“His email has been wiped clean,” she replied. “I don't see any other files or documents.”

“Switch it off and pack it up. I'm going to look for some tape to seal these cartons and we can look for a place to mail them. Then we'll have enough time to drive to the airport, turn in the car and make our flights.”

Nyk held the case with the laptop as he stood on line waiting to pass through the airport security checkpoint. Dyppa shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It's nice Jaquie made return reservations on the same flight,” she said.

“Yes -- we ride together to Milwaukee and I change planes to New York.”

He reached the head of the queue and placed the laptop on the belt. “Here goes the drill,” he said and stepped through the metal detector. It buzzed.

“Step over here,” the screener said and began passing a hand wand over his body.

“It's the pin in my wrist,” he said. “It always sets it off.”

The agent passed the wand over his wrist. “Sure enough.” Nyk began to pick up his laptop. “Hold it, pal -- we're not done.” He motioned Nyk back to the screening area and