Chapter 28

The General did not give up.

"I'm sorry sir. I was not able to make entrance into the temple. I broke a hard tool-steel pry bar on that door. The women never touched a key hole. They'd just walk up and walk in. I'd run up after them and the door would be locked tight. Wouldn't budge." said the agent.

"Damn peculiar things going on there. I believe you about the door. I tried it myself. There were no visible locks, but it sure as hell locked solid when it closed." the General mused.

"How shall I proceed, Sir?" asked the agent.

"Just keep up your classes. How are they coming?" asked the General.

"Frankly, hard as hell. They don't fool around about education. I've been to several colleges and nothing compares to their curriculum." said the agent.

"What about the women?" the General asked.

"They are cordial. I've even done as you bid me to try and made love with several of them. They are incredibly good at it too, I might add. But none have approached me in relation to the Temple or what goes on there. Damn funny glass in that temple. One minute you can see right through it like a pane of glass. The next minute it's opaque as India ink or shinning like a perfect mirror." said the agent.

"Yes, I'm investigating the glass aspect separately. Well, maintain your assignment. Something may come of it yet." said the General.

"Yes, Sir. General." said the agent, saluting.

As she walked out the General watched her go.

"Lord knows you're pretty enough that they ought to bite." he mused to himself.

Through the Universities efforts, Alice was granted a passport by the Austrian government. She was now a real person as far as governments were concerned.

As Susan was spending more time with Ron, Alice decided to try her wings. She took a trip to visit Jane. The first airplane ride tested her limits of control.

She spent a month residing with Jane, getting to know the circle of upper and a few lower orders of the Sisterhood. Then she made a trip to see Steven.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up, Alice." Steve said.

"I can see you are aware of my true identity." Alice said simply.

"I surmised it from the specifications Susan gave me for your education cube." Steve said.

"You seem undaunted." Alice said.

"Why should I be? You've always treated me with love and respect. You know you have my love and respect. An avatar that desires to be one of the girls is my idea of perfection." Steve said.

"I do desire to be one of the girls. It is a precious thing to me. So how is the work progressing?" Alice asked.

"Why don't I show you." Steve said, leading her to a lab.

Alice followed. Looking around at different wonders. In the lab, she found the biggest wonder.

A barbell with a glass rod for the handle and a thousand pounds of weights on it was doing a lazy figure eight about a foot below the ceiling.

Alice just stared at it in awe.

"It is real? That is half a ton up there doing that?" Alice asked.

Steve chuckled and put on a baseball cap. The barbell stopped its progression over a wooden pallet. It slowly lowered until one end of the barbell sat on the slats of the pallet. A crackling noise was heard and the barbell neatly crushed the pallet, then lifted back just off the ceiling and continued it's lazy figure eight path. Steve took off the cap.

"How is it controlled?" Alice asked.

"You just think what you want it to do." Steve said.

"Can I try it?" Alice asked.

"Yes, but bear in mind, it still has a thousand pounds of inertia. It could easily crush us both and quickly." Steve said, offering Alice the cap.

Alice ignored it and looked up at the barbell. Suddenly it stopped and lowered slowly. It drifted toward the two of them and stopped a few feet away. Alice moved and sat on the rod. Lifting her feet off the floor. It never dropped a centimeter.

She got off and the barbell lifted back up by the ceiling and continued it's slow pattern.

"Impressive. And well beyond a sixth order skill." Steve said.

"I am now seventh order." Alice said.

"Still beyond that. but seventh order is quite powerful." Steve said.

"First order is quite powerful" Alice said, easily, "What else have you got?"

Ron led her to a bench area and opened a glass case using the hat. Inside was a glass ring. Not large. Like a wedding band.

"Here, put this on." he said, handing it to her.

She slipped it on her finger.

"I feel it ... great knowledge?" she asked.

"Yes. Ask it a specific question ... population of a city or something." Steve said.

Alice thought a question at the ring and found the answer in her mind.

"Incredible. How much information is in it?" Alice asked.

"Not the library of congress, but a fair sized public library." Steve replied.

"Most impressive." Alice said, returning the ring to him.

"Keep it if you'd like. I shall have more soon. That was just the prototype." Steve said.

"It is loose upon my finger, I might lose it." Alice said.

"So think it a bit tighter." Steve said.

Alice looked at the ring and it shrunk to a perfect fit, the excess volume moving to a stone like bump on the upper side.

"Thank you. I will. I quite like it." Alice said.

'"You are quite welcome. It was you who started all this." Steve said.

"Yes, so I've heard. So what other wonders do you have?" Alice asked.

As list started to reel though her consciousness and Alice stopped it with a thought.

"It answered unbidden." Alice said, looking at the ring.

"You asked a question. It replied. It knows of all my work. If you don't want it to do that, just bid it answer only when you ask it specifically. " Steve said.

"Yes, I will." Alice said, doing it.

The ring almost seemed disappointed on her finger.

On a whim she asked it mentally: "Who am I?"

"The goddess Aphrodite, in human form under the assumed name of Alice Brock." came the reply.

"It knows me?" Alice asked.

"I would assume so. It knows what I know. I used my own ingrams as a processing mechanism." Steve replied.

"Will it answer to anybody?" she asked.

"It would not answer a question to a person I would not." Steve replied.

Alice nodded.

Steve led her to a crystal motor that powered a conveyor belt, running all through the plant.

"Barbara did the work on this. Based upon the reactionless thruster." Steve said.

"What is its power source?" Alice asked, as there were no wires. The base was quite clear, as was the motor.

"The stars." Steve replied.

Alice looked at it a moment and then nodded.

"It would work in an automobile?" she asked.

Steve nodded.

"I haven't put gasoline in my car since I installed one. Three months ago, and I do a lot of driving." he said.

He led her to an area with heavy wires leading to it. There was a six inch cube of glass with a metal plate on either side hooked to the wires.

"This powers the entire plant. Glass furnaces and all, except that motor of course, which draws it's power directly." Steve said.

"Incredible." Alice said.

"Yes. I think so too. A two-inch cube would power an average large house. A one-foot cube perhaps a small city." Steve said.

"You have done well." Alice said.

"One more thing I wish to show you." Steve said.

He lead her to a small empty room, save a pillar of glass on which sat a two inch cube.

Steve touched the cube and suddenly it seemed they were in a mountain meadow.

Alice gasped.

"How is this possible?" she asked.

"Ask the ring if you wish to know. But we have not left the room. This is a projector. It makes it seem as if we are in a mountain meadow." he said.

He touched the cube again and the image faded.

"It works with your visual cortex. You can look around. You can't touch objects, because they aren't really there. I have a smaller cube than this too that does the same thing, only it's a recorder of all that's around it. It will store several hours of events. Longer in time lapse." Steve said.

"You are talking about three dimensional television or movies?" Alice asked.

"Yes. here." Steve said, touching a smaller cube.

They were in a valley, like in the old westerns. Alice heard a noise and turned around. She shied against Steve in fear as a herd of wild horses rode all around them. One passed right through Alice.

Steve touched the cube and the scene faded.

Alice shivered against him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that. I thought you would realize it was an illusion." Steve said.

"I thought us dead." Alice said, shakily.

"I know. It is quite realistic." Steve said.

Alice uncoiled herself from around him.

"Let's go meet Judy. Does she know who I am?" Alice asked.

"No, just one of the girls. You need to meet her daughter Chelsea as well." Steve said.

After her visit with Steve and Judy, Alice drove down to Pacific Grove where she was staying in Jane's house there. By herself. Her only company Jane, Judy, Steve, Chelsea, Candice, Susan, Ron, Barbara, Cindy, Gale, Anne, Jill and Cindy. In a cube of course.

Steve was working on long distance cubes, two that communicated with each other through the theory of the Crystals. In an hours time, you could spend a month with a friend who was overseas. But that was yet to come.

Alice made a pilgrimage up the coast and into the woods by Felton. Visiting the chamber location where Jane had found the Rod of Sappho. She spent an hour sitting in the glad, feeling the loneliness the rod had felt for two-millennia

Later she made her way to visit Sappho's grave site. Paying honor to her. Finding the small glass marker that Jane had placed when she returned for a visit while staying with Steve and Judy. Alice sat there for an hour, feeling the loneliness that Sappho had felt in her largely self-imposed isolation before she had died.

Eventually it struck her; Alice was lonely. Alice Brock -AKA Aphrodite, goddess of love- was lonely! How could this be? She had wedded many, many times. By definition she was now wedded to fully more than half of the four-thousand-plus of the Sisterhood. There were many more besides them. She had well over two-thousand brides already awaiting her in paradise ... that nebulous place at the end of time where all would get together for an everlasting party.

But what of now? It was a long way to eternity.

Alice realized with a start that the happiest moments of her entire existence had been those first few months spent in Susan's arms.

She examined her body. This was not a body she had stolen or inherited. It was a gift to her. Far superior to any other body she had seen or inhabited in her millions of years of existence.

She stripped off her clothes and let the sun shine on the body. Feeling the air touch her skin.

The absurdity! She thought; of the numerous religious and moral precepts that had come into being in the past. To even fathom that the uncovered form was in any manner sinful or distasteful.

Perhaps it had sprung from the self consciousness of priests over the effects of their own gluttony. Perhaps it was based upon a desire for control of property, which women had at times been. Clothing had come into usage as protection against environments; for warmth in cold weather, for protection against intrusion by biting insects or against the sun once the skin had received it's limit of exposure to ultra-violet rays.

Somebody had noticed that a clothed body was less convenient to mate with. The clothing hid the pleasing curves of the body from the eyes of strangers, or just others who did not possess the property, but who might desire to, given exposure of it.

With time women noticed that clothing helped hide their monthly cycles. The cause of which was not understood. Only women did it. It was thought to be a curse that was brought upon them for some evil deed in the past.

These events -in combination or singularly- eventually resulted in the traditions of the taboos against nudity. The concept of marriage being a formalization of the rites of ownership. Based in part upon the dominant male and his herd.

Women were treated as chattel; nothing or little more than property.

It stayed that way for a long time. Sometimes they would emerge as separates and equals for a period of time, only to lose their status once again.

Then a new trick had evolved; The concept of a woman as a holy, untouchable thing. A form of slavery in itself. In part self-supported by women because it gave them -some- official status beyond chattel. Combined with the concepts of morality the enslavement of women was total.

Morality was group support of a set of tenants or rules for living. Based alternately upon religion or convenience of events. In effect, they told individuals how to run their lives. How they should live. They were at times supported or rejected by political leadership. At times political leadership was synonymous with religious leadership. These were the darkest of times. The political leaders had the power to tell the citizens how they should think.

There had been attempts along the way to bring morality into reign; Zeno with his introduction of ethics as a scientific study of morals. Resulting in the Stoics, but even they lost sight of the goal. They adopted a precept of self-sacrifice being the loftiest premise of human living. Self sacrifice was a good thing, as long as it was voluntary. When it became otherwise, it was taxation.

Perhaps the closest approach at reigning in religious control of morals was the document of the Constitution of the United States of America. Democracy was the right of the people to rule their own actions. In practice this did an outstanding job of securing the rights of the many. The problem was, the rights of the many also included the opinions of the many as to how everybody should act. A direct consequence of this was that the rights of the individual -the one- suffered. Thus a general belief in the sanctity of a monogamous heterosexual marriage became an edict against those who believed in polygamy, polyandry, homosexuality and lesbianism.

Whether enforced by laws or public pressure, the results were always the same; Somebody was always trying to tell someone else how to live their lives.

Whatever the foundations of modesty -Alive believed- they were not valid. A healthy, vibrant body of either sex was a thing of great beauty.

Alice had been fighting against the evil side of morality for a major portion of her existence. For morality had at times not only sanctioned, but enforced the slavery of women and even men at times. Certainly mostly women. And Alice was a woman.

Alice had at times been a slave, a concubine -a strictly female slave used exclusively for sex-, a courtesan -a free agent female slave used for sex or simply a well trained prostitute-, a wife -at the time a tradition enforced female slave-, a spoil of war -a female slave-, outright property -a slave-, a herd female -a safety enforced female slave- and a free woman -with a societal enforced lesser position for those not accepting voluntary slavery of marriage-. She had also been a queen, a mother and a goddess. Not necessarily in that order.

All in all, she was sick of it.

Alice believed -rightly- in the rights of the individual to live the lifestyle of their choice, or to change it at will. Something that no government or social institution had ever fully supported in known time. That included the right to choose who you made love with, if that other person also decided freely to perform the act. The choice of acts was also to be freely determined by a unanimous decision between those indulging in them.

Rape was not a free act. Forced sodomy was not a free act. Coercion by force, legislation or social pressure was not a free act.

Roughly, Alice had adopted the foundation of Zeno's ethics for determining what was a free act. This did not include coerced self-denial or self-sacrifice. Ethics included the inherent good of not forcing yourself upon another. Of not stealing property. Of not enticing a person away from another happy relationship. Of not using laws, morals or social customs for personal gain at the expense of others. Of not gaining in personal wealth at the expense of a subjugated -or coerced- work force. Of not being a personal burden of society, friends or family due to your own inactivity.

Ethics were self evident and self enforcing. If you lived by them, then you never need worry about your conscience. There was nothing to feel guilty about.

Alice did believe in voluntary self-sacrifice. At times voluntary self-denial was called for. She believed that everybody should make an effort to help their fellow human beings. If you had two loaves of bread and a child had none, then give one to the child. As a voluntary act of charity.

Ethics forbid usury, but supported interest.

Ethics supported survival, but forbid wastefulness.

Ethics supported self-modesty, but forbid enforced modesty.

Alice was an extremely ethical person. Hardly anybody would have called her a moral one.

She walked about nude in the small glen, dancing childlike at times.

Later she lay down in the grass and took a nap. Awakened some time later by a creature crawling across her body, she carefully scooped it up with her hands and put it aside, releasing it unharmed. It wasn't the spiders fault that she lay in it's path. To the spider she was too big to be food prey and simply an obstacle it tried to crawl over. Perhaps it found the terrain of her skin interesting or pleasing. It didn't matter to Alice. She had no compulsion to either kill it, or abide by it. She simply put it aside.