Pathways - Jeri Taylor [144]
But Neelix wasn’t reassured. The vague ominousness was more unsettling than hard information would have been. What did his father mean, “Any problems will be localized to Talax”? What problems? How could anyone be sure they’d be neatly contained on Talax? Was this what the man at the practice range had been talking about when he said they’d need an armed citizenry? Neelix, who had never known anything but comfort and security, now saw a fearful uncertainty inform his days.
He increased his target practice and kept his weapons scrupulously clean. If there were an emergency, he would be ready.
But gradually the months wore on, and the murky sense of threat began to fade. And when his spots came in, when he was just shy of fourteen, all other thoughts were eclipsed.
He had suspected he was transitioning when he began to feel a slight burning on his face and neck, and for weeks he peered at himself in a reflector, looking for the first hint of spots. Finally, he saw them—a faint, hazy series of halos that dotted his head, neck, back, and extremities.
At last, he was a man.
As the weeks passed, the spots darkened, becoming more and more prominent. He felt a new spring in his step as he walked the corridors of his school, feeling his kinship with those who had already transitioned, and faintly sorry for the boys his age who were still spotless.
And, inexorably, he found his eye being drawn to females.
He’d heard of this powerful lure, but it had always sounded faintly silly to him. Taking pleasure in the sheer act of looking at a female? It was absurd. But now he found that this simple act produced sensations he could not have imagined before. He was bewildered, beguiled, and frightened. Every opposing emotion conceivable seemed to be occurring simultaneously within his young frame.
His schoolwork suffered as a result of his new preoccupation. At night, he found himself recollecting Bibixen’s lustrous tufts or Xela’s bewitching yellow eyes. He heard Uxana’s silvery laughter, smelled the dusky, alluring scent of Maxis’s perfume. His studies lay open, undone, as he indulged these agreeable reveries. His weapons collection, once his pride, was stored away unused.
The only thing that rivaled young women in his thoughts was his desire for a hover vehicle. He hadn’t visited the hut in the woods for many months, preferring to stay closer to home on the chance he might spot his neighbor Vaxi swimming in the pond that separated their yards. But if he had a vehicle . . . he could invite her on rides through the woods. He might even show her the hut, the only person besides his sister who would know of its existence.
And so, as he awaited the Feast of the First Night in the year he was fifteen, Neelix went to sleep each night thinking of whisking through the woods with Vaxi at his side, frightening her a little, perhaps, with his daring maneuvers, whipping around trees and skimming over rocky streams. She would squeal and shiver and cover her eyes, but he would be in sure control, and gradually she would relax, realizing his mastery of the vehicle, and admire his skills. She might even take his arm as he threw her off balance by careering around a particularly sharp curve. He imagined her hand on his arm, clutching it, feeling her exquisite fingertips like hot little brands on his skin.
Finally, the Feast of the First Night arrived. Neelix was in a paroxysm of anticipation. He had prepared all the gifts he was giving his family: lockets he had carved for his sisters, a delicate keepsakes box he had made for his mother, and a strong joiner tool for his father.
But his thoughts—for which he felt only mildly guilty— were all about his own longed-for gift.
“Children, come to the table.” That was the traditional opening statement for the Feast of the First Night. Neelix and his sisters trooped eagerly to their dining table,