Chapter Seventeen

It was good to be back to what I then referred to as home after our time away on Omega, Omicron, and out in space fighting pirates. We were all actually looking forward to some real down time. Not to say that we weren’t relaxing while watching Charlie having some extracurricular activity with the Queen and her daughters, but in any case, it was nice to be home safely.

Sheila helped us plan a wedding for a few months into the future wherein all four of us would marry Charlie. It was a small surprise to Sheila’s chain of command, but since it was brought up during a debriefing with Charlie, her, and Bob, where one of the Earth officers brought it up jokingly, there wasn’t much to be said or done about it afterwards. She wasn’t in Charlie’s chain of command, nor mine, and certainly not Sella’s nor Son Lee’s. It was soon common knowledge that Charlie would have four wives, one local, one blue, and two aliens. Sorry, it sounded funny at the time.

We were about two weeks away from the wedding when a message torpedo came in from Cedrus on Arnis Prime, the cultural center of both the Arnis Government and the Yling System. There were several other governments in the Yling System, but they all had an official presence in Cedrus. Arnis was the largest, most populous, and for all intents and purposes, the leading government of the system.

The message was simple. Eazon wanted to talk to Charlie, Sheila, and Son Lee. Faron asked me, (ME?), for permission for the meeting to happen, since I was, as she thought she recalled, his first, and most probably lead, spouse. To be honest, I’d never looked at it that way, but I guess that would be true. He approached me when asking that type of question, family related issues, but unlike Faron, he didn’t defer to me for any reason. I didn’t want him to, for sure. Neither of us was from matriarchal societies, and what Son Lee may think of their customs were left far behind when she pledged to remain loyal and attached to Charlie until stars stopped shining and such. She was quite a romantic.

Oh, yes, Eazon was on the way, and wanted to speak to us. Eazon was the youngest of the Arnis Queen’s two daughters. Charlie had spent a few days with her, her sister, Nillon, and her mother, Faron, doing his level best to impregnate all three of them. Of course I wouldn’t say, ‘No’, for a couple of reasons, the biggest being I didn’t think it was my place. Again, ours were not matriarchal societies, and I wasn’t about to tell the love of my life what he could and could not do, especially when it came to women. He already had four who loved him dearly and that he evidently loved just as much. One more didn’t change anything. At least not in my eyes.

It was probably too late to send an answer back informing Faron that all would be well and that I didn’t mind their meeting at all, so I figured I’d just wait and find out what the meeting was about, then send back good, bad, or indifferent news based on the outcome. I’m glad I waited.

Once we had notified the locals that we were having visitors, things got a bit hectic. Brad called Charlie and me asking if we could meet with him and a few others, all a bit anxious about another cadre of aliens coming down to the planet.

Charlie took Brad into an adjoining office, patting my stockinged leg and asking me to wait there with the other dignitaries while he spoke to Brad in person. He needed to explain, on a personal level, who Eazon was, who the visitor was, more specifically, and the probable reason she was coming.

When they re-entered the conference room, Brad was smiling, almost grinning, and let Charlie explain to the group what was really happening. “The honest, bare bones truth, General Collins,” Brad said.

“Folks, this is going to be hard to believe, but the young lady coming to visit, is the second daughter of the Queen of a nation, or nations, if you will, within a system called Yling, many, many light years away from Earth. They sent us a message stating that the Princess is enroute and would like a meeting with myself, and two of my soon to be wives. When I met them, on Omicron, which we have discussed already, they chose me to help them...” Charlie had a bit of a hard time getting the next part out, so I helped him a bit.

“Become pregnant. They wanted my husband to impregnate, inseminate, fertilize them. Whichever terminology you may choose. Go ahead, Charlie. Sorry for interrupting.”

“No, honey. Thank you. That was the part I knew I’d have problems with.” He smiled at me. I love his smiles. I really do. “In any case, I need to warn you all that she is a bit different, in that just as Son Lee is a little blue, Eazon is a little red. Very red, actually. Otherwise, completely human. Just a normal red person with blonde hair. She’s also quite attractive, if it matters. We are assuming, which we know is dangerous, that she is here to either have me try again, or maybe even to hang out for a while and maybe...”

“Maybe even stay. What Charlie is trying to say is that it may be an effort on her part to become one of his wives, or more so in their custom, to claim him as her husband. They are a pretty female-oriented civilization. Sorry, Charlie. They needed to know.”

“No need to apologize, hon. I needed you there on that one, too. You’re fine. Thank you.” He smiled at me again.