Shepherd Read online

  Colony weddings were non-religious, as settlers had decided at the outset to avoid as many of the divisive aspects of Earth as possible. They each spoke their lines, swearing love and companionship, and publicly kissed. Then the two nominal fathers, Brett Peterson and Erasmus Elf, stood together. “Who cares to stand in witness to this union?” Brett asked the audience. It was a formality, and a tacit invitation for any objection, which would be made by remaining seated.

  All the villagers stood. They liked the notoriety of it, knowing that this would be awkward for the Earth authorities who exercised control over the colony. Was this a local or an interplanetary event? What were the legal repercussions?

  There was a bleat. All eyes turned. There were the six ewes, approaching in a close formation. Python and Vulture went to meet them, touching noses. So did Shep and Elen, surprised. They hugged each of the sheep, who tolerated this intimacy without objection. “So glad you could make it!” Shep said with a smile.

  It was significant. Sheep had never before attended a public human event, and that fact that Shep and Elen were able to embrace them without getting stabbed was not lost on the audience. No one ever touched a sheep without knowing the sheep approved it. The sheep did approve this union, and allowed everyone to see their endorsement. What did it mean?

  “The sheep want us married,” Elen said. “Why do they care, since they don't have any such thing in their own kind? They don't love, and sex is only for procreation. I doubt they understand the intricacies we practice, and would not care about them if they did understand.”

  “Why, indeed?” Shep asked. “As far as I can tell, the sheep are not smart in the human sense, merely telepathic and precognitive. What do they see that requires our union?”

  “There has to be a reason,” Elen said. “And the sheep themselves may not know it. Only that the marriage needs to exist. It must relate in some way to their needs. All they really care about is their own welfare; the rest of us are merely tools they use when they have to.”

  “Their precognition may see something far ahead. Could it relate to Earth? To Earth policy with respect to the Colony? I am in training for Colony Administration. But that's in the future; I am nobody of importance at present.”

  “Can we find out?”

  “I'll try.” They returned to the Embassy and messaged a query to his folks, using his two remaining words: COLONY NEWS?

  The answer came back promptly. YES. IMPORTANT. MORE ANON. That used up his father's words.

  They exchanged a glance. Something was definitely up, and the sheep knew it. “I suspect our adventure is not yet complete,” Shep said grimly.

  The dominoes fell into place. The Earth administration approved their marriage, and Elen was granted status to exchange to Earth. That was surely the work of the lawyer Shep's family had hired. In addition, they had found a good exchange partner for Elen. Shep would have to return to Earth to approve her; then Elen could follow.

  “Please, let her not be a hag,” Elen said. “I want sex appeal.”

  “So do I.” Then he caught her glance. “For your sake,” he added quickly. “I have no interest in the bodies of any other women.”

  She elected not to argue the case.

  Meanwhile they had taken a village house to share with Python and Vulture. To pay for it they exploited their discovered musical abilities, developing several songs. Shep played on the staff/mirliton with increasing competence while Elen sang, and they also sang duets, starting with “He Who Is Noble.” They started doing brief tours, playing before both human and elven audiences, and were always welcomed. At first, he suspected, it was the notoriety of their interplanetary marriage, but before long their pleasant harmonies became popular in their own right.

  They were also demonstrating to Brian's family that Brian had a likely future in music. He would not have to be a turnip farmer. Shep could see the parents slowly melting as they heard the lovely melodies and saw the enthusiastic responses of audiences. They were reluctantly concluding that their son's possible union with an elf or Earth woman was not necessarily evil.

  Elen started to show. She was indeed pregnant. She would be about five months along when they went to Earth. Shep hoped his folks had made that clear to the exchanging Earth girl.

  Then the time came. They elected to make the exchanges from the Peterson's home, so that Brian would have a familiar homecoming and the incoming Earth girl would have a secure situation from the outset. Both Vulture and Python attended; they were evidently in it for the duration.

  “It should be only a few days,” Shep told Elen, not for the first time. “I'll miss you.”

  “I'll miss you,” she agreed. They kissed, then he sat down for the exchange apparatus. He suffered a sudden siege of nervousness, but kept his gaze on Elen.

  Then the scene changed.

  Chapter 8:

  Earth

  And there were his parents, Sherman and Zandra, a similar look of expectation and concern on their faces. They needed immediate reassurance that nothing had gone wrong in the exchange.

  “Hi Dad! Hi Mom. It's me, Shep,” he said.

  “Good enough,” Sherman said, as if there had been no doubt. He was normally a man of few words.

  Zandra didn't bother to conceal her relief. She caught Shep by the shoulders and kissed him.

  “How did you get along with Brian Peterson?” Shep asked.

  “That boy's going to make a fine musician,” Sherman said. “If he can persuade his folks.”

  “He can persuade them,” Shep said. “Elen and I prepared the way. We even did recitals.”

  “Elen, the elf girl?” Zandra said. “You will have to tell us all about how you got married.”

  “Obviously he knocked her up, then had to marry her,” Sherman said gruffly.

  Shep laughed. “I did, technically, but it wasn't like that. We fell in love first. Yes, her name is Elen. She's some woman.” That reminded him. “You found an exchange host for her?”

  “Actually the host found us,” Sherman said. “She's the lawyer's daughter.”

  “The lawyer's daughter! And he is allowing it?”

  “He recommended it. It's that she has conflicting ambitions. One is to be a super-high-power attorney like her dad, and it seems she has the drive and talent. The other is to live a rustic country life far from the tensions of civilization and have a normal family. She thought she couldn't have both, but now maybe she can. Six months here, six months there.”

  “She does know Elen's five months pregnant, and will give birth during her tenure there?”

  “She knows the essence. It seems that's another thing: she can't be a high-power attorney and have a family. Not on Earth. But on the Colony she can have a baby, and time for it, with guaranteed no sudden business calls. She's ready to give it a try.”

  This sounded good, but Shep was wary. “I need to meet her first.”

  “She'll be here tomorrow,” Zandra said. “She's a marvelous young woman.”

  “And quite pretty,” Sherman said.

  “And what is this business about Colony Planet Jones in the Earth news?”

  “The lawyer will fill you in properly,” Sherman said. “But we can tell you that Congress is about to pass a law making that planet a tourist resort, where rich folk can go by exchange and make out with native girls and shoot wild sheep. That sort of thing.”

  Shep stared at them in horror. “That must not be!”

  “It is very likely to be,” Sherman said. “The moneyed interests are behind it.”

  “Dad, those sheep are telepathic and precognitive.”

  Sherman laughed. “Lotsa luck with that one, son.”

  Shep realized that this was going to be a hard sell. He had not believed it himself, until repeated experience had satisfied him. Without actual sheep to prove his case, he was unlikely to get far. But shooting the sheep? He had to stop that.

  Then it came to him: this was why the sheep had chosen him. So he could return t
o Earth and argue their case. So they would not be slaughtered. They might not be smart enough to make such a plan, but they had known that he was the one they had to cultivate to prevent later disaster. Now all he had to do was prevent the special interests from passing that law.

  He dropped the matter. Maybe Elen, when she arrived here, would be able to help. Maybe they would be able to persuade the lawyer, who would then know what to do. Certainly it was beyond Shep's immediate competence.

  He settled back into the family routine, acclimatizing. There was plenty to readjust to without arousing open skepticism about his sanity.

  In the morning he dressed well and was ready to meet the lawyer's daughter. Even so, he was taken back. She was a strikingly beautiful and well fleshed with flaring black hair to her waist.

  “I am Mona Maverick,” she said, smoothly taking up the slack of his silence. “You must be Shep Shepherd.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I was frankly stunned by your appearance. You are not what I expected.”

  “You expected a string-bean horse-faced female with her nose stuck in a legal book?”

  He had to smile. “Something like that. Come in; you need to meet my family too.”

  Shep's parents were as impressed as he was. Mona was alert and gracious, quite comfortable with the situation. “I'm sure we'll get along,” she said. “Or at least, my body will.”

  After brief dialogue, Mona faced Shep. “While I realize that the judgment of my suitability as host for your beloved is your decision, I do have a stipulation. I want you to meet my friend Elasa.”

  “Elasa? I don't recognize the name.”

  “Elasa Thompkins. She is my closest friend. I want her to be my guardian during my absence, to see that my body is properly maintained.”

  “I would never abuse--”

  “Of course not,” she agreed. “But you and my body will be lovers. Elasa knows something about absent minds, we are very close, and I trust her judgment. You will like her.”

  Was she trying to palm him off on her friend? He would not go for that. “Whether I like her is irrelevant.”

  “No. She will be seeing my body often, and therefore you as well. There is another aspect we'll clarify soon. The two of you must get along, if this is to work out.”

  Better to play along and find out what it entailed. “Yes, I should meet her.”

  Mona took him in her car to another address. It was a simple home, and Elasa turned out to be a moderately pretty woman with brown hair, gray eyes, a well filled bosom, and a baby boy. She had been expecting them, and invited them in immediately. “My husband's at work,” she said. “I do have available time. This is my son Bela.” She looked Shep in the eye. “As I understand it, your Colony wife will occupy Mona's body and be your lover here on Earth.”

  “Yes.” It seemed that he needed to persuade Elasa that her friend would not be abused. “That is at least the beginning of it.”

  “Not the whole of it?”

  “It gets complicated.”

  “Please,” Elasa said. “We want to know.”

  The baby, Bela, stirred. Elasa unselfconsciously opened her shirt and put his face to her left breast. No wonder she was full there; she was nursing!

  But Shep had material to cover. He let them have it. “My wife Elen is an elf on Colony Jones. That is, of human stock, but small in stature. She taught me many things, and I now have beliefs that I never had before.”

  “Beliefs?”

  “There are wild sheep there, not like those of Earth. They protect themselves with knife-like bones that project from their bodies when they are attacked, so are considered dangerous, except that they don't attack people. All they want is to be left alone. So people try to ignore them; that's best. But I learned that they have other abilities, such as telepathy.”

  He waited for their looks of disbelief, but they didn't come. “Telepathy is one of those things that seem possible, but have not yet been persuasively demonstrated,” Elasa said. “How do you know this about them?”

  “I was with a small flock of ewes for a month. They not only persuaded me and Elen to join them, they recruited a vulture and a python no assist. None of these animals were intelligent in the human sense, but were enabled to cooperate in the journey by the minds of the sheep. For example, when I made a rope bridge to span a chasm, the vulture carried the lead rope across. There's no way an untrained wild bird would have done what without having the notion projected to its limited mind. The sheep evidently got it from my mind and sent it to the vulture's mind. There were similar incidents with the python. Telepathy made these wild creatures compatible.”

  Mona was intensely interested. “Sheep like that need to be closely studied.”

  “Yes. But there is more. The sheep are precognitive.” He waited again for their open disbelief, but again it did not come. “You are accepting this?”

  Elasa moved the baby to her right breast. “Similarly strange things happen.”

  “Not on Earth,” Shep said.

  “On Earth too,” Elasa said firmly.

  “My father did some research, and found indications,” Mona said. “He is interested in unusual things that might have legal complications. That is why he suggested that I become your wife's host.”

  “So you could investigate for yourself!” Shep exclaimed.

  “That, too. Such a discovery would be a phenomenal breakthrough. What is your evidence for precognition?”

  Shep, relieved to have an accepting audience, told them in detail. “But if they start shooting sheep,” he concluded, “there will be no breakthrough. Somehow we have to get this stopped.”

  “And we can't wait for my investigation,” Mona agreed. “But we need more substantial evidence than your word. I mean no offense.”

  “Elen will endorse everything I have said.”

  “I'm sure she will. But would this cause members of Congress, who owe their offices to special interests like those that are pushing for this legislation, to change their minds?”

  “I doubt it,” Shep said. “Frankly, I don't know what to do.”

  “Father will know,” Mona said.

  “That's why we asked for a lawyer. We knew we would need someone competent to handle our interplanetary marriage. Now it seems that need has magnified.”

  “Yes. You will meet my father this afternoon,” Mona said. “Now we must get our personal business aligned.”

  “Whether you really want to exchange to a woman who is five months pregnant, and birth her baby,” Shep said. “I will understand if you don't.”

  “Oh, but I do. My closeness with Elasa has impressed on me the joys of motherhood. This is a way for me to experience them without permanent commitment.” She glanced at Elasa, still nursing. “I am jealous. I want to bear and nurse my baby. But I can't if I am to pursue my career. This is a unique compromise that allows me to have the best of both worlds.”

  Shep shook his head. “I am not a woman. I don't face that particular choice.”

  “There is more,” Mona said. “Just as Elasa will watch over my body while I am away, we want your wife to watch over Elasa's body, since I will be unable to do it.”

  Perplexed, Shep looked at Elasa. “You have a medical condition? I'm sure Elen will help in any way she can. But she will not be familiar with Earth, and she will be taking math courses. She may not have much time.”

  “Not exactly,” Elasa said. She handed the baby to Mona, leaving her breasts exposed. “But I am not the way I appear.”

  “You appear to me to be a complete woman.”

  Mona kissed Bela, who evidently liked her company. “Oh, she is, she is.”

  “Observe, please.” Elasa put her fingers to her cleavage, pulling against the inner slops of her breasts. Then the breasts swung outward as though hinged, showing a metallic chamber where her lungs should be.

  Shep stared. “You had reconstructive surgery? But your chest is hollow!”

  “More than that,” Elasa said. She put
her right hand on her left hand, and twisted. The left hand came off, leaving a bloodless stump for a wrist.

  “I don't understand,” Shep said. “Were you in a terrible accident, and have prosthetics?”

  “Worse,” Mona said. She was holding Bela to face his mother, and he was not at all disturbed. He must have seen this before.

  “Worse?” he asked blankly.

  Elasa put her left hand back in place and twisted it on. It functioned; she spread her fingers and made a little fist. Then she raised both hands to her head. She took hold of her ears, twisted, and lifted. Her head came off.

  Bela laughed. He must have seen this show before too.

  Shep thought he was going to faint. Then at last he caught on. “You're a robot!”

  Elasa made the head nod. Then she set it back on her neck and twisted it into place. She took a breath, as she had been unable to speak with her head off. “I am,” she agreed. “A conscious female humanoid robot, or femdroid. My details are subject to change without notice, which can amuse my husband.”

  Shep could imagine why. “But—but how could you nurse?”

  “My breasts are separate functioning units.” She put her hands on them and closed her chest. Once again she looked like a living and quite sexy woman. She closed up her shirt.

  “On rare occasion her awareness vacates,” Mona said. “Then she is no longer a legal person, and her baby and husband reject her. It is a crisis.”

  “A crisis,” Shep agreed, awed.

  “If it happens while I am away, Elen will have to help. To cover for her, hold her baby, and get her safely isolated. With luck it won't happen, or if it does, won't last long. As with a computer glitch; resetting can often fix it.”

  “The reset switch is under my chin,” Elasa said. “But this is a private matter best attended to by a friend.”

  Shep was bemused. “Are you sure you want to be away?” he asked Mona.

  “Oh, yes. The risk to Elasa is small, and I must take this opportunity. But we felt it was necessary for you to know, and for your wife to know, just in case.”