In Praise of Regular Maintenance

"Pilot's pet!" Chiana, outraged, screams the words after John Crichton as h=
e staggers away from the cell he's locked her in, clutching his torn shirt and completely flummoxed. He refusesto look back, but somehow he knows she's got her arms stretched through the crossed bars,reaching as he rounds the bend in the corridor. Out of sight, and he wishes he could put herout of mind as well.

Or even out of earshot. "Don't they have fun where you come from, human?"

Fun. Yeah. She's torn more than his shirt. Clawmarks down his chest and his handlink's inpieces. He ought to go back and steal Chiana's link, but that'd mean another scene. Or moreof the same. Not worth it. Especially since somehow he came out of the whole tussle with anerection.

It's been too damn long, he guesses, as he tries splicing the link back together.

"Pilot--"

"I'm afraid I'm rather busy at the moment, John." The voice comes through thready and full ofstatic.

"Just tell me--where's Aeryn?"

"In her prowler."

"What, you mean off the ship?"

"Officer Sun is still aboard."

"You okay? We got a situation?"

"Everything's fine," Pilot says, and that's it, the link dies.

"Great," John says. "Everything's fine." He throws the link away, moves to another tier andfinds three DRD's doing a dipsy doodle around each other, sweeping circles back and forth.He has to hopscotch around them, nearly gets his ankle winged. "Fine. Sure."

Aeryn's in her prowler, as advertised, suited up for a flight and unmoving. John climbs upclose, peers through the glass. She's watching her instruments, face expressionless.

He has to raise his voice so she can hear him through the barrier. So close and so far. Storyof his life. "Going somewhere?"

She shakes her head.

"What the frell is going on?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that, Aeryn. We got DRDs doing square dance, we got Rygel rolling in foodcubes--he's makin' a noise like somebody needs to give him a new muffler and a lube job. AndChiana--"

"Chiana what?" Interest flickers--barely--over her face.

He leans closer, his breath hazing the cockpit. "Let's just say it's Wild Kingdom out here. Andyou know why, right?"

"What makes you think that?" The indifferent tone.

"Because you are in there." He taps the glass of the prowler meaningfully.

She flicks the controls on her console for a minute, as if she's going to fly away after all, andher gaze keeps wandering to one particular readout. It's a screen, he can tell--TV light flickerson her face. Internal ship monitors? Something the DRD's are watching? He can't see what itis, doesn't bother to interrupt, just waits her out.

Finally she says: "It's something that happens to pregnant Leviathans."

"Moya's... the pregnancy's over, remember? Big fella, came with guns, speaks Peacekeeper?Name of Talen?"

"The pregnancy's over." A familiar contempt in her voice. "You really are the male of yourspecies, aren't you?"

"Just tell me, Aeryn. Please?"

She studies her monitor, bites her lip. "Quite soon after giving birth, female leviathans seekout a mate. Contact with a male leviathan lowers their hormone levels."

"Contact--sexual contact?"

"What else?"

"But Moya didn't find a mate. We've been kinda occupied."

"When mating is impossible, the leviathan eventually has to regulate her body chemistrymanually."

"Manually--" The ship chooses right then to shudder under him, vibrating against his still-hardgroin, and he almost falls off his perch. "Aeryn. Are you trying to tell me Moya ismasturbating?"

She dips her head in a curt nod.

He frowns at his torn shirt. "Moya's getting off, and as a result we all go Triple-X Love Boat?"

"I don't know what that means, John, but the atmosphere's flooded with pheromones."

He knocks on the glass, forcing her to glance up, meet his eyes. "You gotta let me in there."

"I'm not contaminating my air."

"Put your helmet on."

"You put yours on."

"It's inside your damned prowler."

"Improvise something. Go get your spacesuit. Or climb into that ridiculous pod of yours andwait until it's over."

"Aeryn..."

"I said no. Go away, John, I'm not unsealing."

"Fine," John says, hopping down.

"Where are you going?"

"Cold shower," he mutters. Then he shouts a more appropriate answer over his shoulder. "Ibetter check on the others."

"Good idea," she hollers after him. He's halfway across the ship before it occurs to him to besurprised.

Was that praise?

***

For some reason he assumed that Zhaan, being a plant, would be unaffected. But when hegets to her quarters she's bathed in brilliant, baking light. The door's open and two DRDs arequivering at the threshold. Inside, it's both of them, her and D'Argo, standing about a meterapart and staring at each other.

"Guys?" They're so wrapped up in each other they don't seem to hear. John steps over theDRD and starts to sweat almost immediately. It's hot in here. Zhaan's thin shift is almostinvisible in the brightness--he can see every contour of her body. Fibers that aren't muscles,nevertheless shaped in ways that make him warm and uncomfortable at once.

"You're bleeding, John," she murmurs. D'Argo still hasn't moved.

"S'okay," he says. The edges of his vision are tingling, and parts of his mind are waking up,remembering when he and she shared unity. That whole-body sensation of pleasure, everysingle neuron firing at once, total meltdown. He's tried to recapture that feeling a couple times,late at night when he was jerking off, but it always slid away, like a dream. Now, here it isagain, just a sliver. He clenches his jaw. Hormones in the air, he reminds himself. Stay cool.

Then Zhaan trails a hand down his chest, spreading the edges of the torn shirt, trickling herfingers over the dried lines Chiana left in his skin. She inhales deeply.

"Listen," John says. "Um. Something's... going on. Going on with Moya."

She gives him an impish, suggestive grin. "Yes. We know."

"The DRDs are watching."

A blue-shouldered shrug.

Okay. Obviously the thing to do is get D'Argo out of here and ride this thing out. With an effortof will, John turns away from Zhaan's spellbinding gaze. "Big guy?" He reaches up and over forthe orange-suited shoulder, but Moya gives another heave and he ends up with a tentacleinstead. It's warm, electric. He's touched the things before, but they never felt like this. Theskin has taken on a nipple softness, and for some reason he smells apples.

D'Argo hisses faintly. The noise is clearly appreciative, and John finds himself giving thetentacle a pinch, just to see. The alien throws his head back. Zhaan's fingers are still on hisscratched up chest, trailing up and down, each stroke longer--higher at the top, lower at thebottom.

"Harder," D'Argo says, and John squeezes the tentacle, opens his hand wide and grabs twomore. The aliens close in on him, one on each side. Zhaan's finger brushes his lips and thenslides down, past his navel, pausing to tease open his belt buckle. With her free hand she'sunsuiting D'Argo, peeling them both out of their clothes.

They're in a triangle or circle now, all very close together. D'Argo's hand is between hisshoulderblades. He and Zhaan kiss, pulling their heads together as he tears John's shreddedshirt away, as she tugs down his pants. There's the familiar sensation of cloth puddlingaround his still socked ankles. On a whim, he slips one of the tentacles into his mouth, runshis tongue around it. D'Argo makes a strangled noise and Zhaan giggles. She's determined tohave them all nude--she pulls away from the kiss to slip out of her own shift, bends to the taskof extricating every last garment. D' Argo's hand slides down to John's cock, fingers tracing itout delicately, as if the shape is foreign. Feathery tingle-touches. He clenches his fist,crushing the tentacles with his fingers, and grinds against D'Argo's hand.

The message gets through--D'Argo cups him, presses.

The floor shifts and bucks beneath them, giving them an excuse to give up on standing, whichis obviously utterly pointless. Zhaan on her knees with his pants in her hands is the weirdestbeautiful thing he's ever seen. Her breasts--if that's what you call them, his science braincorrects--have silver and blue-green veins around them, a lattice like vines that traces down toher hips, terminating in a human-looking cleft. D'Argo is still holding John' s cock, giving ittentative pulls. Down between the alien's legs are tentacles, some as narrow as human hair,others finger-sized, still more that are as big as any cock John's ever seen. Almosttranslucent, they're engorged with different hues of D'Argo's blood, reaching for him andZhaan.

Now Zhaan's kissing John. Her hand is entwined in D'Argo's crotch, almost invisible in theforest of tentacles. He's stroking John with one hand and caressing the priestess's body withthe other. The telepathic contact with Zhaan has expanded to include both of them, andthere's an instinctive sense of what works and what doesn't--John quashes an urge to tug onthe vestigal tail tucked under D'Argo's ass, knows he shouldn't even try to french-kiss Zhaaneven though he isn't sure why.

They're lost in groping for a long time, happy, exploring. Getting more and more excited, neverquite bringing each other to an explosion. Seeking out new life, and new civilizations, Johnthinks at one point, dreamily. No wonder Captain Kirk was such a slut. He sucks on as manyof D'Argo's tentacles as he can get into his mouth. White drops drizzle from their tips,drenching his face, and Zhaan licks him clean.

"I think--" D'Argo finally says.

"Oh yeah," John agrees. Endgame's coming--things are getting urgent, and they can all senseit. "So how--"

"Shhh," Zhaan says. She glances at D'Argo, seems to be confirming something. Then sherolls onto her back, pulls John toward and onto and very close to her. She pulls his cock intoher and it's a very human fit, though inside her body things are effervescent and cool insteadof warm. It feels great--he moves against her as D'Argo slides in behind them, his many digitscaressing John's balls from behind, stroking his ass, squeezing the base of his cock. Onelong narrow tentacle prods and then enters John's ass, slides deep and then begins tothicken, pulsing without thrusting, hot and mind-numbingly pleasurable. The rings that pierceD'Argo's collarbones are warm from the lights as they settle on John's shoulderblades.

John moves to an alien rhythm, his hips pumping back and forth, pressing out and back tosqueeze D'Argo, pressing in and into Zhaan.

Rocking together furiously, their cries in his ears, the faint echo of his own pleasure reflectedin their minds, he feels how completely locked he is into a circuit with his two shipmates.Zhaan's the one at the switch, holding them together, forcing the passion in their bodies torise at the same rate. Excitement to the ninetieth degree, unbelievable that he hasn't comeyet, and D'Argo's tongue is stretched out, circling one side of John's throat, teasing at Zhann'sear. Her blue head is nestled against John's arm, suckling. Her saliva is dissolving his flesh,she's licking off layers of his skin, leaving him blistered and red. It is strangely painful and yetintensely good.

Up and up they spiral, three people almost become one, while the ship shudders aroundthem. And finally they can't rise any higher, and Zhaan's control breaks. They cry out with onevoice. D'Argo's long arms compress them into a crushing embrace and Zhaan bites intoJohn's arm as he comes, as she comes, as D'Argo comes too. The white lights brighten andthen dim; they all roll apart and out of each other, end up with John between them.

"You need to know one thing," John says to Zhaan as soon as they can draw breath, as theirminds begin to separate, become three again.

"What's that, John?"

It's D'Argo who answers, giving voice to one last intermingled thought as he traces his fingersover the blistered skin on John's arms, as he presses his fingers against the freely bleedingbite-mark. "You are never ever--"

"And I do mean ever!" John interposes.

"Going down on him," D'Argo says. "Whatever that means."

With that, the giggling begins.

***

Elsewhere on Moya, a still fuming Chiana settles into a fretful, petulant doze while Rygel,covered in melted dessert cubes, sails off--imperiously, but supremely pleased with himself--insearch of a shower. And in a Prowler cockpit whose windows are slick with condensation, aflushed Aeryn Sun shuts off the console monitor with sticky fingers and begins to straightenher uniform.