Chapter 621

... The alien women just stood looking at her.

And you’re going to teach them to cook? Rots of ruck, Kid. You’re gonna need it. But then it hit him. He was almost certain they had never been outside.

“Di,” he said as he grabbed his Clan Queen’s arm, “take them into the lounge and do not let any of them near the outer hatch until I get back.”

Diana stared at him for a second, wondering, but she had faith in her husband. “Uh, sure, but hurry. They’re eager to see our home.”

To make sure, he turned to the alien women. “Uh, Ladies. Have any of you ever seen the sky?”

The women looked at him with blank expressions. As his gaze shifted to his wife, he could see the thought strike. Her eyes opened wider, and she sucked in a breath, but, to give her credit, she didn’t hit the panic button.

“Please, Ladies. Let me make certain of something. None of you have ever been outside of a building, right?” When he saw negative responses, “Uh, how did you get to your ship, uh to the Raider?“

None answered. All just stared at him.

“Hang on, Di. I need to talk to First. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Diana said, her voice a bit higher pitched than usual because of the tension. “We’ll be waiting in the lounge?”

“Sounds good,” he said just before Ship moved him to the hatch for the pocket planet.

A couple of moments later, he met First hurrying toward him, Ship having notified the First Officer that the Captain wanted to see him.

“Simple question,” Jeff said as they met. “Have any of the women you had on the Raider ever been outside?”

The First was shaking his head. “No, none of the women ever go outside. There is no reason for them to do that.”

“What about when they are moved from one place to another? Surely they...”

“They are picked up as a group in a female module and transported to where they are needed. The female modules are all the same, as are their residences and sex areas. The module is designed to lock onto the female area. When they are aboard, the hatch is closed until they reach their destination, and the process is reversed.”

“Do you mean to tell me they have never seen the sky?”

The First thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose there is no need. All are transported the same way. It is standardized. Why should things be different one place from another?”

“Oh, shit, and we almost walked outside with them.”

The First shrugged. “I do not see the problem.”

“I hope there isn’t one, but I think there is a good possibility there could be. Thanks, I’ll get back to you,” Jeff said as he turned and hurried toward the hatch back into Ship proper.

When Jeff came to the door of the lounge and motioned for Diana to step into the hallway, she knew he bore bad news. Before she could speak, he quietly said, “They’ve frickin’ never been outside, and chances are they have never even seen the outside. On their planet, they move the women from one place to another in a vehicle designed to transport women. They never go outside. They could all be agoraphobic for all I know. At the very least, going outside unprepared would have been a shock to them.”

Diana frowned as she considered what he had said.

“Just think, they have always had a roof over their heads. They have never even seen the sky. Best possible scenario: they will be shocked.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Diana said. “I would never have thought that going outside would be a problem for anyone, but I suppose that we have that... exposure practically from birth. I have heard of people being agoraphobic, though, but what made you think of it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it was something the First said about the women having had a room where they slept, another where they stayed most of the time, and yet another where they had sex. He mentioned nothing about the women going anywhere. When I asked him just now, he said they were moved in a vehicle designed for that purpose. They were never allowed outside. There was no reason for them to be outside. Remember, according to Miadax thinking, the women are a subspecies fit only for sex.

“Think about it, Baby. They have seen nothing higher than the ceiling over their heads, nor have they been anywhere there were no walls. Now, they’re going to be standing under an infinite sky in a large open space with mountains in the background. Instead of the beauty we see, they might react the way I’ve herd of people who could not even be in a mall because the open space terrorized them, and I can only imagine how these women will react to all the open area around Ship, not to mention all that sky above them.”

Diana thought for a second. “Remember, just after we arrived here, you and I looked up at the crystal-clear night sky with its billions of stars. After a time, we felt as if we could almost fall into it. They might well have that feeling the first time they walk outside. So,” Diana quietly asked as she glanced back over her shoulder toward the lounge where the women were waiting for them, “what do we do?”

“Try them one at a time, I suppose,” he said, “or maybe drive an Escalade as close to the fake building as possible and have them ride to the Retreat without them ever being completely outside. At least they would have a roof over their heads, although they could easily see out.”

“Maybe we could have ship make them some very dark glasses. They could still see, but the view of the outside should be toned down a bit,” Diana responded. “Of course, those who are still strongly under the influence of the drugs might not be affected that much by the outside.”

“But ... this definitely does not need to be a surprise for them,” Jeff said. “Of course, all our worry might be for naught if they barely notice or just think the view is beautiful. Hmmm ... I think I have an idea of how we might approach this. Let’s go back into the lounge.”

“Ship?”

“Yes, My Prime?”

“Could you display a video of the outside on the holo in the lounge?”

“I have a recording of you and your wives arriving a short while ago. Would that suffice?”

“Yeah, I think so. You might queue up other videos of Security and us arriving and leaving while we are discussing the first video.” Then quietly to his wife, “I hope I’m being overly cautious, but better to expect trouble than for it to be a surprise.

“Okay, who gets to tell them?” he quietly asked his Clan Queen.

Diana grinned at him. “We could take a vote, but you know how your wives will vote, so you might as well just do it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” After a slight hesitation, he went on. “I hope this works. If it doesn’t and they do react adversely to the sky and outside, it’s going to put a damper on your Big Sister program.”

Back in the lounge area, Jeff walked to the front. Before he could even say anything, what few conversations that were happening suddenly ceased. Belatedly, he realized that most of those talking had been his wives trying to start conversations with an alien they had picked to be their sister.

“Ladies, I have something to discuss with you, but first, I would like to ask a question. Have any of you ever been outside?”

At the look of confusion on the alien women’s faces, he went on. “I mean outside the building or room you were normally in?”

When none spoke, one of First’s women, Sarina, said, “If I understand the term correctly, none of us have ever been any place other than our quarters, the Raider, or the ... thing that moved us to the Raider. Well, before the First allowed us to visit him in his quarters.”

Jeff hesitated, not sure how to respond. “Uh, do you realize that there is an entire world outside?” he asked the women.

The same female responded. “I ... think we all realize that there is outside that is not where we live, but it must have been forbidden for us to go there because none of us ever have.”

Jeff passed a glance with several of his wives who were probably thinking the same thing he was. Turning back to his audience, he said, “I think all of you realize that we are aboard Ship. She is going to show us the outside on one of her holo screens. Be aware that anything shown on the holo screen is so ... vivid that it is hard to distinguish from reality. The video shows my wives and me as we walked from our dwelling, the Retreat, to Ship a few minutes ago. Although it will appear that the wall has disappeared and you are looking outside, you are not. It is just a video similar to the ones that I am told you watched on board the Raider.” Well, minus the sex, he thought.

“Fade it in,” Jeff projected to Ship a second before the video started.

There was a cumulative gasp from the alien women as the video of Jeff and his women faded into a startling clarity on the wall holo screen. Some of the women looked away, and three covered their eyes, but within a couple of minutes, they were all staring at the screen, spellbound.

“It is...” Nyala said,

...” beautiful,” Sarina finished for her, “but it is so big.”

“Show us a view from space, please,” Jeff told Ship after the group on the screen had reached Ship and the alien women had finished commenting.

With hardly a hesitation, the video faded away and a view of the Earth from nearby space filled the holo.

“That’s what Earth, our planet, looks like from space,” Jeff told them.

There were more gasps, and he saw two of the women take hold of their seats. “It’s very realistic, but remember, it’s only a video. “Please show us a video of some of us driving up in an Escalade,” he told Ship.

Hardly had the thought formed in his mind when the present scene faded into an Escalade backing out of the Retreat and moving toward Ship. The only difference was the foot or so of snow covering everything except the strip that had been plowed out by Arlene.

“What is that?” Adrienné asked after finding an empty seat and moving as close to Jeff as she could.

“The white is called snow. It is frozen water that often falls from clouds in the winter here in the mountains.”

“That is water? It does not look like water,” an alien commented.

“What are mountains?” someone else asked.

“What is that thing that all of you were in?” another asked.

“It is a vehicle, an SUV, that we use for transportation,” one of Jeff’s wives answered.

Ship, anticipating, had already put a picture of the distant mountains on the screen. “We are now almost to the top of the mountain we live on. It gets cold here in the winter and frequently quite cool at night even in the summer.” Expecting the question, he quickly went on, “Winter is a part of the year that here in the northern hemisphere is colder than any other season of the year. A year is the time it takes for our planet to make one cycle around our star that we call the sun.”

Does their meager education even teach them about their planet circling their sun? he wondered.