Chapter 8

2076 a.d.

Jupiter

The great ship was at last approaching Jupiter. They had been drifting through the solar system for almost three years, orbiting out to the largest planet in the system. Béla and Elaine hugged each other as they watched the vast expanse of the gas giant spinning below them.

"If you look long enough, you can see it move!" Elaine said, thrilled at the newness of it all. She was broadcasting enough excitement to enthrall the twenty or thirty others that shared the observation deck with them.

Currently, Béla and her roommate/sister Elaine were the only princesses on the observation deck. Only two princesses at a time were allowed there, as they tended to amplify and broadcast each other's emotions to a degree that it overwhelmed any others present.

There were fourteen pairs of princesses, assigned two to a room. After the disastrous experiment of walling off Béla and Elaine together, more humane thought dampening fields were designed to aid them in controlling their sexual feedback when they were together. The new devices increased or decreased the density of the dampening field automatically as needed.

The last two of Sibilius' projects were Melinda and his son, who now insisted on being called Hank. It irritated the old scientist that all of his daughters had renamed themselves something other than what he had originally and lovingly named each and every one of them. He tried to put his foot down with his son.

"Hank is such an undignified name," he argued. "If you need to change your name, why not choose 'Caesar' or 'Ptolemy'. Even 'Jesus' was better than 'Hank'!"

"It's because 'Hank' is such a casual name that I like it," his son explained.

In the end, Sibilius relented. He really had no choice. His species prided themselves on personal freedom. Each member of their society worked for the common good of them all in a specific field in which each excelled, or at least was adequate. Each individual was also permitted to study a second, and often, a third, field in which he showed an interest or aptitude. All were required to perform their share of menial duties. Even Sibilius took his turn cleaning the crapper.

Melinda was the envy of the elite little group of princesses as she was assigned to room with the only male hybrid that existed anywhere. Although they all had sex with each other constantly (some catching up on a thousand years of forced celibacy) Melinda was the first princess to actually lose her virginity to a man.

Normally, Béla was the pioneer (read 'guinea pig') when it came to exploring new ideas and concepts. She was by far the most powerful telepath. Therefore, It irked her somewhat that five of her sisters managed to corner Hank before she did. She was only number six to successfully lose her new body's virginity in the proper manner. She made up for it by bringing him to eight orgasms in their initial tryst. No one beat her first time record. (The princesses kept track of important facts like that.)

For a while, Hank was the happiest prince on the ship. He had twenty-nine stunningly beautiful and very horny females to make love to, usually a pair at a time. His average was six trysts a day with at least one horny princess. In addition, after hours, he was regularly ravaged and sexually abused by his deviant, bloodthirsty roommate. After a night of being ravished and ravaged by Melinda, he was grateful that he healed fast.

After several months of more or less constant sex, he began spending more time in the lab assisting his father with his work. Sibilius didn't mind, as he got to see his loving daughters a lot more often when they came to visit their 'brother'.

Until Melinda showed up, Béla and Elaine were generally accepted as the ranking members of their group, helping each newborn pair to set up their own thought dampening fields in their new quarters. Then Béla and Elaine would each take a newborn and teach her how to handle herself so that the sexual feedback problem wouldn't overwhelm her and cause her to go into a feeding frenzy. That was the fun part.

The only exceptions to the above, were Hank and Melinda. They'd nailed each other before they ever left father's lab. Then Elaine one-upped Béla by choosing Hank to initiate. Béla's initiation session with Melinda didn't go well. Melinda wouldn't open up to Béla, as she didn't like other females all that well, and Béla was still pissed with her about Raul and Torquemada. Besides, they both wanted Hank.

Béla and Elaine had also led the group in volunteering for watch duty during the seven months the great ship was orbiting through the asteroid belt. Elaine discovered she had a passion for blowing things up when she was taught how to use the ship's lasers to keep their orbit clear of floating rocks. It was almost like she knew where the rocks were going to show up before they appeared on her targeting scope.

The crew enjoyed having pairs of princesses on the bridge. They were young and excitable. The duties the crew had been performing for thousands of years were all new to the princesses, and, although they broadcast their emotions in a very distracting and undisciplined manner, it was fun to teach the newcomers and have them marvel at what the crew considered dull and routine.

Now that the great ship had entered a planetary system, Princesses Béla and Elaine were asked to re-institute their watch program with the other princesses as there was a greater concentration of rocks floating around Jupiter than there had been, even in the asteroid belt.

Elaine stepped down into the communal bath. There were a dozen or more passengers, several crew members and three princesses sharing the tepid water. Several greeted her, making room for one more.

"Marla, would you like to share watch with me on the Bridge tonight?" Elaine asked as she sat down in the warm water. "I was told this afternoon that our destination will be visible in a few hours, and the Bridge has an even better view than the observation deck."

Marla looked at her roommate, Beth, silently inquiring.

'I don't mind if you don't, ' Beth thought back to her.

"Sure," Marla said to Elaine, "It'll be fun!"

"Where's Béla, anyway?" Beth asked, hungrily curious.

"She's finishing the afternoon watch by herself. She's on the Bridge now," Elaine replied. "I was studying with father."

That was code for 'I was humping Hank!' The girls giggled.

They all felt the thought dampeners that had been set up around the communal baths kick up a notch.

"You would think that Béla would have been studying with you," Marla said, coyly.

"Well, I was on watch on the Bridge," Elaine replied, "but there was nothing to shoot at, and I was kind of distracting the crew because, um, I needed to study up on something."

The dampeners kicked up another notch.

"So, anyway," Elaine concluded, "Béla practically ran me off the Bridge because I was distracting her from her duties. She told me to go study!"

The two crew members who were privy to the princesses' private code were suppressing grins as they listened to the 'innocent' conversation. The Regent's daughters, especially Elaine and Béla, were still the favorite topic of conversation amongst the crew.

"Oh, poor Béla," Beth said, sounding much too sympathetic. "When you two go on watch, I think I'll go visit and see if she needs 'boning up' on anything..."

"Do you think that would be all right?" she asked Elaine.

Elaine nodded.

'That would be fine with me, too, ' Béla broadcast into Beth's mind from the Bridge. 'I have a serious study problem I need some help with... '

Beth - Elisabeta - was one of Béla's favorite sisters, now that she knew her better. When Béla had initiated her, she discovered that Beth was as completely uninhibited about pure, raw sex as Béla, herself. In fact, Beth actually shared a trick that Béla hadn't known about. It was something that Elisabeta had really loved to do while sexually murdering a prisoner or a spy, and it was surprisingly nice that Béla hadn't died from it. That meant she could do it to her again ... and again...

Béla relaxed in the communal baths, luxuriating in the bubbles caressing and tickling her body as they emerged from the filter return under her feet. Her attention was on Elaine and Marla on the Bridge. She could feel their exuberance as they watched their new home gradually peek out from behind the great mass of Jupiter. It appeared as a brilliant white star as it glistened in the sunlight. The voyagers had arrived just in time for spring.

The metallic, artificial moon was set in its orbit so that it was always hidden by Jupiter's mass when the Earth and Jupiter were on the same side of the sun. That was necessary so the bright little moon was not visible from Earth's powerful and nosy telescopes.

Currently, Earth, in its rapid, swirling orbit, was moving back behind the sun, so the little artificial moon had just peeked out from behind Jupiter a few days before. It would remain in the sunlight for the next seven months, its clockwise orbit planned so that when Earth reappeared on the other side of the sun, the little moon would be vanishing back behind Jupiter, soon to begin five long, cold months of winter darkness while Earth swirled around between Jupiter and the sun. In that manner, the two worlds were never in line-of-sight view of each other.

Beth was watching their arrival on the ship's monitors when she got a little psychic nudge from her horny sister waiting in the communal baths. She had them all to herself. Now, Beth would have Béla all to herself. Her roommate, Marla, was okay; she loved her, of course, but she idolized Béla and her willingness to reach beyond her limitations in her quest for ultimate sensation. She'd never had a sexual encounter as intense as the one she'd had when Béla initiated her.