Chapter 7

“Alfred.”

“Sir?”

“I want to review the sexual activity of my concubines. Display a chart of their activity, indexed by partner for the last two weeks.”

“Here it is, Sir.”

“Thank you, Alfred.”

“Very good, Sir.”

“I see that Kyle’s most frequent partner is Phyllis. He is having sex with her more than with any two other concubines. Can’t let him think that he is developing his own little wildlife habitat there.”

“Kyle, Phyllis? Would you two come on in here?”

“Are we in trouble, Sir?” asked Kyle, nervously.

“Nothing of the kind. This is an ‘attaboy’ for you both.” He relaxed.

“Phyllis, I wanted to thank you for the sweetness and love that you have been showing Kyle in making him feel a part of our family.”

Phyllis blushed darkly and looked down. She had a hard time receiving complements.

“And Kyle, I’m pleased to see that you are fitting in so well.”

Kyle’s smile gave away his relief at not being in trouble with his sponsor for having sex with his concubines.

“In fact, I’d like to propose a date night with you both.”

“A d-date night? Sir?” Kyle stammered.

“Sure! We’ll get out of the pod, meet a couple of people, have dinner, and come back to bed. How does that sound?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Phyllis gushed. I was still The Man in her book, and time spent with my attention on her was important.

That evening, I put on my dress uniform, Phyllis wore a flowing gown of Ruth’s design that emphasized and complemented her generous curves, emphasizing her sweet assets without revealing them. The top let her large breasts move freely under the sheer fabric, drawing everyone’s eyes and making them want to see more. The pattern made me unsure that the dark pattern actually was her areola, so I kept looking back to try to decide. She lifted her hands to check that her hair (which was caught up into a chignon) and I caught a glimpse of the curve of her arms as the met her torso. Damn. Her armpit was turning me on. These nanites were really screwing with my brain.

Kyle had been dressed by the girls in what they wanted to see him in. He wore tight, stretchy dark pants and a large, puffy, floral print shirt. It was hard to keep from smirking.

We walked up and down a few decks, stopping by the few on-ship ‘sights.’ I steered the conversation to what they liked and disliked about Confederacy life, what they missed from Earth, and what they looked forward to on Demeter.

After a while I said, “We’ll I guess it’s time to pick up my date.”

“Your date?” they both asked. Kyle confused, Phyllis a little disappointed. She liked having a man on either arm.

“Sure, Kyle. You’re not the only guy here.”

We walked down a passageway that they had never been in. We stopped at a door and, before I could knock, it opened to reveal Cindy Jackson.

Kyle stood frozen by his terror of the giant marine, while Phyllis squealed in joy.

“Preacher!” Cindy spoke in a voice that to almost anyone else would be a shout, “I’ve been waiting for you to drop by! And you brought Phyllis!”

“Cindy!” Phyllis trilled, “I had no idea! But the Boss is always so closed mouth! Do you like my gown?”

“It’s delectable! But who’s your date?” Kyle looked as if he wanted to melt down and disappear into the deck plates.

“Oh, Cindy, this is Kyle, one of the Boss’s new concubines. Kyle, this is Cindy and she’s a sweetheart and the only person that I’ve ever seen have her way with the Boss.”

“She ... had her way ... with the Boss?” Kyle gulped audibly.

“Kyle,” I said, “What she made me do was illegal in thirty-eight of the United States and three of its territories. But she had help. The girls held me down. Phyllis here held down my left leg.”

Phyllis giggled, “I never expected in my live long life to see and do the things I did that night.” She sighed in happy memory. “And we owe a lot of that to Cindy.”

Cindy grinned and pulled Phyllis off her feet and into a long, deep kiss. When she put Phyllis down, she swept up Kyle into a crushing hug and gave him a big kiss. “Any friend of Phyllis is a friend of mine,” she said, looking into his eyes, meaningfully.

Kyle had quite lost his bearings. I was bigger than him and he had come to terms with that. But Cindy was a feared Marine who had just picked him up and swung him around like a rag doll. But Phyllis seemed quite comfortable around Cindy and was even now hugging her arm.

“Cindy, Phyllis, Kyle, I’d like you all to be my guests at the Officer’s Mess.”

The ‘Officer’s Mess’ was a much classier than the ship’s enlisted galley, and light years ahead of the cafeteria- style environment of the passenger’s galley. We entered to see dark paneled walls, white linen, and concubines acting as wait staff.

The food was hand-prepared by the same steward that prepared food for the captain’s table (which none of them had tasted.) I encouraged them to be adventurous and order something that they wouldn’t normally order. I made sure that the wines matched the dished served. They were delighted.

After we finished the meal, I bent our steps, not back to our pod or Cindy’s barracks pod, but to one of the rooms kept available for test-driving concubine candidates. Did this make Kyle feel nervous, as though he were again being judged? Too bad. I may be a good guy, but I’m not a nice guy.

After we stepped inside and the door closed, I pulled Cindy into a long, deep kiss, wrapping my arms around her torso, reviling in those soft, generous lips, anticipating feeling them on other parts of my body. I pulled back and saw that, while Phyllis was willing, Kyle was just standing there, trying to be ‘cool’ as only an awkward high school boy can.

“Cindy, isn’t Phyllis’s gown dreamy?” I asked.

“I’ve been admiring it all evening,” agreed Cindy.

“I’ve been wanting to see her take it off!” I replied.

Phyllis had started to blush at the complements, but when she heard me talk about her gown coming off, she reached up behind her neck, wriggled and the gown fell to the floor, pooling at her feet. The dark pattern I had seen on the fabric was her areola, which now were crinkling up to her fat, erect nipples.

Cindy and I applauded, and Phyllis curtsied. It takes a certain élan to curtsey nude.

“Phyllis,” Cindy asked, “Did you design Kyle’s shirt? It looks like your work.”

Phyllis nodded. “You like it? I thought it showed off his chest well.” She stepped over to Kyle and slipped a hand in his shirt, playing with his chest. Kyle’s tight pants showed the effect her touch was having.

“I do like it,” Cindy said, “But it seems a shame that you are the only one here showing some skin.”

Phyllis laughed seeing the game Cindy was playing, and before he could object, Phyllis was pulling Kyle’s shirt off. He stood, shirtless, and I could see he was trying not to cover himself with his hands.

“What do you think, Corporal? Kyle is a gymnast.”

Cindy smiled widely and smacked her lips, “He looks yummy.”

I pulled Cindy into a kiss and saw, out of the corner of my eye, Phyllis doing the same to Kyle.

After we had reached a pause in our sexual antics (Cindy and me, Phyllis, and Kyle), I rolled over onto my back. I felt a little self-conscious about my erect man parts waving in the breeze in front of another guy, but there it was. “Kyle, I am about to do you a solid favor. You will thank me to your dying day. I’m asking Cindy to give you a blowjob.”

Kyle looked a little uncomfortable with the letting his precious penis anywhere near that big Marine, but Phyllis encouraged him, telling him how Cindy got me hard one last time after I had cleared the bench of my concubines. He agreed but held on to Phyllis’s hand for comfort.

Cindy grabbed his hips and pulled his fast-deflating cock up to her face. She kissed and licked it sweetly until Kyle relaxed and started to get hard again. Then, in an instant, Cindy slurped up Kyle’s cock and it disappeared into her mouth. Kyle jumped and tried to pull back, but against Cindy’s grip, there was no way.

After a second, Kyle’s eyes unfocused. After a few seconds more, his eyes crossed. After a couple of minutes, his hips were twitching almost uncontrollably. He looked over at Phyllis and mouthed, “I’m sorry”

Phyllis took his face in her hands and said, “Silly. I wanted you to feel good,” and kissed him while his hips started bucking in orgasm. He groaned into her kiss.

Cindy released him, and Kyle, for a moment lay on the bed gobstopped. He shook his head and looked up at Cindy, “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. Cindy smiled and leaned down to kiss him. He relaxed until he realized that he tasted his own cum in her mouth.

Cindy then turned to Phyllis and kissed her. She had no problems with the taste of cum in Cindy’s mouth. Cindy spun around and started eating out Phyllis’ cunt, demonstrating (as if the blowjob didn’t) that she had no problems with the taste of cum. Kyle and I watched them for a while, and then I pulled Kyle into my arms, facing away from me and towards the girls.

I admit it was a move with more than a little calculation. Kyle had cooperated in the ceremony of submission to enter the harem, but I wanted to know if he was able to be submissive beyond the merely ceremonial. I also wanted to gauge my own reaction. I wasn’t aroused by the sight of Kyle, but I wondered if what happened in the ceremony was repeatable. Would I enjoy having sex with another man?

I held him firmly, but gently and after a few minutes I felt him relax. We listened to Phyllis moan in pleasure and Cindy gasp when Phyllis got a little rough with her clitoris. I concentrated on the feel of Kyle, the warmth of his body and his skin next to mine. His hard muscles were very different than the girl’s softness. I let my hand drift up and down his front, from his sternum to his cock, giving his cock a proprietary squeeze every time I reached it.

Phyllis squealed and bucked, and Cindy let her up, turning and pulling her into her arms. Cindy and I lay across the bed from each other, each holding one of the concubines, feasting on the sight of the other couple. I loved Phyllis’s large heavy breasts. I love how they swayed as Cindy’s hands played with them.

I felt myself grow hard at the sight, in a way that the touch of Kyle’s skin couldn’t make me. But right then I felt that the girls needed a little visual stimulation. I let my arm drop and encircled Kyle’s cock with my hand. With what we had been watching (and were still seeing!) a little stroking made Kyle erect again.

Well, while I felt like a teenage boy, Kyle was a teenage boy.

“Kyle,” I murmured, “Do you like being my concubine?” I gave his cock a squeeze.

Kyle said quietly, “I love being your concubine, Boss. I don’t ever regret it.”

“But you get scared sometimes, don’t you?” I asked.

He trembled. “Not as much anymore. You have been very kind to me.”

“What would you do, Kyle, to pay me back for my kindness?” In the low light of the room, the pupils in Cindy’s eyes had dilated, making her eyes almost completely black. Phyllis held her breath as she saw the reason for the evening’s outing.

“Anything, Boss. You own me. I’m not just a doll for you. You love me; I love you.” Phyllis’ eyes filled with tears as she watched Kyle profess his love.

“I need you to take care of the girls for me, Kyle. I’m going to have to deploy for months at a time, and I need someone I love, and who loves me, to be with the girls and take care of them.”

I could feel a splash of tears on the arm that held Kyle. His voice was a little ragged when he said, “I’d do anything for you, Boss. You can trust me. I love you more than I can say.”

I hugged Kyle closer. “I want you to do something for me now, Kyle.”

“Anything, Boss, anything.”

“I want you to make love to me. I want you to use your brains and heart to show me how much you love me. Phyllis will help, but I need you to be the lead on this.”

Kyle’s voice broke, “Oh, Boss!”

He turned and buried his face in my chest. Our erect cocks brushed against each other. Kyle reached down and took my cock in his hand. He looked up in my eyes from inches away and started stroking my cock. I smiled and nodded. He returned my smile and placed his cheek on my chest. I looked over at Phyllis. She was playing with her breasts, pulling her nipples, the way she did when she was very aroused.

Kyle shifted and urged me to lay back. I did and he surprised me by kneeling across my chest and placing his cock in my face. He looked down, smiling. I looked at his cock, smaller than mine, circumcised, straight. I picked up my head and kissed the shaft. Kyle’s cock jumped.

I wiggled a hand free and used it to pull Kyle’s cock closer. I stuck out my tongue and tasted it. I couldn’t discern any specific taste, but then Cindy had pretty much cleaned him off just a little while earlier. Kyle pulled back and I got the tip in my mouth. I knew what I liked, so I tried a couple of things, letting my tongue play with the piss hole, running my tongue down to wash over his glans. He started to sway above me, but then caught himself and swung off me.

“Please, Boss,” He asked, “I want your cock.”

He leaned down and took my cock in his mouth. He repeated what I had just done to him and more besides, giving me a lot of pleasure. I pulled him up to face me, “Come here, you little cocksucker!”

I pulled him into a kiss, each of us tasting our own cocks on the other’s mouth.

When we pulled away from the kiss, Kyle turned and presented his ass to me. “Please, Boss, give me your cock now.”

I pulled him aside and had Phyllis lay face-up on the bed, then placed Kyle between her legs. “Kyle, when you fuck one of the girls, you are fucking them for me. You are my cock in their cunts. Put that cock in Phyllis for me.”

Phyllis spread her legs wide and Kyle slipped easily into her. I knee-walked between their combined spread legs and placed the head of my cock at the entrance to his ass. “Kyle, are you sure you want it?”

Kyle looked back at me, then turned and looked into Phyllis’ eyes. “Fuck me, Boss, and make me fuck Phyllis with your cock.”

Cindy reached over with a hand covered with lube and started fisting my cock.

I pressed forward and felt Kyle will himself to relax. After a minute, his anus dilated and my cock started to slip in, slowly, dragging on the walls of his rectum. Kyle groaned and I felt him sink his cock deeper into Phyllis.

Deeper I pushed, halfway in now, and Kyle had bottomed out in Phyllis’ pussy. She moaned and clutched Kyle, her arms wrapped around his back. “Phyllis,” I called, “Can you feel me fuck you? Can you feel my cock sliding up into you? Can you feel my strength in Kyle?” Phyllis’ eyes rolled back, and she started pushing her hips forward, trying to get Kyle deeper into her.

I bottomed out in Kyle’s ass, my hips pressing his ass cheeks flat. Cindy stroked my back, encouraging us to go even further.

I pulled back, feeling the drag of my cock on Kyle’s insides as they tried to hold me in. Kyle pulled slowly back out of Phyllis. Cindy refreshed the lube on my cock, and I pushed right back down. Kyle pushed back into Phyllis.

In and out I stroked. I looked down on Kyle’s taut shoulders, his slim waist, and his muscular ass, and I could see the beauty of it. It would never be my first choice, but his body, given in love was worthy of the return of that love.

Minutes passed. I was a machine now, ramming my cock into Kyle’s ass and pulling it out. For a while, Kyle had been moaning, “Boss, Boss, Boss,” in time to my strokes. Phyllis was rapt, watching us fucking, while getting fucked by both of us.

I felt my orgasm coming now, coiling in my groin. I said, “Kyle, I’m fucking you. Your ass is mine, boy. I’m fucking your ass with my cock and I’m going to fill your ass with my come. Are you ready for it?”

Kyle was pushing back to meet my every stroke. He pleaded, “Please, Boss, please, Boss, come in me, and make me come in her!”

My orgasm uncoiled and struck like a snake. I groaned, “Coming. Take it. Take it.” And I came, pulse after pulse.

Kyle felt me cum in his ass, and the change of texture along my cock, and groaned, “Take it, Phyllis!” and came. Phyllis saw the convulsion of orgasm pass from me to Kyle, and it triggered her orgasm. We all three clutched and hugged each other.

After we all three had come down from our orgasms, I pulled Kyle off Phyllis by holding him to my chest and rolling to the side. My cock stayed in his ass for several minutes as he calmed down. I murmured in his ear what a great guy he was and how I knew that he could take care of the girls for me.

He cried a little more then, mostly from the after-effects of a huge emotional step for him. And for me, I guess.

Phyllis cuddled up to him and wouldn’t stop kissing him and telling him how good he was at pleasing her. I smiled. No trouble from that quarter for a long while, I figured. When I looked across at Cindy, she smiled, but I could tell she was a little frustrated. She had been playing sexually with Phyllis and had just watched a pretty hot scene and hadn’t been getting any herself. Her hand moved between her legs. The sight made me get erect again.

I was game. “I’d like a crack at that ass,” I told her, “Though I’ve been told it already has a crack in it.”

Cindy groaned at my pun but rolled over and put her ass in the air. I walked around the bed to get past the kids and put my cock into Cindy’s crack. She sighed and pushed back and just that easily I was in. I started stroking in and out. I looked down at my white cock penetrating that brown ass and I felt myself getting harder and fuller. Cindy rocked with the movement, crooning a melody that matched the rhythm of our strokes.

I had come twice that evening, so I was in for the long haul. Cindy was enjoying penetration, even if it was small-scale by her standards. Phyllis and Kyle cuddled and watched as I pounded and pounded my cock in and out of Cindy’s tender asshole.

I grabbed Cindy’s waist and pulled myself deeper. “I can feel it coming, Cindy, how about you?”

Cindy chuckled, “Oh, I’ve come three or four times already, Preacher. I’m waiting to feel what you got left.”

I pulled harder and faster, “You Marine bitch!” I grunted, “I’ll give you what I’ve got!” and I let my orgasm wash over me, spraying that Amazon’s guts with my seed.

Later, after we had showered together and dressed, we walked Cindy back to her rooms and all kissed her goodnight, even Kyle. As the three of us walked back to our Pod, Kyle’s and my arms around Phyllis’ waist, Kyle asked, “Doesn’t she make you nervous, Boss?”

“No,” I replied, “She gets a chance to pull my arms and legs off in unarmed combat twice a week. So far were pretty even.”

“Kyle, I have one more ... request for this evening.”

“Anything, Boss.”

“I love that you and Phyllis get along so well, “I said, “But keep romancing Diane, Paula, and Kellie, okay? You’ve got to put the time in on your shift.”

Kyle was a little stunned that I wasn’t angry with him for fucking the girls; rather, I was encouraging him to fuck even more. What I knew was that the more that he spread his attentions around, the less he would be inclined to fix on one particular girl.

“Sure thing, Boss. No problem.”

One day I asked Paula, “How do you feel about Kyle?”

“Kyle is so sweet and thoughtful. He is a careful and considerate lover. Around the pod he’s always ready to pitch in and help get a job done. Even with replicators, you know, somebody has to strip the beds and fold the laundry.”

“Kyle is in love with you, you know. He loves all of us girls, and he loves not only the sexual play that goes on with him being a rooster in the henhouse, but the daily events of living life in a girly community. But you are the one he gets moony eyed for. He was so quiet for a while, when he first joined us, that we thought he was kind of standoffish and stuck-up. But one night he walked into Yoo Jin’s bedroom when we were having a girly-talk session about you.”

“About me?” I asked.

“Yes, you goof, about you. Women spend a great deal of time checking in with other women and comparing notes. Ruth was talking about how decisive you were at the extraction, how they were scared to death, wanting to go and afraid of what being a concubine would entail and whether they would be stepping on the path to Hell. Yoo Jin talked about how you loved her enough to let her express her love for Kellie and let her take Kellie for her first concubine. Around the room it went with everybody telling what you meant to them. I could hardly talk about how, before I was even your concubine, you immediately took action to get Amy to me. I was a wreck, breaking down in tears,” she smiled fondly, sniffing at the memory.

“There was a pause after me and in the quiet, Kyle spoke up. He talked about how he was in love with you. When Kyle was back on Earth, he and his best friend experimented with sex with each other, and while they liked it, they mostly wanted to have sex with girls. They were underscores for CAP, so girls weren’t interested in them. Then, when he was extracted as the concubine to his teacher, he felt dirty when the man touched him. He thought that he was trapped and for the rest of his life he would feel dirty. Then he was dumped into the unassigned pool and was so scared of being grabbed by a Marine that when you picked him, he was almost in tears.”

She giggled, “When he met Cindy Jackson, he thought his nightmares had come true. You know how, uh, ‘forceful’ she is. But Phyllis said that with you there he was able to face those fears and apparently had a pretty good time.”

“When you selected him, you told him his duty was to love the girls and he thought you were kidding. Then you told him not to limit his love to Phyllis, but to love us all, and he thought he was in heaven.”

“At this point all the girls had surrounded him and were stroking his hair and caressing him, telling him how brave he was to talk about his feelings. Kyle started to cry in sympathy. One of the girls, Kellie I think, slipped her hand into Kyle’s shirt, and told him that she loved him and was ‘so glad that he was Boss’s conk so that she could show him how much she loved him.’”

“At this point various girls’ hands started unfastening Kyle’s clothes faster than you would have thought possible. We all kissed and petted him, but it was Kellie and Phyllis that spread their legs for some hot, monkey-bar love.”

“Hot, monkey-bar love?” I asked.

Paula chucked, “Kyle was a gymnast, so he’s small and muscly and has a very nice chest and butt. The girls call him ‘love monkey.’”

Sometimes I want to clap my hands over my ears and say, “LALALALALALA.”

My body, all our bodies, continued to change as the voyage continued. Yoo Jin had demonstrated, with her own modifications, how good her eye was for what could be done to enhance a person’s beauty without making them look artificial or losing the essence of their identity. All the girls went back to the medtubes at least once, and Diane and Paula went back a second time when they saw that their nervous limiting of Yoo Jin’s suggested changes gave them less than they had wanted.

Yoo Jin even got me to go back to the medtubes once more. As I had started to lose my gut and start building up muscle mass, she showed me how I could cheat and add the upper-body mass I wanted, without becoming a cartoon like some of the Marine recruits. They also tried to talk me into increasing the size of my penis.

“Are you unsatisfied with our sex?” I asked them when they asked for it. They all shook their heads ‘no.’ “I have really enjoyed you girls just as you were. I never asked for you all to have huge breasts.”

“You goof,” said Ruth, “We love you and we love your body.” She looked me in the eye. “I love it when you are inside me.”

Diane spoke up, “We loved you when you were a 50-year-old, limping, letch.” The girls all nodded.

“You saw me as a letch?” I asked, with hurt in my voice.

“All 50-year-old men that still have functional ding-dongs are letches,” said Kellie. Again, all the girls nodded.

“We knew that you enjoyed looking at us in class,” said Phyllis, “By the time girls are in middle school, they are aware of the attention of men. If the girls aren’t too weird, they enjoy the attention. We knew that you liked to look but would never do anything wrong. In fact, I knew that if anybody ever tried anything that I felt was creepy, I could run to your classroom, and you would protect me.” The girls all nodded.

“So, if I saw that you were looking at my legs in class,” said Ruth, “I’d just check that my skirt wasn’t riding up too high on my thighs and go back to what I was doing.” Her eyes sparkled. “Unless I was feeling naughty. Then I would cross my legs and let my skirt ride up an inch or two more.”

Women.

“But about your penis size,” continued Yoo Jin. I cringed. How could she be so casual? “Alfred, show us the display of Ensign Steward that I prepared.”

The surface of the low table around which we sat glowed a milky white and above it stood a meter-tall, nude, holographic image of me. The image rotated slowly. The image was certainly me, but subtly different. The image had more muscle mass all over, and the muscles were slightly more defined that what I had now. As it rotated, the penis came into view. I relaxed. It wasn’t too much different than what I had now.

In fact, I now saw what Yoo Jin had done. Few of us are born with perfect bodies. I know that I had spent years in physical training to make my body all that it could be. Then I was wounded, and I spent years in training trying to slow my body’s decay from that peak of fitness. This body was an idealized me, a better me in which all parts were in a harmonious proportion with every other part. Apparently, that required me to add another inch to my marriage tackle. I unconsciously nodded to myself.

Yoo Jin was able to see me relax and knew that I had all but agreed to her changes, so she dropped the other shoe. “Alfred, show display with a full erection.”

Oh shit. I turned to the harem. “Are you sure that you all want this?” The girls all nodded, smiling.

I turned to Kyle. “How about you, Kyle? You know that you will be taking this up your ass?”

Kyle smiled. “We’ll all be taking this up our ass eventually, won’t we Boss?” I nodded. I had developed a taste for the occasional anal excursion.

Kyle looked at the display. “This will make everybody happy. I say, go for it!”

The changes took a day in the medtube, and a week-and-a-half on the training mat to relearn my new strength and new center of gravity. Cindy had a hilarious time kicking my ass for those twelve days.

“Sir,” announced Alfred the AI, “We have arrived at Posidon’at. Please prepare yourself and your family to transport down to the planet. You are scheduled to disembark in three hours.”

I loved how Alfred had started pronouncing “schedule” as “shedule”. I was going to miss his evolving persona.

I looked up from a report on strategic manpower shortages in the Posidon’at system, poked my head out of my office cubbyhole, and saw the girls dancing in anticipation. I scrubbed my face with my hands, blew out a breath, and spoke to the ceiling.

“Alfred, has the request for Paula’s daughter’s pickup been routed to Earth?”

“Yes, Sir. The request was sent back at a stopover in our cruise two weeks ago.”

“I don’t remember any ‘stopover’ in our cruise.”

“Yes, Sir. The stopovers are generally not announced to passengers. It is felt that their full attention should be on integrating their concubines into a family unit.”

And me a Navy officer. It’s humiliating, it is.

“How long until we can get word back from Earth about the retrieval?”

“Sir, mail on a message drone that preceded us to the Poesidon’at system reports that retrieval of concubine Paula’s daughter was a scheduled and carried out three days ago. As her sponsor, a full report of the exercise will be made available to you. Her transportation to Demeter will take an additional two weeks if they are able to take advantage of military transport.”

Paula’s eyes brimmed with tears. What had seemed like a lifetime of separation had shrunk down to weeks. But to live through those weeks, well ... I reminded myself to give Paula lots of affection.

“Alfred, please display the orbital video feed to the living area. Use the large wall instead of the normal video display surface.”

“Very good, sir,” Alfred replied.

I walked into the living area to join Kyle and the girls sitting on the sofa. The large wall had seemingly disappeared, leaving a crystal-clear view of blue, cloud-wreathed Demeter set in blackest deep space. Though I knew it was a display, I couldn’t help from edging around the back of the sofa to avoid stepping too closely to that gaping hole into empty space.

This was our new home.

“It’s beautiful,” said Diane.