After that night, she came for me often. I do not know why I acceded, but again and again, I let her lead me out, where she showed me what it is to be human. We ate in open-air stalls, food I never would have touched on my own. I grew adept at scanning the ingredients to make sure they would not send me into convulsions.

Once, she caught me at it, and I had to lie: “I have many allergies. I must be cautious.”

Sadly, she had such an honest soul that she accepted it without question.

This became our pattern once a week, then twice. I found myself seeing her nearly every night. I had no idea what she wanted with me. It was strange, but not unwelcome, to have a companion who knew the city. Unlike most, she had been born within the dome, and she knew the hidden ways, where old men sold songbirds from gilded cages, and old women sat in doorways smoking pipes that sent blue smoke curling up toward the sky.

It was not until Smitty made an offhand remark that I realized the significance.

“Good to see you found someone,” the old man wheezed. “You don’t want to end up like me, no sir. And you can’t do better than Adele. That girl has a heart of gold.”

“Do better for what?” It was another of my blunders. I could tell by the way Smitty’s white, bristling brows shot up.

“You mean . . .” He peered at me over the kitchen-mate I was repairing. The circuits were scrambled, so the orders placed came out wrong; it was my job to fix it, so we could sell it at a higher price than we paid for it. “I guess you believe in moving slow, don’t you, boy?”

It took me a moment to work out his implication. Humans often shared sexual contact for recreational purposes, but I knew nothing of that drive.

I tried to think of a response. “I have no reason to believe she would welcome such an overture,” I said at last.

Smitty laughed and shook his head. “Adele’s a good girl, not a saint. Grab her and kiss her, son. You’ll find out soon enough there’s a reason she spends all her free time with you.”

Pretending to heed his counsel, I went back to work. What he suggested, I would never do. Touch meant nothing to me, offered through two centimeters of camouflage. But I had come to enjoy her company, and I hoped she did not find mine burdensome.

Despite the old man’s interference, things continued as they were for several more months until Adele proved him right. We had eaten in the marketplace and were walking from stall to stall as she admired the various goods. She paused where a vendor had various lengths of cloth that sparkled in the light. I did not know their purpose until she wound one round her shoulders.

“Does it suit me?” she asked, smiling up at me.

“Yes,” I said, because a more detailed answer was beyond me.

Her face fell. I think I was meant to praise her appearance, but I had missed another cue. In all honesty, I did not find her beautiful. Her skin was too smooth, her eyes sunken in her skull instead of proudly outthrust. A monstrous animal lurked in the shape of her lips against her teeth, but something shifted in me that day.

“You don’t think I’m pretty.” Her gaze dropped. “You probably prefer pale women with their delicate figures. Is that why you’ve never kissed me?”

No. That certainly was not true. Dark or fair, lean or large, I wanted no human female with dying skin and spongy flesh. But it mattered more to make her happy than be truthful. So I bought the cloth with my credit spike and gave it to her. I shaped my mouth into a semblance of a smile, and said, “You are lovely even without this, but I would like you to have it if you will accept such a gift from me.”

Her dark eyes sparkled, and it was she who first kissed me. At first I thought it was an attack, and I braced myself for worse, but her mouth merely moved against mine. It was not repugnant; I felt nothing but the pressure against my mandible. Like most human customs, it was easy enough to learn, and she seemed pleased when she pulled back.

After that she touched me more, which meant I had to take care that the camouflage was fresh. I used one night every two weeks to regenerate, which she found mysterious, as I would not tell her what I was doing. In retrospect, I should simply have lied.

This was my first relationship of any length. I marvel now that she did not guess my strangeness from the first, as Trapper had, but she claimed to find my differences adorable. After a time, I realized I liked making her happy—enough to put up with whatever strangeness our association demanded.

Which brings me to our first mating. I knew she wanted it; such was the normal progression. It bothered me that she might one day expect me to sire her young, but I had come to rely upon her presence by that time. I no longer enjoyed being alone; I no longer enjoyed the silence. I tried to put sexual congress off, knowing it would be awkward. I watched vids to give me some idea what to expect, but it was hard to know which ones represented the median experience, and I had no one to advise me.

Regardless, the moment arrived unexpectedly, as did most events with Adele. It was nothing she planned, I am sure, but we had dined at her dwelling and were sitting close, as she liked, sharing warmth. For a while we spoke of nothing in particular, but then her mood turned from words to kisses and from kisses to deeper things.

In the end, it was not as complex as I feared. I think on some level she sensed my inexperience and talked me through it, whispering what I should do—and what she wanted most. Of that night I can say, I did not mind it. Even in this, I am an adroit mimic. Her pleasure pleased me. I also liked the human way, for it did not leave me vulnerable and fearing madness might overtake my mate. There was no release in it, but it was another sort of gratification—that of making Adele happy, which had become important to me.

We went on this way for two more turns. Smitty passed, and he left to me his shop. Now I had a place of my own. I need not hunt the dregs of the galaxy if I chose otherwise. I could pretend to age and stay with Adele until she died. Then I would have to “die” myself and start all over again. The prospect left me feeling so bleak that I withdrew from her.

At this point, you probably believe you can guess what happened next. But I think it will surprise you.

Yes, she came to me one night when I had no human skin to hide behind. She knew the codes and let herself in. On quiet feet, she came up to my room, expecting to find me with someone else. The truth shocked her more.

She stepped into my room from the stairs, and I spun, exposed as I had never been.

To my astonishment, Adele did not flee or scream, though she could never have seen anything like me. Instead, she came toward me and touched the chitin of my thorax where it met the hinged plates of my lower limbs. A gap lies there; it is sensitive and only meant for mated pairs. I cannot imagine how she knew.

“So this is your secret. I must admit, I’m relieved. It could’ve been worse.”

“It could?”

She smiled then. “It explains a lot, too.”

“I am sorry,” I said formally. “I have stolen away your chance at bearing young.”

“I’m not so old as that,” she told me. “But it’s good to understand the why of it. I’d gone to see a doctor, you know.”

“I am sorry for that, too. I never meant—”

At that she shook her head. “I started this, not you. Don’t speak of regrets unless you’re sorry for the time we spent together.”

I could not read her face and did not know what she meant. But in this, I could be wholly honest. “No.”

“But it was never real, was it?” She shook her head sadly. “It was only you pretending to be what I wanted.”

Part of that was true. In some regards I did have to pretend. The camouflage made it impossible for it to be otherwise.

“It was not all false,” I said. “It gave me great contentment to make you happy.”

“Did it?” Her face lit, as it had when I bought her that length of cloth. Such simple things gave her joy. She carried the loveliest heart in her soft, ungainly body. “Then it is my turn, surely? If you trust me, I would know you, the truth of you; and then we shall see what I may do for you.”

So we lay in my bed that night, and I talked. No one has ever heard my story so fully since, nor known me inside my skin as she did then. She lay beside me with sweetness and wonder, listening rapt to the chronicle that brought me to Gehenna. For the first time, I spoke of Ithiss-Tor and the life I had left behind. Her acceptance remade me into something I did not loathe.

Afterward, she touched me as only mates do, and we discovered that there was something we could share. I learned the purpose of pleasure for its own sake. I gave back to her, such as I could. It was a crossways fit, not natural design, but there was rightness in it.

After that, she did not argue my need to wear camouflage to avoid trouble on Gehenna, but on regen-nights, she seemed happiest because it was real then.

And I was happy. Can you quantify such moments? Can you catalogue them by intensity and say, This is the best of times. I cannot. I can only say that those turns with her were good.

I did not leave her by choice. I did not return to hunting because I wanted to. Given the opportunity, I would have stayed with her until she died. I altered my outward appearance appropriately, aging as she did. I was content with that life.

But as all things do, they came to an end. She saw it more clearly than I. At that point, we had been some twenty turns together by my reckoning.

One night, after sharing in our way, she lay with me, running her fingers along my mandible. She had learned the flesh was sensitive where it joined my throat. No Ithtorian mate would do so, for it offered no measure of rank or dominance. It was not done to prove her superiority, and for that reason alone I would have knelt to her where I would acknowledge no other female so.

“It’s time for you to go,” she said quietly.

At first I did not understand. I rose and regarded her; many-faceted images of her came back to me since I looked through my own eyes, and I relished every one.

“Go where?”

“Away.”

“Why?” It was a pointless question, but I hoped she would answer it.

“I will not see you bound to me,” Adele said. “While I grow old and weak and eventually you are my nurse, not my lover. In thirty turns more, that is where we shall be. Already I find it hard to speak these words, so I need you to go and carry the memory of me. In you I will live on, always.”

“Since I cannot give you young,” I said bitterly.

That is our way, our immortality. We are long-lived, compared to humans. We breed less often, but we create a new generation at a time. And I could give her nothing of it.

“You have given me the universe,” she responded, smiling.

That she could smile while I hurt in ways I could not understand—it broke something in me. I did not understand the heart of her, then. She is made of brightness, too much for sorrow. Such a glad spirit—I am humbled now that she shared it with me.

And so, I went from Gehenna, went back to building my own legend, with a hole in me that would take longer to fill than I knew. But that, too, is another story.

CHAPTER 17

Twenty turns, such a long time. The weight of the story bears on me, making me understand why it’s hard for him to see her like this, now. Because of his life span, their time together doesn’t feel like an affair that ended long ago; in Vel’s terms, theirs is a fairly recent breakup, strange as that might seem to me.