Chapter 467

The Prison Planet

... When she called him to breakfast, he asked what she was grinning about.

“Oh, I was just looking at your coat trees and thinking how much you could sell them for on Earth. Not just a coat tree made from a real tree, but having come from another planet as well. Of course, no one would believe it,” she finished with a giggle as she handed him a bowl of oatmeal. “Now, don’t turn your nose up at that before you taste it. I suspect that you’re going to be surprised.”

Not wanting to hurt her feelings, Morales forced a smile to his lips as he accepted the bowl of oatmeal and a spoon from her, noting that there were blueberries in the oatmeal. Well, they will help a little bit, he thought as he brought the first spoonful to his mouth. Even before the food touched his tastebuds, the smell hit him. Cinnamon, he thought. Guess she brought it with her, because I certainly didn’t have any here. As his palate responded to the food, he knew she had used something else in the cereal, maybe several other somethings. From the color, he knew that butter was one of them, but while his mind was working on the problem of what else she had used, he realized that the oatmeal tasted damn good.

“Woman, I didn’t think it was possible,” he declared as she stood waiting for his reaction.

“Oatmeal is bland,” she returned, “but if it’s cooked properly, salted and flavored correctly, it isn’t bad. So, it passes the taste test?”

“Jas, I’ll be honest. I was going to say it was good, no matter what, but I surely won’t have to lie about this. It’s damn good.”

Jasmine chuckled as she portioned out the wolves oatmeal, then the rest of their breakfast before spooning out her own bowl of oatmeal. “I think you might be overemphasizing just how good it is. Then again, it is something new for you here, huh?”

“Maybe so,” he admitted, “but it’s still a very nice change.”

The wolves must have enjoyed the oatmeal because they gulped it down and licked their bowls.

After smiling at the wolves, Jasmine stopped to look over at Morales. “I think you’ve lost weight since you arrived on 2214. At least, you seemed heavier on the first vids I watched...”

Morales interrupted her to respond. “Yeah, I had a bit more stomach when I first got here...”

“Let me finish,” she said with a smile. “Like I said, you seemed to be a bit heavier on the first vids, but you’ve obviously put on muscle in place of the flab. But ... I think you could still stand to be a bit heavier. You don’t usually eat much more than I do, and with all the heavy work you do, maybe the oatmeal will help you put on a little more weight. We have enough eggs, so I’m going to fix you a couple of those to go with your meal.”

“Not unless we have enough so everybody can have some,” Morales chided.

“The wolves and I can all have one. With the size of the eggs here, that’s at least two of Earth’s chicken eggs,” Jasmine assured him.

“One is enough for me, also,” he tried.

“Morales, would you please just stop it. It’s almost impossible to give you anything without your wanting to repay me in some way. The wolves have already eaten their oatmeal, and I’ll finish filling their bellies with steak, potatoes and their one egg each. Same for me. You’re a big man, though, and you do a lot of heavy work. You need more. Now stop trying to be so nice and eat what you need,” she intoned with mock sternness.

“But I...” he began, but stopped when she put a fingertip to his lips.

Morales noted that he, again, got the biggest steak, and his plate was mounded up with his steak, eggs and potatoes. Somehow, the food she cooked tasted better than his cooking.

He did manage to do the cleanup, but, in turn, she fed the chickens.

They stood at the patch of hardwoods as Morales chose the next tree he wanted. As soon as he had gotten the snow cleared where he needed to stand and the saw started into the cut, Jasmine tapped him on the shoulder. “I want to learn, and that’s not going to happen with me just standing and watching.”

“Jas, it can be hard work. Oh, the pines cut pretty easily, but this hardwood...”

“Show me,” she said as she reached for the saw.

“Okay,” he returned as he stepped out of the way while trying not to show his exasperation. “Don’t try to force the saw,” he instructed, nervously, “just apply a little pressure and let it do its thing. If you push too hard, the blade will eventually bind. I’ll take over when you get most of the way through or if you get tired before then. I don’t want to risk your getting hurt by a kickback, or a tree that goes quicker than we anticipate.”

Her first few strokes were awkward, but with his coaching, she got into the sawing. As the blade bit into the tree, Morales begrudgingly admitted to himself that she was making impressive progress, but he could see the sweat forming on her brow despite the cold. “Go easy,” he advised, “This isn’t a race. We’re in no hurry. Let the saw do the work. Just relax and slide it back and forth with that bit of pressure I told you about.”

By the time she was halfway through the tree, she had a nice rhythm going.

“Want me to take it now?” he asked, amazed that she had gotten this far without stopping.

“Yet again, I am not a prima donna, Mr. Morales,” she practically snarled, but it was obvious she didn’t have any extra breath left over to argue very much.

He wisely shut up and tended to tapping the wedges in while she sawed.

As she neared the end of the cut, he put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me finish it. The saw may bind toward the last and sometimes you have to jerk hard to get it clear. It might be damaged if the tree kicks back with the saw still in the cut.”

“Okay,” she said, stepping back.

Without his having to ask, she again took up the job of tightening the wedges as if she had been doing it all her life.

When the first faint pops started, Morales jerked the saw free and they moved out of the way. “Your back is gonna be sore in the morning,” he commented as they watched the tall tree crash to the snow-covered ground.

“Then you’ll have to rub it for me tonight, won’t you?” she returned just to see him blush.

Jasmine continued to assist Morales as he cut the tree into five measured sections. When they had the logs in the cave, she put the percolator on to warm the leftover coffee from breakfast. While she was busy, Morales began stripping the bark from the first section, but suddenly stopped and growled out, “Shit. I’m just fucking stupid.”

“What’s wrong? Did you hurt yourself?” Jasmine asked as she turned toward him while worrying that he had cut himself.

Morales was shaking his head. “No. I didn’t cut myself, but I fucking forgot about having to put holes in the floor of the outhouse. And ... putting holes in the floor means I’ll need sills under there when I cut a floor-log in two.”

“Oh,” she said as she realized they were back to the subject of twin holes in the outhouse. It had begun as they teased each other, but now she wondered if he would really do it. Suddenly, she had a vivid mental picture of them sitting side by side in the outhouse doing their morning constitutionals. He definitely said holes, as in plural. If I don’t object, and soon, he’s probably going to do it. Then when it comes time, I’ll either have to back down or... Her face flushed, the image bright in her mind. Unaware, Morales went on talking about the sills.

“No big deal. All I have to do is slide the floor-logs out of the way, put the sills in and move the flooring back into place. I can saw the holes out any time. I’m glad I thought of it before we put the walls on top of the floor. That would have been a bitch, but dammit, I should have thought to put the cross sills in first.”

“Well, it’s not as if you’ve built one of these before,” she said, reasonably.

“Yeah, but it would have been a hell of a surprise when I cut the floor-log through and it promptly fell into the hole. I feel stupid for not thinking of it sooner.”

Jasmine poured their coffee, fixed hers and walked over to where he was working. Handing it to him, she said, “You’re too hard on yourself. Take a break and drink your coffee. Want a handful of jerky to go with it?”

“Thanks,” he responded when she handed him the coffee. “And yeah, a snack sounds good.”

When she brought the jerky, he put a piece in his mouth, put the rest on one of the log sections and was reaching for his tools when she grabbed his hand. “Sit with me and talk. We don’t have a deadline for this, do we?”

“No, but...” he began.

“Sit with me,” she said again as she patted the log beside her.

He grabbed his cup and jerky before complying. Touching his shoulder, she went on, “Do you take out any time to enjoy yourself? Any time at all?”

“Well,” he responded after taking a second to think, “I play with Junior sometimes before I go to bed. I occasionally throw a stick for the wolves to chase, and when it first snowed, we spent some time sliding down the hill. Back in the summer, I swam around my little pool.” After a slight hesitation, he went on, “Jas, I know what you mean, but I had to get ready for winter. I was busy bringing in vegetables from the fields, or hunting, digging out my spring, building the walls and the ballista, all the things I had to do to survive...”

“But it’s the beginning of winter, you have food stored up, the rock wall you put in to narrow the entranceway will keep out the cave bear, and the log wall there,” she said, motioning, “will stop everything else. There’s no reason to keep going at the almost frenzied pace you’ve set for yourself. Besides,” she said with her tinkling laugh, “I’m here to help you now. Granted, I can’t do all the work you do, but I can help – if you’ll let me.”

“But Jas ... I mean,” he said, trying to hide a sigh, “you won’t be here long and...”

“Who says?” she responded, startling herself with the firmness in her own voice. Then continuing, “I have no real reason to hurry back. Besides, in addition to everything else, I still have the new area to explore as well as the main cave. And because of the topic, it’s reasonable to think that I can do a better job of working on my doctoral dissertation here, rather than back on Earth. I have an extra hard disk loaded with many gigs of research information, and since I arrived, I’ve added to it almost daily. Should I need something from Earth, I can ask the General for it. Who knows, he just might send it to me. Are you trying to get rid of your new partner already?” she teased.

“Jas...” he began, before cutting himself off.

“Jas, what?” she prompted.

But he shook his head. “Nothing. Just nothing,” he tried.

“Bullshit. Tell me what you were going to say,” she demanded.

But he still shook his head. “I’m a prisoner, Jas. I’ll never be anything else.”

“We both know that, but we both also know you were going to say something else. So tell me, darnit.”

Abruptly, he got up, grabbed his weapons and headed out the door. “Gotta go pee.”

Sure you do, Morales. Sure you do, but he didn’t see the big smile that adorned her face.

The Retreat

“Oh, my goodness,” Marie gasped out as she stepped onto the hot tub deck. “I didn’t know this was even here. Oh my. It’s so beautiful, the waterfalls, the sculptured pools, the plants ... and the hot tub has to be the biggest on planet Earth, not to mention that it’s just gorgeous. The glass wall makes it seem almost as if we’re outdoors.”

“In winter, it’s neat to look out at the snow while we bask in the hot water with the jets massaging us,” Diana agreed. “And ... it has to be big. There are a lot of us.”

Diana, Susan and Arlene stripped to their suits, and, prompted by the others, Marie did the same.

“Jeff had Dave expand and completely redo the whole thing when we got too big for the old one.” When Marie obviously didn’t understand, Diana went on, “When Jeff and the other Alphas added more wives to our marriages.”

Seeing the beginning of a frown start on Marie’s face, Diana went quickly on. “Don’t even think about blaming the men. We – the wives – chose to bring more women into our marriages. The men had little actual say about it. And before you say something you might regret later, trust me on this, enhanced Alphas need more than one woman. Ask any of the women. There is absolutely none of us dissatisfied. We all love each other, and with only two exceptions, we’re all heterosexual, and even they prefer their man to each other.”

“Well, I...” Marie began, obviously not convinced in the least.

Exasperated, Diana stared at her. “Did your man screw your brains out last night? And yeah, I know that’s personal, not to mention blunt, but humor me, please.”

Marie almost snarled back that it was none of Diana’s business, but said, instead. “I was thankful that you left the cream for me. We only got about an hour’s sleep.”

Arlene had been standing quietly listening, but now spoke up. “The only reason he’ll stop tonight is because he’s feeling sorry that you can’t take anymore. Enhanced Alphas can come as many times as they want, and I mean that literally.”