Chapter 8

The MSS Ingram drifted silently above the planet Earth, 650 kilometers above the cloud tops, completing one orbit every 93 minutes. The ultra-modern ship was 75 meters long with a beam of 15 meters. Its fusion engines were currently at idle, doing no more than providing power for the life support systems, the computers, and the temperature regulation system. The ship was constructed of radar absorbent materials that prevented even the smallest of returns from that antiquated detection system. The temperature regulation system-one of the most advanced on any ship in the solar system-kept the hull temperature at a constant, neutral level that would not show up on any active or passive infrared detection system. In short, Ingram was a stealth platform, an invisible shadow being pulled in endless circles over the Earth. It had been circling the planet more than a week now, actually below the EastHem and WestHem orbiting cities and naval bases. The Earthlings had no idea it was there, and would not have believed it was possible for a Martian ship to approach their planet so closely.

Crewed with 45 Martian naval personnel and 25 members of the Martian Military Intelligence department, Ingram's mission was intelligence and espionage. The outside of its hull (the Martians did not refer to their ships as "he" or "she," just "it") bristled with passive sensors that pulled in and recorded every electromagnetic frequency in every known spectrum. These sensors collected radio waves, digital signals, even communications lasers, as they were beamed back and forth between ground stations, orbital platforms, and relay satellites. Inside the ship itself, computers running decryption programs years more advanced than what Earth mathematicians and engineers could even dream of, worked around the clock decoding these signals and putting them into readable form. The Earthlings would have been quite surprised to learn that the Martians they held in such contempt were able to access almost anything sent from place to place or stored in a database somewhere. Only the most secure government and corporate sites were hidden from them, and this was only because accessing such places would be detectable, not because it couldn't be done.

Julie Dittmeyer was a member of the Intelligence crew. Her designation was that of "Field Operative," which meant she was an expert in Earthling language annunciation and had been specially trained to operate covertly in WestHem or EastHem society. Like most employed Martians, she took her job seriously and was very good at what she did. She could fit in anywhere on Earth or on the Earth space colonies and fool the inhabitants into thinking she was a native. In the course of her four year career as an operative she had made seven covert trips to Earth, posing as a military officer, a prostitute, an accountant, a police officer, and even a Baptist minister on one memorable occasion. Not once had her true identity been detected or even suspected.

As the Ingram approached the west coast of South Africa on its 107th orbit of this special mission, Julie was strapped into an exercise machine, going through the dull rigor of her required daily physical workout. Unlike most other spaceships, both civilian and military, stealth platforms were not equipped with artificial gravity or inertial damping since the heat and electromagnetic waves created would destroy the stealth effect. This meant the men and women who crewed them were forced to live for several months at a time in either zero gravity or the extremely low gravity that came from acceleration. Because of this, physical exercise was mandatory to keep the muscles and vital organs from atrophy. Dressed in a tight pair of cotton shorts and a see-through athletic brassiere, she was twenty-five minutes into the workout and sweating freely, the drops beading up on her skin and occasionally breaking free to float about the room until the ventilation system captured them and sucked them in. She had the windowless workout room all to herself at the moment-a rare instance of privacy on the crowded vessel-and, as such, she had the Internet system set to a music station and cranking out the tunes at top volume. She sang along with one of the more popular Martian tunes, her arms and legs pulling and pushing the hydraulic resistance bars to the beat.

She looked up in annoyance as the music suddenly cut out, overridden by the ship's intercom system. Her annoyance increased when her name was mentioned in the announcement.

"Dittmeyer," came the voice of Ron Sampson, the commander of the Intelligence contingent, "get your cute little ass to ICC on the double."

"Fuckhead," she muttered under her breath, letting the exercise machine return slowly to the neutral position. She looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, open com link to Sampson."

"Fuckin' aye," the computer replied. "Link is open."

"Ron, this is Julie," she said, still looking at the ceiling. "How important is this shit? I'm doing my workout right now. Can it wait a few?"

"Can't wait, Sweet Cunt," he told her, using a term of endearment he'd given her when they used to fuck each other a few months earlier. "I've got an assignment for you. Just towel off and get your ass on up here."

"Fuckin' aye," she told him with a sigh. "I guess you're used to seeing me all sweaty, ain't ya?"

"I guess I am," he said with a laugh. "See you in a few."

She disengaged herself from the machine and allowed her body to drift up into the air. She spun around so she was facing the front of the room and then kicked off the wall with her feet, propelling herself toward her water bottle and her towel. She picked up the former and had a long drink of the cool water before picking up the latter and toweling the sweat from her smooth skin. She stowed both in her workout bag and then kicked off the wall again, propelling herself over to the hatch and the ladder that led upward.

Unlike a conventional spaceship, which was oriented towards fore and aft like a seagoing ship, a stealth ship was oriented up and down, like a stationary building. Because of this design feature the crew was able to take advantage of the meager gravity produced when the ship was under acceleration, and actually stand on the floor or sit in a chair or climb up and down the ladders between decks instead of being pushed constantly backward. Currently the ship was not under acceleration, of course, so instead of climbing the ladder, Julie simply used her arms to pull herself to the next deck. She continued upward, moving through five more decks, passing sailors going about their daily tasks and a few of her colleagues going about theirs. Most gave a friendly wave and a smile to her as she passed. The crew of the Ingram, as on most stealth ships, was small enough to be like family. Finally she reached the level just below the command bridge. Here, next to the tiny wardroom, was the larger intelligence command center, the only restricted portion on the entire ship.

She put her finger on the computer pad and the door slid open, revealing a soundproof room, ten by ten meters, completely packed with computer terminals and monitoring devices. About half of the intelligence team were currently at work behind those terminals, most staring intently at whatever they were tracking, some speaking softly to their computers. A large computer monitor was mounted at the front of the room. It was currently showing a view of the planetary surface below, along with a collection of digital clocks displaying current time for various portions of the planet. Near the rear of the room, at a desk that was slightly elevated above everything else, sat Ron Sampson. He was a good-looking man of primarily African descent. His head was shaved bald and his only clothing was a pair of green shorts that barely covered his genitals. He was strapped loosely into his chair by Velcro fasteners to keep from drifting upward.

"Hey, Sweet Cunt," he hailed as Julie drifted over the top of the other team members and settled down in the chair next to his.

"Hey, Stubby Cock," she returned, a sweet smile on her face. She knew that particular nickname irritated him to no end.

"It may be stubby," he told her, "but I've never had any complaints about its functionality, have I?"

She had to admit he was right, of course. She had fucked him numerous times since being assigned to his team the year before and even by Martian standards, he was extremely good at sexuality. He could move his fat, stubby cock in such a way that made it seem centimeters longer than it actually was. He was especially good at zero gravity fucking, an activity that was the main means of off-duty entertainment when assigned to a stealth ship. "No," she told him. "You really haven't. In fact, maybe you could give me another sample of it after watch tonight, just so I can make sure?"

"I'd love to," he said, "but I've been invited to a zero-G botch party with the Engineering Department tonight. Besides, I think you're gonna be a little busy studying your new identity to make use of any appendages."

This was the signal that the raunchy formalities of the meeting had come to an end and it was time to talk business. In typical Martian fashion, Julie turned immediately serious and assigned her complete attention to the discussion at hand. "You found something we can use down there?"

"We think so," he told her, his own expression becoming serious as well. "Ever since Governor Brown activated Operation Counterdrop, we've been searching for some way to get someone close to one of the WestHem scientists involved in their Lemondrop project. As you know, it's absolutely vital that we find out exactly what they plan to do when they activate that reactor. If we don't know the specific details, we won't be able to counter it."

"Which means we're going to have to get someone to loosen his or her lips," she said. "Is there someone on the team who might be inclined to do that?"

"Maybe," he said. "We've been scouring through Internet records ever since we established orbit. We've looked into everything available about every known scientist on the team. Several weaknesses have turned up that we may be able to exploit. You're going to go after one of the most promising ones. Of course, for security reasons, I won't tell you anything about the others."

"Of course," she said. "What's mine? Are we talking ideology, money, or sex as the motivating factor?"

"Sex."

She smiled, letting the serious expression slip just a bit. "Ahhh, the most enjoyable way to work a contact. Who is he?"

"He is a she actually," Ron said. "Computer, open file on Dr. Amanda Hesper."

"Fuckin' aye," the computer replied. A second later a female face appeared on the screen before them. It was a face that could have been pretty had its owner tried to make it so. The eyes were bright, the nose small and aristocratically pointed, the lips narrow and tight. The hair that framed this face was long but was pulled back into a tight, conservative bun right out of the early twenty-first century. An Earthling word-"nerd"-came immediately to mind when one looked at the photograph.

"This is my mark?" Julie asked, her trained memory taking in all the details.

"This is your mark," Ron confirmed. "Amanda Hester. Forty earth years old. Employed by Sythro Laboratories Incorporated and assigned a top secret security clearance by the WestHem government. She holds a doctoral degree in quantum physics and has been identified as a primary member of the WestHem Lemondrop team. In the past four years she has made three trips to their deep space research station where the reactor is being built. The probability that she would know the details we need in order to successfully pull off Counterdrop is rated as extremely high."

"I see," Julie said. "And you have reason to believe she might be inclined to spill those details to me?"

"We have reason to believe that," he said. "We've determined that Hesper is a lesbian."

Julie nodded. "In the closet I assume?" Society in both WestHem and EastHem tended to endlessly cycle through periods of liberalism and conservatism in regard to sexuality and interpersonal relationships. These cycles were approximately forty to fifty years long and in constant opposition among the two halves of the planet. Currently, as was well known by the Martian intelligence services, EastHem was in a wildly liberal state and WestHem was in a staunchly conservative state. Religious fundamentalism and rigid family values were the domineering themes of life in WestHem.

"Fuckin' aye," Ron agreed. "Homosexuality in WestHem, along with extra-marital and pre-marital heterosexual sex, has been illegal since the so-called Public Morals Act of 2175. This puts Dr. Hesper in a particularly vulnerable position. If she were caught engaging in 'immoral sexuality, ' her security clearance would be immediately voided, she would lose her job, they would revoke her doctorate degree, and she would be charged with a criminal offense. So, yes, she keeps this aspect of her personality well-hidden."

"But not well-hidden enough, apparently?"

"Not from the all-seeing eyes of the Martian Intelligence Service," he said with a sly grin. "It really is astounding how little respect the Earthlings have for our capabilities. They know our computer programmers and mathematicians are years ahead of theirs yet they refuse to even fathom what we've been able to do with this technological edge. We know everything Amanda Hesper has ever done from the time she activated her first PC at the age of six to what she bought at the store yesterday evening. Every monetary transaction, every school paper, every evaluation, every photograph of her, every e-mail she ever sent or received is all stored in databases we can access. The only thing we can't look at is her file with the Federal Investigation Bureau and her personnel file with Sythro."

"And a pattern has turned up?"

"A definite pattern," he said. "She's been careful all of her life to keep her desires suppressed. She does not act on her ingrained sexuality very often and when she does, she is discreet to the point of paranoia. Nevertheless, though there are some things she can conceal from the WestHem FIB, our ability to cross-reference various databases makes it impossible to conceal from us."

"What do we have?"

He tapped the screen with his finger, calling up a new window. Now showing was a list of various files that had been dug up on Amanda Hesper. He tapped the first one. "Age 13," he said. "And all of these ages are in Earth years for simplicity."

"Fuckin' aye," Julie said.

"At age 13 she was taken to a psychiatrist by her mother. Of course, the records were sealed but we were able to find them and access them in the psychiatrist's inactive file. It seems Amanda's mother caught young Amanda and her best friend naked in bed together, their fingers caressing each other's pussies. At this point in WestHem medical circles, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder that could be treated, particularly among the adolescents."

"They certainly cycle in and out of that school of thought, don't they?" Julie asked, a sad shake of the head. Martian medicine, which was eons more advanced than Earthling medicine, had conclusively proven more than two decades before that homosexuality-pure homosexuality as opposed to experimentation-was actually biological in nature, rooted deep within the brain. It was not something that could be "cured" or "caused" or "prevented."

"How it is classified depends on where they are in the cycle of society. When they're entrenched in the conservative part of the cycle they look at it as a psychological problem and classify it as a crime. When they're in the liberal part of the cycle they look at it as an aberration but a quasi-acceptable one. In any case, shrinks saw both Amanda and her friend after they were caught together. By examining the transcripts of both sessions we've determined that Amanda was the initiator of the sexual contact and the prime driver of it. The other girl felt tremendous guilt for enjoying what happened between her and her friend and is currently a practicing, committed heterosexual by all indications. Amanda herself felt a small measure of societal induced guilt but none at the act itself. She continued through six weeks of intensive therapy that the WestHems thought would cure her of her misguided feelings for females."

"And it didn't work?" Julie asked sarcastically.

"Nope," he said. "We had Dr. Ming look over the file..." Dr. Ming was the intelligence team's psychiatric expert, "and he concludes that Amanda-a very bright young woman-simply faked the signs they were looking for, told them what they wanted to hear, and was declared cured at the end of the therapy."

"Six weeks and you're cured," Julie laughed. "Those WestHems have a solution for everything, don't they?"

"Fuckin' aye. We should be envious of them. But anyway, that's our first indication. The next comes three years later, when she was sixteen. She graduated high school two years early and was a freshman at the University of Spokane. She had a brief sexual affair with a woman she met in her Sociology elective class. This was determined through emails and text messages the two of them exchanged during the relationship. It seems they broke up because the older woman wanted to make their relationship more open. There is a small but vocal segment of WestHem society that believes in challenging the Public Morals Act by flaunting their lifestyle. Amanda, even then, was focused on her career path and determined to keep her sexuality secret. They parted on bad terms but the relationship was never exposed.

"After that, she avoided relationships for a while. From her text messages and emails, it appears she had the occasional one-night stand with other closet lesbians, including one of her physics instructors, but other than that, she avoided female-female contact. She had several boyfriends during this period, and it appears she had sexual relations with them at societally appropriate times. Though pre-marital sex is technically illegal it is perhaps the most commonly violated law in WestHem and, for the most part, the authorities pretend it doesn't happen as long as the participants don't draw too much attention to themselves. With Amanda, these relationships were usually short and always terminated by the male in question. The common complaint we read in the emails these men exchanged with their friends after the breakups was she was unfeeling and listless, as if she just didn't give a damn about them, didn't see them as people. Dr. Ming tells us this is quite typical behavior for a closet homosexual attempting to keep up normal appearances."

"This pattern continued until her second year of post-graduate study at Stanford University in California. There she had an extended relationship with a woman she met while doing required volunteer work at a local hospital. The woman-Loraine Kensington was her name-was a nurse who was married to a prominent doctor. Again, most of this relationship has been reconstructed by reading the emails and text messages they exchanged. Both of them were very careful not to leave any other trail that the average Earthling intelligence official would've been able to follow. This affair started off as a friendship at first. The messages they exchanged for the first five months were non-sexual in nature, just the correspondence of good friends. Dr. Ming says it is quite likely that Amanda and Loraine were in love with each other and that both were so careful to keep their true desires hidden, neither made a move for the longest time. This changed very suddenly when the two of them took an overnight trip to the Lake Tahoe area for skiing. They stayed in the same hotel room together and had a little too much alcohol before retiring. It's unclear who made the first move, but they became lovers that night, kicking off a very intense sexual affair that lasted for nearly two years."

"They carried on for two years?" Julie said with a whistle.

"And they were very careful about it. They communicated through text messaging only, which is thought by the WestHems to be uninterceptable. They met either in Amanda's apartment or in Loraine's house when her husband and children were not at home. They never met in a hotel room or in any place where a transaction record would be generated. This affair was never discovered by the woman's husband or any of Amanda's friends as far as we can tell. There is obviously no record of it in the background investigation she underwent prior to receiving her security clearance or she never would have received it. The affair ended abruptly one night and the two never communicated with each other again."

"What happened?" Julie wanted to know.

"We're not entirely sure," he replied. "We have email exchanges indicating they planned to meet at Amanda's apartment on the night in question. The next day, communication between the two of them ceased entirely and they never saw each other again. There was no hint of problems between them up to this point so we must conclude that something strange happened during the meeting itself. Perhaps they had a fight and broke up, but Dr. Ming says it's unlikely a single fight, no matter what the subject, would have kept them apart indefinitely. Whatever it was, it was significantly traumatizing to both of them to make them swear off their natural inclinations for quite some time."

"Oh?"

"We back-checked Loraine just as a matter of course in the investigation. She had no further affairs with women for the next five years. As for Amanda, she stayed away from women for almost eleven years after that night."

"Eleven years?" Julie said in near horror. "She actually went eleven years without sexual contact?"

"Well, not exactly. She continued her pattern of dating men for form's sake, and about two years after her break-up with Loraine, she married a man named Stephen Larkspur. He was another physicist at the University where she was employed. Their marriage, by all indications, was about as stale as such a union can possibly be. They divorced after only three years. No children were produced. During this time Amanda was a frequent downloader of lesbian oriented Internet pornography, although she was very careful about this as well. She accessed it by means of a false identity. Our ability to cross-reference databases picked this up. WestHem's inability to do this means they undoubtedly did not pick it up."

"So she likes hoochie porn?" Julie said thoughtfully.

"She does," he said. "And she continued to access it under a variety of identities on a fairly infrequent but regular basis after the marriage broke up. This pattern continues to this day. She accessed such sites as recently as two weeks ago."

"And she hasn't downloaded any porn with cocks and balls in it?"

"Not a single time in her life," he responded. "We also have a record of her utilizing female prostitutes covered as interior decorating consultants four times over the past six years."

"Interior decorating consultants?" Julie asked.

"That's the current ruse the prostitution industry is forced to utilize in WestHem society. It used to be massage therapists but, as you know, the act of massaging a human body is one of the things made illegal in the Public Morals Act."

"How do those people live?" Julie asked, shaking her head in bewilderment.

"Not very happily," Sampson said. "In any case, as you can imagine, employing prostitutes is extremely risky behavior for her. Even though she's utilizing false identities and bank accounts to arrange for the services and pay for them, if she were to be caught, she would not only lose her job and her security clearance, she would go to prison for violating the terms of the security clearance. Consorting with prostitutes is definitely frowned on, for males and females alike. Dr. Ming tells us these episodes of paid sex are desperation measures, undertaken when she can't stand the pressure of going without sexual gratification anymore. She knows how dangerous it is to do it, but she just can't help herself."

"How long has it been since she's last munched some muff?" Julie asked, her keen mind already seeing where he was heading with this.

"She last employed a prostitute fifteen Earth months ago," he answered. "As far as we can determine, she has had no other sexual contact with a woman since then. In fact, other than the prostitutes, she has had no sexual relationships with women at all since she and Loraine parted company."

"So she's ripe for the picking," Julie said, a sad smile on her face. She actually felt a considerable amount of empathy for the woman who would become her target, a woman who was prevented from following her own bodily urges by a repressive and hypocritical system.

"Exactly," Ron said. "This is the most promising prospect for several reasons. The primary reason, of course, is that she's desperate for female companionship. The secondary reason is that she lives alone in a fairly exclusive part of the California region of WestHem. As you know, Earthlings still buy and sell real estate and housing. As it happens, the house next door to Amanda's has just gone up for sale."

"And you want me to buy it," Julie said.

"Fuckin' aye I do," he replied. "Here's the plan. Tell me if it makes sense to you."

"Lay it on me," she told him, knowing of course, that if the plan didn't make sense, or seemed too dangerous to her, she was expected to refuse it.

"We'll send you down there and create the cover of a divorced, professional woman. The job we came up with is a mid-level accountant with Agricorp. This is both vague enough and boring enough so you won't have to explain your job too much to her once a relationship is established. Everyone knows that accounting is the most boring job on Earth, right?"

"Fuckin' aye," Julie agreed.

"The programming team is already at work setting up bank accounts and a past for you in the WestHem Internet. You're pretty good on North American geography, particularly West Coast, so we're going to have you born in Seattle. Your parents were both mid-level Agricorp managers as well. You were educated at the University of Seattle and hired by Agricorp shortly after graduation. You've moved steadily up the ranks to the position you now hold, working in Seattle, Spokane, Redding, and San Francisco before being transferred to Sacramento operations. The house you'll be buying is in Stockton, 95 kilometers from Sacramento, where your alleged job is, and 60 kilometers from Livermore, where Amanda spends most of her working hours. We'll give you a good credit rating and enough capital to qualify for the house. You'll make an offer the seller won't turn down and you should be able to move in within one Earth month. In the meantime, we've already rented you an apartment four kilometers away from the house."

"What about family?" Julie asked. Although she knew she'd soon get a complete briefing document with every last detail in it, she was curious about how they'd handled this part.

"Parents still live in Seattle, although they are divorced," he replied. "Your ex-husband lives in San Francisco and you have no contact with him other than to collect your monthly alimony allotment. He works for Agricorp too, as a sales representative. You have not given birth to the one child you're allowed yet. That makes it short and sweet, yet believable in the unlikely event anyone goes snooping around your back trail."

"Sounds static," she said.

"I'll have Dr. Ming give you a more thorough briefing on the best means of prosecuting this mark, but as you've already guessed, romance is the angle we're going after here. And we're not talking about simple sex either. You're going to have to get closer to her than just muff munching if you want her to spill details of their Lemondrop project. You're going to have to become very close to her and make her feel very close to you."

"I understand," she said.

"Any problems with seducing a woman?" he asked her, more out of formality than anything else. He already knew Julie, although primarily heterosexual, was fond of munching a little muff when the opportunity presented itself.

"No," she said. "And she's actually kind of cute. I take it the slow approach is the key here?"

"Fuckin' aye. Dr. Ming warns that she'll be very cautious, possibly even terrified about entering into another relationship with a woman. You're going to have to be her friend first and then gradually work the sex into the equation."

"I love a challenge," she said. "When do I head down?"

"In forty-eight hours we'll have a window to get you down there. I'll have the briefing materials to you in an hour so you can start studying them."

Two days later Julie stood in the main evacuation room amidships, a specially designed biosuit covering her body. Ingram was currently under .08G of acceleration-its ass end pointed into its orbit in order to slow the ship to sub-orbital speed. This allowed Julie, and everyone else on board, to stand on the deck without floating away... 08G was far from normal gravity, of course-a simple flexing of the calf muscles in the wrong way could propel you all the way up to the ceiling-but it was certainly better than the zero-G conditions under which they spent most of their time.