Gently, without desire, he fondled her, his fingers caressing her soft hair, her warm bare neck, her soft breasts. His awareness was tuned so high that he could feel through her sleep her awareness of the touch, the new tingle there. As he had been taught long ago when he was a monitor, he let his awareness sink down through her body, feeling the changes in the breasts, deep in the womb, without surprise. He had been so careful since she lost their child, it must have been of Andrew’s making. It was just as well, he felt. She and he were such close kin. He kissed the nape of her neck, so warmed and filled with love that he felt he would burst with its weight. He had by instinct guarded Ellemir from the danger of a child of long generations of inbreeding, and now she could have the child she hungered for, without fear. He knew, with a deep inner knowledge, that this child would not be lost too soon to live, and rejoiced for Ellemir, for all of them. He reached past Ellemir to touch Andrew’s hand in the darkness. Andrew did not wake, but clasped his fingers on Damon’s in his sleep. My friend. My brother. Do you know, yet, of our good fortune? Clasping Ellemir tightly, he realized with a shudder that he could have died out there on the higher levels of the overworld, that he might never again have seen any of these whom he so loved, but even that thought did not long disturb him.

Andrew would have cared for them, all their lives. But it was good to be with them still, to share this warmth, to think of the children who would be born to them here, of the life before them, the endless warmth. He would never be alone again. Falling asleep, he thought, I have never been so happy in my life.

When Damon woke hours later, the last dregs of warmth and euphoria had been squeezed from his mood. He felt cold and alone, his body dim and vanishing. He could not feel his own body, and clutched at Ellemir in a spasm of panic. His touch woke her at once, and she reacted to his hungry need for contact, folding herself against him, warm, sensual, alive against his cold deathliness. He knew, rationally, that he had nothing sexual for her now, but he still clung, desperately trying to stir in himself some flicker, some shadow, some hint of the love he felt for her. It was an agony of need, and Ellemir knew in despair that it was not really sexual at all. She held him and soothed him, and did what she could, but in his drained state of exhaustion he could not sustain even the momentary flickers of arousal that came and went. She was terribly afraid that he would exhaust himself still more in this despairing attempt, but she could think of nothing to say which would not hurt him still more. Under that frenzied tenderness, she felt her heart would break. At last, as she had known he must, he sighed, releasing her. She wanted to say that it did not matter, that she understood, but it mattered to Damon, and she knew it, and there would never be any way to change that. She simply kissed him, accepting the failure and his desperation, and sighed.

But now he sensed that the others were awake. He reached out gently, gathering the fourfold rapport around him, reassuring him more than the desperate attempt at sex. Intense, aware, closer than the touch of bodies, beyond words, beyond sex, they felt themselves blending into one. Andrew, feeling Damon’s need in himself, reached for Ellemir, who came eagerly into his arms. The blended excitement grew, spreading out shivering ripples through all of them, engulfing even Callista, melting them into a single entity, touching, enfolding, surging, responding. Whose lips touched and crushed, whose thighs clasped, whose arms held which body in a fierce embrace? It overflowed, spread like a wave, a flood of fire, a scalding, shivering explosion of pleasure and fulfillment. As the excitement subsided — stabilized, rather, at a less intense level — Ellemir slipped out of Andrew’s arms, caught Callista close, holding her, generously opening her mind to her sister. Callista clung to the mental contact hungrily, trying to hold something of that closeness, that togetherness she could share only this way, at second hand. For a moment she was actually unaware of her own unresponding body, so closely circled in the unbroken chain of emotion.

Andrew, sensing when Callista’s mind opened wholly, so that in a sense it had been Callista in his arms, felt a dizzy exaltation. He felt as if he overflowed, spread out so that he seemed to occupy all the space in the room, to encircle all four of them in his arms, and both Damon and Callista picked up his impulsive thought: I wish I could be everywhere at once! I want to make love to all of you at once! Damon moved close to Andrew, holding him in a confused desire to share, somehow, in this intense delight and closeness, sharing, actually participating in the slow repeated rise of excitement, the gentle, intense caresses…

Then shock, dismay — What the hell is going on? — as Andrew realized whose were the caressing hands. The fragile web of contact shattered like breaking glass, smashed with harsh physical shock. Callista gave a short, shaking cry, like a sob, and Ellemir almost cried it aloud: Oh, Andrew, how could you …!

Andrew lay very still, rigidly forcing himself not to move physically apart from Damon. He is my friend. It isn’t that important. But the moment was gone. Damon turned away, burying his face in the pillow, and his voice came hoarsely:

“Zandru’s hells, Andrew, how long do you and I have to be afraid of each other?”

Andrew, blinking, surfaced slowly from the confusion. He realized only dimly what had happened. He turned and laid a hand on Damon’s shaking shoulder, saying awkwardly, “I’m sorry, brother. You startled me, that’s all.”

Damon had control of himself again, but he had been caught at the deepest moment of vulnerability, wholly open to all of them, and the rebuff had hurt unimaginably. Even so, he was a Ridenow, and an empath, and he grieved at Andrew’s regret and guilt. “Another of your cultural taboos?”

Andrew nodded, shaken. It had never occurred to him that anything he could do, anything, could hurt Damon so enormously. “I’m — Damon, I’m sorry. It was just sort of… sort of a reflex, that’s all.” Awkward, still scared at the immensity of what he had done to Damon, he bent and hugged him a little. Damon laughed, returned the hug, and sat up. He felt drained, aching, but the disorientation was gone.

Shock treatment, he realized. Soothing was effective in hysteria. So was a good hard slap. When he got up to wash and dress he felt gratifyingly solid, real to himself again. He thought, soberly, that it was not so bad, after all. This time, when Andrew received a shock to one of his ingrained taboos, he didn’t run away or try to shake loose. He knew he’d hurt Damon, and accepted it.

They both lingered a moment in the outer room of the suite when the women had dressed and gone. Andrew glanced at Damon with constraint, wondering if Damon was still angry with him.

“Not angry,” Damon said aloud. “I should have expected it. You have always been afraid of male sexuality, haven’t you? That first night, when you and Callista went into rapport with Ellemir and me, I sensed that. There was so much else to worry about that night, I’d forgotten, but when we touched by accident, in the link, you panicked.” He felt again Andrew’s tentative response, his troubled withdrawal. “Is it culturally necessary to regard all male sexuality except your own as a threat?”

“Not afraid,” said Andrew, with a glint of anger, “repelled when it’s directed at me.”

Damon shrugged. “Humans are not herd animals who regard every other male as a rival or a threat. Is it impossible for you to take pleasure in male sexuality?”

Andrew said, with distaste, “Hell, yes. Do you?”