Chapter 1

“Good morning, everyone. To start with, I would like to thank everyone for the efforts you have expended in aiding me in presenting my credentials. An exceptionally large thank you goes to Matt, Bill, and Abby who did the majority of the work that made yesterday a reality.”

Everyone applauded everyone else, and I think I clapped the loudest.

“Yesterday, I went through the lists that Cindy has been making for me. Now that my credentials have been presented and accepted, there is nothing major to prevent us from completing our current lists of tasks. There are three major tasks that I want to see completed as soon as we can. These tasks are: a trip to the Multiverse to complete several outstanding efforts; getting a permit to build our temporary facility; and completing the design of the Embassy compound.

For those of you that don’t know it yet, we met a reporter while in Washington and her name is Kimberly Bailes, but she goes by Kim. She will be writing a series of articles on the Multiverse and us. I want everyone to cooperate with her and answer any questions that she may ask you. Be truthful in your answers and don’t worry about telling her something that you think I don’t want her to know about. Matt reminded me Tuesday afternoon that I need a public relations person for the Embassy. He said that she might be just the person we need in that position. So far, I think he is right.

“Cindy, meet with me after this meeting so we can plan what we need to do in the Multiverse and the sequence in which we will do the tasks. I will also need to meet with Matt, Bill, Sue, and Abby once the tasks are identified and sequenced. Sereine, you will need to go also so you can file your reports with Inspector Nast. If there is anyone that would like to go to take care of any personal business, let me know after this meeting.

“Matt, what’s the status of obtaining the building permit?”

“We received the Environment Report while you were in Washington and there is nothing in it to prevent us from building on the ranch. I went to the building department and obtained the permit.

“The surprising thing about that is that the Building Department’s Manager was very helpful and accommodating. Based on our assessment of him, I thought we were going to have problems, but exactly the opposite happened.”

I could hear the phone ringing, and without interrupting Matt, I nodded to Sue to go answer it.

“I learned a long time ago to be suspicious of oddities like that. I asked around to find out what had changed to make him so cooperative. What I found is that our opinion of him was accurate. Our mistake was, we judged his wife without meeting her or knowing anything about her.

“From the pictures, we saw on his office wall, she appears to be an air-headed, blond bimbo socialite: the stereotype that’s so common in our society. She is definitely not an airhead nor a bimbo. She is a socialite and an extremely intelligent blonde. I don’t know why she ever married a man like George Mason, but she is the guiding hand behind his throne. She tells him how to run the Building Department, and he does what she says.

“I learned that she is aware of the feud between Ken and the Building Department, but doesn’t intervene. She thinks that all the ranches should be on city water and sewer for public health reasons, but is willing to let the current situation be; since no one is having any problems.

“Missus Mason has asked around about us. She must have a very extensive set of contacts, for she seems to know a lot about who you are, Doug. Evidently, she told her husband to be cooperative with us until she tells him otherwise. At the moment, that’s good for us. Unfortunately, it can also be interpreted as an implied threat. I don’t like that type of statement, but so far she hasn’t said or done anything negative regarding us.

“I contacted the owner of the construction company that Phyllis recommended. He is willing to meet with us Friday, to discuss what we need done. Phyllis will be there also, to talk with him about the main portion of the construction effort.

“Phyllis wants to meet with us after we talk with the contractor on Friday. She knows that you want to move this work forward as fast as it can be pushed. She has a plan for doing that, if you are amenable to a small risk.”

“Alright, Matt, confirm the appointment for Friday with the contractor and Phyllis.

Before we go around the room for individual input, does anyone have any other major topics that need to be discussed?”

Sue raised her hand and said, “The phone call was from Kim. She has talked with her managing editor and the paper wants her to be their roving reporter in charge of all stories regarding the Multiverse. She says that they have assigned her to us if we want her and she wants to know if she should move to Denver.”

“Good, I will call her and talk with her after the meeting.”

I began the individual input part of our meeting. There were several items that were brought up and either answered or put on one of our lists.

Standing, I looked around the room meeting everyone’s eyes. “I want each and every one of you to know that I am glad that you are part of this mission. I appreciate the effort and dedication that you put into your respective tasks.

Yesterday cleared the path for what we need to do. I expect that we will encounter a few bumps in our path from time-to-time, but nothing that will prevent us from reaching our goal. It’s now time for us to begin the next stage in this journey. Hopefully, that journey will end with Earth becoming a Multiverse Member World. I believe that is the best possible outcome for both Earth and the Multiverse.”

“Starting today, I’m declaring a two-day vacation. Unfortunately, that will apply to everyone but my bodyguards, my ladies, and me. I’m thinking of leaving for the Multiverse on Friday afternoon. My meeting with Phyllis should be complete by then, and I really do have to get back and take care of a few matters.”

Cindy and I were sitting in my office going through my lists of things to do. The door was open, so Sereine knocked and stepped into the office. She said, “Doug, are you thinking about taking Kim with us to the Multiverse?”

“Well the thought did cross my mind and I asked her to go. Why are you asking?”

“Well, it’s Wednesday today, and if you intend to leave Friday afternoon, we need to contact Kim immediately. She will need to pack, and make any necessary arrangements for being gone for several weeks; and we need to pick her up before we leave.”

“Hello, this is Kim. Can I help you?”

“Yes, Kim, this is Doug Smith. Sue passed your message to me, and I thought I would get back to you, immediately. Yes, we would be interested in you joining us here in Denver. As I mentioned earlier, I need to make another trip to the Multiverse, and I’m planning on leaving this Friday afternoon. Are you still interested in going with us this Friday, and can you make the arrangements to leave ... for, say a three-week trip ... on such short notice?”

“Yes and yes! All I need to do is make a couple of phone calls, and pack a bag. I can be ready to leave late this afternoon or this evening.”

“Okay, Kim, slow down. There is no need for you to rush that much. I will have Sereine pick you up Friday morning at about ten. The best place for the two of you to meet is probably the cocktail lounge of the hotel we stayed at in New York.”

I could see Sereine nodding her head in agreement.

“Okay. Will I need to get any shots or bring my birth certificate, or anything special?”

“You won’t need shots or your birth certificate, Kim. However, when you pack, bring old clothes to travel in and a sturdy pair of shoes. Our stopover planets are primitive, so we don’t wear expensive clothes. They would probably get ruined. Just bring your toiletries and some casual clothing, including a warm jacket and rain gear, in a backpack for the first day or so, we will provide the rest.”

As I had been speaking to Kim, Sereine had been nodding her head in agreement with all of the arrangements I was making.

After I hung up the phone, Sereine asked, “Are you going to have her move to Denver, Doug? If yes, will she be staying with us?”

“That’s my intent, if things work out okay on this trip.”

As we finished our discussion, Sto said, “Ken need go. Doug take Ken.”

Looking at Sto, I thought back to him, “Why should Ken go, and are you talking about our Ken here at the ranch or the Ken who works for the State Department?”

“Don’t know. Ranch-Ken need go.”

“Okay, I’ll ask him if he would like to go.”

While I had been talking with Sto, Tim Popiv, Tammy Charles, and Stenn Moss had stepped into the office. I had held up a hand as a signal for them to wait before speaking. As soon as Sto finished, I looked at them and asked, “Personal business?”

They all nodded Yes, so I said, “Okay, we will leave Friday after my meetings are over. Do you have anything else?”

They shook their heads No and left the room. Apparently everyone was adapting to the use of Earth’s body language.

Sereine said, “Coral thinks she may be pregnant. I want to take her to a doctor on Toomby to determine if she is. If she is pregnant, I’ll need to find out if she requires any special care.”

“Cindy, add that to our list, also. Anything else?”

Sereine’s announcement had stirred Sto up, and he said, “Sto go Toomby. Sto with Coral.”

“Ah, Sereine, Sto wants to be with Coral at the doctor’s office, so take him with you to Toomby. Since he is the father and assuming Coral is pregnant, it’s only right for him to be there for her. Besides, while he is there, it wouldn’t hurt for him to get a physical, also.”

“No physical. Doctor give shots. Sto no want shots. Shots not good. Sto not need shots.”

“I don’t like shots either, Sto. Doctors don’t give you shots unless you need them. How long has it been since you had a physical, Sto?”

“Two season cycles.”

“Sereine, Sto says he hasn’t had a physical for two years. How often do you get Coral a physical?”

“I usually take her once a year. Sto is probably overdue for a full physical, so I will see that she and Sto get one; in addition to the doctor checking to see if Coral is pregnant.”

“Sto not want physical.”

“Sto, you need to have one, so stop arguing.”

I could sense Sto’s objection to a physical, but he was quiet for the moment. I knew he would bring the matter up again before it was time for Sereine to depart for Toomby.

“Cindy, read our list of tasks that need to be addressed on our Multiverse trip.”

As Cindy read the list, Sereine and I were nodding our heads in thought.

“Thanks, Cindy. Can either of you think of anything else we will need to do on the trip that’s not on the list?”

Cindy said, “Doug, I was talking with Betty, Carol, and Rita, and we decided that Betty and Carol should stay behind, so they can translate for the rest of our people. Rita and I want to go so we can take care of you.”

In my mind, I heard, “Cindy not tell all. Want more. Sto not tell. Doug ask.”

I would have accepted Cindy’s statement at face value, and thought nothing of it, if it had not been for Sto’s remark. Cindy and Rita evidently wanted to go for at least one additional reason. I would inquire into what that reason was, when I found the time and the setting was right.

With Betty and Carol staying behind to translate, my other people would be well taken care of. Matt, Mary, Bill, and Sue would be able to do anything my people couldn’t do for themselves, such as drive a car to the store. Most of us could use a phone, but so far, I was the only member of our Multiverse group that had a driver’s license. We will have to fix that as soon as we can.

“Cindy, add a note to the appropriate list, for us to get everyone who wants one a driver’s license.”

After talking about who had to go, we ended up with a list of ten people; Sto and Coral made it twelve people. I tend to overlook them for they always seem to go where Sereine and I go. We then started to plan the trip.

Sereine had to report to her boss, Police Inspector Carl Nast, on Vora. She had invited Abby to tag along, so she could see how the Multiverse Police enforced the law. I thought Kim should go with them also. It would give her some useful experience for her stories.

“Sereine, when we get to First Stop, I think you, Abby, and Kim should go directly to Vora. After you get Kim a splinter and an inoculation, you can file your report with Carl and deliver the sugar to him for the police officers who are struggling with sugar addiction. After that, you, Kim, and Abby can go out on patrol with a few of the police units, so Kim and Abby can get a feel for police work in the Multiverse. Once you are finished on Vora, drop Kim off at the estate, pick up Sto, and then the four of you can leave for Toomby.”

“I’m going to my estate on Slave World, first. Tim, Tammy, and Stenn need to take care of personal business. I can pick up several of the estate’s security people to act as bodyguards.

“Cindy, make a note for me to check with my bodyguards to see if their personal business is on Slave World. If it isn’t, I may need to hop them elsewhere so they can take care of whatever it is they want to do.”

I had a lot to do, so I would probably just hire a Commercial D-Hopper to take them to wherever they needed to go and to bring them back to the estate.

“In addition to the people I need to contact, I also want to locate a doctor for the Embassy. When I took Abby to get her splinter, I talked with one of the doctors and got the impression she might be interested in starting a practice elsewhere. She told me her religion emphasizes making sacrifices for their fellow man, and she mentioned that she was considering becoming a frontier doctor on one of the primitive Provisional Member Worlds. If she’s still there when I take Ken to get a splinter and shot, and if she is still interested in permanently moving to a Provisional Member World, she might be interested in joining us on Earth.

“Once Ken has his splinter, I can meet with Kendrick and his wife Shelia, Chairman Smart, and President Jenson. I also need to talk with Guild Master Kevin Moore and my parents on Vora.”

It was going to be a very busy trip. For Kim and Ken, this was their first trip to the Multiverse. Basically it would be a vacation for them, but not for me. Kim would be keeping a journal in which she would record her impressions and observations for the articles she would write; so I suppose it wasn’t really a vacation for her. At least she didn’t have any specific tasks to do, other than just observe and take notes. But that can sometimes be more taxing than doing something. Hopefully, Rita and Cindy would spend their free time with Ken and Kim, so they didn’t get bored.

Cindy would be with me on the trip as my Administrative Assistant, but it was evident that she was still generating pheromones. We all knew her pheromone generation wouldn’t last much longer; but, while it did, she would be exceptionally passionate and need me to take her to bed for sex ... lots and lots of sex. Lately, I had noticed that Cindy and her sister Rita seemed to believe their primary role was to be my caretakers; however, a more accurate term might be ’bed warmers’.

“I have one additional minor problem for us to address, Sereine, before it becomes a major problem. All of us who come from the Multiverse need to learn how to speak, read, and write English.

“I know that my ability to speak English needs improvement. I still mispronounce words, have a limited vocabulary, and have trouble with sentence structure. I appreciate everyone being patient with me and with the rest of us.

“Slim got me off to a good start, and I can read simple sentences, but I still have to ask the meanings of many words. My progress over the past year has helped me with my sentence structure, but I need to improve my ability to communicate even more than I have done up to now.

“Most of us from the Multiverse have been using the sleep learning machines to learn how to speak English. They help us to learn to speak the language, but in addition to improving our ability to speak English, we all need to learn how to read and write it.

“At home, my ladies and I try to speak just English, but we sometimes still need to talk in Trade Speak to convey our meanings. So far, Betty, Carol, Rita, Cindy, and I are the most advanced of our group in speaking English. The others are learning, but they tend to rely on Trade Speak more than we do. In time, they will learn to speak English fluently.

“So far almost everything that those of us from the Multiverse have written on paper has been in Trade Speak, and what our Earth friends write is written in English. Our Multiverse people need to learn the basics of how to read and write English. That’s the minor problem I mentioned, and as we become more involved with other people on Earth, my key people and I will need to know how to read and write English fluently.

“Ah, Cindy, would you go ask Mary to join us?”

“Alright. I will be right back.”

A few moments later, Cindy and Mary joined us.

“Mary, I will be assigning everyone a number of tasks over the next few days and those tasks will require most of their available time. Right now, the tasks I need you to do, require that we have a warehouse and merchandise in the warehouse. You seem to have the most available amount of time, since we don’t have a warehouse or stock to put into it. I would like you to help Betty, Carol, Rita, Cindy, and me to learn how to read and write English fluently after we return from this next trip. They can then help the rest of our Multiverse people to learn to read and write English.”

Mary said, “Sure, Sue and I can help them with learning the basics of reading and writing, and answer any questions they may have after that. If you want, we can set up some classes while you’re gone, to help the others improve their conversational abilities. I will also adapt the grade school lessons to teach everyone to read and write.”

“Good! I noticed that after I learned about sentence structure, I was better able to select the right words and put them in the proper sequence, so that others could understand me when I talk with them. I still have problems with writing, so I need to sit in on some of your writing classes, and get you to explain some of the things I don’t understand.”

“Unless someone has something to add, that’s all I have for you right now. I’m going to check with the individual members of our group to see how they are doing. They may have something to discuss that they did not want to mention in public.”

We all seemed to have gone in different directions. I started walking around the house starting casual conversations with everyone that I could find. I basically asked them how things were going for them, if they needed anything special from the Multiverse, and how they were doing at adapting to Earth.

With the exception of Martha, almost everyone was happy with the way things were going. Martha’s problem was that she was lonely for female companionship. She mentioned that all the other women in our group had something they needed to do and couldn’t spare the time to visit with her.

Sto said, “Martha want talk to women. Women with kids.”

I probed a little deeper and she admitted that what she really wanted was, other women that she could talk with who had kids and families to care for. Someone she could identify with and with whom she could discuss family life on Earth. She was right about the other women in our group not identifying with the issues of caring for a family here on Earth. We discussed her problem. I let her know I would fix it as soon as possible, but that may take a good bit of time for we needed more living space to house families.

That night, Rita joined Cindy and me in bed. Cindy’s pheromones were significantly weaker. I no longer felt that driving need to place Cindy beneath me and make her my woman by forcefully ravishing her. Actually, I don’t understand the need I felt to dominate her, for I am not a domineering lover. It must be the way I respond to her pheromones. Now we could enjoy the pleasure of each other’s bodies, and I didn’t feel bad about giving Rita her fair share of my attention. If my impression is right, those pheromones can be very wicked things. They changed my perceptions and caused me to lose control of my passion. I didn’t like the way I acted when I was under their influence. A lover should be appreciated and treated as an equal partner, not a sexual outlet. The only positive side of that is, they affected Cindy and those close to her in the same way; so we were all treating each other poorly and enjoying every moment of it.

Once the three of us were finally sated, I said, “Rita, Cindy told me that you and she wanted to go with me on this trip. Is there anything special that you and Cindy want to do?”

A look passed between Cindy and Rita, and then they shrugged their shoulders in the Multiverse gesture that meant Yes. It was interesting that they had reverted to Multiverse gestures. Considering the way my day went, I think that in the future I will need to pay more attention to what’s happening in my life when they revert to Multiverse gestures.

Rita began with, “Well, Betty, Carol, and I were talking about our relationship with you. All three of us are your slaves, and we wouldn’t change that if we could. We decided the situation here on Earth has stabilized, and we want you to get all three of us pregnant.”

“Pregnant!”

“Yes, pregnant. Cindy heard us talking and she thinks you should get her pregnant, also. We decided that all four of us want to have your babies. For that to happen, you need to have our anti-fertility implants removed, and yours, also.”

“We need to talk about this, Rita. To start with, I am not sure if this is a good time for any of you to get pregnant. Furthermore, for all four of you to get pregnant at the same time would be too disruptive for the household.”