Chapter 10

It took two kitchen attendants to move the first roast out to the dining table even though it was riding on a wheeled cart. Elaine sat on her father's right side as she had for the last several decades with her own life-mate sitting on her right. Béla sat on Sibilius' left. Jake sat next to her.

Béla, surprisingly, had been one of the last to arrive, having spent the last three hours in attendance with her old friend, the Great Bard Geoffrey and his wife, Terri. She had wanted to introduce them to her own life-mate, but he had been shepherded into the dining hall by Annalisa only moments before her own arrival.

Béla smiled, seeing him seated next to her empty chair and looked around to see who else was in attendance. As she gazed raptly around the hall, she realized that all of her sisters were in attendance – even Melinda. Only Beth was absent from the original group.

There were a few male humans interspersed in this immortal mix – the few who had been chosen as life-mates by whichever goddess they sat next to. Béla didn't know them at all, but they were obviously well liked among the group and didn't seem a bit shy about expressing themselves – with respect to the other goddesses, of course.

The last to arrive in the dining hall were Bard Geoffrey and Terri, who sat at the far end of the four tables, Jeff and Terri mirroring Sibilius and Elaine across the great hall. They were the only two humans in the great hall who had chosen each other as life-mates.

No one disputed their right to sit in the main hall with the immortals. In fact, that special place at the end of the far table was reserved just for the Great Bard and his life-mate. Bard Geoffrey had been instrumental in helping the goddesses to assume power in New Eden and had gained Sibilius' undying gratitude in that respect. In addition, Geoffrey had been the first consort to the Goddess of the Land. His wife of many years, Terri, who was also blood-sister to the Golden Goddess, was privileged to accompany him wherever he was invited.

Lisa was with Macario in a second dining hall, along with Jake Hedron, Tabatha, Frank, Tanya, Alicia, Jackie and the entire Necrotwin group. The original blond twins, Amber and Ember sat one on each side of a very youthful Roland, cheerfully intent on feeding him to death. Frank Junior sat next to Amber, who divided her attentions between her two favorite men, one on each side of her.

"They certainly know how to cook here," Frank Senior grinned through a mouthful of meat. "I haven't eaten this well in nearly fifty years!"

"You haven't eaten this much in nearly fifty years, either!" Macario quipped, showing off a mouthful of half-chewed squash.

Lisa looked from one to the other of them, then at Tanya. "We're going to have to work it off of them, you know?"

Tanya laughed, demurely covering her mouth as she chewed. There was a tittering of laughter as the erotic image she broadcast of 'working it off' was picked up by most of the females in the group.

Jake and Tabatha, all business as usual, were discussing the distribution of the new colonists. Just before their disembarkation, everyone aboard the Phoenix had been asked to divide up into groups of family and friends. There had been nearly sixty groups of passengers who wanted to remain together on the surface of this new world, so each group had been transported to a different community so as not to overload any town with too many newcomers. For several months before their arrival, the local denizens of New Eden had been busily building shelters and houses, cheerfully anticipating the arrival of new faces and (hopefully) fast friends.

In addition, there were small groups of two or three, and single individuals who wished to strike out on their own. They were billeted in a nearby barracks here at Southern, and would be addressed by the goddesses in attendance after this feast. Fresh meat and vegetables were provided for them as well, along with the use of the magnificent kitchens and mess that had been installed a thousand years earlier to feed the great ship's crew whenever they were billeted here.

Many of the original ship's crew helped the human refugees with the preparation of this feast celebrating their arrival. The feeling of new adventure was contagious amongst the human group.

That feeling had been shared the day before by almost everyone in New Eden as groups of newcomers began to appear in designated arrival points, mostly in areas lightly populated. No groups had been transported to any community along the equator. There was no room for them there.

That didn't stop the local citizens from celebrating, however. The first night after the 'Great Exodus', as it would come to be called, fireworks were visible all over the inner surface, especially along the equator. In addition, daylong picnics had occurred everywhere there was a park, with feasting and games.

Almost eight percent of the tiny moon's food reserves were consumed over the next several days. Temporary kitchens were set up in many communities where the new arrivals were settling into their new lives. The strangest thing for the newcomers to get used to, aside from the slight skew of the land because of the moon's rotation, was the mockery of sunrise, noon and sunset created by the giant fixed crystals that bathed the inside of their world with artificial sunlight as they went through their cycle of light and dark every thirty hours.

The day after the feast, Elaine sought out Lisa and Tabatha to learn more about how they had created the wormholes that had breathed life into their ship, the Phoenix III. She was also extremely interested in Tabatha's mind shield containing the nuclear energy that powered their ship.

"Do you think you can teach some of my sisters how to create your time shield?" she asked Tabatha. "There will be times in the future when we will have need of its protection."

"I don't know," Tabatha admitted. "Lisa couldn't learn how to do it – she had to invent her own shield. But it holds almost as well as the one in my mind. The problem is, I know how to use this shield, and, as you probably noticed, I can even make copies of it. But I don't know how I acquired it. It happened with I was in psychic contact with a mentally advanced race."

"The Hurrahs," Elaine replied, not particularly surprised.

"You know about them?" Lisa asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I learned about them from the Praetor," Elaine admitted. "They are recorded in our history."

"As is everything else," Lisa smirked. "Why are you so interested in us, anyway?"

Elaine smiled. It was amazing how an extra few thousand years of memory had helped her to stabilize her mind. All of her own questions were now answered, and she could see how crippled Béla, her Father and many of her sisters were with their memories of each other denied to them. In addition, Elaine now had her full powers as a trained Seeker.

"Because the two of you are a pivotal part of our future survival," she informed them. "You two, specifically, have the most powerful minds in existence, as far as I know. You," she indicated Lisa, "have the ultimate offensive power. You can blow up anything, anywhere.

"You," Elaine nodded to Tabatha, "have the ultimate defense. No physical power can breach any shield you create. Only by time-walking around it can one of your shields be penetrated. Am I correct in assuming that once you have created a shield it will remain without your required attention?"

"The shield that houses the Phoenix III's power plant feeds on the power within it, Goddess," Tabatha replied. "Other shields I've created of the same nature have required my constant attention to hold them in place."

"It took both of you to create that power plant, did it not?" Elaine asked.

Both girls nodded.

"What about the..." Elaine sighed, not certain how to describe the constant teleportation of air and water into the ship's unusual park.

"Those are wormholes," Lisa told her, easily seeing the image of Elaine's question. "I didn't come up with those; Alicia did. She's Frank and Tanya's daughter. I only provided the power to punch them through to where they needed to go."

"I helped, too," Tabatha broke in. "My mind shields hold the wormholes in position. Those wormhole shields don't need my constant attention as they gather their power from somewhere else. Alicia dreamed up the idea, but lacked the power to pull it off."

"Well, I shall have to talk with her, as well," Elaine said, smiling at Tabatha, then returning her gaze to Lisa. "Now, regarding your Phoenix powers ... You have been trying to teach humans how to harness these abilities. Is this correct?"

"Are you charging me with a wrongdoing?" Lisa asked, suddenly feeling defensive.

"Of course not!" Elaine protested. "I know you already have two promising apprentices. I was wondering if you would like to start a class. In the coming centuries, we will need a great many individuals with great power – even more than is available currently with all of my sisters."

Lisa frowned ever so slightly at that word, and the fact that Elaine had excluded her from that favored grouping. She had once been Elaine's sister, but that was a lifetime and many bodies ago. Now she had no vampiric powers at all; she was pure phoenix. Cleansing, purifying fire was her power, now. Her blood would heal no one – not even herself. But, as a being of pure, tightly controlled energy, she would never again require healing of the vampiric kind.

"My life-mate and I want to start up a school for my human blood-sisters – those I bonded with when I was still like you," Lisa informed the goddess. "We would require a large, preferably wooded area; a wilderness, perhaps, that isn't being used for anything constructive. My mother's blood-kin would be welcome there, as well."

Elaine smiled, knowing well what would come out of any wilderness 'school' this sex and blood-hungry phoenix desired. Lisa's violent sexual games would produce the most powerful beings this universe had ever known.

"I was already considering something of that nature," Elaine told her agreeably. "The districts nearest Northern Depot are the most desolate and would fit your purposes well, I think. Would you require assistance for constructing housing?"

"No," Lisa grinned. "I built a spaceship out of pure energy – I don't think a few buildings would be beyond my abilities."

"Very well, then," Elaine agreed, smiling at them both. "You shall have your wilderness."

She rose, preparing to leave. "I'm sorry, but I have many things to do today, so I must take my leave of you."

Tabatha and Lisa walked with her to the entrance of their temporary billets. As the door shut behind Elaine, they felt Elaine teleport somewhere.

"Wow! Tabatha grinned. "We get our own place! We could set up another maze!"

"Yeah!" Lisa grinned, then hugged her ancient lover. "We can do anything we want, now."

"Well, I know what I want," Tabatha grinned, pulling a strap off Lisa's shoulder, baring it to her delicate kisses. "It's been way too long since we've been together..."

"Several months, anyway, from your point of view," Lisa mentioned.