Chapter 9: Getting into the Groove

The first pod that was constructed on the surface was really nothing more than a hollow shell with enough replicator power to bury itself, scrub the air, and alter its floor plan. The industrial replicator had built it in a couple of hours. It was sunk just across the corridor from Constance and Tuan's pods and was just a big, open room with a booming echo, but it gave the kids plenty of room to run, and run they did.

Constance headed toward Judith, but Tuan just stood and watched the kids. He noticed that Kim was spending more time with Jishnu now that Frank had left with his family. The sour look Roni gave her brother was a clear indication that she wasn't pleased with this development.

Nancy walked by and whispered, "I think I'm ready," without stopping or even looking in his direction. Tuan's mind was drifting, and it took a few moments for her meaning to sink in.

Tuan turned and gave the retreating girl an incredulous look as his suddenly slack chin drifted toward his chest. It was very uncharacteristic for him to stare with his mouth hanging open. Nancy had given no previous indication that she was receptive to sex, much less interested in it. Tuan wasn't sure he was mentally ready to fuck someone who was only three years older than his daughter. He may not have been mentally ready, but his dick was already rising to the occasion.

Nancy walked on out of the community center and turned toward Tuan's pod. Tuan followed her as a single thought kept circulating unanswered in his head, Does she mean right now?

Nancy was standing in the middle of the living room shaking like a leaf when Tuan entered the pod. She was almost hoping that she had spoken too softly for Tuan to understand what she had said to him. Her courage was failing her even before he came into view.

"Are you all right?" Tuan asked the clearly frightened girl who looked like she was about to pass out. "You don't look like you're ready. Let's sit down and talk about what's going on and what you really want."

Nancy appeared relieved when Tuan extended his hand and turned her toward the couch instead of the bedroom. They each sat with one leg on the couch facing each other. Nancy clutched Tuan's hands with hers and tried to speak, but couldn't force more than a squeak from her tight throat.

"Why did you tell me you're ready when, clearly, you're not?" Tuan gently asked the frightened girl.

Nancy looked at a spot on the couch between them. "You've been so good and patient with me, asking nothing, offering everything. You haven't even made me fly a shuttle after giving me all that training. I need to earn my keep. Maggie and Celeste seem to look forward to having sex with you. Everyone in a hundred light-years knows that Bea loves having you do whatever you want with her. She screams like she's dying from sheer pleasure. I want to scream like that, but I am afraid to even try."

Tuan wanted to lift Nancy's chin in order to look into her eyes, but the girl refused to loosen her grip with either hand. "You don't owe me anything beyond respect and obedience, Nancy. I didn't bring you along just because I wanted to have sex with you. I did it because you appeal to my inner need to be a hero and because I really like you."

"But," Nancy stammered, "don't I turn you on?"

"Regularly, painfully," Tuan admitted. "But, I'm mature enough to not be led around by a swollen dick."

"Don't let him kid you," Beatrice said from the doorway. "Any man who can't be led around by his genitals isn't totally functional. In fact, he's probably dead. Tuan is far from dead, and he's fully functional."

Nancy turned red and finally released Tuan's hands. "We weren't doing anything!"

"Clearly," Beatrice replied with a friendly tone. "You're both still fully clothed. And holding hands? What's with that? The real question is why aren't you doing anything?"

"Behave, Bea," Tuan said without looking away from Nancy. "Nancy is a bit fragile and vulnerable at the moment."

"I'm sorry if that sounded mean, sweetheart." Beatrice was clearly concerned for her sister concubine when she asked Nancy, "When was the last time your nanites checked your hormone levels?"

"Bea," Tuan turned to face Beatrice. "Were you ever a shy and frightened virgin? Maybe it was so long ago that you don't remember. Let's not add to Nancy's embarrassment with a bunch of silly question and unwanted attention, okay?"

Beatrice was about to plead innocence when a worn down group of kids stumbled into the pod. Beatrice turned her attention to getting them cleaned up, settled down, and fed. When Nancy saw the kids she ran into Tuan's bedroom to clean the tear streaks from her face and hide out until she recovered her dignity.

"What's going on?" Celeste and Margret asked almost in unison.

"Nothing serious, I hope," Tuan remarked. "Nancy is trying to decide whether or not she's grown up."

Celeste asked, "Poor kid! Should I check on her?"

Tuan shrugged, "I don't know. It might be best to give her some space, but she might need a friend. I'm sure you two are close, but one thing that has her feeling bad is her reluctance to pilot a real shuttle. The fact that you're comfortable flying a shuttle might increase her anxiety level. Kim, you're closer to her age than anyone. Would you mind checking on her and reassure her that she's accepted?"

"Sure thing, Pop." Kim slid off the barstool and grabbed a snack to take with her into the bedroom.

Tuan shook his head while smiling at her priorities, "Thanks, kiddo."

In less than ten minutes the two girls emerged from the bedroom laughing. Tuan was really pleased with himself for not pushing Nancy. His lust for the girl, who was hardly older than his youngest child, put him on a serious guilt trip. Looking at Margret he knew that Kim would not be his youngest child for very long. Margret's abdomen was once again on the Rubenesque side, only this time it wasn't because she was overweight.

"So, are we going to put the nursery on this floor or upstairs?" Tuan asked no one in particular and remarked, "The AI tells me that the pod can be made much larger now that it's been removed from the shipboard mount, but we seem to have plenty of room."

The machine shop that had been in Nguyen's pod had been moved to the pumping station. The medical capsule didn't take up much more room than a double bed and it could also be used as an extra sleep trainer, but he made a note to himself to ask that a full medical bay unit be built and added to the underground collection of pods as soon as a third industrial replicator was operational at the pumping station.

Beatrice approached Tuan when the kids wandered into the family room with their midmorning snacks. "I wasn't being insensitive to Nancy," she said softly, almost conspiratorially. "She's on an emotional rollercoaster caused by fear, perceived responsibilities and failures, a desire to fit in, and raging hormones. Her body and logical brain are telling her to get laid, but her fear is holding her back. It's not just fear of physical pain. There's something haunting her subconscious that she may not even be aware of."

Tuan was visibly impressed by the insightful remarks, "I know you don't have a mean bone in your lush body, and you're only frivolous when showing the kids how to turn any situation into a fun way to learn and cope. I have the same nagging feeling that there was some trauma in Nancy's past associated with sex. There's no evidence that she herself was abused, but it could have been something she witnessed at such a young age that the memory has been suppressed. It's actually very unusual these days for a girl her age to be virgin."

Things were no less tense in the McKinsey pod. Phaninath and Leroy had been jumpy for days. Judith was feeling alone when she was with Constance and had taken to hanging out with the other three concubines at every opportunity. Aswani comforted the kids by day and her brother-husbands by night. She had to coax them to get some sexual attention beyond cuddling in the bed.

The pod got suddenly quieter when Constance emerged from her study for lunch. Judith finally associated the silence with Constance's mood swings. They seem to have started a few days before their pod was dropped from Copernicus to Barcino, the name they had given to their settlement on the coast of Triton. Constance was smiling and talking with everyone during lunch, but no one was completely relaxed.

"The AI tells me that with the habitat pod no longer attached to a ship and not likely to be uploaded, it can be made a whole lot bigger." Constance was talking, but not directing her remarks at anyone. She wasn't even making eye contact as she spoke. "It'll take three days for a pod to be configured the way I'd like, so I want you to bring one of the new ones down after lunch, Judith."

Judith was puzzled, "I'll get right on it, but we don't really need..."

Constance interrupted her with, "Don't you guys feel crowded in this ceramic cigar? The air is getting stale. No, we need a bigger place."

Judith enlisted Nancy's help and the two women took the transporter up to the station. "I might like to fly us down, but I'd like you to take us out of the hangar and connect with the pod."

"That sounds like a plan. We can cruise around in a shuttle for a bit if you like." Judith hadn't expected Nancy to do any of the flying, but she needed a copilot to operate the grapple and monitor stresses during the descent. One person could do it, but it was safer to divide the workload in case of trouble.

Nancy refused to land the pod and Judith took over for the final approach, but Nancy did fly the lighter back to the station and did a beautiful job of parking it when Judith refused to accept control when Nancy asked her to.

Their feet were gliding across the hangar deck in the low gravity of the station as they headed for the transport pad. Nancy broke the silence with, "I'm angry with you for making me dock the lighter, but I thank you for pushing me into doing it. Bea told me that facing my fears is the best way to conquer them."

"You have nothing to be afraid of, Nancy," Judith assured her. "You have the best scores of any of us on the simulator."

"Maybe," Nancy said just before they stepped into the stream. "But no one dies if I fly a simulated shuttle through a hangar wall."

Back in the pod Judith tracked down her sister-concubine. "Aswani, have you noticed any kind of change in anyone's behavior in the last week or so?"

"You are speaking of our mistress." Aswani didn't hesitate before responding.

Judith nodded her assent, not really wanting to say anything negative out loud. "What can we do to make it better?"

Aswani took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I am thinking that you are knowing her better. I have only been knowing her for five months. I also am having a problem. I am three months along with Leroy's seed in my womb and the sex is getting more and more vigorous. I do enjoy it, but it needs to taper off as my belly swells. What do you think should be done?"

"I've only been with her for a few months more than you, and I've never seen her behave this way," Judith remarked. "I have no idea what's causing her to be sweet and gentle one minute and a raging tyrant the next. I guess all we can do is weather the storms and support her as best we can."

Drawings and notes were spread out on the two large tables in the Barcino CIC. The four engineers had broken into two teams. Constance and Margret were completing the creation of a replicator file for a domed structure while Tuan and Celeste investigated the use of force field technology to speed the excavation of the numerous tunnels.

Margret had written a program that converted Computer Aided Design files into detailed specifications of the materials to a molecular level in a three dimensional representation. Constance was going to take advantage of the excavation tailings to construct the playground dome. It would be a monolithic granite framework with pentagonal leaded quartz blocks sealed to the granite with C-channels of Teflon.