Purpose:
To determine whether dual-emanation cross-pollination can be facilitated.
Participants:
Owen Carrick, Lugh Carrick, Ellery Alderman
Materials:
A specimen of Pseudonau’gshtium somniare var. ‘Mothman’ and a root cutting grown from the same tree.
Hypothesis:
Dual emanations of Pseudonau’gshtium somniare var. ‘Mothman’ are naturally incapable of pollinating each other as their branches come into the pollen-receptive phase simultaneously. The experimental premise is that cross-pollination is possible by artificially provoking the dually-emanated branches into the pollen-producing phase immediately after pollen-receptivity is accomplished.
Procedure [Reported by Her Eminence Tara del D’myn, Matriarch of Skarsia]:
I was in a bad mood. Lord Danak had been in communication with the colony. “Graysal said that you were doing experiments on Ashvattha. What kind of experiments?”
“Cross-pollination. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Eminence, you have to watch what you say. We’ve spent decades building a mystique, a mythos around the Archon, not to mention that the Shambhala colony depends on Ashvattha for connection to the power grid. You can’t blame people for getting nervous when you say you’re going to perform some unspecified experiment on their god.”
He probably had a point, but I still tossed him out of my chambers. The truth is that I was moping, and had spent the evening sitting around staring at Wynne’s recently gilded trading card. Ash didn’t like to emanate Wynne often. Because his influence on probability was too potentially disruptive, he was usually saved for critical situations. I should be grateful that in the past two weeks, he had emanated twice; both occasions were brief, surreptitious liaisons. He’d surprise me when no one else was around: the first time he took me against the wall, a consummation of explosive passion, the second time he was allowed to remain the night, but I awoke to Ailann in our bed.
And Ailann was miserable too. He didn’t like to play second to anyone.
I expected Ailann to return soon, but he didn’t. Owen and Lugh arrived, which was most unexpected. I asked them the reason for their visit.
Lugh hung his head, blushing slightly. Owen coughed and stammered, “Well, we’re here for the second experiment.”
“I see.” I toggled Ash’s datapad to the Lab Reporter ProXXX application. Sure enough, Owen, Lugh and Ellery were listed as participants.
I waited for them to explain. Finally, Lugh offered, “This is pretty embarrassing. You see, we kind of figured out that the reason two brothers emanate at the same time is so that they keep it clean.”
“Yeah,” added Owen quickly, “I mean, you know that me and Lugh are sort of, uh, perverts, but that doesn’t have anything to do with sex. Like Whirljack and Blackjack are you know, wholesome.”
“Hmm. I do understand the peculiar logic which leads you to that conclusion. But from the human perspective, a woman screwing two brothers is perverted no matter what.”
“We don’t get it,” said Owen. “I mean, whatever turns you on is perfectly healthy.”
“In that case, the fact that the two of you are so into each other is arousing to me.”
Owen beamed as Lugh shyly raised his eyes. “Well, this experiment is…” Lugh trailed off. “It’s hard to talk about.”
“When we emanate, and we’re with you, it makes both of us pollen receptive,” Owen blurted. “So we can’t, ah…”
“And I even have special flowers just for Owen, but…”
“Oh, the sport.” Lugh’s sub-trunk grew a branch that was a sport – a genetic anomaly – with blue-black flowers never before seen on a nau’gsh. It seemed clear to me that the flowers were meant for Owen, but as a xenobotanist, I should’ve realized that given the Cu’enashti pollination cycle, it wasn’t going to work. Branches were stimulated to pollen-receptivity by intercourse with me; they released pollen when another branch was engaged with me. Since Owen and Lugh emanated in tandem, their pollination cycle would run parallel. Owen could never pollinate Lugh.
“I take it there’s a plan?” I asked.
Owen looked at his shoes. “Yeah, um, we get pollen-receptive with you and then…”
“…then we go inside the pleroma and you do it with another branch which should…” Lugh trailed off.
“Get you off, and then your pollen should be able to reach each other’s still-receptive flowers. That is providing they haven’t been pollinated by anyone else first, and that you don’t pollinate the third branch, who will also become receptive.”
“The experiment takes that into account,” says Owen. “We’re partnered with Ellery. We can move Canopus to the other side of Atlas. Me and Lugh are on the far side, and the wind tends to blow in from the sea, so…”
“I get it. You move Canopus so that the other branches have a better shot at Ellery while the two of you do each other.”
Lugh nodded. Owen swallowed hard.
“That’s interesting,” I said. “Why Ellery? He’s a virgin. Why not Quennel?”
Owen shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe Quennel is needed for another experiment?”
“Actually,” Lugh said, frowning a little, “I think I and I is trying to be sensitive. You don’t really know Ellery. It’s just sex. It’s not going to mess with what you and Wynne have got going.”
I didn’t know Ellery at all. I had met him once, for about ten minutes. We were on Eirelantra, right after we returned from the colony, and Canopus was with me. I really wanted to get laid, but Quennel had been avoiding it – very peculiar indeed. Finally, he explained the problem was that as a lone branch, away from the other trees, he had no one to pollinate him. Quennel was funny about that. My experience with the other branches was that they either considered pollination an added bonus, or they didn’t consider it at all. Except, of course, that Lugh was obviously considering it, but Lugh was peculiar also, in a completely different way from Quennel.
The closest Ashtree was Goliath, on Eden, but we’d had no plans to go there. I knew it was likely that Lord Danak would have a million tasks for Ash and I to do on Eirelantra, and the possibility of getting Canopus to Eden in the immediate future was slight. The whole thing was enormously annoying. “Does Ash expect me to be celibate until we can find someone to service Quennel?” I snapped.
Apparently, Ash agreed with me; within the hour, a stranger emerged from the bathroom. He was an absolutely lovely young man in his early twenties. His shy sweetness reminded me of Daniel, but he had none of Daniel’s awkwardness. When he looked at me, he blushed; the image that arouse in my mind was of a perfectly ripe peach waiting to be eaten. The image was not random. That’s exactly what he was.
“I’m Ellery,” he said quietly. “I’m not staying. I just needed to emanate.”
Ten minutes later, a very grateful Quennel had replaced him. “I’m so glad I’m not alone anymore,” he said. “Well, I was never really alone, since I’m from the same root as Atlas, but it’s nice having another trunk on my tree.”
Lugh was probably right. I’d fuck Ellery in a heartbeat, but it would be no more than the merest distraction from wallowing in my infatuation with Wynne.
“Owen,” I suggested, “I was expecting that Ailann would be back for dinner. Why don’t you take Canopus over to Atlas while Lugh and I order something to eat?”
Lugh looked sorry to see him go, but I had a plan. I needed to get Owen out of the picture for a while. “Lugh, I don’t even know what Owen likes to eat. I was only with him for a little while before…you know. I’ve actually had a lot more time to be with you.”
“I guess that’s true,” he said, looking guarded. A little jealous, perhaps?
“Tell me about him. What turns him on? Let’s really make an effort to please him.”
“Oh! Well, he likes…he likes to be on top. I don’t mean that he’s a top like Cillian, and I’m a bottom, like Callum. We’re pretty much on equal terms. But he’s usually the aggressor.” Lugh glanced out the window, staring into the Seville oranges. “He, ah…he likes to watch. You know, to tell me what to do and watch it. He’s an engineer. I guess he likes to engineer things.”
“So we should put ourselves at his disposal?”
“Fuck yeah! Also, he likes, mmmm, hot oil rubs.”
I contemplated the scenario. “Then we’ll have dinner in the bath. Should we throw some towels on the floor or pull out a massage table?”
“I don’t think three can fit on a massage table.”
“Good point.”
One of the perks of being the autocratic ruler of a star system is that when you tell the servants that you’d like dinner in the bath, and please put down some towels and bath rugs, and warm a variety of scented massage oils, they don’t question.
I let Lugh send our request to the kitchen. We decided that finger food would be easiest to handle, so we requested a variety of hors d’oeuvres and tapas, with a wide selection of olives. Apparently, Owen likes olives. On a gut impulse, I ordered a hookah, figuring the scene needed one. By the time Owen returned, a buffet was laid, and my bath looked like the decadent inner chamber of a harem. It was rather amusing since Owen is so down-to-earth and a bit scruffy.
Lugh and I were wearing bathrobes and lounging on pillows strewn on the floor. I offered Owen a drink – spritzer, vodka and a mix of juice from both their branches.
“What the fuck?” Owen said.
“It’s your movid,” I told him. “You’re the director.”
There followed several hours of improvisations: steamy showers, skin covered with oil, olives passed with tongues from mouth to mouth. Owen had Lugh, had me, watched Lugh have me; I had broiled artichokes with a greengrain hollandaise. Somewhere in between was a smoke called Mello5000, a blend of Lammian highweed and psedopium which was one of the first products of RR-3 labs on Dalgherdia.
“Chase says this isn’t the good stuff,” said Lugh, lounging on the floor while Owen sucked his cock.
“Chase thinks the good stuff is Black Opium-27. Mello5000 has an advantage over Black Opium-27 in that it won’t kill you.”
“But it’s not like we would let it hurt you,” said Lugh.
“I’m a ruler. I’m supposed to be setting a moral example for my subjects,” I said, taking a quick toke before I sat on his face.
To make a long orgy short, by two in the morning we determined that there were enough pollen-receptive flowers on the branches of Owen and Lugh to proceed with the second phase of the experiment. “You’ve got to leave me some energy,” I said. “I still need to tumble Ellery. It’ll all be for naught if you don’t get your pollen up. And he’s a virgin branch. I don’t want to give him the brush off.”
“Introduce him to the hot oil,” said Owen. “Works like a charm.”
I had an even better charm – nau’gsh wine, the most notorious aphrodisiac in the galaxy. While they were changing, I helped myself to a glass.
Ellery timidly entered the foyer. His face was bright pink. I smiled and beckoned for him to come in. “That was so hot,” he stammered.
“If you’re hot, you should take off your clothes,” I said. “Strip. Show yourself.” Perhaps Owen had put me in a voyeuristic mood.
Damn, he was beautiful. Red lips, dark hair, enormous blue eyes, pert buttocks, a body which looked unused, unspoiled, and probably always would. “You look like Snow White,” I said, “if Snow White had a cock.”
He giggled, charmingly bringing his hand to cover his mouth. “I’m going to fuck you into next week,” I said.
I pulled him to me. Each emanation has his own characteristic scent: Ellery was like the heat of a summer evening, jessamine and orange and spicewood. It left me reeling, the intoxication of it, the warm pulse in his neck a thin blue vein in his translucent skin. He was made to seduce, even more than Dermot, whose beauty inspired, made me think of lofty things. Ellery made me think of the quickest route to the bedroom.
It was like fucking a down pillow, except that it was steel in all the right places, if you know what I mean. And he was demonstrative – not loud like Patrick and Cüinn, but a creature of moans, gasps and sighs. His pleasure was so delicious that I wanted to pleasure him all the more.
When we had finished, he lay shivering in my arms. “What’s going on inside?” I ask.
“It’s like bukkake, but with pollen,” he said.
I closed my eyes and let that image linger until I drifted off to sleep.
Data:
On the day following pollination, an analysis of pollen-paths was performed. It showed that 64% of the pollen on Owen’s flowers originated from Lugh’s sub-trunk; 72% of the pollen on Lugh’s flowers originated from Owen’s. In addition, 100% of the successful pollinations of Lugh’s sport branch came from Owen’s pollen.
Some unexpected phenomena were recorded: the branches in general produced 147% of the normal amount of pollen when Ellery was the receptive branch. An analysis of Ellery’s pollination showed that all branches were represented, with a disproportionately large amount of pollen originating from Owen and Lugh.
Results:
The next morning, I awoke to find Patrick in my bed. “That was insane,” he said.
“Lugh and Owen wanting to pollinate each other?” I asked sleepily.
“Oh no, that was expected. Long overdue, probably. I’m talking about Ellery. It’s strange; ever since he emanated, he’s stayed mostly on the swan boat. It’s pretty unusual for a branch to keep to himself, especially since Quennel spends most of his time hanging out with us. We asked about it once, and Quennel just gave us a look and shook his head. Tarlach was thinking of going over there to check up on him. But last night, he showed up at Daniel’s place. Every head turned; all we could think about was pollination. And we all knew that we were pollinating Lugh and Owen, but for some reason, everyone wanted Ellery to sit next to him. He ended up on Daniel’s bed with about six of us there with him.”
“I suspect that you were one of the six,” I remarked.
“Mmm,” Patrick said, looking away. It makes me laugh how self-conscious he can get about these things. I pressed my thigh against his groin. As I suspected, he was already hard. Well, if he was going to tell a sexy story, I might as well make use of it.
“And…?” I asked.
“You’re, ah, distracting me.”
“I thought that I was supposed to be a source of focus,” I said, reaching for his cock.
“Ah, well, yes…”
“Who else was on the bed?”
“Daniel, of course, since it was his bed, and Quennel, since Ellery is sort of his – that is, when he’s not yours, of course – and Evan, since he’s pretty much inseparable from Quennel these days. And I was able to squeeze in, and so was Wynne. Cillian was pissed. He wanted Ellery to come over to the leather couch. The leather couch is his territory.”
“So Wynne was getting it on with Ellery?”
“You aren’t jealous, are you?” said Patrick, suddenly worried.
“I don’t know. Maybe I am. Maybe it’s hot.”
“Well, the truth was that everyone was getting it on with Ellery once he was emanated. That in itself is hardly surprising although maybe the extent of it was. The really strange thing was how attractive he was before he was emanated. I mean, there’s always some level of attraction – some of us are more conscious of it than others, and the level of it varies between us. But this was bizarre. He was just so, so…”
“I know. I think he’s a form of hormone therapy.”
“I was on board with Lugh – it’s easier with the dual emanations if we focus on one or the other. Remember when Blackjack first emanated, everyone got a splitting headache? It’s hard to keep track of both at once. Anyway, I should have been concentrating on Lugh, on pollinating him, but I kept getting distracted by Ellery. And I looked over, and he was sucking Quennel’s cock. And then Cillian said he wanted to fuck him, but Whirljack said no, Lugh can get fucked by Owen, but everyone else would be violating n’aashet n’aaverti unless you were in the pleroma and demanded it of us.”
“That’s an invitation if I ever heard one,” I said, straddling Patrick.
“And then when Ellery was emanated, it was crazy. We were at least as conscious of him as of you. That’s not right. I think Ellery knows it’s not right, too. He came back inside right after you fell asleep, and went straight back to the boat. He’s there now, which, ah, some people seem to think is…kind of…unfortunate…”
Patrick closed his eyes, grasping me, pulling me down on him. It would have been useless to ask him to continue his explanation. He’s one who loses all track of himself when he’s making love to me.
The mere fact that he had emanated may be suggestive. He’s considered the most stable emanation, so when a situation is out of balance, he emanates. On the other hand, he’s very personable and politically useful, so he emanates a lot anyway.
In any case, Patrick was pollinated also, but that was outside the purview of the original experiment.
Addendum: the following debriefing notes were added after Experiment 3.
Lugh: I can bear Owen’s fruit! I’m so happy.
Owen: Can we do that again?
Tara: There were too many loose variables. We should definitely do it again.
[Ellery did not report for the debriefing.]
Conclusion:
The hypothesis was proven: it is possible to provoke dual-emanations into artificial cross-fertilization. The experiment was compromised by the presence of an unknown variable: Ellery. It is unknown if the degree of cross-fertilization would have been achieved were it not for Ellery, or if perhaps a greater cross-fertilization might have occurred.
Future Investigation:
Dual-emanation cross-pollination should be attempted by using a third-party emanation with more predictable parameters. Patrick, for example, with his stable personality and known pollen-receptivity, would make an excellent subject. Further experimentation needs to be carried out with Ellery as the subject to determine his unique characteristics.