He quickly told the moth to hover, and he flung open the right eye lens,
bracing his body against the moth's frame. It took a second to calculate
distance, velocity, and length of nanite wire, and then he engaged his
brace.

The high scream of the brace's flight was broken by contact with Xev's belt.
The vibration of the brace's locking mechanism traveled instantly up the
wire.

He pushed to moth's stick forward, locking it into place, and the insect
rose, lifting Xev out of her captor's hands.  Still rising, Kai began the
labor of pulling the woman aboard.

This was just like...just like....

...an intangible image fluttered forward out of his memories and the last
couple of hours on Vermil sifted themselves into triggers of information...

...Norb's youthful face reminded him of his own boyhood...
...The smells and sights of the swamp at dawn....
...murky water, cattails, songbirds...
...lush vegetation, the hum of insects...
..."Isn't it just about the greatest?" he heard himself say...
..."Just about" replied his father...

Moments later, Xev climbed in the moth, and Kai resumed his seat on the left
side.  It was best that they returned to the Lexx, and without speaking he
focused his attention on that task.

Xev breathed softly into his ear, "Thanks for the lift."

His space was being constricted by a rather warm and alive female pressing
her not inconsiderable breasts against his right arm.

Kai added more energy to his focus.  He could feel the skin of his face
constricting into a frown as he increased the intensity of his concentration
and thought.

The warmth of her breath, the softness of breasts on his arm... Now he knew
what it was "just like." It was just like fishing...

"I remember...I used to like... fishing."

************************

The lake was small but deep, untroubled by the wind, and was a deep
blue-green color from the algae-rich bottom. Kai trailed his fingers in
it -- it was a warm as bathwater. On the distant shore, a small stream fed
the lake with a steady supply of crystal-clear mountain-cold water. The air
was full of tiny green and gold dragonflies, the song of unseen birds, and
the faint breeze rustling the tops the evergreen trees.

It was Kai's sixteenth birthday, and his father had brought him out from the
underground city and into the wild as a learning experience.  He knew his
father half-expected Kai to hate being outdoors, as most young men his age
despised the outside.  However, his father also knew that there was
something different about his son -- something strange and new, even for a
newborn -- and when Kai gasped in delight and surprise at the untouched
scenery, his father decided to let him stay.  There was not any danger, as
the planet had been cleared of predators aeons ago.

As they came over the rise and viewed the lake for the first time, Kai saw
the water mirroring the icy peaks of the mountains, and could not help but
gasp in surprise.

"Father, isn't this just about the greatest..." Kai whispered.

"Just about," replied his father softly.

"And we're the only ones here."

"Actually...no." His father said. 'I invited some of our cousins here.  You
know, it's not good to be alone."

Yes, the old Brunnen-G adage, Kai thought. "Alone is lonely." The Brunnen-G
were a communal people -- they believed in tradition and repetition.
Innovation was frowned upon, ever since they had come into the Light Zone.
Keep things the same, and things will not go badly -- that was the thinking.
Kai was not always comfortable with that thinking, and as a result, he spent
quite a bit of time in his school's discipline room, alone.  Most of the
kids thought the discipline room, with its coldness and isolation, to be
quite terrifying.  Kai usually ended up falling asleep.

But now, Kai was lying on a fallen tree log with one end in the lake and the
other end on the shore. The sun was warm on his arms and back, and his
jacket had been left on a tree branch back at the camp.  It had taken him a
while to sneak away because every time he tried to move to the edges of his
father's attention someone in his family pulled him back in.

His father had brought in numerous cousins of various ages, ranging from
4000 years to only 200-300.  Kai's father was almost 1800 years old, making
Kai the baby of the bunch.

Only Auda, his 210-year old cousin had watched him with any understanding.
She had been given the treatment for immortality at age 18 in order to
preserve her beauty, and her mother constantly reminded her of how she had
been "saved by her Mummy's good sense." At first, she had been grateful, but
a hundred years later her mother's "advice" was wearing a little thin. A
child beauty, yes, but being still seen by others as a "child" added a layer
of resentment and bitterness to her view of the world.

Kai and Auda understood each other, and as he tried for the umpteenth time
to slip unnoticed to the edge of the camp, he saw Auda follow him with her
eyes.  Their gaze met, and Auda smiled a secret smile at him.  Kai took a
few more steps towards the forest's edge, pretending to make casts with his
fishing pole.  Any second now his father would call him back...but when he
looked up, Auda was deep in conversation with his father, and the old man
wasn't even looking his way.  Kai slipped into the forest, alone.

Basking in the sunshine, his shirt and boots off, his trousers rolled up
above his knees, the gloom of the underground world evaporated from his
spirit.  He could hear his cousins far down on the opposite shore, talking
about him, no doubt.  His strangeness had always been the subject of
conversation, and he was used to it by now.

He wedged his fishing pole into a knot in the tree trunk. Kai had cast his
line far out into the lake, and he could see the float bobbing on the water,
drifting slowly towards the lake's outlet.  If he caught a fish, that would
be interesting.  If he did not catch one -- that would be fine, too.  He did
not really have any idea of what he would do with a fish anyway, having
eaten manufactured food all his life.

He laid his head back and closed his eyes.  He could practically feel the
sun frying his pale flesh, and he did not care.  If he came back underground
with a suntan, it would only add to his strangeness.  "Oh well," he thought,
"Like that will make any difference."

Kai drifted along the friendly fringes of consciousness until the snap of a
tree limb warned him something was different.  He took a quick look around,
trying to locate the sound in the forest. It could not be one of his
cousins -- they would never leave the shelter of family and kin.  The noise
stopped, and Kai shrugged his shoulders. <<Whatever.>> He laid back down in
the sun.

The warmth drew him in, relaxing him. Daydreams of rocket ships and visiting
other worlds were one of his favorite occupations, but even they seemed too
difficult at this point.  The sun...heat, warmth... something was tickling
his nose. He scrunched his nose and sniffed to make it go away.  It came
back and tickled again, and he shook his head. A third tickle, and Kai
opened his eyes.

He looked up into brown eyes and golden hair, upside-down.  She smiled, and
started to giggle.  She had one of her hair braids in her hand and used it
to tickle his nose a fourth time.  Kai brushed it off, and sat up.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered.

"I told them I had to go pee."  She smiled, and Kai noticed how white her
teeth were.  Her mouth was not as full as his own, but it had a natural
peach color to it that was fascinating.

"They will wonder where you are."

"I doubt it." Auda looked back towards the camp. "They've started drinking."
She turned back towards him. "What about you?"

"They don't care."

"Yes, they do." She reached over, touched his collarbone, and then fingered
the ends of his forelock. "They just can't figure you out."

Her touch caused flip-flops in his belly. He felt soft fingers gliding
across his cheek, and her touch was cool to his sun-warmed face.  He looked
into her eyes, and saw that she was staring at his mouth.  Her thumb moved
to trace the line of his lower lip, and then her eyes locked with his. Her
eyes were not brown, he realized.  They were gold -- golden fires.

Her fingers trailed up across his cheek, past his temple, and to the back of
his head, where he felt the gentle pressure of his braid being touched.  Kai
turned his head to see her rubbing the thick black braid between her
fingers, and he was mesmerized for a moment.  It seemed such an intimate
thing, those slim fingers caressing his hair, and that was what she was
doing, caressing, memorizing the feel and texture of the soft end of his
braid.

"I was wrong," she said, drawing her attention back to his eyes. "It's even
softer than silk."

Her softly murmured observation caused his heart to bolt.  The sensations
she was causing him to experience were new -- so new.  She leaned in and
blew gently on his ear, causing him to shiver.  He had a vision of grabbing
her, touching her, pushing her down -- what was wrong with him?  He dug his
fingers into his fists to keep himself from touching her, but he could not
stop his breathing from becoming erratic.

"Kai, relax.  I'm not going to hurt you."

"I've never..." Kai exhaled.

"I know," She interrupted.

She gently took his shaking hands and held them in her own. When she sat
next to him, so close, he experienced the most incredible excitement,
knowing that she wanted him to touch her. He felt his heart was going to
burst from the pounding it was making in his chest. He could *not* look at
her, so he looked down. And when her round, perfect breasts were in his
view, his male flesh reacted instantly, filling, swelling, aching for her
touch.

Auda was curvy, with breasts that strained the material of her blouse. When
she leaned forward to press her cheek against his, he could feel the warm
plump softness against his chest.  Two warm plump softnesses...

"Will you let me kiss you?" Auda murmured into his ear.

He turned his face toward hers, and before he could even draw another
breath, she had covered his lips with a scorching kiss that was painful in
its intensity.  Kai could not lessen the pressure, for her hand had slipped
up beneath his hair to hold his head still for this ravishment.

And then, seemingly from far off, he heard her groan and was terrified that
he had hurt her somehow, when he was the one hurting, this kiss was so
passionate.  But he did not stop her.  On the contrary, his arms tightened
around her back, smashing her against his chest as he began to return the
passion of the kiss, taking control.

He wanted to taste her, and he traced her upper lip and then the lower with
his tongue.  His own mouth held a soreness from her kiss that was turning
into a delightful tingle.  In addition, she had gone from holding him
tightly to melting against him.  As he explored her mouth with his tongue,
feeling her own tongue slide against his, he could hear her making sounds
deep in her throat.  She was obeying his touch, caught up in something she
had no control over.  And he liked it.

How long the kiss lasted, Kai did not know, but he finally became aware of
something other than this rushing, roiling storm inside him.  He was aware
of her hand where it should not be.

It was too much, one new sensation too many, especially when this one was
the most powerful, and Kai could not help but suddenly draw back. Auda
closed her eyes with a little groan as Kai caught her hand and lifted it off
his member, only to snap them open as he kissed the palm of her hand.

Their eyes met, green into gold.  Kai could feel his entire body tuned to
the sensations that Auda had brought out from his soul for the first time.
Auda wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, and he held her as
well.  Kai felt her heart pounding as her body pressed close to his,
reveling in the sweet promise of her touch.

A single human voice carried across the lake, "Aaaaaaaaudaaaaa!"

Auda broke their embrace with a hiss, "My mother!"

Kai caught her hands in his, "So?"

Disentangling herself from his grasp, she quickly stood up, bushing herself
off. "She'll kill me!"

"Why? What did we do?"

Auda blinked at him in amazement. "Kissing a Newborn? You know we're not
supposed to..." She broke off and started walking quickly back into the
forest.

Kai stood up and pursued her. "Auda! Wait!"

She took another few quick steps, and then slowed, stopping with her back
towards him, but not turning around.  Kai closed the distance in a second,
putting his arms around her.

Auda's hands were at her sides for only a moment before she turned in the
circle of his arms, reaching up and wrapping her arms around his neck.  A
brief kiss on his mouth told the tale of her regret.

"We cannot.  You know that."

"I know no such thing," Kai insisted. "I'm ready -- our ages do not matter."

Auda broke his embrace, putting her hands on either side of his face,
pausing for what seemed an eternity.  As he looked into her amber eyes, he
felt desire for the first time in his life.  Desire for her touch, her
company, and her laugh. Finally, she spoke.

"So handsome..." And then she turned to go.

"Please..." Kai could not help it. "Don't go. Don't leave me."  His voice
broke as he begged. "Please, please don't leave me."

She turned halfway, staring at the forest, and then halfway again, peeking
at him out from shaded eyes. Kai saw the play of dappled sunlight on her
golden hair and wondered for a second on how he could have ever overlooked
anything so beautiful.

A small smile crept into the corners of her mouth, and then played itself
like a flame into her eyes, crinkling the corners of them as well.  Her head
dipped down and the smile blossomed into a grin -- a naughty grin.  She
rushed over to him, kissed his cheek, pressed her breasts into his naked
chest and whispered into his ear, "Tell your father that you're going night
fishing."

Then she was gone into the forest.

Kai caught his breath with the intensity of her embrace and the surprise of
her message.  A moment later he had to remember to inhale.

************************

Kai's recognition of the present returned, and along with it came the memory
of the feeling of satisfaction creeping into his sense of self.  It was good
to remember events that happened in his own life -- to remember his joys and
passions.  He had a good life when he was alive-alive.  Not everyone had the
wisdom to seize the moment and appreciate just what it meant to be alive,
and to cherish the gift -- especially the gift of love.

Most people spent their lives looking for something else -- money, fame,
power, or for a future event that would make them "happy."  Death gave him a
different perspective, as the "now" became the "then."

Suddenly, he saw the Lexx power up its "eyes" and the particle accelerator
began to collect energy before it swept towards the planet.  Thought became
action as he forced the moth to rise out of the way of the energy blast.

The blast passed beneath them, and he could hear Xev breathe a sigh of
relief.

Fin.
2/11/00