Chapter 2: Tiptoe Through The Tulips

It had been a long trip and Helva’s crew and passengers were ready for a break on a planet - especially a planet as beautiful from orbit as was Azahar.

Helva had been with The Good Ship Lollipop - Lolli to her crew and friends - when the two ships had returned their loaner crews to Nova Roma along with the thousands of new colonists promised as compensation for the loan of the two crews. During that portion of the voyage, Lolli and Helva had made several ports of call en route, and the time was used to sort out those extracted for Harrad Colony’s new Merchant Academy.

Helva and Inkie had also been tasked with fulfilling a promise. A contingent of graduates, cadets, and faculty from the two extracted merchant marine academies wanted to train with Confederacy technology, then return to Earth and fight the Swarm from sunken redoubts. Azahar was the colony where such training was available, and Helva was making that delivery along with two specialists requisitioned from and extracted by the Office of Targeted Extractions.

Helva’s crew quarters and modified passenger pods had been a little crowded, but now Inkie and the rest of Helva’s crew could look forward to stretching out during their landfall. There would be plenty of room while voyaging to catch up to Lolli.

Because Inkie and Helva had been charged with additional tasks, they planned to be in orbit for several days,.

As was becoming the norm for Harrad Colony’s two ships, they used Dora’s prior scans for suitable CAP scores. They were to acquire any inhabitants of the local colony’s brothel possessing a desired score - if the colony was willing to release them.

They were also charged with investigating a phenomenon*, discovered during Dora’s earlier search of CAPs, that was not fully understood.

<No Freaking Way! AI, how the heck did you miss this?> The tall dark man was livid.

<I did not miss anything. No one asked, > came the AI’s response. <The whole discussion was about who would be extracted with him, not who was a sponsor.>

<So now we have nine sponsors, all refusing to take concubines, and we committed to extracting them all without reservations... > He lowered his head into his hands. <This nanite idea was soooo stupid.>

<Do you think they were trying to put one over on us?> he eventually raised his head and asked the AI. <I can’t see why they would, but I have to ask.>

<No, they were telling the truth as they knew it, > answered the AI. <All the ladies were very close to a sponsor’s CAP when they met him. That must have been a factor that made them so compatible.>

<Preteens! Mister ‘Sees Patterns’ and his ladies want to take their quota in preteens. Not only that, he’s negotiating for a four-to-one ratio! Fifty-six kids between ten and thirteen. He has to be crazy. Are we sure he isn’t a pedophile?>

<You saw his sub-scores. Not a chance, > the AI responded.

Inkie reviewed the recorded scene yet another time. For a reason or reasons Dora had not been able to find, the name and CAP of ‘Mister Sees Patterns’ remained unknown and undiscoverable. She was pondering again how she was to proceed when Helva announced, <Little Love, you have an incoming call from a Martha Grayson. My records indicate that she is the planetary governor.>

Consulting her implant for the governor’s local time, Inkie opened the connection, and said, “Good morning, Governor Grayson. How may I be of service?”

“Good morning to you as well,” responded the pleasant-voiced woman whose hologram appeared. “I answer to Martha rather than Governor.” She smiled. “You could help by calming the ravening hoard of preteens, teens, and seemingly adults who started calling me within hours of your arrival in system. It seems they want a concert.”

Inkie blinked, but before she could respond, Martha continued, “And there is an individual of some importance to our research centers who asked that I obtain a meeting with you. He did not give a subject.”

“If you could oblige me in both areas, I would be more than grateful and could return to sanity and my work.”

“I’m amenable to both,” agreed Inkie. “I’m tasked with a mission that may require some assistance, but that can wait until your freedom is obtained. How many concerts are needed to ensure everyone who wishes may attend one?”

*Author’s note: Background for this segment may be found in the story Don’t Blame Me! http://storiesonline.net/s/13564/dont-blame-me

As it happened, four concerts were needed. Martha and her family attended the first. The governor was sufficiently impressed that she attended another one.

The second matter was almost anti-climatic. Instead of an individual, a phalanx of eight women transported aboard Helva. When a rather nondescript man also arrived, the ladies formed up around him and became his escort to the meeting. Inkie had planned to welcome her visitor upon arrival, but decided differently when he arrived with a cadre.

She moved to Helva’s wardroom and asked Helva to don an avatar and join her.

Within a moment, a graceful wave of beauty entered, parted, and allowed their man to step forward. He spoke, “Mistress Inkie and Mistress Helva, I greet you. I must ask - are you aware of me as an individual?”

“I both see and hear you,” Inkie responded. “Why do you ask?” She already had her suspicions but wanted confirmation.

“Until a nanite fiasco helped these ladies find me, women ignored me for my whole life - even my mother. Now they and our daughters - and apparently, you - can see me. As far as I know, you are the only woman outside my family who knows I’m alive and standing in front of them. Even Governor Grayson ‘sees’ me through an AI. We don’t understand the phenomenon, but it is very real.”

“But, then, I’m wrong, am I not?” he asked turning to Helva’s avatar. “How long since you wakened, my dear Helva?”