Chapter 14: The Name of the Roses

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.”

- Juliet Capulet, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii

As Lieutenant William Whitefeather left his quarters, he could hear the four concubines still squealing in delight over the news of Lisa’s pregnancy. According to the AI, it was going to be a boy. He considered naming his first child after his own Grandfather Mark, a warm-hearted and decent man who loved all children. The old man would have appreciated the gesture.

Yes, tonight was promising to be a fun night. His concubines were likely to try to fuck him to death.

When he got down to the main collections room for his end of the Aurora, he found a state of chaos reigning. The lieutenant – the LOO-tenant – was on the verge of exhaustion and it looked like no organization existed whatsoever.

Whitefeather subvocally commanded the AI to amplify his voice. The bass voice in his ear didn’t sound typical of any AI he’d interfaced with before, but at that moment he didn’t have time to do more than note the fact.

“What’s the hold up?” blasted into everyone’s eardrums. “Every concubine and every dependent is to shut up and SIT DOWN NOW.”

The tumult stopped briefly and then started up once again, only louder than before – this mob had the discipline of a class of ADHD kindergarteners on a morning-after-Halloween sugar rush.

Two concubines had turned to him, and then loudly resumed their argument.

“Those two idiots! AI, the two concubines standing right bloody there, shine a spotlight on them. Where are their sponsors!”

“Here!” a voice squeaked. An impossibly young boy of maybe 14 – he’d have to be at least that, but he definitely looked no older – stuck his hand up. He was trying to calm both down with noticeably little impact.

“Get them under control NOW! They’re YOUR PROPERTY. Shut them up or space them.” Whitefeather on the warpath was guaranteed to put fear into almost anyone and combined with having themselves illuminated by a single shaft of light finally got through to the disputatious duo. All three stared at him in horror as he added, “If YOU cannot, I WILL. Any stupid bloody questions?”

“No, Sir!” the lad responded, coming to something approximating attention. He frantically turned and began gesticulating. The two still-angry women sullenly sat on the floor.

Whitefeather walked over to the two Confederacy Marines. “Have their pod AI keep an eye on that group. Next step?” he demanded, after receiving salutes – even the lieutenant in nominal charge reacted instinctively to Whitefeather’s highly-honed sense of command.

“Sir,” the sergeant reported, “we need to get the sponsors to give us their CAP cards and tell us what medical issues they have, then have them hustle their concubines off to medical for emergency treatments, general health checks and nanite loads. And the sponsors get their subvocal communications links there. We drop these cards into these slots here.” He pointed to a set of slots running along the far wall of the room.

Whitefeather nodded. “OK, spread ourselves out into a receiving line, each by a slot. We’ll take them as they come. By the way, nobody’s yet told me what ship I’m on.”

A mixture of surprise, alarm and annoyance flicked across both Marines’ faces. “Sir,” the sergeant offered, “nobody can pronounce them. They’re not Fleet, they insist they’re under contract to the Confederacy.”

Whitefeather’s eyebrows rose high. “‘They?’ There’s more than one?”

“Sir, there’s two. This one and its, ah, friend. It should be announcing itself right about...”

A bass voice spoke up. “Greetings, Leftenant William Whitefeather. I am T’klikt Clan Trading Vessel T’kliktguul, of the Tuull of Tuullat. I am accompanied by the T’klikt Clan Trading Vessel T’klikrooz of the Tuull of Tuullat.”

“ ... now,” the sergeant finished bleakly.

The trills and whistles of the proper pronunciation of T’kliktguul’s name meant nothing to Whitefeather, any more than it did to any other human. “OK, we’ll deal with the name issue later. Right now, we need to get this mob into medical checks and bedded down. It’s taking too much time as it is.”

For the next hour or so, Whitefeather and the other Marines hustled the new enlistees and their concubines to the next step in the process.

All four of his girls were in full happiness mode when Whitefeather returned to their pod. His first stop was to the replicator.

“Five champagne flutes, filled with ginger ale,” he requested. In seconds, the opening held the requested libations, which he gallantly handed around.

“To our first child. Just the first of many, let him grow surrounded by love and respect. Let us each be a good example to him, so that he matures into a man his peers can admire.”

“Our first child,” the rest responded, clinking their glasses together.

Lisa’s face was red, and her eyes were glistening with moisture. “So you’re not upset? I know you asked us to use birth control, but I hadn’t been on it. I hadn’t had a boyfriend, and there was nobody in sight, and I’d promised my mother that I wouldn’t ... y’know... ‘do it’ on a casual date, so I didn’t see the need for it.” She shrugged. “So, I wasn’t on the Pill.”

“I’ve known you were pregnant since the training session we had in the Rockies,” William advised her. “If I were upset, I’d have taken steps long ago.” He wrapped his arms around her, and dried her tears. “I just wanted to pick the right time to tell you.” The kiss he gave her was deep and long and full of love, and soon had her groping for the seal of his uniform overall.

Some hours later, as Lisa and Della used their tongues to clean his spendings off each other’s thighs, William’s feelings of contentment were interrupted by the pod AI. “T’kliktguul has a message for Leftenant William Whitefeather.”

William’s eyebrows rose at the wording. “Put him through.”

T’kliktguul’s pleasant bass came through. “Leftenant William Whitefeather, my current Master and Commander, Captain Ratimir Doroshenko, requests the honour of your presence at a late-night cocktail reception this evening at four bells on the first watch, or twenty-two hundred hours, in Forward Mess Hall Three. Dress for sponsors is full dress. Each sponsor is encouraged to bring two concubines with them, and dress for concubines is either the concubine shift or nude, although footwear if any is at the sponsor’s discretion.”

“What is the current ship’s time?”

“Three bells on the last dog watch, or nineteen-thirty hours. The Confederacy Navy keeps Zulu time,” T’kliktguul advised William.

“Very well. Do I have a full-dress uniform?”

“Affirmative,” responded the pod AI in its much more mechanical voice. “Leftenant William Whitefeather’s full-dress uniform is located in the clothing locker of the master bedroom.”

The uniform wasn’t the coveralls he had been wearing earlier, but the Prussian-collared full-dress uniform in forest green worn by the Confederacy Marines, complete with Sam Browne belt. The epaulettes bore the bars of a full lieutenant. Apparently, Whitefeather decided to himself, he must have graduated from recruit school.

He turned around from preening himself before the mirror to find two of his concubines looking at him, pride and lust commingled in their eyes. Lisa and Della were by now sound asleep, exhausted by their endeavours.

“Every girl’s crazy for a sharp-dressed man,” Judy smirked. She looked at her sister concubines who lay drowsing on the bed. “So, Callie and I are going, then?”

“Yes, both of you.”

Judy’s smile of happiness lasted for all of two seconds when William instructed the AI, “Two pair of sandals, please. One in Callie’s size, one in Judy’s.”

“Leftenant William Whitefeather, two pair of sandals will be waiting in the replicator in five minutes.”

Judy gulped, hoping that the request for a shift was just delayed, but fearing the worst. “What should we wear?”

“Sandals,” William nodded happily.

“And?”

“Oh, a smile. Yours is lovely. You should wear it more often.”

The look of horrified panic on Judy’s face was complemented by the look of wry amusement on Callie’s.

“What?” William demanded. “I like what I got, and I want to show off. And I can hardly do that when you’re wearing those hideous shift things. All four of my ladies are far too lovely for me to cover any of you up in that – it would be cruel.” He kissed her forehead. “Cruel to me.” He kissed her again. “Cruel to my shipmates.” He kissed her a third time. “And cruel to you.”