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The mysteries of the universe are revealed to Ellis Bjørnestad, former captain of the survey ship Walküre, and a shower finds its true calling in life with the dog and his jaguar friend.

In the penultimate chapter of the story, intrepid space adventurers Ellis Bjørnestad and Jack Palomo learn the truth of their heritage! Some worldbuilding occurs! A wild shower appears! Jack and Ellis get briefly clean ;)

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"One of these nights," by Rob Baird

---

Moreau. I didn't know what this word meant. It was not anything that Aegis had used, and not a term that I was familiar with on my own. But it seemed to be the key to not being blown up, and you take what you can get in such circumstances.

Guidance markers appeared on the glass before me, and I gently nudged the ship onto its new course. "Aegis. What did she mean by that?"

"I don't know. I do not have access to the requisite databanks. It appears that permission is denied."

"Classified information?" Jack asked, in a tone of voice that added_oh, cool_ to the end of the question.

"It's possible it was merely deemed unnecessary," the AI said flatly, speaking in the passive voice again. "My access rights are quite broad, in general."

But not broad enough, so answers would have to wait.

Deep Space Torus 3 was exactly what it said on the tin. When I magnified the image on the viewfinder I discovered a donut-shaped construct made of the same smooth, blueish metal as the_Valiant_. Spokes connected it to a dark inner cylinder that served as the axis for the torus, so that the whole thing had the appearance of an archaic wagon wheel.

As we drew closer I began to appreciate the sheer size of the station. The inner hub alone was twice the diameter of Tartarus; the whole torus was nearly sixty kilometers across. From the quantity of lit windows, nearly all of it was inhabited -- a city's worth of people, suspended in the middle of vast emptiness. The closest star was more than two light years distant, and I could find nothing remarkable about the location save for its isolation.

Maybe that was the point, but my mind boggled at the amount of energy -- and desperation -- it must've taken to bring all that raw material from wherever it had started. In a way it was almost as stark a tale as the empty hangars of Earth had been. Something had made it necessary for these people to hide.

Ships bustled around the outside of the ring; I ducked us under a massive cargo vessel that could've taken my old_Walküre_ into her cargo hold a dozen times over. Jack was glued to the windows, her round ears lifted excitedly. "This is what I thought space stations would be like," she murmured. "All bright and glamorous..."

"Have to see if we can find you a dance club," I grinned. But it_was_ something to marvel at, as hard to impress as I was. Huge hangar doors swung open beneath us, and I brought the Aegis Olympic to a smooth halt on the glimmering metal floor. The bright guidelights dimmed and winked out, and I could see the movement of the hangar crew through the cockpit windows.

"The hangar is pressurized and breathable," Aegis told us. "You may open the ramp now."

I had no real idea what I was getting myself into. But sometimes, when you're on a roll, you have to keep upping the stakes. "Well, do it," I waved my paw, and unstrapped myself from the pilot's seat, making my way back along the corridor to the ship's exit hatch.

The female from the viewscreen was waiting, flanked by two others of her species -- very well armed ones, at that. But they stood at attention the moment I appeared, and when my foot hit the deck the woman extended her hand in greeting. "Welcome aboard Alexandria, captain. I'm Commander Peg Leigh, deputy of operations for this quadrant of the torus."

"Ellis," I said. Her hand was a degree or too cooler than mind, but the handshake was a familiar gesture, and firmly offered. "Nice to meet you." Jack had made her way down the ramp as well, and I dipped my muzzle in her direction. "This is Jack."

"It's an honor to meet both of you. We haven't seen your kind for nearly three thousand years. How are you doing?" At first I hesitated -- a statement like that is awfully provocative. But then... if she was lying, then how in the hell could I understand her? She was speaking my language, the same as the language that had been on all the_Valiant_'s labels.

I shrugged. "I don't really know what's going on, I'll be honest. I ran out of fuel and stumbled on... well, Earth, I guess. Didn't find a sign or nothin', but that's what I got told. Then it's been chaos and 'gold protocol' bullshit ever since. I don't know where I am, I don't know who you are, and I don't know why I can understand ya. I ain't never met an alien before." I flicked my ears back, and tried to be more charitable. "Is this what first contact is supposed to be like, or am I fuckin' it all up?"

Commander Leigh just smiled. "You don't know who we are?"

Jack and I shook our heads. "Not a damned clue."

"Then it's worked." She took a deep breath. "We're humans.Homo sapiens, native to Earth -- as were you. We created you, in the dawn of the third millennia. We reached space together. We became rather close, over the centuries. And when humanity was at its darkest hour, we... well, I should let Commodore Farrell explain. Are you hungry, by chance?"

Maybe slightly peckish, but I wasn't sure what these creatures ate and I didn't want to seem demanding. "Not particularly, but --"

"Famished," Jack cut in. "We've been eating straight glucose since we first left Tartarus Station."

The creature -- the 'human,' rather -- smiled again. "We can fix that, don't worry. Commodore Farrell is on the other side, in the command section. We have to travel around the ring, but I'll call ahead for dinner. I'm sure he won't mind -- I don't know what you eat, but... ah, well, we'll find something. Are you vegetarians?"

"I'm poor, if that's what you're asking," Jack answered, and it would've been my answer, too. Meat was damnably hard to come by in space, and what there was tended to be of rather poor quality. "But I'd eat it if it was there."

Leigh excused herself, presumably to get in touch with one of her comrades somewhere else, leaving Jack and I alone; the guards stood at a respectful distance, watching. "Awful friendly," Jack said.

"You don't think that's a little, uh... strange?"

"Not_everyone_'s just out for themselves, you know," she chided me. "You know what's strange about it to me, though?"

"Not a clue."

Jack looked at the guards, and at the aliens moving purposefully elsewhere in the hangar, guiding machines and working on computer panels. "I've never seen these things before, but they don't... they really don't feel_strange_ to me, you know? I kinda... kinda like them..."

It seemed an odd admission, but the truth was that I felt the same way. They did look a bit bizarre, it was true, but I didn't feel the sort of awkwardness I might've expected. There was, even, something_familiar_ about the creatures. "You really think they created us, like that one said?"

Jack shrugged; she was smiling, and already at ease. I guess that's what you get when you're a trusting sort of individual. "Maybe. You think it's like a genetic memory that we don't mind them, Ellis? They seem interested in us, at least..."

Sure enough, outside the hangar, we found ourselves in the corridors of the torus, and_everyone_ turned to look at us. Hushed whispers were exchanged, and my ears caught flickering bits of conversation -- more about 'moreaus,' and about 'finally here,' and 'this might be it.' It verged on the eschatological, to tell you the truth, and I hate thinking of myself as a harbinger of the apocalypse.

Like everything terran, Alexandria had artificial gravity, but its source seemed to be towards the inside of the ring. Leigh nodded when I asked her. "The central hub is the power generator -- it's an artificial black hole. We use it to generate gravity for the station, too. I presume you use something similar -- this wasn't exactly new technology at the time of the exodus."

More religious talk. I shrugged it off, and shook my head. "No. Rotational gravity, and none at all aboard ships. We don't seem to have made quite the same progress as you have."

"What about weapons?"

"Space combat? Who has the resources for that?" I mean, it wasn't like we were especially peaceful or anything, but let's be serious, now -- fighting in space is expensive, and stupid. "Lasers, some, I guess. Missiles, a few o'those. I ain't much of a fighter, ma'am." We had reached the inside of the torus; transparent walls beneath our feet showed the glowing power hub and the spokes that arced from it. According to the signs, we were waiting at the platform of a transit station.

A crowd was gathering around us, and the guards glanced nervously at each other, clutching their rifles tighter. An older human, with wolf-grey fur on his head, pushed forward, staring at me with wide eyes. "I never thought I'd see one for real... Is it true? Are you really coming back?"

"I... I'm not sure what you mean. I mean, I'm here, right?"

"What have you heard about Keye's Boulder?" a plaintive human woman asked. "They say they're keeping slaves there -- but you'll help liberate it, won't you?"

I looked to Leigh for help. "We'll debrief the captain fully, don't worry," she tried to reassure the humans, who pressed ever closer. "Now stand back -- we have an important meeting with Commodore Farrell."

"Farrell? What about the civilian authorities?" someone shouted, though I couldn't see who.

"For right now,military protocols are in effect," Leigh said, in as commanding a voice as she could muster. It didn't seem to pacify her audience, which was growing increasingly restless. A chime sounded for an approaching train. "We'll contact the governor as soon as we can."

"You can't do that!" I heard a few rumbles of agreement. "This isn't just about you and your damned fleet!"

I swallowed -- the two guards had started to lower their rifles warily, pointing them warningly over the heads of the crowd. "No, no," I raised a paw. "I asked for the meeting with the commodore. I have important, uh... military... matters to discuss. Commander Leigh suggested we go to the governor first -- but I insisted."

"Then you have a plan," a younger human near the front of their pack gasped aloud. It seemed to reinforce some existing conspiracy. "I heard that we'd made contact with a remnant population."

"Let's not start rumors," Jack spoke up. The jaguar had a nice, soothing voice, far better than Leigh or I. "We'll take this one step at a time, and you'll hear more soon, okay?"

The train, a shiny, streamlined monorail, had arrived. The guards ordered everyone off, and we stepped into an empty car, the doors closing just as the mass of people surged forward. I took a deep breath, and raised an eyebrow at Leigh. "You seem to have a fun job."

"The natives are restless," Leigh sighed. "Not that I can blame them. You're the first breath of fresh air we've had in two years."

My spotted companion took this literally at first, and took a curious sniff. "Fresh air?"

"Imagine what it would be like for you, if_you_ grew up thinking that you might be the very last generation of your species. That one of these nights it might all just... end."

So it was more or less as I'd expected, and to be honest, yes, I could see how it might be a terrifying thought. As adrift as I'd been after my mother's death; as prospectless as Jack must've felt growing up on New Seattle, there was never a thought that we faced_extinction_. "Hard to cope?"

"I took over when my predecessor put himself out an airlock, how's that?"

Jack's eyes went wide. "That's horrible..."

Peg Leigh looked up towards the ceiling of the train, and a smooth, furless hand went to her collar, feeling over the shiny brass of her rank insignia. "It's tough for these guys to want to keep going. I understand that, I really do. People are going to look up to you 'cause... you're a reminder of what we used to be."

"Which is?"

"At our peak we were hundreds of planets -- hundreds of billions of people. Huge, elegant freighters plying the space between worlds..." Her voice was wistful, with a reverence that suggested she had no first-hand knowledge of any of this. "Now, well. Now, nobody knows exactly. Now we're hiding in these space stations -- isolated, afraid...hunted."

"By whatever drove you from Earth," I suggested.

She sighed, and slumped tiredly against the wall of the train as we began to pick up speed. "Our war with the adversary has taken its toll. It's been three thousand years, and we're losing -- badly. We've given up almost all our planets -- only the ones they haven't found yet are safe."

Jack was staring out the window of the train, to the walls whipping past. "'The adversary'? What's that?"

Leigh merely shuddered, and shook her head.

"An interstellar empire, much like our own," Commodore Brian Farrell explained, when we finally met him. He had a fiery red mane and a stocky build that made him look rather leonine, and his powerful voice commanded our attention from across a shiny mahogany table. "Probably their technology is not much more advanced, but their numbers allow them to overwhelm us whenever we meet."

"Where do they come from?"

"Nightmare," the commodore said darkly. "Where you live, do you come across planets that seem... ideal for human habitation? Or, well -- moreau habitation, in your case?" This was a bizarre fact of the galaxy, and the source of much musing. But it was true, so I nodded, and he turned his hands up questioningly. "Where do they come from?"

That was a question for the ages, and I gave the answer I'd been taught in school. "Time travel. We know we have... limited time travel abilities now. The multispectral cloak works by listening for signals in the future and transmitting their inverse in the present. I ain't never used one, but I know folks who do. In philosophy class, they taught that 'perfect planets' were evidence that we'd master time travel completely. Go back a few billion years, get shit set up... come to the present, ya just gotta put down a few trees."

"You studied philosophy?" Jack asked in disbelief.

I nudged her, narrowing my eyes. "Took a correspondence course, sure. Get awful bored in space." I looked up at the ruddy-furred human. "That about right, sir?"

"That was the old thinking. We know now that it's the efforts of our adversary. We don't know what they call themselves; they've never been willing to talk. We call them 'the Herd,' on occasion. We think they were a prey species, once; their dentition is adapted for plant matter." He waved his hand, and a hologram appeared over the briefing table.

'The adversary' appeared to be something like one of the dragons I'd seen in old books of mythology: long, fat, with a tapering tail and a blunt muzzle. They were covered in short fur, and they looked sort of cute, if you were to ask me. There was nothing particularly menacing about their teeth. Then again, the one on the hologram seemed to be dead, judging by the man posing next to it with a long rifle. He was only the size of one of the creature's legs.

"They have dominated the Milky Way -- maybe other galaxies -- for eons. They seem to have DNA, or something like it. Maybe they came from Earth originally; maybe we came from them, the same way that you come from us. Who knows? They operate on a long time scale. As far as we can tell, they started terraforming these planets millions of years ago, maybe longer. They use them to raise crops, in prodigious quantities."

A chill ran down my spine. There were certainly planets with appropriate atmospheres that we'd colonized, and seeded with new life -- but then there were also planets that we'd found already thickly covered in vegetation. Some had conjectured that there were signs of cultivation, and of deliberate patterns in their growth.

I'd always brushed them off as lunatics. But now I wondered, recalling the stories spacers swapped about 'aliens'; about mysterious ships half-glimpsed in deep space or around new planets. And about all those salvage pilots who claimed to have found promising claims, and were never heard from again. "I presume that you... don't coexist?"

"They have a strong herd mentality: they react to anyone who crosses them. Their instinct for self-preservation is overwhelming. We encountered them on a colony planet in 4375. Only one ship managed to escape, and they brought back stories of complete destruction. After that it seemed we'd... we'd awoken a sleeping giant. One after another they wiped out our worlds. We could fight back -- destroy a ship or two, but they attacked in the millions. We had no choice but to retreat. And retreat. And retreat."

"Until they found Earth?"

"Their quarrel is with us. Our species. We abandoned Earth in 4707, hoping that they would spare it if we were gone. It took a long time to organize the evacuation, but... if you're here, and it's true your ship comes from Earth, as the logs suggest, then it must've worked."

I told him about the strange vessel we'd seen just as we departed, and Farrell nodded slowly but didn't offer any further remark. "I don't exactly understand our role in this, though. Why the computer was willing to recognize us -- why you're meeting with us... are we...from Earth?"

"Because it felt like it," Jack added. "It felt like we'd gone home, when we touched down. I knew I was meant to be there."

Farrell chuckled. "Genetic memories, perhaps, if you believe in such things. You're originally from Earth, yes. At least, you're created from terran creatures. You, you look like a dog of some kind -- and I suppose you must be a leopard?"

"Jaguar," she corrected.

"Ah, very well. But yes, we created you. A very long time ago, before we even really left Earth -- I mean, we'd gone to the moon, I guess. We imagined that we were gods, of a fashion, and we turned to their old conceit: creating life. You were our slaves, at first -- dangerous odd jobs, menial labor; whatever we needed. But in time... in time I suppose we must've come to see you as equals."

It wasn't an especially noble origin story. Then again, none of the religious ones that I could recall were either. "So what happened?"

The commodore looked away from us up towards the roof of his ready room, which faced the stars. "I told you that the adversary seems to view us as a threat. Our species. Not yours. You seemed... safe."

He turned back to the table, and worked the controls of his computer for a few moments. The holographic projector came back to life. Now it showed a huge ship, in orbit around a planet that looked like the one we'd just come from. Lights flickered like flies, buzzing around it. I was given to understand that they were ships as well, but so dwarfed by the massive object that their outlines were imperceptibly small.

"By the late 47th century, it was clear to us that the war couldn't be won in any meaningful sense. We were just throwing lives away -- our species and yours, both. Earth's location had become a jealously guarded secret, and that was the only thing keeping it alive. One of you was the first to suggest the unthinkable."

"Fleeing?"

Farrell nodded to me. "Do you have any memory of that?"

If you believed in the legends, then yes, I did -- not that anyone really took them literally. They were stories, and not even serious ones. Earth was the kind of thing you'd sit down and relate to a gullible child.Once upon a time...

Once upon a time -- once upon a galaxy -- there had been a planet called Earth. Six great ships had struck out -- the_Caledonia_, the Lusitania, the Ruthenia, the Aquitania, the Germania and the Macedonia. Whence their names? Who knew?

But I dutifully recited it for Farrell, anyway. The legend of these six arks hurtling through space, landing eventually on the planets that would bear their names. Only Caledonia and Macedonia were much to speak of anymore, though I knew that in centuries past Ruthenia had also been powerful. Jack and I were from within Caledonia's sphere of influence, but Homeworld exerted a rather loose control.

"The hope," Farrell said, "was that you would carry some semblance of our history and our culture, beyond the domain of our enemy. That even if Earth herself was lost, she would live on in you. But it was imperative that you be independent -- we worked together to remove the memory of the planet, and of your creators."

"Then it's... true?" Jack sounded more than a little incredulous. My commentary would've been slightly more profane, so I let her speak for the both of us.

"Yes. This here that you see," he said, pointing to the hologram, "is the_Ruthenia_. Most of you left in the exodus of 4699. A few remained, they say, but none large enough to maintain a stable population. The last moreau communities in this galaxy had died out by the end of the millennium. Our records are a little fragmentary, unfortunately, or I'd tell you more." He looked at us with something that bordered on reverence, and then tilted his head. "Although... it is a little curious, I suppose -- you said there were six ships?"

"It's what they always said, yes. I didn't pay so close attention, beg pardon, sir. Seemed like a lot of bull."

"Understandably. The reason I ask is -- I'll tell you now as I expect it doesn't matter -- you say there were six, but we launched seven." That wasn't anything I'd heard mentioned, even in rumor. I was starting to explain this to the commodore when the door buzzed, and opened to admit a neatly uniformed man pushing a cart that levitated before him. "Ah! Well, you can tell me more in a moment..."

I could smell food, and failed to keep from licking my muzzle in anticipation. It was something Farrell referred to as "biryani," made of lamb and rice. The cart also had a dish of warm, rose-scented water; I followed the commodore's lead in placing my hands in it, and was rewarded with a curious buzzing sensation.

"Cleansing," Farrell said.

I nodded.

Humans, as it turned out, ate with their hands, which I found a bit disconcerting. Jack adapted to it before I did, but it didn't take me all that long either before hunger won out and I began to devour the spiced lamb, trying to ignore the way it seemed to stick in the short fur of my fingers.

Over a thick mango drink that Farrell assured me was something of a delicacy, we resumed our discussion, and the commodore took the opportunity to ask a question of his own: "how did you get to Earth in the first place?"

"I'm a salvage pilot by trade," I explained. "Got a tip about a derelict ship. There's a bunch out there, from back in the old days, so I sorta figured it was one of those. When I finally found it, though -- wasn't one of ours, that's for sure. Artificial gravity, the whole works. Managed to get the computer records, so... when my ship ran into trouble..."

"'Ran into'?" Jack prodded.

I coughed, and provided some clarification. "Trigged an automatic defense system. I did a blind jump, but not before it holed my fuel tank. Couldn't figure out where I was, but... star charts off the derelict found our position, and... well, Jack here had the idea to jump for the origin point. Which... happened to be Earth."

Farrell grinned, and took a long sip of his drink. "So you got lucky?"

"Very, sir."

"Ah, I remember when I was like you -- searching for rich asteroids, taking risks, always one jump from empty. Once I misplaced a decimal point on an in-system jump, skipped right into the photosphere of the system's star." He shook his head, with a warm laugh that was, I guess, supposed to reflect the carefree zaniness of youth as opposed to mere stupidity. "You get the name of the ship?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir, from the dedication plaque in the airlock. Ah,Valiant."

The next sound I heard was the heavy thud of his glass hitting the table. Farrell's voice was suddenly weak: "what?"

"Valiant, sir. Big ship, 'bout eighteen hundred meters long. Like nothin' else I've seen, tell you the truth."

Farrell brought the hologram back to life, but his hands were shaking and it took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. It displayed a long, smooth object -- sharklike; menacing. Illuminated, I could see all the details I'd missed in my survey -- the swell of curving fins, and of engine pods, and of two ports that glared like narrowed eyes from her nose.

"Yes. That. It looked like that. What is it?"

"It's a..." He was still at a loss for words; I opened my mouth to prompt him, and he finally stammered forward. "It's a_Valkyrie_-class dreadnought. We built her in the last days of the great war. Our finest technology -- the ships are almost... almost legend. Valkyrie was an unarmed prototype. Valhalla fought at the Battle of Kurzhan's World -- destroyed a dozen enemy cruisers before she was lost. They say her sacrifice allowed us to evacuate nearly six million people from the planet."

"And_Valiant_?"

"The last of the three. We had a problem training enough crew. She was fitted with an experimental AI, and designed to need only a skeleton complement. But on her first completely automated test, she disappeared without a trace." He shook his head, and stared down at his spilled drink with a short sigh. "The adversary overran the research complex at Daoni Minor and destroyed the plans three weeks later, along with the last of our great shipyards. The_Valkyrie_ was the high watermark of our spacefaring culture."

This was a little hard to fathom, given how impressive Alexandria itself was, but I took him at his word. "I see, sir."

"If only we'd known how appropriate the name was..."

"Sir?"

"The valkyries were mythic figures. They reviewed the ranks of dead warriors, and chose who would fight for the gods at Ragnarok -- the end of the universe. If only we'd had a few more."

"Valkyrie." Jack seemed to be turning the name over in her muzzle. "Walküre..."

"Sure, if you're German."Walküre had come to me from a Germanian trader. Farrell blinked at the change in my expression. "Is something amusing?"

"No, just the... the ways of coincidence."

"If_Valiant_ is still operational, you have to bring her back, Captain Bjørnestad. It could be -- it could change --" Momentarily overwhelmed, he shut his eyes, and started again. "The data on the weapons alone could be revolutionary for us. She was the best-armed ship we ever launched."

I snorted. "Yes, I noticed. I'd love to help you, sir, but... I don't know where she is. My maps don't cover your galaxy and... so far as I can tell, the maps I got off_Valiant_ don't cover mine. Nor do the ones on the ship I, uh... borrowed. From Earth."

"No, of course not," he said softly. "Where we sent the arks to is one of our most closely guarded secrets. I don't know it, either. It's stored on a computer chip in the capitol station, a few hundred parsecs from here. Nobody knows the answer, only the access codes to the database -- and if you input them, you have to answer to the Stromersrat as to why you were curious."

I guess I didn't have a real attachment to the ship itself -- her cargo could fetch a nice price, but maybe Farrell didn't have to know about that. "I could bring her back for you, if you could find out."

"Well, in a gold protocol sort of situation like this," he mused, "I'm sure I could get it authorized. I -- I'm sorry, you just don't know how strange this day has been."

Jack and I looked at each other, and I coughed. "I have a bit of an idea, don't worry."

Humans seemed to dearly love their rituals and rules -- I got the sense that if I wanted to make myself king of the station, or ask for Commander Leigh in tribute, a softly muttered 'gold protocol' would've done the trick. The existence of the_Valiant_ had the commodore all atwitter, and he abandoned us to the care of a doorman who promised to find us a suitable room.

The 'suitable room' was huge -- bigger than anything in the Sapphire Block on Tartarus. It looked outwards, through a big glass window, so we could see the stars and the lights of passing spaceships.

The bed was sumptuous, and I dropped into it to lie flat on my back, staring up into the infinity of the universe.What the hell, I found myself thinking, have you gotten yourself into? Ancient wars? Humans? Earth? And the loss of my ship, which I hadn't paid off all that long before.

Nobody would believe me, if I made it home. In a way that made things a little easier. Bring the_Valiant_ back, convince Farrell to let me keep the Aegis Olympic, and maybe things would be as good as new. I mean, what did Earth really matter? Not much good salvage there, if you could be shot out of the sky at any moment by some mysterious 'adversary.'

So it was just another crazy spacer's story. Maybe it would get me a round at Tanba's pub. Maybe it would --

"Ellis!" Jack squealed, and I shut my eyes tightly, wincing in shock.

"What?"

"Water!"

Slowly, I got up, and went to see where she'd gotten off to. I found her in an adjoining room, with a large stone pool. Jack had found a faucet, and opened it up all the way. Water gushed forth -- warm enough that I could feel the radiant heat when I brought my paw near the stream. "Not bad..."

The jaguar grinned at me; she was already stripping out of her clothes. She tested the water with her toes, and the rest of her spotted frame followed shortly afterwards; she reclined beneath the spout, splashing herself liberally until she was truly drenched.

I'm not sure I'd ever seen her looking quite so happy -- maybe in the sunshine back on Earth. "Planning on sharing?"

"Get out of your damned clothes," Jack laughed; the running water coursing over her face had closed her left eye, but the right one was bright and dancing. "C'mon!"

Really wasn't something I needed so much encouraging for; water's damned uncommon in my line of work. I shucked my clothes, and looked around for a way to switch the water to the showerhead I could see mounted to the wall.

It came as a cold jolt that made Jack squeal again, but the shower warmed almost immediately, and when I stood beneath it I immediately began to share Jack's bliss. Ultrasonics and deodorant only go so far -- ain't nothing like good old H2O.

Jack got up slowly, joining me beneath the spray, letting it smooth down that nice bronze fur of hers. Mine was longer -- it was easier to get dirty, and it took longer for the water to work its way down to the roots -- but soon I, too, was pleasantly soaked.

"How long's it been for you, spots?" Some of us buy water when we land at stations -- but then, some of us weren't down on our luck at a place like Tartarus.

"I don't even want to think about it," she murmured.

I laughed, and leaned over to gently bite her ear. "Turn around."

She did, obligingly, and I glanced around the edge of the stone pool until I found what I was looking for. The bottle of shampoo, designed I suppose for humans without a proper fur coat, was on the small side -- but very nearly full.

It smelled rather strongly of strawberries, but I had the notion that this would fade in time to something more subtle, and I spilled some into the fur of the jaguar's shoulders. The cool shampoo made her twitch, at first.

Then I started to knead, splaying my fingers, working it into a lather as I moved down her back. She arched it, drawing her breath in through closed teeth. Then she let it out as a moaning sigh, and I had to figure it really_had_ been a long time since she'd had a nice shower.

I gently soaped up her thick tail; it lashed and jerked in my grip, and when I told her to control herself she didn't answer -- but her purring was beginning to fill the little room, and I took that as a good sign. I sank to my knees, working the shampoo into her legs, and as I pressed my fingerpads in deeper her taut muscles slowly began to unknot beneath my touch.

She turned around without me having to tell her; I looked up and found closed eyes, and a face lost in something close to rapture. I grinned. Well -- meant I could take my time, didn't it?

Jack was, really, the cutest woman I'd ever seen. I mean, maybe some of that was the hormones talking, but she felt perfect in my grasp, and the way she sounded -- those little gasps and sighs as my paws caressed her sides and worked the shampoo into her velvet fur -- had my ears perked as far as they could go.

She rolled her shoulders with a deeper moan when I got to her chest; I circled around her nipples carefully at first, and then used the softer fur at the backs of my fingers to brush the soap over the hard flesh as she tensed and reached out to grab my shoulder for support.

When my paws got to her cheeks she opened her eyes -- wide, soft, bluer than I'd ever seen them in the soft light. She wrapped her other arm around me, and then smiled. "My turn?"

For her part, she started with my ears, and I found that they had over the course of scant seconds become the most sensitive parts of my body. Jack giggled softly, caressing them, and then moved lower. Not quite as careful as I'd been, but rather more enthusiastic -- ruffling my wet fur to get the shampoo nice and deep.

I tried to keep better control of my tail than she had of hers -- and failed. It wagged helplessly, but she soldiered gamely on, batting it teasingly before moving her paws back up to my chest, and then my belly. Then my crotch, and when she pressed that nice, tender paw against me, folding her fingers around the fur of my sheath, I wondered how I'd ever managed to shower alone before.

The water had rinsed some of her fur, but not all, and when she was done with me I guided her back beneath the shower head. It danced, splashing over us like one of the summer rainstorms of my youth, and I slipped my arms around her middle, pulling her close so I could bring my muzzle firmly to hers.

Jack got my meaning immediately; her head tilted, and our kiss was deep and luxuriant and warm from the outset. My tongue worked between her lips and she groaned deeply. I felt claws on my sides, gripping me possessively so that I had no choice but to move closer.

I leaned into the jaguar, guiding her the few inches until she met the wall and I could use the leverage to slip myself between her long, spotted legs. It didn't take much to nudge my aching erection into position and I lifted my hips, sinking into her smoothly. Jack gasped as I entered her, her muzzle opening, and I pressed my lips closer to muffle our combined groans.

I thrust as fluidly as I could, revolving my hips slowly and trying to draw the sensations out. Out of zero-g, the exertion was a bit much; I soon had to pull away from the kiss, gasping and panting into her shoulder as warm water dripped down my lolling tongue.

My chest was heaving, but the rush of fresh oxygen made it easier to keep up my movements -- bucking between her thighs in quicker and quicker thrusts that pressed the jaguar back and into the warm tile of the wall behind her.

I shut my eyes, putting more effort into my movements. Jack mewled happily as I drove myself in to the hilt, working my knot smoothly inside, and she squeezed my sides with sharp-clawed fingers. "Ellis -- god, yes, fuck me..."

That was my goal. Shifting my angle, trying to find less overtaxed muscles, I strove to keep up my pace, fighting the gnawing realization that I was going to have to finish soon or collapse. "Keep talkin'," I muttered.

"Slip that big knot into me," she purred. I thrust again, holding myself deep, feeling her wet, warm muscles contract and squeeze about me. There was resistance when I pulled back, but not enough. "Fill me with that nice, thick -- ah!" She gasped as I plunged into her again, grinding my hips firmly against hers. "Mm -- that's it, puppy, tie with me..."

I thought we'd talked about the 'puppy' thing, but there's a lot to be said for tone of voice. Hers was a sultry purr, and it did the trick well enough. I tried to tug myself out of her and couldn't. The need for release was bubbling up quickly. I straightened my legs, hooking a paw beneath her hips to support her weight, and thrust hard -- pounding her as my lips drew back, my ears pinned, my tail went rigid --

I heard myself snarl, at some point far removed from the splashing water of the shower. Pleasure slipped around me in a tight embrace, silky warmth flowing through my veins as my cock jerked and twitched, and I pinned Jack to the wall until my legs buckled and we slid slowly down and into a pool now completely filled with water. I stayed on my knees for a second; then they too gave, and we tumbled down on our sides.

She giggled, putting a paw down to catch herself with enough room to breath until I could get myself into a sitting position. "Y'okay, puppy?"

The tub was pretty deep -- the warm bathwater was more than sufficient to cover us both up to chest height, and to splash over the stone sides as well. I pawed at the faucet until it stopped running. "Mmf. Yeah. 'Course. Wore out."

"Easier in zero gravity?"

"Different physics problems," I admitted. Now that the urgency was gone, though, I had better things to focus on. The waves had settled; the water was still. I hugged the jaguar, and gave her another kiss. "Managed though... mostly."

"Mostly," she grinned. One of her paws brushed a lock of wet hair from my face, and continued on to toy with my ear. "Ellis... puppy..."

It sounded so endearing when she said it. "Yeah?"

She leaned forward, and laid her head on my chest. "Ellis, I lo..." She paused; bit her tongue. A second or two passed. "Ellis, I'm really glad you let me come with you."

But I knew what she'd meant; I smiled, even if she couldn't see it, and tightened my embrace. "I am too, spots."

She looked up at me, blue eyes shining, and kissed my nose. "Good."

"That what you meant to say?"

"Well." Another pause, and then she winked. "Some of it. Maybe one of these nights we'll get around to admitting the truth?"

It suggested there were more of them in the future, and maybe more revelations as well. And here I'd been thinking about letting her go... "Yeah," I agreed, and took a deep breath. The water felt lovely, lapping gently at us. "One of these nights."