Chapter 87

MAJ Howard:

Friday morning, I went down with the first wave to make my report to COL Sharpe; I had the clan lined up in the transporter room at 0830 hours. The Colonel was present, of course, standing stiffly erect, awaiting my arrival. You've seen the type -- he makes me look like a slouch. He's rail thin and upright and tight and the creases on his uniform trousers would cut you and they're NOT that way because of some fancy fabric creasing manipulation using Confederacy technology -- oh, no, he has some poor slut starching and ironing them!

I saluted -- something he returned as if he were an automaton before sticking out his hand to shake. "Welcome back, Major. From your transmitted reports it appears that you were wildly successful."

"We even collected a target of opportunity," I replied, "a scientific foundation looking into Sa'arm communication, but poorly equipped and funded. The Navy has agreed to suck them in and fund them, and they provided a number of quality sponsors."

"Did you have any personal luck on that front?" the Colonel asked. "It crossed my desk that you tossed the latest pair back in the pool..."

"Quite a bit, actually," I murmured. Myra had come through and was standing on my left; I snapped my fingers and indicated a rally point a few feet away and she started directing children as they arrived to gather there. For once, the boys were too busy goggling at things to be boisterous. Carol came through after Myra's boys and her girls and took up station at the rally point as the Kapahu boys and Magadhi followed. Predictably, Magadhi resisted Carol's efforts to corral her and came to me to collect my hand. Fulmala detected this on arrival and made to collect her, but I waved it off as the Kapahus came through behind her.

I turned back to the Colonel -- who was FLOORED! "All this?" he asked faintly. "This represents a departure for you..."

"Lieutenant Harper saw to it that I was educated a bit en route," I replied. "It seems that my selection criteria have been flawed. Once I realized that I was much more likely to get a woman with a proper attitude if I avoided looking for a fashion plate, a few tests turned up a number of extremely satisfactory prospects."

"Children?" the Colonel eyed Magadhi.

I picked her up and put her on my hip where she could regard the Colonel soberly with her big eyes. "I'll get used to it. My staff is adept at raising them, in any case."

The Colonel's eyes lingered on Winona. "There are some interesting specimens here." His eyes drifted to Daniel. "A male?"

"We have a lot of them," I pointed out, "and my selection procedure brought me several ravenous sexual appetites. I'll need Daniel to keep the natives from getting restless without exhausting me constantly."

Myra snorted and Carol yelped, "You got THAT right!"

The Colonel looked distinctly uncomfortable. "If I may..." He waved me over some distance from my little family circus. "Some of your women represent a serious departure from your historical tastes. Most of them are distinctly, ahem, pear-shaped..." He eyed Magadhi. "There would also be the ethnic mix..."

"My matchmaker -- who I recommend highly, by the way -- went looking for women who were of the opinion that sex is a pleasurable activity, not a chore," I replied. "A certain lack of availability tends to whet the appetite, apparently. The reverse is also true; women hot-looking enough to be constantly engaged in the battle of the sexes tend to treat sex as a chore. My little collection was all somewhat larger than they are today, and therefore most of them were either doing without sex or had it in limited supply. I had them downsized to something comfortable, not anorexic -- something ELSE I learned in transit -- and have a happy little group of females who look forward to finding me in bed."

"Hmmph," the Colonel murmured, his eyes coming back from my harem and finding them drawn to Magadhi's huge orbs. "Comfortable..."

"Comfortable," I agreed. "I don't know about you, but I have discovered that runway models tend to be bony. They tend to damage easily, too, and to be unable to deal with rough handling. They also suffer more when bearing children. All of these issues probably add to their general reluctance to get into the sex act and let go -- and allow ME to let go. If you pad them a bit, everyone seems to benefit. Mine can all touch their toes and they're all pretty flexible -- they just handle hard use a bit better."

"I see..." The colonel mused. Magadhi was working her magic on him; she reached out and he allowed her to grab a finger. "This matchmaker of yours..."

"We picked up a couple of fine Civil Service Sub-Decurions -- including a mother-daughter team named Hopkins. The elder one, Vera, knows all about sex and all about women and, well, she does a fine job. I allowed her to make adjustments to mine before I saw them, so I wouldn't be visually prejudiced. It's turned out to be just amazing!"

"Indeed." The Colonel had issues similar to mine, only worse, perhaps. I could tell that he found my experience eye-opening. "What about household discipline?"

"The women are all experienced mothers. Myra -- the black woman -- is First Sergeant. She runs the household and keeps the children out of my hair -- all but this one, who has her own agenda. I'm learning to put up with them -- and the women are aware of my requirement for solitude and make certain that I get it. This one..." I looked down at Magadhi, "This one makes demands, but they tend not to be onerous. She seldom SAYS anything; she just wants comfort and security."

"I see..." I could tell by looking that the Colonel was of two minds over getting his finger back. "About Tillotson..."

"Recommended for promotion," I replied, "as well as Lieutenant Harper, who went above and beyond. He brought in the Brinkman Foundation link."

The Colonel nodded. "I'll see to it. I assume that the provisional Decurions should all maintain their positions?"

"Absolutely," I agreed. "They've been working hard all through the voyage, solving problems. The elder Hopkins will undoubtedly take over the Civil Service brothel and pool -- she actually wants to."

"Very well." The Colonel turned his attention to Magadhi. "I must go." She released his finger. "Carry on, Major." We exchanged salutes and he moved off. I gestured to Myra and she started the herd moving toward the door. Breakfast would be first, after which I would turn them loose in my quarters while I -- and perhaps Fulmala, who appeared to be the perfect aide -- would return to the Valhalla to resume supervising the disembarkation.

Mark:

When the Major got back, I waited for the combined Harper/Hopkins clan to transport -- with the exception of my two Sub-Decurions, who were out on rounds, chivvying the tardy to the transporter rooms. Then I collected Javier and our women and pushed them through to the surface. Nana kept everyone under control, including Yvonne and Sarah -- not that Sarah, in particular, was likely to drift far from Javier.

It was good to be home. I looked out a picture window at Nuevo Angelino's slightly orange-tinged sky and sighed; spacecraft -- even big ones -- give me a bit of claustrophobia. Nuevo Angelino was a little spare and barren and you couldn't stay outside for prolonged periods without an environment suit because of trace gasses in the atmosphere -- but that was pretty similar to L.A., wasn't it? Confederacy technology created a little gadget that you wore around your neck and it generated a field around your head that filtered things, so you could go outside and hardly notice the difference. They were freely available by the door, so I affixed one to each of our women's collars and led them outside.

It was a little cool for nudity -- in the low sixties, Fahrenheit -- but nobody complained. The women padded around in their flip-flops, kicking up sand and examining the low scrub that was the primary vegetation in the area and making 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' at various things in sight. In the distance was the ocean; it probably wasn't any more poisonous than Earth's, but most of Nuevo Angelino's life forms did battle with each other there instead of on land, which made the waters treacherous outside of beach resort areas where big predators were held off by force fields. I just needed some fresh air; after a very few minutes, I had Nana gather the clan and we went back inside and I led them through the internal transport system to my pod.

Yeah, I'm a pod dweller -- an original colonist. We put up big apartment blocks for the second wave, but I like the suburbs, so I haven't given up my pod. Maybe it's because I need to get away from people occasionally. I escorted Javier and the women into my pod and left Nana, Graciela, and Yvonne to organize a new floor plan with the AI, giving Javier veto power, and headed back to the transit port to return to the Valhalla with Estrella in tow, as she had 'the duty.' "What do you think?" I asked her as we waited for a slot to transport back up against the flow of new colonists arriving.

"I'll be spending a lot of time indoors, I guess," she sighed. "Still, it's a world, isn't it? Is the place all desert?"

"More or less," I replied, "We're terraforming and trying to introduce some decent vegetation, but we are also trying to preserve at least portions of the limited local ecology." I switched to comm, but left it verbal for Estrella's edification, "AI, open up the solarium and swimming pool on the south exposure of my pod and make sure it is habitable, then brief Javier on its existence."

"Acknowledged." The AI fed the answer to me over my link and to Estrella via her collar.

"There is a filter field in the solarium that handles the gasses and harmful solar rays. The field is very effective -- and it allows a breeze to pass, while filtering the trace gasses. You'll be able to tan if you like without worries," I told Estrella.

"Oh! Nice!"

"You would be amazed what you can get nannites to do in their spare time," I told her. "A little patience will get you just about anything."

"What about clothing?" she asked, her eyebrow arched. Many concubines on the surface wore the ubiquitous gray shift and some wore other clothing, but were identifiable by their collars.

... And many wore nothing. "I'm a purist," I informed Estrella, grinning, "I like skin."

Estrella shrugged, affecting unconcern. "As you wish."

Ten minutes later, some laggard opened a hole in the transport schedule and we were back aboard the Valhalla.

Oliver:

Most of the family's concubines transported to the surface with Jack, Chief Slocum, and I -- more or less in the vanguard of the Brinkman group. Vera's concubines, Cletus and Mike, and Maureen's Tony acted as outriders, helping the women keep the children from wandering too far. We were an impressive group, even without Vera and Maureen, who were working, doubtlessly feverishly, to herd everyone off the ship. The transport schedule was more open than it had been when we boarded, as everyone was being dispersed, but that brought its own issues, apparently; people tended to stop on the receiving pad and gawk instead of clearing it for the next person.

Dave Chambers supervised the movement of our little zoo, including his pair of hermaphroditic concubines and little Rory, the 'odd couple' -- Farris and Harriet, our reconstituted IT department -- the combined Rawlins/Bradley brood, June Mortensen and the young couple she was now apparently never without and their boy Zachary, and so on ... We went last, being the largest group of 'Brinkmans' -- although technically, Jack and Chief were Navy and Maureen and Vera were Civil Service. Apparently, I was still the patriarch, and as such, the family lynchpin.

On the surface, Jack's familiarity with things led me to hand off control -- such as I had -- to him; we were to be quartered in a large housing block on the naval base located directly below where the shipyard hung in geosynchronous orbit. The Brinkman work site was some thirty kilometers from there -- less than no time via transporter. Dave announced that he would collect us the next day for an initial familiarization trip to the facility and that he expected us to take a week or so to settle in while Bernie and Eugene pumped our existing data into new computers and learned how to use them. In the meantime, we would have ample free time to get our families organized.

The apartment was pretty similar to our quarters on the Valhalla, actually, except for the balcony, which I understood was protected by some kind of force field. Modifications were possible -- even encouraged -- but would take time to complete. My place didn't need much, as I didn't have a flood of children -- yet. There WERE the Turner children, Adrian and Claudette, after all. Vera's situation was the same, as was Maureen's. Jack had a few and would require more spacious accommodations -- not that our place wasn't spacious. Chief and Judith were quartered in another apartment block a few blocks away, which probably wouldn't hurt anything; they needed their space, in my opinion. They were more newlyweds than a sponsor and a concubine. In any case, Britney, Evelyn and Rhonda wandered around getting used to what they had and making plans for minor alterations and I started asking for incident data involving the Sa'arm from the AI -- and got a flood! Things would be very different here on THAT front -- maybe we would accomplish something!

Dean Atkinson:

They transported the staff right to the new school, concubines and all -- which seemed to make sense. We'd discussed satellite campuses in the six major settlements, but for starters, students would transport there, to the school terminus. The attendance office was right there, since it was probably the easiest way to get a handle on our wayward charges. It was anticipated that attendance would probably triple -- but the plan was to see students physically every three days in rotation and have them plugged into the AIs doing assignments the two days they were home. Nadine was already buried in an effort to completely revamp the curriculum; we would be shifting focus some. American History was going to take a back seat to Earth History (World History on Earth), and we had a requirement to integrate all kinds of classes on technology. The science department was inundated; every principle we had ever taught required re-examination based upon data that had been withheld on Earth for fear that the Sa'arm might discover some nugget of knowledge during the invasion that tilted the advantage their way. Was Newton right? Well, yeah, sort of -- as was Einstein -- again, sort of. The Confederacy was a lot further along toward a Unified Field Theory -- actually, they probably had one and were still withholding it. In the meantime, there were better tools and better data, and we would take what we could get. Increased knowledge made for changes in mathematics and other areas, too, although probably not the kind of sweeping changes you get when you go from tunnel vision to a sweep of a broad horizon that science was getting.

On the home front, things had settled out. Nadine liked her girl sex -- and I allowed it, within reason. Sizing up a clitoris wasn't a bad thing either, within reason, and we settled on something in the upper-normal range. Nadine was too busy with work to hand out much abuse; Shelley got the household as her province and Susan had plenty to do taking work feeds from both Nadine and myself. I foresaw that Nadine would have to step up to the plate and get us a couple of concubines to share the various loads, but we had done nothing in transit -- too busy making preparations.

In the meantime, when Nadine came home cranky from the heavy workload, I would step in and see to it that she got what she needed -- I would sex her, usually after binding her in some manner to make her helpless. I still wasn't clear on how that helped her, but it worked; the more brutal I was during the act, the better she seemed to like it. I'm no expert at such things, but I have the AI for a resource; it notifies me when it thinks Nadine wants something and advises as to what it deduces that something might be. I insisted that she put on a few pounds' worth of padding to make the whole thing easier on both of us, as her narrow frame had nothing on it to absorb shocks. She actually looked better with about fifteen pounds of additional flesh distributed here and there, tastefully and to utilitarian effect.