Chapter 17

The auditorium at the Max-Planck Institute was crowded, though there were still many empty seats in the back. The balcony was empty as well, the hall built to handle the Institute’s entire personnel as well as the whole student body of Bonn University. Ronnie’s witches only numbered three hundred and twelve and this was the first time all of them had been in the same place at the same time. In addition, the entire ground personnel of the Bonn Space Program was present with the exception of a single radio operator and security personnel, the latter consisting of several witch girls trained by Ronnie. There were also several members of the Council of Knowledge present as well as most of the Board of Directors of Max-Planck.

Dr. Guthnick, as head of the Council, stood and walked to the podium. After getting everyone’s attention, he began: “I know you’re all very busy, so we’ll keep this meeting as brief as possible.

“Three months ago, a war occurred on the North American Continent. This war culminated in the demise of what you may know as the ‘Southern Confederacy’ and has likely ended any semblance of civilization on that continent, as this war was fought with nuclear weapons and, before you ask, the answer is; ‘No, we are not expecting a radioactive cloud of debris from across the Atlantic.’

“The reason the Council called this meeting today is to make known the fact that – although the Southern Confederacy is no longer viable as a government body, their opponents, a small group of scientists and engineers who had been living underground in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, survived the war and escaped.”

While Wolfgang had been talking, the lights in the room had been getting dimmer. Now a large view screen lit up behind him, and he continued: “They escaped in this mile-long space ship,” and gasps of surprise and awe filled the room as the beautiful teardrop ship appeared on the screen. “They left Earth and began travelling toward the outer planets. Their last recorded trajectory indicates their destination is Mars, which is currently,” he clicked a control in his hand and a display of the solar system popped onto the screen. “Currently about a quarter of the way around the sun from Earth’s present position.

“Accelerating and decelerating at a constant one-quarter gravity, they will arrive there in a few weeks. Any questions?”

“Yes!” One girl popped up before most of her classmates had finished assimilating what they’d just been told. “A constant acceleration of a quarter gravity would use an enormous amount of fuel. Is that ship you showed us a giant gas tank or something? And how can you be certain they’re going to Mars? They could be heading out toward Alpha Centuri or someplace!”

Wolfgang smiled and replied, “I may have forgot to mention – the ship is powered by an electromagnetic drive, not rocket fuel and, as such, I don’t believe it’s capable of interstellar travel. An electromagnetic drive requires a magnetic field in which to operate, so wherever it goes, it can’t leave this solar system – though it can go anywhere within the sun’s magnetic field, which extends out about four times the distance from the sun to Pluto. Another question?”

“What happens if it runs out of fuel?” someone asked from the darkness of the auditorium.

Dr. Guthnick turned toward the screen behind him and clicked his remote again. “Here’s a view of the teardrop ship, enhanced with a radio-visual overlay. That bright glow at the blunt end of the ship is a power source, and it, as our readings have confirmed, is as stable as a sun. Before the ship was coated with a protective shielding against radiation, it was transparent, and that power source was almost as bright as a dwarf star. It will never run out of fuel. I suspect that it, along with other technology demonstrated by the people who built that ship, is alien in nature.”

“But according to a Council report I’ve read recently,” a girl spoke up, “we’re ‘alien’ in nature.”

“And that, my dear,” Dr. Guthnick replied, “is exactly why you are here.”

“Are you going to arrest us?”

“Or put us in concentration camps and dissect us?”

“Is this the way you thank us for saving your ship?”

“Don’t think we won’t fight back!”

“We can level this whole...”

“Ladies! At ease!” Wolfgang shouted. “Nobody is arresting anyone! We need your help!”

“ ... with just a thought!”

“Then start thinking with your intelligence and not your emotions!” Wolfgang shouted, answering the threat before university security became involved. “I will not tolerate violence! Not from us, not from you!”

“How can you back up the promise that we’ll be safe from persecution?”

Wolfgang had an answer for that, too. He simply waved his arm back toward where Tia and Tara were sitting on the stage alongside Ronnie, the woman who had instructed most of the witch girls. Tia and Tara both stood up and the good doctor introduced them.

“You may remember the Simpson girls as the Vampire twins,” he began. “They are also twins in real life. And in addition, these two can call up more power than all the rest of you, combined.” Tia glanced over at her Wolf, hoping he wasn’t setting them up. “You students of witch-fire may take credit for saving that Strato-Cruiser a few months ago, but you are looking at the ones who actually did it.

“We brought you here to train you – not to entrap you!” he concluded. “You think of yourselves as witches and some of you may expect to be persecuted as such, but you are actually a new sub-species of homo sapiens. You’re more powerful, you’ll live longer and your abilities are more evolved than anything humanity has ever seen! You are the Vanguard of Humanity – the spirit of the future and it will be you who will lead us into space!”

After the cheering and the applause died down, someone shouted, “What should we call ourselves? The New Man?”

“But we’re all women!” a female voice shouted.

“They’re not really a sub-species until they demonstrate they can reproduce!”

“We can reproduce!” a girl shouted back. “I was infertile and after training with Ronnie Simpson I had a baby girl!”

“Well, that seems to settle it, then,” Wolfgang called out from the podium, attempting to regain control of the situation. “Your child has witch-fire in her veins?”

“She does!” came the reply. “She is a true daughter of New Woman!”

Dr. Guthnick chuckled at that, as did several others. “You seem to be leaving out half the population in your new definition of your sub-species,” he replied, causing more chuckles.

“All right, people,” he continued, “we should break up into groups and decide what we’re good at. We need to design a ship that can follow the Americans and find out who they are and where they’re going. We need to develop a space drive – electromagnetic or otherwise – and we need to learn how to survive in space. Because this world isn’t going to support us much longer.”

With that, he thanked everyone and walked off the stage with the Simpson trio, Tia, Tara and Ronnie, who were quickly surrounded with girls who wanted to be in one of their groups.

Tia ended up with a group of girls who had some ideas about a propulsion system that involved using witch-fire to create water – H2O – which another girl insisted could be used as a form of hydrogen propulsion. “With an unlimited water supply, we could travel under constant acceleration just like that electromagnetic ship!”

“And we wouldn’t be limited by the sun’s heliosphere! We could go anywhere!”

“Even to another star!”

“Even under constant acceleration, it’d still take a long time to reach another star,” another girl said.

“Yeah, but if we developed a hydrogen drive, we could use the Strato-Cruisers and we wouldn’t have to design a new space ship.”

“Right! Instead of building one new ship, we already have a fleet of them!”

“Just load them full of food and a bunch of us girls, and we’re off the see the stars!”

“Hey, we’d need guys too – for entertainment if nothing else.”

“What about the time factor? People might grow old and die before we could find a habitable planet...”

“Ronnie used witch-fire on me and I became a lot younger. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m in my fifties!”

“You mean you can use witch-fire to keep us from getting old?”

“Wow! I think I might already be doing that! I use my witch-fire on every ache and pain I get!”

Tara’s group was smaller, as they were mostly interested in mapping out the solar system and designing star charts to determine possible destinations, while Ronnie’s group concentrated on logistical problems regarding supplies and what a space-faring group might require.

The various meetings ran far into the morning and when Tia crawled into bed, she found her Wolf already waiting – sound asleep – but at least he was there. After a few seconds of witch-fire to erase the stressful scent of a night bent over charts, powwowing statistics and structural plans, she slid under the sheet to snuggle, only to have him wake up with a soft, pleasant moan and put his arms around her.

“Hey, friendly body,” he murmured as he hugged his face against her neck and shoulders. “You smell good...” She snugged right up, squashing her boobs against his chest and slid one arm beneath his ribs so they could make contact ‘from nose to toes’. “Umm. Warm, too!” he added.

Tia could feel his hand slide down over her hips as he sought some space between their stomachs to explore further down. She didn’t resist, but she also didn’t pull back to give him room to play with her, perfectly willing to let her Wolf do all the work.

“Tired?” Wolfgang asked, noticing her lack of participation.

“Umm,” Tia sighed, not committing herself one way or another. By now, he knew her well enough to understand that she was willing (she was almost always willing), but she wasn’t going to help, and there wouldn’t likely be conversation afterward, which was also perfectly all right, since she was the one who woke him up. He could get details of her night, later.

Tia sighed again as Wolfgang’s hand found the slight fuzziness that let him know how close he was to the target – her clit. Now, she slid back a bit, as she didn’t want any accidental pinching to occur and let loose a low growl, mouth still closed as two fingers slid down along each side of her cleft.