Heartless Alliance (Mr Master and Oreo)

He watched her react to his admission of what the sensations meant, and no doubt her mind was awhirl with realizations and speculations, which accounted for her comparatively blank expression. Then her brows furrowed and her face took on a cast of distaste. Not precisely what he had expected, honestly, although he couldn't have said what it was he HAD expected. "It is like an addiction? There are addicts among my people. They use substances to heighten pleasure. I think this is different."

"We have addicts too. You could say it's like an addiction, but it's not habit-forming in the same way as substances." He almost slipped into lecture mode again, but he was still jangled from the braingasm, and besides, she was still talking.

"There is no doubt that we can merge. Had you permitted, our thoughts could have combined as easily as the...orgasm was achieved." There was a thought! She turned, then paused. "Come, we need to get to Telkra, partner. There is much to accomplish. I think we can safely say your people are unique and valuable to mine." And then she began to laugh. He smiled at her laughter; he'd heard a kind of under-her-breath chuckle in the control room when she had been engaged in holo-communication with the warship captain, but that was more of a sly gesture of superiority, perhaps the pleasure of having an advantage. This, this was sheer enjoyment, and it was delightful. Her laugh was clear and joyous, and infectious.

And that's when it all went wrong.

Her step faltered, and she whirled back at him, her laugh cutting off like she'd flipped a switch, her face utterly serious, even a touch panicked. "What was that? It was not an orgasm, but it was pleasurable. Will it harm me?"

He also got concerned, not over what she had felt but over her reaction to it now. Had she really never laughed before? "That... that was laughter. You were happy, and you laughed! Perfectly harmless..." he managed to say before she flickered. It was like she was a holo image; she just started to fade suddenly out of focus, her physical form ghosting to insubstantiability randomly.

She reached out to him, almost reached through him, but firmed up just so her fingers could dig into his upper arms with surprising strength, enough to make him wince slightly, and he could see why; she was clearly terrified. "Dizzik? Something is wrong." It was, he suddenly realized, what he'd suspected; her human body was letting her experience human emotions, and that was confusing the hell out of her. His mind raced through possibilities, but he finally settled on a course of action. First thing to do would be to stabilize her, get her into a condition where she could be reasoned with, where he could explain what was going on without her being in the grip of panic.

He took hold of her arms, even as she grabbed his, and locked gazes with her. He made his voice powerful and calm and as reassuring as he could muster. "You are experiencing emotions," he said clearly, keeping his statements concise, at least at first. He got more into it as she seemed to be listening. "They are harmless. But they can interfere with thinking, sometimes. You are not accustomed to them. Part of it is the body; let go of your human form. Go to your native form, relax and calm down. Come back to being human when the strong emotions have passed."

He hoped it would be enough; emotions did have a physical component, as evidenced by tests where emotions were chemically induced or suppressed. The experience of the emotions would stick with her, but he hoped if she gave up the body, much of the emotional reaction would cease at its source. Then they could unpack what she'd felt and he could explain to her what it meant, what she could do about it. He'd been thinking of such a conversation at some back-of-the-brain level since she'd first told him Telkrans didn't feel more than pleasure and anger; he just didn't expect it to be so emphatic. Or so sudden. Or so quick on the heels of their first merging!

It was a struggle, but Lya focused on his mouth, her mind pulling forth each word and holding onto it for clarity. "You are experiencing emotions." Her form continued to seize and flicker as the words reverberated off her skin, then through her form. Each time she lost cohesion it was Dizzik's timber that brought her back. Her throat spasming and nearly incapable of speech she tried in vain to respond. The black spheres of her eyes, etched with wisps of gold, flecked, solidified, and dispersed while she fought for supremacy over the terror.

Suspended in the vastness of space there was naught but Dizzik, Ship, and the fear. The harder she tried to maintain her form, the more confused her thoughts became. "They are harmless. But they can interfere with thinking, sometimes. You are not accustomed to them. Part of it is the body; let go of your human form."

Trust, she must trust. Try not to think, Lya. The solidity evaporated into a chaotic blur of gold and bright sparklings of ...red. If she had seen herself she would have been more alarmed. It would seem the emotions had altered her in more ways than infiltrating her thought process. As her cloud drifted over Dizzik, Lya allowed his words, their tone, to calm her. His voice box almost tickled as her particles drifted harmlessly in and out of his lungs. As she concentrated on the sensation, there was a focus other than fear.

Lya found something compelling and secure in his form. Reasoning with herself, there was no benefit to allow something new to frighten her. Still, words were easier said than acted upon. It took some time, but the sparks of red shifted here and there to violet and then blue as she swirled around Dizzik. You can do this Lya. Panic in check, her form solidified mere inches away from the human. Her frame stiff as she struggled to ignore the urgent prodding of nerves and sinew. "This is fear? How do you bear it? I couldn't even think properly. I must learn how to control this." There was no room for bargaining, her tone almost demanded compliance, "Come, you will teach me."

As if nothing further was amiss, she turned on her heel and entered the control room. "There will be no problem with the deal. I need to get you to Telkran." The door closed behind them with a finality. For now this sector was lost, and Lya was headed home with a prize beyond compare.

He followed behind her, still bemused by the sudden shifting of events. But... now he had hope. If her reaction was any guide, she thought there was great value in humans, and that was even before she knew about his psychkinetic abilities. Which, he had to admit, he was going to have to come clean about sooner rather than later.

"All right. To Telkran, then. How long do we have before we arrive? Because I don't know that I can give a whole lot of instruction in emotional control in just a few minutes. Plus there's all sorts of other things we need to cover, like why I was so hot after my jump drive, what we could do to find the lost Launtur civilization, and some other secrets I've been guarding pretty closely." He paused. "Array, stop recording everything; archive the past record for... well, posterity." He looked back at Lya as she made her preparations; she hadn't dissipated into vapor as yet, but she surely was about to.

"Look, I trust you now. That glimpse I had of your mind, that was enough to let me know you are honest. I'm sure there's many other ways we're going to trip each other up, many other differences in expectations and culture and whatnot, but at least I know you won't be lying to me, and I won't lie to you, as I promised. But going over all of this is going to take some time. How much can we get done before we have to do business at your home planet?"

He was already putting pieces together in his head. The artifact he had, that was surely speaking of the Launtur. And if, as he'd hoped, it offered some clue as to the planet's location, he and Lya could find it and locate the technology that would help them. Technology to fight the Reticulans, technology to liberate not only humans as a whole but psions in particular. His "people." He didn't know what the whole trade agreement with the Telkrans would lead to, but if it was something Lya was so hot to get done, he had no doubt it would be profitable for him, too. But that was just a side benefit; the main purpose was saving his frikkin' species.