The World Game

by Allen Charles

  She hit, feet first that set her tumbling but ricochetted her off the surface and she lost her grip on the tether. She was now a space object, disoriented and flying away from the fragment at a much reduced speed. Shaw released his tethers, reversed his course and came jetting after her.

  He caught up after a minute, still over the fragment but at some altitude. Felicity was spinning and tumbling, completely disoriented and barely conscious. He felt that if he grabbed her, his youniform would be able to compensate and stop the tumble effect she would impart to him, so he made a split second analysis and grabbed hold of her.

  The stars and fragment started whirling around for him, but the youniform controlled the jet thrust to bring him under control.

  He checked his remaining reaction mass. There was not much left so he would have to activate Felicity’s thrusters to get them safely back to the transport. He held Felicity in a tight clutch and looked at her unconscious face through the youniform helmets.

  Even under the dire circumstances, he felt the softness and femininity under his fingers and saw the simple beauty of her features in repose. A rush of warmth and care, sheer hungry desire, churned in him, his male human instincts unsupressable as his youniform stretched to accommodate an ill timed tumescence.

  Felicity’s eyes flickered as she regained consciousness and looked into Shaw’s concerned face inches in front of her. She stretched her arms around his shoulders, adding to the pressure between their bodies as they drifted in space.

  “Hmmm, Mr Shaw... Are you just pleased to see me?” She murmured, “Or is that a banana in your pocket?”

  They both giggled at the reversed cliche and hugged together even tighter, sharing Shaw’s erection through the thin youniform material.

  Felicity wrapped her legs around Shaw and commanded her buddy to meld the youniforms. The youniforms flowed into a cocoon around the pair, leaving them skin to skin as they kissed deeply with the passion that only sharing a near death experience could create.

  And then and there,

  In outer space,

  Was again conceived,

  The human Race.

  “Shaw? Hannaford? Are you guys OK?” Fuller’s concerned voice rattled in their ears. They looked at each other, nose to nose in the cocoon, relaxed after the rush of weightless, simultaneous orgasm.

  “Yes Colonel, we are both fine, now.” Felicity could not suppress another giggle. “We have merged youniforms to share reaction mass and will jet back at optimum velocity to regain the transport.”

  Fuller wasn’t hearing someone who had just cheated death by a whisker. Something was going on here and he had a fair idea now of just what it was. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He hinted.

  “We are fine sir.” Replied Shaw who then whispered in Felicity’s ear “And if we do I’m not naming it after him!”

  Felicity broke out in a fit of laughter while Fuller’s request for repeat, transmission unclear, rattled in their ears. They turned off the comms transmission and locked lips again as Shaw explored Felicity’s warm, smooth body. They had at least ten minutes until they reached the transport. Felicity felt his erection harden again and looked at him with wide eyes. “Again?” She said with a cheeky grin.

  “Forever...” Shaw answered breathlessly.

  Far away across the World Game network Peepers could not get a word in as the voyeur audience roared with approval at Shaw and Felicity as they coupled in total abandon and bliss. If there was one emotion and sensation that could be vicariously shared with greater intensity than violent death, it was the peak of sexual climax and satisfaction. The immortal brains that made the World Game audience were all screaming in superlative ecstasy as they pseudo climaxed along with the human couple. The junction of vagina and penis ruled the universe as billions of immortals focused upon the intensity of sensation that controlled the two warm, copulating bodies. The pseudo orgasms were a mixed double for the audience, combining Felicity’s rolling pleasure with Shaw’s sharp and intense pulsations.

  As the multiple climaxes faded and the two clutched together, slippery with hot sweat and body fluids, the hubbub of moaning and screaming across the network died down, giving Peepers a chance to regain control.

  “Wow!” Peepers gasped. “Charonelle, Howley, are you ready to go on?” They too had all enjoyed the experience, but professionalism dictated they get back on the job. He received single word affirmative from his co-panelists but could hear them still gasping.

  In the background Nickle was grumbling. As a full corporeal caretaker he was not hooked in to the network so he had missed the shared climax. He turned on his time out signal and ambled off to his private quarters to fix his problem.

  “Well everyone! What do you think about that? That has to be one of the most spectacular events of audience participation for all times and editions. I mean, how could you beat that? Howley, what do you think?”

  “Peepers, you know I don’t like messy or dangerous things, but this time I felt that I wanted to be one of those little sperms swimming about weightless and being welcomed into Felicity’s warm tunnel of love. I had an urge to seek out the core of her sex, her womb and to join with her half of the new life. I was wallowing in his semen and her lubricating fluids and actually enjoying it. Peepers, I have said it once and I’ll say it again. These two are just so far ahead of the other acts, my money is on them. Phew! I’m still high from the endorphins.”

  “Charonelle, your comments.”

  “Oh Peepers. If I had a face I’d be blushing right now. I did something very naughty I think.” There was a slight roar from the audience.

  “Keep it down! Keep it down! Where in the galaxy is Nickle when we need him? Go on Charonelle, what did you do naughty?”

  “I actually masked out Felicity’s orgasm and just left Shaw’s. I never, in all these millennia, experienced a male climax sensation before and I wanted to know what it was like, on its own, so the second time they coupled I did it. Wow, you guy get it short term but what intensity!”

  “So Charonelle,” asked Peepers, “would you want to come back as a male if you had the choice?”

  “Oh no Peepers. I just wanted to feel the sensation. I wouldn’t want to have to walk around with all that equipment hanging between my legs all the time. It has to get in the way, and in any case I still think that a female orgasm lasting much longer but at lower intensity if far more enjoyable than the quick flash bang of a male release.”

  “Interesting. Very interesting Charonelle. So your opinion at this time?”

  “Oh, these two for sure! They’ve got it all going for them as an act with spontaneous action. They have cheated death several times now and unlike Martin and Corcoran, have given all of us something to enjoy besides terror and death!”

  Nickle had come back by now, a beatific smile on his face. “Maybe not all of us. They is a few poofter-brains out there that would rather see Martin and Corcoran do something like this together!”

  “Aw Nickle! That is just gross!” complained Howley.

  “Ha ha!” Peepers laughed to defuse the moment. “Alright people, let’s focus and get back to the Game.” Peepers paused. “Where did you get off to when we needed you Nickle?” he asked on the private channel.

  “Ah had to get off - as you say. I ain’t no monk you know. Them two love birds was driving me crazy. OK?”

  “Oh!”

  CHAPTER 52

  Inside the fragment.

  Zardooz had sedated Arjmand and cleaned up his vomit mess. The tumbling sensation was wreaking havoc with Zardooz’s gut and had made Arjmand completely sea sick in three dimensions. The nano-healing technology stolen from the former “West” was working as Arjmand’s external injuries visibly cleared. The broken ankle was secure and appeared to be staying set, in spite of the shifting forces of the spin.

  Zardooz made his way back to the control room. He was getting the hang of moving and knowing when he could safely move. There was a pattern to the tumblin
g that he was gradually recognizing and could adapt to.

  He strapped in with the dimage before him. The RABI was ready to go. He traced some circuits that were shut down and sent a repair bot along the service conduit to reset the last outer door that had been damaged in the blast. He overrode the “no atmosphere” security warning and activated the dead section of the corridor, the lights and cameras all coming on. The corridor looked fine other than the atmospheric breach. The RABI would start from there.

  He took the RABI dimage and placed it in the corridor in a position to allow the shortened journey to the surface node. The RABI could not repair the node cameras, but he would send a repair bot with a replacement module after the boring job.

  The RABI moved in the dimage as it was transported to the closest point to the corridor. The security overrides would not allow it to bore from within the complex under any circumstances, but the corridor segments after the first two were exempted from this exclusion. The only issue was to prevent atmospheric loss as the RABI bored into the corridor section.

  The RABI sent a signal that it was in position to bore to the corridor but could not proceed due to atmospheric breach. Zardooz set the emergency door locks on the room that the RABI waited in and isolated it. It was risky, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Those locks had to hold. As a second thought, he activated the lock on the access corridor to the room as well. Then he overrode the RABI security. As the RABI was still in the complex no go region, he had to fool it into believing it was outside the area. There was only one way to do that and it was surely risky. He isolated all power circuits in the complex and left only the control room active. Arjmand would have to take his chances for the few minutes needed and was so pumped full of narcotics it didn’t matter.

  Zardooz flicked off all power except the control room and activated the RABI. The security warning was gone and only an atmospheric loss warning, the air in the room itself, showed and was easily cancelled. The RABI activated its boring head and went at the wall, chomping its way through the panelling until it hit the bed-rock. Then the real work began.

  There was a small run of about twenty feet from the room to the corridor that would take ten minutes or so at two feet per minute. A cloud of powdered rock came blasting back into the room and swirled madly in the coriolis forces of the tumbling fragment. Ultimately the dust would cling to the walls as the flung layers built up and were held by static charge and a blast of fire retardant would set the deadly dust into a mud that could not foul the atmospheric scrubbers. Zardooz sat back and watched the RABI’s path, ready to step in if the inertial guidance could not cope with the tumbling.

  The RABI soon broke through to the corridor followed by a rush of mud and fire retardant blown out by the air pressure from the room. The once black RABI carapace was now dirty white with rock mud and Zardooz was able to watch it in real time as he guided it up the corridor to the starting point for the big bore to the surface node. He double checked the intended path and set the RABI on its way, once again rock dust spewing out behind into the corridor, soon obscuring vision and coating everything with dust. The dust was going to be one of his major problems.

  While the RABI chewed and burrowed, Zardooz readied a repair bot with the new module for the surface node. He was going to lose some more atmosphere as he let the repair bot into the connecting corridor to the tunnel room, but only what was in the corridor itself. He could spare that.

  He opened the tunnel room door and saw the residual mud and dust fly into the tunnel as the air whooshed out from the corridor to room to tunnel. At least the repair bot would have a fairly clean path ahead. The bot trundled into the room and Zardooz shut the door behind it. He did not replenish the air in the corridor as there was no need for it. He could see the dimage of the bot and guided it to the tunnel. Its rudimentary artificial intelligence told it there was a solid wall ahead so it came to a stop even though nothing barred its way. Unlike the RABI, this one was easier to fool as Zardooz took the structural plans and added a door and the tunnel and saved the changes. The computer system updated the plans throughout the complex and the bot took off into the tunnel without further ado.

  Zardooz thought back to his decadent days as a student when western television still came to the internet, to the Road Runner Coyote cartoons where the Road Runner would paint a black tunnel entrance on a cliff face and run right through it, then the coyote would run at the same tunnel and bounce off. He was certain he had just done a Road Runner trick and snickered to himself at the idea.

  The RABI was now some twenty feet into the fragment mass with around two hundred feet to go. About an hour and a half of boring. Zardooz decided to catch a nap and set perimeter alarms for the RABI and a wake up for himself. He had not heard a sound from Arjmand, so he laid back his chair, stretched out and instantly dozed off.

  A violent jolt spoiled his peaceful nap which he saw had been for fifteen minutes. He looked at the heads up panel and saw no warnings. What in the blazes had bounced the fragment? Had it collided with another piece of Earth?

  Something was very different however. What was it? Of course! He suddenly realized that he was not suffering vertigo and that down was almost down. There was still some slight tumble but the worst effect was gone.

  Well, down was not really down. The wall was down. The floor was the wall, but who cared? He reasoned that another fragment must have clipped this one and stopped the tumbling. He looked at the RABI progress and saw a glitch in the path from when the jolt had occurred. It had taken a few seconds for the RABI to reprogram from its inertial guidance and it had gone into a loop of sorts for four feet then corrected.

  Problem was that the RABI couldn’t go around a corner in solid rock and that was just what it was trying to do. It did have limited reverse capability so Zardooz reset the program to back out. It slowly withdrew back into the tunnel and stopped, ready to line up again. Zardooz gave it a start command on the original track and off it went, leaving a large, side cavity along the tunnel where it had digressed from the set path.

  He sat back once again, his mind churning over the possibilities that had caused the jolt, but relaxed in the return to normality, the nausea from the constant tumbling virtually gone. He was even more determined to get the node working to see what was going on out there.

  The RABI bored on.

  Back aboard the transport Felicity and Shaw had joined the council group to watch the charges being detonated. Fuller had decided that there was enough rock rubble mass in front of the charge for a definitive recoil effect. The blast was quite spectacular viewed through a remote camera as a silent, pyrotechnic display. The loose rock mass simply vanished in a cloud of dust that dispersed in the conical shape of the directed blast forces.

  However the immediate, and welcome result was the change from tumbling to centripetal “gravity” in one direction. There was still some minute wobble to the rotation, but it was not significant, more like sitting in a rowing boat on a day of very slight swell, a pleasant almost rocking effect.

  The group all looked up and around as the interminable vertigo and moving pressures on their body harness simply vanished. Fuller cautiously unstrapped and stood up in the light, rotational gravity effect, and took some small steps. “Oh, this feels good to be walking normally again! Come on guys, get up and walk a bit.”

  They all unbuckled and stood. Felicity swayed a little unsteadily at first, still recovering from her ordeal at the end of the tether, and they milled around, smiling, hugging and remarking on how good it all felt. Shaw was next to Felicity like a magnet and held her when she swayed. She looked at him and gave the sweetest smile he had ever experienced. Forgetting the others about him, he whispered in her ear, “I love you!” She relaxed in his arms and just purred , “Mmmm.”

  “May I have the next dance?” Fuller again spoiled their reverie.

  Shaw turned to look at Fuller with a huge face splitting grin he just could not suppress. “Get in line Buster!”
/>   “Seriously, Gerald, Felicity. I think we need to have a quiet chat somewhere.”

  “I know what you are....” blustered Shaw.

  “Not here Gerald.” calmly interrupted Fuller. “Later, in the flight cabin. Just the three of us.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Behind the Moon

  “Here they come!” Screamed Sheila in tense excitement. The X6 was a rapidly growing point of light as it approached at two hundred kph relative velocity. Slow by space standards but fast enough to become a statistic if you happened to stand in front of it.

  Shelia could make out detail now and saw that the entrance hatch was open. The orientation looked about right according to Bob Evans’ instructions. She could just see the two men hanging in the doorway as the vessel rushed in.

  It was exactly opposite her position now at the ejection point and she saw the pair launch themselves from the opening. They were travelling away from the ship but still away from Sheila’s location, although at much reduced velocity. She watched in fascination as the slow motion drama played out. Her heart was in her mouth as Martin and Corcoran drifted away. Were they going to hit the target nets?

  Her youniform alarm trilled and she launched off with the other three, all releasing mono filament tether lines. The danger of collision had passed and it was time to go catch their mates. As the four flew towards the nets, she saw one of the tiny figures tumble into the edge of the net and roll towards the center. The other missed entirely and flew on into space. She called “Contingency!” and drifted to her nearest companion. He released his reaction mass pack to her then braked his motion and started reeling himself back to the transport on the cable.