The Swarm Cycle Universe ©2007 The Thinking Horndog

"School Sucks!"

She yelled it at her mother and followed through with "And Dan won't make me go, either! He said so!"

With that the 11 year-old turned toward me and stuck out her tongue and then stormed off down the pod tunnel toward her 'family' home.

"Mac, she really knows better," apologized her mother. "What Dan told her was that she 'wouldn't have to go to school the way she used to, on Earth'. I guess she just didn't realize that his emphasis was on the last part of his statement — and she probably stopped listening at the end of first part of what he said. She'll be at your first meeting next week."

Actually, that wasn't the first vocally negative response I'd been the recipient of since the Civil Service office had announced that school would be starting soon in the newly opened Civil Service pod corridor of our township and that I'd be the headmaster of a K-12 equivalent school system for the same township. Not that I wanted the job! I had thought I'd put all this behind me. I had intended to be an explorer!

"It's OK, Delores. I've heard it from a lot of kids. School has all too often been something they didn't enjoy after they left kindergarten. We're hoping that our new system will be somewhat more enjoyable or, at least, more bearable. Families have been pushing for this so it's going to happen whether the kids like it or not! Sponsors have started demanding it. But it's still going to be school."

"OK, but good luck!" she said as she turned to follow her daughter down the tunnel.

Since our collection and transportation to Demeter, our new colony planet, most people and definitely all the kids had been too busy to even miss school. But for about the last six months some of the concubine parents had been pushing the colony leadership to put something like school in place. Settling in had apparently been completed in our township, and parents (moms mostly, but often the sponsor, male or female, was the spokesperson for a 'family' grouping) had started to notice that while they were busy learning about their new world and life, their kids were no longer receiving any kind of structured education. The colony's busy civil leader (Governor Flowers) had passed the issue off to the Civil Service — a favorite place to dispose of hot issues the government doesn't yet know how to handle yet.

Tribune ap Rhys had tabled the request for about a month, but after the military told the parents that we (the Civil Service, that is) were going to be responsible for education we started getting all the flack about setting up schools. He apparently looked at the records of his subordinates and decided that I'd be his 'Ed. person'. Not that he had many people to check through. So he stuck me with the job based on my 'prior experience'! So much for starting over in my new life!

I guess I'd better identify myself. I'm John McIntyre (Mac to my friends); a 62 year-old retired schoolteacher. At least I was before being collected, at the Home Depot for gosh sakes! It's a silly story but you need to know at least part of it to understand what happened.

I'd stopped by my old school a few times after retiring to settle some retirement stuff with the business office and always dropped into the faculty room to visit with my former colleagues. I'd stopped in and had lunch with them one Friday (pizza day) and the conversation at our table moved around to Kristi's need for some 'male' help. Kristi was in her second year of teaching at our high school and didn't have any relatives nearby when she needed some help and guidance in homebuilding. This time she needed help with painting a couple of the rooms in her new - to her - (the previous month) apartment.

At least 5 people at the table immediately pointed at me and said that I'd better help her out. They explained to her that my summer work for years had been painting for other people, and reminded me that since I was retired I had plenty of time to 'help Kristi out'. I wasn't going to fight the idea too hard, for reasons of my own. The upshot of it was that I showed up at her place at 9 the next morning with a tape measure and pad in hand. After figuring out how big the two rooms were and getting some idea of what kind of paint she wanted we headed out to the local Home Depot to pick out the colors and get the material. It was the last place in the world I ever expected to see marines collecting volunteers.

I've always been a Science Fiction fan and had taken the CAP test more out of my SciFi interest than a real expectation of being extracted. I was just 60 at the time they became required and was far more interested in taking an expected early retirement than expecting to be part of the exodus from Earth. The threatened Sa'arm invasion of earth probably wouldn't happen until after I was too old to fight, or maybe dead. My score of 7.3 had surprised me but I really had no intention of doing any fighting. I'd done enough of that back in Vietnam and had no interest in reliving that unsatisfactory part of my life. I guess I'd gotten that idea over to the AI doing the testing because my card had me labeled as a non-combatant. I really didn't think I'd ever get to go, but I kind of figured that if I had to be collected I'd get myself rebuilt and join the Fleet Auxiliary we were starting to hear about. I'd help to do some galactic exploring, I thought. To 'Go where no man had gone before' sounded interesting to this ex-history teacher.

It didn't work out that way, and it's probably Kristi's fault. I suppose I love her all the more because it's her fault!

"My God, it's an extraction," she said brilliantly when the officer in charge told everyone in the store to gather at the cash registers. She threw the paint color samples down on the floor and took off toward the front of the store. I wasn't impressed by her response. As I watched her go I also watched as her sweatshirt and bra hit the floor, left behind like the clothing of so many other people. For an old fart like me the landscape was suddenly very interesting there were bare boobs everywhere! There were probably 60 people in the store for some sale they had going and it must have been something interesting to women because about 45 of the people there were women. Quite an unusual customer makeup for a home materials box store. And most of them were topless right now — Very Interesting!

As I moved more slowly toward the cash registers I picked up her hastily discarded purse. I saw her again among the younger women in the group. She was skinning out of her jeans after toeing off her tennis shoes. I'd kind of lusted after her last year when she came on board but I doubt that anyone knew. After all, what could a 60 year-old expect with a 22 year-old? I had enjoyed her company a lot. She was a pretty girl, dirty blond, vivacious, and energetic. She had a very nice 5 foot 3 figure with generous curves in all the right places. And she was smart.

That's why I was surprised to find her stripping like the greater majority of the women and girls there. As I walked up to her group she did a pirouette wearing nothing but a little thong, and grinned up at me.

"Well Mac — am I as good as you thought I'd be?"

"Kris what are you doing here? What was your CAP?"

"A lousy 6.4! And they won't let me retake the interview for at least another year. So I'm going to try to peddle this body you've been sneaking peeks at for the last year. If I can get a sponsor to be as interested in me as you've been I can get a ride out of here right now!"

And here I hadn't thought anyone else knew that I'd been watching her. Probably nobody else did know, except for the object of my attention. Right there her grin at me and the realization that she'd kept my attention a secret changed several of my intentions.

"OK young lady, here's your purse — you need it unless you're hiding your CAP card someplace in your birthday suit. And I don't think that would be comfortable."

"God, that would have screwed this up royally, wouldn't it? Thanks, I hope to need this card this morning," she said as she skinned out of the thong and stuffed it into her purse, in the process revealing that the carpet matched the drapes in the form of a cute little dirty blond mohawk trim.

Stepping back to complete the new view I responded, "Oh, I can guarantee that you need it so start digging. And as soon as you find it give it to me and then start helping me find two other women and a man. We need three more!"

The look on her face was priceless.

"Mac! What is your score — wait — if you want four then you must be some kind of a seven, right? And you're going to take me? Why?"

"You just pointed out that I've liked the view for the past year so I'd be stupid to go and leave it behind, wouldn't I? Provided you're going to be as agreeable as you've been since you joined our school. Look, I know you girl! I know your abilities, at least the kind that I'm interested in — and the packaging has, of course, been of interest to me for a while. You're a very smart and sexy person. If you agree let's get going so we can get on the ship and I can turn my clock back about 40 years!"

She grabbed me in a big hug and I lifted and spun her in a big circle. I thought that it felt really good to hold a naked woman for the first time in about 5 years. You know, I had slowed down in that area the last few years!

About this time a marine came by to verify who I was (the AI had identified me, but I had to provide the CAP card anyway). He checked me in with his officer, noted that I was doing some collecting and handed me the enhanced card reader they gave to all the sponsors. I hadn't been paying attention to the lead marine's announcements but there were apparently 7 others who were going to be choosing concubines too.

I immediately shoved Kristi's card under it. She had only 'just' missed a score of 6.5. And to my excitement, she showed high scores in both sex drive and organizational abilities. The latter was the reason she was a good teacher. The former was the reason I was interested in her. At this point choosing another 'motherly' woman would cover her only modest maternal instinct. Oh, she liked kids of course, but as people she could help by teaching them. It was all there in her psych profile section. A truly motherly person could easily surpass her sense of 'motherliness'. And I suddenly realized that I knew exactly who, of all the persons here, I wanted in that role. One of the cashiers was a young lady I knew rather well: Nicki was a former student, now about 28, who was a widow raising a young child by herself. I knew that she was working two jobs to make ends meet, but I also knew she was very much the 'motherly' type.

When I got to her she was topless (hubba! hubba! — she had a nice rack!) and heading into the scrum. She was speechless as I stopped her and asked for her card. By the time I had slid the reader over it Kristi had caught up with me, still buck naked except for her purse. As she read around my arm she looked up at me and said 'Momma?"

At my nod Kristi told Nicki to stop stripping and to start looking for a responsible man to add to our group. Nicki nodded yes and immediately started looking around for someone. In the mean time Kristi began pulling me toward a couple of girls who were trying to get in front of their mothers to be seen separately. I immediately recognized one as a girl who had graduated from our school a year ago. She's kind of hard to miss in our somewhat lily-white neighborhood as she had the dark skin of a native of India. Kristina had been adopted as a 2 year-old and was now as Midwestern an American as you could find in both her speech and thought processes. But she definitely didn't fit in by appearance. She stood a dark-skinned 5' 7", was very slender yet curvy, had long black hair that she generally wore tied back and was very attractive. But once again and most important, I knew she was smart.

As Kristi pulled her forward she grabbed Kristina's CAP card and handed it to me. Kristina then completed the process of shedding her top and her bra, all the time talking to me. "Mr. Mac, if you're taking volunteers to go with you I'd love to go! Can you take Marilyn (apparently this was her friend) too? How about our moms? Yada yada yada..."

About that time I tuned her out and was checking her card under the reader. She had scored high in sexual interest, in domestic interests and in intellect. What had held her back were a sense of insecurity (adopted into a different culture, remember) and an apparent desire to be subordinate. She was also, at the time of testing, still a virgin. She sounded great as a concubine choice to me and when I looked at Kristi she was nodding her head yes at me.

I turned back to Kristina (Yes, I knew there would be name confusion in our future, ) and told her "Only one spot open now and you can have it if you want. Kristi here will be the boss of you guys for the time being. Interested?"

She immediately nodded her head yes and turned to hug Marilyn and both their moms before scurrying back to Kristi and me,

OK, by now I'd had three nice female chests (two light, one dark) paraded in front of me and at 61 I still couldn't quite believe that they were going to be my new 'family'. And while I was going to plant babies in each and every one of the three, I also wanted another male to mix up the genes in the group and to be the male role model when I was off exploring. I didn't know then that whole 'families' were being used as crews on those exploration ships.

We headed back toward Nicki who had apparently taken my order to find a man to heart quite quickly. When we found her she was leading a 'young' fellow in our direction. When we assembled she identified him as Bill, a single father who worked with her. He appeared to be in his early 30s and Nicki told us that he was doing a great job of raising a daughter after his wife ran away and divorced him.

I asked for his card and as I checked it Kristi began asking him questions. The principal one of interest to me was where his kid's mother was. As he was explaining that she had left him for a man who made about 5 times as much money as he did at Home Depot his card was telling me that he scored high as a father figure. He was a 31-year-old male nurturer — a match for Nicki's score as a female nurturer. They were a good pair from all that I could see and Kristi and Kristina were both nodding that they thought he would be a good choice. He scored high in his interest in sex and I decided I'd better do some specific questioning with my three 'ladies'.

"You all realize that he and I are going to father children on you, right? Your purposes according to the Confederacy are to be baby machines and then to raise those babies. Are you each ready for that? Now's the time to back out if you want to!"

"Kristi!"

"Yes Mac, I know all that and I'm fully prepared to sleep with both of you and be "barefoot and pregnant' for the next 10 or 15 years. As long as Bill and Nicki are ready to do most of the 'child work'. I'd love to have your children!"

"And you are going to be our head concubine until I change things? You're willing to take the responsibility when I go off to do whatever they assign me to do?"

"I'm ready, but I need to know that the other three are OK with that, after all, I'm younger than those two," indicating Nicki and Bill.

"OK, good! We'll check that as we go." I said and then turned to Kristina. "K (her nickname when in school) — are you ready for all of this? You get off earth but you'll be a second level woman under Kristi, and a baby machine too. Are you ready to make babies with me? Or with the me I'll be after they rebuild me about 40 years younger? And with Bill when I'm not around?"

"I think so, Mr. Mac. I mean, I've never had sex so I don't know what to say except that I'm willing. I know you and that's great — I don't know Bill so I hope we'd like each other if we're going to make babies together. Miss Kristi was great in school last year — she was my volleyball coach, ya know? If she's still the boss like you say, that's cool. I don't know this other lady so I can't say anything about her. Everybody tells me to take the chance if somebody grabs me at an extrication and this seems to be a lot better than going with some people who I don't know. I'm ready! And thanks for offering me the chance!"

"OK then, Nicki, it's your turn. Are you OK with all of this?"

"As long as you let me take Evan with me! And Bill's little girl Ashli too! We've done some things together like the store picnic and the Christmas party. The kids know and like each other, and Bill and I have kind of hit it off too."

"Nicki, the kids coming along is a given. And you'll be the 'main mother' to all of them, and to the rest of us too. I know you can do that and will do it naturally. But you know you're going to have to share Bill with the rest of the girls and you're going to have to make babies with me, too?! And mother them as well? Can you share that way?"

"Oh, yes! I can see that we're going to be a really neat family! If you still want me, I'm ready to go!"

"We want you too! Bill, that just leaves you. I know all three of these women but you're here on Nicki's recommendation. Is all of this OK with you? You get a chance with all three of them but we — you and I — have to work together on the man's side of this whole business. Can you do that?"

"I'm willing to work with you and the girls, Mac. Nicki says you're a pretty good guy. As long as Ashli can come I'm in. And thank you for taking us with you!"

All the girls chimed in again with their 'thank you's' and that seemed to set us up. I was satisfied except for one thing. "Ladies, I know you said you're ready for me and Bill, but you should consider that you're going to have to learn to make love to ladies too. A little girl-on-girl will be necessary from time to time. If that turns you absolutely off then turn around now."

The women looked at each other, at Bill and then back at me. All of them nodded yes to my suggestion.

"Right then, let's go over to the marines and let them take us out of here!"

As it was I hadn't been paying much attention to anybody else in the store. I guess that means that nothing had gone too far off the tracks as I've heard sometimes happens. There didn't seem to have been any fights, nobody got stunned, and only 3 of the eight volunteers being picked up were still trying to choose concubines. Two of them were women and I felt sorry for them. Here they were in what is usually a male stronghold on a day when the women outnumbered the men by quite a few. The number of men just wasn't that big to start out with and then if you remove the male volunteers and any men joining their families the pickings were getting slim.

Anyway, we moved together to the marine who seemed to be in charge and I told him we were ready to go. He took my card and checked that everything was OK and then waved us to the transporter. Again, the SciFi fan in me thought the idea of actually using a molecular transporter was just about as neat as sliced bread. Of the rest of my new family only Kristi seemed to pick up on my excitement and when I arrived in the ship right after she did she greeted me with a great big hug and the observation, "Fun, huh? I'll bet you liked that little ride."

I just grinned back at her as together we chivied our group through the hatch and into the assembly room beyond. There a couple of marines were talking to the leaders of the groups that had formed around the room. Each was a new 'family' like ours and the orders were common sense — collect everybody's CAP card, identify any children who needed to be picked up (Evan and Ashli for us), determine any immediate medical needs that needed to be dealt with.

It was interesting to look around the deck and see all the other groups getting organized. Like ours most of them were made up of several naked or near-naked women and men wearing regular clothes. There was only one naked guy on the deck. I personally enjoyed the questioning looks of some of the others who were obviously wondering what an old guy like me was doing with three much younger women. By now Kristina had joined Kristi in the naked department and Nicki was still going topless. So here I was at 61: I had a fully clothed 31 year old male, an 18 year old naked female, a naked 23 year old female and a topless 28 year old female. I figured I'd better set myself up to be rebuilt pretty much into the middle of my women's age bracket.

And, after we got our pod, and had collected the kids and got ourselves settled down, that's what I did. Oh, it didn't happen immediately. The medical 'tanks' were busy with regular med scans and with the correction of minor difficulties with the concubines and volunteers. Something like a complete rebuild was put off until after the 'routine' stuff took place. The five of us (plus two kids) took the time to start to blend into our new 'family'. That involved taking one-on-one time with the kids for each of us. They had to get adapted to the fact that they now had two 'daddies' and three 'mommies'. They were both really neat kids. I was glad to have them with us. That was an attitude that developed among all of us adults. They were our kids!

The five of us adults also had the time to get acquainted in an 'adult' manner. I did make one very selfish decision. I wanted to be Kristina's first and so she was put out of the loop for fucking. I took the time to explain this to all the others. She didn't have any choice in the matter but smiled as she said that she'd wait for the 'new and improved' me. She did take instruction in cocksucking though! In the week before they were ready to rebuild me she'd had the opportunity to practice that activity a few times each day. Often she had the guidance of Nicki, who was our best cocksucker. And she learned very well — Bill and I agreed that she had a very talented mouth.

Even Kristi took guidance from Nicki as she serviced both Bill and me. Kristi was the only one I took on for real, with the help of the Darjee equivalent of a Viagra. I had simply wanted her for too long to wait. She was the only one of the three women I fucked before being rebuilt. And it was worth the extra effort. That woman was a very eager partner. She was as energetic and creative as a bed partner as I had hoped for from knowing her 'before'. We discussed the absence of her virginity but in good humor only. In our pillow talk I made sure she was all right with the idea of being my number one concubine. She had a good grasp on the idea and was ready to deal with the idea that Kristina was off limits until my reconstruction. K was in bed with us at the time as I had sent Nicki to cement her relationship with Bill in their own bed. She was in complete agreement. I told them that they should take the time to try each other out sexually, too.

Actually in the long run that's the principal balance that developed. Nicki was Bill's main squeeze and the two Ks were mine. We have traded over the year since then, but for comfort's sake it's worked out that way. We do know that I'm the father of all the girl's first children born on Demeter simply because the nannies had fixed Bill to only shoot blanks until after the first of the next generation was born. And the women had all learned to 'munch carpet' with each other. But they all confessed that they liked man-on-woman sex the best. (OK, we did use other positions as well! J )

Finally it was the turn of the volunteers for reconstruction treatment. It took several days for them to rebuild me — Kristi says I was gone for three. I had made it clear that during that time she was in charge, not Bill. There's only one cock-of-the-walk in this henhouse and he is me. Bill was definitely going to take orders from Kristi or he was going somewhere else, quite possibly into a matter converter. Later I was told by each of the others that she had done a 'great job' and that they had no reservations about her being in charge any time that I was gone. And I should add that Bill has never challenged either Kristi or me about anything of importance.

While I was in the tank the rest of them continued to take in the information and training sessions that the Marines required of all the groups. They learned how to work the food synthesizer, how the pod worked and some of the possibilities built into its systems. They learned what life was going to be like on our new planet, Demeter. They were shown just where Demeter was located relative to the Sa'arm that were coming (the opposite side of the galaxy from their entry point). And they learned about the rights of the volunteer and the absolute absence of rights for the concubines. I guess they spent quite a bit of their free time during that period discussing just that new balance in their lives. Most of the same material I learned through direct induction while I was 'asleep'.

As for me, I just seemed to sleep through those three days. I remember getting on to the slide that took me into the 'tank', but after getting on it I don't remember anything until the marine medic helped me get up after my nap. I hurt! There's no other way to describe the feeling. I had chosen the standard marine body morphology so I ended up just over 6 foot 6 inches with an apparent age of 25. I said apparent age because none of my 61 years of memory and experience had disappeared. I was actually that old but just had a much younger shell to wear. And it was a good body! I was now 7 inches taller than I had been while weighing only a few pounds more (yes, I had been kind of pear shaped). But that much change didn't come without pain. Even with the pain reducing nannites working for all they were worth, IT HURT!

Since I came back to consciousness in the same naked state that I had left I could also see that all the parts were appropriately sized. Oh God, I was going to enjoy this second time around! Kristi was the first to experience the new me, and she assured me that all the changes were excellent. When Kristina's turn came I was almost afraid to use my new tool on her virgin body. But I did, and it did fit without too much pain on her part and since then I have to say that we've both very much enjoyed the effects of the change. K has become an excellent lover, second only to Kristi. And Nicki is third only because in our arrangement she was first for Bill. For our little 'family' the system we developed worked very well.

Actually, it was on the issue of rebuilding bodies that I had my first disagreement with the marine crew that was shepherding us to Demeter. It seems that the Governor of the planet, an Alex Flowers, had recommended that all the concubines also get resized to marine-standard size. That's because he wanted them to train and serve as a Militia to protect the planet when the marines were off-planet. After a number of discussion meetings with the other volunteers most of us had decided that we didn't want everybody to look like clones so we all went our own ways in rebuilding our concubines. My family and I decided what each would have changed. Actually we did end up being somewhat 'clonish', but in our own individual ways.

Bill saw some wisdom in being sized to fight if necessary but chose to be 2 inches shorter than me. I think it had to do with his place in our pecking order. He also had 6 years taken off his age, making him the same apparent age as me.

The three girls agreed that they would all like to end up the same height as Kristina. She decided that she'd like boobs one size bigger — going from a B to a C and in the process matching herself to her fellow 'wives'. Nicki asked to have about four years taken off her age and now looks just a bit younger than Kristi.

All of them had the usual repairs to teeth and eyes. Everybody but me kept their own hair. Oh, yes — I was particularly pleased by the fact that I now had a full head of hair again. And this time it wasn't going to fall out!

Appendixes were removed as a preventative measure as were tonsils (the kids had these last two processes also, just to be safe). In general we considered what was done to each of us to be an improvement.