Chapter 18: Ilias Rides Again!

Time: December 2, 8235 11:20 PM

I had spent the last three days settling into Jericho, both family-wise and job-wise. My first impression of my job was that there were not enough hours in the day to do it. I had a book knowledge of how much work it would be to be a township's head Security commander, but the experience of actually being one was another matter entirely. On the plus side, I thought my initial meetings with both the cathedral directors and some of the many Guild station commanders at Jericho went well. But there was still so much to do.

Jericho is the home township for one of the many Health Guilds, in particular the one for research and treatment of infectious diseases. I spent most of my days touring the labs and specialized hospitals and drug manufacturing facilities. Nothing out of the ordinary; the Guild presented no particular challenges for me. I thought the Health Guilds as a group are probably some of the easiest for Security to monitor.

The 120 Guilds of the world are organized into ten Keiretsu, and most of my work would be interfacing with the other Guilds at Jericho at the Keiretsu level. In particular, I'd be working tomorrow with the various agricultural and fishing Guilds in the Citizen Staples Keiretsu. The following day I'd be tied up in meetings with the mining Guilds that have a small Jericho presence. Those would be the Materials Keiretsu. The day after that I'd be going over security protocols with the Construction Keiretsu. And so on... So many things to do! It would be very easy to overload my schedule. I knew I'd have to careful and allow myself enough time to prepare for my final ride on the Asad on the 21'st.

On my first day back to Jericho, I asked Michal when she would like her nightly sleep cycle. She was both surprised and grateful that I let her choose the time and had decided on a midnight to 4 AM schedule. We were slowly moving to that time slot for her memory purge.

My wives and I had also gotten into a comfortable rhythm of the three of us sleeping together but alternating our sexual play. It was Michal's turn tonight.

Michal and I were both sleepy from a full day of work were engaging in some very gentle sex. Michal was lying on her side, her left leg slightly raised, and I had entered her from behind, stroking her slowly with both my penis within her and my hand caressing her belly. She would sigh and coo and occasionally wiggle her rump into my groin to show how much she was enjoying herself. And then we both drifted for a while, very gentle thrusts up inside her, just enough to keep me erect. I felt Michal relax completely as she fell asleep in my arms.

I looked out the window for a moment, and then the clock. It was twenty-three minutes till midnight, and the last-quarter moon was low on the horizon, having just risen a half hour ago. My bedroom suite had magnificent vistas, windows facing both southeast and southwest, affording me views of both the city night lights to the east and the moonlit lake to the west. A beautiful world, two beautiful wives, I sighed as I realized how happy I was.

Abigail was lying quietly behind me, and completely misinterpreted my sigh. "Ah, forgive her Ilias. Her pregnancy and the virginity drugs drove her into sleep. Michal and I were speaking earlier in the evening. She really was an eager virgin, looking forward to having sex with you tonight."

I nodded and kissed Michal. My sleeping wife was totally non-responsive, almost comatose, the typical sleep pattern for an eternal virgin. "Oh, I know. I was just thinking, how much I love her... and love you too Abby. The both of you, you are teaching me what love means."

Abby curled behind me, kissing my neck and running her fingers between my thighs. A gentle tap on the back of my sac, a signal Abigail wanted to pet me. I lifted my leg to give her better access. Her hand came up to cup and gently squeeze my scrotum for a while, cradling the testes in four fingers and softly running her thumb back and forth on the rear of the sac... And then her soft caress drifted forward, feeling how my erect penis was still fully sheathed inside Michal. I thrust forward slowly, burying myself in Michal's slick warmth. More kisses to the back of my neck...

"Michal," whispered Abby. "She is a great teacher to the both of us. Have you noticed, how she is a different person each day? It's not just repetition."

"Yes. I'm so glad too..." We had all been together for only a few days, and this was a new experience for both of us, waking with an eternal virgin. One of the things we noticed was that Michal could be playful or serious, happy or somber as she read her marriage book when she woke. Her memories were the same, but the human mind is self-organizing, and will guide itself to different states even with the same initial memories. It was a joy to see the richness of Michal's personality during the different days. And her presence has been invaluable in teaching Abigail how to act like an eternal virgin.

Abby's hand drifted back a bit, returning to gently stroke my scrotum and anus. I loved how her fingers probed my sac and caressed my testes. More kisses to my neck and ears... I sighed with the deep pleasure.

I stretched a bit, getting comfortable, my semi-hard penis sliding out of Michal. Abigail's hand left my sac and firmly gripped my erection. There was one brief tug as she felt me hardening, and then back to the steady grip. Abigail was asking whether I wanted sex with her.

It had only taken a few days. We had both become very adept in reading each other's body language. If Abigail actively desired sex, she would be pumping me, working my erection to full hardness. But the single tug was an honest question about my desire. If I responded with interest, Abby would actively work me with her mouth and hands and then position herself for entry, lying on her back with raised legs or kneeling on all fours and lifting her rump for me.

But it had been a full day of work and prayers for me, and even without orgasming into Michal I was sated. After a moment the hand left my cock and returned to caressing my sac. I sighed my approval to Abigail.

Quiet and peaceful minutes passed. I began to doze off. I was dimly aware of Abigail stirring, turning behind me. And then something infinitely soft and sleepily playful joined Abigail's fingers on my scrotum. It was her tongue. So soft, so gentle. I tried to talk, to tell Abby that I loved her, but I was too far gone. With my left testis held in Abby's lips, I fell deeply asleep.

The bedroom comm link starting beeping. I looked at the clock. It was after 2 AM. Abby was still lying in the opposite direction from me. She had turned over in her sleep. We were butt to butt, her long hair all over the back of my calves, and her legs were curled, her bare feet by my head. I gave her instep a fleeting kiss as I rose. Abby responded by reaching behind her and giving me a quick pat on my rump, showing me she had been awakened also by the beeps. I answered the call a few seconds later. It was Zaim.

"Good morning sir."

He gave me a brief nod. "Are we alone?"

He would have expected me to announce any other person. The fact that he was explicitly asking for confirmation banished the last of my sleepiness. "Yes sir. Just my wives, and we all sacked out around midnight."

Another quick nod. "I want to give you an update on our discussion yesterday."

"Yes sir, thank you."

"Ruling Royalty has decided to accept your field decision that ammunition is not a weapon. The fact that it took them three days to do this is..." He trailed off for a moment.

I completed the thought, "... is diagnostic that I've made some enemies at Bandar Arenas."

Zaim frowned. "These survival tests, they're not meant to weed out anything except gross stupidity. The usual culling rate is less than one percent. These last two months in the northern forests, we now think we've lost more than half the teams. A number of the bears in your canyon had ingested survival beacons. The team from Cairo is still doing autopsies."

"Cairo? Why isn't Jericho doing this? We're much closer."

Zaim looked at me dismissively. "Ilias, are you still asleep?"

I blinked. "Oh, sorry sir. I must be. Please continue." Cairo is home to the Guild that specializes in worldwide wildlife animal conservation and management. They would be the natural choice for this problem even if it had occurred in South America.

Zaim switched topics. "Those two militia men of yours have been spreading absolutely unbelievable stories about you, stories that the Cairo team is backing up with hard data. Pistol work that went beyond human! Ilias, you are wildly popular within the labor ranks of the Holy Militia right now, all across the planet. Rescuing a commander's unborn child, it's a boy by the way, saving that idiot's rifle ammo, your fast pace for hiking, saving the two militia men, winning your war with the bears, so many right decisions Ilias! Your survival test has become legend!"

He paused for a moment before continuing. "There hasn't been a commander or general with this kind of popular appeal among the military since the first millennium. If we don't handle this correctly, it'll be a disaster!"

I saw Zaim's point immediately. There was a natural animosity between non-ruling Royalty (CL-16 to CL-23), and Ruling Royalty (the purple with red classes). The last thing Ruling Royalty would want would be possibility of a power struggle with some lowly commander. I would have to be very careful how I acted with the Holy Militia in public. The fact that no one had even imagined that Abigail could have been firing the second pistol was, I thought, a sad comment on my society.

Zaim saw that I got his point and moved on. "One last item, your request for restricted library access. You are familiar with the cutoffs?"

"The three levels, of course sir." The first level was for CL-14 and above, second level was for Royalty, and the third level was for the eighty-some members of Ruling Royalty.

Zaim smiled, happy to catch me in something I didn't know. "Four levels Ilias! There's a fourth hidden level reserved for the Supreme Ruling Council. My point though, is that I would have to spend some political capital getting you first level access as a CL-13. Considering you might be CL-14 in twenty days and get the access automatically..."

He wanted to wait. I agreed with him completely. "An entirely appropriate decision sir."

Zaim nodded and looked as if he were about to sign off. "Good fortune on your own ride sir," I called out. Zaim would be making his fourth attempt to enter Royalty on Judgment 1, 8236. Except for the childhood gates and advancements within Ruling Royalty, adult promotions are decided entirely by the ancient computer programs at Babylon.

I looked at Zaim with sympathy. He had been a strict master, but had also invested much of his time and political capital with me. If he didn't make it now, he would have one final chance in another thirteen years, in 8249.

Zaim looked at me and offered one of his rare smiles. "If you succeed on your final ride Ilias, and I suspect you will, you'll report directly to me. Hopefully that will be for just ten days. Do you think I'll look good in purple vestments?" And with that he broke the connection before I could reply.

I returned to bed with Abigail and sleeping Michal. There wasn't anything Abby and I needed to talk about. A few brief kisses, and then we petted each other back to sleep.

Twenty days later...

Time: December 23, 8235 3:29 AM

I had been staring at an almost full moon for most of the flight until it set an hour ago, probably while I was somewhere over the southernmost part of ancient Bolivia. The sun was now just rising above the horizon as my ramjet touched down at Bandar Arenas. With the solstice coming in six days, I was about to go from fifteen hours a day of darkness at Jericho to seventeen hours a day of light. I idly wondered if I would need to get used to the change.

My last ride on the Asad had been on the 21'st at the Jericho cathedral. The test had been very strange, filled with paradoxes. Literally. Six hours of questions on mathematical paradoxes, emotional paradoxes, legal paradoxes; the testing left my head spinning by the end of it. The moral paradoxes were the worst. I had never realized our framework for reality had so many holes in it.

I don't recall much of the evening prayers that evening. I do remember Abigail and Michal petting me to sleep soon after I got home. The next day, yesterday, I went through morning Prayers and reached my office before 10:30 AM. There I waited for the results feeling very uncertain. How do you score a test on true paradoxes, where every answer is at best incomplete, and at worst wrong from opposing and valid perspectives?

I was hoping for an answer around noontime, but the afternoon hours came and went without word from the cathedral. And then shortly before Evening Prayers came a terse summons. A ramjet was being fueled. I was to report to a Royal committee at Bandar Arenas immediately.

In the early morning hours of dawn's light, my flight landed at the capital. A special-weapons police escort met me as I departed my jet. They were both crispy efficient and extremely polite. I breathed an inner sigh of relief. At least my treason with Abigail had not been discovered. We boarded a private inner-city rail car to reach the central cathedral complex, a city within a city. I smiled as I recognized Fadil waiting to join my escort by the rail car. He was the same CL-12 who debriefed me when I passed my last childhood gate less than a year ago.