Chapter 13: Party on, Pocahontas

At the Unassigned Concubine Quarters, organized chaos reigned. Most of the newly arrived concubines had no dependants, but all too many were fluttery, fluffy-headed fourteen-year-olds. They were settling in, but in so doing they were driving the straw bosses nuts.

One who was taking it all calmly and in stride was Colonel Deschenes' concubine, Penny, giving out instructions, suggestions and hugs. She was dressed considerably more comfortably than any time that Samantha had seen her before: a pair of leather sandals of the kind known as JC Waterwalkers, and her concubine collar. Samantha reflected that she'd never seen the straw boss of the highest-ranking officer on Thule wearing anything more than shoes, makeup and concubine collar, usually high-heeled dancing shoes which to Samantha's mind must be at least somewhat uncomfortable. "Is my sponsor-husband still losing it up there?" she demanded.

"Oh, you heard..." ventured the young Civil Service cadet.

"The whole damned colony heard. I need to talk to my sponsor, and that silly AI won't allow me to unless you give the order. It says this is your territory, and you set the rules here."

"AI, in the future, if a concubine wants something that is outside the parameters of what I've already allowed, find me and ask me. Right now, the whole brigade needs Penny to calm the Colonel down. Let her try."

"Aye aye, Optio Redburn." The feminine voice of the AI, deliberately chosen by Samantha as much more soothing to disoriented newly-arrived concubines than the masculine version, calmly cut through the hubbub of the almost-full quarters. Suddenly they could hear the Colonel, still expostulating explosively to Lieutenant-Colonel Desrocher.

"Mon cherie," Penny called, her amplified voice oozing sex appeal, "you really should calm down now."

The voice that came back was still tinged with outrage. "You should see what that black-hearted bastard has done."

"I know, I heard," she assured the angry officer. "And who sent whom a get-well stripogram when he was in the hospital recovering from gall bladder surgery, almost causing him to tear his stitches out laughing? And who sent whom a package containing a fifty-year-old copy of the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialities, Volume Nine of the 1938 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the 1894 Pentecostal Missionary Society Annual General Report and a very large rock to his cottage one summer, postage due?"

"He'd had the local Fish and Game officer come over to my cottage and accuse me of poaching fish..." ventured a much more subdued, apparently embarrassed Michael.

"Just remember that the next time you're tempted to send a fire truck over to his place, siren blaring and with five firefighters on board in full turnout gear, just to water his flowers."

"Hey, that was funny!" protested Michael, as his anger drained away. "How was I supposed to know the basement window was open?"

Penny rolled her eyes. To Samantha, she explained, "Mike and Bill have been trying to get each other's goat for years, since they met at college. You'd never know it, but they're the best of friends." She then added, "Bill did manage to get Mike's goat one year, but when it started to eat his pickup truck's seat covers, he decided he had to give it back."

Samantha decided it was safest to not ask if Penny was pulling her leg with that last remark, and merely instructed the AI to broadcast her next speech to the entire colony.

"Tonight at twenty hundred hours, we'll have a party to welcome the newly-arrived concubines to Thule, at the Beauty Saloon. The theme will be 'Western', and the ladies from the Aurora will be dressed up as Indian princesses, in buckskin vests, loincloths and moccasins, and with an eagle's feather in their hair. Come dressed up or dressed down or undressed, but please do come to enjoy the dining and dancing."

She then had the AI switch her to the Unassigned Concubine Quarters' PA system. "You heard the announcement. You're the guests of honour at the ball tonight. I'm Optio Samantha Redburn, I'm the ranking – and only – Civil Service officer for Thule. You're my responsibility until you start getting taken up by the new sponsors we've got hitting their fourteenth birthdays over the next few months."

One of the girls turned to her. "Fourteen? I'm fourteen myself. I hope they're not expecting us to set up housekeeping."

"Honey," she advised the well-stacked brunette, "get him to choose a mother figure. She can keep you on the straight and narrow."

"That's no fun," protested a grinning girl from across the room. "What if I happen to like girls?"

Monica sidled up to the girl and breathed into her ear, "Get the nice young Civil Service officer to bring you home. Three tongues, no waiting..."

The girl giggled at the thought as Samantha gave her mother a grateful hug and kiss.

As the girls prepared for battle, they discovered that the outfits that Samantha had designed were most charitably described as "a trifle revealing". That was akin to describing Olympus Mons as "a trifle high".

"Where's the rest of it?" one girl pleaded, holding a few scraps of buckskin in her hands.

"You are the rest of it," Penny advised, turning back to help apply war paint to the cheeks of another young teen.

The outfit proved to be exactly as advertised: soft, comfortable moccasins adorned the girls' feet. A band around each girl's head held a single feather at the back. The loincloth was less than three inches wide and only knee-length, which left the wearer's loins exposed when leaning forward, and had no back panel to cover the buttocks. The two front panels of the vest were not merely far apart, they practically held restraining orders against each other, barely covering the areolae. As each girl walked, her nipples would flirt with the boys, playing peek-a-boo with every step. Dancing threatened to prove even more revealing.

"Now ladies," Samantha advised, "if you find a young man or woman you'd like to fuck, and I have to emphasize 'man or woman' as they must be at least 14 years of age, and you'd like to do it somewhere more private than down in the restaurant, you can take them up here."

"More private?" Cassie, Commander Walker's 13-year-old daughter, was assisting her mother and the other officers' straw bosses in getting the Filles du Roi ready for their grand welcoming soirée. She glanced around the party room, which occupied the front two-thirds of the second floor over the Beauty Saloon: ten rows of 20 beds, arranged in military precision, with a line of toilets running along the back wall. The back wall itself was only marble for half its height, and glass the rest of the way to the ceiling. The other three sides boasted floor-to-ceiling windows looking down over the expanse of the dome. On the other side of the wall of toilets was a shower room, likewise glass on three sides, and close to and even with the slidewalk and ring road that girdled the base. Grand Central Station promised more privacy.

The children, who were also invited, wanted to know what they would be wearing. Samantha didn't permit the young ones to wear the vest. The scanty garb titillated and aroused, so having the flat-chested children go without meant they wouldn't have the same impact on the adults as the teens' flashing of hidden delights would. At least that was the theory she was operating under.