McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS by Michael McCollum Page B

problem was one of finding a way to assuage hurt feelings while upholding the Hunt Master’s authority. He was contemplating the dilemma when the call of a hunting torpor sounded in his ears.
    The signal announced his next appointment. He glanced at the screen. Dos-Val of the Ministry of Science had requested an emergency audience.
    He signaled his acceptance. The door opened and Dos-Val knuckle-walked to the resting frame across from the Prime Councilor. As he settled in, Zel-Sen noted that the scientist appeared agitated.
    “Thank you for seeing me,” Dos-Val began without preamble.
    “Is this about the missing accountant of the Sar-Dva Clan?”
    “Yes, Councilor.”
    “Have you discovered where the aliens who kidnapped him may be found?”
    “No, Councilor. I have found no clue as to the location of their world.” Dos-Val went on to briefly recount the parameters of the search he had launched. Zel-Sen, who understood the complexity of central data, was impressed — impressed and confused.
    Like the scientist, he found it impossible to believe someone had the power to make an entire planet disappear. That is, unless…
    “Are you suggesting that our initial suspicions were correct? Has one of the clans discovered a new world and failed to register it?”
    “No, Councilor, I do not think so. There should have been an initial record of the discovery, even if the discoverers later decided to keep it to themselves.”
    Zel-Sen made the gesture of confusion. “Then we have exhausted the possibilities.”
    “Not all of them, Councilor. There is one more we must consider, fantastic though it might seem.”
    “Yes?”
    The scientist fidgeted in his frame, obviously uncomfortable. Zel-Sen gave him a reasonable time before chiding, “I have a great deal to do today, Philosopher.”
    “I believe, Prime Councilor, that we may have a wild species loose in Civilization, using the stargates.”
    #
     

Chapter Eleven
    Lisa Rykand stirred in her sleep, stretched, slowly opened her eyes, and then smiled. After a long, troubled time, everything was again right with the universe.
    She was floating in mid-air, and she wasn’t alone. Mark was floating with her. They were intertwined, wrapped in the lover’s embrace that is the natural position when two people sleep together in zero gee.
    When a spacer sleeps, the biceps exert more tension at the elbow joint than do the triceps. This causes a sleeper’s arms to bend upward to float in front of them, not unlike the position used by some religions while in prayer. If two people wrap their arms around one another before drifting off to sleep, the natural motion of their arms causes them to remain locked together throughout the night.
    At least, that was the way physiologists described the phenomenon. Lisa preferred to believe that God had exercised His Divine Foresight to design the connubial embrace into the human genome long before the species ever experienced the absence of gravity.
    Of course, God benefitted from some technological assistance, as well. While preparing to make love, both she and Mark donned coital leg straps — elastic bands loosely wrapped around their calves just below the knees. The first time they intertwined, the straps engaged, loosely tethering hairy right leg to smooth left, and vice versa. The straps tied them together during coitus, preventing their exertions from setting them adrift. The arrangement eliminated the need for conscious effort to cling to one another, freeing them for the serious business of giving one another pleasure.
    Both she and Mark preferred the leg straps to any of the elastic belts of ingenious design that had long served the same purpose. And, despite elaborate and loving descriptions of the act of microgravity coitus in romance novels, the simple act of penetration did nothing to anchor a floating couple. Male ego notwithstanding, the forces involved vastly exceed the holding capacity of even the strongest penis.
    Lisa lay