Chapter 2

The next morning, I was just finishing breakfast when Jessica wandered in, looking radiant. She kissed Priya on the cheek, and whispered in her ear, then glanced at me significantly. I raised an eyebrow, but she didn't speak. Suspecting what she wanted, I pushed back from the table, and offered her my lap with a glance.

Jessica settled down in my lap, and I put my arms around her.

"It's too early for a pregnancy test," she told me, "But the ovulation test was positive this morning, so unless something goes south, it's a good bet that you're going to be a daddy again."

"I'm glad to hear it," I told her. "But don't get too far ahead of the facts. Plenty of people have intercourse at just the right time, without catching. If you don't make it this time, we'll try again, this time with a bit better communication."

"I'm trying not to get too excited, but I'm pretty sure," Jessica said. "Frankly, the idea of trying again is a bit less disturbing this morning than it was yesterday. I've always loved you, but what happened yesterday just intensified it. Not the sex, but the cuddle, and the way you shared your feelings with us. If Nadiya ever decides she wants a baby with you, I'll be able to hold her hand and be happy while you give it to her, and I don't think I would have been able to, before."

"I love you too," I told Jessica. "Priya will always be first in my life, but you and Nadiya are just as important to me as John and Rillnam. Anything I can do to make you happy, that wouldn't hurt Priya or my kids, is yours."

Jessica kissed me on the lips, lovingly but without passion, and said, "I called you 'big brother' yesterday, and the more I think about it, the more I think that's exactly right. My parents are still alive, but I lost them when I came out as a lesbian, so you and Nadiya and Lisa are the only family I feel that I have." She paused, then faced Priya and told her, "No, that's not completely true. You're family too, and your children. But I feel closer to Tonrath than I do to you."

Priya smiled, and said, "I've said before, and I'll say it again, you and Nadiya are like the sisters I never had. I certainly don't begrudge you your closeness to him, because I know that I'm first in his heart."

"Speaking of closeness," came a voice from the doorway, "Can I get a cuddle too?"

I turned to watch as Nadiya walked in, baby Lisa in her arms. I expected her to pull up a seat so Jessica could cuddle with her, but instead Jessica stood, took their daughter in her arms, and made room for Nadiya to settle down on my lap.

As I put my arms around her, she snuggled in, and said, "I can't thank you enough for yesterday. Both for giving Jessica what she wanted, and for helping her work through it afterwards. I knew you loved her, and I was afraid you'd get possessive once you'd had her. But you were so careful to help her work through her fears and her anger, and to safeguard her relationship with me, that I knew I'd worried for nothing."

"For me, loving someone seems to require respecting them," I told her, "And I respect the love the two of you have far more than I lust after your bodies. Yes, if Jessica was heterosexual, and neither of us was married, I'd be more than happy to make love to her as often as we could stand it. But I am married, and in love with my wife, and so is she. So our love remains emotional, and not sexual, and I'm happy with that.

"On the other hand, if you do want another child, and you want me to be the father, and Priya and Jessica are willing, then I'd love to make love to you, to have a child with you. I don't have quite the same feelings for you as I do for Jessica, but they're just as strong in their way, and they definitely include a need to help you to be as happy as you can be."

Nadiya looked up at me, her eyes moist with unshed tears, and said, "I love you, and your wife, more than I could have believed possible. You've welcomed us into your home, and your hearts, when so many 'accept' us just because it's unfashionable not to. I do want your child, not today, or this year, but soon. And I want Jessica and Priya's approval if we do, even more than you do. I would die before I would hurt either of them."

I bent my head down, and gave Nadiya what I intended to be a brief kiss. She put her hand to the back of my head, though, and it dragged out quite a bit longer than I had planned. It was a much more passionate kiss than Jessica's, but more of promise than immediate intent.

When we finished, Nadiya smiled a wry little smile, and said, "Now I think you'd better give Priya a bit of attention; I know she's not the jealous type, but there's no reason to push your luck."

I released her, and she stood up and walked over to sit beside her wife, while Priya rose gracefully, and came to sit on my lap. I gave her the hottest kiss I thought was consistent with not ending up screwing her on the kitchen table, and she returned it with passion. When we finally broke the kiss, my erection was pressing against her firm ass, and my hand was cupping her breast, with my thumb pressed against a fully aroused nipple beneath her clothing.

"Are you sure you have to go to work today, Husband?" she asked in a seductive voice.

"I'm afraid so," I told her reluctantly. "In fact, I probably can't even afford to be late enough to help you put out the fire I've stirred up. Maybe Rillnam's in the mood?"

"No, I think I'll just suffer and simmer until you get home tonight," Priya told me. "Just be sure to eat a good lunch, because I may not let you get dinner first."

I laughed, and squeezed the breast I was holding, and said, "Be in bed when I get home, and be ready."

Priya smiled back, then kissed me briefly before standing up. I blatantly 'adjusted' myself, then turned and left the room, and headed for work.

I was a bureaucrat in the Earth Federation Government, heading an office of lesser bureaucrats in charge of supporting the Craxill Embassy in their day to day interactions with the human economy. For the most part, it was an easy job; the Craxill didn't require much in the way of exotic supplies, and those were delivered by periodic supply ships from their home world.

The benefits of trade with the Craxill were starting to become apparent, as several important technologies began to deliver better results at lower costs. The improvements were coming slowly enough as to avoid disrupting the economy, but rapidly enough that it was clear that the Craxill deserved the credit.

"Free Trade" had been a major casualty in the Mideast War, and only in the past few decades had a real 'world economy' started to develop again. Compared to the disruptions that had caused, the Craxill were a flash in the pan. More important than the scale of the changes was their nature. Products and processes were being improved, not replaced, at the macro level at least, so we didn't have the problem of large numbers of farriers and tack-makers being thrown out of work while a smaller number of automobile mechanics took their place.

There weren't any major projects in progress at the moment. Our workload was purely maintenance and monitoring; important enough, since we needed to spot trends before they became problems, but not terribly stressful. So when my office assistant announced a visitor, I was glad for the distraction. Unfortunately, my happiness wasn't very long-lasting.

"Saltrin Nomrall of Ritmurt to see you, Sir," came the voice of the receptionist over my intercom.

I'd had a bit of a run-in with Clan Ritmurt when I declared myself a Clan Lord and took Nilwint as my Pet. Her clan arranged bondings, and they'd had one in mind for Nilwint that she'd dreaded even before she fell in love with Kirnwan. My taking of her had disrupted whatever plans had depended on Nilwint's planned bond-mate. They hadn't objected publicly, but it had been clear that they were pissed.

My standing among the Craxill population had been rather high at the time, with the opening of the Craxill embassy reminding everyone of my role, along with my blood-brother John, in establishing formal relations between our two species. So Ritmurt had faked a smile and claimed to be honored by my selection of one of their own as my Pet. Now, I suspected, they were planning a little payback.

I left my office and went to greet my 'guest' personally.

Nomrall made the gesture of greeting, lesser to higher, and I returned it in kind. Only the most observant of Craxill would have noticed the veiled contempt in Nomrall's greeting and my reply; the humans in the office saw nothing at all.

I steered Nomrall into my office and offered him refreshments, which he graciously declined, without even a hint that he considered it likely that I'd try to poison him with them. The opening battle having ended with no decisive victory, we began the next.

"What brings the representative of such an august clan to my humble office?" I asked politely.

"I bear a message from our Clan Elder, Paltral Zonrall, to the Phoenix Clan Lord," he replied. "In honor of the Earthly anniversary of your Elevation to Clan Lord, we plan a Ritual of Celebration and Presentation tomorrow, and would be honored if you would attend."

I made a show of checking my calendar, then said, "I find my schedule free of significant commitments," I told him, "When and where will the Ritual be held?"

Nomrall bowed his head in transparently insincere gratitude and said, "With your permission, we wish to meet one day-part past local noon, in the Grand Chamber of the Embassy."

I nodded in acceptance, and said, "Clan Phoenix will be there. Again, I thank you for the honor of your invitation."

Nomrall stood and 'bowed, ' then said, "By your leave, Clan Lord."

I stood as well, and said, "You are excused."

He made the ritual Gestures of Departure, turned, and left the room.

My first impulse as he left was to wash. It was also my second impulse, not from the feeling of having been contaminated by filth, but from a healthy respect for Craxill microtechnology. It wasn't at all out of the question for my visitor to have been shedding 'spy bugs' the entire time he'd been sitting in my chair.

Fortunately, I had both the latest in human anti-spy tech, and some pretty good Craxill tools as well, and they both showed that Nomrall and his superiors either didn't have access to such toys, or didn't think they needed them against me. I did wonder if he'd been carrying a recording device, though. He'd stifled a smirk when I'd accepted the invitation, and I wondered what dastardly deed they had in mind for me.

I ran over the encounter in my mind, trying to spot the trick. At about the same time that I remembered what 'Celebration and Presentation' actually referred to, I got a new-message ping from my anonymous net-presence account. Someone who knew my 'handle' had sent me a message, probably trying to get information to me without tipping off anyone who was running a traffic analysis on me or the Embassy.

The message confirmed what my memory had tossed up; a "C & P" ritual was used when one clan wished to honor another by 'giving' them a drone. Classically, this had been a symbolic but not inconsequential gift, as drones were the core of the actual working class, along with the lowest-status Betas. In modern usage, the 'gift' was somewhat along the lines of what American history called a 'white elephant, ' a gift that cost you to maintain, but that you couldn't re-gift without insulting your not-quite benefactor. (The Americans claimed the custom originated in India, but I'd never met anyone here who'd ever heard of such a thing.)

The net message confirmed my memory, and offered the further tidbit that the drone in question was female, and Nilwint's twin sister! The message didn't indicate if they were identical or fraternal twins, but my (currently) limited knowledge of the genetics of drones led me to believe that Nilwint's non-drone status meant they had to be fraternal. If true, that would explain why she'd never mentioned the existence of a sister.

I'd previously downloaded a bunch of information about drones and the customs surrounding them, as part of the planning for last year's turnover of the embassy, but I'd only skimmed it. I took the opportunity to read it in more depth now, looking for 'care and feeding' information, as well as details about the relationship between drone and Clan Lord. What I found raised some red flags in my mind.

When drones hit puberty, they developed a need to 'belong' to someone. That someone was almost always a clan leader, though some drones ended up 'bound' to the head of the clan's equivalent of a police force. Nilwint was several years past puberty, and her 'sister' should have gone through her change a long time ago. Most likely, that meant that I was being offered a drone who was already bound to and therefore loyal to someone else.

This was one of those situations my mother thrived in, and that I loathed. I didn't mind a good game of poker, guessing if the other player was bluffing or really did have a good hand. This was more complex, though, because I needed to guess what strategy the other player was pursuing, so that I could effectively thwart it.

Was I expected to realize that the 'gift' was already bound to my 'benefactor' and reject it, thus dishonoring them and 'revealing' my lack of honor? Or was I expected to naively accept a spy into my camp? If the latter, what did they hope to gain? As things stood, if I did accept the gift, I'd have an easy way to feed disinformation into the enemy camp.

A thought occurred to me suddenly, and I scrolled back in the files to compare the modern binding ritual and the classical, Clan Lord version. I felt a smirk form on my face as I tried to estimate the odds. It seemed the perfect solution; I'd try it, and if it worked, I'd have the best of all worlds. If it didn't work, I'd at least have the tactical advantage. My plan would require a bit of preparation; I sent a message via several network-indirection sites to my Craxill father, the Ambassador, requesting that a private room equipped with certain items be available after the ceremony.

While I'd been reading and reasoning, a number of additional messages had come in, both anonymous and signed, to my personal account and to the net presence. The volume was such that I began to wonder if it was a disinformation campaign, instead of a leak, a deliberate attempt to distract me from a different threat.

Comparing the messages led me reluctantly to the conclusion that two things were true. I had far more friends in the Craxill embassy than I had any right to expect, and Clan Ritmurt had far too many internal dissidents and external detractors for their health.

As I was about to leave for the day, I checked the latest transit schedule, and found that the next Craxill transport wasn't due for two more weeks, and that the most recent one (two days ago) hadn't listed any personnel transfers. Either Nilwint's sister had been on Earth for several months, incognito, or someone in the Embassy was playing fast and loose with the transfer reports.