Chapter 713

It was late, but Jeff had one more thing to do as he knocked on General Whitworth’s office door.

“Come,” the General’s muffled voice ordered.

Whitworth sat behind his cluttered desk but looked up as Jeff entered. Without saying anything, he shoved the empty coffee carafe toward the Prime.

Jeff almost asked if he really wanted more coffee this late, but Whitworth, anticipating, said, “I still have a lot of catching up to do, so sleep is still a long way off for me.”

Jeff went about making the coffee without interrupting as Whitworth finished the project he was working on. When the coffee was ready, Jeff poured the General a cup and slid it near, then sat quietly sipping his own as Whitworth contacted two of his Sergeants while occasionally taking a sip from his cup.

Finally, the tired General leaned back in his chair as Jeff, without asking, refilled the now empty cup.

“I hope to hell that whatever problem you have doesn’t take much time, because I still have work to do before I can sack out.”

“Is there anything I can do to help, Sir?”

“Yeah,” Whitworth half-snarled, “come back full-time and take some of this shit off me.”

“You know that I can’t do that, Sir, so why don’t you promote someone?”

“Well, that didn’t work out too well when I promoted your predecessor, now did it? If I remember correctly, you gutted the asshole in front of everyone who managed to be at the base at the time. Not that he didn’t need it, though.”

“I still say that you have good people who deserve a promotion.”

“Bullshit, I pay them as if they had the rank and then some. But ... it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. There are some things that I just have to do for myself. Well, with one exception. You’re the only one I would trust with my business interests.” When Jeff started to say something, Whitworth waved him quiet before saying, “I have people that I can trust, certainly, but trusting them with day-to-day activities is one thing. Trusting them with billions of dollars is something else. You’re the only one I would ever trust with decisions concerning my companies, and you won’t touch them.”

After a big gulp of coffee — Jeff could never understand how Whitworth could drink it that hot — the General locked eyes with the Prime. “Enough of that bullshit; now, what do you need?”

“My wives want you to assign Emma to Ship for the duration of our search for the race that built Ship’s brain. I checked with Jasmine, and she says that she could use an assistant. To refresh your memory, Emma is an anthropologist, but she only has a BS, while Jasmine received her doctorate in anthropology a few months back.”

“I’m not senile — yet,” Whitworth growled. “Hell, I even remember what I — uh, we — gave her. Well, what my wives told me to give her when she received her doctorate. Now tell me the real reason.”

Jeff held back a sigh and wished he had just come clean to begin with. “My wives are interested in Emma — for another wife for me. However, it seems that she is down on men in general because of the way her fiancé suddenly walked out on her without even giving an explanation.”

Whitworth chuckled as a smile touched his face. “Are you sure that you want to take a man-hater with you on a two-year trip?”

“I don’t think she’s a man-hater — exactly. She is certainly down on one man, and because of him, she doesn’t trust men in general, I suppose. Since I have so many wives, she’s probably even more leery of me. At least, that’s my take on the subject. Anyway, her mistrust of the male gender apparently doesn’t reach the point where she can’t be around us. She was actually nice to me, although she made her feelings clear about men in general. And she darn sure fought to keep you alive.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard. Because of what she gave me, I was too busy sleeping to notice.” After a moment of silence, he went on, “Tell you what; give her a choice. Go back to the base and take the next anthropologist assignment that comes up, or go with you. I don’t want to force her to go on a two-year project if she doesn’t want to be around you, whether your wives agree or not.”

“Fair enough,” Jeff said as he came to his feet. “Oh, yeah, when are you planning on returning to the base so I can tell the Science Team and their Security people?”

Whitworth glowered at him. “When and if I ever catch up on the worst of this,” he said as he motioned to his desk, “I’m going to bed. When I wake up, I’ll decide.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jeff returned and left before he got drafted into running the base while Whitworth caught up on his finances.

In the hallway, Jeff glanced at his watch — not that he needed the watch to know what time it was — but because he had forced the habit. People who didn’t know him tended to get uptight when he always knew what time it was without looking at a watch. Besides, his wives had given him a beautiful watch that any man would be proud of, so he used it rather than hurt their feelings.

Shit, it’s way too late to tell Emma what the General said, but then again, there’s another way. “AI,” he said, stressing the term.

“Yes, My Prime.”

“I need to leave a message for Emma to be delivered shortly after she awakens, and it is convenient for her.” In other words, don’t do it while she’s sitting on the throne.

The AI chuckled as if he had heard Jeff’s thoughts, making him wonder.

After changing his mind at the last second, Jeff just said, “When she’s up, have her contact me ASAP.”

“Yes, My Prime. I have a message from your Clan Queen that I do not understand. She said to remind you that you hadn’t been home for the last couple of days. I must confess that I don’t understand what she meant. Surely, you were already aware of that.”

Jeff chuckled. “Oh, I fully understand what she means,” he said as he began jogging toward their bedroom with his grin getting bigger as he neared his destination.

By the time everyone was asleep, there wasn’t much time left before Jeff should be up if he were going to run this morning. The Prime let himself relax, not really a full sleep, but just drifting with his mind free-associating until it was time to hit the road. His women were still deeply asleep, so he didn’t awaken any of them.

It was still a good thirty minutes before the sun would begin to peak over the mountains as he jogged down the driveway to meet his escort.

“Good morning, Colonel,” Beauford greeted while standing next to the lead vehicle.

Jeff knew the Sergeant, but he was not the one who usually escorted him in the mornings. After he returned the greeting, he told Beauford what speed to set and informed him that he intended going the full route this morning.

When Jeff saw the look on Beauford’s face, he said, “If I can’t maintain the pace, I’ll yell.”

Moments later, they were off, and a few minutes after that, Jeff’s body had already shifted into FFA mode (Free Fatty Acid), his breathing slowed and eased as his mind entered what distance runners refer to as the free association mode. The miles drifted by as he concentrated on the things he needed to do today. He suspected that Whitworth was beginning to think he was a bit off center by continuing to allow more women into his harem, and he debated telling his boss why. As he thought things through yet again, he decided to wait. Knowing the General’s intelligence, he might already know, anyway.

Jeff enjoyed running with his women; although several were true distance runners, most weren’t. And even the ones who could make the twenty-six miles that he ran whenever he had the time, couldn’t keep his pace, even for a mile. He had discussed his abilities with Ship, but she just gave a mental shrug and reminded him that he was a Prime.

“You have only begun to come into your abilities,” she had reminded him. “Primes, what few of them there are, might well take several hundred of your years to fully mature. However, your body is different from the race that built my brain, but you are still a Prime. Maybe you are the exact Prime I was waiting for after all. Whether you are or not, you are the perfect Prime for me, and I now realize that I am fortunate that a Prime from the race I knew never came.”

Suddenly Jeff realized that he was no longer remembering what Ship had said; he was communicating with her, even at this distance, which had to be more than five miles and counting.

In his mind, Ship smiled at him. “I finally managed to alter a tiny area of your brain that I hoped would grow into the mechanism that allows for the projection and reception of thoughts. It has been two months now, but it seems that I was successful.”

“You gave me the ability to hear and transmit thoughts?” he asked, amazed.

“I wasn’t certain it would work, but I planted the seed. Your brain is obviously bringing it to fruition. You have already learned to access a higher power source to assist your TK, as evidenced by what you did to those boulders. Before that, remember the steel ball that you pushed to an appreciable percentage of the speed of light on that pocket planet? We will have to wait to determine what your brain will do with this.”

Ship paused before continuing, “I have mentioned little about other Primes — what few of them there have been — but over the eons, there has been an occasional Prime who controlled massive mental energies. Had one of those been alive during our war, he could have ended it in short order. Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to predict when a Prime will be born, but logic would dictate that the more offspring you sire, the better the chance of another Prime. Reared by your family, he should have the background to be fair with his dealings with others as well as having or acquiring from you the ability to keep himself and his wives safe as he grows to maturity.”

“My TK is certainly not in that category,” Jeff quickly responded.

“Yet,” Ship added. “But Prime-wise, you are a mere child who is already learning to control many of your powers. Remember the steel ball I just mentioned?”

Yeah, and it scared the crap out of me, Jeff thought to himself. I just pushed a little bit. What would have happened if I had pushed really hard? I might well have blown that pocket planet apart — and me with it. I can access different power levels, but it’s difficult to determine which one I’m tapped into until I use the power. Had it not been for the General possibly bleeding out, I would never have reached for more power. Even then, I was extremely careful when I first tapped into it. There is just so much that I don’t know, and the TK didn’t come with an instruction manual.

Putting up Christmas lights or moving things around doesn’t require me to access more power, but there is a limit to my own energy, I suppose you could say. Once I used the power levels, it was easy to access them, but I’ll certainly be more confident when I can easily determine what I’m tapped into.

Hmmm, perhaps I could experiment once we’re in space. We could find a system totally devoid of life and test the power levels against some asteroids while trying to mark the levels somehow. That way, if I screw up, I’ll just be making smaller rocks out of bigger ones. Oh, well. We’ll see.

Sergeant Beauford had only recently transferred in while Sergeant Higgins was on a special assignment. Beauford, nervous about his new duty, even though he had asked and trained for it, adjusted his mirror in order to keep a close eye on the Colonel as well as being aware of what was ahead of them. “Shit,” he mumbled, then louder, “I’ve seen the Colonel at the base, and I’ve heard and read in detail about these people. Even to be assigned out here, you have to memorize hundreds of pages about them, watch videos and answer questions about the Colonel and his family, and... that’s before the final which you have to pass with a minimum score of 95%. All that still doesn’t convey watching him set a pace like he did thirty minutes ago and then keep to it. I’ve busted my ass to get in the best shape I’ve ever been in just to pass the physical for this assignment, but I might be able to keep up with him for ten whole seconds. How does he do that? He just seems to lope along with a sort of half-smile on his face.”

Beauford’s driver glanced over and grinned at him. “If you stay here long enough, you’ll get used to the things he does — well, more or less,” he finished with a chuckle.

Fifteen miles later, when the loop swung back toward the road that climbed the mountain, Beauford kept staring until the driver said, “If you’re expecting him to slow down, you’re in for a surprise. He won’t, not even in the steeper places. Oh, and there’s something else that, according to the General, we should never forget. The Colonel is primary should something go down, even if several of his wives should be in danger.”