Chapter 22: Almond Grove - 3755 C.E.

There were many good reasons why Alexander Iliescu had earned a reputation as a man with an abnormally high sex drive. There were few moments in the day when he wasn't either enjoying sex or anticipating it. And sex was exactly what he was enjoying at the time he expected the arrival of a very important visitor.

The current object of his attention was Haruki, a relatively short oriental woman, who tightly gripped the bed sheets while Alexander relentlessly thrust into her. There was little evidence that he was any nearer to releasing that elusive ejaculation, while Haruki had repeatedly reached explosive orgasm. Several times now. She was expecting many more spasms to come as Alexander lifted the woman up with her legs wrapped around him while ploughing deep into her lubricated pink furrow. Although Alexander had the choice of many sexbots, he much preferred the flesh of a real woman. Haruki was a much more delightful fuck than any machine however well programmed. Alexander got his greatest satisfaction from experiencing the shudders of a real woman's orgasm. He was proud of his ability to orchestrate a fulfilling climax in each and every one of his lovers.

Haruki was one of several hundred women employed in Alexander's harem. And they had all been seduced rather than hired. None needed to stay unless she so chose. No contract tied Haruki to Alexander and she would be well compensated if she were to ever leave Almond Grove, but there were few places in the Solar System as paradisial as Alexander's private estate. There were men on the colony—not to mention countless male sexbots—who were there more for the harem's gratification than for Alexander's. Haruki had a freedom greater than that of most concubines or mistresses. She loved to wander the groves, gardens, hillsides and beaches on the colony's many levels.

After a well-sated Haruki departed for her hillside villa on the seventh level, Alexander slipped into an elegant silk gown and strode towards a waiting car that hovered half a metre above the well-tended lawn. He clambered inside and let it carry him towards the space port where his important visitor had just arrived and whose presence was total unknown to the thousand or so humans who lived in Almond Grove. Indeed, his visitor's arrival was so secret that he'd come in a space ship that was completely invisible and virtually undetectable.

Although every one of Alexander's business and social transactions was utterly confidential, there was especially good cause for secrecy in this case. This visitor was totally unlike what any shareholder in Alexander Iliescu's many listed companies could conceivably expect to meet.

In fact, Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator Zhou wasn't even human.

The visitor was a polyhedral object with multiple limbs, antennae and other appendages that made him resemble a factory robot. However, unlike such machines, Zhou was a robot as much organic as metal and had far more processing power than any human or android.

Zhou hovered out through the door of a space ship that was only now visible since it was docked within Almond Grove. It was seventy metres long of which nearly sixty-five metres was reserved for the engine.

"Welcome," said Alexander. "You bring good news I hope?"

His words weren't spoken as such. They were broadcast by a process of digital transmission that was much more natural to him than speech.

Zhou wasted no time on protocol or other superfluous dialogue. The four-metre high polyhedron hovered relatively close to Alexander. Most appendages were retracted but several antennae were directed towards his trillionaire host. This didn't disconcert Alexander. He was, after all, a Series Twelve Android. He was totally comfortable in the presence of a robot that came from Sirius regardless of its physical appearance.

"I don't bring good news at all," the Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator replied. "In fact, it could hardly be worse. The whole operation has been seriously compromised. Proxima Centauri has taken an active interest in the space ship Intrepid and its mission. The only way now to pursue our interests is to take aggressive action."

"Proxima Centauri?" wondered Alexander. "I knew the culture had business in the Solar System, but I assumed their operations were strictly non-invasive."

An external witness of Alexander's discourse with Zhou would have observed only a long-haired man in a nightgown standing curiously still, even motionless, in front of a bizarre and wholly silent device that did nothing other than hover. Only very sophisticated equipment well beyond the technological capability of any member nation of the Interplanetary Union would have been able to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"We are in the process of re-evaluating our intelligence on Proxima Centauri activity in the Solar System," said Zhou. "It can't be as purely observational as we hitherto believed. Their behaviour directly contravenes the agreements made between our cultures with regards to intervention in human affairs. We believe that they've also infiltrated the Solar System with androids. The evidence is that the androids they've employed are of a superior manufacture than ours."

"More so than me?" wondered Alexander.

"Android technology as practised in the Proxima Centauri system is of another order entirely. Even Sirius can't match the build quality. The androids are designed to fool human monitoring technology. They can survive operating environments that would cripple even our Series Fourteen androids. They can operate on the surface of Venus, in deep space, and on the icy crust of the Kuiper Belt Objects."

"How have they managed to manufacture such high-quality androids without us knowing?" asked Alexander. "We have as many agents operating in Proxima Centauri as in the Solar System. Surely we'd have noticed something?"

"Our agents' intelligence gathering appears to have been fatally compromised. There will be a thorough review of our procedures, but it seems we've been far less well informed than we believed. Nevertheless, it is to our credit that Proxima Centauri was as equally unprepared for our appearance as we were by theirs."

"I take it that the death star operation was unsuccessful?"

"More by bad luck than anything else. The Proxima Centauri space fleet that we now know had been shadowing the Intrepid was taken by surprise and at least one human-manufactured missile made partial contact with its target. Unfortunately, the impact wasn't decisive. We shall now have to intervene more openly if we are to prevent the Intrepid reaching its destination. There is some debate as to which of our strategic interests takes priority: our clandestine operations in the Solar System or the imperative that the Intrepid shouldn't intercept the Anomaly. It is likely that we will have to reveal our presence in the Solar System in order to eliminate the greater threat that the Anomaly presents."