I find it interesting that Tereskàdians are able to engage in sexual intercourse without the female becoming pregnant if she has given birth to the maximum three cubs. Tereskàdianologists had maintained that once the female has mated for the third and final time then no more sexual intercourse can occur. When you think about the fact that Tereskàdians can live for ninety, a hundred, a hundred and ten years it seems rather silly that our whole sexual system should shut down. True, a female does no longer have an estrus cycle, but that does not mean we have to stop loving each other sexually.

So it was on this early morning, in our cabin, that Rhalhea and I were locked together. We had begun with mutual grooming, and one thing led to another… Rhalhea reminds me that we had not done this since before we set out from Alharhan. I haven’t been keeping track, I told her. She doesn’t say anything, but her purring indicates that she is enjoying our intimate relation.

The cubs are still asleep, but even if they wake up, there is nothing we can do to separate. We will be locked together for three hours, and only time will release my organ from her vagina.

We communicate via our whistling dragons who have decided to engage in sexual intercourse as well. When Tereskàdians and whistling dragons are of breeding age, both of them must mate at the same time so that both the Tereskàdian cub and the whistling dragon cub are born at the same time. After the female has given birth to three cubs over a span of ten years (at ages 15, 20, and 25) then the strict requirement for mating becomes null and void. This means that sometimes Tereskàdians will mate, sometimes the whistling dragons, and sometimes both at the same time. The early Tereskàdianologists believed that reproduction was the one and only reason Tereskàdians and whistling dragons mated, but that has been proven false. There are those, however, who are still surprised to find out that we do this, especially when they find out that we have three cubs.

Later, after we have separated, I take the elevator to the bridge. Captain Lhuâdel is sitting in his ‘command chair’, as he calls it. He doesn’t seem to be very busy, which doesn’t really surprise me because I have this impression that there is nothing to flying from Alharhan to Tereskàdhar. You can pretty well set the ship on automatic and it could fly itself without the benefit of captain or crew. But that would eliminate a lot of jobs and Alharhanians would certainly not want that.

I ask Captain Lhuâdel if there is any place where whistling dragons can fly and he tells me there is a place on Deck 6 that is modeled after the A’hădharhas National Park, except to a smaller scale, of course. When I hesitate, he tells me that the weather conditions can be artificially created so that if we Tereskàdians wanted it colder, with snow, all we had to do was request it verbally once we were inside A’hădharhas, as it is called. We’ve been aboard this ship a number of times now, I tell him, and each time I learn something new. Did you know, he says, that most people are aware of only about 10% of this ship?

When I get back to my quarters I find Rhalhea and Jhorhea awake, but Rheža and Jhalhemha still asleep. Jhalhemha is in Rhalhea’s pouch; Rhalhea tells me that the cub had poked her head out earlier, then stuck it back in to nurse at the pouch teat, and she had fallen asleep again. I decided to wait until everyone was awake before taking them to A’hădharhas. In the meantime, I ate some raw meat that was left over from the night before and drank from Kykherhenha.

There are so many decks on this ship that it is impossible to visit all of them, and even if you could, it would be impossible to see everything on each deck. It is like trying to visit every venue in Treskebhar. When the doors of the elevator opened on to Deck 6 it looked like any of the other decks. I knew, though, that like the other decks this one had something different to offer, and its one main attraction was A’hădharhas.

It wasn’t hard to find the place because there were signs all over the place, leading to a large double door. When we approached it, a disembodied voice inquired as to our intentions and I told it that we wanted to go inside. The double doors hissed open and we stepped inside. As soon as we did, the doors slid shut behind us.

To be continued

Pešhŏsŵha’hănhashen 1.489/Day 568