From elf@chinook.halcyon.com Sun Mar  6 21:40:43 MST 1994
Article: 19614 of alt.sex.stories
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From: elf@chinook.halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.stories
Subject: Journal Entry 094 / 1026  [ Planetfall: The Assassin ]  (new!)
Date: 4 Mar 1994 10:04:14 GMT
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
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Xref: cwis.isu.edu alt.sex:114485 alt.sex.stories:19614


     Journal Entry 094 / 1026

     "What are you doing up there?" Lindsay asked, looking up at me.

     "Remember a few months ago when I asked you if you had ever had a 
swing as a child and you said no?  Well, it seems criminal that a woman 
as beautiful as yourself should go through life without a swing, so I 
resolved to make you one."

     She smiled up at me.  "You're lovely, Ken, even when you're the 
silliest man on the planet."

     I finished tying off the second length of rope and swung down off 
the branch of the tree I had chosen for my experiment, taking the rope 
in my gloved hands and sliding down towards the ground.  I had chosen a 
tree right on the edge, almost separate from the forest as a whole; 
plenty of room for what I had made.  Halfway there, my legs gathered up 
underneath me, I came face to face with Lindsay, so I held one hand out 
and crooked on finger in a 'come hither' gesture.  She smiled and leaned 
closer to me.  I grabbed the collar of her windbreaker and pulled her 
closer, giving her a kiss on the tip of her dark-pink nose.  "Ack!"

     "Gotcha," I said.  She backed away, rubbing her nose as I slid the 
rest of the way down to the ground.  "Okay, time to try out the swing."

     "You expect me to trust you after you lick my nose?"

     "I didn't lick it.  I just kissed it."

     "Same thing.  You got saliva all over it."

     "So it was a sloppy kiss," I laughed.  "Come on, try it out."

     She gave me a dubious glance and then sat down on the plank I had 
sanded clean for the swing seat.  "Now, how does this work?"

     "Okay, you see how your legs are suspended above the ground?"  She 
nodded.  "You're going to swing your legs in a pendulum motion to make 
yourself move.  It's actually pretty easy."

     "Children do this for fun?"

     "All the time."  I walked up behind her.  "Okay, we're going to 
start this the easy way.  Grab the ropes like this, keep your tail off 
the ground... right."  I grabbed the swing and pulled back. "Okay, now 
eventually you'll figure it out."  I let her go.

     She gave a soft gasp of surprise, and on the rebound I gave her 
another push, my hands on the small of her back.  She tried swinging her 
legs as I suggested, but without much luck at first.

     Eventually, though, she did begin to understand the physics of it 
and started making easy swings back and forth, slowly at first.

     "This is fun!" she said.  "Whee!"

     I laughed.  She seemed to be enjoying herself, and I didn't want to 
interrupt her, but I had to remind her "Be careful!"

     "I will, I will!"  Her hair flew out behind her as did her tail, 
which dragged on the grass every time she came down from a swing.  The 
smile on her face was a meter wide, stretching from ear to ear.  The way 
her long, sinuous neck undulated with each swing was a little 
disconcerting; no species I had ever made had a neck that long.  It 
suddenly occurred to me that her throat was going to be a real problem 
to armor the way many Pendorians were.  The throat was one of the few 
truly 'weak' spots on the general Pendorian anatomy.  The head was so 
completely latticed with ceramics after maturity that it would take a 
very big bullet to do anything more than a serious concussion; the chest 
and abdomen were equally empowered with nanotech that could mediate 
systemic shock and initiate repair so efficiently that major explosives 
were required to truly kill a Pendorian.  

     My stream of thought reminded me of Battia, and of how close he had 
been to the launch explosion of a seed and how the shock had killed him.  
It also reminded of Donna, who had died because of a bullet through her 
throat and we had learned how to come up with a subdermal netting that 
would prevent most kinetic kill rounds from going through in the hopes 
that the impact damage would be survivable.  So far it hadn't failed.

     "Ken?" Lindsay asked, breaking my concentration.  She had ceased 
her swinging and was just sitting there, looking at me.  "Are you okay?  
You look... sad."

     "Just thinking.  One of those things where one thing reminded me of 
another, and that reminded me of another... and when I got to the end it 
was a very sad thing to think about."

     "Oh," she said, reaching out with her hand to stroke my face.  
"You're crying."

     I smiled, looking up at her.  "It happens.  I find that as I get 
older the sadness comes out easier.  It gets pent up and then it breaks 
in long streams."  I wiped a tear away.  "I think it's because as we get 
older we have more to be sad about.  They're the strongest memories we 
have."

     "Do you really think so?  I think the happy memories are the 
strongest ones we ever have.  Waking up to you, my pregnancy, those are 
all high on my list."

     I looked up into her face.  She was still young.  "I'm glad you 
think so."  I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her, holding 
her close.  It was one of our first really quiet moments together, and I 
wanted it to last for a while.  I placed my head against her belly, for 
that was all I came up to, and sighed.  Then I laughed softly.

     "What's so funny?" she asked.

     "I have this... tradition, or so they say.  There's always someone, 
usually female, although sometimes it's male, in a new Pendorian 
species, who becomes my best friend for a while.  The most special 
person, I guess, to me.  You're sorta getting there, Lindsay."

     She smiled.  "I guess I'm joining a small and very special club."

     "Sometimes it doesn't work.  The Mephit and Ssphynxes didn't have 
theirs, for instance.  It was centuries before I had any real, strong 
friends in those species, for instance.  And the Dolphins, there's 
another case where it was a male and for a long, long time it wasn't 
sexual."

     "Is it always sexual?" she asked, cocking her head slightly.

     "No, not always."  I looked up.  "I'd like it to be with you, 
though.  If that's what you want."

     "This will sound very strange to you," she said, "but I really 
don't know if I'd feel comfortable with that."

     "Why not?  When we talked on the ship, you said..."

     "It's not you," she sighed.  "It's... I've never had to deal with a 
uniquely gendered person before.  I'm so used to being capable of both 
giving and receiving, and here... I can only receive."

     "Oh, come on!" I said, taking a step back.  "That's silly.  You 
know I like being on the receiving end just as much as you do!"

     "But you and Aaden have... you know."

     "Anal sex," I said, chuckling. 

     "Yeah.  I mean, isn't that dangerous?  The body isn't designed for 
that.  From either end, Ken.  I'm worried I could tear something... or 
catch something."

     "If you tear something, it'll heal.  I have never taken any serious 
damage just from a penis going in there, Lindsay.  As for catching 
something, well... that's what nanotech is really for.  See, I trust the 
technology that keeps me alive that implicitly.  If there were no 
mechanisms for keeping me safely alive, I'd certainly question my 
actions.  But we have our supersciences just for that reason."

     I walked around behind her and started scratching the back of her 
neck slowly.  "Do you want to hear something weird?"

     "You're not going to give me your recipe for chili again are you?"

     I laughed.  "No, nothing like that.  Aaden believes, odd as it 
sounds, that homosexuality and, among males, anal sex are representative 
of a positive evolutionary pressure."

     "What?  That's silly!"

     "No, no, bear this out.  Listen to me.  Humans stopped evolving a 
million years ago, give or take.  We took the reins of our own 
environment and the evolutionary process ground to a halt.  But we're 
not the end product, and I think we recognize that.  I think more 
importantly we recognize that we don't have to lose our essential 
humanity or individuality in order to further the process."

     "So what does that have to do with anal sex?"

     "Well, you and I are sort of past the process of vivogenesis.  We 
continue to have sex and give birth the way we do out of a sense of 
tradition.  You certainly wouldn't have to carry your child to term if 
you wanted, Lindsay.  A tank could do just as well a job.  You retain 
your ability to do so out of a sense that the technology that makes us 
what we are could come down around our ears someday, and if we can't 
reproduce there won't be anyone around eventually to rebuild it.

     "So we're stuck with this ability we don't really need.  But it 
still feels really good to exercise it, with anyone we want.  And in my 
anatomy, at any rate, receptive anal sex actually feels really good; my 
prostate is right there, my creator only knows why, with more than half 
the nerve endings in my genital region.  So, when homosexuality becomes 
a normative activity between loving members of a species that has 
responsibly outgrown the urgency of its reproductive imperative, anal 
sex becomes a successful and viable way of celebrating that love while 
including all those back-brain pleasures that got us here.  And it's the 
technology of that responsibly grown-up species that lets me enjoy those 
pleasures without fear."

     Lindsay leaned back against me.  "That's the looniest theory I've 
ever heard," she laughed.  "It almost makes sense.  Tell me, Ken, what 
happens when we out-grow those 'back-brain pleasures?'"

     "Oh, I hope that never happens," I chuckled.  "Call me 
chauvinistic, but I like the way my brain is wired."

     She smiled.  "You're special is what you are."  I leaned over and 
kissed her muzzle softly.  She opened her mouth and kissed back, her 
soft tongue stroking over mine.  My chest felt tight and my heart 
sounded loud in my ears.  I reached down to stroke her chest, not really 
aiming for her breasts, but coincidentally stroking them anyway.

     Her feet shuffled on the grass, twisting the swing around so she 
could face me.  "You were right," she said.  "This is fun."

     "What?" I asked, leaning in and nuzzling her neck.  "Kissing, or 
swinging?"

     "Both," she replied, touching my face with her fingers, then 
kissing my neck and my chin.  I love when someone does that, and I 
sighed to tell her so.  I reached down and grabbed her by the shoulders, 
pulling her out of her swing and onto the ground, where we rolled 
playfully on the grass.  "Gods, you're beautiful," I said.

     "So are you, Kennet.  That's not because of who you are or what 
you've done.  With your hair so long you look a little like an angel of 
old... a little dark for an angel, but an angel still."  I smiled, 
drawing up my left leg to rest it between her thighs, pressing up 
against her crotch.  She gasped softly as my fingers ran through her 
fur.  Her thick, expressioned tail wrapped itself around one leg but it 
did nothing to pull me away from her, so I pressed a little harder.  "So  
who goes first?" she asked.

     "I'd like to make love to you, first," I said.

     "That's what I wanted," she sighed.

     "Nervous?" I asked.

     "Yeah," she said, her voice cracking slightly.  

     "Don't be," I said.  "I'm just like anyone else equipped with an 
erection."  I kissed her breasts, taking a nipple between my lips and 
sucking on it softly until it came to full hardness itself.  Even though 
she was only a month pregnant, I knew her nipples might be overly 
sensitive because of the changes going on inside her, and I was careful 
not to be too rough, or at least I hoped I was.  She moaned.

     "You're so responsive," I said.  "I like that."

     "I'm glad.  Can I ask you who the donor is?"

     "Victoria Hayes."

     I thought carefully about the Han I knew.  "I don't know a Victoria 
Hayes."

     "I know.  She's one of the dead now.  We took semen samples from 
all the dead and preserved them.  Didn't P'nyssa tell you?"

     I pushed myself up on my palms and looked down at her.  "Semen 
samples?  I didn't know."  I sighed.  "It's a smart move, and it makes a 
lot of sense.  It also makes my job a little harder."

     "Why?"

     "Because I had intended on upgrading the changes in you to a 
genetic level."

     "But the maintenance systems are exocellular, aren't they?"

     "Some are.  Some are infracellular.  And a good portion of them are 
genetic."

     "Do I need the others?"

     I shook my head.  "You don't need the genetic changes.  The other 
two levels are adequate for most species."

     "But they're backup."

     "Reliable backup, yes."

     Lindsay brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.  I always thought 
that hair was silly.  She was a lovely Han of tabby-yellow fur and 
steel-yellow eyes that caught the light and reflected it back at certain 
angles, like a Felinzi or other feline species.  She pulled me back down 
and kissed me hard, her tongue invading my mouth and exploring within.  
After a second's recovery I pressed back, just as hard.  Under my thigh 
I could feel her cock getting harder, and thought it a bit of a shame 
that I wasn't going to be feeling that inside me today, especially 
considering its astounding size.  Or maybe I would.

     I slid down her body, pulling down the rest of the zipper of her 
useless windbreaker and opening it completely.  I also tugged at her 
skirt, the velcro giving way easily.  Like unwrapping a present, I laid 
the two flaps of the skirt aside, spotting the soft flare of pubic fur 
that covered cunny and also represented the base of her penile sheath.  
Her erection stood up and laid against her belly, fully erect.  I leaned  
over and kissed her there, glancing over her sweet opening and nothing 
how small it looked, smaller than anything I'd ever seen on a sentient, 
except maybe a llerkindi.

     Then I realized I was being chauvinistic again and separating her 
penis from her vagina; combined her genitals were probably more 
intricate than that of either male or female.  Her cunny lacked a 
clitoris or urethral sheath, so it was nothing more than an opening for 
coitus and for birth.

     Damn my biologist's brain.  I should be making love to her, not 
analyzing her.  A self-depreciating chuckle lodged itself in the back of  
my throat, which I pushed back down by taking her cock in my lips and 
sucking down hard.  She whimpered softly as I took the whole thing into 
my mouth, my chin pressing hard against the base, spreading open the 
small lips of her inner labia.  Sleeping with Centaurs was good training 
for this!  My feet squirmed against one another, slowly tearing open the 
velcro clasps which held my shoes closed and kicking them off.  With one 
hand, I reached down to my own pants and opened the clasp, sliding them 
down and off as well.  I was a little too busy to take off my shirt.

     Stroking with my tongue pressed against the underside, I guided the 
head along the roof of my mouth, stroking insistently.  "Oh, Ken," she 
gasped, and I smiled.  It sounded good, coming from her that way.  "You 
do that so well."

     I wanted to thank her but I was busy.  Her hands wrapped themselves 
in my hair and I felt comfortable with them there.  She could have held 
me, forcing her cock down my throat, but she didn't and I didn't think 
she would.  She raised her hips slightly as I suckled  her cock with my 
mouth, lips, throat.  "Ken," she sighed.  "Don't."

     I looked up.  "Don't what?"

     "Make me come," she replied.  "I just want you to get inside me.  I 
just want you to make love to me..."  She paused.  "Like we agreed."

     I laughed and covered her body with mine, my cock pressing hard 
between her thighs.  She parted her legs like permissive gates and my 
cock pressed up between her legs, pressing for entrance to her body.  
She reached down between us and guided, or more accurately, pointed my 
way and I slid in, feeling her tight cunny grip me as I pressed my hips 
against hers.  She wrapped her legs around my thighs, her arms around my 
shoulders, holding me to her.  Her erection pressed between us, and I 
could actually hear her tail thumping against the ground as I slowly 
slid back and started to stroke slowly.

     "Oh, God, that's good," she sighed.  "It's been so long... too 
long."

     I smiled down at her, looking down between our bodies.  "One thing 
about hermaphrodites," I said.  "There's this big thing blocking my 
view."

     "Only in this position, silly," she replied.

     We made love slowly, my cock deliberately withdrawing almost all 
the way before plunging back into her.  "From behind and your tail will 
be in the way."

     "There are ways," she said.  She closed her eyes and sighed.  "I 
love feeling you inside me like this."  Her tail curled up underneath 
both of us and whipped across my back.

     "I'm glad."

     "Besides," she said as I began to speed up, "I'm sure a kinky mel 
like yourself knows a dozen positions and contraptions to make this a... 
different experience."

     I laughed and started pressing my hips against hers.  She spread 
her thighs just a little further.  "I'm sure I do."

     "Yes," she sighed.  "Like that.  I like to feel you inside me like 
that.  God, it feels strange... you're so furless, and built so 
differently."

     "And you're just so beautiful, Lindsay." I began fucking her, 
noticing her eyes dilate and her body shudder underneath me as we made 
love under our swinging tree.  Her legs would pull me in with every 
thrust as I began to feel my orgasm rising.  I pushed myself on my 
hands, and her hands reached between us so she could play with her cock.   
Whether my mouth or my cock was making it any better for her, she moaned 
softly as she played with her shaft.  Her cunny gripped me tighter, a 
whole new range of sensations washing over my penetrating cock with 
every thrust and reluctant surrender on every withdrawal.  I  was 
getting close, and I could see Lindsay was too, her muzzle open and 
panting, her tongue actually hanging out of the side in her urgency.  
Suddenly she let out a soft crooning moan and semen splashed up against 
the fur of her belly.  "Don't stop!" she ordered.  I didn't, continuing 
my pistoning motion as my climax rose and I finally exploded inside her, 
feeling her body shudder around me as we lay together under the 
sunshading canopy of leaves.

     "Oh, Ken... Wow."

     "Enjoy yourself?" I asked.

     "Oh, yes!  Yes, yes I did."  I laughed, and she did too.  I slid 
off her onto the grass, realizing immediately thereafter that if the 
pollen of this grass were anything like the pollen found on Pendor the 
second it hit my skin I was going to start itching.  I ignored it; I 
could shower when I got home. 

     I found my pants where I had tossed them and pulled them on.  I 
shook my head, smiling, as I watched her close her skirt and pull up the 
zipper on her windbreaker.  "You wear very... accessible... clothing, 
Lindsay."

     She leaned over to kiss me.  "You're not too defensiv--" A sudden 
look of confusion crossed her face, then of pain, and her hands reached 
up to grab her throat as blood erupted from a small puncture wound in 
her throat.  A second one appeared at the back. 

     "NO!" I screamed as the sound of a gunshot flew by me.  Training 
took the place of horror as the functional part of my brain calculated 
the path of the bullet from the siting of the original wound and tossed 
me behind the tree, hoping that I'd be safe from my would-be assassin.  
I glanced over at Lindsay.  She was lying on the ground, her body going 
into spasms, and I closed my eyes, desperate to keep my lunch down.  
There was nothing I could do for her; she was already dead, she just 
didn't know it yet.  I finished closing my pants and ignored my shoes; 
the assassin would wait for me to try and grab them, or make a run for 
the shuttle that lay a few hundred metres away; Lindsay and I had walked 
a long distance looking for just the right tree.

     That assassin was dead, he just didn't know it yet, either.

     I looked over at Lindsay again; she had stopped moving.  The bullet 
wound looked odd, and I realized what I was staring at.  Telescoping 
flechette round, armor-peircing.  A round specifically built to kill 
"unarmored" Pendorians.  The throat-ripper.

     I looked at my watch.  Eventually the assassin would have to move, 
hoping to find an open shot at me.  Apparently I was well-sheilded; I 
had picked a tree with a broad and gnarled trunk to make climbing 
easier.

     "I hate this," I said to myself.  We hadn't even brought a PADD.  
Was I close enough to reach the shuttle?  *Hello, hello* I ran through 
my biocybe.  *Can anybody hear me?*

     Nothing.  "Fuck!"  I sighed and tried to think of what I could do.   
Eventually he was going to get me unless I went on the offensive.  But 
what could I do?

     Shah.  The though hit me like a brick.  I still had the Shahs in my 
system from all those years ago.  They were dangerous as hell, but I 
couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't use them.  I concentrated 
for a second, visualizing the switches in my imagination that would 
activate the Shathah line of nanochine.

     My heart began to speed up, and I felt cold.  But more than that, I 
felt ready to take on my assassin.  I was going to get him.  And I was 
going to kill him.

     I made a quick assumption-- that he was going to situate himself 
somewhere in the forest where he could watch the tree, probably not too 
far, but far enough that we wouldn't have heard him approach, and most 
importantly somewhere between us and the shuttle.  Gathering my strength 
in my legs, I leapt out from behind the tree and ran for the thicker 
forest.

     The speed I achieved was phenomenal.  I felt like the wind; the 
trees came upon me suddenly and I realized that stopping was a serious 
concern.  I grabbed a branch as I passed it by, and stripped it clean of 
twigs as I suddenly decelerated, wrapping around the tree as the branch 
bent, snapped, gave way and I went tumbling deeper into the forest.

     "Fuck," I whispered as I leapt to a stand from where I had fallen, 
sprawled on the ground.  I looked at my hand; completely painless, I was 
bleeding freely.  And for the first time in my life I felt I could 
actually see those little nanochines going to work repairing the damage 
I had just done to myself.

     The time spent examining my hand was less than a tenth of a second.  
The world had slowed down.  And it would stay that way until I got some 
Shah counterfactor.  As Nance had pointed out to me when he had first 
experimented with the stuff, "Shah will make you a superhero.  Once.  
And if you can't turn it off, it'll kill you."

     I used my next nine-tenths of a second looking and listening for my 
assassin.  I heard him.  Footsteps, less than sixty meters away 
according to my information-sorting brain.  I took a look out around the 
trees and actually saw him.  He was wearing camouflage, but somehow I 
saw him.  It took me half a second to realize that my vision had shifted 
down the spectrum a notch or so and I was picking up his body heat.  
Sometime in that half second the sound of a gunshot rang out, and I did 
a quick survey of my extremities to make sure I hadn't been hit.  Not 
yet at any rate.

     I found another tree, considered an adequate braking mechanism, and 
dashed for it.  Another gunshot.  A hit this time, the bullet grazed my 
back.  I screamed as the burst of pain hit my brain, milliseconds before 
the nanochine killed that particular data stream.  I had more urgent 
problems right now.

     I heard sounds now, running.  He was taking flight!  I looked out; 
he was heading for my shuttle, I guessed.  Or maybe his own.  There was 
no way he was getting out of this.  I pursued him, taking only a small 
fraction of the increased speed the nanotech and nanchem-created drugs 
had run through my system.  I needed the extra calculation time to dodge 
trees and roots.

     He turned as he heard me catching up to him; I was making no effort 
to be stealthy.  A pistol in his hand, he raised, aimed and fired.  The 
bullet struck me square in the left shoulder, too high for any serious 
concern.  Another round missed; he had let his gun rise in his panic.  
As I closed he re-aimed and hit me square in the pelvis; I was already 
inside his guard when he pulled the trigger a fourth time.  With my one 
undamaged arm I broke his gun arm, then kicked him with my left leg.  
The sounds of bones crunching was damned unpleasant, and I wasn't sure 
if they were mine or his.  He doubled over.  I grabbed him by the throat 
and threw him up against the rough bark of the nearest tree.  "WHY?" I 
demanded.

     His eyes were bulging as he struggled in my grasp.  "The Earth... 
will never belong to you!" he spat in my face.

     "Not that you'll ever see," I replied, squeezing down with my hand 
until I heard, once more, the sound of bone on bone; I was grinding down 
the vertebrae of his neck.  He gurgled sadly as I dropped him on the 
ground.  And then his face slowly shifted  to a rounder, more relaxed-
looking individual.  "Shapeshifter," I spat.  "I hate shapeshifters."  I  
started transmitting *Mayday* as I made my way at my best possible speed 
towards the shuttle.  I was starting to feel hot and nauseous as I 
almost got there.

     *Mayday.  Ken?*

     *Lance, help... I'm wounded and I'm Shah'd out.  Lindsay is dead.  
Shot.  Got the assass...*


     "Welcome back to the living," P'nyssa said, chastising me.  "You 
had me very scared for a moment there."

     "Then I guess I made it."  I glanced around; I was aboard the 
Inquiry, in the infirmary.

     She smiled and leaned down, giving me a very passionate kiss.  "I'm 
getting tired of patching you up, you know."

     "I know," I said.  "I don't mean to keep getting shot, stabbed, or 
blown up."

     "Well, at least you got the assassin," she said.

     "Great," I said bitterly as memories washed over me.  "Lindsay is 
still dead."

     "Actually," P'nyssa said, reaching up and pulling on the curtain 
that separated my hospital station from the next, "She's fine."

     I looked over at the next bed, where Lindsay sat with a book in her 
lap.  She waved at me cheerfully, then pointed to her throat.

     "What... Well, you can't answer me, but... how did she survive?"

     Sarah, who had been standing in one corner of the sickbay, answered  
the question.  "When Rheinhardt and Greaves were building us, they 
realized that your problem of how to armor the neck against bloodloss 
was going to be a serious one.  So they built in safety valves and 
redundancy.  Where you have two pairs of major carriers, we have six."  
She grinned.  "And designing us to be hermaphrodites was apparently good 
practice.  Similar valve mechanisms to those that sustain erection 
provide reverse-flow cutoffs."

     My eyes must have been boggling by that point.  "Wow.  I am 
impressed."

     "The shock got to Lindsay," P'nyssa continued.  "So she collapsed.  
But she had amazingly little blood loss... mostly tissue seepage, 
really.  No brain damage at all.  Her lungs kept working, even though 
her voicebox was hit."

     "Her baby?"

     "Fine," P'nyssa replied.  "A little roughed up, I imagine, but none 
the worse for it."

     I sighed and leaned back against the typically too-solid sickbay 
bed.  "That's good."

     "You had to have Shah in you, didn't you?"

     "Hey, it saved my life."

     P'nyssa sighed.  "Nance never told me you had any in you."

     "Why should he?  He swore off the stuff ages ago.  Can I stand up 
now?"

     "Yes, you can get up.  Everything on you that was damaged was 
pretty gross in anatomical terms.  You'll be stiff for a few weeks, but 
otherwise you're okay.  It's just her voicebox that's delicate and in 
need of careful work."  P'nyssa looked exasperated.

     I slowly tried to get up.  Damn, I was really stiff, too.  I 
managed to swing my legs off the side of the bed and slowly eased myself 
off, into a standing position.  Sarah stepped up to help me in case I 
should fall over.  "I'll be okay," I insisted.

     "It's your skull if you fall over," Sarah pointed out.

     "He's always like this," P'nyssa said, smiling.

     "You should see me at Alanailen parties," I said as I made my way, 
using first my bed and then Lindsay's, to her side.  "Hi, gorgeous.  I'm 
sorry our afternoon had to end that way."

     She pulled out a PADD and a stylus and wrote "It wasn't your fault, 
Ken."

     "I hope you're not... upset at me."

     "Not at you," she wrote.  "I still," and she stopped writing, as if  
considering what words to use next.  She put stylus to sheet and 
finished, "love you."  I looked up into her eyes, surprised.  "That's 
not the wrong thing to say, is it?" she scribbled quickly.

     "No," I said.  "It just caught me off guard."  I pulled her close 
and gave her a tight hug.  "I love you too, Lindsay.  And I'm glad  
you're alive.  So glad you're alive."

     She returned the hug just as tightly; we held onto each other, 
desperate survivors of a horrible attack on our lives, one which we were 
both glad to have come through alive.

--
"Planetfall: The Assassin"
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales 
are copyright (c) 1994 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.  May be freely distributed 
by electronic media; hardcopies are limited to single printings for 
personal use.