Timothy Ryan was about as Irish as they came, from the light brogue in his voice, to the sandy blonde hair on his head. He also had a major case of wanderlust. It started when he was still in school. The feeling that it would be great to see all the other worlds that were out there. He had not seen them all, yet. He had managed to visit eight of them.

He was very comfortable lying in bed and did not want to get up yet, even though it was nearly noon. For some reason, he was not sure why, he was reminiscing as he lay in bed. It was not something he did very often, if at all.

The first thing that he did upon graduation was to enroll at a starship navigation school. He had shown a good knack for navigation and graduated tenth in his class.

"Sounds better than it is.", he thought sleepily to himself. "There was only twenty-two of us buggers who graduated."

He got a job on a freighter and never looked back. He worked his ass off for almost six years aboard the S.S. Missy Red. He learned how to do most of the jobs on the ship, in addition to the one he was hired to do. The more certifications he held, the more he got paid.

The ship belonged to a large shipping company, as most big freighters did. They also ran on pretty regular schedules. In those six years, Timothy had been to only four worlds other than his own. He knew, however, that this was not his ultimate job. No, this was only a means to an end. In those six years he lived as simply as he could. He saved every nickel he could from his, admittedly good, salary. He also made as many friends as he could among the various shipping agents and export company representatives. These were as important as what he hoped to buy.

After five years, he finally had enough money saved to put the fifteen percent deposit down on his own small cargo ship. It may have been old, but it was serviceable and it was his. He named it Cailín Réalta, Star Girl. He continued to work for another year with the shipping company in order to save a bit more cash. Then the day finally came when he was able score his first cargo contract. He gave his notice and, when the Missy Red got back to port, started his real job.

That was when the troubles had started. His homeworld, Tau Epsilon, had chosen just that time to revolt against the Protectorate. He thought that his luck could not have been worse.

"That's what I get for thinking." he thought as he let his hand gently stroke the soft brown hair of the girl sleeping next to him. "Had all that nonsense not happened, I never would have met her."

She stirred a bit next to him and blinked her eyes open. She looked up into his eyes and smiled.

"God, she has the sweetest smile." Timothy thought. "And those eyes, who'd a thought that eyes that red existed."

Kinatazi Gesiank did indeed have red eyes, the deep dark red of a ruby. She thought nothing of it as it was a fairly common eye color among Dizyntk. She knew that her human friend thought differently. He always liked looking at her eyes. She could tell by the look on his face that he thought they were beautiful, even if he did not say anything. She found that it was easy to read this human. Timothy may have had a good poker face when doing business, but he seemed to lose it when he was around her.

She had been with this human for a full cyanka now. The first half of it as just his pilot and friend, the past half cyanka as his lover as well. Not just herself, but Timothy did not know that yet. That would change as soon as the ship got to Trellken. They were both sure that they loved this human now. They could only hope that he would understand the deception they had perpetrated. She gave him a quick kiss and then got out of bed. It would be time to land the ship soon. She threw on something that might have been mistaken for clothes, if the lights were turned way down. As it was, Timothy could still see every feature on the girl's small frame.

He could only shake his head as he watched her walk away, her slender tail lightly swishing side to side.

"Who'd a thought that the one thing that I thought was the strangest thing about them would become a part that I find damn sexy now?" he thought as he watched her tail follow her body out of the room.

Kinatazi set the ship down as softly as landing a feather. She was an excellent pilot, Timothy knew. She was also a bit erratic. One run, she would be very precise in her flight patterns but not so good on her dockings and landings. On the next run, it would seem to be just the opposite.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd swear there was two of them." He thought with a slight chuckle.

He was just happy that he had found such a good pilot after he had decided to move to Trellken two years ago. He had decided to come here at the height of the troubles between the Imperium and the Protectorate. It seemed like a good idea, having a home port away from the Purification Fleets. The Dizyntk were allowing humans to settle on Trellken as well as Elishen. Timothy had decided on Trellken due to its close proximity to the human worlds he envisioned doing most of his trading with. For the first three months, he did exactly that. He then learned of a new program that would allow any human owned ship to be certified to trade within the Dizyntk Imperium. The only catch was that at least half of the crew had to be Dizyntk.

Timothy's ship could technically be crewed by up to four people. It only needed two for most things and only one for short hops like those he was doing. Since he was the only crew, he needed to hire just one Dizyntk to qualify for the certification. He did not have much luck at first. This meaning that no Dizyntk replied to his want ad at the local star port. After three months of nothing, he nearly forgot all about it as he went about his normal trading with the human worlds. That was when Kinatazi had shown up asking about the job.

He thought that she was kind of cute. That was not what got her the job of course. Although she was four years younger than he, she turned out to have superb piloting skills. After that one trial flight, he was happy to sign a contract to employee her. He could not imagine, at the time, that she would become anything more than just a pilot for his cargo ship.

Kinatazi turned in her pilot's chair. "Are you doing anything after you finish your paperwork, Timothy?"

He thought about it for a couple of seconds and shook his head. "Just gonna grab me a bite o something, then go home for a nap. I'm still feeling a bit knackered." He then smiled lustfully at her. "I can't imagine why that might be."

She smiled innocently back at him. "I have no idea what you could mean."

She amazed even herself that she could keep such an innocent look on her face. After all, she could still feel the occasional trickle of his seed leaking out of her. She had had sex with him three times last night before they had finally passed out.

"Well if you are wanting to come over and repeat last night's performance, I think that I'll be needing to find me some oysters." he said with a bit of laugh.

Kinatazi was not familiar with the reference to oysters, or even what oysters were for that matter. However, she understood the gist of the comment.

She turned back around and sniffed loudly. "THAT was not what I was referring to. I was just going to ask if you wanted to come to my home for dinner."

The smile suddenly left Timothy's face. Kinatazi had never invited him to her house before. In fact, they never saw each other between flights. He had asked her, of course, to come to his place a few times. She had always begged off, saying that she had to spend time with her family. He did not know what family she had. He knew she was not married, or bonded, or whatever the Dizyntk called it. She did not have that pretty silver bracelet on her wrist. He had also asked to meet her family once. She had refused, saying the time was not yet right. Now she was asking him to come to her place for dinner.

"Are you sure about that, lass?" he asked. It was not that he did not want to; he just wanted to make sure. He was ready to "meet the folks" as it were, if she was serious.

Kinatazi turned back towards him and smiled. "Yes, I am. I think the time is right for you to do so."

Timothy was a bit taken aback by this. He could tell that she was being serious. It also made him happy. He knew that he loved this little Dizyntk. He had never been quite sure how she felt about him however. Anytime he broached the subject, she always acted coyly.

He smiled back at her. "In that case, I would be happy to come over."

Timothy was unsure of where Kinatazi lived. He had thought that she lived in or near town. He quickly realized that he was wrong when she led him to the maglev station.

"How far away do you live, lass?" he asked

"You will see when we get there." she said with a smile.

They had traveled for about two hours on the train when they finally got off. They were at the edge of the Kartener mountains. Timothy had seen them often enough from above as his ship had landed. He always thought that they were pretty but he had no idea that he would ever see them up close. They then got on board a hover bus and traveled for another hour into the mountains. They finally arrived at a small village at about sunset.

The only thing that kept Timothy from complaining about being "back in the sticks" was the fact that Kinatazi was holding his hand the entire time. She had never really shown affection to him in public. Now she was doing so. She had even kissed him twice on the trip.

"So this is where you live." Timothy said as he looked around. He was not overly impressed. He guessed that the village had a couple hundred Dizyntk at most.

"Not quite", she said. "We live outside the village, up there." She pointed up a small unpaved road that led up the mountain.

Timothy groaned. "We don't have to walk all that way, do we?"

Kinatazi giggled and then kissed him on the lips. Not a friendly little kiss either, but a full blown tongue in the mouth kiss that lasted for about a minute.

She then pointed to her left. "That is mine." she said while looking into his eyes.

He looked to where she was pointing and saw a small four wheeled vehicle. Timothy could not recall what the Dizyntk called the thing, but it resembled an old ATV from the history books. He knew that the Dizyntk used them in rugged areas like this. They were not very fast, forty or fifty km/h at best. He just laughed a little and followed her to it and got on behind her. At least it was designed to seat two people, he thought.

After another fifteen minutes, they finally arrived at a moderately sized dwelling. Timothy thought that it looked old but well kept. Not unlike his ship, he mused. He followed Kinatazi inside and was much more impressed. The inside of the building looked very clean and tidy. He could see that Kiantazi's family had worked hard to make the inside of the dwelling very modern and comfortable. He could also smell dinner cooking. He had acquired a taste for Dizyntk food over the past two years and whatever was cooking smelled wonderful.

Kinatazi took off her coat and said loudly, "Sister, I am home."

A voice from the kitchen replied, "Welcome home, Kina. Is Timothy with you?"

"Yes he is." she answered.

Timothy was confused about something. He was confused about two things actually.

"They knew I was coming?" he asked Kinatazi.

She nodded her head in reply.

"Well, ok, but I thought your shortened name was Tazi." he continued. That was the name he had been using in private with her for nine months.

She took his hand and led him to a couch and had him sit down. She kissed him softly on the cheek and walked to the entrance of the kitchen.

"There is something that we have not been honest with you about." she said.

He could tell that she was having a hard time looking him in the eye.

"We thought it was time to tell you. We hope that you will not be mad at us."

Timothy was even more confused. "Why would I be mad at you, lass? And who is we? I have never met any of your family."

She took a deep breath and turned her head towards the kitchen. "Come out here, Nisatazi. It is time to tell him the truth."

Timothy's mouth hung open and his eyes went wide in disbelief. The Dizyntk that came into the room and stood next to Kinatazi looked exactly like her. Not kind of like her, exactly like her, down to the smallest detail.

He remembered his earlier thought. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear there was two of them." He now knew that he hadn't known any better.

The two of them walked to where he was sitting and knelt on both knees in front of him. They then hung their heads.

Kina, "We are sorry." Nisa, "That we did not tell you." Kina, "About us before now." Nisa, "We were afraid." Kina, "That you might not understand." Nisa, "No one else here knows." Kina, "What we do here." Nisa, "Because it would be bad." Kina, "If they knew."

Timothy was in awe at the two girl's ability to talk in synchronicity like that. Even their voices sounded completely alike. He then thought about what they said at the end.

"Why would it be bad?" he asked.

He was not even thinking about the fact that this meant he had had sex with both of them. His brain was too confused to think about that right now.

Nisa, "Because we do things." Kina, "We share things." Nisa, "That sisters are not." Kina, "Supposed to do or share." Nisa, "With each other."

Timothy looked at the two Dizyntk as the realization of what they were saying sunk in. They were not even looking up at him, but he could clearly see that they were both remorseful. They were also scared. Scared that they had told someone their secret. He thought about it for a few seconds.

Was he mad that they had lied to him? Yes, a little bit.

Could he stay mad at them? No, probably not even for a minute.

Then he thought about the sex thing.

"That means that I've had sex with both of you." he said

They both nodded in perfect unison.

"Did you mean for that to happen when I hired you?" he asked. He had already decided that he would ask as if the two of them were one person. To try it the other way, he knew, would only give him a headache.

They shook their heads.

Kina, "At first we were." Nisa, "Just going to be pilots." Kina, "Trading off." Nisa, "After each run." Kina, "But after a few months." Nisa, "We realized that." Kina, "We both liked you." Nisa, "We knew that we." Kina, "Both wanted you." Nisa, "So we decided to." Kina, "Share you like we." Nisa, "Share everything else."

Then, in unison, they said, "Please do not be mad at us."

He then asked, "Why have you decided to tell me all of this now?"

They both looked up at him. He could see the tears running down their cheeks.

Kina, "Because we realized." Nisa, "That both of us." Together, "Love you, Timothy."

Timothy looked at the two of them kneeling before him. He was letting what they had said sink in. He knew that he loved her, or them, or...

"Oh bloody hell, now I am getting a headache." he said quietly as he closed his eyes.

Two voices asked as one, "Timothy, are you alright?"

He opened his eyes and looked at the two lovely things in front of him. He knew that if they both wanted to be with him, there was no way he could refuse.

"Yes, I am." He then took a deep breath. "If two pretty little things like yourselves are crying and begging me not to be mad, then I can't rightly be mad now can I?"

He then smiled and held out his hands to the two of them. They both jumped up and hugged him tightly. They were both kissing and licking on his neck and ears.

Timothy just laughed and said, "Just one of you was running my batteries low every night we were together. Trying to keep up with two of you, I think I'll be dead before I'm thirty."