Planet of the Tentacons

Then the tentacle came to Talia, who sat at the far end of the line of her companions.

It didn't touch her right away. It waved before her, like kelp in a heavy current, drifting through the heavy air, giving no sign of what it would do.

After a minute, Talia saw the pad tip stretch and expand in front of her face. She didn't know what it meant, or what it was sensing, but it spent at least half a minute in that position. The chamber was utterly silent; no one moved or said anything.

The tip descended to one of her knees, and it caressed it. Talia observed that it didn't feel like human skin. It was slippery and soft, and still wet. Once, on a childhood school field trip, Talia had visited an aquarium, and she had held an octopus. She'd been struck by its slipperiness and malleability. It moved like water: molding and adjusting itself to every contour of its environment yet moving forward inexorably with its own sense of purpose and destination. The Tentacon felt the same way.

The tentacle dropped down, between her legs, and Talia felt it give a gentle push against her left knee. She moved it in response to the pressure, although she was aware that the dress rode high on her legs and she wore no underwear.

Talia felt pressure from the tentacle against her right knee. With reluctance, she let her right knee move in response, too. Talia was aware of her colleagues all around her, watching what was going on. She hadn't flown 150 light years to put on a soft-core porn show for them. But she stifled the urge to resist the Tentacon's pressure. She let her right leg move, and soon both legs were spread wide. She was glad the other crew members weren't seated in front of her, or they'd get quite a view.

The tentacle pulled back from Talia's knee, and the pad settled between both knees. Its tip lay no more than two inches from the hem of Talia's minidress.

The tentacle dipped down, drawing just a bit closer to Talia, between her outspread legs, and she saw it expand and flatten. It heaved, like it was breathing. Talia had the crazy feeling that the Tentacon was soaking up the scent of her, coming from between her legs. She feared it would move forward and try to touch here there, but it didn't.

And then she felt it -- a consciousness. She looked away from the hovering tentacle, to Odorin's face. Huge, unblinking eyes stared at hers. Talia had never believed in telepathy -- had never seen any evidence to believe in it. But she felt something, something coming from the Tentacon lord -- the force of his mind, exploring the boundaries of her own, through some unseen and unknown medium. A door lay in the space between them, she felt, and if she opened it, she could let him in. What would happen? Her mind reached out to open it, but before it did she pulled it back, abruptly. When she did, she felt his presence depart. A ripple visibly shook his body.

After a few more seconds, the tentacle withdrew until it was against Odorin's body again, twisting and twirling, indistinguishable from the others.

The Noid spoke, and for another two hours dialogue, barely intelligible to Talia, took place between the Noid, on behalf of its master, and Stenvo, with regular input from his attorney, Lennard Wolk. The other two junior attorneys furiously input data into their pads. Talia's attention wandered. It was lawyer stuff. It had nothing to do with her. At times she wondered why she was there.

Suddenly, it ended. Odorin withdrew. He backed up and sank beneath the surface of the water. The other Tentacons left the chamber, and the Noids, the last aliens left, bowed and acknowledged the humans and left as well.

Robots emerged from behind the humans to escort them back to their rooms.

Chapter 4.

As soon as Talia returned to her room, she changed out of the ridiculous dress and into a night shirt. It wasn't much longer than the minidress, but somehow it seemed less compromising. She needed a drink, so she called room service and ordered a bottle of wine. Negotiations with the Tentacons wouldn't resume for another 15 hours, and she had nothing further to do in the meantime. A glass or two couldn't hurt. She smiled to herself about her disbelief at Carson Veen wanting to drink the night before. 24 hours had changed her attitude. If he had shown up the second evening -- who knew what she might have done?

The wine came, along with surprisingly good prime rib and mashed potatoes. When the food arrived, and its smell hit her, she realized she was ravenous. Talia usually was a light eater, but not this time. She gulped down the entire meal. She realized for the first time that the encounter with the Tentacons had left her feeling strange. She felt her cheek -- it was warm. She looked at her face in the mirror -- it was lightly flushed. A low tingle of excitement coursed through her body. It was almost . . . like being aroused.

What happened in there? she wondered.

Her screen beeped. She hit it and Tracy's face appeared. The bottom of the screen showed nothing below her bare shoulders, but Talia had the impression that Tracy was nude.

"Hey Talia," Tracy said. "Mind if I come over?"

"Sure, but I've just had dinner. I've got some wine, though."

"I've eaten too," Tracy said. "That wine sounds good. I'll be right there."

"You might want to put something on," Talia said, her lips twisting into a smile.

"Yeah, I think I'll do that. I don't know about you, but I felt funny when I got back to the room. I took my dress off and I didn't want to put anything on. But I promise you I won't show up naked."

"Good thing. For all we know there might be laws against naked human women running around," Talia said.

"Somehow, I doubt that," Tracy said. "But I'll get dressed anyway."

Tracy knocked on Talia's door three minutes later. She wore the blue minidress.

They sat down on a small sofa and drank the wine.

"What did you think about the Tentacons?" Tracy asked Talia. "Were they what you expected?"

"I'd seen pictures and video of them," Talia replied. "But it is different seeing them up close. I'm curious -- why does the Tentacon lord stay in the water? I thought they were a terrestrial species."

"We don't know too much about their evolution, because they haven't shared much and we still don't have their DNA," Tracy said. "We believe they evolved as an aquatic species and then emerged from the seas and evolved further on land. The Tentacon lords, however, because they are larger, have more difficulty regulating heat, and they use water to keep their bodies cool. So, the lords, from what we know, spend most of their time in chambers like the one we saw, or stay permanently near the coast. You noticed the mist?"

"Of course. I couldn't help but notice it."

"The mist keeps the air moist, which the Tentacons like, but I think it does something else too. How do you feel?"

"What do you mean?" Talia asked.

"Do you feel aroused?" Tracy asked.

Talia was startled at the question.

"When I came back to the room, I did feel . . . strange. Flushed. My skin was warm. Aroused . . . I don't know. Maybe. You think the mist caused that?"

"I think there was something in that mist. A pheromone, maybe. I get the sense that the Tentacons know more about us than we know about them, and that they are doing whatever they must to make us susceptible to influence, so this negotiation goes well. That might mean weakening our psychological defenses. But I don't know if it affected the men, too, and they're the ones doing most of the negotiating. I hope to get more information about the Tentacons during the biological exchange tomorrow."

"Do you trust them, the Tentacons?" Talia asked.

"No, not at all," Tracy replied. "But, come to think of it, do you trust the Company? Do you trust Dars Stenvo?"

Talia had to admit to herself that she did not. "I don't," she said.

"Me, either," Tracy said. "Dars Stenvo would do anything and everything to get this deal done. I'm here because of what this will mean to my career. It's a can't-miss opportunity. But I'm keeping my eyes open.

"You were recruited by Gadber Hines, right? The weaselly one?"

"Yes, I was," Talia said.

"I don't trust him at all, either. Looks shifty. But like I say, I'm willing to put up with it because of what it will mean when we get back to Earth."

They drank some wine in silence.

"Talia," Tracy said. "When the Tentacon touched you, did you feel something? I mean, not with your senses, but with your mind? Like you could connect with his?"

"I did," said Talia, excited and relieved to know she wasn't crazy. "It felt like . . . like I could feel what he felt. But it was like the feeling was jumbled. It was there, but I couldn't read it. It went away before I could translate it. But yes. I felt something."

"I did too," Tracy said. "And I've heard some say the Tentacons communicate telepathically. I didn't believe it. But I do now. If it happens again, take advantage of it. Push. Push your consciousness forward. Try to figure out what he's thinking."

Talia didn't know what to say to that. She didn't know what it meant to push her consciousness forward, but she figured it was as apt a description of what she'd experienced with Odorin as any. She took a sip of wine. Already, it was relaxing her. She scanned Tracy's body next to hers.

"You put the dress back on," Talia observed.

"I did," Tracy replied. "I got used to it. I like the feel of the fabric on my skin. When I got back to my room, I felt, like I said, aroused. It felt good. I took it off, but my body craved the feeling of it. So, I put it back on. But I could take it off if it bothers you." She looked up from her wine glass to Talia's eyes.

"No, I didn't mean to suggest --"

Tracy put a hand on Talia's knee. It felt warm and soft and pleasant there. Talia let in a quick, short breath.

"Tracy, I'm not sure --"

"I don't blame you," Tracy interrupted. "You haven't been with a woman before, have you?" She scooted closer to Talia on the couch.

Talia couldn't say anything first. Tracy was right. She hadn't been with a woman before. Most of her friends had, at one point or another, but not Talia. But the wine and the mist seemed to be having an effect, because Talia didn't push Tracy's hand away.

Tracy took it as an invitation. She moved closer, until her lips were inches from Talia's face. Tracy's hand moved up Talia's leg, under the night shirt.

Talia couldn't remember having seen a woman's lips so close before. They were lovely lips, full and rosy and moist. Tracy kissed Talia.

Talia took it, passively, at first, but then she kissed Tracy back.

Tracy's hand moved further up Talia's thigh under the shirt until it rested on her hip. She pulled her face a few inches away from Talia's and looked at Talia, eyes brimming with lust.

"Bare," she said. "Easier access."

Before Tracy could move her hand between Talia's legs, Talia grabbed her forearm and pushed her away.

"I can't," Talia said. "I can't do this."

For a few beats Talia stared down at the floor. Tracy stared at her forehead.

"I didn't mean to be pushy, Talia," Tracy said. "I misread you. Maybe the mist, or whatever it is, is getting to me. Maybe it's the whole planet."

"It's O.K., I'm not upset."

"Good. Well, I'll go now."

Before she left the screen beeped. Talia opened the picture. Dars Stenvo's face filled the screen. He cocked his eyebrows and smirked when he saw Tracy and Talia sitting close together on the sofa, one still in the dress and another in a skimpy night shirt.

"Professor Denzer. Professor Partaro. I didn't expect to see you together. You saved me an extra call. It's about tomorrow. Talia, when the meeting begins we need you to help calibrate the translator. So be ready for that. Tracy, at the same time we'll have you meet with the Tentacon biologists. You'll exchange data then."

Both Talia and Tracy wondered about the need for the meetings. It would have been easy enough to exchange data remotely. But the Tentacons stood on ceremony and favored personal meetings.

"We'll be ready," Talia said.

"Good," Stenvo said. "We'll be wearing the same thing, so clean your dresses."

"Maybe they'd prefer we just go naked," Tracy said, rolling her eyes.

Stenvo smirked again.

"They might, Professor Partaro," he said. "As you've said, there's a lot we don't know about them. But they haven't asked any of us to do that. Not yet." He laughed, unpleasantly.

The tone of his reply made Talia nervous.

"Good night, professors," Stenvo said. The screen went dark before they could reply.

"He's an ass," Tracy said. "He'd be happy as a clam if the Tentacons made us show up naked."

She lifted off the sofa, turning back to Talia before walking to the door.

"Good night, Talia," she said.

"Good night, Tracy," Talia said.

When the door closed, Talia tossed the blue dress into the processor in the wall. Two minutes later the cleaning was done and she took it out.

She stripped off the shirt, climbed into bed, and turned off the light. She didn't sleep for a while. Her mind wrestled with the disquieting reality that Earth was far, far away.

Chapter 5.

Talia arose at 5 a.m., again. After breakfast and a few perfunctory exercises she slipped on the dress and shoes and a minute later joined the crew assembled in the departure bay.

"We are going to the lord's chamber by a different route this time," Stenvo announced. "The scenic route. The Tentacons want us to take a sight-seeing tour of their fair city and meet and greet some of its inhabitants."

"Are you sure this is safe, Mr. Stenvo?" asked Carson Veen, security chief.

"I've been assured it is, and I have no reason to believe it won't be," Stenvo said, no trace of nervousness in his voice. "Here's the shuttle now."

This shuttle was different from the one the day before. It resembled a cylinder partly cut away at the bottom, where the floor was. The floor was opaque, but most of the curved portion of the cylinder was clear, giving the crew an unimpeded view of their surroundings. The shuttle was piloted by a robot seated at the back.

"You are free to stand during our flight, if you wish," the robot said over a speaker. "The gyros adjust for any rocking and momentum forces and the ride will be very smooth."

The shuttle lifted off the floor and hovered to the bay door, which opened with a soft whoosh. The shuttle moved forward, and Talia noticed immediately that the robot had been right. The yaw, pitch, and roll of the shuttle adjusted constantly to its forward and sideways motion, leaving passengers with a sense of barely moving. The movement was smooth and gradual, as well, so the environment outside the glass didn't appear to jerk around.

When the shuttle left the bay, it climbed to a height of 200 feet, giving the Earth crew their first close, sustained view of Tentos City

It didn't take long to appreciate its size. It stretched endlessly in every direction, no natural features in sight anywhere. Talia's first impression was how monochrome it was. The range of color was limited; almost everything within view fell within a stifling spectrum of green-blue and gray-blue. But the variety and intricacy of the sinuous shapes of the structures around them nearly made up for the lack of color. There was nothing that looked recognizably like a building; everything was curved. There were no straight lines anywhere. The contours of the buildings appeared to defy gravity and basic engineering principles.

Roads, if that's what they were, widened and narrowed in ways that to Talia defied explanation, and the buildings lifted and twisted around them in an infinite variety of shapes, with exquisite and intricate patterns inlaid in their surfaces. Everything was asymmetrical.

Traffic was heavy, the air filled with shuttle craft of varied shapes and sizes, and as curved as the buildings. Traffic moved in horizontal layers, with traffic in one layer moving this way and traffic in another moving that. Yet, traffic moved constantly between layers, too, with no pattern Talia could detect. The traffic had the same sinuous, superficially planless quality that everything else there had. She supposed the Tentacons let the robots take care of that, as humans did on Earth.

The shuttle wound through large swaths of the city in a seemingly random way. The pilot was a poor tour guide. He identified a few things -- a school, a science building, an administrative center, something that looked like a stadium, and a few other things Talia couldn't understand. But most of the alien urban landscape around them went unexplained.

They don't really want us to know much, Talia thought.

The shuttle descended, at last. A space had been cleared ahead for them to land. Around the clearing stood thousands and thousands of Tentacons, waiting for them.

The shuttle set down, and the Tentacon crowd approached from every side.

The aliens in front pressed their bodies and tentacles against the glass walls of the shuttle. Their bodies writhed constantly, never completely stopping. With the tentacles mashed flat against the glass, Talia could pay attention to their anatomy for the first time.

It was difficult to count how many tentacles they had, because they moved so frequently. Despite the superficial resemblance to a squid or octopus, a Tentacon had more tentacles than either. And, despite the difficulty of counting, she could have sworn that some had more than others. The tentacles weren't the same either. Some were pointy, others rounded or padded. Some had suckers, and some didn't.

Despite the alien nature of their bodies, and the number of them, she didn't feel scared. They weren't menacing. But there was something in the way that they looked at the crew that was very curious. She couldn't quite figure it out. Then she understood. It was their eyes. Their eyes were expressive, and they more closely resembled eyes of a human than she could have imagined.

She walked to the edge and put her hand to the glass. Several Tentacons crowded round her and jostled each other to put their tentacles on the glass against her hand.

One Tentacon in particular stared at her with particular intensity. A long tentacle extended from its body, whipping toward her and pressing against the glass at her waist level. The tentacle thickened at its nearly cylindrical tip, which opened suddenly. A thick tube, dripping with moisture, extended from the tip and pressed against the glass.

"Oh!" Talia gasped, stepping back.

"I think he likes you!" Tracy laughed.

"Is that what I think it is?" Talia asked.

"Yes," Tracy replied. "That's a male Tentacon. Males and females look nearly the same. They keep their sex organs inside the mating tentacle, and it's almost impossible for a human to tell which is which until the organ emerges. It's emerged on that one."

"They're not very discreet," Talia said.

"Not by our standards."

The shuttle took off, into the air again, and it traversed the city for another 10 minutes, this time in a less sinuous course. They descended toward an open door in one of the larger buildings, which was capped in what looked almost like a crown.

"That's the lord's chamber," Dars Stenvo announced. "We finally get to see it from the outside."

They landed and were ushered into the lord's chamber again. Two groups of Noids and Tentacons were clustered together on either side of the chamber, but the lord had not arrived yet.

A Noid stepped forward to greet Talia.

"Professor Denzer," he said. "Thank you for your work on the translator. It is most useful to us, and it will be useful to our mutual communication. It requires some calibration, however. Thanks to the grammar and vocabulary modules we are learning more about your language, but we require assistance with some of the subtleties of human speech -- pitch, inflection, etc. Will you assist us?"