Chapter 14

24 YAL

“So Mom’s pregnant,” Zuri said.

I looked at my sister in surprise as I climbed down from the crouching factotum. “You knew?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course. She never does anything without a plan.”

Returning to the intimacy of family allowed me to forget my new responsibilities for a long time. Fear of command was replaced with the immediate task of raising Hotene and Ananya, thoughts of the immensity of our voyage and my responsibility for it subsumed by the simple act of waking up each morning with Zuri in my arms, the girls beside me, and choosing where to walk.

But I was unable to escape my awareness of the world beneath the world. I could no longer see Longshot as I did when I was a child: everywhere, just under the surface, was the flow of data, the constant observation and maintenance of Ship.

I spent more time in evoc conversation with Mother and diving in a takamakura, learning the complexities of the habitat: studying the never-entirely-resolved problem areas of the river system that constantly needed dredging, delving into the ticking nuclear hearts of the clocks that kept us on course, trying to grasp the complex interconnected mesh of Longshot’s ecosystems. Slowly, steadily, I began to understand our world for what it truly was.

I had been aware of my mother’s approach since she’d left the city, but it was Hotene who spotted her emerging from of a golden field of wild wheat, a factotum following in long strides. “Grandma!”

The children scrambled around her as she smiled, reaching down to touch their heads. A small round shape nestled in a wrap-around sling gave a soft, whimpering cry as it squirmed against her breast.

It had been a year since my visit to the city. We’d all wanted to be present for the delivery, but my mother had forbidden it. For whatever reason, birth continued to be something she felt she had to do by herself.

Zuri and I joined our children, kissing our mother in welcome as we peeked inside the sling.

“You were close by,” she said. “I decided to walk. It reminded me of the times I was with you.”

Hotene was jumping up and down impatiently. “Show us! Show us!”

“Shhh.” Zuri said. “She’s sleeping.”

“Here.” Mother lowered herself into a crouch. The children clustered close around the baby she cradled in her arms, cooing at her cute broad nose, curly dark hair and glossy brown skin. “Her name is Kirra,” she said softly. “She’s Barrinean Australid.”

“She’s beautiful,” Hotene whispered, extending her hand over the infant’s head. Zuri and I held our breath — Hotene was unpredictable at the best of times, and still didn’t know her own strength — only relaxing when she touched the baby’s light cap of fine black hair with surprising grace and tenderness.

“Is she our sister?” Ananya asked.

Zuri looked at each other, then at our mother.

“She is,” Mother said with a soft smile. “Every child born here will be your sister.”

“I like that.” I hugged my eldest daughter gently against my side.

“Will you be staying with us, Grandma? For real?” Hotene asked hopefully. To both our children, but Hotene in particular, Mother had become an almost mythical figure, a woman who wielded power across the ship like a colossus.

“I will, child. At least until Kirra weans.”

So, for a time, things were as much as they had been when we were children. Mother’s figure quickly regained tone and strength as she walked with us, carrying Kirra nestled against her breast; Ananya and Hotene experienced growing up with an infant, learning how it was fed and cared for.

Which is not to say that everything was the same.

“Fuck yessss,” Zuri hissed as I eased her wetness down onto my shaft.

The factotums could produce rope very quickly. A few meters of it bound my sister’s arms tightly behind her back, while another length bowed behind both of her knees, pulling them up to her shoulders to keep her legs apart.

Zuri had discovered kinbaku-bi while diving a year ago and had immediately suggested that I use it on her. She enjoyed the rope’s texture against her skin and appreciated the decorative patterns it made where it bound her, but she’d responded most to how it made her feel with me, especially when she was positioned like this. Sitting beneath her, I could hold her rope-wrapped body easily in my arms, raising and lowering her on my cock at will. Utterly helpless, she had no choice but to take everything I gave her ... and that fact drove her wild.

For the previous half hour, I’d been teasing her clit as she whimpered on the grass, fighting her need to wriggle closer to the sensations. The rope was soft but smart: the more she struggled, the tighter her bondage became, and the more firmly she was held in place. When her clit had become an aching little nub that couldn’t take a moment more, I’d moved to fucking her.

Zuri moaned as I stroked her up and down on my cock, her taut muscles twitching beneath the white rope, which squealed softly as it contracted in response to her uncontrollable writhing. She’d asked me repeatedly to include a loop around her throat, but I’d drawn a firm line at that.

As I moved Zuri faster as her teeth gritted, a thin scream wavering up and down as I continued to deny her an orgasm. Wetness slid from within the dark, flushed pink of her cunt in long sticky strings, running down the column of my shaft as I raised her squirming body in the air once more, balancing just a fraction of my cock inside her.

“Oh, please, oh pleasepleaseplease...” Zuri whimpered, her inner muscles squeezing the head of my cock, desperately trying to draw me back in. Beads of sweat rolled down her skin, following the curves of rope.

“Hold it for me ... hold it...”

“Uhhhhh...” The cords in her neck tightened as Zuri threw her head back, squeezing her eyes shut as she fought to dam her incipient orgasm.

“Now...” I commanded, slamming her down on me.