The Delmarian Influence

Chapter Eight

8.

Expansion, Space Colony Vessel

4100 O.E., Septam 28, 08:30:25.00

Sector 057--0rbiting Delmar I

Garett waited patiently outside the WC, looking over Squad Leader Stephanie Du’Pri carefully, attempting not to study her too obviously. Everything was perfect. Her jaw line was perfect, her eyebrows shaped perfectly above her eyelids without the slightest deviation. He found that without thinking he could see each brisling hair and tell that they all measured the same length of 1.3 centimeters. The knowledge came unbidden, but with a certainty that he could not deny.

Her lips were small, curving slightly and with a reddish pink hue that not even the best make up kits on Delmar I could simulate. Her hair length measured at precisely 50 centimeters with a slight deviation of 20 centimeters above her ears. She also smelled, but it was a light airy smell that reminded him of lilacs, although he had never caught a scent of the earth flower, nor seen one in his life.

If he listened closely he could hear her heart beat. She was in perfect health…at least that was what this strange certainty told him, and she was also exuding a calculated amount of pheromones into the air. The attraction, he soon registered, was one that was intended.

A single desire not to be attracted ended his perusal. Was this what it was to be human? A uncontrollable attraction based on chemical processes that ran unhindered in the body? And now that he controlled such things, what did it mean for him? Would he only feel anger when he wished, only feel love when he desired? Would he never again feel fear if he did not wish it?

No.

The response was muted, yet he felt it, rather than heard it or visualized it. A shake of his head seemed like too much action and he realized how alien those around him really were. There were no facial expressions being exuded from Squad leader Ralphie Nalderman, nor Stephanie Du’Pri. All the movement that did exist were the slow breaths that seemed slower and softer than his own.

Their heart rates—he'd already learned—were also slower and easier than his own.

The pressure on his bowels increased and he moved from one leg to the other.

Du'pri offered him a sympathetic smile.

"There is only one because we need it rarely. If you wish for it to halt, it will."

Internally he wished with all his heart it would and there was no longer any pressure. Garett released a soft sigh. "Thank you," he said shyly.

"Not a problem," she offered another smile and he felt another release of pheromones from her flesh.

"Why do you do that?" he asked her without thinking.

The smile vanished and Nalderman chuckled. "You've got a lot to learn about women, little buck."

"Sorry," Garett offered.

Du'pri shrugged. "It does not matter, private."

The air in the room seemed to change and Garett realized that all pheromones had been neutralized, even his own. There was a moment of panic when he felt he might strike out violently against them all, but it passed quickly. Once again the question of chemistry arose in his mind.

The WC was a rectangular box that stood 7 meters tall and 4.5 meters wide. It was black and the door slid down into an invisible slot. Reggie Lansom, now nude and with a scent that was—unique was the only word Garett could use to describe it. He realized now that the entire barracks smelled of it. He smelled himself and the scent was atrocious in comparison, yet the sterile-like scent that rose from Lansom and the others was not that great either.