Wildcatter

He understood that it felt like a kick in the crotch. Millions of years of evolution said his mate was deserting him. That was his stupid lower brain speaking. They’d only been paired two weeks this time. He had no claim on her, and a herm could never be a mate in the way a real woman could. Jordan was great recreation, nothing more.

“You’re being sexist,” he said. “Stereotypical. There’s no reason why a woman can’t put him in his place. Verbally, I mean. If you’re planning to punch him on the nose, then I advise against it, no matter which gender you happen to be. Let me do it for you.”

She barely smiled. “Not sexist, love. It’s just, well I know me, both me’s, and I know I can handle JC a lot better when I have visible balls. This is too important to risk a screw-up.”

“I understand,” he said, struggling to hide his bitterness. “The mission must come first.”

“I’ll make it up to you later, I promise, on the way home.”

“It can’t be better than it has been, but I’ll take the rain check.”

He turned to the others, who were watching. Ever since the ship left Earth, the herms had tried to maintain the balance among the crew, never being the same gender at the same time. “Maria, take her over and make her over.”

“You’re a brute, Seth Broderick.” Maria shot him a wink as she came to rescue Jordan. Any other time a wink from Maria would raise his heartbeat twenty points.

Maria and Jordan left together. Two blue pills a day and a high protein diet would make Jordan male again in about three days. But the change would be much easier for them if they shared a cabin with a woman during that time-inhaling female pheromones, although it was indelicate to mention that. The captain might be right in thinking she would resist JC’s bullying better as a man, but it would be because JC wouldn’t push a man as hard. Bullying women was an ancient custom, much safer than bullying other men.

Reese came wandering along the room, wearing their usual sardonic half-smile. They were tall for a herm, taller than Seth, although they had a dancer’s athletic slimness, nothing like his fighter bulk. Also like him, they had thick hair, wavy and jet black; Seth fought a constant battle against beard shadow, but herms rarely grew facial hair. Reese’s only razor was a sense of humor that sounded aggressive when they were male and snide when female.

“So you’ve been kicked out of the captain’s cabin,” he said, standing closer to Seth than felt comfortable for two men. “You’ll have to slum with me. What a disaster! Now we’ll have four males and only two females. You expect me to make a change, too? You expect me to satisfy your brute sexual drive?”

His sarcasm wasn’t truly joking. Reese Platte was older, around forty, with a worldwide reputation and an alphabet of letters after their name. They had won prestigious awards in astrobiology. They were rich-not in the same class as JC had been before he founded Mighty Mite, but they were not gambling their fortune on this expedition, as he was. Win or lose, Reese could go home to a life of unworried comfort. They considered Seth Broderick an uneducated young lout, kitchen help, the hand hired to do the heavy lifting. Reese, when female, was not the girl of Seth’s dreams.

Wildcatters were notorious for promiscuity. Sex, after all, was what humans did, the one entertainment that never palled, and they were shut up for years at a stretch with no news of Earth, no outside friends, nowhere to go. Not all of Hind’s crew were equally lecherous. Hanna was puritanical and absolutely refused to play. Reese tended to cheat, being predatory when male and picky when female.

“That’s your decision, Doctor,” Seth said. “I do still hope to seduce you at least once before we get home.” He was lying. He had no such ambition. She was twenty years older than he was.

“I admit I’ve been playing hard to get. Next time, I promise I’ll take pity on you. But we may have to descend to this demon planet together, remember, and I don’t think that such a dangerous situation is any place for a girl.” He batted his long eyelashes.

It was true that a biologist normally accompanied a prospector downside, although only the prospector went outside. The bio stayed in the sealed, aseptic area of the shuttle. Somehow Reese staying in the comparative safety of Golden Hind had always been a more believable scenario. Now it seemed virtually certain, since Galactic had flagged Cacafuego as dangerous.

“It may not be any place for a man, either.”

“But you will be so much more important to the success of the expedition,” Reese said. “We can’t afford to have you driven crazy by unslaked lust.”

Seth leaned both hands on the back of his chair. “The mission is the only thing that matters, Doctor. If you think you will perform better under stress as a man, then keep your dingle dangling by all means. Don’t worry about me. I have often gone months without being laid, I assure you.”