Chapter 582

The Prison Planet

At least with the sound equipment Jeff had left with them, Junior’s morning wake-up screams/crows didn’t bother the humans, but ... they certainly irritated the wolves. Oh, they could put up with a couple of his broken crows, but he didn’t stop with only a couple. He was hell-bent on waking the humans so he could be fed, and even more to ensure that they could admire his mighty prowess as a rooster. Even Gertrude had given over to him and no longer woke everyone with her squawking for breakfast. He, of course, had no idea that his mighty announcements of the new day couldn’t be heard by the humans due to Jeff’s sound equipment.

Finally, Lila had enough of his “serenade” of the new day and stomped over to stare the arrogant fowl eye to eye while thinking really bad things about him. Junior aborted his last squeaky crowing with a chicken’s equivalent of a gasp soon after receiving a vivid mental image of a giant wolf’s mouth snapping a rooster in half.

Knowing the chicken was trying to awaken the humans, and still irritated, Lila stomped over, grabbed the curtain in her mouth and yanked it open. Stepping a little inside, she growled.

Morales, almost covered with females, open one eye to glare at Lila, but after seeing Junior standing behind her, quickly put things together. “Just eat him,” he ground out.

With a squawk, proving that Junior at least had gotten the gist of the comment, the almost-grown rooster was quickly airborne. After circling, and now feeling relatively safe, he wound up on a swing to glare back at the wolf, who was still not in a good mood. With one last glare at Junior, she went back to where she had been blissfully dreaming beside her mate.

“Oh, damn. Now that I’m awake, I have to pee,” Morales griped, which, of course, finished waking his wives. After snatching on his clothes and while impatiently waiting for his women, both wolves stared daggers at him. “Okay. Okay,” he finally responded. “I’ll ask Jeff if he will adapt one of the sound deadening devices so we won’t be able to hear that damn rooster.” Then turning toward Junior, “You used to be my buddy, but if you keep up that squawking before daylight, you’re going to be on our lunch menu.”

“Pecawwk,” Junior said from his swing.

There were several answering squawks from the hens, but Morales wasn’t sure whether the squawks were in response to his remark or the hens were still griping about having to listen to Junior’s attempt at being the boss rooster. Of course, he was the only rooster, and Morales was beginning to regret having even that one.

Still barely daylight, Morales and Jasmine had finished their morning constitutional, as he called it, and were standing just outside the cave waiting for Ashley and Christine. Morales pulled his wife into his arms. While looking up at him, she commented, “The chickens, especially Junior, seemed to understand you – well, both of us. Surely they can’t be that smart, can they?”

“Scary, isn’t it? And I think that Junior certainly understood Lila this morning, or maybe, at least, what she was threatening to do to him. But you’re right. Junior seems to be getting smarter all the time. Then again, maybe it’s all of the chickens. It’s hard to tell since he’s the, uh ... outspoken one of them,” he finished with a grin.

“Comedian so early in the morning?” she teased. “Suppose it’s the enhancement?”

He hesitated for a moment before quietly responding. “That and maybe the thing in the ice cave, I think.”

“Maybe. Junior certainly seemed terrified of Lila all of a sudden. Of course, the wolves are probably a major predator of chickens while in the wild. Junior’s reaction might only be instinct.”

“Still, I think Lila communicated a warning that even Junior took to heart. The enhancement has certainly made changes in me. Despite what they say, while back on Earth, I couldn’t properly take care of Ashley and Christine the time they double-teamed me. After the enhancement, I can last as long as I like, and I’m ready to go again after only a couple of minutes...”

“And ... in case you haven’t noticed, our communication and understanding of what the other means seems much improved,” she added.

“So, Doctor, is the difference caused by the thing in the ice cave, or is it the enhancement?”

“I don’t have that doctorate, yet,” she said with a giggle as she tried to tickle him, but the coats prevented that, “and... I have no proof, scientific or otherwise, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

When the girls came out of the outhouse, Jasmine waved to them as she continued their conversation. “Diana said something about how she and her sister-wives were... understanding each other better all the time. She’s feeling, more and more what her sister-wives feel, sometimes when she isn’t even in the same room with them. With Jeff, well ... they know in what direction he is and approximately how far away he is – all the time. She says that all the Alphas’ wives can do that with their husbands, too.”

“And can you?” he asked.

“Can you what?” Ashley and Christine chorused as they drew near, then stared at each other.

“Did you do that intentionally?” Morales asked them.

“No,” they said in unison before staring at each other yet again.

Jasmine blushed, barely discernible with her hood pulled partway over her face against the cold wind. “I didn’t pay any particular attention to begin with, but ever since our first night after we married, I know generally in what direction you are, even when you went after meat in the ice cave. I could feel you getting farther and farther away. It was eerie. When you started back, I could tell that you were getting closer.”

“Ah, maybe it’s just the power of suggestion,” he said with a chuckle. “Diana said she could tell where Jeff was, and so...”

“She did not say that she could tell where he was, just in what direction and generally how far away he was.”

“So, you two can do it too?” he began as he glanced at the other two.

“Of course not,” they again doubled.

“Crap. I didn’t mean to do that,” Ashley groused as she looked at her sister-wife who had just said the same thing and with the same expression.

“Me either,” Christine agreed. “And this is getting old. Of course, we’ve lived together so long that we’ve occasionally done it, but since we came here, it’s... increased,” they doubled the last word again.

Jasmine grinned at her sister-wives. “None of us have barely been out of sight of the others since we were all married, other than Morales going after meat in the ice cave. But Diana thinks it has something to do with Jeff having come inside them, but she also said that she and Arlene often did it to some degree even when Arlene was a kid and long before Jeff made love to her.”

“So, maybe the thing with Arlene was because she was so close to her dad. Have you heard anything about her childhood?”

Jasmine was shaking her head. “I don’t know them that well. What about you two? Are you sure you haven’t noticed a feeling about how far away your husband is?”

Morales chuckled. “They’ve barely been out of my reach, if I could help it,” he returned with a big grin.

“So, I assume that this doubling thing started after our marriage?”

Both girls nodded together, obviously afraid to answer lest they double again, but Ashley eventually added, “We lived together so long that we have done it on occasion, but now it’s ... increased,” she said as she looked at Christine for agreement, “but it isn’t constant. It just happens a few times, then it’s gone until it happens again. But sometimes it happens...”

“ ... A lot,” they doubled.

Cold, they walked back inside where they hung their coats up, and Morales returned his rifle to its rack. He noticed the look on Jasmine’s face as the two worked together to get a pot of coffee started. “What?” he asked.

“Something happened last night when we were making love.” Both stopped what they were doing, and Morales raised an eyebrow, obviously wanting her to continue.

Jasmine let out a sigh before saying, “Once when you and I were making love, and you were coming in me, it was as if I could feel it.”

Morales grinned. “I did shoot off pretty hard that time, didn’t I?”

Jasmine was shaking her head, “Yeah, I felt it that way too, and it really turns me on when I feel the warmth of your come go up inside me, but that’s not exactly what I meant. Just for an instant there, I think I felt you feeling yourself come. Maybe it was just my imagination, but somehow, I think I actually did feel what you felt.” An odd looked crossed her face before she went quickly on, “Oh, now that I’ve said it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. It had to have been my imagination, but it certainly was vivid.”

“Maybe we need to conduct an experiment,” Morales offered with a chickenshit grin.

“Not until tonight,” Jasmine quickly insisted. “I’m way too sore just now. How about you two?” she asked her sister-wives who were listening raptly.

They looked at each other, being careful not to speak together, before Ashley said, “I’m with you, Jas. It’s going to take a while to get used to a steady diet of what’s hanging between his legs.”

“Same here,” Christine agreed.

Jasmine smiled back. “So, let’s get some breakfast started. I’m hungry for some steak and eggs. How about everyone else? We have plenty of eggs. Diana has seen to that. What kind of steak do you want, Husband?”

“Do we have any deer steak left?”

“Not unless you want to go to the ice cave to get some, we don’t have any in the cooler or stasis.”

Morales shrugged. “We have plenty of buffalo steak, but there aren’t any deer steaks left in the ice cave, either.”

“We do have several buffalo steaks in the stasis chamber,” Christine said as she raised the lid to look.

Jasmine turned to her husband. “You said that we needed to teach our new wives to hunt, and Diana told me that they included a four-person all-weather tent in the supplies they brought. We could hike over to the plains and camp out overnight while teaching Ash and Chris to hunt,” Jasmine offered. “Want to do that, Ladies?” she asked them.

“If you think we could do it,” Ashley answered for both of them.

Morales smiled at his women, glad that Jasmine had brought it up, and he wasn’t forced to. “You two haven’t walked that far on snowshoes yet, but you’ve been all around the area while learning to shoot. We can take it easy and rest if you need to.”

Jasmine grimaced while remembering. “We are not bringing back a buffalo while it is still winter. That was enough frozen tree climbing for a lifetime. Besides, we have plenty of buffalo meat. We’ll take another one come springtime.”

“So, are we going?” Morales asked with enthusiasm. “If so, I want a big breakfast.”

“Sure. Why not? But you always want a big breakfast,” Jasmine teased. Then to her sister-wives, “He does have a point, though. We need to cook extra for our lunch. And just in case we don’t bag a kill this afternoon, we need to take some food with us for tonight. You’ll be amazed how hungry you are by the time we have camp set up for the night.”

Turning to her husband, she went on, “That tent is a welcome sight. I’ve had my fill of building a lean-to in a snowstorm.” After turning back to her husband, “What do you think about the weather, Baby?”

“Well, the sun is coming up, there seems not to be any wind, it’s cold as hell and the snow is about three feet deep, other than the drifts. That’s the extent of my weather knowledge. But I agree with you about putting up a lean-to in a snowstorm. Once is enough for a lifetime. I also fell into that damn hole and couldn’t raise my arm past shoulder height, so if the tree climbing had been left to me, we would have lost at least half of that buffalo. I’ve done it, but with the injury, it just wasn’t going to happen, let alone when everything was frozen and ten times as slippery.”