Chapter 220

They were high up and soon over the ocean, having left the continent behind. They passed the terminator and continued into night, still headed west, the myriad lights of the cities twinkling as the Earth seemed to slowly spin below. But before the view could become boring – if it ever could -- the horizon seemed to shift downward on the big screen as the Ship gradually pointed her nose away from the planet, the full moon drifting down toward the center of the viewscreen. There was a collective intake of breath when the people in the lounge realized what was happening.

Jeff and the other Alphas he had been talking to had returned to sit with their wives as they watched the viewscreen. Diana reached to squeeze her husband's hand as the screen centered on the moon. After staring at it for a few seconds, she could already see a marked difference in the apparent size of the image on the screen. "Jeff?" she quietly hissed. "Has she increased the magnification, or are we ... Jeff, your daughter..."

The Prime sat back and propped his feet on a footstool. Oh, now she's suddenly my daughter, hmmm, but he didn't express the thought aloud, though the chuckle got past him.

"Jeff, this is not funny. Did you give your daughter permission to..."

"Yep," he said as the chuckle morphed into laughter, "I told her to surprise me. I also told her to take us for a ride. I thought she would give us a couple of low Earth orbits, then bring us back home. Looks like she has – shall we say – slightly bigger plans. And ... I did tell her to surprise me." By now, his face was red from trying to hold back the laughter.

"But ... darn it, Baby, the moon is what, two hundred and thirty thousand miles away, or something like that? You said our trip would be like a drive around the block."

"And it is," he replied with a snigger. "She doesn't get to drive much around the Retreat, and besides, to the Ship, this is just a stroll around the block. She's only using her ancillaries now. She could have translated from our outdoor firing range to the moon. Of course that would have made quite a bang in our back yard. Or she could have done it from a few thousand feet up, which would have sounded to the neighbors like thunder, but she's just idling along to give us time to look at the scenery. Think Ferrari in its lowest gear without your foot even on the accelerator."

"But ... we're leaving Earth," the Queen protested, "and our driver is only sixteen, Jeff."

"And ... she's only giving instructions to the Ship who is really doing the work. Not that Arlene will screw up, but even if she should make a mistake, the Ship would nullify it instantly."

"But how can she ... I mean, she's only spent a few hours training on the Ship."

Jeff squeezed his Clan Queen's hand. "Baby, those 'few hours' of our time translate into months in the Ship's simulator. Arlene piloted a small scout ship from outside a solar system to a world, then flew nap of the earth to rendezvous at an enemy base to gather information. I have flown the same training mission. Trust me; it was a bitch. Instead of the limited abilities of a scout, she's immersed in the most advanced mind in the universe. There aren't words to describe what she's sensing right now. Arlene knows how far we are from every point on the moon, and that distance is measured down into segments so small it boggles the mind. Those measurements include every planet, moon and asteroid in our system, the same with our velocity, and...

"The Ship has the capability to – there aren't any words to describe it – feel/sense space around herself. Feel everything. All that input is one of the major reasons the General's pilots went nuts when they tried to fly the Ship. The Ship says that only Arlene and I can be fully immersed in her brain. According to her, it's usually just a Prime that can do it, but it turns out that Arlene can do it almost as well. For everyone else who sits in one of those command chairs, the Ship has learned to tone down the input and only allow the person to 'touch' a small portion of her mind. Our daughter is unique, Baby. We've always known that, and a lot of parents think that of their kids, but with Arlene, it's real."

Diana was quiet for a moment, her eyes locked on the hologram of the expanding moon. Then quietly, "I'm not sure I want our daughter to be that special. Oh, all parents want their kids to be great – special – but this scares me. She's too young."

"And is she too young to be my wife, hmmm? Too young to be helping write a program to build an AI, too young to advise her young sister-wives, too young to be in college, too..."

"All right – all right, I get your point, but controlling this ... uh, the Ship, is..." A deep breath, then, "Jeff, remember the snowboard down the driveway? That was reckless, and something that only a teenager would..."

"Yeah," the Prime broke in, "in a way it was, but then again, she knew what she could do, and she carried it off flawlessly. The General's people could study this ship for the rest of their lives, and still know practically nothing about her use or how she is able to do things. As Alphas, we could sit behind desks and send other people to experiment – to explore – or we could say the hell with that and do it ourselves. She will teach us what we need to know. The General has tried letting his pilots sit in those command seats and 'fly' the Ship. One died, others had nervous collapses, or were delusional, as well as other things. You've sat in one of those chairs and were accepted into the Ship's mind, at least to some extent. Arlene can go much, much deeper. The General sends teams through the portal, but they're very limited as to how much equipment they can take with them. With the Ship," he continued, motioning around him, "we can take most anything we want, within reason, of course, and the Ship will provide almost anything we can imagine. Plus, she's the most advanced weapons platform that's ever been created. No more being just a small group of ground-pounders getting our butts shot off by pissed off aliens.

"There is, or was, a race of beings out there that destroyed or almost destroyed the race who created the Ship's AI. Should we send the Ship out with a crew who could barely skim the surface of the Ship's mind? Or should we take our rightful place in a ship that was designed for a Prime and his crew? I fought against the idea that I'm a Prime, but I need to man up to my responsibilities. This Ship was made for me, or at least for a Prime. She's waited possibly eons for her Prime. She's recognized Arlene as my second in command, and she has recognized you as our Clan Queen. Now we have to learn about her, and unlike her response to the General's scientists, she'll open herself to us.

"You've mentioned how quiet Arlene has become in the last few days. She has trained far more than you have realized. Remember, a few hours our time can translate into months or even years in the Ship's simulator. I strongly suspect that Arlene has realized just what is in front of her. And ... the fact that she's young isn't a disadvantage, but rather the exact opposite, and remember, we'll live for a very long time, indeed. I'm certain there are several lifetimes worth of knowledge that the Ship can and will share with us. Our little afternoon jaunt today is just a baby step to give our young Queen some confidence."

Arlene's image popped back into existence. "I'm going to slowly reduce our artificial gravity to one third of what we're used to, just to give you a general idea about weightlessness. Captain Matthews instructed me to not go below one third gee in case some of you might be upset by the lesser gravity. So here goes. You might want to get up and walk around a little to test things out, but be careful. We'll go back to full Earth gravity after five minutes."

Most everyone got up to play around a bit in the decreased gravity, but Jeff knew that Arlene's purpose was achieved. There was no longer the slightest doubt that the Ship was moving away from Earth, despite the lack of felt motion.

It was soon obvious that the Ship had greatly increased her speed. The view of the moon swelled noticeably on the big screen, and since they were now getting close, Arlene superimposed various locations and features, pointing out and naming mountain ranges, craters, and Apollo mission landing sites. A few minutes later, she came in to hover above one of the sites to show the rover's tracks in the moon dust.

"Suggestions, Commander?" Arlene asked her father via the Ship's mind.

"Hmmm. Give us a quick orbit a quarter mile or so above the highest mountain peaks. Low enough to give us a sense of movement, but not low enough to cause worry. I'm not sure how Courtney is taking this, and again, we want to make this a pleasant experience for everyone."

"Aye-aye, Captain."

The scene shifted as the Ship responded. After an orbit, they were on their way back to Earth. "Okay to stop by the ISS? (International Space Station) The astronauts will never know," Arlene queried her father. "I've also found six US stealth satellites and two Russian ones. Want to take a close look? The Ship says they'll never know we were anywhere near."

Jeff let out a mental chuckle. "Sure, but let's make it quick, then finish up our low Earth orbit and bring us home from the East."

The big Ship drifted down to hover over the outdoor range at the exact same place she had left a couple of hours before. Matt had half expected Courtney to make a quick exit the moment the Ship settled, but he was wrong. She slowly came to her feet, then after a second, turned to him with tears in her eyes. She took a breath, then said, "After my marriage to you, this has been the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. I ... don't have the words to describe how I feel ... how it felt to do all that. And Matt?"

"Yeah, Baby?"

"I don't care if they're aliens or not. I just want to do this again."

Laughing, Matt hugged her to him just as Arlene and Selina walked into the lounge. Selina's face was flushed with having experienced her first training at the nav station, and ... she proudly wore her uniform. The uniform was of a similar material to Arlene's, but the color remained a steady light blue without the subtle shifting shades of Arlene's. There was no rank insignia on her collar, and instead of a realistic and live starfield on her arm holograms, she had a stylized starfield all in green. From the ear-to-ear smile on her face, the little genius obviously didn't care one whit that her uniform advertised that she was a rookie nav in training.

Without a prompt, everyone stood and began to clap. Arlene's face almost instantly turned crimson, and Selina's became even more flushed. "I ... I didn't do anything," the young Queen tried to deny. "The Ship did the work. It's her you need to thank."

Jeff started to do just that, but Dave stepped forward. "Ship," he said, raising his voice to address the big screen in the front of the lounge.

"Yes, Dave," a melodious female voice, that seem to come from all around them, responded.

"From all of us, we thank you for a wonderful afternoon. Well done!"

"Thank you Dave. It was my honor, but Arlene did much of the planning as well as the execution of the trip. And Selina will one day be a fine navigator."

Selina looked stunned and seemed to have a problem with a response, a rare event for her, indeed.

"Okay," Jeff said. "I for one want more of that homemade freezer ice cream. And come to think of it, we need to bring a bowl out here so the Ship can scan it into her data base."

"We'll take care of that," Nat said when she, Nicki and Whitney gathered around Jeff as they walked toward the port.

Later that night, most of the visiting Alphas and their families, as well as the Marine and his wives, the Spermans, and Alesha and Jesse left for home laden with leftover food. On the big screen, Matt and Courtney stood, bundled against the cold, looking over the railing of the driveway as they paused on their way back from their walk.

"Think she's going to be okay?" Fred asked Jeff.

"She's going to be fine," Diana interjected, instead, as the two on the screen turned to face each other, then kissed for an extended period of time.

Fred stood and reached for Brenda's hand. "We need to go."

Diana quickly came to her feet as she frowned at him. "What? No way, Big Guy. We haven't seen nearly enough of you and your family, lately. You're not going to the farm tonight; you're staying with us."

Fred was shaking his head. "We need to get back and check..."

Jeff broke in with, "You have automatic feeders, and besides that, I'll bet you put out enough hay to last your horses for several days, right?"

"I took care of that before we left," Jessica offered.

By then Jeff's other wives had joined in, and Diana had moved to stand in Fred's personal space, her hands on his sides as she looked up at him. "Your suite is always ready for you, and that big bed awaits. You are staying," she declared.

Fred tried one more time. "Di, we really appreciate your asking us to spend the night, but ... well, I have something on my mind, as you well know. You've teased me twice tonight about my mind being somewhere else."

"Tell us," the Queen ordered, realizing something was wrong and motioning for all of them to sit back down. Fred knew he might as well tell her, so he and his women sat again as he sighed and continued, "We haven't heard from Angel in a while, and her cell is off or out of service. Brenda and I are worried sick," he finished as Brenda came to sit on his lap, snuggling against him, obviously fighting back tears.

Fred thought for a second, then, "Angel was a great kid growing up, but with puberty, she, like a lot of kids, I guess, changed – a lot. Our sweet little girl quickly became a ... boy magnet..."