From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.furry
Subject: Journal Entry 291 / 1024  [ Planetfall: Around and Around The Mulberry Bush ]
Date: 14 Jun 1996 13:33:44 GMT
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Lines: 505
Message-ID: <4prpno$61b@news1.halcyon.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: coho.halcyon.com

Elenya, Ring 24, 1024

    "Are you going to hum that song all day?  If so, I'm going to 
put in earplugs!"

    "Huh?"  I hadn't even been aware that I'd been humming.  I 
stopped for a moment and hummed a few more bars of what had been 
left in my head, then blushed with embarrassment.  "Oops."

    She smiled at me with those glittering eyes of a Mustel.  "That 
song is so OLD!"

    I shrugged.  "It's not like I meant to make that something of a 
species-wide anthem, you know."

    "It still is in a lot of way," she giggled, trotting out into 
the tall grasses again.

    There are few things sillier than watching a Mustel running 
through a field with a butterfly net.  Sometimes the grasses grew 
over her head and all I could see what the wave of the net as she 
sampled the flying insects found on this corner of the planet.  
Every once in a while as I followed her I would hear an "oof!" or a 
"hey!" and once a "Come back here, dammit!"  I tried not to 
laugh... too much.  Still, I had picked a beautiful day to choose 
chaperone duty, with an alien sun illuminating lovely waves of 
grass and wildflowers running over hill and vale and disappearing 
into the horizon.  And to my pleasure my companion was equally 
lovely, a mature female Mustel named Olivia who managed to put out 
a playful and energetic personality despite her four centuries of 
age.  We clicked well on the 'cycle trip over, and although she 
seemed to be a little obsessive at collecting and filling her kill 
jars, I was enjoying spending my morning following her about these 
apparently infinite meadows.

    Hours rolled by rapidly and she finally stopped and retraced 
her path back to me.  "You're not helping, Ken."

    "I'm supposed to help?" I asked.  "I'm supposed to make sure 
that if you get hurt, someone's here to call for assistance.  
You're the one who said you'd rather have a 'ganic come along than 
use a seccor, and you got me.  Besides, I know next to nothing 
about bugs."

    She didn't correct me.  I guess it shows my ignorance that I 
found that surprising.  I asked her about it.

    She shrugged.  "'Bugs' is a convenient and accurate 
description.  We don't even have a name for the planet yet, never 
mind how we're going to break up the kingdoms, phylum, ect.  You 
know, 'insect' isn't even a subphylum, it's a superclass under the 
subphylum Uniramia to include the Myriapodia.  Spiders are part of 
a different subphylum, Chelicerata.  About the best we could agree 
is that these are by physiognomy some sort of local Phylum 
Arthropoda--  You're not really interested in this, are you?"

    "Do you see anything in Class Mammilia I can examine up close?" 
I gestured over the meadow.

    "Well, there's *me*," she pointed out.

    "I'm sure I could examine you up close," I laughed.  Was that a 
come-on?  I took a drink from my canteen and said "Are you ready to 
continue onwards?"

    "Yep."  She took her net in hand.

    "Good luck, great furred huntress."

    "Very funny."  She stood up and struck a mock-heroic pose.  
"What, Ho!  On guard ye six-legged beasts of meadow!  The terror of 
entomology, Olivia Larandi, is a*comin' for you!"  She bounded off 
into the grasses again, leaving me to sputter with laughter into my 
canteen.  I wiped the water off with my hand and gave chase.  
Although she was jogging through the grasses and I merely chose to 
walk, I managed to keep up with her, mostly because I would simply 
walk towards her while she would take a winding, hunt-and-seek path 
through the grasses, and because sometimes she stopped to put 
something into one of the hundreds of little jars she carried with 
her.

    "It takes centuries to unravel the mystery of one world in all 
its depth," she said as she dropped a hard-shelled brown beetle 
into a jar.  "Even now we don't know nearly one percent of what 
*Pendor* has to offer and here we are, thousands of light years 
away from the world of our birth, trying to figure out another."  
She looked up under her wide-brimmed safari hat.  "I think it's 
going to be dark soon."

    "That happens when the day is only seven hours long," I sighed.  
"It drives me crazy."

    "You and me both," she complained .  "Listen, I want to stay 
the night."

    "How come?" I asked, curiously.

    "Ken, a two-day cycle on this world is less than the length of 
a Pendorian day.  We've both put in thirty-hour days back home, and 
I'd like to stay up all night and collect samples of nighttime bug 
life as well."

    I pulled my uPADD and called Lance, advising him of our 
intentions.  He said that was fine and would call back if there 
were any conflicts.  "So," I said, "we're going to spend the night 
together."

    She gave me a curious look, then nodded.  "We have to head back 
to the 'cycles.  I've got night traps in a couple of formats."

    "Then let's head back."  I walked in the direction the uPADD 
indicated.  Climbing over one particularly tall hill we looked down 
on a misshapen hemisphere of a gnarled tree that was the only 
outstanding clump of vegetation in the whole world of unending 
yellow-green grasses.  Sitting at the base of the tree, apparently 
unmolested but for a buzz of incurious insects, were our two 
'cycles, one with a large trailer behind it.  Olivia dove into the 
trailer and pulled out a couple of plastic cylinders each about the 
size of an average liter canteen.  "How do you feel about climbing 
this tree?" she asked.

    I looked up.  The tree was very densely laid out with branches 
going everywhere.  Plenty of handholds.  "My ancestors were tree-
dwellers.  I think I'll do okay."

    "Good," she said.  "I need to put these at five different 
points, far away from each other, up in the tree.  Could you do it 
while I set out the field traps?"

    Picking up the first one, I examined it closely.  "Just turn 
the bottom to activate it, right?"

    She nodded.  "And make sure you tie the top securely to the 
branch."

    "I know my knots," I said.

    She gave me that funny look again and said, "I'm sure you do, 
Shardik."  With that, she picked up a sixth cylinder, larger than 
any of the ones she had assigned to me, and tromped off into the 
grasses again.  

    Climbing the tree was as easy as I had predicted, minus the 
annoying inconvenience of having to brush so many branches out of 
the way.  I climbed out until I felt almost precarious, high in the 
branches of the tree, and tied down the first one.  Then I 
retrieved the second, and found another spot.

    On the fifth try, night had started falling with all the speed 
of a steel curtain.  Olivia had returned several times while I was 
up in the tree and now was off again in the grasses somewhere, 
setting up another trap.  I tied the fifth one and began making my 
way down when I miscalculated my footing.  The branch I was using 
gave way and I pitched forward, landing painfully on the thick 
branch in front of me.  "Oof!"  I scrambled for control, but there 
was nothing to grab onto.  I swung to left and slid off the branch, 
falling with a shout.  Thinner branches whipped past me as I fell 
but they also slowed my descent.  I landed with another "Oof!"  As 
I tried to clear my head and brush away the leaves, my ankle 
throbbed painfully to get my attention.  "Oh, Hell," I growled.

    "Are you okay?" Olivia asked, bounding back through the grass.

    "I twisted my ankle.  It might be sprained."  I pointed up.  "I 
fell."

    "I heard that."  She looked up.  "Still, you got the trap in 
place.  The only question now is, how do we get it down?  How bad's 
the ankle?"

    Typical scientist.  I'm lying here maimed and the first thing 
she's interested in is her work.  "Get me the medkit from my bike, 
would you?"

    She retrieved the instrument in question and handed it to me.  
A quick look through the neutrino imager revealed that the ankle 
had momentarily dislocated and returned, but nothing was torn.  
That didn't stop it from hurting immensely.  "Get me a splintcuff, 
would you?"

    "It's in the box next to you.  I figured you would need it 
either way."

    "Smart fem," I said, opening the box and programming the cuff 
for an ankle.  It twisted itself into the proper shape and I eased 
it over my foot and into place.  Then, with a touch to the medkit, 
it solidified into a functional restraint that would keep me from 
stressing the ankle.  I sighed and leaned back against the trunk of 
the tree.  "Ouch."

    "Oh, come on," she said.  "I thought your kind liked pain."

    "That joke is so old!" I said, getting back at her for earlier.

    "I was only joking," she pointed out.

    "I know.  But I'm as tired of hearing it as you are of hearing 
that stupid tune."

    She looked down at the bright blue cuff about my ankle.  "Do 
you want to head back and have a real doctor look at that?"  She 
tapped the side of her head thoughtfully.  I felt warmed by her 
concern.  "I mean, I can come back and retrieve that traps.  Or if 
they're too full I could reset them."

    I reached up and took her hand.  "Olivia, my lovely weasel, I 
am a real doctor.  I just don't advertise that much.  I think my 
ankle will be okay.  I just shouldn't walk on it very much."

    She nodded.  "How are we going to get the traps down?"

    "We'll shoot them."

    "What?"

    "Trust me.  I'm a really good shot, and none of them are more 
than five meters away.  I could easily shoot the line down with my 
pistol."

    Her expression told me she still thought that was an at least 
dubious proposition, but she didn't have anything better.  As night 
fell we camped out under the tree, trading self-warming packages of 
field rations and cups of hot tea.  "Sorry about your ankle," she 
said.

    "Nothing to be sorry about," I said.  "My stupid accident."

    She sighed and looked down at her dinner.  "Do you ever 
wonder," she began, "Why we're here?"

    I figured she wasn't asking about why were on the expedition.  
"A lot," I started.  "I don't have any answers yet.  Well, I have a 
few, but they're all based on assumptions, not facts."

    "Like what?"

    "I... I'm not really sure."  For some reason, I felt very 
uncomfortable talking about this subject with her.  "I mean, I 
think I'm here to make other people's lives worth living.  And that 
very act makes my life worth living.  But that's just an 
assumption, you know?"

    "Does making a new species make everyone else's life worth 
living?"

    I smiled uneasily.  "I think so.  It makes my life more 
worthwhile, at any rate.  I want to bring beauty into the world.  
Beauty and intelligence and diversity and caring.  Something I try 
to give every individual in a *tliel*, and even in the *hrairs*."  
I smiled and tried to change the subject.  "Something I see I 
succeeded with in you."

    She looked away, shaking her head.  "You're an impossible man, 
Kennet Shardik."

    "I like you, Olivia," I said, waving my hand dismissively.  
"You don't treat it as some sort of great honor that I'm your 
chaperone."

    "It's nice to be liked, especially by you," she said.  "But I 
know how you want to be viewed, and I know enough about you to 
appreciate your warts as well as your successes."  Her eyes were 
thoughtful.  "You've changed the subject."

    I snapped my fingers.  "Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't notice.  
Okay, Olivia, why do *you* think we're here?"

    "I'm here... to find out what there is to life.  I don't think 
there's an answer, Ken."  She touched her chest, looking down.  "If 
it weren't me, Olivia Larandi, saying these words to you, it would 
be someone else, maybe of a different species, saying them.  I 
can't imagine my... my spirit is so unique that I'm the only one to 
ever have this privilege."

    "No, you're not.  Not now, not in the future either.  I think 
you'll ask it of other people--"

    "Already have," she interrupted.

    "Yah, see?  And other people will ask it of me.  All we can do 
is accept each other's answers.  I'm here to make the universe an 
interesting place from the center.  Other people want to go to the 
edges to see what makes it interesting to them.  I think, if there 
is a God, he wants his creation to live fulfilled."

    She nodded, sliding up beside me to lean against the tree 
trunk.  I put my arm around her and held her close.  "Thanks," she 
said.

    "What are you feeling, Olivia?"

    "Awed."  She pointed out under the canopy of the tree, out to 
the millions of stars that dotted the unpolluted sky.  "All those 
stars out there, and every fiftieth or so has life.  And every 
fiftieth or so that has life has sentience on it, or so it seems.  
Or had, I suppose, since I'm counting those four species that left 
us nothing but ruins.  It's all one big wonder.  I... I want to 
know it all."

    I petted the top of her head, my hand trailing down to the 
small of her back, then back up to stroke again.  "I do too."

    "Ken?" she asked.

    "Yeah?"

    "Totally different subject, but... earlier you said that in me 
you saw beauty and intelligence and caring.  Do you really?"

    "I really do.  Does it mean more, coming from me?"

    "Yeah," she sighed.  "It does... a little."

    "Then I'm glad I could tell it to you."  I let my hand stray 
down her back until I found her tail and followed that down as 
well.  As I did so, I let my fingers close down and paid some close 
attention to the bone structure.  "You're not a Nivali."

    "No, a Frenata," she said.  "It's not easy to tell the two 
apart."

    "Apparently not, and to think I made you," I chuckled.

    "That feels good."  She looked up at me and said, "Would you be 
surprised if I told you I would like to sleep with you... but I'm 
afraid to?"

    I paused for a second, thinking about my answers.  "Surprised?  
I'm not sure.  Some people do just because of who I am without 
knowing anything about me.  Other people have better reasons.  I 
wonder if you have a good reason or not.  But why would you be 
afraid of me?"

    "A couple of times today we... we made jokes about your being a 
sadomasochist.  I tried that once and I didn't like it.  I know how 
you folks are always talking about the difference between good pain 
and bad pain, but, to me, it just hurt.  You know?  I didn't like 
it and I didn't want it to hurt."

    I tightened my arm around her to give her a reassuring squeeze.  
"Olivia, I don't expect *everybody* to like SM; I don't even expect 
a lot of people."

    "But the way you talk about it is so convincing.  About the 
challenges of the spirit and the journey of the flesh and all that.  
I mean, sometimes I thought there was something wrong with me 
because I didn't want to take that journey or face that challenge."

    I leaned over and kissed the top of her head gently.  "Olivia, 
everybody's challenges are different, and your... path, to use 
another esoteric term, is not the same as mine.  Look at me."  She 
raised her head slowly until our eyes met.  "I would love to make 
love to you, my little weasel.  Just plain old lovemaking.  Which I 
do like very much."

    A smile tugged on the corners of her mouth as she wiped away a 
tear with the back of one hand.  She lunged and hugged me close, 
holding me tightly.  "Thank you," she sighed.

    I kissed the top of her head again, and she tilted her face 
back to reach her muzzle.  Her tongue was narrow and soft, a little 
pointed thing caressing my face as she playfully licked my cheeks 
until I was laughing.  "All right, already!" I giggled.  She 
touched my chest with her hands, undoing the buttons of my flannel 
shirt and pushing it open.  "Are you sure the... the bugs won't 
stick me?"

    "As far as I know, none of them know to use their stinger 
against you as food; there are no animals, so they haven't evolved 
a way of extracting sustenance from creatures like us.  So unless 
we make one angry, we should be perfectly fine."

    "One stuck me when I first got here," I said.

    "Coincidence.  Very few bites have occurred since then."

    I nodded and pulled her close, crossing my legs to make a 
cradle of sorts and pulling her into it, face-up.  I buried my face 
in her bellyfur, wiping my cheeks back and forth to get the feel of 
her fur against my face, then slowly leaned over and licked under 
her chin.  She whimpered her pleasure, but at my touch or my 
compliance, I couldn't tell.  Her hands found my hard-on through 
the cloth of my denim pants and pulled down on the zipper, seeking 
within.  She found it pretty quickly, too.

    She wiggled herself down to where she could get it into her 
mouth and close her little muzzle around it.  As I watched, she 
closed her eyes and suckled on my cock like it was a new source of 
sustenance for her after many days of starvation.  She was in an 
awkward position and to get more of it she literally lunged towards 
my crotch; I repositioned my legs to make it easier for her.

    I scratched at her body slowly as he mouth did obscene and 
wonderful things to my erection.  The wetness of her sucking 
trailed down to the base of my shaft and down my balls, and the 
tight stroking her tongue sent surges of pleasure into my belly.

    Then she stopped.  "Lift up your hips for a second," she gasped 
as she wiped her mouth.  I lifted my hips as she asked and she 
pulled my pants down to my knees.  "You're not going to be going 
anywhere real soon, so this is probably the best way."

    She straddled my hips, spreading her short and stubby legs very 
wide as she lowered herself over my cock.  She reached down with 
one hand and pulled my cock up until the head pressed against her 
lips and then slowly slid down onto it.

    I could feel her tight, tiny hole straining to keep me out and 
I could feel the wetness of her juices and her saliva aiding in 
letting me in.  Slowly she pressed down until her cunny gave way 
and allowed me to slip into her.  "Yeah," she smiled.  "Oh, that's 
good."

    I grinned.  "I'm glad you approve."

    Her eyes reflected the soft light of our single lamp.  "There 
are few things I adore more than the feeling of a mel inside me.  
And you're an added benefit."

    "There are few things I adore more than the feelings of a sweet 
fem surrounding me," I replied.  We leaned forward and kissed as 
she rose up off my cock, then slid back down again.  Even she took 
as much of it into her as she could, she quaked with her passing 
pleasure and let out a muffled moan.  "Did you just come?" I asked, 
surprised.

    "Every time," she grinned, slowly sliding up again, then back 
down; again, her body shook with ecstasy.  I was amazed, but I 
wasn't about to stop her.  Her cunt was going into contractions 
that got my attention.

    As she speeded up, her hands reached up to grip my shoulders, 
but I grabbed them with my hands and gave her more leverage.  "I'll 
stop," she gasped, "when one of us can't go anymore."

    "Either I'm going to come or you're going to pass out then," I 
said.

    "That's... usually... what happens!"  We made love faster, 
speeding faster and faster.  Her hips were pounding against mine 
and little whimpers of pain came alongside the moans of pleasure; 
she was losing control of her strokes, going too deep.  I worried 
about her by figured she knew how to take care of her own pleasure.

    Our lovemaking reached frantic speeds and she was shouting with 
pleasure almost continuously.  I felt my cock tighten and bind; it 
felt like I was being wrapped by my approaching climax.  She was 
going into convulsions; her eyes had rolled back into her head and 
she was waving back and forth like an exotic dancer lost to the 
dance, and suddenly my screaming was joining hers as I came, 
shooting into her sweet and ecstatic body until my voice went 
hoarse from lack of breath and I just collapsed.

    So did she.  "My Gods," I whispered.  I couldn't believe how 
tired I felt.  "I'm going to need a nap after that!"

    "I... already... do," Olivia panted.  "Ohh, that was, that was 
incredible."

    "I'm glad you liked it.  I certainly did!"

    She nodded slowly in agreement.  "Let's... let's get a nap, at 
least."

    I agreed.

              -               -              -

    Dawn came too early for both of us, part of the painful cycle 
that we had not yet adjusted to in the slightest.  I groaned and 
rolled over, being careful to make sure that I didn't roll over 
onto Olivia.  She raised her head and blinked.  "Dawn, already."

    "Yep.  Damned short day schedule."  I groaned and stretched and 
she did the same.  For all my years, I appreciated her body all the 
same in the tight, tense pose she held at the end of her stretch.

    A few minutes later she was peering over my shoulder.  "Now, 
the spent casing is going to go that way, so just watch out for it 
if it does."  She nodded.  I aimed up into the tree, my pistol out 
at full arm's extension, one hand out, one hand pulling in to 
steady the muzzle.  I thought about where I wanted the little 
yellow dot to go.  There would be no drop on the bullet at all at 
this range.  Both eyes open.  I breathed, aimed, relaxed, and 
squeezed.

    The bug trap fell to the ground, landing harmlessly in our pile 
of bedding.  The other four were just as easy.  Olivia examined the 
contents carefully, assured that they were in perfect condition, 
and packed them away in the trailer.  After a short check to make 
sure that everything was stowed and stowed right, we took to the 
air and headed back to camp, real food, real beds, and real sleep.

--
"Journal Entry 291 / 1024  [ Planetfall: Around and Around The Mulberry Bush ]"
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are copyright (C) 1989-1995 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.  Redistribution of
this work for profit is reserved to the author.  Redistribution by
portable media (CD-ROM, floppy, paper, etc.) is expressly forbidden.
Any redistribution must include this copyright notice intact.
--
Elf Sternberg               Here we have clueless, well-armed people
elf@halcyon.com             wandering around in an evironment they
Public key available        don't understand, and it scares them.
http://www.halcyon.com/elf  So they try to control what they cannot