Chapter 18

“No, I’m not going to stake you out for the vultures to feed on,” Béla was saying as they traveled toward the center of the great ship, looking for the arborium. “We’ll start with something smaller to stick in you – like making bows and arrows. Maybe then we’ll try something a bit more ... destructive. Okay?”

‘What are we going to use for tooling?’ Beth asked, determined not to pout and realizing that she should be grateful that someone with such a similar mindset to her own was willing to play with her.

Beth knew something about making arrows. That was a weapon she understood. The rifles she had seen some farmers carrying were different. Until she saw the image of Béla’s lifemate making holes in her, she had not known anything about how they worked.

‘My mind is the only tool I need... ‘ Béla mentioned, mentally, trying to sound casual. She was completely serious, however. After all, she had just cleaned off the mess she and her sister had made on the bed sheets and deposited it outside the confines of the ship, plus, she’d cleaned her sister off, from her toes to her nose, and did a good enough job that Beth even smelled clean. She didn’t think she’d have any trouble forming weapons from pieces of deadwood that likely covered the floor where the life-support plants grew.

They went down six more levels into the bowels of the great ship. Béla opened the huge metal door to the scent of fresh air and green things growing. They both pulled the door closed behind them and looked around, goose bumps appearing on their arms and breasts with the deep metallic sound of the door sealing itself against its frame. A crystal in the domed ceiling was radiating heat and light, similar to natural sunlight. The air was easy to breathe. It was fresh and musty at the same time.

“Wow...” a feminine voice sounded, then echoed faintly back from somewhere beyond where they could see.

“Well,” Béla announced, her voice breaking the awed spell that had entranced both girls. “We can practice our powers down here. The entire area is electro-magnetically shielded to protect the plants. Our thoughts and emotional broadcasts are blocked, as well, and won’t flood the rest of the ship.”

“I’ll bet you spent a lot of time down here before me and my sisters came along...” Beth smirked, half-teasing.

“No,” Béla confessed. “I didn’t even know about this place until we were already at New Eden. They were unloading some trees and I asked where they came from. That’s how I found out about it.”

“Really?” Beth gloated. “There was actually something that you didn’t know?” She ducked as a stick suddenly appeared in Béla hands and she swung it at her!

‘Good!’ Beth heard in her head. ‘You can’t be easily taken by surprise!’

‘But that’s because we’re mind-linked, Bitch, ‘ Beth replied, laughing.

She looked around. Béla had vanished, breaking her mental connection with her sister. Then she suddenly reappeared.

“Where were you?” Beth asked, surprised.

“Up there...” Béla indicated with a nod of her head toward the top of a tree.

She had some branches in her hand. Beth thought they might make good bows. Béla held a branch about a meter in length out before her. She made an image in her mind of what a bow made from this piece of wood might look like. She left her mind connected to her sister so that Beth could watch what she was doing.

Make an image of a bow, an unstrung bow. Place it inside the wood branch. Now remove the particles that don’t match the image.

‘That is such an old line that it was around when I was, ‘ Beth chortled in Béla’s mind, remembering an artist explaining how to chisel a statue from a big square piece of stone.

She watched closely as an almost silent rendering occurred at the bottom end of the branch. Tiny wood particles were flying into the air, suddenly separated from the main branch. The rendering effect traveled up and down the length of the branch several times, seeming to follow Béla’s gaze. Then Béla was holding a wooden bow; plainly carved, but it looked effective.

Béla studied it with some uncertainty, remembering her failed attempts to weave grass into rope. Hopefully, this would work better than that.

“Wow!” Beth exclaimed, “That one trick can do a lot!” referring to their newfound ability to teleport objects with their minds. That was the base from which Béla was expanding her new abilities. Had she known that one simple ‘trick’ a hundred years earlier, she wouldn’t have been burnt to death in that stupid fire.

The death scene in Béla’s mind made Beth shiver in horror. She hated the idea that something like that could be done to anyone, ‘least of all, one of us!’

“Think about the cargo bay,” Béla told her sister. “See if you can find something to string this.”

She handed the bow to Beth, then closed her eyes and held out her hand in another direction. Several long, thin branches appeared and dropped into her hand. Making several arrows went much quicker than making the bow.

Béla jumped as something resembling a snake appeared in the air beside her and dropped to the ground.

“I can do that, too!” Beth announced, proudly.

She had, awake and all by herself, dream-walked through the cargo bay until she found a supply of twine. Then she had managed to teleport it down, right through the shields surrounding the arborium.

Image of sisters holding hands and jumping in glee! was what Béla sent her as congratulations. ‘You’ll be completely competent by the time we get to Earth!’

Béla decided to let Beth string the bow, but as the girl pulled it back, she discovered that it was too stiff to string, being too thick in the middle, so Béla ‘shaved’ some more off the central part of the bow, making it flexible enough for Beth to string it. Beth picked up one of the arrows and looked at it closely, puzzled.

“You used the wood itself for the little wings?” Beth asked. ‘The fletching?’

Béla nodded.

Image of the arrow being released, its fragile ‘wing’ disintegrating as it skims by the bow. The arrow flies in a weird curve as it spins, arcing away and completely missing the target.

“What should I use?” Béla asked, thinking her little balsa wings had been quite clever. “There aren’t any birds, here, so I couldn’t...”

Image of a feather. ‘What do I make it out of? Leaves! Replace all the little balsa wings with leaves.’

“Okay, how’s that?” Béla asked, having completed what she’d just considered.

Beth just looked at her sister and glowered. Then she looked at the leaves and mentally rearranged the fiber so that the leaves were ribbed and wouldn’t shred as they passed the bow. They weren’t curled anymore, either, but still retained enough moisture to be flexible. ‘This is getting easier!’ she realized.

‘Showoff!’ Béla sent, secretly proud of how fast her little sister was catching on to her new abilities.

The bow disappeared from Beth’s hand and reappeared in Béla’s, along with an arrow. “Let’s see if this thing works!” Béla said with a sly grin.

She notched the arrow, pulled back on the string, pointed it at Beth and let go. Beth grunted and spun around, the arrow sticking out of her abdomen.

“Bitch! That hurts!” Beth cried.

The arrow had sunk into her stomach just below her rib cage, her silk sarong bunched up around the arrow. As she pulled the arrow out, the material of her sarong came out with it. Amazed, she noticed that, though there was no hole in the fabric, the material had been too thin to keep the arrow from piercing into Beth’s skin. The wound, however, was only an inch or two deep. ‘That shouldn’t have hurt that much!’

“That’s weird!” Béla said, examining the fabric. “Take it off. I think the sarong is what caused the pain. We’re evidently allergic to silk!”

Once all the silk was out of the wound, it healed quickly.

“Okay,” Beth grinned. “My turn.” She looked at the bow and it vanished from Béla’s hands, appearing in her own. “I’m pretty good at this ... You might want to run...”

She could feel Béla’s excitement. She actually was looking forward to being stuck with one of these things. Beth waited while her sister pulled her sarong off over her head, tossed it aside then backed away a few steps and stood with her arms wide, offering Beth an easy target.

‘Well, if that’s what you want, Sis... ‘ Beth released the arrow. It flew toward her sister. ‘Here it comes – right in the gut!’

The arrow vanished. Beth could feel it materializing behind her. She grabbed it with her mind and pulled it out of space just as it pierced her butt. She threw it high into the air and released it back into normal space, where it fell out of sight, disappearing into some brush.

‘We’ll never find that one... ‘

“Good catch!” Béla applauded. Beth could feel real respect radiating from her sister. She smiled, secretly knowing it wasn’t really all that good; she had an inch deep hole in her butt cheek. She forgot about it as it healed.

“So this is what you mean by ‘practice’?” Beth asked. She had been hoping for some serious rutting fun and maybe a dozen or so orgasms while they were at it.

“That’s enough practice for one day,” Béla told her. “You’re a fast learner. I don’t have to show you things twice, and you’re already doing things on your own. We’re a lot alike, you and I,” ‘and the same things make us horny!’ she finished silently, still radiating that wild sexual excitement about being pierced by many small foreign objects.