Chapter 3

The next morning, I was mentally exhausted from the previous day’s negotiations, but not as tired as I would have expected. Between that, my more youthful appearance, and my ravenous appetite lately, I had a suspicion.

I docked with the old aircraft carrier and the androids ran cabling between the two ships so that I could control the powerful engines and shields of the big ship. I named the new ship (to me) the Phaunos, after the Greek God of the forests. With as much timber as I planned to haul to Karkalla, it was only fitting.

Six experienced and six new androids operated each ship. Within half an hour, all the new androids knew as much as the original ones. My androids had installed the three additional AIs in the new ship last night, and I named their merged personality Jaya.

Even though the merged AIs aboard the Cornucopia, and not the androids, came up with the designs for the new shields and the new jump drive, I claimed I did it because I didn’t want anyone else to start thinking about merging more AIs just yet. Besides, I intended to patent the designs in Karkalla, too.

It took a week to jump to each of my sixteen claimed planets and to set things up on each planet. At each planet, I dropped off a shuttle and androids to do a more detailed survey of the planet. The androids would set up claim beacons on each of my planets. I also dropped off the nine mining pods. On each planet receiving one or more mining pods, I left a shuttle and ten androids to set the pods up and operate them. Well, the androids didn’t operate the pods so much as they kept an eye on them.

The other thirty-eight androids were left on the planet I hoped to farm. They would plant each of the items that I currently sold, as well as guavas, pineapples, and papayas. They would also plant the date palm trees, and several other fruits that had previously taste-tested favorably. First, they would perform a detailed analysis of the soil, rainfall, sunshine, and weather to determine if the items would grow, and the best location or locations.

In the meantime, they would erect a shield and start plants to see how they fared there. Depending on the season and the weather, we might even have crops to harvest in a few months so we could test the flavor. Considering that the sun here was as bright as the sun for any other Terran planet I was confident they would.

Other androids would begin logging operations, determining what types of trees were on this planet as well as which were best for building and woodworking. Then they would begin cutting down those trees, replanting four trees for every tree they cut down.

Nine days behind schedule, I made it back to Earth to load all the produce I had ordered. It turned out that I would have been delayed anyway since the last loads only arrived an hour after I returned.

Once everything was loaded, I spent the exorbitant fee for a ship this large to use the intersystem gate to Terra Centauri. The government paid for the gates by charging according to the size of the vehicle so average citizens could afford to use the gates in their small shuttles.

On Terra Centauri, I picked up the last of my cargo, and bid my family goodbye. My grandfather being retired has its advantages. Since he was retired, Granddad had the time to track down and buy me twenty tons of the same chocolate bars that I took with me last time.

I didn’t want my name associated with the chocolate. I didn’t want my competitors to know the chocolate was for Karkalla, because I didn’t want anyone else to think about selling chocolate in Karkalla. They’d probably find out on their next trip there, but the soonest anyone else could find out, return to earth, and return to Karkalla would be at least two years from now, and only if the government let them buy a jump drive. Otherwise, it would be at least four years. I hoped to make more than thirty round-trips by then.

I was in transit back to Toolondo for the next seven days and worried nearly every waking moment. I couldn’t concentrate on the star chart for more than an hour. My books didn’t interest me, not even the new ones. The one thing that remained on my mind the entire trip was Tiyya. How upset would she be about the extra time it took me to return? I warned her it might take longer than I expected. Would she be worried that I might not come back? Was she as worried about me not returning, as I was worried that she wouldn’t be waiting for me when I got back?

I started each morning by watching the hologram of Tiyya approaching me for the first time. Each night I watched the final hologram of her watching me leave, tears in her eyes as her mother held her comfortingly.

I did manage to maintain my martial arts training, but only because my “caring” androids would begin practicing on me wherever I was if I refused, forcing me to defend myself or to take my lumps.

The androids and AIs were busy, too. If someone else came up with the idea and used the special loads for the rail guns against us, our own shields might be compromised. The androids built and installed a blended Terran/Karkallian shield, installing it to be the first line of defense. If the special rounds penetrated it, the second round would impact on our stronger shield, not the ship.

Assuming that others would also have the special rounds, and might think of using two shields, the androids re-worked the rounds to include two of the shield disrupters, allowing them to penetrate two shields. If there were no second shield, the second disrupter would fry any electronics grounded to the hull of the ship in an area about a hundred feet in diameter right before the explosive round detonated.

As soon as we finished the jump to Toolondo I informed the harbormaster that we were inbound and then commed Tiyya, getting a message:

This is Tiyya. I’m in class right now and have my com unit off. If this is Marc, I miss you so bad. I get out of class at 3:30. Leave me a message and I’ll meet you at the marketplace. It’s close to the school.

I’m glad the androids were controlling our approach to Toolondo. My vision was too blurry for a few minutes to see anything--happy blurry, but still blurry.

I left her a message on her com unit. “I’m back, and I missed you terribly. I’m sorry I was gone for so long. I can’t wait to see you and I’ll be at the marketplace office at 3:30.

When I could see again, I called the com unit for Yuka at the Kai’ka ship repair facility and left him a message. “This is Captain Marc Parker of the Terran ship Cornucopia. I plan to be on Toolondo for several days. When I finish, I have a nearly empty hull the size of your battleships. I need the ship set up to carry cargo, and need everything but shielding, jump drives, and an AI. I also have a business proposition for you to build and sell a better jump drive and better shield generator. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Then I commed the marketplace office and reserved ten stalls for tomorrow, along with all of the other things I rented last time. When I commed Yappari, the eager marketplace owner, he promised to would get word of my arrival out to everyone. One final call left the excitable fast-food vendor Nundoro even more excited.

The next three hours dragged by, but I could live with it knowing that Tiyya had waited for me while I was gone and still wanted me. Nothing else mattered. I got to the marketplace office fifteen minutes early. I didn’t expect Tiyya to get there early, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

I stopped by to see Nundoro and he showed me how much money he deposited into a local account he opened for me. In addition to selling what remained of my fruit, he bought some of the fruit himself, adding small pieces to each of the meals he served. He raised his prices to cover the added cost, but his business was still growing. He had opened a restaurant just outside the marketplace and it was open all the time, day, and night. Even with the new restaurant, his fast-food business in the marketplace was growing.

Nundoro now used four stalls in the marketplace, and planned to use eight tomorrow, hoping I would let him set up in the middle of my stalls again. I assured him it was fine. He warned me that his wife and daughter wanted to thank me for making his business so successful. He’d made more profit since my arrival here than he did for any four months last year. I warned him that his wife and daughter needed to clear it with Tiyya, getting a raised eyebrow in return.

I saw her before she saw me and hurried towards her. When she saw me, she squealed excitedly and ran towards me. We hugged and kissed, and kissed and hugged, and just held each other, happy to be together again. “Where’s your shuttle?” she finally asked, suddenly impatient to have some privacy. Ten minutes later the shuttle settled inside the ship. Our clothing had disappeared as soon as the shuttle hatch closed.

We were both gasping for breath after our third non-stop coupling. I couldn’t believe that I remained hard after coming twice, but I sure wasn’t complaining.

“What happened, you look so much younger?” she asked when she finally caught her breath.

“Do your people use nanites, or nanobots?” I asked.

“Of course, doesn’t everyone?” she replied.

“Terrans aren’t that advanced, yet,” I explained.

“Then, how did you get them?” she asked.

“From you, on our first night together. I ate ravenously the next morning, and every day after that. I also felt better each day than the previous day. At first, I just thought it was due to infatuation with you. I didn’t even think about it again until my family commented that I looked ten years younger than when I left.”

“But, our scientists said they couldn’t be transferred from one person to another,” she protested.

“Did those scientists work for the company that invented them?” I asked. “If people knew they could be transferred, nobody would have to buy them anymore, and the company wouldn’t make any more money.”

Then I got the star chart out and showed Tiyya the planets I had claimed for mining and exploitation of other resources, and the one I claimed for logging and agriculture. She gasped when I told her how much the government paid me for the territory I sold to them, even though I could have made hundreds of trillions of Terran Dollars over the rest of my life by selling or leasing land on various planets.

She was stunned by how much chocolate I brought. The government had already approved it but didn’t plan to go public with the news until I brought more. They did stipulate that I could only sell it to women.

She was also excited about the new ship. “Can you make your cabin bigger so we can have a bigger bed?” she asked excitedly. Leave it to a woman to have her priorities straight.

“And a bigger bathroom, with a bigger shower so we can shower together more comfortably,” I said.

“Can you make the shower big enough for five or six people?” she asked coyly.

“Six...” I gasped, stunned. “I think three women are plenty on any given night. I might let you try three friends a couple of times and see if I survive,” I suggested.

“But, it will take a year for all of my friends to spend a night with us,” she protested. “Besides, if you increase how much sex you have, the nanites will work to increase your stamina, as well as help you stay hard and produce more ejaculate faster,” she told me. She’d definitely thought about this while I was gone, even though she didn’t know about the new ship.

“Oh, Mom commed and invited you to dinner,” she added as an afterthought.

“I don’t really have anything but work clothes to wear,” I warned.

“I know. I checked your closet and drawers last time to see what you had. I had your androids give me your measurements the night before you left, and had clothes made for you,” she said nonchalantly.

“Wasn’t that expensive?” I asked.

“It didn’t cost a thing. The father of one of my friends is a tailor and gladly made the clothes in exchange for one of the melons you left me. He even sold half of the melon and made more money than he spent on the material,” she chuckled.

We showered before heading for her home. It felt good just to hold her in the shower, to feel her bare, wet skin under my hands.

I gasped when I saw her home; the place was a fucking mansion! Realizing that her father had to be filthy rich, I was glad that I was well on my way to being rich, too.

Zalika met us at the door and gave me a kiss that revived the erection her daughter had killed earlier. I was surprised when Tiyya’s younger sister Nafisa gave me an equally rod-hardening kiss, getting surprised looks from both her mother and Tiyya.

After giving her mother the basket filled with fruit, Tiyya took me to her room so I could change. The pants were the most comfortable pants I had ever worn. I had to laugh when she told me there was no shirt. She did have a vest made, one that seemed meant to emphasize that I wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Why are you so determined to have me not wear a shirt?” I asked. “I told you that I don’t want or need other women. It just means that I’ll have to refuse the ones who ask me,” I explained.

“Would you do it for me?” she asked.

“Why?” I queried in return.

“You came back to me,” she said emotionally, her voice catching. “I know what I mean to you now. The other women will just be fun. I’ve heard many women talking about you and wishing they could meet your wives so they could join you in bed for a night. The more women you bed, the more prestigious it is for me,” she explained. I wasn’t even going to try to figure out the convoluted logic in that statement.

“She’s right,” Zalika agreed from the doorway, startling me. “Marile tried all day after your first night together to convince Tiyya that she couldn’t really be in love with you after just one night. Marile changed her mind after joining the two of you. I was worried that Terran men gave off some sort of pheromone that attracted our women after both girls fell for you. After the night I spent with you, I understand why they feel that way. You were attentive to them, you spoiled them, and you considered their pleasure before yours. In addition, you are taller than our men, handsome, and you have the allure of being a foreigner,” she explained.

“Tiyya and I both see in your eyes how you feel about her. She even went to a Dubanian seer to confirm that you two would marry. Tiyya knows you may find other women that you want to add as wives and she already plans on you having several wives, although Marile is the only one she knows of right now.

“Those men who are able to afford it usually have a second wife. For some reason, we have ten women for every nine men in our society. That means some men have more than one wife, or many women couldn’t get married. In addition, some of the available men don’t make good husbands. They may be too lazy to hold a job that pays enough to support a family, or they may be abusive. That makes even fewer good husbands available to the women,” she concluded.

“I don’t understand it, I’ll never understand it, and I refuse to even try to understand it anymore,” I told Tiyya, throwing my arms up in surrender. “If you will be happier if I have sex with other women, then I’ll do what makes you happy,” I agreed.

I wasn’t against other women in our bed, far from it. However, my feelings for Tiyya were much stronger than anything I had felt for any other woman, and I didn’t want to screw anything up.

Annabelle had been my serious girlfriend starting when I was nineteen. She also enjoyed sex with women and brought a new woman to our bed almost every week. We dated for almost two years, and I was ready to propose. Days after my twenty-first birthday, I used my accumulated savings and a large gift from a family trust fund to put a sizeable down payment on a large, but older freighter and began hauling ore from offworld mines to offworld smelters.

My great-great-great-grandfather Parker had established the trust fund at the time he settled here. Any family member who purchased and captained a spaceship received funding. If they sold the ship without buying another, however, what the trust paid had to be returned to the trust.

Even before I made the second payment on the loan, the planet Lochnagar attacked earth, although I’m not sure that it really qualified as an attack. They were far behind us technologically, and their best technology was antiquated technology they bought from us.

Ships filled with four million Lochnagari Marines tried to sneak in using their Terran-purchased cloaking. What they didn’t realize was that the cloaking they bought from us was old gen-1 cloaking. At the time, all of our civilian ships used gen-2 cloaking, and military ships used gen-4 cloaking and could readily spot gen-1 and gen-2 cloaking.

Earth’s outer perimeter of defensive probes saw their ships a month before they arrived, and our navy positioned itself to ambush them. When they sprang the ambush, the Lochnagari refused to surrender. Even when they realized that the weapons they’d bought from us were ineffective against our ships, they continued fighting. They fought to the last man. Many of their ships were destroyed, but some hulls were repairable. I was conscripted and assigned to haul one of the derelict hulls back to Mir-11 for repair and retrofit, or to determine if it needed to be scrapped.

Using hyperdrive, the trip to their planet took our military ships seven days rather than the two years it took the Lochnagari ships to reach us. Using our cloaking, we were able to land our troops without them even knowing our ships were there. The battle to seize the planet should have been swift and relatively bloodless. Once again, though, the Lochnagari men insisted on fighting us. It took three months to subjugate the planet.

We learned that Lochnagari men are naturally aggressive. Fights frequently broke out between two Lochnagari defenders, even when they were under attack. With their men being so aggressive, we couldn’t leave them on the planet or they would cause trouble again, so every surviving able-bodied Lochnagari male was sent to work in offworld mines. The average life expectancy for Terran convicts in those mines is five years. It was much less for the Lochnagari men since they still constantly fought each other.

Their women, however, were naturally submissive and actually needed a dominant male to direct them. With no able men left on the planet, the Terran government began two separate programs to alleviate the problem. First, Terran men who volunteered--both men with and without families--were shipped to the planet to keep it functioning, and to start the process that would eventually bring it up to Terran standards.

Secondly, the government transported billions of Lochnagari women to Terran planets. Technically, they were slaves, but most of them quickly became an integral part of the family that purchased them.

I was still at Mir-11 in orbit around Earth. After hauling the derelict hull back, I was getting routine maintenance done on my ship when the government began the two programs. They pressed every available large civilian cargo ship into service to haul Terrans to Lochnagar and to haul Lochnagari women to Terran planets. Every ship they pressed into service was originally designed for use in-system and didn’t have or need hyperdrive engines for that. That’s how I ended up with hyperdrive engines on my first ship; the government paid for them.

Since I was already at Mir-11, my ship was the first to be fitted with hyperdrive engines. I made twenty-three trips back and forth shuttling Terrans to Lochnagar and Lochnagari women to Terran planets. Rather than pay us cash, the government allowed us to keep ten percent of our “cargo.” Since we couldn’t keep ten percent of the Terran passengers we hauled to Lochnagar we got to keep additional Lochnagari women equal to ten percent of the Terrans we hauled there. Since I hauled fifty thousand Lochnagari women each trip, and ten thousand Terran settlers going to Lochnagar, each round trip netted me six thousand Lochnagari women.