Chapter 7: Who Are You

Watches are set according to Mark’s watch schedule. If something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, is a good policy. Everybody is in cryo-stasis except Mei, Maarta, and one of the new moms, Billi who dots the I in her name with a little heart above it instead of a dot. And me of course.

Why am I still rattling around the huge sleeping empty hulk of a ship? Worry. We already had an emergency course change within mere hours after sling shotting around the gas giant onto the course Karen plotted for us. I trust Karen and I’m grateful she is our Astro-navigator. Flotsom is our lookout. She detected the dark matter we had to avoid with a sudden swerve and I’m grateful for her ability to see the stuff ... The star system we just departed where Buzzy’s people live, we named BLACK SACK, because it’s nearly surrounded by dark matter. We won’t forget our experiences there, for a long time. Meredith wrote a lurid account for history.

There is a lot of dark matter in this region and maybe that’s typical of everywhere. Feeling our way between the masses of dark matter, makes me think of an old sailing ship feeling her way through shoals and reefs. A sailing ship’s captain would be awake and alert at such a time, and so am I.

Reading the manifest of passengers in cryo, there aren’t any surprises. Just the off watch crew, Mark and Flotsam in nearly permanent stasis, and a million human embryos. There are animal embryos as well. Horses, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, deer, rabbits, kangaroos, dogs, cats, and donkeys. Live functioning awake creatures on board, include aquariums of fish and crabs, shrimp and lobsters, and and water plants like kelp and water cress. We also tend chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks, and emu. We use their eggs and eventually their meat. The seafoods are harvested for the table as well. Sustainable populations are always maintained alive.

Hydroponic tanks produce vegetables, fruits, and herbs, but there are seeds, root cuttings, and bulbs for many other plants and trees.

Mark planned well, for the most part. The four young women he brought along with their young children, he planned impregnating during the voyage, but didn’t before he went in the deep freeze. I can’t impregnate anyone, never could. Never did. Kinda sad about that.

However, recreational sex, that I can accomplish and am accomplished at. And thanks to my cyborg body, I can encore as often as any of the ladies want. The three on watch now, are very demanding of my attentions. The only one I truly love, of the three, is Mei. Give it some time, I could learn to love the other two. Maarta is a very loving woman. She can eat crackers in my bed without my complaining. Maarta is a little thick in the body, but plumpness never bothered me. I like a woman to be well upholstered. Skin and bones? Not so attractive. Healthy looking is most attractive.

Billi is shy at first, but when she sees how uninhibited Maarta is and with an elegant style, Mei is just as exuberant, Billi makes her bid.

“Are you planning to keep us company during our complete forty eight hour watch, Gruncle Iron?”

“Yes, and for the entire ten days of the first watch cycle.”

“Won’t you get tired and sleepy?”

“That is one of the things I intend to learn about myself, testing this new self. If I do feel drowsy, then I’ll take a nap.”