Across the Galactic Divide

Her eyes got big when she felt him growing and hardening inside of her. She looked at him and sat up as much as she could. She bit her lip and her body took over again and started undulating on the hard invader. "Great Creator..." She gasped, her body responding again.

James reached up and ran his hands over her body as she moved. He found her nipples and pulled the skin back away from them. Sitting up, he pulled her close enough to capture one in his lips. Illyria gasped and groaned as the extra sensation shot fire through her. She felt something in her middle break free as she moved harder and faster. She could have sworn she shattered apart at least four times before she felt her body crest and her mind exploded.

"Oh yeah, take me... take me with you my love." James gasped out and pulled her close. It was there. They knew it was time again. Their minds were exploding with light as their bodies found their release.

"And the Creator said... Take your mate and bond with them and bring forth life." Illyria said in a hushed tone after they caught their breaths.

"And if a Man is to lay with a Woman, he will bring her into his dwelling as wife... Amen!" James smiled and kissed Illyria softly as their bodies finally had released enough to separate.

"You know the Holy words of bonding...?" She looked at him. "Those were your words, not mine." She shook in fear. "You are the Holy One... what have I done? I've bonded with the Holy One." Her face leached of all color.

"Quiet love... I'm just a backwoods boy on the wrong side of the galaxy. Yes, it seems we are bonded... in more ways than one."He chuckled. "But, there is nothing holy about me." James smiled. "So, when do I get to meet your parents?" He laughed at his own joke, until he felt the shock from her.

"You say you are not the Holy One, but you know what no one must know. Never speak those words again or Kolta will punish me and my life bringers." She shook in the after effects of the sex she just had and fear of what her lover and bond mate just exposed.

"Illyria... what have you done?" Voices were shouting at the door.

"Sweetheart, you have some explaining to do once we get rid to the hoard at our door." He kissed her and tossed her garment at her. "Keep your pants on... let us get decent!" He shouted at the door.

"What are pants?" Illyria asked and smiled, knowing deep down that everything has happened just how the Creator wanted it too.

*****

Getting rid of the hoard at the door was harder that James originally thought. It seemed that once they were at their peak, they started broadcasting what they were feeling. It also seemed that such things were not usually that intense in this mixed up place he found himself. Just when he thought he would go stark raving mad, Illyria would calm him with a gentle thought or project a smile into his mind. It was days later before things calmed down enough for a private thought.

"Surprises are going to be a bitch come the holidays." He sighed out loud.

"What Holy One?" The one called Salla asked, looking at James with a veiled look. He was getting irritated that James's mind wasn't as open as it once was.

"You were trying... in your own way, to explain just what Illyria and I did that was so wrong. You call me the Child Bringer, among other things, but think it's wrong to do the things that bring children. You know sex... getting busy, riding the magical hobby horse, bonking, fucking, getting your grove on...?" He smiled evilly, knowing he just overwhelmed the person who was irritating him.

"We have long ago suppressed those primal urges. We live by joined thought and balance." Salla said confused by the images that flashed in his head. "What is a horse?" The images were so strange.

"A domesticated animal that is ridden for transportation and fun." James smiled as he pictured the Budweiser Clydesdales stomping through the snow.

"Your ways are unexpected to us... just as our ways must be strange to you. Even this language we must communicate with you is very strange. It has simple words, but complex ideas. At least when I can figure them out. If you were to open to me, it would be much easier."

"Don't think so buddy. Having Illyria in my head twenty four seven is enough. If you didn't treat her like a second class citizen, she might even help you understand. She doesn't seem to have a problem with my mind." James loved pushing this person's buttons.

"But, she is, as you say, a second class citizen. She is a... apprentice... acolyte, a menial worker. She is too young to know any better. She hasn't even gone through her first new transfer after purification. It is an act of kindness that we let her study with us at the center." Salla looked perplexed.

"Watch it buddy... that is my wife... err Bond Mate; you're talking about there." James warned. "Hey, I didn't ask for it, but we are bonded, so keep that in mind." James sat back and watched Salla's face turn green with suppressed irritation.

"You cannot know that! You do not know the ways or the laws here. I have tried to teach you, but I will not be made a fool of... yes, fool is the word I am looking for in your mind." Salla was incensed. He had treated this James with honor and respect.

"Look Sparky... I do know that my mind and Illyria's are bonded. So much so that she's always there." He thumped his head with a finger. "I also know that we have bonded physically. So, according to MY law, we are Married, Bonded, A couple. What God puts together, let no one pull asunder!" Get it?" He saw the color leach out of Salla's face.

"Great Creator... The Holy Words... You know the words in your head I can see them. I beg forgiveness Holy One." Salla all but prostrated in front of James.

"Get up you goon." James sighed, almost losing his temper.

"No love, save it for Kolta. Salla is just doing what he has known for many of your lifetimes. Forgive Salla love... for me?" He could see the pleading in her face.

"Yes dear, I forgive him... if it makes you happy." James sighed as Salla got up and looked at the strange man in wonder. "You have a strange religion here Salla." James shook his head to clear the anger.

"The Holy Words go back to a time before. Only a few of us ever learn about them Holy One. Balance was achieved so long ago; many think the Great Creator is nothing but a myth to frighten the population into compliance." Salla bowed.

"Let me guess." James took an intuitive leap. "You were going along just fine, until some great disaster came about. Most likely some sort of catastrophe like mass radiation or poising. All of a sudden men can't have kids, so science finds a way to prolong life. Then cloning... well you call it a shell, but still; you make a copy of a body and the consciousness gets transferred... if I remember my Sci-Fi... correctly." James rubbed his head.

"The copy is made during the transfer. The body of the mind is transferred. But since so many could not be truly male, the machine made allowances during the transfer." Salla looked embarrassed. "The structure is encoded in the being. You call it DNA...?"

"Ah, since males don't have a complete DNA strand, and Females do, the transfer is more complete for them. So, that would mean, you have many more females that can reproduce by giving natural birth, but not enough males to get them all pregnant, without degradation of the gene pool, so you took the path of least resistance. Take that Carl Sagan!" James smiled.

"Simplistic, but yes that is basically what happened. Sometimes, like with Kolta, the mind gets sick during transfer. We have a way of cleansing it, but only if they are willing to lose all the memories from the beginning. Then they, like Illyria, go back to their first transfer before any translation errors have occurred." Salla shrugged. "They lose many Metaquads of time or life experiences and have to be retrained. They will never be allowed to be what they once were, in case that is what made them mind sick." Salla explained what Illyria had tried to tell him.

"Okay, so that explains why I could transfer to this shell, or body, yet still be human in my mind." James was thinking hard about all the crappy sci-fi he had watched or read over the years. "So, my other body, or shell is now mindless, but could still be living in a coma like state." He mused. "It was because I was a complete male at the time that the wiz-bang 2000 zapped me to this side of space and time; that I retain that part of me after the transfer." He missed having hair to scratch.

"You are unique Holy One. You make the complex seem so easy, but the easy things are complex to you." Salla tried again to penetrate the barrier of James's mind. "When did you learn that space and time are connected?" He pushed for answers that he knew were beyond him, but an old spark of something pushed him forward.

"No time for that now. I need to know what is going to happen to me... since the secret of me is out and all." James pulled Illyria closer to him and fought against the intrusion.

"Salla can't read your secret thoughts anymore love. That is why Salla is pushing so hard. I have to use my mind please." James sent her a kiss and felt her body respond as he relaxed his grip on her mind.

"That depends on what happens with your Bond Mate. You cannot have... sex...? You cannot create life with her, or Kolta will have to act to keep the law of balance." Salla stopped talking and thinking in the language of the stranger.

"There is so much you're not telling me." James sighed. "Don't worry Salla; I don't hold it against you. I know there are things you can't and won't tell me and I'd do the same. Hell, I already am." He smiled as Salla pushed against the fence in his mind.

Later, that day, night... whatever. When James and Illyria were lying in bed, she put her fingers to his lips. "Pull me into your mind love. No one else can know what I have to tell you now." She kissed him, wondering how she never knew about this activity. It was very pleasant.

"Okay... you are as close to me as I can get." He slipped inside of her and felt her shiver with the contact.

"Do not move or you will distract me." She kissed him again. "I feel complete with you like this. The other is nice, but this feels... like it should always be." She sighed. "I am not a recovering mind like Salla thinks I am." Even in her thoughts she was quiet. "I am a new life. I have a pair of... what you think of as parents. They are not bond mates, but they have been brought together to bring new life."

"How..?" James looked at her.

"Quietly... and stay still!" She told her Mate. "We are very few. We don't even know how many, so all are safe from Kolta's balance." Her body accepted James inside of her and they relaxed together. "I was placed here so I could learn about the transfer machine. How maybe we could help those to regain their ability to breed normally. Kolta doesn't realize it, but his balance is killing the Ten Planets. There are many who don't want to go through the transfer any longer. They want to rest and go back to the Great Creator. My greatest fear is that Kolta will use you to keep his balance, only letting you create life when Kolta deems it necessary. This is all he needs to prove to the people that he has become the Great Creator of Balance." She shivered at the thought.

"Yes, I see what you mean by mind sick. In my world he is known as a megalomaniac. We've had our share of them and other kinds of mind sickness." James rubbed her back and legs as she rested her head on his chest.

"Mary would be so proud of you my bond mate." She changed the subject. "She is with you always. Part of you but separate too. I can feel her when we are close like this. She talks to me in my dreaming. She loves you and is happy you have mated again. She will be waiting for us when the time is right." She smiled and lifted up. "I promised her if I ever have a girl child, I will call her Mary." She clamped down on James making James body respond.

"OH MY GOD...!" His body convulsed as everything rushed out of him and into his mate. As always with the male, as soon as he was done, James started to doze.

"No matter what happens next, know that I love you and we are bonded forever. I will always be in your mind and you will always be in mine. Time and distance cannot change that my love." She kissed him as he slipped into slumber.

*****

Illyria watched as her mate slept. She hated using their bond that way, but it was for the best. She felt the life growing inside of her and she thought that Salla had also. She knew what would happen if she was found to be pregnant with James's offspring.

When she knew he was soundly asleep, dreaming of their Mary, she smiled and left the room. She broadcasted their climax to keep all the minds away from her as she rushed to the landing area. Hopefully Karna had received her message and would be waiting.

"One day my love, you will learn what that noise is, and who is plotting against you." She sighed. Being connected to James let her hear so many things that she never heard before. Only to her mate it didn't make sense since the language was not his. She understood all too well what would happen if she was presented to Kolta, carrying James offspring.

"Come quick." A voice called to her in the darkness.

"Mother... thank the Creator." She sighed and ran towards the voice. She slipped into the cargo carrier and rushed to its secret, shielded compartment.

"What is mother...?" Karna asked as she strapped her belt around her and felt the bright spot that was her offspring fade from her mind.

"It is what my Bond Mate calls the woman who gave him life. I have much to share Karna." Illyria giggled as thoughts of what she just completed with her bond mate flickered in her mind. She blanked her mind like she had been taught so the traffic controller could not hear a stray thought. Only Karna was supposed to be dropping off supplies to Houda.

Karna kept her thoughts off her offspring as she piloted her craft past the checkpoint. She headed toward the primary to gather the needed speed to slingshot into the seclusion of open space. Once she was out of the shipping lanes, Illyria could let her know why she was summoned quads before her time.

"I will be logging in on time, baring a solar flare." She said into her comset and clicked it off. "We are in open space Illyria." She tapped on the panel that hid the compartment. "You can come out now. Is it true?" She ran her hand down the front of the girl she brought into life, feeling for the signs of new life.

"I carry a complete quad, Mother." Illyria smiled and touched Karna's face.

"The Great Creator! Who did you find that is strong enough to give you a Quad. It took me many meatrose to find one strong enough to create you." She slumped against her chair.

"My Bond Mate!" Illyria smiled. "He is the Holy Child Bringer from a distant star." She sighed and grabbed her mother's hand. "Let me show you my Mother."

"You have been listening to Castnatas too much... Great Maker...!" She gasped as visions surged through their genetic bond.

*****

"Where are you Love?" James woke up and found their bed empty. He reached around to see if she was sitting on the edge of the bed watching him again.

"I am safe... that is all you need to know for now my love." Was her instant response. It was how quickly she responded, that alerted James of a problem.

"What is going on?" He demanded, knowing something was definitely wrong.

"The Tacract were going to take me to Kolta. I heard it in your mind while Salla was trying to break through your fence. I am safe, but I cannot tell you where in case they break past your fence. They will try." Illyria tried to calm her bond mate.

"SALLA...!" He called out in mind and voice.

"Salla is no more." There was sadness in her thought. "I never knew they could do that. They transferred Salla out with no shell to go into. Meata has joined a place of silent thought. You think of a place called Monastery?" She told her mate what she learned while she was about her business of cleaning the complex. Meata left just in time, or Meata would have faced Kolta.

"I see." James sighed. "So much for me being the Holy One. I'm just the alien in a bottle." He sighed. He had hoped that were letting him stay out of kindness. He looked at his room as an apartment, just like the one he had on earth. This revelation told him that people all over the galaxy were all the same.

"No, you are stronger than them and the Holy One. They dare not harm you physically. But, they will try and break your mind to their wishes. Especially Kolta." She sent a kiss down their bond. "We will be together again my love. It might be meatrose later, but we are together in mind always." She closed her mind to her mate and it felt like she was tearing herself in two.

He spun to confront the threat that he felt behind him when the door whooshed open. "The Tacract will question you now." A thought came to him as ten people stood there. He knew a police squad when he saw one.

"Good, I have a few questions for them myself." James grumbled, making a few of them back off. "Stop it..!" He shouted as he felt tendrils of thought trying to surround him. "Lead the way good Master." He looked at the one he knew was the leader.

As he exited the complex, he realized how different things were. Unlike in the books, he couldn't see any dome over them. The biggest difference was the huge gas giant that obscured almost all of the sky. He didn't know how he was getting air, or whatever he breathed, but he did.

He kept his mind busy as they led him to a big ship that shimmered as it sat there. It wasn't a saucer, like was depicted in all the movies, but more like a flattened wedge of cheese. It looked like it was absorbing all the light around it as it pulsed slowly. Once inside, it looked just as nondescript as the building he came out of.

"What.... No window seat?" He asked sarcastically.

Hours, days, Quads... he didn't know how much later, James was still in the ring of light being questioned by the Tacract. The building reminded him of the Coliseum. It was round, the floor was flat and the seats rose above him in neat circles. He would be summoned, escorted to his little spot and the grilling would commence.

He had answered and showed them where earth was. It always started there. He had tried to explain how he got there. Not that they were really listening. He had answered all of their questions as they tried to get past his fence and pull the information they really wanted out of his brain. On and on it went cycle after cycle, day after day. Blue-grey walls, long halls, a bit of what they called food and just enough sleep to make him tired and cranky.

"Where is the female that was tending to you during your transition?" A voice asked to his left.

"I don't know. She tells me she is safe, but since I don't even know where I am, I have no clue how to tell you where she is... and if you don't stop trying to invade my mind I'm going to get pissed." He warned them.

"Show them this from your memories love." Illyria said suddenly in his head, with a flash of a warhead going off.

There were gasps and shouts as James remembered every nuclear test footage he saw. "He can tomack!" Once voice said. "The time of the great fire.... A Savage." Other voices declared all around him. In their fear, James was able to see what they were hiding.

"Oh, I get it..." James shouted to get their attention. "You were in the middle of a nice little interplanetary nuclear war. That's why you cannot have babies. You sterilized yourself." He laughed... "And let me guess, Kolta came up with the answer that saved the day and everyone lived happily ever after. How fucking original." He scoffed as they flinched back from him.