Chapter 175

STILL WEDNESDAY MORNING

Arlene and Jeff had gone to visit the ship. Diana had sent Jeff a questioning look when he told her where they were going, but he just smiled and said they would discuss it when they got back.

An hour or so later, those in class were hungry, but it wasn't quite time for lunch. Diana and Laura volunteered to prepare a snack for everyone. In the kitchen, they put a large platter of cut-up fruit on the table. Diana was returning from a cabinet with a stack of small serving bowls to take back to class, when Billy suddenly appeared on the table near the platter of fruit.

"SCAT!" the Queen instantly yelled.

Never having been yelled at, Billy took a nervous step back, which was, incidentally, closer to the platter of fruit, the kitten wondering what the Queen meant by the odd sounding word.

"SCAT! Get off the table."

He didn't understand what her words meant, but Diana's volume and menacing look communicated. "Pop," and he was on a kitchen counter. "Mmeeow?" he questioned.

Diana slammed the stack of bowls down on the table and whirled to the sound of his voice. Pointing a finger at the kitten, "Off that counter, Young Man. We prepare food there and we don't need cat hair in it. Scat."

"Pop." He was in a chair near the door. "Mmeeow?"

"Okay, that will do for now. But the kitchen is off limits for you."

Turning to Laura who had her hand capped over her mouth trying to suppress a giggle, "And what would you have done?" Diana groused.

The two women looked at each other for a moment before Diana started laughing. "Oh, all right."

The Queen walked over to the kitten and picked him up, loving him and petting him. Kissing him on the nose, "I'm sorry for yelling at you, but you can't be in the kitchen. What if someone finds a cat hair in their food, huh?" As she petted him, he raised his tail and purred, rubbing his face against hers. Tucking him against her neck, she picked up the phone and dialed the classroom.

When Helen answered, "How about sending Selina to the kitchen to retrieve her kitten. He came exploring as Laura and I were getting the snack ready."

Shortly, the kitchen door burst open. "There you are," Selina said as she glared at Billy. Turning to Diana, "I must apologize, My Queen. I became involved in an assignment and I was unaware Billy had vacated his bed." (Billy has a cat bed in the classroom.)

"He hasn't done anything wrong except for coming in here. I had rather the kitchen be off limits for him." Chuckling, she continued, "I don't think he knows what 'scat' means." Diana was unaware of her frown that communicated more than she meant it to.

"Oh, I bet he does now," Laura said with a chuckle.

"Okay, so I overreacted. I've apologized, haven't I Billy?" the Queen said as she held the kitten against her face to love him. Handing him to Selina, Diana continued, "Try to keep him out of here. Maybe he got the idea by my yelling at him."

"I apologize, My Queen. I shall endeavor to do so."

Diana ruffled the kitten's fur as Selina held him. "Nothing to apologize for. I have no idea how you could possibly keep him from teleporting wherever he pleases, but give it some thought, anyway. He's been such a great little guy, but now that he can teleport ... Well, I really don't want him around our food."

"Yes, My Queen."

Laura and Diana took the fruit and serving bowls back to the classroom. Selina, her mind hyperactive, walked beside them as she thought furiously.

Diana and Jeff sat in the living room. Although the room was set up for the night's wedding, Jeff had cleared a space a few feet in front of the window so they could look out at the view as they talked. Besides, he wanted as many distractions as he could manage for the moment.

"I do not like this, Jeff. She's sixteen, for goodness sake."

"Di, she has the heart of a warrior, just like Kayla."

"Fuck that. She's my daughter," the Queen almost snarled.

Jeff reached to take Diana's hand, her seldom-displayed use of profanity demonstrating how serious she was. "Baby, it's not as if she would do this by herself. If things come together the way I've envisioned, we'll all be there anyway."

Diana turned her head to stare at him. "What does that mean?"

"That's for the future, but if the Ship says she's the one, then ... she is."

"Oh, and that's supposed to make me feel better? I do not like this."

"Baby, Arlene wouldn't be in any more danger than the rest of us."

Diana snorted. Jeff hadn't known she could, at least not like that. "Here we go again. You won't tell me why you've included the rest of us in your comment, and yet I'm supposed to go along with this, anyway."

"What could it hurt for her to learn? Look Di, we've known for years that there's something special about her. She's smarter than any of my other young wives..."

"Careful there, Husband. That could get you in major trouble, and hurt some feelings besides."

"Bullshit, all the girls talk about that. Oh, Ann is close, and all my younger wives are way smarter than average, but..."

"Younger wives? So your older wives..."

Jeff could feel the conversation boxing him in, and being a long-time husband, knew that he was being manipulated. "Di, Helen is a genius. Laura can make a computer do things I can only dream about doing. You, My Queen, have blown me away time and again. I'm constantly telling people how smart you are, so please stop this. The Ship is positive this is the way to go, and our intelligence compared to hers – well, there is no comparison."

"I don't want my daughter..."

"Maybe you need to talk to the ship. When you see what she has in mind, you might very well have a different opinion."

"But you're the Ship's fucking commander. You tell her what to do. Where does she get off..."

Jeff pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap, hugging her to him, although she tried to push away. The tears began to flow. "Dammit, she's my daughter. I don't want her to..."

" ... grow up," Jeff supplied. "She already has, Baby. She grew up when the two of you decided to seduce me. When you offered me your daughter to make sure I forgot about divorcing you. We all changed that day, and as Little One gradually learned to communicate with us – through me – things continued to change. Arlene changed with us. She's my wife as well as my child. She's your sister-wife as well as your child. Do you think I would allow anything to hurt her?"

Diana dug in his pocket for the couple of paper towels he always seemed to have. As she sat up and wiped her eyes, "Promise me. Promise me that she won't get hurt, that this won't change her."

"Di, I promise the Ship won't hurt her. I can't promise she won't be affected by this. Power always changes people. Sometimes good; sometimes bad. Do you think she can handle the power? How much faith do you have in her? Remember, she's a born Queen, just like you. You're the Queen of our little clan. Has your power changed you?"

"No, of course not. Well ... maybe some, but I love everyone here. I could never intentionally hurt or sadden anyone."

Jeff grinned at her. "Bet Hagewood would argue that point – if he weren't dead."

"It wasn't me that killed him. That .45 of yours went through his head..."

" ... at the same time your round did. But you had already stitched him from his groin on up before I fired. Di, everybody here asks your advice. Suppose that's an accident, hmmm? You run everything here and you do it so well that no one even notices. Now let's get on another subject. We'll come back to this after you have had time to consider it. When you feel like you're ready, we'll go and let the Ship talk to you. We're not losing our daughter. She might very well find her true calling."

Diana snuggled to her husband, the tears back. In a quiet voice, "Dammit, Jeff. I don't want her to grow up."

"Shhhh, Hon. She already has. She rides my cock and I suck her breasts – drink her milk. She swears she will be the first of my wives to have my baby. And we all know that the baby will be perfect, with Little One to make sure."

Diana chuckled past her tears. "Our daughter hasn't won that battle yet. I think the first one of us to have another of your babies might very well be me. Besides..."

But Jeff knew where her mind was going. "Hon, don't make her choose between this and being first to have my baby. That isn't fair."

"Ah, fuck," the Queen said. "I know it, but..." And the tears came in force.

Not knowing what else to do, the Prime just snuggled her to him and rubbed her back, letting her cry it out.

A few minutes later, the Queen sniffed, wiped her eyes one final time and sat up. "I need to talk to Helen."

When Selina returned to the classroom, she had continued her assignment, but the problem with Billy kept returning to her mind. When the assignment was completed, she sat back, just staring at the wall as her mind worked furiously on the problem of her teleporting kitten. What Selina was not aware of was the phone conversation now going on between Diana and Helen.

When Helen left her office and stepped through the connecting door into the classroom, she found the six-year-old obviously in deep thought as she sat in one of the big chairs in a corner, her kitten on her lap, her laptop beside her on her worktable.

Helen knelt by Selina's seat, putting her hand on the child's leg. "Our Queen just talked to me," Boswell quietly said. "She is concerned that she may have hurt your feelings. She says she overreacted when Billy teleported into the kitchen, and she is worried that you are taking this too seriously, even though she has apologized to Billy."

But Selina was shaking her head, a frown creasing her child's brow. "No. No. My Queen did not err. She scolded Billy for teleporting onto the table and counter. She was concerned it could result in his depositing hair to contaminate our food."

"Still," Helen insisted, "she has just told me that she realized you groom your kitten twice a day and bathe him every few days. There is little chance of his hair getting into our food, and even if it did, there would certainly be no danger. Studies have shown that restaurant food, even from the best quality restaurants, occasionally contain animal and/or human hair in the food, in addition to more obnoxious things that I disdain to name. It might gross us out to think about foreign matter in our food, but those facts remain.

"Observing what we eat under a microscope is not conducive to a well-settled stomach when we realize what we really eat or drink. As you are well aware with your background, even the cleanest of drinking water, not to say anything about our food, is full of bacteria that are easily seen under a microscope. Hopefully the bacteria are all dead from the cooking process or in the case of water, the 'purification' process, but the FDA even allows a certain percentage of insect parts in commercially prepared food – and worse. One short hair isn't going to be noticeable, but our Queen is fastidious about our food preparation. She told me that upon their arrival here at the Retreat, she and Arlene spent a considerable length of time in cleaning an already-clean kitchen."

Helen took Selina's hand as she continued. "Diana is not mad at you or Billy. He just landed by the fruit she and Laura had prepared for our snack, and she instinctively reacted. Now, shall we get a bowl of fruit before it's all gone?"

Selina left Billy on the seat as she and Helen each took a bowl and heaped it with different types of cut up fruit. Back at her seat, Selina sat eating the fruit and thinking as Billy leaned over to smell the food in her lap. She picked up a piece of grapefruit with her fork, then bit off a tiny piece. Holding the small piece out to Billy, he smelled it and took a step backward.