Chapter One

In the close quarters of the ambulance ship, the discordant repetitive blare of the emergency alert rattled Indio's teeth. He rolled over in his bunk and unhooked the Velcro-fastened safety webbing. The next blast stopped in mid-blare. Tiny must have slapped the shut-off switch.

With a grateful sigh for small favors, Indio grabbed the selkieskin sack from the wall hook, untied the top and tilted it in the direction he wanted the symbiotic spacesuit to go. The selkieskin oozed out onto the floor like an oversized blob of black gelatin. Except this blob was alive, felt like warm velvet against his skin and had a limited ability to move and link with his body.

Indio stepped onto his selkieskin and waited while it flowed over his body and inserted pseudopods into his body's orifices. A quick brush of his hands over the selkieskin when it got to his neck halted it until he was ready to pull it over his face. He used the Velcro straps on the wall and hauled himself hand over hand to the control console.

Tiny sat in the pilot's seat. Red and blue swirls flickered across his matte black selkieskin. Indio grinned. Most people who didn't know Tiny always did a double take the first time they saw him wearing a selkieskin because Tiny's natural skin color was so dark, you couldn't tell at first where his skin ended and the selkieskin began.

Tiny flipped the microphone switch. "Got it. Code Six Three Nine in sector green."

Indio slipped into the co-pilot's seat. The safety webbing deployed itself and secured him for flight. Hopefully this would be a simple run with no casualties involved.

Tiny leaned forward and opened the mike again. "EMS Five Seven ready to go. Now." He pressed the override control button for the Traffic Control computer to take over and sat back.

Indio took a deep breath and sat back too. He hated this part. It didn't feel right having Traffic Control do all the piloting by remote command while they sat there.

The engines engaged. A heavy three-g thrust slammed them against their seats like a giant's hand pressing against their bodies. Indio gritted his teeth against the pressure and spoke. "What do we have?"

The ship lurched sideways and then leveled out under them. Tiny grimaced at the sudden change in course. "A private yacht got holed. It's in lunar orbit right now. Four wounded, three dead and two able-bodied ready to evacuate."

Indio nodded as best as he could under the sickening twists and turns of their craft. "How many other ambulances did they call up?"

Tiny flashed him a sardonic grin. "Three. You know how it is. The high rollers get full service."

Indio snorted. "And at the end of our shift too." He closed his eyes. If they were lucky, they'd finish this job without having to go past their shift schedule. Two more hours and they'd be with Cait for another long, glorious weekend. Just thinking about her sexy smile gave him a raging hard-on. Too bad bigamy was illegal or they'd be a happily married triple instead of a plain old 'ménage à trois.'

The console beeped. "EMS Five Seven stand by for grappling hooks. All living evacuees accounted for. Your job designation is now Code Seven Two."

Tiny reached over to the control panel, uncapped the switch for the magnetic-tipped grappling hooks and deployed them. The hooks shot out, connecting them to the disabled ship while computerized arms reeled them in as close as possible.

Indio slapped the release button on his chair. The safety webbing retracted itself. He pulled at the top of the selkieskin bunched around his neck and let it flow over his face. Thin, flexible pseudopods inserted themselves into his mouth, nostrils and ears. Oxygenated air, converted by the symbiote from the water pouch on his back, flowed into his lungs.

The skin sealed itself over the top of his scalp, inserted even smaller pseudopods into his eye sockets and linked its eyes directly to his. His eyesight shifted. Now he could see up into the infrared spectrum along with his normal vision.

Indio turned. Tiny had pulled the rest of his selkieskin over his face too. He looked like an alien creature--coal black with huge dark eyes in a face that had no mouth, nose or ears.

Indio unlatched the supply drawer, pulled out two equipment belts and handed Tiny one. He pointed at the ship's view screen recorder and flipped the switch for the exterior searchlights. Not having a mouth to speak with while wearing the selkieskins had made sign language a very popular course of study station-wide. Learning how to sign was a small price to pay, though, in return for all the pluses of wearing a selkieskin for space maneuvers.

Indio fastened his belt around his hips and signaled that he'd go first. Tiny nodded and buckled his belt. With three other ambulances already on site, Code Seven Two meant his and Tiny's roles had been switched to forensics. Apparently, Traffic Control had taken the fact that Indio was a police officer into consideration while monitoring the entire rescue and evacuation mission.

Indio reached up to the Velcro straps hanging from the ceiling and pulled himself hand over hand to the airlock. Tiny would be right behind him. The lock cycled open. They swam inside, grabbed more Velcro straps on the wall and held on while the door closed itself behind them and the ship removed all the air from the cramped compartment.

A green light flashed over the exit door. It cycled open. Indio kicked off from the wall, snagged the grappling line and hauled himself down.

Earth's sunlit crescent wheeled in the background, a blue jewel in the black sky. The cold white light of the moon glowed behind the gutted ship. Indio ignored the view. They had plenty of time off-duty for sightseeing.

The yacht was an elongated ovoid, which was dictated by the need for shielding versus the need to mount engines in the rear. The bow, which should have been a round blunt shape, had a crumpled tear in its side. Fused and melted metal radiated out from the point of impact. Non-explosive as far as he could see from this distance. The tear had the classic deformation and damage ratio of a good-sized meteorite, possibly the size of a baseball. Streamers of hardened white foam sealant flowed from the gaping wound--ten seconds of critical time would be used before it filled the gap and prevented explosive decompression of the yacht.

Too bad they hadn't yet figured out how to attach individual solar flight wings to the selkieskins. Direct flight, using the solar wind to maneuver, would be a lot easier than hauling himself hand-over-hand along the tether lines hooked to the yacht from bow to stern.

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Tiny was busy clamping a modified camcorder below the largest searchlight. Right. They needed a double record--distance and close up--of the damage for the insurance claims investigators. Indio pulled himself along. The yacht's hull inched closer. The entry hole loomed jagged and ugly. Minute particles of ice drifted from the edges of the frozen sealant at the shattered bow. With his selkie vision, they looked like snowflakes falling from the ship into the black sky.

Indio unclipped a smaller digital camcorder from his belt and carefully recorded every inch of damage caused by the meteor. He clipped the camcorder to his belt again and turned his head sideways. Tiny was hauling himself to the yacht's open airlock.

Indio shifted his grip on the tether line and grabbed onto the handgrips on the side of the yacht. The grips were normally used by the crew for emergency repairs while still in flight status. From this angle, it felt like he was climbing a ladder up the side of the ship to the airlock entry.

When he came to the hatch, he boosted himself inside as if he were climbing out of a swimming pool. Tiny grabbed his hand and pulled Indio to his feet inside the airlock. He held up a message cube. Indio accepted it and studied the interior diagram of the yacht glowing within. A bright red X marked the third door on the left side where the two casualties of today's accident awaited his inspection and professional judgment as to probable cause of death. After they'd bagged and transported the bodies to the Station Hospital, an autopsy would determine the actual cause of death.

Tiny clipped a searchlight to the ceiling and turned on a second camcorder. A floating conglomeration of frozen debris hanging in mid-air in the corridor gave them an instantaneous portrayal of the meteor's path through the interior. The minute gravitational attraction of the bits of rubble had pulled them into clusters .

Indio launched himself down the corridor to the door of the third stateroom. His gait was a unique adaptation of free-fall and weightlessness. He used gentle thrusts of his feet and hands against deck, wall and corner--a slow-motion swim through the airless hallway.

He stopped his momentum at the third door and rested his hand on the entry panel. It glowed bright green and then the door slid open. Two bodies lay tangled on the floor beside the bed: a naked man and woman frozen forever in their last frantic attempt to end their sexual embrace and don their bulky spacesuits.

Selkieskins might have saved them, but they didn't have that option. They'd run out of time to save themselves. Hell, when the Columbia shuttlecraft disintegrated upon re-entry sixty-three years ago in 2003, the entire incident happened in only fifteen seconds from beginning to end.

Indio unclipped his camcorder and recorded the couple from every angle. Tiny waited in the doorway with two green body bags. A few more minutes and they'd be headed back to station. A tow ship would show up in another hour and haul the yacht to the station for a complete forensics exam.

Cait would never die like this. His daughter Socorro would never die like this either. Cait and Socorro had first claim on the symbiotes because they had discovered the abandoned cache of selkieskins on the asteroid expedition three months ago.

* * * *

Indio leaned over the countertop at the Orbital Police Station, pressed his palm against the ID panel, slid the data card into the slot, then hit the send key on the computer console and downloaded his report into the police files. His part in today's accident was over for now.

He turned, nodded at the police desk sergeant on duty and exited through the frosted plastic door onto deck two. A woman in an indigo uniform with silver belt and boots entered the other end of the corridor. She wore her dark blond hair pulled back into a severe bun, and the logo for United Planets Security Forces glittered at her collar. Indio shifted the duffel bag that contained his selkieskin to his right shoulder and kept walking.

Her gaze skittered away from the old burn scars ridging the left side of his face. Bright red spots flared on her cheekbones. "Are you Edelmiro Jesus Santiago de Arroyo?"

He stopped. What the hell did she want with him? Or rather, what the hell did the United Planets Security Force want with him? "I am."

She handed him an old fashioned sealed white envelope, held up a sofscreen computer and pointed at the one centimeter-square glowing in the corner. "Place your thumb on the grid to verify receipt, please."

* * * *

Tiny waved an envelope at Indio, crumpled it up in his hand and jammed it into his jeans pocket. "They're out of their fucking minds." He slammed his fist against the elevator wall. A satisfying boom shook the cubicle. "What the hell do they think they're doing, trying to place an injunction against the usage of selkieskins?"

Indio shrugged and leaned against the wall. Like it or not, they had been subpoenaed. They had no choice but to obey the court order and testify about the selkieskins at the Interplanetary Trade Council meeting thirty days from today. The elevator moved smoothly to the next level. "I bet Cait received a subpoena too."

Tiny swiped his hand across his bald scalp. "And I bet she's pissed off." A grin twitched at the corners of his mouth.

Indio chuckled. If Cait was pissed off, then she needed both of them to calm her down. "More than likely, she's already waiting at the apartment for us."

* * * *

Indio sat on the bed and pulled off his shirt and pants. His swollen erection jutted up between his thighs, thick and hard. Tiny sat on the other side of the bed, equally naked, equally aroused. His coal-black skin looked like onyx against the white sheets. He stroked his hand up and down his thick shaft, pleasuring himself.

Cait paced back and forth between them, naked. Energy simmered within the lush curves of her body. A thick five-strand braid confined her hair. Her heavy breasts and rounded ass caught Indio's gaze while her braid slapped the backs of her thighs with every step she took. "They're idiots." She curled her hands into fists. "We only have six hundred selkieskins. What the hell are they afraid of? Unfair competition? We'd need millions of selkieskins before we'd put the spacesuit manufacturers out of business. We're still trying to figure out how to make more of them in the lab."

Indio shrugged. They'd cross that bridge when it happened. "We don't have any choice but to obey the subpoena. They can't file an injunction against the selkieskins until after the hearing." He smiled and stroked the hard length of his erection. "Right now, we have better things to do."

Cait stopped and looked Indio over from head to toe. She didn't flinch at the scars that ridged his face, his left arm and leg. There was only arousal in her gaze. Her nipples were hard and ready for sucking. Moisture already saturated the curls of her pubic mound.

He stood. Tiny rose to his feet too. They went to her and held her close, sandwiched between them front and back. Indio moved his hardened shaft against the soft wetness of her crotch. He knew Tiny was already rubbing his cock between the crack of her buttocks. With Cait's stature of five-nine versus Tiny's height of six-six, all she had to do was lean back and tilt her head to exchange kisses with him when he stood behind her.

No need to talk anymore. Just kiss and feel the heat of her arousal ricochet from her into him, to Tiny and back into her again. The unique mental link of their triple dru-bond joined them into one entity whenever they touched body to body like this. Their dru-bonds sealed them into a telempathic link that allowed Indio to feel her excitement and Tiny's excitement all mingled together in his mind. It made him throb with need. Over and over, the bonds pulsed between the three of them, creating an instantaneous feedback loop of mutual desire and pleasure.

Indio went to his knees, parted her thighs, inserted his tongue past the wiry curls of her crotch and tasted the creamy moisture of her arousal. Cait groaned and pushed against his tongue. He licked her clit to a hard little peak. When she leaned into his mouth for more, he sucked it even harder. His erection throbbed in unison with her soft mews and the eager thrusts of her hips while she ground herself against his tongue for more.

Indio glanced up. Tiny was busy too, muffling her groans with tongue-tangled kisses, kneading her breasts and pinching her nipples with his big hands, increasing her arousal to a fever pitch. After three months of making love with them every day, her body was more than ready to handle both of their cocks at the same time.

She opened her legs wider. Indio pushed his fingers into her while she bucked her clit against his tongue, crying out with pleasure, suspended in joy between him and Tiny. He sucked harder, deepened the strokes of his fingers inside her pussy and matched the even thrusts of Tiny's fingers in her anus. Her moans cascaded into a keening wail while they drove her to her first climax, a climax that shuddered through their empathic dru-bonds with her and made their cocks jump and throb for completion.

Moving easily, from long hours of practice with her, they changed positions. Indio stood behind her while Tiny picked her up in his arms and impaled her in one glorious rush on his erection. She wrapped arms and legs around Tiny's neck and waist. Shivers raced up her body when Indio spread her buttocks apart, coated her anus with lubricating gel then inserted the engorged head of his erection.

Tight. Cait's anus felt so tight around his cockhead. Tight, warm and ready for him to bang her good. He slid his cock inside, inch by inch, groaning when she relaxed and accepted the entire thick length of him inside her.

They moved slowly at first, guiding themselves in and out. Tiny thrust his penis deep inside her from the front. Pleasure shuddered through her at the sensation of Tiny's cock grinding against Indio's through the thin wall of tissue that separated them inside her and rocketed back across her dru-bonds into both men. In and out they pushed, harder and harder, deeper and deeper. Their cries of pleasure echoed each other and climbed to the next peak.

Cait shuddered. Her body spasmed between them. She screamed. Her body milked them dry while her climax exploded across their empathic link.

Indio felt Tiny slamming into her from the front while he pistoned into her rear entrance. Indio released long, wet jets of semen into her and felt the erratic spasms from Tiny releasing more semen deep inside her from the front.

Love, total love and acceptance, soared across their dru-bonds, filling them with warm satisfaction and contentment. A long, eternal moment of pure completion joined the three of them into one entity.

The insistent ringing of the vidphone brought them back to reality. Indio pulled his still-turgid cock from Cait's ass, grabbed a towel from the bed and wrapped it around his hips. Tiny lifted her from his cock and set her on the bed. Cait grabbed a robe and hurriedly belted it while Tiny covered his hips with the other towel.

Indio grinned. Now that they were decent, he pushed the button to accept the call. The viewscreen shimmered to life and showed them an image of Cait's brother, Kevin. Black-haired and dark-eyed, you couldn't tell by looking at him that he was her twin. Cait had calico hair, a gorgeous mélange of copper, gold, brown and black, and hazel eyes--eyes that changed color with her moods.

Kevin leaned forward and peered into his side of the viewscreen. Humor glinted in his dark gaze at their attire. "Sorry about the interruption. I got a subpoena a couple of minutes ago and was calling to warn you about it."

Cait lifted her braid from the back of her robe and let it fall down her back. "We got our subpoenas already. I want you to make reservations on tomorrow's shuttle. We might as well go to Earth now and see what's going on dirtside before we show up for that hearing."

Kevin nodded. "What about Socorro?"

Indio slid his arm around Cait's waist and pulled her against his side. "I'll call the station school and complete all the paperwork for her home schooling coursework. We're not leaving my daughter behind. Reserve a seat for her, too."

Cait leaned closer and brushed her lips across his forehead. "You're right. There is no need to separate her from her family while we respond to this subpoena. Your daughter is my daughter now."