"Wow," Liz said, looking around at the suite that Shanita had put her and Max into, near the Administration offices of Kaalto outpost. "I thought that our cabin on the ship was pretty good, but... wow!"

"Yeah," Max admitted. "I think that if Rahlicx people, or Antarian, have any concept of honeymoons, they probably gave us the honeymoon suite."

"Hmm... maybe," Liz admitted, stepping up to him. "That would suggest that this light blue-purple color is their romantic color, instead of pink or red or anything." Max smiled and nodded. "And of course, this doesn't count as an official honeymoon, since we haven't had the wedding yet."

"Maybe they're not sticklers about this part, or we shouldn't be," Max laughed, bending down to kiss her neck. Liz moaned in an immediately passionate response. "Anyway, I'm not saying that they're actually giving us a honeymoon, just - if you've got VIP guests, and there's no actual booking for the honeymoon suite, you give it away to the highest-profile couple among the VIPs. Don't they do that kind of thing?"

"Hmm... I don't know, my experience with the hospitality business doesn't extend to anything with suites," Liz admitted. "But it sounds like a decent theory at least. So - do we want to spend all of the time here in our great suite, or actually spend some time exploring Kaalto town before we have to leave?"

"Well, both sound good, in different way," Max admitted, holding her tight in his arms. "And I'll probably need to spend some time in map rooms talking about our plans for running the blocade - and you'll want to be there too I expect."

"Actually, yeah, I guess," Liz admitted. "Not really looking forward to it in comparison, but it's gotta be done." Reached up to brush some hair away from Max's ear. "So, whatcha wanna do first?"

"Is this a trick question?" Max laughed. Liz giggled too. "I think I want to put the honeymoon bed to some good use, and ravish you thoroughly - or is that ravage?" He kissed her and stroked her breasts through the top she was wearing.

"Hmm... tempting," Liz admitted. "But think how much better it'll be if we spend time out in public, denying ourselves our lust first before giving into it..." Max groaned. "Up to you of course, sweetie, but if you play along and bring me touristing around the concourse, I'll find some way to make it up to you, for sacrifiicing your immediate gratification."

"Oooh, you're such a naughty tease my love," Max admitted, smiling.

"And you love me like this."

"I do," he admitted. "Well, if we're going out and about, we'll need to arrange a bodyguard first."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, Christin mentioned that when we were coming in for the landing," Max said with a solemn expression on his face. "It's a friendly place overall, but they're a little worried about - well, about people who might overreact."

"Oh, boy," Liz breathed. "And what about Sanctuary? I mean, it's in the middle of this big melting-pot city, and who knows how many people there might have a grudge against one of us for some reason?"

"We're probably going to have to be careful there too," Max admitted reluctantly. "Sorry, I didn't want to worry you about that until we had to face it."

"I see," Liz said, her eyes disappointed in him for a moment. "Well, where do we go for a secret service agent or whatever?" Pause. "There isn't one waiting right outside the door, is there?"

"No, I'm pretty sure there isn't," Max told her, laughing in relief. "But I think that I saw a few ceremonial guards on duty when we came into this section. They'd probably know what the right protocol is. Do you wanna go and ask?"

"Hmm." Liz considered that. "Not quite yet. Need to get changed."

"Oh, what's wrong with that?" Max said, indicating Liz's clothes - a formal and elegant off-white gown that had been made up on board ship, and that she had decided was appropriate for their arrival in Kaalto. She'd only really brought a small bag of 'essentials' with her, although they'd made arrangements to get more luggage brought in from the ship. "Or do you want to get something skimpier to keep teasing me with while we're out in public?"

"Umm... tempting, but no, that's not the real idea. Maybe a side benefit," she told him, grabbing a red t-top and green shorts from the bag, that he'd thought she might want to wear as casual pajamas, instead of outside, though they were plenty decent. "Comfort, for changing in and out of, that's the key."

"Changing?"

"Yeah, for shopping, and trying on new clothes," Liz said, as she undid the gown. "You've got money to pay with, right?"

"Umm, I've got computerized credit," Max said, trying to make sure that there was a smile on his face.

Actually, Max had a lot of fun accompanying Liz on her shopping trip, and even got into the spirit of things, trying a few promising outfits on and even buying the ones that Liz recommended. For one thing, Liz was having so much fun exploring the concourse that it was easy for Max to catch the mood from her. They didn't spend that much time on clothes either, not more than half the trip or so at any rate. Everything was fair game for her, from the alien food courts - which none of them had really had the nerve to try from the food dispenser recipies on board ship, but Max found this stuff nice and very spicy - to keepsakes and souvenirs, live entertainment, a kind of town meeting debating the merits of raising taxes to pay for increased preventative maintenance to the life support systems, and more.

After all of that, they were sitting side by side on a kind of bench and resting up for either more or heading back to their suite, a little Rahlicx boy, looking maybe seven or eight, ran up to the two of them and blurted out, "So why are the two of you so funny-looking"

Both the bodyguard and the boy's mother looked horrified at the question, but Max just smiled slightly, having expected someone to comment on this before now, and being pretty prepared for it. "Hey, I'm Max, and this is my fiancee Liz. What's your name?"

"I'm Garrasth, and this is my Mom. What's a fiance, and who's the big tough guy? You haven't even answered my first question yet."

"Well, it was a pretty personal question, and we hadn't been introduced yet, but now we are," Liz put in. "Fiancee is a word for people who are planning to get married soon. This is Vrantar, and he's just here to make sure that we're okay, because we're new to Kaalto."

"Alright," Garrasth said, tapping a few fingers against his side in impatience for the good stuff.

"As far as how we look, well, mostly that's because of where we come from," Max said evenly. "That's a planet called Earth, it's a great place and I miss it, even if not many of the people there know that there are people who live on any other planets." He waited to see if he was going to get 'They must be really dumb if they don't know that,' but it didn't come.

"Hmm." He seemed to take a while to sort this out. Eventually he needed help. "Mom, you and Dad and I and most of the kids in my class at school, we were born here, but we're Rahlicx, and way back when our grandparents or great-great-granparents came from a place called Rahlicx, which is off close to - close to Ann-tarr."

"Yeah, that's right sweetie," she agreed.

"And there are a few Klenthorrs around - Dad works with one, he's had him over for dinner, and there are a few small Klenthorrs in my class. Their great-grandparents came from a planet called Klenthorr, that's a long way away, and not close to much of anything."

"Yeah," the mother and Max said at the same time.

"Klenthorrs are funny looking too, especially if you're not used to them," Garrasth continued, getting on a roll now. "So what are you two, then - Earths?"

"No, I don't think so," Liz agreed. "Earthlings maybe, or humans."

"And - did anybody really come from here on Kaltonin?" he asked his mother. "Like, without having their great-great-great granparents or wherever come from somewhere else?"

"Not really, not like people sweetie," she said with a smile. "Around six hundred years ago, there wasn't anybody here, just a few plants growing, and small animals, like the ones you saw on your class trip outside of the dome."

"Okay. Well, bye now." And mother and son left them pretty abruptly.

"Hmm... I was wondering if I should have mentioned that I was only half Earthling, but probably it was better not to get into that," Max said.

"Yeah, I'll agree with that," Liz told him. "So, what do you want to do next?"

"I think that I've had enough of the concourse," Max said. "Head back to the suites and maybe have a pizza dinner with some of our friends? If they've got the food slot settings copied over yet."

"Hmm... yeah, I guess." Liz looked forlornly around the concourse as if wishing that there was something else that she could make a good case for. As they got up she asked the bodyguard, "Vrantar, do you have any suggestions for something that would be fun to do while we're here?"

"Me?" Vrantar seemed to be surprised to be asked this, which Max could understand - he was a secuity officer, not a tourism official. But then, even security guards were just ordinary people after they went home, and probably had a lot of steam to blow off. Maybe that was what Liz had in mind with asking him. "Well, I'm not too sure what you happen to consider fun. There's the Prianus, which is sort of in the way of being an Earth-themed nightclub, though. You might enjoy taking a look, at least."

"Earth-themed?" Liz breathed, obviously struck by the contrast. "Like, trying to be an authentic Earth nightclub, or just throwing in all sorts of earth novelties all over the place, or what?"

"Only been there once, and I don't know what a real Earth nightclub is like, but probably a bit of both," he admitted.

"Well, no matter what, we've got to give it a try," she insisted. "Maybe bring the whole group, or anyone who wants to come."

"Hmm... okay, right," Max agreed. "But we have to remember to be very careful to only drink stuff that's safe to human or part-human metabolisms, respectively."

"Oh?" Liz paused, and then picked up on the meaning - the last time a whole bunch of them had been going out to the same nightspot, it had been in Corpus Christi, on their end-of-summer blowout trip, and Ava had managed to drink something that was poisonous to her and given them all quite a scare before recovering.

"Think we'll be able to be of some help with that," Vrantar mentioned in an undertone. "Par for the course, being on VIP escort duty on a remote outpose like this. I've already done some cramming on the do-not-eats list for you and your friends."

"Yeah, I wondered about that when you warned us away from trying the chuva rolls back at the second food stand we came to," Liz said. Vrantar nodded solemnly. "Well, thanks. What was it? We may need to watch out for it some other time when you're not around."

"Bitter liiavrel root, chopped up inside the roll," he told them. "In combining with one of the human intestinal fluids, it's been known to react in a way that produces hydrogen cyanide."

"Oooh." Max shuddered with the thought. Cyanides were very quick poisons, he remembered. To think that something like that could happen too swiftly for him to even use his poisons, to save either himself or the woman that he loved...

"All part of the service, sir," Vrantar insisted. "Don't worry about it."

"Well, umm, thanks."

"Is there any way we can at least take the scenic route back to our suites?" Liz suddenly suggested.

"What do you mean?" Vrantar answered after a moment. "What scenery there is is out there." He waved back to the far wall of the concourse, which was glass, and looked out on the forbidding outside weather and the landing field where their ship still was.

Max caught Liz's look. "I think she was saying that she wanted to see more of the inside of town," he interpreted.

"Hmm..." This apparently took their bodyguard a little while to figure out - probably he was used to thinking of travel routes in terms of efficiency, shortest routes, minimum exposure to danger, and figuring out a way to partially reverse this was tricky. (Only partially, because if he really wanted to make the trip as long as possible, they could probably wander through the outpost's corridors for a week at least, and they had to leave before that.) "Okay, we can go through a few extra sections I guess. Come on." And he altered the direction they'd been taking across the concourse floor slightly.

So after leaving the concourse, they went through office sections, and residential districts, past a manufacturing plant but not too closed, a community dining hall, a video communications station, and through a primary education facility. That reminded Max of something else that he'd been thinking of after Garrasth had finished accosting him. "Have you - have you thought about what it'd be like raising our kids on a... a different planet than Earth, you know? I mean - you were great with that little kid, and I know you told me that you wanted to have kids..."

"Missing that little word, bud," Liz teased him. "Or two. I want to have kids with you. That's the real draw. I mean kids in general, yeah, great and everything, but thinking of how much they're going to have in common with you - those are going to be some incredible little people. I... I never had a chance to get to know you when you were younger than sixteen - heck, you weren't even really anybody to get to know when you were four, or... you know what I mean. Before you got out of the pod."

"I guess not," he admitted. "I feel the same thing, about how great our children will be and how much I want to get to know them... but in my case, it'll have more to do with their amazing mother." Liz giggled, and waited for him to kiss her.

"On the other hand, the idea of going through this without - without my parents, or Maria's mom, or any of the other people back home who we didn't manage to drag along with us, yeah, that's a bit scary." Liz took a breath that was suddenly uneven. "I mean, your parents - I can almost picture the look on their face just before they get a really good look at their first grandchild... err, well, you know what I mean. I don't want that imagination to be all that I get..."

Max reached out to hold Liz's hand, and suddenly, instead of that touch being the reassurance to her that he had hoped for, he felt Liz's sorrow and frustration flooding through their contact link, nearly overwhelming him too, to the point that he felt tears welling up in his eyes - or were they Liz's eyes too? They had gotten aboard the ship with Christin because it had been the only way to stay safe, to keep their parents and other loved ones safe from alien danger and happy at home, but the pain of sheer distance from all that was 'way back home' was suddenly hard to bear.

As the grief of leaving the Crashdown behind, and a few of the kids at West Roswell high who were usually nice to him, and the familiarity of the desert scenery, was still consuming Max, Liz managed to get her composure back first. "Umm, excuse us Vrantar." Max couldn't see the bodyguard, but imagined that he was perfectly impassive, trained to ignore personal moments that unfolded right before him like this one. Still, knowing that there was another person waiting for him to resume the trip helped Max get back to normal himself. (What's so great about normal? Heh. The old joke didn't really apply in moments like this.)

The fact that his hand was still holding Liz's helped him recover, too - not from an overflow of her own calm, (he suspected that she didn't have any to share with him.) but the simple reassurance of touching a loved one that he'd hoped to offer her in the first place. "Okay, umm... maybe we should cut the scenic route short and head back as soon as possible now."

"Oh, right, now you tell me," Vrantar said with a subtly alien laugh. "We're probably at least as far from home base as we were at the concourse."

"Of course," Liz agreed with a smile. "Well, that wasn't too long a trip in the first place."

"We could probably take the rapid, if the two of you are eager to get back," he said a little doubtfully.

"As in a rapid transit system?" Liz said, instantly captivated by the idea. "I didn't realize there was a need - Kaalto seems so small and centralized already."

"Well, it is, and it isn't," the guard agreed "It's a fair walk between the farthest points in 'town', and sometimes people are in too much of a hurry. The rapid helps ease off traffic congestion in the corridors. Also, it connects to a few other installations, up to two miles away."

"Is there any security risk with using on it?" Max asked. "I mean, for us, being around a lot of other people."

"Not more so than being on the concourse I suppose," he admitted. "Well, head on." And he took them down a side corridor out of the 'schoolyard.'

The 'rapid terminal' looked so much like a Manhattan subway station that Max could hardly believe it. He'd only been in one twice, before the Summit when Rath and Lonnie had been hosting Tess and him. (At least, only twice in an operative station during the house when they were busy - they'd also gone through some older disused platforms when going to and from the Dupes' 'lair'.) The Kaalto equivalent was a bit cleaner, but not surprisingly so, which was a definite contrast to the rest of the outpost that Max had noticed. Also, since the entire town was underground, there hadn't been any need to go 'down' to reach the terminal. He did wonder what provisions there were for footpaths that had to cross the rapid lines - probably they simply had to detour one floor down or up.

And the vehicle itself that travelled up and down the line was much narrower and less sturdy than a subway car - seats on the left, either facing right or 'forwards', standing room on the right, with doors on the right side of the 'car' about every four yards or so. They actually weren't travelling on it for very long. Max tried to offer Liz an available seat, but she seemed to think that standing would let her see more. Acceleration and Deceleration was completely smooth, undetectable and inertialess for those inside the rapid - probably a refinement of the same thing that made spaceship drives and artificial gravity possible, whatever that was.

After leaving the rapid station, and taking a sort of one-person-at-a-time elevator up five floors, (it had a spot for one person coming by every ten seconds or so, which meant that they weren't seperated for long,) they were back at the block of official suites, and said goodbye to Vrantar for the day. Isabel and Alex had a privacy lock up on their door, (which Max didn't really want to think about,) but Michael and Maria's suite was open, and inside were not only the two of them, but Kyle, Lonnie, and an unfamiliar boy who might have been around their age.

Liz didn't seem to pay the stranger any attention at first. "Looks like the party got started without us - no pizza yet."

"Pizza!" the new guy explained. "You've got decent pizza recipes for a food dispenser? We've got to try them!"

"Who's your friend?" Max asked. Pizza might not have been in evidence, but a lot of other earth 'fast junk food' had obviously been produced recently, and most of it consumed. Michael offered him a plastic cup crammed almost full of french fries, and Max took it and absently munched. They were still pretty hot.

"Neil Tradzac asked if he could come up here and meet the genuine earthpeople," Maria laughed. "One of the town councillors and the internal safety deputy brought him up and introduced him."

Oh. Max gave Neil a look. In a lot of ways, he seemed just about like any kid from anywhere, having the time of his life with some new friends - definitely not a shy wallflower type. "You're what - half human, half Antarian, Neil?"

"Hmm?" He seemed surprised by the guess as Max and Liz sat down. "Give or take a few percent. My dad was a quarter-earthling too, or maybe one eighth - he's not really sure. My parents came here from Antar a year before I was born, because there was work for them in the greenhouse caves."

"Well, it's really nice to meet you," Liz said, offering him a hand to shake. "Liz Parker, and I'm all human, unless you count my soul essence or something like that."

"Huh."

"I'll go punch in the pizza order," Kyle offered. "You guys must be tired after being out on the town so much."

"Sure, thanks bud," Liz told him. "Are Ava and Rath still sightseeing as well?"

""I think so, yeah," Lonnie said. "Their door was saying that nobody's home when I went over to invite them for this. Might have gone for dinner out at a small Rahlicx bistro or something like that."

"Hope that they've got someone along who knows better than to let them try chuva rolls."

"Oh, yeah," Neil chimed in. "I guess you guys don't know all about the local cooking that you've got to steer clear of if you've got any human DNA."

"I was planning just to steer clear of all local cooking, for now," Maria put in. "Is there lots of it that's dangerous?"

"Hmm... not lots, no," he admitted. "Just a bit hard to keep track of it all sometimes. Oooh, wow." Neil reacted with appropriate awe and excitement when Kyle laid an extra-large deep-dish with pepperoni, diced bacon, and cayenne peppers onto the table between them all, on a shiny black platter. "It smells just great."

"Savor it," Liz suggested. "You should always remember the first bite of pizza you ever had."

Neil followed her advice, and the smile on his face and the sigh of appreciation were all that any of them could have expected. "So, your mom is fully - um, earthling, Neil?"

"Yep. Both of her parents were abductees, from different batches. Grandad got taken by Breoll slavers when he was nineteen, and Grammum was only four when some ship full of wandering explorers snatched her whole family."

"And they both ended up on Antar?" Lonnie asked, sounding a bit interested despite herself.

"Yeah - Granddad was bought by a minor merchant, eventually freed and offered work in his former owner's business, and Grammum - well, it had become tradition to take Earth abductees to Antar after you didn't have anything more to learn from them. That practice had started before the regime change, and nobody realized for a while how different things were under Kivar. It wasn't too good for her family - for any Earthlings who didn't have protection and employment really..." he trailed off.

"Wait a second," Kyle asked. "So if things changed when Kivar took over - did that mean that the kings of the previous royal houses - Zan and his father before him - they made a point out of accepting Earth refugees?"

"Well, sortof, I guess, yeah." Neil said. "We didn't go into that in any great detail in history class, but I think it was Sanren Liaret's plan. There were getting to be a lot of human abductees around, and nobody really wanted them in their own backyard. Sanren established programs of education and other support for them - Zan continued on with what his father had done, I think. And Antarian resentment of that 'special treatment' for indigent humans was one of the factors explaining how Kivar was able to establish his power base for the revolt."

"Wow, I never guessed that... that they were involved in something like that," Max admitted. "And..." He thought about asking how much of the good of this program Kivar had managed to undo, but thought better of bringing it up. He could check in the library computers and probably get a better notion than explanations from Neil could provide.

"So, have you guys done anything other than feed Neil's curiosity about earth food?" Liz asked with a sunny smile. "Our bodyguard was telling us about an 'earth-themed' nightclub... have you been? Oh, I can't remember the name of it now."

"Prianus?" Neil filled in. "No, my parents won't let me go, even though I can now that I'm eighteen. They think it's some den of ill virtue."

"Hmm." Liz said, getting that thoughtful look on her face that Max had learned to respect and in some cases fear. "Well, we'll see about that, but not tonight. There'll be other times, and Max and I are tired and weren't planning on going out again. How about watching something?" She pointed to a video screen on the wall. "Can you show us anything good?"

"Hmm." Neil considered. "You've probably never seen any of 'The wanderer,' huh?"

"No, don't think so," Michael agreed. "It's good?"

"Probably the best adventure serial to come out in the last fifteen years at least," Neil enthused, picking up a computer control pad and working on it. "It's about a human, and abductee teenager actually, although they don't really get much right about humans, and I think that they just did that to make him seem strange and unusual to their majority viewers. Who gets sucked into a struggle between good and evil treasure hunters out in an unexplored cluster of ancient stars."

"Hmm... okay, yeah, I think I can get into that," Michael said, and Maria nodded.

"Hmm." Neil considered a moment. "Okay, this doesn't have the first year's worth, which might be a bit confusing, but on the other hand, this is about where the show really hit its stride for the first time, so I'll do my best to explain if there's anything that's confusing you." And the show started playing, a bit of a low-grade hologram that wasn't entirely lifelike, but still showed some faintly shifting perspectives as you moved your head, so that it seemed a bit 'realer' than regular television. The teaser showed a young woman in some sort of escape pod, in a chamber filled with fluid of some sort actually, getting picked up by a tractor beam and deposited in the empty cargo bay of a spaceship. She emerged, gasping and trying to tear herself free of the fluid, looking around her in confusion, her simple white clothes totally soaked through. Liz groaned slightly at that.

"Just wait," Neil promised, and Max wasn't sure just what he meant by that, but he kept watching, not for the girl - not when he had Liz, but to see what the story would be like.

#

Alex woke up with his face buried in softly scented blonde hair, which wasn't terribly unusual these days. It took him a moment to remember that they weren't in their cabin aboard the ship, but in their suite atop the underground cave of Kaalto town. The previous night came back to him in waves of memory, how they had stayed up for a few hours, exploring the amenities of the rooms and talking, then had both gone to sleep, exhasted from recent events and from staying up too long on the ship waiting for the landing - Alex had set the privacy signal on the door to make sure that nothing had woken them up until they were slept out. Apparently that was now for him, whenever now was. (And it would probably be more trouble than it was worth to even come up with a meaningful time framework to answer that question in just for the moment.

He lay with one arm around Izzie's soft and warm body, drifting through still-drowsy thoughts. Had he had a dream during the night? (Well, probably, but was there one that he could remember anything about?) For a moment he wondered if Izzie might have gone into his dreams even though they were right next to each other, but that didn't seem likely. Dreamwalking wasn't terribly restful for her, and she'd mentioned that it probably wasn't as good as undisturbed sleep for the people whose dreams she entered as well. But there was some memory that was nagging at him from the depths of slumber - something about... about going to university?

Well, that made some sense as a product of his own subconscious, after all. College applications had been something that had been very much on his mind, back in Roswell, before other events had overridden such normality, and no matter what kind of education he might be able to get on Sanctuary, it probably wouldn't be that much like the University at Las Cruces or anything like that. (Why had he thought of that one first, of the place that Tess had taken him in secret? Maybe just because it was the only university he'd ever spent much time at.) It would have been nice to go away to school with Isabel, perhaps, to hang around in dorm rooms and talk to each other about the classes that they were taking, meeting friends in the student union or whatever...

Just at that point, Isabel stirred herself, and her head shifted, brushing hair past Alex's nose and his cheeks, though she didn't try to turn around and face him yet or anything like that. "Well, morning honey," she mumbled, sounding still a bit sleepy but fairly alert considering how still she'd been just a few seconds before. "Is that a rocket in your pajamas or are you just happy to see me this morning?"

Alex laughed just a little bit. It was true that he was stiffly erect, as much because of the usual biological reasons about morning, blood flow while the body was horizontal, and bladder buildup as because of the sensations of Isabel's scantily clad body nestled up against the spot where he was, but he wasn't sure how much he liked her joking about it like this. "I think that you know just what it is." And he shifted uncomfortably, which had the unplanned effect of bumping his 'rocket' up against her butt. (Or at least, not consciously orchestrated.)

"Hmm... well, then, why don't we see about putting it to use?" she breathed, so softly that it took Alex a moment to clue in to what she'd said. "I'm horny too, babe, want it so bad that I might turn green from it all, and I don't see any reason to wait any more. You up for it? I mean - I know that you're 'up', but are you ready to..."

"Hmm..." Alex couldn't put his thoughts into any more words than that for just a moment, and then had to chuckle. "Is this what you didn't want to tell me until the moment came?"

"Umm... yeah, actually. It's a girl thing."

"Yeah, I actually kind of figured that out," Alex admitted, and let his hand drift down to the front of Isabel's t-shirt, fondling her chest through the fabric in a way that they'd already established she liked a lot. "Everything has to be just so for a first time, and talking about if beforehand ruins the magic. Something like that, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Now Isabel turned to face him, and kiss him, and passed her own hands over his 'rocket' as Alex stroked her lovely hair. "But we're here now, and we've got quite enough magic this morning - or in the middle of this night, or whatever time of day it actually is." Alex chuckled about that phrasing, and poked gently in the small of her back, looking for another magic spot. "Love me now, Alex. Let me love you back."

"Now and forever," he promised to her earnestly, and started to show his love with his lips, first nervously, and then with growing confidence at her reaction, loving her ears and her supple neck. Isabel purred in delight and crawled onto him, pulling his torso up so that he had a lap for her to sit in, and started to run her hands over his bare chest, (he'd been sleeping without a shirt on,) and paying extra-special attention to his nipples.

The foreplay proceeded quickly from there, with both of them being eager for more, and Isabel using her powers to strip any inconvenient clothing from both of them instead of removing it in more conventional ways. Alex clutched her voluptuous body to him, dragging his tongue through her deep cleavage and up to the top of her fleshy peaks. "Did... did you arrange something for protection," he managed to ask her, in between pants of lust. "I... I don't have a condom with me, I think."

"Didn't plan ahead that much?" she asked, swinging her head just a little so that extra hair fell around the top of his own scalp like a blonde curtain.

"Hey, this was your show, I just had my suspicions," he joked. "And anyway, the two rubbers I brought with me from Earth are getting a bit old, and I wasn't sure that they were worth counting on." Something else managed to occur to Alex through the passion, and he started to nuzzle her shoulder in order to get a bit closer to whispering in her ear. "That - that's assuming that you want to take precautions at this point. I... I don't have a huge problem with trying, or leaving things up to fate, though I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for that notion. And taking care of a baby might disrupt the plans for studying that we both have, when we get to Sanctuary."

"No, umm, no, I don't think I'm at the point where I want to get pregnant, even with - with you," Isabel grunted back. "Though it's kind of sweet that you asked me for my opinion. On the other hand... " She shifted further down, which brought her shoulder and in fact even her head out of reach of Alex's mouth, but let her fondle his ass and his organ in interesting, but not immediately maddening, ways. "You're a silly, smart boy Alex. Did you figure that Earth was the only source for birth control? We're all in a lot of trouble if that's the case."

"Ohh." The obvious answer hit Alex. "I could've asked the computer on the ship. It fabricated enough other stuff for us, from clothes to tooth cleaners and so on, it's not too much of a stretch to think it could've handled condoms."

"Or a diaphragm," Isabel admitted. "Which I did ask it for, but I haven't got it in yet. Just a minute - it's in my bag."

But Alex moved with her, or nearly so, when she went to fetch the item, hardly bearing to let his beloved get even that far away. Something that Liz and Maria had both mentioned, (though only very circumspectly,) seemed to be hitting them, a kind of urge and need for their coupling that went beyond anything that Alex had ever expected, something that seemed to resonate between himself and Isabel every time they touched, and there was hardly a moment when they weren't touching. His desire was being transmitted to her, added to her own, and then sent back to him, leading to a compulsion that seemed to go beyond the strictly human, and was also testing the limits of what he could stand to resist, even temporarily. There seemed no doubt in his mind that even if there were no birth control available and neither of them really wanted to proceed without it, in this state they would still end up having sex. It was worse than that one time he got drunk...

"Come on, I said I was ready for you, lover boy," Isabel giggled, and he realized that he'd managed to tune her out and drift off into her own thoughts despite the sensation that she was the center that his universe turned around. One good thing about the alien lust bunnies was that it was actually strong enough to drown out any performance anxiety that Alex might have felt at this point. He was fairly familiar with Isabel's body at this point, and of his own, and the right way of bringing them together was completely obvious now in every detail. And the feedback loop was stronger than ever, now feeding around not just desire, but the physical satisfaction of what they were doing, and the love that was behind it, until...

"Huh, okay, I didn't expect that," Isabel said, as they seemed to emerge into a yellow-lit space that had nothing particular in common with their suite... especially furniture. (As in that this new place didn't have furniture while the bedroom did, not that it had furniture that was completely different.) "Don't tell me that the sex was too hot and we're both dead - or dying - of heart attacks?"

"I think that 'the light' you see when you die is supposed to be white or blue-white," Alex pointed out sensibly. "This must be something different - a weird kind of dreamspace?"

"Hmm." Isabel's consideration of that thought was clinical. "It's not a dream, no, though there does seem to be something in common. For one thing, these aren't our real bodies, just some kind of representation of our energy or essence I think."

"Your essence is lovely," Alex kidded her, and got a bit of an elbow nudge in the ribs for his trouble. Isabel looked down at her apparent nakedness, seemed to think that there was something wrong with it, and comfortable robes appeared around both of them. "What, just because we're not making love anymore, we can't be nude?"

"If we were after-glowing pleasantly back at the suite, we could definitely be bare as we dare," Isabel shot back. "This is an unfamiliar situation, and I don't think that nudity and unfamiliar situations go particularly well together. We don't know if we might meet someone, or..."

It wasn't immediately clear if her putting the thought into words had anything to do with the reality, but suddenly somebody was indeed arriving in their vicinity. "Hi, Alex, it's nice to see you. Hello there... Isabel."

"Dad?" Alex exclaimed, completely stunned and flabbergasted by this now. "What - what are you doing here, and now of all times? Are you really here?"

"I... I'm not sure that it's really me," John Whitman admitted, sitting down on nothing at all with a thoughtful expression that did seem entirely like him. "In any event, sorry about the odd timing, but - I'm glad that the two of you are still, um, getting along so well, and I do expect that we'll at least get to throw a wedding reception at some point."

"Umm - if we ever get back to Earth, then fine," Isabel told him. "Is there anything else you need to tell us?"

"Do you have better things to do?" John asked, and then suddenly he had vanished, along with the yellow light. Instead, there was a huge holographic and slightly see-through display hanging in nowhere in front of them. An Antarian newscaster's face was in the 'foreground', the face seeming at least twelve feet high in perspective.

"...reactions coming in from all over the sector as Kivar Andraikus, self-styled King of Antar, central co-ordinator of the five worlds, and overlord of the Zentauris suns, accepts exile to Franga Zentauris B in exchange for immunity to any possible prosecution for a long list of alleged entities' rights violations spanning most of his career. The new agreement would put the planet Antar under the control of a newly formed republican congress, and many from the dregs of the gutter to the highest halls, in worlds within travelling distance of Antar, are expressing their relief that Andraikus' so-called 'reign of terror' has come to an end."

"He - he's been deposed at last?" Isabel breathed. "Or - or is this a vision of the future, a wish out of our own minds?"

"Not sure," Alex said, squeezing her hand. "I wonder how it happened, or might happen, or you know..."

"Ssh, I think she's saying something relevant," Isabel told him.

"...on the eve of hostilities with coalition 'invaders' due to land on Antar, Andraikus was apparently caught unawares by events at home. First a popular uprising against him, and then some sort of more understated palace coup, seem to have left Andraikus with insufficient political leverage to conduct the war with appreciable chances of success, which prompted a parley transmission from the man who famously claimed at the Preintor talks that 'I will never lose the upper hand.'"

"Wow," Alex said. "I wonder who - will invade."

"I... I don't know," Isabel admitted, as the broadcast and the darkness faded away around them, leaving them back in bed. "Wow, that was weird."

"Hmm... yeah," Alex admitted, getting a bit of an odd look on his face. "I wonder if we'll remember that."

"Dunno," Isabel admitted, snuggling up against him. Soon they had both drifted off into snoozes.