Mahi always enjoyed the atmosphere of The Ice Dragon. Unlike most modern bars, it was pleasantly quiet, with the voices of excellent jazz singers and the sound of small combos playing softly. Mahi’s Indian mother and massively mixed-race father were jazz and classical music buffs. Mahi grew to appreciate complex and sophisticated music. She dismissed rock, and especially rap, as crude and simplistic.

Mahi’s jumbled genetic background had gifted her with dark skin, straight black hair, brown eyes and a stunningly beautiful face. She was of medium height and had a slim build with firm breasts and a small waist.

Patrons of the Dragon tended to be intelligent and well educated. Mahi had acquired a PhD in Languages (she had a wonderful gift for learning new ones) and a Masters in Music Performance. As an accomplished keyboard, flute and guitar player, she felt right at home in the Dragon.

Mahi was picky when it came to men. She hooked up a few times a week with some guy and had a fun one-night stand, but the men she chose all had to be reasonably good looking, and more importantly, they had to be fit and smart and funny and able to keep up with Mahi’s clever conversational style. If they were unusually good, she wasn’t averse to sleeping with them on an irregular basis. When she was feeling horny and couldn’t find someone new, she could always open the “contacts” list in her phone and find an enthusiastic man within a matter of minutes. The men in her life considered her a major babe. Having sex with Mahi was always a treat.

This evening, Mahi was considering a man at the bar. He was a newbie in the Dragon. Mahi watched him talking to several of the regulars and couldn’t miss the way he checked her out, smiling when their eyes met. The couple Mahi was sitting with, Bethany and Emile, picked up on the non-verbal fencing. Bethany gave Mahi’s shin a light kick under the table. “He looks promising,” she said playfully. “Must be at least six-foot-six and he looks like some kind of pro athlete. Probably got a ten-inch dick.”

Mahi laughed. “He does have potential. Let’s see how much.” She caught the man’s eye and patted the seat next to her. The man spoke to the woman he’d been chatting with, apparently excusing himself, picked up his drink and walked over.

“Hi,” said Mahi. “This is Bethany and Emile. I’m Mahi.”

“My name is Klementos,” said the man in a deep voice. They shook hands all around and he sat next to Mahi.

“Klementos,” said Mahi knowingly. “That’s Greek, right? From the Latin. Means ‘gentle’, doesn’t it?”

“Very impressive,” said Klementos. “You speak Greek?”

“And Latin and a few others,” said Mahi modestly. “I’m a translator and language consultant.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” said Emile. “She speaks a shitload of languages; more than she’ll admit. What do you do, Klementos?”

“I’m also a consultant, although I’m in foreign trade.” Mahi’s trained ear detected a hint of an accent, but she couldn’t place it.

“You’re not from L.A., are you?”

Klementos smiled. “No, my father was in government service. We moved around a lot; Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and all over Asia. I’ve acquired some odd speech patterns, I’m afraid.”

The four enjoyed themselves, talking for an hour before Emile laid his hand on Bethany’s arm. “‘Bout time we were going,” he said. They stood up and shook Klementos’ hand. When Mahi stood to kiss her friends, no one noticed Klementos’ finger swiping along the rim of Mahi’s glass.

Mahi and Klementos sipped their drinks and talked for a few more minutes as Klementos waited for the drug to take effect. Unlike so-called “date rape” drugs, the tiny amount he’d deposited on the woman’s glass wouldn’t disable her in the slightest. Instead, its purpose was to make her very suggestible and friendly and cooperative. It would lower her inhibitions and make her much more likely to say what was on her mind.

When Klementos was sure, he placed a warm hand on her arm. “I like you,” he said with a charming smile. “I think we could be very good friends.”

“I think so, too.” Mahi moved his hand to her thigh and slid it under her short skirt. “Would you like to come to my place? I have an apartment just a block away.” She opened her legs and guided his hand to her vagina. Mahi wasn’t wearing panties and Klementos’ fingers touched her smooth outer lips.

“That would be wonderful.” He pressed his thumb slightly inside. “I would love to taste you.” Klementos dropped some money on the table and they walked to the door. The hard part was over, he thought. The rest would be easy.

Mahi awoke slowly, aware of the feel of the bed under her and the lovely, languid way her body felt. She wondered where she was. The bed didn’t feel like her bed, but she couldn’t remember going to sleep anywhere else. Wait; when they were in her apartment, Klementos had invited her to a cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains. He made it sound wonderful and she’d agreed. Jesus, they hadn’t even had sex! She’d packed a few clothes and he’d asked her to bring her guitar and flute. They had even carried her keyboard to his car! For some reason, the fact that his car was parked right outside her building hadn’t raised any red flags. The drive was a blur; she must have slept the whole way! She had no memory of anything after they got onto the 110. Holy crap, where was she?

Mahi opened her eyes. She was in a room about 15 feet square. Nicely contrasting colors covered the walls and ceiling, but there was no furniture that she could see other than the bed she was lying on. Her overnight bag, laptop computer and her instruments were sitting on a shelf to her left. The ceiling brightened, illuminating the room to a comfortable level. When she sat up, the pillow her head had been resting on retracted into the surface of the bed and the bed itself morphed into a kind of sofa. Startled, Mahi jumped to her feet and watched as the “sofa” shortened and took the form of a large, padded chair.

“Hello, Mahi,” said a voice from behind her. “I trust you slept well?” Mahi spun and saw Klementos standing in a doorway that hadn’t been there. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing in the Dragon. Her own clothes, now that she noticed, were also the same. Klementos smiled apologetically. “Sorry to startle you this way. I know I have some explaining to do.”

“Well, no shit!” shouted Mahi sarcastically. “Where the hell are we? This isn’t some cabin in the mountains, that’s for damn sure!” Before Klementos could respond, Mahi shoved him out of the way and charged through the door, colliding with two women who were passing by. Mahi barely managed to keep her balance. In front of her was an enormous room, filled with clusters of low seats, many of them occupied. The ceiling was at least 40 feet high, sky blue and gently curved like upside-down waves. Various shades of green and brown dominated in the huge space, giving the room a distinctly outdoor flavor. One of the women Mahi had run into was wearing a sort of toga, made up of a short skirt and a sash that covered her left breast. The other breast was bare. The second woman wore a loose, mid-calf skirt and nothing above the waist. Both women were barefoot. Mahi staggered back, bumping into Klementos. “What the fuck?” she gasped. “What the fuck?”

“Please have a seat. I’ll answer all your questions.” Klementos said something to the two women in a soft, liquid language that Mahi was sure she’d never heard before. They both smiled and continued on their way. “Please sit there,” said Klementos, pointing to a long sofa-like seat that seemed to grow out of the floor. Mahi sat cautiously. She was very frightened.

“You have nothing to fear,” said Klementos, correctly reading her expression. “No one here will harm you in any way.”

“And just where the hell is ‘here’, anyway?

“Well, that’s were it gets interesting. You’re on a spacecraft, heading out of the Solar system. To put it simply, you’ve been abducted.”

“Oh, horseshit! This place is the size of a shopping mall! There’s no way this could be a spaceship!”

“It’s pretty big, all right,” Klementos agreed. “Our section is an oval over a kilometer long and about half that wide. This is deck fourteen and there are 32 other decks much like this one. We have access to them all.”

Mahi shook her head. “You don’t look like an alien. You look human. What did you mean by, ‘our section’?”

“I meant that all 33 decks are inhabited by humans. We don’t control this ship. It’s controlled by the Asadii. Don’t ask me to describe them. I’ve never seen one and don’t know anyone who has. They communicate with us verbally, through the ship’s computer.”

“So, we’re what; slaves, pets, food?”

“No, nothing like that. The Asadii consider humans to be a special, possibly unique species. They’ve established human colonies on many, many worlds. Their plan is to allow us to populate the Galaxy. You see, intelligent life is extremely rare. Life, even complex life, is common, but intelligent, creative life that avoids extinction and develops a civilization is almost unknown. I’ve been on 34 colony worlds, plus Earth. I don’t know of anyone who has knowledge of an intelligent species other than the Asadii and humans.”

“Why don’t the aliens do their own colonization?”

“I could only guess, based on rumors and speculation I’ve heard. The Asadii don’t tell us anything about themselves. For all we know, the Asadii don’t use the same kind of planets that we do. They might like more or less gravity than what we’re used to or a warmer or cooler climate. They might breathe a different atmospheric mix. We don’t go to their part of the ship and they don’t come here.”

Mahi thought for a moment. “So, what are we doing on this ship?”

“Well, as hard as this may be to believe, we do whatever we want. We have no duties. The ship provides whatever we want in the way of clothing, food, drink and entertainment equipment. We pursue our hobbies. We enjoy each other’s company. We eat what we want, when we want and we sleep when and where we want. Lighting follows the 24 hour pattern that humans have evolved with.” Klementos smiled. “One of the benefits of this life is life itself. On a ship, our health is nearly absolute. There is no illness, no disease. In the event of injury, pain relief is swift and healing is rapid and complete.” He looked into Mahi’s eyes. “How old do you think I am?”

Mahi shrugged. “Maybe a couple of years younger than me; I’d say 25 or so.”

Klementos shook his head. “As close as makes no difference, I am one thousand, three hundred and eighty Earth years old. And I am far from the oldest human I know.”

Mahi sagged back in her seat. “You’re lying. That can’t be!”

“I was born in Greece when the Rashidun Caliphate was in power. As a young man, I became a soldier and rose to a rank similar to Master Sergeant in your modern army. During a battle in the Levant, I was badly wounded and left for dead by my retreating comrades. A human recruiter for the Asadii found me and brought me aboard a ship, where I was healed and welcomed into the ship’s human society.” Klementos smiled wistfully. “If you think this is a shock to you, imagine what it was like for an ignorant, superstitious lout like me! Of course, while my new friends had learned to deal with the technology aboard ship, they were at least as primitive as I was. No one had a clue about the scientific method. Your author Clark said it best; ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. To us, everything aboard ship was magic. I was well over a thousand years old before I began to grasp the basics of the devices I was using every day.”

“Are you saying you’ve been on other ships? We aren’t all trapped here?”

“Oh, certainly not! If you grow bored with this society, you can request transfer to another ship or you can become a colonist on one of the colony planets. I’ve been on dozens of ships and been a colonist on 34 worlds. Each ship and each colony has a somewhat different culture, depending on the inhabitants and the planetary environment. After twenty or thirty years in one place I feel the urge to experience someplace new. Many of us feel the same way.”

“And you’re telling me that this is all a wonderful utopia? Peace and love and plenty for all? No conflict? No fights?

Klementos shook his head. “No, not quite. We’re all still human. Some of us want to control others. Some of us are less inclined to behave properly in society. Some occasionally become violent. That kind of behavior isn’t tolerated. While there’s no formal government and no police, we are always available to help when one of us is being poorly treated.”

“Sort of a vigilante mob?”

“Not a mob, so much as rescuers when rescue is needed.”

“You don’t have police, but do you have courts? What punishments can you use? Who decides on the punishment?”

“The victim decides on the punishment. Generally, some corporal punishment is administered.”

“You mean you beat the bad guy. Okay, fine, but if a beating doesn’t do the trick? If he keeps doing it? What then?”

“On rare occasions, when someone repeatedly commits violence, he is killed.” Klementos took a deep breath and blew it out. “We are human. Some of us are bound to be violent sociopaths. It happens.”

Mahi rubbed her face with both hands and took several deep breaths. “So, back to the medical subject. Help me understand this; you’re saying that we humans are immortal and will stay young forever?”

“On a ship, yes. On a colony world, no. Medical care in a colony is quite advanced, but not up to the level of that found on a ship. Aging is greatly delayed, but not halted. An injury that would be a minor annoyance on a ship might kill you on a colony world. The good news, as they say, is that you can spend 30 or 40 or more years as a colonist and, if you choose to return to a ship, your youth and health will be restored. I’ve spent as much as 90 years as a colonist and then opted for shipboard life. As you can see, I’m still biologically a young man.”

Mahi’s head was spinning. To say that this was a lot to take in was a titanic understatement. “But my friends, my family, all my stuff! That’s all gone?”

“Sadly, yes. There is no possible way to go back.”

“So you kidnapped me, you son-of-a-bitch! I had a great life and you fucked it up!”

Klementos easily caught her wrist before she could slap him. “Yes, I did. You can contribute a great deal to human society and not just on this ship. Not only that, but while your life on Earth was pleasant and fulfilling, you’ll find your life with us even more so. I’ve made three recruiting trips to Earth and have, as you say, kidnapped dozens of men and women. They all react the way you’re reacting, often with shocking violence. In an amount of time that’s so short it would amaze you, they thank me. Losing the only life you know is hard, but the life you’ll gain with us will make up for it many times over.”

Mahi snatched her wrist out of his grasp. “Why choose me, anyway? And what does, ‘not just on this ship’ mean?”

“Genetic diversity and high intelligence are essential to the survival of humans throughout the Galaxy. You possess both to an unusual degree. Your intelligence is so high that ordinary tests can’t measure it accurately. You carry genes from four continents. All that makes you priceless to the Galactic human species.”

“Fuck you! I’m not some goddamn piece of breeding stock! If you think I’m going to spread my legs and pump out babies for a bunch of alien dickheads, you can forget it! You’re not getting any kids from me!”

“That’s your choice. I told you that we humans do what we want. That includes having sex and reproducing. While you were sleeping, your long-life treatments were started and your menstrual cycle was suspended. Unless and until you choose to become pregnant, it won’t happen, no matter how many times you have sex and how many men you choose to have sex with. Your eggs have been placed in stasis. Normally, you would lose all of them through regular ovulation. In stasis, they’ll be preserved until you decide to use them. As I said, reproduction is entirely your decision. You are a free woman.”

“Except that I can only live on alien spaceships or alien colony planets! How is that ‘free’?”

“A salient point,” conceded Klementos. “It’s true; there are limits to our freedom. However, you’ll get to see planets and meet people and have experiences during your long life that you certainly would have missed if you’d stayed in Los Angeles.” He shrugged. “Win some, lose some.”

Mahi stared at her kidnapper, speechless. Suddenly, she just wanted to be alone. She got up and turned toward the door she’d come through, only to be greeted by a blank wall. “Damn it! Where’s the door?” She started to cry. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and block out all this craziness.

Klementos appeared next to her and pointed to a faint vertical stripe on the wall. “Just run a finger down this and the door will open.” Mahi did so and somehow wasn’t surprised when the door dilated. Klementos followed her in. “While you’re in a room, the door won’t open to anyone else. If someone wants to visit you, they’ll tell Ship and Ship will tell you. The bath facilities are here,” he said, pointing out a series of stripes on one wall. “You can extend the bed here. Ship is programmed to understand all Earth languages and knows virtually every kind of food you can think of. If you want or need something, just ask Ship. Say ‘Ship’ and it will answer.” Mahi nodded dumbly. “I’ll leave you now.”

Mahi realized that she badly wanted to pee, take a shower and get something to eat. It took her a few tries to discover which of the stripes would produce the toilet, the sink and the shower. She stripped out of her clothes and took a piss. The shower had remarkably simple controls and she found miniature nozzles for liquid soap and shampoo. When she was clean and had turned off the water, gusts of warm air dried her. A flow of warmer air came out of a vent at head level and she used it to dry her hair.

Mahi opened her overnight bag and started sorting through what few clothes she had packed. But what was the point of that? Her clothes wouldn’t fit with what everyone else was wearing, that was certain.

“Ship.”

“Yes Mahi.”

“If you can, show me a portion of this deck that has people in it.”

A section of wall lit with a scene containing at least 50 people. They appeared to represent every skin shade Mahi had ever seen and every shade in between. Mahi was darker than most, but in that mix, she wouldn’t stand out.

“Zoom in on the group in the left center.”

Mahi examined the group. Everyone was dressed in what looked like loose, very lightweight togas or vests or dresses. No one was wearing pants; apparently, skirts or kilts were in fashion. Partial upper body nudity was universal among women, with one breast or the other being covered. Men wore vests or sleeveless pullover shirts. Everyone appeared to be in good to very good physical condition. Mahi also noticed that there was a lot of touching going on. Men and women held hands or sat with their arms around each other. They caressed each other, casually stroking faces and breasts and torsos and thighs. A man laughed and gestured with one hand to 3 or 4 people while his other hand moved under the skirt of the woman sitting to his right. The woman had her thighs spread wide, a look of pleasure on her face. She moved her hand to the man’s head and pushed down, toward her crotch. The man obligingly dropped to his knees, flipped the woman’s skirt up and began going down on her. Around the pair, conversation seemed to continue uninterrupted. Mahi went back to examining women’s clothing, but when she looked again, the woman was on her back, naked, with the man between her legs. His clothing was on the floor and he was clearly inside her. Not far away, a man reclined against a woman sitting behind him with her legs on either side of him. She had one hand on the man’s erection, masturbating him rapidly. The man turned his head to kiss her and ejaculated, his semen arcing onto the floor. The woman laughed and they shared a long kiss. Mahi noticed that none of the people had any body hair; no pubic hair or armpit hair and there was no telltale stubble. None of the men wore beards. She examined her own body and found no hair at all; even the wispy hair on her arms was gone. The hair on her head was intact as were her eyebrows and lashes.

Mahi wasn’t exactly shocked by the nudity and public sex. She’d been to San Onofre Beach and More Mesa Beach, both clothing optional beaches. She was accustomed to public nudity and had heard stories about oral sex and straight sex on public beaches, although she hadn’t witnessed it. She had a limited amount of experience with group sex with her friends. Being nude around other people hadn’t bothered her, but those other people had also been nude. This was different.

“Ship, show me the most common clothing styles for women on this deck.”

What Mahi saw were women in above-the-knee skirts and tops that exposed one or, rarely, both breasts. So, covering both tits was a style faux-pas. As far as Mahi could tell, there wasn’t any pattern as to which boob was exposed, although the majority of women covered their left breast. Fabric colors ran the gamut and were widely varied. Oddly, there was no sexual activity among women whose right breast was covered. Was that significant?

“Ship, make me clothes that match the ones worn by this woman here,” she touched the screen, “except reverse the colors.”

Almost immediately, a slot opened in the wall and a shelf slid out, holding a heap of folded fabric. Mahi picked it up and shook it out. The fabric seemed almost weightless. When she dropped it over her head, it was like wearing air.

“Ship, make me a two-egg omelet with tomato chunks and sliced mushrooms. And a cup of green tea.” Again the shelf slid out, holding Mahi’s order, complete with utensils and a napkin. “Shit,” she said softly. “Maybe I can learn to tolerate this after all.”

After eating, Mahi extended the bed and lay down. She knew a nap would give her some emotional distance from the fantastic situation she was in, but she had so much to think about! She was trapped, at least temporarily, with a huge number of strangers, all living in almost total anarchy. If what Klementos said was true, sooner or later, she was sure to run across some violent loon. Mahi swore to herself that she would never be alone with anyone in a room like this with the door closed.

There were no clocks or calendars on the ship, but a bright, fuzzy disk moved across the “sky”, giving the illusion of a sun. “Days” were 16 hours long and “nights” were dark enough for comfortable sleep, but not so dark that people couldn’t see to move around. At first, Mahi kept track of the passing days and weeks by the calendar on her phone. Eventually, the futility of that became obvious and she only used her phone to view the photos and videos she had stored there. Like most young Angelinos, Mahi had been addicted to taking photos and “selfies” and videos. Her phone had a 128GB SD card, filled with reminders of her previous life. She had Ship copy everything to her laptop.

Learning the ship’s language, known simply as “Language”, went very quickly. Mahi already had amazing language skills, but this was different. It seemed that she already knew Language and only needed to be reminded of it. She assumed that Ship was somehow responsible. Oh well, nothing she could do about it.

Ship, she learned, would keep her possessions safe and deliver them to her anywhere. She formed the habit of wandering around what she thought of as her “home” deck, listening for music. She soon expanded her search to other decks and when she heard the sound of musicians playing, she followed her ears to the source. If she liked what she heard, she would have Ship produce one of her instruments and she would join in. Mahi’s improvisational skills, already well developed, grew rapidly.

While most decks had similar layouts, with seats scattered at apparent random among walk-in showers and restrooms, the middle deck, number 17, was equipped for exercise and sport. A bewildering variety of exercise machines and weights were intermingled with running paths and swimming pools of different sizes and shapes. Some of the team sports being played were familiar to Mahi, but most seemed to be from ancient times. No one used protective gear. Mahi watched a game of no-rules field hockey and was horrified to see the violent tactics being used and the sometimes gruesome injuries that resulted. But even the injured players took the damage in stride. The availability of Ship’s medical technology made players willing to absorb punishment that would have had them in a hospital on Earth for months.

Mahi learned that which breast a woman exposed did have significance. Exposing the left breast signified that the woman was in a more-or-less exclusive relationship or simply wasn’t interested in having sex at the moment. Exposing the right breast meant the she was available to her friends, but not to casual acquaintances or strangers. Going topless meant that she was available to virtually everyone. Since there was no disease on the ship and women only got pregnant when they wanted to, casual, public sex was rampant. Children, she learned, were raised in either end of the oval decks, in crèches enclosed by high partitions. Having sex within the sight of a child was grounds for a severe beating. Attempting to have sex with a child resulted in a quick and violent death.

In the first days, Mahi saw men and women performing various sex acts, from simple touching and stroking to oral sex to full-blown hardcore screwing. Sometimes, the people involved would move to an area that provided some privacy, but mostly it was all done right out in the open. Frequently their friends would kiss and caress them, enhancing the eroticism. Watching people have sex wasn’t considered rude or boorish; after all, they’d chosen to do it publicly. Public sex was the most common form of shipboard entertainment.

As Mahi became more comfortable with her surroundings, she found the ship’s inhabitants to be very friendly and happy to get to know her. Nearly all of them were at least a couple of centuries old and many were much older. The vast majority had been born on one ship or another or on a colony world. They were fascinated by her accounts of living in a sprawling city on a planet jammed with seven billion quarrelsome humans. Three people in particular, Ping, Ignacia and Semyon, made her feel welcome. Ignacia had frequent sex with both Semyon and Ping and all three had sex with others in their local group. Ping and Ignacia seemed especially close and usually sat touching one another. Mahi and Semyon sat together, but so far, Mahi remained cautious. She wore a “not interested” toga, exposing her left boob. Mahi grew accustomed to seeing her new friends casually screwing and, she had to admit, it made her envious. And horny. Mahi felt more alive and energetic that she could remember, due, no doubt, to Ship’s long-life treatments. She’d been happily sexually active her entire adult life, accustomed to having sex three or four time a week, usually with a different man each time. Since her abduction, Mahi hadn’t gotten laid at all. That was bad enough, but she found that watching the amazing amount of sex taking place around her only made it worse. She tried ignoring it, but that was impossible. Shit, it was right there! How could she not look?

The amount of sex she witnessed wasn’t the only thing that amazed Mahi. Without exception, all the women had multiple orgasms and that was nothing new to Mahi; she was certainly capable of having them. What surprised her was seeing men having them.

Mahi’s first hint of something unusual was on her second day, when a woman she didn’t know plopped down next to Ping, one of her new friends. “Ping, you adorable man!” she cried. “Give me a kiss!” Ping scooped her up and deposited her in his lap, straddling him. As the two kissed passionately, the woman reached between them and pulled Ping’s kilt up, exposing his erect penis. As they continued to kiss, she tucked the head of Ping’s cock into her pussy and began fucking him. Mahi watched with interest. They humped enthusiastically and in a remarkably short time, Ping gave a long “ahhh” and came. “That was rude,” thought Mahi. “She’s not finished. What’s she supposed to do now?” But the woman didn’t slow down and Ping obviously remained erect. They kept fucking with only short pauses to kiss and whisper to each other. By the time they were finished, Mahi was sure that Ping had cum at least four times.

“Ignacia,” she asked curiously, “I’ve been seeing a lot of sex. It’s not what I expected; the sex, I mean. Ping came and just kept going. How did he do that?”

Ignacia was amused. “I’m surprised this wasn’t explained to you. Our long-life treatments give men the ability to maintain erections as if they were in their mid-teens. Both men and women have enhanced stamina and endurance. For all practical purposes, we can go for as long as we want, as often as we want.” She laughed. “The material of the seats and floor soaks up everyone’s fluids. Otherwise, we’d be sitting in puddles all the time!”