Chapter 35

Dearest Willow,

I suppose that you could say that I got a promotion. I retook the CAP test, even though I have quite a bit of time to go to my next birthday. The reason for that is that Marissa, the Captain, and Mr. Ackermann all insisted. While the last two really don't hold much weight in my world Marissa does. They however are the powers that be aboard the Dawn Princess. Even the AI of the ship listens to them. Some of the time anyway ... So I went down the medcenter and took the CAP test. Part of the reason for that was that if I got a score that would let me volunteer I would need to have my collar removed and to have an implant put in somewhere near the back of my jaw and my ear so that I could talk to the AI. I did get a better score, but now have another worry, I need to pick up a couple more concubines. The first thing I had to ask myself was if having seven women would be too many. Marissa and I sat and hashed that one out for quite a while. We'll have a combined household, I wouldn't want to leave Holly, Beth, Katy, Dana, or especially Marissa. So eventually what we decided was that Beth and Katy are officially my concubines and Marissa will pick two more. Thus we put out an advertisement aboard the ship asking if anyone had a dependent male who had turned fourteen recently and failed to meet the standard of being a sponsor. I may be enhanced by Confederacy medical tech but still meeting the demands of that many women seemed like it would be a full time job. And with becoming a Civil Service Officer in training I will have two jobs in essence, because I just got the video of the auto loader that I created in action. So as the saying goes, back to the drawing board.

We haven't found any males among the few families that are left on board the Dawn Princess. So for the time being Marissa and I have gone through the few unclaimed concubines that Mr. Ackermann has and picked out a woman. Lily or maybe it is Li Li has almost no English. Mr. Ackermann and I agree that we think she must have been barely legal to be picked up and maybe working as a prostitute at the edge of China town in New York. At least we don't think that she was in any California city when she was picked up. The only other possibility is that someone 'bought' her and had her among their dependents. However she got here she really is quite sweet. We put her in one of the pod sleep-trainers and stuffed some more English into her poor little head so that we wouldn't have to rely on a babblefish type of translator for her. Our implants would have translated for us but it was distracting at best.

So now I have to review the tapes from any sponsor's house if his (or more rarely her) concubine gets injured. I also had to pass judgment on a sponsor who was guilty of molesting a dependent. That was hard. Eventually I had to disagree with the AI. That girl was twelve going on a hundred and twelve. Not just in body development but in actions too. She initiated the contact from start to finish. She pursued her mother's sponsor and finally caught him mostly or maybe all the way asleep and impaled herself on his morning wood. A locked door might have kept her out a bit longer but one of his concubines coming or going from the room would have mooted the point eventually. Still it was hard. I understand the necessity of protecting kids from predatory adults but watching that girl proved that she was a predatory child.

I don't know what we'll do with her exactly. The AI is reevaluating the sponsor in question and the 'child' too. There is little doubt that she is pushing the curve as far as physical maturity goes. And when a child thinks that they are old enough to do something there is very little that can be done to prevent them from doing that thing. So now we have to decide what we're going to do with the little minx. I suggested that she be put in the med-tube and essentially closed up so tight that she couldn't get more than a fine catheter into her. Of course if she decides that she wants to try butt sex that will be sort of moot. But it is the best that I can think of other than having the AI create a chastity belt that deals with all of her body waste and leaves her looking like an old fashioned Barbie doll. We tossed that one around too and I now have all the measurements of her body. Designing a chastity belt for a wayward preteen predator is my next task. On top of that I have suggested that her mother's sponsor be publicly caned. Along with her mother while she watches from a force-shield cage. I talked to the AI about how to use the chastity belt to inflict pain as well ... She'll feel every blow that lands on either her mother or her mother's sponsor and then we may well confine her to a cell in the unattached concubines' quarters unless we feel that would cause even more problems for her in the long run. I suppose that she can't be blamed. Almost every pod has at least one act of sex that the children witness. A lot of sponsors don't have much experience with kids and the way they can sneak around almost any obstacle. So we're recording this punishment session and hoping that it will help serve as a warning to other sponsors of the danger they face from minors who are their dependents.