Sheila strapped the extra pack on her chest, oriented towards the dwindling speck and put the pedal to the metal. She concentrated on the speck of light that was her target and a warm, live human being in trouble. Gradually she drew up on the speck and could soon discern limbs and details.
With a shocking squawk her youniform alarm warned that the end of the mono filament was seconds away. In a snap decision she hit the release to the line and left the spool adrift with its small light beacon flashing. Relieved of even this slight resistance her acceleration picked up and she soon reached the inert figure.
“Hey there big boy! Who have I got here?” The short range youniform communication jolted the figure into action and it raised its head to reveal Martin’s weary face. He cracked a smile for her and raised a hand in welcome. She drifted up to him and matched velocity, attaching her harness to him. She used her orientation jets to turn around so she faced back to the shuttle and re-activated her jets to decelerate them and start them back. But she hadn’t been watching her reaction mass level and the youniform screamed another warning at her.
She checked all levels and computations for return to the shuttle. The extra reaction mass pack would just make it for one person, but not for the two of them. She would have to hope that her team would see her predicament and come out and meet her with another pack. She was out of youniform comms range to tell them.
Sheila released her expended pack and Martin’s to reduce mass. There was nothing else expendable. She activated the jets to gain optimum effect. The deceleration phase would use around eighty percent of the mass, leaving only twenty percent to drive them back, but that was too slow to avoid Martin running out of recyclable air, even with his youniform working at full capacity. She would cross that bridge when she got to it.
They were going to drift for some hours based on the reaction mass calculations. Sheila brought up a schematic that showed she could reach the drifting tether line spool with a quarter of one percent mass left. “Hell, that’s enough margin for error!” She thought to herself. Meanwhile she was cuddled up with Martin in the weightless version of the missionary position. This was getting interesting.
“Martin? Are you with me?”
“Y-yes.” He replied weakly.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, not at all. Just exhausted. Haven’t slept in like sixty hours. Can’t stay awake, so tired.”
“We have a few hours of travelling to do before we are back at the shuttle. Can you hang in there?”
“Don’t know. My youniform says my air supply is reaching critical contamination. Think that’s why I am so sleepy too... Hey, thanks for rescuing me. You’re taking a big risk for a cook’s assistant.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Seen you on the City. Asked around.”
“So how about cook’s assistant Ph.D?”
“Yeah, that too. But you’re much cuter as a cook’s assistant. Not so scary.”
Sheila laughed. “So what are we going to do to keep you breathing?”
“Well, whatever you think of, do it soon?”
“Yah. Here we go. Behave yourself!”
Sheila initiated a youniform suit meld to share her atmosphere with Martin. It would get them back to the shuttle with molecules to spare, but she was getting used to cutting it fine.
The suits reflowed around the pair, taking the thin barrier between their skins away and providing fully oxygenated air for Martin’s oxygen starved body. He gradually became warmer and more coherent while Sheila enjoyed the feeling of his hairy chest stimulating her nipples of her neatly endowed breasts. She felt his hands slide down to her buttocks but didn’t stop him, his unavoidable erection probing directly at her now stimulated vulva that was flowing with anticipatory juices.
Martin’s eyes popped fully open and he tried to pull away from her, gasping, “I’m sorry! Can’t help it! I.. I...”
“Martin, don’t worry. I’m a big girl now. Let this happen. I want it. We have time.”
Sheila felt him relax and then an urgent pressure as he slid inside her. They started gently pumping away together...
“Ahh!”
“Ooh!”
The screams meshed into a general uproar across the network as the few remaining glands in the immortal brains reacted to Martin and Sheila’s explosive orgasms, probably the most viewed and voyeured copulation in the history of the universe.
Hard on the heels of Felicity and Shaw’s performance, this total release and abandon by Martin and Sheila, both so much more experienced than the raw, virgin pair, some of the brains that still had memory of corporeal bodies, genitalia and the associated sensations, couldn’t take it any more. They went into sensory overload and Nickle’s emergency board lit up amber spotted with a few red dots. The amber ones were viewers in severe distress requiring Nickle’s intervention. The red ones, never before seen in six World Game series, were brains that had suffered aneurysm and were either dead or reduced to unintelligent mush. Not so immortal.
“Nickle! Nickle! Where are you?” Screamed out Howley losing his cool.
“Nickle? We need you!” Peepers monotone pretending calm did nothing either.
“NICKLE!!!” Shrieked Charonelle. “WHERE THE **** ARE YOU?”
“Oh look! I got blipped... NICKLE!!!”
Nickle was back in the rest room having released the vice that clamped his genitals in a state of extreme need. He muttered to himself, disgruntled at his lot and isolation. “Damned old fart brains, getting off on watching this shit. I gotta get back in the real life scene and find me a woman to do it with again. Screw being a brain or immortal. One good orgasm with your woman beats the crap out of this bullshit.”
Nickle opened the control room door and was assaulted by the control board that for centuries had been pure green, and was now liberally scattered with amber and a few points of vivid red. “Crap!”
He rushed to the board not knowing where to begin, waving his arms about and repeating “Oh shit!” to himself, over and over. He looked up at the observation screen and saw that Sheila and Martin were now just resting, holding each other and dozing in post coital bliss. Looking back to the control board the amber lights gradually started reverting to green again, the metamorphosis accelerating at a rapid rate until there were a few manageable dots left and the red ones. “Hmm. Red ones.” He said to himself holding his chin. He quickly selected the few remaining amber dots and ordered an infusion of adrenalin for all of them. They soon winked out to green.
“The red ones...shit!”
“Nickle?” It was Peepers on the private channel.
“Yah Peeps?”
“What’s going on?”
“I got red ones Peeps. Never had red ones before. What can I do Peeps?” Nickle was almost crying in despair.
“Don’t worry Nickle,” assured Peepers, “They went out in ecstasy and exchanged immortality for sublime pleasure. The bottom line is Nickle, they are gone and there is nothing any brain can do for them. I suggest you send in the disposal unit and recycle the tissues.”
“But them’s is still living brains Peepers. Ah cain’t trash them man!”
“Nickle, an egg is a living thing but you boil it and in your case, eat it. These brains that remain have the personality of an egg. The sentience is gone. I repeat, recycle them.”
“Aw that’s gross Peepers, calling them eggs.”
“Nickle! Just do it!” Peepers switched the comms back to the network. “Well people! How about that! Two of our acts have turned in unparalleled copulatory performances, set the audience afire and yet even if the basics were the same their execution showed imagination and originality. I truly thought Shaw and Hannaford had this wrapped up, but it seems this newcomer, hee hee, get that... new comer... Sheila has come out of left field and put some heavy competition back in the game.”
Charonelle interrupted, “Hold on there Peepers, you’re being a bit chauvinistic isolating the woman here. Sheila certainly playe
d her part and performed well - I know I got quite a thrill from her climax, but Martin had something to do with it all and we have to consider them as a team.”
“True Charonelle, but I’m going by the results on Nickle’s board and all the brain overloads occurred in male brains. I noticed one or two mild reactions in female brains that recovered very quickly.”
“But..”
“Look Charonelle, that is not the point here! My job is to ensure the best possible entertainment for our audience and that is what this pair has provided. What I want to talk about is the fact that this happened twice in close succession and each time immediately following a near death experience for one or both of the performers. Howley, what do you see in this?”
“Huh? Huh? Wow! I’m still coming down from the high. Gads, if I still had a body I’d be taking Sheila home with me... OK, seriously? I think that the survival drive is so strong in this group and that they know there is nothing to go back to, well the relief of the spontaneous sex gives them the hope that their procreation will advance their group survival. Honestly, I do like humor in the acts, being a professional comedy-brain, but these guys have it all and I have no doubt we are going to enjoy many more hide the sausage acts before this game is over.”
There was an immediate uproar on the net as Howley finished. Peepers was yelling at Howley that he couldn’t say such rude things in public and Howley flashed back an image of eyes rolling up in distain. The roar settled into an intergalactic chant of “We want more! We want more!...”
“See!” was Howley’s final word.
CHAPTER 54
The fragment swarm
Safe behind the moon, the anti-matter coated fragment shell that was once the crust of planet Earth, along with the flailing remains of the Skyhook, itself being consumed, the deadly materials flew on and dispersed as the ball expanded. The front still gathered more material as it encountered space garbage and then the asteroid belt. Much of the destructive material would vanish into the intergalactic regions to do no more harm. Some would encounter other planets of the Solar System and send them the same way as Earth. In a few decades, some would approach the mighty Sun.
The last sparks of Earthly life were on the fragment and behind the moon. The X6 transport had traversed the moon and run into the swarm. The empty ship was now a deflected anti-matter missile also heading for unknown reaches of space. There were now one hundred thirty five human beings left in the Universe, not counting Nickle, the World Game compere and guardian.
Behind the moon, Sheila had captured the tether reel with just a sniff of reaction mass remaining and had activated the haulback on the reel. She and Martin were getting an easy ride back to her shuttle. Now she had to get Evans to rescue the immobile shuttle that was still flying away from the group.
On the fragment, the team was placing the Dinkshif Drives on the ends of the axis of rotation of the fragment. The drives would counter-rotate to provide linear thrust, while the spin provided pseudo-gravity. Carver and Shaw had calculated a flight path that would take them through the fragment swarm front in the window created by the shield of the moon, a cone of ever expanding safety. The longer they waited, the larger the clear disc became.
However they would have to manoeuvre around the anti-matter coated moon and get behind it before they commenced their long journey to Alpha Centauri. They would achieve this by varying the thrust and orientation of the Dinkshif Drives in normal space drive mode. Aboard the transport, class was in session as they worked their way through the theory and technical side of the drives. Four prototypes that had never been tested upon which the fate of humanity was hanging. It was a tall order, but the team was not going to allow failure due to ignorance.
CHAPTER 55
Aboard Carver’s Transport.
The front of the cabin was full. All the cadets and the President’s party were seated, waiting for Fuller to begin. There were thirty five souls aboard.
“My friends,” began Fuller, “I do not have to go over the situation we are in. As far as we can ascertain, there may be some other survivors behind the moon, but we won’t know that for some time. We will proceed as if we are the sole survivors of our planet. Our goal is to do more than survive. It is to continue humanity and find another planet to restore our species.
There are two principal aspects to the success or failure of this goal.
The first is that these drives we are about to use are prototypes and have never been tested. Simply put, the theory is great, but the practicality may not work. We wait and see.
The second aspect is that for survival, we need the broadest genetic distribution. With so few of us, we will need to calculate and keep genetic records as we carry on normally and have children. We must breed and produce the next generation. And the next. We must minimise the risks of inbreeding for the sake of our future generations.
There will be no shortage of material resources for nurturing babies and growing children and our transit time to Alpha Centauri is quite short. Whether we find a habitable planet when we arrive is another matter entirely.
Our two jobs from now on are to learn about and maintain the Dinkshif Drives, and to find our first level mates and start producing babies. We have established a pairing register that must be maintained. There is one simple rule. You stay with your chosen mate until you have produced a child. You will then look at the register and choose another mate for the next child. The parentage of each child will be recorded to ensure maximum diversity when they mature and have children.
Friends, the old ways and institutions of Earth are gone. We have to survive. This does not mean we do away with love and loyalty to your partner. It simply means you will need to spread that love and be understanding to many partners over time, in order to suppress any jealousy that may arise. We will need to put aside our mores and concepts of modesty. We live in these cramped surrounds until we can make planet fall. Just as we eat together, sleep and every other activity that humans do, so we will learn to ignore a couple in intimacy or the nakedness of someone taking a physical shower to relax from the youniform pressures. Whatever develops from our small community will mold the society of the future. We learned the concept of “shame” according to the scriptures, from the Garden of Eden story. There is no more Garden. There is no more shame.”
The group sat somewhat stunned. The content of Fuller’s delivery had been carefully discussed and constructed by the council which included all the senior adults and Felicity and Shaw. That pair had attended Fuller’s summons together, even though only Shaw had been requested, expecting to be reprimanded or worse for their extra vehicular activities. Instead, Fuller had talked the issue over and explained to them that their apparent breach of discipline was just jumping the gun on what was required.
Now Shaw and Felicity exchanged smiles as a buzz of subdued conversation came from the assembled student cadets and the President’s secret service staff, who owed their lives to their job and dedication to the President. There was an even balance of men to women in the group, the president’s detail always being half and half to take care of the First Lady and other female guests. Fuller had semi consciously marvelled at that fact, jesting in his mind that it was almost planned that way and not the chance of the draw.
“Ladies and gents!” Fuller called out, “Take your time, find the partner you can live and work with for the next year or so. Guys, find the partner you are prepared to take care of when she is carrying your child. Ladies, find the guy who is going to take care of you. But most of all, for all here, find the partner you can work with twenty four seven. It will not be easy.”
There was a sudden turmoil from the back of the group as two of the girls bounced around in the low gravity effect and made like cats having a brawl on the backyard fence. They were kicking and clawing, shouting and screaming as they laid into each other. “he’s mine!” Screeched one.
“I saw him first!” Yelled back the other as she pulled her opponent’s hair. The obj
ect of their attention and conflict was one of the young secret service men who sat back and watched in amazement. The other cadets watched with amusement as did Carver and Fuller, who had to pull a straight face and break up the wrestling match.
“Girls!” He said in his best parade ground voice. “This will NOT do! We do not have the time to engage in petty rivalry. The pairing decision is not yours alone to make, so settle down.” He had edged between them, and even then they tried to claw the other around him. He had no way of subduing or incarcerating them until they calmed down. The youniforms had prevented any physical injury to the pair and it was only their ego that was bruised. They eyed each other and sat down with the cabin between them. One looked at the other and hissed at her like a feral cat.
“Ladies and gents, let me have your attention.” Fuller commanded the moment. “Anything like this happens again and all involved will be held to account. You will be locked up or disabled in some way if you disrupt life on this fragment.” He looked at both girls in turn, a hard, penetrating stare that left them cowering. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” he roared.
Both girls curled up in their seats crying. They may have been the creme of intellectual youth to have won their berth on the transport, but they were still just children.
Fuller had turned attention to Dinkshif Drive theory and was explaining the principles of Faster Than Light travel based upon what was known as the Rampay Anomaly.
“You are all knowledgeable in contemporary physics or you would not be sitting here today, but for the sake of those who come from other walks of life, I am going to explain in simplistic terms and analogies so everyone starts on the same playing field.
Once there was a man named Newton who developed laws of motion, gravity and other physical constants that hold at relatively low speeds and theoretical non resistance. That works most of the time.
The World Game Page 19
