Chapter 3

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

The boy followed his own steady pace now. He was proceeding on a nearly straight direction away from the lands of the Hurstmon tribe and toward his hoped for return to his clan, which lay across the wide blue water of the Toolie. Ureeblay paced himself by loping several travel lengths and then he would cover a travel length at a fast hike. As he broke into a lope again, he was testing the air for warning scents and scanning his surroundings out to as far as he could see. The swale was becoming drier as the pitch of the decline increased and his small runnel of water grew in size as it drained some of the moisture from the surrounding boggy downs. His footing as he ran was starting to firm up. The childhood games of his clan had prepared him well for running and running and running.

His hunger was ever-present now and his adventure so far had left him with very little body fat. Traveling on his own for a little over two double-moons with only what edible plants he could find in unknown territory and the small animals or fish he could harvest on the move had consumed his baby fat. Ureeblay had strengthened his growing muscles and built up his stamina as circumstances forced him to live off the land. His childhood affliction of boredom had completely disappeared. His growing need to return with his incredible fortune for the good of his clan replaced his previous focus on just himself. He did admit to himself, he was looking forward to the accompanying acclaim he would receive for returning with the shard of frozen lightning.

Ureeblay could now see down into the huge expanse of the valley of the Toolie. It spread out from right to left in front of his vantage point as he followed the boggy downs that descended from the high fells. As the green, peaty landscape around him dropped toward the river valley, at either hand the boy could make out the two guiding ridgelines a day’s travel in distance. Both features lead back to the ascending forested passes and peaks of the Hurstmon clans’ territories where he had discovered his small sliver of frozen lightning.

It was just past high sun. Above him, only a few low, puffy white clouds moved slow patches of travel-length shadows over the valley below him from time to time. He could easily make out the deep-green leafy belts of forest. The closest belt of trees guarded the edge of the valley in both directions; to the Cool on his left, and to the Warm to his right.

The second, far band of forest he could see across the valley floor, to the Morn, Ureeblay knew marked this side of the banks of the Toolie. He could feel his heart rate increase at the thought of finally seeing his immediate goal in the distance.

From both bands of green, Ureeblay could see where the forest had spread out in fingers and clumps into the surrounding meadows and undulating river bottom. The boy could see the valley floor covered in grasses and ripening grains as well as woods upon various heights of conical knolls and hillocks. He could even make out the dark-reddish places on the valley floor as brakes of cane berries. Each dark-red patch had to be huge for him to see them from this distance.

Here and there off to the two cardinal directions of the Cool to his left and the Warm to his right, Ureeblay saw the tracks of creeks crossing the valley floor. He followed each course with his eyes and marked them in the map he was building inside his head. It was good to know where the various streams made their ways to join the deep, wide blue waters of the Toolie. He could catch glimpses of the boundary of that body of blue water through the protective band of forest along its banks as the Toolie traveled from the Warm to the Cool before him. The course of his own journey was always toward the Morn, where Father Sun rose each day. The territory of the Hurstmon was behind him, to the Eve, where Father Sun found his rest as each evening began. The Toolie was the acknowledged border between his clans’ territories and those of the Hurstmon.

His eyes kept returning to that first band of forest below him, at the edge of the valley. Ureeblay thought he might make it to that boundary by night fall. That was his intended goal.

The boy’s route towards his goal now would sometimes cross-over the growing stream. The water course always meandered through the lowest portions of the descending swale. The going was becoming rougher as the pitch of the surrounding grasses and now occasionally bush-covered land increased with each travel length Ureeblay traveled as he drew nearer to the valley floor. He was beginning to notice that even as he could see more of the valley in the distance to his right and left, his clear line of sight was shortened close up around him.

The hummocks grew much, much larger and taller, and the thick, verdant dips stretching between them dropped lower. He was traveling over much firmer footing now, as this part of the downs was better drained by its increasing pitch and the very stream which he’d found the headwaters of earlier near the start of his morning’s trek.

Ureeblay could already smell the peaty, sweet water in the rich, heating air as he approached the flow’s next section of widening streambed. He had been slowing to sip a mouthful of clear, fresh water before he jumped across. Now, when the stream returned near or athwart his line of travel, the boy felt something like a growing acquaintance and even anticipation. The boy realized the feeling was similar, but not as intensely pleasing, as seeing Kreedley again, who was his mother’s oldest sister’s son and his own age.

The renewal and strengthening of that favorite kinsman’s friendship happened once every full turning of the four seasons. Each happy meeting was at the mid-summer double-moon-length congregation of the clans, which was held for the solstice ceremonies, the counting of the clans, planning by the clans’ leaders, and a host of other things.

There were clan-wide meetings and special mysterious ceremonies held by different groups; such as the hunters’, or the weavers’, or one of the other several guilds of his people; the Sisterhood of the Women; the Shamans; and the Healers. His mother was a member of both the Sisterhood and the Tanners’ guild. And there were dances, and hunts, and the telling of stories, the remembering, and great feasts. The feasts had always been Ureeblay’s favorite pastime at every congregation; after renewing the bonds he shared with Kreedley.

At every new meeting, Ureeblay had momentarily reveled in the shock at how much Kreedley had grown over the passing of four seasons. In a minor way, it was the same with the growing stream he had found and was now his occasional companion as they both headed, he realized, toward the water of the Toolie. How big would it be next? There surely must be other small trickles of water emptying into the flow for it to grow as it did, part of him reasoned.

All those small trickles were like the many individual experiences that filled both himself and Kreedley up, over the course of the turning seasons. Those experiences, along with youthful exuberance, always threatened to burst out of their banks on the boys’ first meeting at each new congregation. And then there would be a rush of talking as each boy told the other of things they had done or saw or heard since they last spent time with each other.

After their easy friendship was safely re-established, they would even share their minor or major concerns with one another on hikes out into the surrounding countryside where they could be free of other members of the various clans and their own family members.

Since he’d last jumped the stream, Ureeblay had retied his long blue-black hair. He had been growing nervous as his immediate line of sight was blocked because of the growing irregularity of the downs he traveled. So, Ureeblay thought it only prudent to be prepared.

He started traveling with one lightweight, feathered spear nocked in the receiver cup of his carved spearcaster. With his right index finger and thumb in the leather loops of the grip end, the boy kept his three other free fingers clasping the shafts of both the spear and channeled caster, holding them together. With his right arm down along his side, his lowered hand balanced the spear back up the inside of his forearm to rest the shaft over the crook of his right arm. Then the receiver cup end of his spearcaster reached down almost to his ankle.

The wickedly sharp flint tip on his spear was two-fingers wide and almost two-fingers long. The spear tip pointed up into the sky just over his shoulder, ready for blooding again. The flint heads were the first he’d knapped that were what he considered worthy to mount on real spear shafts, and they’d done him proud during his adventure. He had started with a hand count of the lightweight spears, so he was vigilant and careful with his last two shafts.

Ureeblay was rewarded by his forethought, as a travel length after he’d armed his spearcaster; the boy killed a small flats-pig. The animal had flushed out of knee-high grasses in a goodly-sized dip almost right in front of him. His training took over and he watched from inside his own head as his body launched his spear shaft and the sharp flint tip punched clear through the pig’s rib cage just behind the front legs. The pig squealed and fell into the thick, green grass.

He ran up to the pig and slit its throat with his flint knife. Next, he worked his spear from the pig’s body and cleaned the blood off the shaft and the tip as best he could with handfuls of grass. He left the small pig to bleed out as he gathered thick bowerbird grasses the length of his leg.

Once he’d judged he’d harvested enough of the tough long-threaded grass, he sat down by the carcass and triple-plaited the bowerbird grass into lengths. Then the boy rolled and wove those lengths into serviceable cordage. With that done and the pig suitably bleed out, he’d bound the ends of the tough, wide grass cordage to each back leg of the pork and put the wide, green loop over his left shoulder.

Now, the snout of the dead pig bounced against his thigh, its cut throat clear of his clout. He planned to wash the blood from his skin at the next stream crossing. He’d settled his quiver strap against the side of his neck and moved his shoulders until the tip of his quiver, holding his last feathered spear, settled down his bare back and stopped near his tailbone.

He could have used rawhide cord from the supply he carried in his travel pouch to truss the pig, but he knew that would have bitten into the skin of his bare shoulder. Just because he was hungry didn’t mean he had to be uncomfortable at the same time, he reasoned.

Third Mission, outbound aboard the Federation space vessel DSE Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

Because of the conversation that I, G3 Jameson Sitwell, struck up with a talkative G5 from the Supply Department in small stores, I came to the attention of the Ship’s commander, Captain Annalise Mowmyier. I have to say, I learned her first name later on.

Now in her office, I just stood there at attention. The Captain had not even said At Ease once I’d given my salute to her and she had returned it.

The very first thing I learned while standing at attention in the Captain’s office was that G5 Merch was really Acting Lieutenant Commander Merchanni, Supply Department. Then the Captain called him, Ali-Xander, which I guessed had to be his first name. I discovered his first name was hyphenated later.

So right there, I guessed, he had very recently suffered a big promotion, all the way up to Acting Lieutenant Commander. Which, I reminded myself, had been the rank held by the disgraced Trellaway who was also the Head of the Supply Department. So, Merch’s forgetfulness in telling me of his true position and responsibilities now made no sense to me at all, unless he was working a deep con on somebody when I happened to walk into the small stores department.

Well, he had sure conned me into doing what he needed done. I am sure with everything else he had going on with making his adjustments to his new assignment as Department Head, he hadn’t seen the need to inform me about any of that. Besides, how else would the two of us ever have struck up a casual conversation unless we were talking as a regular old G3 to a regular old G5 who were just hanging out shooting the breeze with that small stores counter between us as an easy place to rest our elbows.

What the fuck had I gotten myself into, part of me not at attention, wondered.

Also, the Captain showed no displeasure at Acting Lieutenant Commander Merchanni being out of uniform, and being dressed as a sloppy-looking non-com in her presences. She didn’t even mention it once.

I was three steps behind the very comfortable looking chair the Captain had asked Merch to have a seat in, on this side of the Captain’s desk. The next thing I realized was that the desk was made of real wood; and I mean, real expensive wood. It was some kind of exotic hardwood in dark-reds and black grains that swirled and reflected light in a very subdued, sophisticated way that didn’t call your attention to it unless you were at attention and it was in your line of sight for awhile. And the finish looked like it was several centimeters deep, which was an optical illusion, I’m sure.

Other than that, I tried to bore a hole, with my eyes, though a framed vid-picture programmed with eight different still images of a college-aged young woman. The vid-pic was hanging with several other vid-pics and diplomas and such on the bulkhead behind the good Captain’s beautiful, wood desk.

I couldn’t get away from the visage in the vid-pic. The girl was obviously Mowmyier’s daughter, I realized. Part of my mind watched the progression of different scenes of college life, often with the same three college-aged girls framed with her. The young woman’s images even reflected off the finish of the Captain’s desk. A desk, I might add, that looked large enough to land a shuttle on; being that it was so wide and long.

At this moment, the only thing I noticed on that huge expanse of exotic wood that held the Captain’s undivided attention was the stack of 24 pages of printouts. Captain Mowmyier was industriously looking though the lists while Mister Merchanni sat patiently in the comfortable chair he had occupied since he entered the office.

Mentally I was carrying on this inner dialogue with myself so I would not pay active attention to what had been said up to that point as I stood here at attention. Of course, I wanted to be able to answer any question, if one might be directed to me, and hopefully in a somewhat intelligent manner, as I was a G3 after all. But I was suddenly feeling that I didn’t want to be anywhere near the need-to-know territory that I was sure was to come with some of the more dangerous items even I recognized on those 24 pages.

I found that I was hoping the recently convicted Trellaway was the only criminal on the Ship having had a part in the activity or activities that had ultimately brought me here, standing at attention.

I was a lowly but efficient code monkey who just happened to find, what the Captain and Acting Lieutenant Commander Merchanni agreed with each other, must be the rest of the iceberg. And that was the iceberg which Trellaway had managed, until my involvement, to hide from his general court martial. Now, I fervently hoped I would not be on-line for some type of retribution or revenge from any of those theoretical free henchmen. That is, if there were any people fitting that description presently running around on the Ship free right now.

Still ... like my friend QT always likes to remind me, and that little voice inside my head confirmed: I am one paranoid ass-wipe.

One bit of information that did resonate in my at-attention brain was that the recently convicted Trellaway had held the additional title of Ship’s Purser before he ended up sedated, in chains, in the brig. A small part of my brain wondered if Trellaway was the Purser in the rumor just recently mentioned by S.W. Blaugelt. But I couldn’t really concentrate on that factoid because I had a growing awareness of a drop of sweat slowly moving down the center of my spine, just below my shoulder blades underneath my tee shirt and the dark-blue shirt of my uniform. And I always thought that in chains was just a figure of speech.

Later in Acting Lieutenant Commander Merchanni’s meeting with the Captain, she announced she was relying on my discretion not to tell anyone about what was happening. At that point a surprisingly comfortable Acting Lieutenant Commander Merchanni laughingly informed the Captain, he was sure I had other issues at present that he felt would easily take precedence over this minor affair.

After a look from the Captain to the Acting Lieutenant Commander that seemed to be a conversation in and of its self, I was dismissed from the room. But not before I was told I could return to my quarters until my duty watch began; and right before the Captain made my discretion official and ordered me not to talk to anyone outside of this meeting about what had been discovered until she, personally, ordered me otherwise.

“Aye, aye, Sir,” I replied smartly to my orders.

“Dismissed.”

I saluted and, with a curt return salute and nod from the Captain, I then executed a perfect parade ground About Face, and marched out of that office with all the decorum I could muster. As I headed off the Bridge Block and then out of Officers’ Country I felt like ever person I passed by could see a dark, wet stain down the back of my uniform shirt.

By this point, I was so emotionally wrung out I found it difficult to function at any higher level than a walk. I saluted so many times to covered officers on my way out of Officers’ Country; I swear my right shoulder started to stiffen up. And why officers were walking around inside the Ship with their garrison caps on when garrison caps were not part of the Uniform of the Day, I’ll never know. Maybe they were all packing heat.

I thought about it again, and I didn’t recall seeing in the Morning Orders and Announcements that the Uniform of the Day required covers. But in my present frame of mind, the MOA could have stated officers should carry a pink parasol, and I’d not remember it. I guessed some people just liked somebody saluting them. It sure wasn’t cold enough in the passageways of the Ship to require a hat; that was for sure.

When I got though the opening hatch of my quarters, I was happy to see Juliet had at least partially repacked my SHTF bags and put them out of the way against the left bulkhead. She was now looking all comfy and desirable while sitting studying some data she’d called up on the hi-def holographic interface floating just above my bulkhead desk. The snug looking lump covered-up on my huge bunk that was Anika Blaugelt hadn’t moved since I left.

Making sure I didn’t step on any of the remaining loose items or piles of my survival gear still on the deck, I immediately started to undress. When I looked over at Juliet sitting there with a questioning look on her strikingly beautiful face, I sort of ordered her, my new girlfriend, to either take off her clothes too, and climb into my bunk with Anika Blaugelt—leaving room for me in the middle—or she should go back to her own quarters.

I told Juliet I was certain we’d all feel better after some rest and all the junk still on the deck of my compartment would wait until later to be picked-up and put away. And at that time, the two of us would finally discuss my shit-hits-the-fan bags and their contents.

I wasn’t even surprised when my sweet Juliet kicked off her boots and started to undo her trousers.

“Got a tee shirt I can put on that will cover my panties?” she asked me.

“Sure do,” I said and bent over and picked up what looked to me to be a large-sized, silk short-sleeved tee from the center of a folded pile of my three extra-large personal towels and several other long- and short-sleeved silk tee shirts that were still on the carpeted deck. I tossed it to her.

“Wow,” my blonde bombshell said, running her fingers over the slick material as she considered the quality of its construction with the eyes of a seasoned shopper. “I might just have to keep this, Jameson ... Okay, now turn around while I take off my bra, Sweet Geek.”

“I sleep naked, Honey,” I told her as I dropped my boxers.

With that, I climbed under the covers and moved to the center of my bunk next to Anika, all the while watching Juliet very slowly expose her magnificent, naked tits to my tired eyes. I saw the sparkle of her ID stick for a moment as it played peek-a-boo with the light from the overhead before the ID stick disappeared down in Juliet’s jiggling cleavage. I hardly noticed the tight, white cotton bikini briefs covering the pronounced bulge of her pubic mound, or her smooth, curvaceous legs that seemed to go on forever down to the deck.

The shameless blonde, sex goddess just smirked down at me before pulling the slinky tee shirt over her head.

“If you get poked by something in the middle of the night,” I told her from the middle of the bunk, “don’t pick up one of those knives off the floor and start cutting, okay?”

“Just make sure it’s me that gets poked, Sweet Geek,” Juliet told me as she walked over and got into bed on my right side. “That poor, horny dear would probably end up fucking us both to death if she was awakened by your hard cock pressing into any part of her body.”

My girlfriend reached over my chest and grabbed my left arm. Then, rolling onto her right side under the covers, Juliet pulled me over to spoon against her heavenly, thin-cotton-clad butt and the silk-soft curves of her back. I was so emotionally wrung out that I didn’t even revel in this barrier-breaking new step in our relationship, our first sleepover.

I knew Juliet trusted me when she placed my hand on her big, firm, silk-covered lower boob and put her hand over mine to keep it there. I couldn’t help but notice her nipple becoming a hard nub against my palm. I took a deep breath.

“Don’t do anything more than dream about it, my love...” Juliet murmured, and wiggled her thinly draped, panty-covered bottom back into my growing erection, pushing it warmly up against my groin.

“Night-nite...” we heard Anika’s soft, girlish tones call out to us in her throaty accented voice from the left side of the accommodating bunk.

“Sweet dreams, Anika,” I said.

“Love you, Honey,” I whispered into Juliet’s soft, blond hair as I gently squeezed twice on the luscious silk-wrapped flesh in the palm of my hand.

“Mmmmm,” she answered, and I could feel my new girlfriend’s humming vibrate her silk-covered back against my chest.

“ ... love you, too... ,” Juliet exhaled.

“So nice... ,” my teenaged neighbor whispered as she rolled toward me and snuggled her own big, buck-naked boobs into my bare back as she sighed.

I could feel Anika’s nipples and the weight of her squished flesh and warm skin against my back. Then I felt a wisp of her sparse pubic hair against my lower butt cheek.

I took a deep breath and I echoed Anika’s sigh as all the tension washed out of my body and the deepest peace I could ever remember feeling in my whole life swallowed me up as I sank into dreamless sleep.

I woke up feeling all toasty warm, nestled under the covers and lying on my back. There was one head of curly copper hair using my left bicep and shoulder as a pillow and one head of riotous silky blonde hair using my right bicep and chest as another pillow. Both were on their sides against me. My arms extended down around each of the two women’s backs with my hands comfortable on each of their waists. One small back was naked and the other back was covered with silk.

Both sleepers had snuggled one of their big breasts up against my ribs sometime while we slept. They were each resting their upper leg over the top of my nearest thigh as their sleeping bodies molded against my naked frame.

Everywhere skin-on-skin touched was soft and smooth and called out for my attention. None of my extremities jangled alarms to my brain with the needles and pins of reduced circulation or pressure-numbed nerves.

I almost immediately became aware of a tickling, tingling sensation caused by the hint of warm, moist pubic hair and flesh on my heating skin down where Anika’s naked, young pussy pressed against my left outer thigh.

This ... would undoubtedly be heaven, I told myself as I opened my eyes, if I didn’t have to move. My body told me I must go to the compartment that housed the private head for my quarters, just two strides beyond Anika’s inert body. My bladder was full.

“Comp, display time,” I verbalized as quietly as possible. Up on the padded overhead the Ship’s time appeared in a small light-blue holographic display. I was happy to see there was still two hours and nine minutes before any of the three of us needed to report to our duty stations for the beginning of first watch.

What a way to start the day, I thought. Now a vid advertisement of this would be a surefire recruitment tool for the Service.

“Okay, you two beautiful sleepy-heads,” I growled as I squeezed both of them in my arms, “time to be up and at ‘em!”

To say my bunk partners were slow to react would be an understatement.

“Right-now my-bladder,” I chanted in a sing-song voice, “is-all that-matters...”

I heard Anika yawn and she moved to stretch her arms. I felt Juliet push the palm of her right hand tentatively down over my bare stomach. She slowly took hold of my piss-proud erection.

She stroked it experimentally from tip to base once, then twice. Then Juliet’s grip wrestled it over toward Anika’s thigh and hip hiked up on my upper leg. I felt the tip of my cock touch tantalizing girl flesh.

“You can pee all you want in that direction, babe,” Juliet announced in a sleepy voice. “Just don’t move. I wanna sleep for a little longer ... Mmmmkay?”

“OOOhhhh ... MMMmmmm,” yawned out the little copper-head to my left as she arched her spine and rubbed her crotch back and forth on my thigh. I felt her actions spreading slickness and heat on my skin. “I tell you both true; I be willing to be doing anything ... to be sleeping such as this again.”

“UP! UP!“ I called, as I pulled my arms free from under both warm, complaining bodies. I pushed my hands down between the girls’ torsos and my sides. Resting my palms on the bottom sheet and pushing up on the mattress, I levered my head, my shoulders, and my chest off the bunk. “Or ... I’ll piss and I’ll piss, and at this distance, I won’t miss either Miss.”

“Okay,” Juliet said, giggling, and giving up trying to draw me back down with her grip on my cock. “But this could be seen as a bad, bad sign, Sweet Geek of mine, that this relationship is in jeopardy. Especially if you keep talking in rhyme all the time about having to pee, and then getting up to go when I was just getting to know the possible joy of a mysterious toy I just happened to find. And here I was just thinking it might be such wonderful morning company.”

“Jameson, I be telling you,” Anika said, as she threw her side of the covers onto my legs and got out of bed, “You not poet, not good with ... morning, ah, humor, and with all such talk of needing head... now, I am needing of making water.”

I watched the naked wonder of her womanish butt cheeks clasping and relaxing and just slightly jiggling as she stepped into the head and I saw the hatch closed behind her.

What was the Service coming to, I asked myself. They give a man his own private head, and he has a naked, sexy young woman appropriate it from him. Now, I had to piss more than ever. And with a growl, my empty stomach reminded me I had no supper before my marathon sleep.

After it was my turn to use the head, and following a quick wash-up, I stepped naked back into my quarters. Juliet was just standing up on the other side of my bunk. Her sexy body stood near the utility counter with the cabinets and small refrigerator underneath that. My new girlfriend looked beautiful with her blonde hair still mussed from sleep. I followed up the long curves of her legs with my eyes to see that little bit of the crotch of her white cotton panties showing below the silk tee shirt she wore.

I watched Juliet as she carefully went to work making the bunk. Her full curves made the clinging, silk tee shirt she wore look fabulous as her body moved around straightening and stretching and tucking in sheets and the blanket. The whole time my girlfriend finished dressing up my bunk, making the covers and my pillows look fit for inspection, I just watched her. She smiled at me, as she looked my nude body up and down. I felt my penis start to respond to her considering gaze, so I looked away from her.

By my bulkhead desk to my left, I saw Anika. My new ripe, sexy neighbor and new friend—I guessed, raising her naked torso up from a bent-over position as she pulled her dark-gray trousers up over her bare legs, covering her equally bare, young pussy. Her small-melon-sized, nude boobs jiggled her dangling ID stick between them as she zipped up her fly. She noticed where I’d been looking.