May 7, 2440, 9:30 AM
The last V’ren boy stumbled through the front door with his shoes in one hand and a half-eaten breakfast sandwich in the other.
“Home,” Eric told him.
“I am going.”
“You have been going for ten minutes.”
The boy looked down at his sandwich as if it might explain the delay, then finally wandered out.
Eric closed the door and leaned his forehead against it.
“Twenty-five,” he said.
Tell laughed from the kitchen. “You counted?”
“I had to make sure I got the same number out that I started with.”
“Did you?”
“No idea. There might be three more under the couch.”
He turned around. Tell was sitting on the counter with her coffee, barefoot, wearing yesterday’s clothes and looking far too pleased with herself.
“You seem happy.”
“I am. Sadly, I need some answers. I wanted to ask you this last night, but I lost myself in the wine. Are you using pheromones on me to get this response? Are they affecting my judgment?”
“You might have felt some small effect last night. We were very close. The first night, when we were alone, I did test you. We call it a scent check. You responded as I hoped.”
“When we were in the kitchen?” Eric asked, and watched her nod. “How long was I affected?”
She held out her hands, palms up, with a dramatic shrug, the V’ren gesture for Give me a moment, I am thinking.
“The full effect, maybe a short thought. It lingered for maybe a long pause.”
“So a little more than a minute of being wildly turned on, and lusty thoughts for twelve minutes. I wanted to kiss you when I walked you to your door and most of the time during the movie.”
“That was all you, and if your lusty thoughts only lasted twelve minutes, maybe what they say about human men over thirty is true.”
“I will have you know,” he said, stepping forward, only to find her pinning him against the breakfast bar.
“Later,” she laughed, folding him into a hug and holding him long enough to demonstrate that pheromones had nothing to do with the lusty thoughts he was currently having.
“This is your home, and people come inside looking for you on your day off.”
“Sadly, that is the norm.”
“Then I think I understand.”
“Understand what?”
She kissed him once, softly.
“Why you liked my apartment so much last night. No one came looking for you there.”
“That might have had a small bit to do with it, but mostly because you were there,” he said, running his hands up the backs of her thighs.
“There is something else I need to apologize for. Toward the end of that long pause, I think Ronald might have been affected. He walked in, got a look on his face, then excused himself looking very confused.”
“If he felt a twelfth of what I felt, he went to bed a happy boy.”
Eric looked toward the living room, where someone had left a trumpet on the floor, three blankets on the couch, and a single green sock hanging from the television.
“I need to know, could the girls here do that to the boys?”
“No, I don’t think so. Most of the girls seemed too young. They looked as though they had not begun the change yet. Their mothers also would never have let them out of sight, or even out of the house, if they were likely to begin or had not yet learned control.”
“Explain?” Eric said, hoisting himself onto the breakfast bar, an act he would not let the kids get away with. This, however, was a serious, thought-provoking pose that kept him from doing what he wanted to do with Tell.
“Hold on.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“Good morning, Lola Rhea. Have you had any explanation of the V’ren pheromones that the ladies have? No, I have not called to brag about getting laid, at least not yet.”
He chuckled, watching Tell’s eyes go as wide as saucers before she started laughing.
“She is well, and if you like, I can put this on the screen.”
He turned the phone so the couch and Tell’s very nice backside came into view for the old woman, then got down and pulled Tell onto the couch next to him.
“Lola Rhea,” Tell began. “I wish to thank you for the tea. We sampled the chamomile and mint last night.”
“Only the one tea? I hope it wasn’t because it made him sleepy. You know what they say about men over thirty.”
“Lola,” Eric sighed, shaking his head.
Tell laughed. “That one tea would have been a star of my shop on V’ren. When I can replace my V’ren herbs, I look forward to sharing them with you.”
“Lola, I do not wish to waste your time, so could we bring Annie Roxas into this conversation? She will not decide to call you back later.”
“Annie, good morning. You look terrible. What has Quinn done now?”
“She was the getaway driver when Emmy and Evalyn accidentally kidnapped a V’ren girl yesterday. Now the three of them have adopted her a sister. Please tell me they aren’t in your neighborhood recruiting for a baseball team. Do you want a puppy?” she concluded, sipping her coffee.
“I hope she is housebroken.”
“Good, you will take a puppy.”
Eric looked at Tell, who shrugged, not following this part of the conversation.
“I was actually referring to the girl, but sure, we’ll take a puppy, too.” He chuckled at both women’s expressions. “My friend Tell here needs to talk to us about V’ren pheromones.”
“Friend?” all three women exclaimed at the same time.
“Okay, future wife, if she will have me after the two of you get done roasting me. Now down to business. This really is serious.”
Tell settled herself against him.
“I want to say that I am not an expert in child development or biology, just a woman who knows a few things. V’ren women have a pheromone we learn to control that is involved with mating. Human men are responsive. I do not know to what extent.”
She paused.
“A scent check is a pass. If an unmarried woman sees an unmated man she considers worthy of having children with, she gives him a small, controlled signal. A V’ren man either responds or he does not. If he responds, she knows there is compatibility and can decide whether she wishes to pursue him. If he does not, she moves on.”
“So you made a pass at me.”
“Yes.”
Eric grinned.
“Do not look so pleased with yourself. Among my social class, perhaps one V’ren man in one hundred will respond to a particular woman. That is why we are careful about when and where we use it. The pheromone triggers the mating response, and that response is required for V’ren men to become fathers.”
“Are human men in any danger from this?” Annie asked.
“I don’t know. As I said, I know how V’ren men react to the pheromones. At full mating intensity, in private, it can become very intense. I hope this does not shock you, but I have had encounters with two potential mates. I was unable to conceive, so we chose not to pursue follow-up encounters. This is not uncommon. I simply do not know how a human male would react to the same intensity.”
She glanced at Eric.
“I think Eric believes someone the Freeholder trusts should speak with the V’ren medical community.”
“I do. I thought the two of you might have time that Pam and Angelina do not have right now,” Eric said.
“Dave tells me the Homestead is a chaos machine right now, so yes, I would be willing to make calls and do what I can,” Annie said.
“It does sound interesting,” Lola Rhea decided. “I will help her.”
“The second part has to do with pubescent girls needing to be kept away from the boys.”
“All men, not just boys,” Tell said firmly. “I don’t know how many orphaned girls there might be, but if one found herself beginning the rapid hormonal change without her mother or female relatives around her, she could trigger men without intending to. She might not yet have the ability to control it, and the men might not understand what was happening to them.”
The humor faded from the call.
“Most mothers would know exactly what to do on V’ren. We have a whole culture around separating girls from men and boys during the transition. Usually two to four months, until the girl learns control over her pheromones and no longer poses an accidental mating risk.”
“You are removed from V’ren society?”
“Not really in the way I think you mean it. Mothers and other female relatives get what I think you would call a paid vacation to help the girl transition from girl to woman. When I went through mine, my mother had a work colleague whose family had a retreat house by a lake in a special community for girls going through the transition.”
Tell smiled at the memory.
“When I was learning my trade, I spent two years working in such a community for wealthy girls. Even poorer girls get to stay in what I think you would call a hotel, set aside for them and run only by women.”
“Despite my bad jokes about your new houseguest, this is what I meant,” Eric said. “Tell gave me only the lightest of doses when she checked me, but some time later Ron walked through the room and then locked himself in the bathroom for twenty minutes. Hope he doesn’t have blisters.”
Both human women, who had raised plenty of boys, roared.
“This does seem serious,” Annie said once she recovered. “Lola, can you walk over to the house, ask Angelina to have Doctor Th’ron find us people to speak to, and brief Angelina yourself? I need to get with Pam and see about setting aside some of the cul-de-sacs to house these girls in a hurry if we need to.”
“That is a good start, and thank you, Tell, for bringing this to our attention,” Lola said, making notes.
Then she looked directly into the screen.
“Eric, I am sending you a puppy. Should we be planning a wedding? What kind of ceremonies do the V’ren have, Tell?”
“
