by Darrell Bain
That expedition had been organized in hopes of learning new technology, which might help the Enclave survive. It had been only partially successful. Jamie had indeed met the alien, trapped in the wreck of it's craft, and was given a thought disk by which the alien communicated, but there was nothing there which promised any real help for the beleaguered earth. There was, however, detailed engineering instructions for a faster than light spacecraft, given by the alien in hopes that humans would travel back to its home system and try to save some representatives of its race where an encroaching dust cloud was gradually rendering its planet uninhabitable. The thought disk was keyed to Jamie alone, and he still had nightmares about the battle with the Moon City mercenaries also trying to recover the craft, as well as the wild battles with enhanced animals and feral humans on the way there and back. His prospective trip into space seemed tame by comparison.
Jeannie shifted her body in his lap and began tugging at his coverall closure. Jamie quit his nuzzling and began kissing her in earnest. Fuzzy Britches, knowing what was coming, jumped down from her lap and joined Woggly on the floor. The two animals touched noses, communicating silently their amusement at the sexual antics of humans.
The humans continued what they were doing. Jamie had never given much thought to having sex in the presence of self-aware animals. His pets certainly didn't mind, and sometimes even entered the fray, not as participants, but rather as family observers, amusing their masters as well as themselves by their antics. One of Fuzzy Britches’ favorite antics was licking Jeannie’ s nipples, which still embarrassed her to an extent, much to the cat's amusement.
Jeannie had never owned pets of her own, but in the last half year she had become enchanted with those of Jamie and Kristi.
Jeannie took herself from Jamie's lap and stood up, somewhat rumpled, cheeks already flushing in anticipation. Jamie snugged an arm around her waist and began leading her toward the bedroom under the amused gaze of the two pets. Before they took more than a few steps forward, the door to the outside dilated and Kristi Carson entered the room.
Kristi was dirty; her blonde hair was unwashed and tangled and the high cheekbones of her Nordic ancestors smudged, but her pretty blue eyes were bright and cheerful and she held her body straight, even after a week in the wilds. She was taller than Jeannie but curved just as amply, or perhaps more so, but her figure was mostly concealed by thermosmotic coveralls and boots, along with belt and shoulder harnesses holding her laserifle and pistol, various pouches and a knife which might rival the swords carried by her Viking forefathers.
“Kristi!” Jamie and Jeannie shouted at once and ran toward her. Kristi dropped the pack from her back and hugged them both, unmindful of the smudges she transferred to them in the process. Lady, her white-haired dog, woofed a greeting at the humans, then plopped herself down between Fuzzy Britches and Woggly, who immediately began pestering her to tell of her adventures in the wilds. Princess, her equally white Persian, heard the commotion and bounded into the room. She rubbed at Kristi's feet, then joined the other animals, just as eager to hear some new stories as Jamie's pets were.
“Why were you late?” Jamie began almost at once. “Areyou okay? Did anyone get hurt? What's happening outside?"
Kristi laughed and stilled his questions with a kiss, then kissed Jeannie as well. “Let's save the questions until I get cleaned up, okay? I stopped to see John when we got in. He has some news for us, and I have some too, but I want to wash and change first."
“I'll start a bath,” Jeannie said eagerly, but didn't hurry off. Jamie put an armaround them both and led them toward the bath. Behind his head, they winked at each other and entwined their hands. It had been a week since they had seen one another, after all, and while Jamie might be anxious for Kristi's company, the two women were even more ready for a re-union. Jamie could wait and watch, and be all the better for it, they thought.
The sybaritic bath was warm and refreshing. Jamie and Jeannie vied for the pleasure of scrubbing off the week's worth of wild country debris from Kristi's oddly tanned body. She relaxed and enjoyed the lathering of her body, especially the contrast of a soft, feminine hand rubbing one breast and the strong larger male one on the other. The same sensations excited her more as they worked down around her waist and along her thighs.
Thewarm water re-cycled, carrying away the grime, then she stretched under their toweling with movements, which would have done justice to Fuzzy Britches’ best effortsafterwaking from a nap.
Once in bed, Jamie was content to wait his turn. The stimulation of just watching while Jeannie and Kristi renewed their desire was enough to heighten his own performance even beyond his usual competent level. He thought he might even manage another time before the eveningwas over, but for now he was content. He leaned back against the soft headboard of the bed and remembered to ask, “You said you had some news for us?"
“Oh,” Kristi exclaimed. “So I did.” She reached across Jamie's body to caress Jeannie's breasts, admiring her light brown nipples as she did so. “Well, the first thing is that we found Conan."
“Conan? You mean he's alive?” Jamie could hardly believe it. The last sight he had had of the feral dog was of him falling under the lasergun fire of the attacking Moon City mercenaries from the Dallas Enclave. His own escape had taken him in another direction and he had assumed since then that Conan had certainly been killed.
“He's alive,” Kristi said. “He spent months recovering from his wounds, and since then he's been working his way back here again. He made it as far as the barricades, but couldn't find a way in this time without getting shot. He's just been out there waiting and hoping that someone in a Ranger patrol would recognize him."
“That's almost like a miracle,” Jamie said. “Where is he now? The pets will want to know that he's back."
“He's being taken care of at the medical section. He's still not in very good shape, but they told me he could be released in a couple of days. John Whitmire made the vet assign the pet autodoc to him and discharge all the other pets it was treating."
“Great,” Jamie said enthusiastically. Conan had been the original courier from the feral human and dog town where the alien craft had crashed, and had led the expedition back to the site. Most of his human and canine clan had perished in the attack from the rival expedition from the Dallas Enclave.
Jamie had had melancholy thoughts ever since then, remembering the dog's bravery in traversing two hundred miles of wilderness, and even more difficult, finding a way into the Houston Enclave, bringing that strange message imbedded in the alien thought disk, making contact with his pets and convincing them to hide him rather than alarming the Enclave security forces that a feral dog was loose inside, and then dying under the guns of a surprise attack. Jamie was overjoyed that he had survived.
“I'm so glad,” Jeannie said, speaking to Jamie. “I didn't like him at first because I thought he was going to get you killed or hurt out there in the wilds, but it all worked out, didn't it?"
Kristi reached up to touch Jeannie's cheek. “You were worried about him? What about your own self? It's just a miracle that you managed to get back alive."
Jeannie shuddered. “I don't want to think about that."
It was no wonder. Jeannie had been irate that Jamie was going off into the wilds without her, and at the time was jealous of Kristi. When by the wildest of chance she had captured a Moon City spy, she had used his capture to blackmail Whitmire into allowing her to join the expedition with Jamie and Kristi, but on the way to the site of the alien crash site, her floater had been shot down by the Dallas floaters and she had spent a horrifying two days being stranded and attacked by an enhanced rat pack, then being chased with Kristi and Jamie by the Dallas mercenaries.
She rubbed her head on Jamie's chest, trying to get the images out of her mind, and reached over to run her hand along Kristi's slim waist.
“Well, forget about that,” Kristi said. “There's something else you need to know. We were al
l planning on going on the first flight of the spaceship when it's completed, but when I talked to John, he told me that of us three, only Jamie is going to be allowed to go."
Jamie had been of two minds about that since the spacecraft began nearing completion. He knew that Kristi was adamant about accompanying him and the contingent of scientists, and that Jeannie certainly didn't want to be left behind, but she had been strangely reticent about the arrangements. Jamie wasn't worried about Kristi's ability to take care of herself, but Jeannie and the pets had been causing him considerable worry. He was glad in a way about Kristi's revelation, but on the other hand he wasn't really enthusiastic about going into space without his family, regardless of the possible dangers.
Jeannie giggled and drew Kristi's hand back down to her breasts.
“What's funny?” Jamie asked. Her reaction wasn't at all what he had expected. A puzzled expression also crossed Kristi's face.
Jeannie grinned beatifically. “You can all stop worrying,” she said, “It doesn't matter what Mr. Whitmire wants. That spaceship will never leave orbit unless I'm on it. I've bolluxed the computer!"
Jeannie was more than ten years younger than either of the others and much more emotionally oriented. Hardly anyone knowing her gave her credit for a very active brain, regardless of her expertise with computer programming. A person looking at Jeannie Bostick was much more likely to notice her overt sexuality and lush body, and never even think that a considerable intelligence might be lurking within. Until the return of them all from the expedition in the wilds, she had worked in Jamie's own Genetic Engineering section, and since then, she had been promoted to chief programmer of the computer, which would control the spacecraft. Evidently she had done some of her own programming, separate from the regular engineering specifications.
Jamie was speechless, but not Kristi. She drew Jeannie over Jamie's reclining body and began kissing and hugging her, laughing all the while. “Oh, Jeannie did you really? I can't wait to tell John. This is even better than when you used that nasty Cadena to make him let you come out and join us that other time! He'll have a litter of kittens, he'll be so upset! Hey, I bet we could finagle him into letting Troy come along, too. When I talked to him, he said they wanted someone younger, but there's no one better than Troy Masters for running a Ranger company."
“Wait a minute!” Jamie exclaimed. “No one has consulted me about this yet. Don't you realize this could be dangerous? We'll be going to that derelict orbiting Saturn first, then maybe further on out. I don't think—"
“I do!” Kristi said. “Oh, Jeannie, you're a doll. I just love you.” She crawled across Jamie1s chest and forced Jeannie into a reclining position, laughing and kissing her lips and neck and breasts. Presently, the kisses grew into caresses and from there into another round of enthusiastic lovemaking. Jamie relaxed and succumbed to the inevitable. Their last excursion had turned out all right in the end, and maybe this one would as well. Besides, he really didn't want to go into space alone.
* * * *
Jamie and Kristi lazed around the next morning while Jeannie went to beard John Whitmire in his den. Jamie had no doubt that Jeannie would pull off her blackmail. He didn't even bother going into work, where a contingent of scientists had spent the last six months using his verbalization of the data contained in the alien thought disk to construct the FTL spacecraft, knowing that before long John Whitmire would be calling for him, demanding that he make Jeannie change her mind. He already knew that it wouldn't work. John Whitmire was a much older man, with a mind-set firmed long, long ago, when men could still dominate a woman's actions. He still became embarrassed at homosexual activity, though he tried to avoid showing it. He was an extremely intelligent man, his mind unwithered by age and he had been instrumental in organizing the expedition that Jamie had reluctantly gone out with. He also controlled the selection of the small Moon City contingent that was being allowed to make up part of the crew of the first exploratory voyage of the spacecraft, but he was being extremely cautious. The Enclave needed help from Moon City and the space stations with spacecraft engineering problems, and he was forced to use them, even after their deadly attempt to block the Houston Enclave expedition with so much loss of life. He might be old fashioned, but he certainly wasn't dumb.
* * * *
“Jeannie, you'll be the death ofme," Whitmire said. He was agitated, and his white-haired, blocky body showed it. Jeannie had blackmailed him before, and here she was in his office again, making even more unreasonable demands.
“It worked out before, didn't it?” Jeannie asked, not unreasonably. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“No thanks to you,” the old man said. “You almost lost your life then."
“Yes, but just think, if that poor pilot who was ferrying me out there hadn't gotten a message off, everything might have been lost. As it was, everything turned out fine. And it doesn't make any difference anyway. Either Kristi and I go with Jamie on the spaceship, or it doesn't go."
“I could put you to sleep and get your codes,” Whitmire said, wondering to himself whether he would really do such a thing—and whether it would work if he tried it. From the set of Jeannie's body and face, he rather doubted it.
Jeannie smiled, confirming his suspicions. “No you couldn't. If I don't speak in a perfectly normal tone of voice to the computer, it will freeze up. Oncewe're in space, that program will drop off the net, but until then, there's no one else who can control it."
“I see,” Whitmire said. “All right, on your head be it. Now go away, and let me decide whom I have to drop from the crew to allow you and Kristi to replace them."
“And the pets,” Jeannie mentioned.
Whitmire looked pained. “Yes, of course, the pets. Isthere anyone else you want to take? Please say no."
Jeannie suppressed another smile. “No, I can't think of anyone else."
“Good."
“Kristi can, though."
Whitmire looked to the heavens. “And who might that be? Has she taken another lover all of a sudden?"
“If she does, she won't go,” Jeannie said darkly. “No, she just thinks that Captain Masters should command the Rangers. She trusts him."
“Well, so far as that goes, so do I,” Whitmire said. “I just thought he was too old, but all right, Troy will command the Rangers. Now, please, Jeannie, don't ask for anything else."
“Oh, I wouldn't think of it, Mr. Whitmire. All I really wanted in the first place was to go with Jamie."
“Yes, I'm sure,” Whitmire said. He rubbed a hand through his thinning white hair as Jeannie left his office, and smiled inside. He thought wistfully that it would be nice to have a daughter like Jeannie. Or Kristi. They both made him proud.
Jamie was called to Whitmire's office later in the day. Since it was in the same building, he was able to appear there in minutes. Whitmire's receptionist ushered him into the office. His desk was piled high with computer printouts, engineering layouts, personnel rosters and other minutiae of his position as Director of Enclave Security. Incongruously, he retained printed books on shelves of antique oak, a mix of reference and fiction, all of them very old and battered. Jeannie always thought they smacked of museum pieces rather than something to be actually used.
Jamie was prepared for a dressing down from Jeannie's computer shenanigans, but John Whitmire had other objectives in mind. The only reference he made to Jeannie's command of the spacecraft computer was to get reassurance that should anything happen to her before it was launched, it would still be serviceable. Jamie, being a conscientious person, had already gotten assurances on that matter from Jeannie. She had already programmed in his and Kristi's voices as alternate command modes. He said so.
Mollified, Whitmire went on to other matters. “Jamie, I don't really like what Jeannie has done, but let's let that lay for a moment. There are other concerns. As you know, we had to have help on the spacecraft from Moon City, even after they tried so hard to steal the technology. We Just don'
t nave their expertise in space, not to mention that earth will always be subject to blackmail from them. They have gravity on their side, and there isn't a thing we can do about it. Anytime they take a notion, they can bombard us from space and there is nothing we could do to prevent it.
“After I talked to Jeannie, I had second thoughts. Letting the pets go into space with you doesn't seem like a bad idea. They have senses that we don't, especially Conan.You've heard that he was found?"
“Yes, I heard. When can I see him?"
“Talk to Captain Masters. He'll be around to see you today. As I was saying, the pets can sense emotions far better than humans, and Conan should be better at it than the Enclave pets. Remember that he grew up in the wilds, and ha had to depend on those senses for survival. I think we'll send him along as well."
“Is Captain Masters going, too?” Jamie asked innocently—or at least tried to.
“Yes, he's agreed,” Whitmire said. “The ship is certainly big enough. The space people didn't stint there. Of course, that allows them to send more people as well, since we had already agreed on the proportions of crew from each society.” He looked at Jamie over the expanse of his desk as if that should convey some sort of information.
“Oh,” Jamie said, suddenly understanding the path of Whitmire's thoughts. “Are you thinking they might try to seize the ship or something? Don't you think they got a bellyful of fighting us the last time?"
“I sincerely hope so,” Whitmire said, “but they are laving as many problems as we are, although of a somewhat different nature. They still depend on us for too many materials, and we're having trouble supplying them, given the state of our own ecology and economy. Suppose they decided it might be simpler seize the ship, produce more of them, and just forget about earth?"
