----------------------------------------------------------- - The Ta’ainvel - – By Khan – ----------------------------------------------------------- 15. A few weeks went by and Jonas received his promotion. Charlotte brushed up on her knowledge on flying and was soon training with a simulation of the actual pilot controls. The Humans were both very excellent pilots their force commander reported to Jante. A few more weeks went by with little break in routine and finally, at four p.m. a Monday afternoon, Charlotte for the first time walked into the bridge as a member of its crew. Jante had unconsciously avoided having Charlotte anywhere close to Ayshala but now he realised that he hadn’t wanted Ayshala to be able to react to the fact that he loved a Human, another woman. Now she walked towards where the two, Jante and Ayshala, stood near the central. The floor was completely bare, as all three chairs were down in the airlocks beneath them, red rings where the command stations used to be, and all of them had a clear view of each other. Ayshala studied Charlotte with frank curiosity, softly sniffing the air. She glanced at Jante, and then did what Jante had hoped for all along but never imagined she would do. She stepped forward and embraced Charlotte. ”Be welcome Charlotte,” she said warmly to the startled woman. ”Charlie, call me Charlie,” was all Charlotte could produce. Ayshala stepped back a little behind Jante and waited. ”Well Charlie. Now you are here. Now you are a pilot. Nervous?” Jante looked sideways at Charlotte. ”No I’m not nervous at all. Of course I am nervous you daft cat. Its not every day I get to work as pilot on a starship.” Ayshala raised an eyebrow at the word ’cat’ and several of the other people working on the bridge turned to look with amusement at their new commanding officer. Jante cleared his throat. ”Yes, well. Shall we get on with it then?” Ayshala responded by speaking a code into her communication device, then saying ”Initiate pilot system, new functions. Proceed with start-up.” The rear hatch opened with a hiss, letting the command station rise into the bridge and thud into place. ”Configure system for three pilots, Commander Jante e’Darin, First pilot Ayshala b’Fairn and Second pilot Charlotte Westings,” she continued. Charlotte responded to the computer asking her to take her place at the command station. She sat and placed her hand on the scanner and the computer reported it had registered the new pilot. She stepped off the chair and it sank back into the floor. ”Right, that’s that. Now we have two hours left on this shift, then we’re off duty, all three of us,” Jante said. ”I’ll miss the bridge, I’ll admit that,” Ayshala said. ”Even if we had the same routine on the way to earth, I still loved to pilot this oversized tub. Now the astrogation computer does all the piloting.” ”True, its not a fitting place for pilots to spend their time off the bridge but what can we do,” he replied. ”Nothing, for eight more years.” Jante contacted the other ships and received reports that they also had closed down the pilot section of their bridge. They had also begun to train a third pilot as they found the system a clever one. To split the ship’s responsibilities on three was easier on the pilots as well as on the people living in the ship. On the other two ships, however, the commanders had decided to retire and a message soon came to Jante that the commander of the Handrillian had also decided that her time was up. The three former starship commanders were still respected and obeyed but they were no longer sought out for orders. A year passed and Jante decided it was time to do something about his and Charlotte’s relationship. One night he took her to the restaurant in the rear dome and after a pleasant evening asked her to be his Mate. ”Oh, I thought I was already mating with you,” she said with a wry smile. ”You misunderstand. Being someone’s Mate is in your society called being married.” She happily said yes and that night they became Mates. The ceremony, Jante explained, was ancient and had been conducted in nearly the same way for thousands of years. He said it was a return to nature of sorts, a primal mating ritual. There was a small garden beneath the Sanctum that was reserved for this ceremony, a meadow with wild flowers and several stands of trees. The garden was allowed to grow as it pleased and was in the eyes of the Ta’ainvel a holy place. That evening Jante took Charlotte to the garden. He took her just inside the doors and removed all she was wearing except her overall. He carefully let out her hair that was tied into a bun and allowed it to fall over her shoulders, then removed all of what he was wearing himself, except his blue overall. When she looked up she gasped. The ceiling of the room was five yards above her and made of a transparent material and through the ceiling she could see water. The central lake of the Sanctum lay just above and Jante had opened the huge hatch in between to emit starlight refracted by the ever-shifting waves of water. The result was a ghostly light, but not frightening, that played over the meadow and the trees. He let the claws of his right hand extend and told Charlotte to stand still. When she stood there silently looking at him he swiftly raked his claws beneath a startled Charlotte’s chin. As the overall slid off her in shreds he quickly made sure he hadn’t touched her with his claws. Whispering into the darkness he said, ”I know you don’t have claws, so just tear the overall off me.” So she did, ripping open the zip that ran down the front. He stepped out of the overall and leaving it by the door, and after removing both his and her underwear, took Charlotte’s hand and walked naked across the starlit meadow. He took her to a spot at the centre of the large room and motioned for her to sit down. He gave her a small knife and then lightly cut Charlotte across her cheek with a claw. She understood and did the same with the knife. Jante touched the blood in Charlotte’s face and traced out three lines running down and halfway underneath his own chin with it. She did the same. He then leaned forward and gave her a kiss, putting a clawed hand around her neck. With his Mate in his arms, Jante lay down on the starlit grass. The ceremony would be simple, he had said, and it was. When the lights in the Sanctum above started to come on and lighten the dark meadow, Jante woke from his sleep beside the naked Charlotte. He gently roused her and took her hand walking towards the doors out of the garden. They reached the doors and found two neatly folded blue overalls lying by the wall. ”There is another part of the ceremony but that is now more symbolic than needed. There was a Watcher, a person who saw to the two Mates and that they were not disturbed by anyone, or anything. Now their task is simple, take the old overalls and replace them with these new ones.” Jante bent down and picked up the smaller one for Charlotte, then put the other one on. ”Ayshala asked to be Watcher,” he continued, ”do you mind?” ”No, I don’t mind. I’ve know Ayshala long enough to love her as a sister,” Charlotte replied smiling. She got into the tight overall and when she noticed a stripe of gold threads tracing the joint between her hip and her left leg from the small of her back to the crotch of the overall, she asked about it. ”I have one as well,” he replied and pointed to it. ”Its a sign of our union, a sort of wedding ring you Humans would say.” Outside they found their things as they had left them and put those on as well. They walked hand in hand through the lighted corridors towards the bridge.