Chapter 83: SM03-Tau - Day 13, Afternoon

When Petty Officer First Class Rebecca Lott arrived at SM03-Tau, the dusky-skinned beauty that Roger had told her about was waiting, and escorted her to the dining room, where Steve was finishing up his lunch, a naked Hispanic woman kneeling by his side, wearing only a collar and cuffs.

"I'm sorry if I'm early," Rebecca said.

"No, you're fine; I'm just running late," Steve told her. "I had an interesting morning, and got a little behind schedule." He stroked the woman's head, and she rubbed her cheek on his leg.

"I understand congratulations are in order," he continued, nodding at the rings on her finger. "Lambda told me you'd gotten married, but omitted the details."

Rebecca flushed, and said, "Yes, thank you. I'm actually married twice; I've got a lesbian wife named Dawn in one marriage, and two husbands, Tom and Roger, in the other. And each of my husbands also has a second marriage; Tom is married to Johnny, and Roger is married to Maribeth and Tabitha. And Dawn and I have a slave, who doesn't have a name at present, and Tom has enslaved one of our former crew mates, Stacy."

The woman on the floor shuddered at the thought of being stripped of her name, and thus her identity, but Steve stroked her shoulders and she calmed down. Rebecca looked at her, kneeling with her thighs spread, and realized she wasn't as bisexual as she'd first thought. Despite the woman's beauty, Rebecca wasn't the least bit interested in her, unlike the (quite resistible) attraction she felt for Steve. She looked back at Steve as he began to speak.

"Theresa, you may leave us now," he said. "I need to speak to Rebecca privately."

The woman rose gracefully, allowed Steve to fondle her ass briefly, then turned and left the room.

Steve leaned back in his chair, and said, "I've been remiss, I should have offered you refreshments. Can I get you anything?"

Rebecca shook her head, and said, "No, I'm fine. I just had lunch."

Steve nodded, "Excellent. Before the others get here, I have something to tell you that is for your ears only. You should consider this to be the equivalent of code-word classified material."

Rebecca blinked. She'd been the NCO in charge of the communications section, and thus had to be cleared for Top Secret/Crypto, which was as high as most operational people ever got. Aside from Tom Clancy fans, damn few people had even heard of code-word classification. She straightened unconsciously as she nodded her understanding.

Steve began to spin a tall tale of simulated brains, computer security flaws, and other technobabble that left Rebecca unimpressed, until he got to the meat of the story, and revealed what his 'other self' had discovered about the destruction of Earth. Instead of doubt and skepticism, she was filled with rage, and when she heard of Prime's promised billion deaths, she said only, "That will have to do."

She leaned back in her chair, and said, "I think I'd like that drink now. Rum and coke, light on the rum."

Steve got her a drink, and one for himself. He gave hers to her, then tapped glasses and said, "Confusion to our enemies." She gave a wry grin, and said, "I'd rather toast to their extinction, but I'm trying to cut down on the bloodthirsty warrior image." She sipped her drink, grimaced slightly at the sharp taste, then took a big swallow.

Steve noticed her look, and said, "Not quite to your taste? Interesting; we always get a variation on the item requested that exactly meets our tastes. It was part of what made Prime's story believable. If they'd simulated our brains and bodies, they'd naturally have had to calibrate the sensory responses. So if they didn't scan and simulate you, then they'd have to guess."

Rebecca nodded, "That sounds plausible enough. I still can't figure out how to prove any of this. Even if I assume you're honest, which is relatively easy to do, I have to assume the information you've been given is honest, and that's a much longer stretch. I do agree with two things, however. Your information is safe with me; I won't even share with my spouses. And we do have to operate on the assumption that everything we've been told is a lie, even though we're doing what our 'hosts' seem to want us to do."

Rebecca took another sip of her drink, and said, "All of which ignores a very important question for me. If this is all so secret, why am I hearing it?" She dreaded Steve's response, but one light-weight drink on a full stomach wasn't going to make her drunk enough to be stupid. The answer was obvious, but she needed to hear it from him.

"Because of the three obvious candidates, you're the only choice for educational representative for your fellow sailors. Robertson is out; I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him. I might have a use for him later, though. Smith isn't even in the running; he's a non-entity, Robertson made him exec for exactly that reason. And I'm not impressed with Lockley's results as CO.

"Lockley had best remaining resources of the three ships, but they were the closest to collapse when the aliens found you. If his crew had been in better shape, we wouldn't have had to split you up to treat you; we'd have waited to have quarters specially built for each ship's crew instead of reusing some empty units that happened to be available.

Steve knocked back his drink, finishing it in a gulp. "Not to imply that you're just the least objectionable candidate; if you'd been a lightweight like them I'd have swallowed my distaste for keeping the only 'real' survivors of Earth in the dark, and just kept on going as I had been. But now, I've got the emotional cover I need. You'll be part of the 'government, ' such as it is, and fully the equal of the rest of us. In fact, your vote will probably rank about equally with all of 'my' votes together, just because I don't think I'm that different from my brothers at this point. A few years from now, we might start to actually disagree, but it's been pretty rare so far."

Steve stopped, shook his head, and said, "One thing all of my selves have in common is that we run our mouths. Your turn. Are you in? What else do you want to know? If you're in, you'll get full access to everything I've got in terms of information."

Rebecca finished her drink, then said, "I'm in. God help me, but I'm in. If for no other reason than one that I'm guessing figured into your acceptance: so that the powers that be include at least one more person that finds the lifestyle I've found myself in acceptable. I know that Johnny and Tabitha know all about being part of a persecuted minority, and I suspect that Tom, Maribeth, and Dawn are equally aware of the problem."

Rebecca and Steve spent the next few minutes discussing the details, and the idea of bringing in a few other 'reconstituted' citizens to form a kind of council to work on the education project, and on some kind of governing authority. Rebecca told him that there was no way to have a military tribunal to judge Robertson's guilt in the rape; they would need command-rank officers to sit as the board, and there weren't any. Even if they 'commissioned' the senior NCO's there weren't enough candidates that didn't have a conflict of interest.

Rebecca asked, "Do you know if there are any officers or retired officers among your people?" Steve admitted ignorance, but asked the room monitor, which responded in the negative. "There are several ex-military members, but none of commissioned rank in any military, and in particular, there are no United States officers of any branch."

Rebecca had one last question. "You said we were all treated, but you only mentioned a few isolated problems at the meeting. What kept the rest of us out for so long?"

Steve grimaced, and said, "When the aliens grew our new bodies, they obviously didn't grow any microbes or viruses along with them. Since the human body more-or-less expects a certain level of attack, they had to create synthetic bugs for our immune systems to chew on, to keep us from becoming allergic to ourselves, or developing some similar autoimmune problem.

"The synthetic bugs are a lot easier to kill than the real thing, so we spend less energy on that and have more for other things, like sex. I never did get the answer for how I was able to keep up with so many women, until you guys showed up and the aliens had to explain why they had to fumigate you. As a compensation for the invasion of your privacy, they also tuned your metabolisms up a bit, cleaned up some point mutations, free-radical damage, and cellular gunk. So your older members should start feeling younger and more energetic almost immediately. And even the youngsters should get a bit of a boost."

Rebecca was startled again, but covered it with a wise-crack. "You're right," she teased, "you do tend to run at the mouth. Could be worse, I suppose. At least you've got a real answer buried in all that noise."

Steve sighed, but didn't speak. Before he could, the room monitor played a message from Anna, telling him that the rest of his visitors were waiting for him in his office. "Office? I don't have an office," he told Rebecca.

Rebecca tilted her head to one side, and said, "Ruler of humanity, and you don't have an office? Do you have any over-active underlings? Maybe someone decided you needed one."

Steve grumbled, "I bet you're right," and led her out of the room, where a smirking set of wives, concubines, and outright slaves were waiting for him, along with Ed, Camile, and the rest of the women.

"Office?" Steve growled, and got a bunch of carefully blank looks. He glared at Ed, who said, "Don't look at me. I didn't do it."

Steve said, "But I'll bet you didn't stop it either. Anyway, you're with us. Time you started exercising more of that authority your lovely wife signed you up for."

Ed blushed (it was barely visible on his dark skin) but didn't speak, and he followed quietly when Anna showed Steve where his new office was.

Rebecca found John Lockley, Ron Smith, and her own Jonathon Ko, all waiting for her and Steve. The three men started to stand when Steve walked in, but he waved them back to their seats.

"I'm not one of your officers," Steve told them, "and I'm not a leader of any sort, at least if I have anything to say about it, so hold the honors, if you don't mind."