Anomaly Volume Two
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The Schemes of the Unknown Unknown
================================== 
 
 
Bradley Stoke
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Chapter One
The Moon - 3749 C.E.

"So, remind me," requested the Interplanetary 
Union's Minister for External Affairs. "How 
have we managed to commit ourselves to the 
horrendous expense of this mission?"

"Do you mean the Alpha Project, sir?" asked 
Permanent Secretary Alfredo Miskiewicz from 
his office at Mare Cognitum on the Moon. 

"Whatever it's called now…" said the Minister 
with a hint of brusque annoyance in his 
voice. "Just what is it about this mission 
that is so important that it justifies an 
expense equivalent to the gross national 
product of an entire space colony? Surely 
such expenditure could be better allocated to 
rather more pressing domestic concerns than a 
fool's errand to travel beyond the edge of 
the Solar System."

"The governments of many member states 
believe that this mission warrants the very 
highest priority, sir," said the Permanent 
Secretary. "They believe that the Anomaly 
might well be an alien presence of some kind 
and have persuaded the General Assembly to 
abide by the opinion that it would be more 
prudent to launch the mission than not to do 
so."

There were a few seconds between the time 
when the Minister uttered his words and the 
Permanent Secretary having received them that 
was an inevitable consequence of the physical 
distance between the Moon and the traditional 
headquarters of the Interplanetary Union on 
Earth, further exacerbated by the complex 
algorithms by which his words were encryption 
that was standard for all but the most 
mundane communication. In that time the 
Permanent Secretary had the leisure to 
evaluate the image of the elected 
representative while he waited for his words 
to arrive. His scepticism of any kind of 
fancy was evidence of the practical bias of 
his technocratic culture. That the Minister 
came from Triton was also evident from his 
overbearing height and the traditional satin 
and silk uniform he chose to wear. Although 
he was well over a hundred years old, he 
looked no older than any other representative 
of the Interplanetary Union, apart from the 
eccentric few who refused to artificially 
prolong their youth. 

"What is the informed opinion of what this 
Anomaly might be?" the Minister asked. "What 
do respected scientists who are expert in 
this field believe it to be?"

"There's no agreement, sir. The nearest to a 
consensus opinion is the hypothesis that it 
might be a Dark Energy perturbation, despite 
the fact that it doesn't conform at all to 
the standard model. This is also the 
Interplanetary Union's officially stated view 
regarding the phenomenon."

"There must have been robotic probes sent to 
the Anomaly. I can't believe that something 
like this can have been known about for over 
two centuries and that no one has thought 
about examining it up close with something 
rather less expensive than a colossal space 
ship and a multinational army."

"Nearly a hundred probes have been sent 
there, principally by the Socialist Republics 
of Saturn but also by the various Martian 
nations and some from Earth orbit. The probes 
have most often failed to identify or 
transmit a coherent image, which fact has in 
turn generated some of the wilder conspiracy 
theories associated with this phenomenon. 
Those images that have been successfully 
received are at best inconclusive. They show 
very little more than can be seen through 
telescopes from the ecliptic plane."

"And what do they show?"

"As you know, sir, what they appear to show 
is a constantly shifting image that most 
nearly resembles a rip in space. There is no 
evidence at all of any energy being emitted 
from the Anomaly. The bizarre Apparitions 
that have been getting so much news coverage 
in the rest of the Solar System are 
significantly more densely packed around the 
Anomaly than they are anywhere else."

"You mean these fabled Apparitions like 
floating butterflies, anthropomorphic 
gargoyles and flying vegetables," remarked 
the sceptical Minister. "And these 
Apparitions are most often to be observed in 
the neighbourhood of the Anomaly?"

"It seems so, sir."

"These aliens must have a very odd sense of 
humour," the Minister said with a smirk. 
"What do our best scientists believe these 
Apparitions to be?"

"The best hypothesis currently is that they 
are a concentration of media images that have 
somehow consolidated in space and are now 
being bounced back at us, sir," said the 
Permanent Secretary. "It is believed that 
Dark Energy is acting as a kind of mirror to 
electromagnetic radiation and is reflecting 
back at us a random selection of our own 
emissions."

"Isn't it also claimed that these Apparitions 
have mass?"

"That could just be a result of interaction 
with Dark Energy, sir," said the Permanent 
Secretary. "There are some peculiar effects 
associated with the more exotic cosmological 
phenomena. Dark Matter is only one 
manifestation of it. This could very well be 
yet another."

"Well, I'm glad that not everyone has gone 
insane," said Minister Dhafer Kunde as he 
squeezed his flat nose between two huge black 
forefingers. "But do we really need to send 
an army, a multinational army at that, to 
observe a bunch of consolidated virtual 
images?"

"It is thought, sir, that if the space ship 
does meet an alien intelligence of some kind 
it would be advisable to be well prepared."

"Perhaps we should also send film producers 
and advertising executives?" sniffed the 
Minister. "This really is priceless! Do the 
Martians and the crazier Jovian colonies 
really believe that aliens would broadcast 
their presence by beaming images of flying 
horses, blue-finned fishes and funny yellow 
blobs? In any case, I'd have thought that our 
probes might have identified rather more 
concrete evidence of alien intelligence than 
a bizarre ten thousand kilometre rip in 
spacetime." 

"There is also evidence that the Anomaly is 
growing ever larger at an alarming rate," 
remarked the Permanent Secretary. "When it 
was spotted in the early 36th century, it was 
less than two or three hundred kilometres in 
length."

"But wasn't it just as large, if not larger, 
when it was first seen in the 21st century?" 
remarked the Minister. "And that just fizzled 
out two centuries later. Who's to say the 
same thing won't happen again?"

"I must abide by the decisions of the General 
Assembly of the Interplanetary Union, Your 
Excellency," the Permanent Secretary reminded 
the Minister. "It has been agreed that the 
Anomaly is a matter of the utmost concern and 
should be addressed accordingly."

"I understand," said the Minister hurriedly. 
"But as you know, this fanciful nonsense 
about aliens really should not be a matter of 
debate for a body of such high authority as 
the General Assembly."

"Shall we discuss more practical matters, 
sir?" the Permanent Secretary reminded the 
Minister. 

"Indeed," said the Minister, who was far more 
at home with such discussion. "Has a space 
ship been commissioned for this enterprise?"

"The only one available at short notice is 
the Interplanetary Space Ship Intrepid. It's 
just been refitted and its space defences 
enhanced. It hasn't yet been returned into 
commercial or military service, so it is the 
ideal choice."

"The Intrepid? Is it still functioning 
satisfactorily?"

"It was built to last, sir. And it has done 
an excellent job at doing just that."

"Well, okay. I guess the Intrepid will have 
to do. The crew and militia are being 
recruited?"

"At this very moment, sir. The best in the 
Solar System."

"And the scientists who will accompany the 
mission and who will presumably do the most 
productive work?"

"Obviously, unlike military personnel, 
scientists cannot be conscripted for the 
mission, sir. Invitations will be sent out to 
those it is believed can be spared from more 
pressing duties and who are expert in the 
required disciplines."

"And which disciplines are they?"

"Cosmology, linguistics, astrophysics, 
exobiology, mathematics..."

"And archaeology, I see," said the Minister 
glancing at a holographic display in his 
velvet-lined office beneath the water line in 
Pacific City. "Why have we commissioned the 
services of a computer archaeologist from the 
Kuiper Belt? And from the eccentric colony of 
Godwin, I notice. What pressing need is there 
to have him along for the ride?"

"None that I can envisage, sir. But his 
presence is required for political rather 
than practical reasons. In a sense, it was he 
who precipitated this crisis by making 
publicly available the information that this 
Anomaly not only existed before its more 
recent discovery but did so in the very early 
days of space exploration…"

"…and vanished not long after."

"Indeed, sir. But his findings, using long 
declassified data, confirmed for many that 
the Anomaly wasn't just a modern phenomenon 
and was therefore not manmade. And I believe 
that many people reasoned that if the Anomaly 
is an artificial phenomenon and if it hasn't 
been made by humans if, then it must 
therefore be the product of an alien 
intelligence."

"There are a few non sequiters in that 
argument, you must agree."

"Of course, sir. But there have been several 
assassination attempts on Paul Morris' life 
and not all of them were successfully pre-
empted by our agents," said the Permanent 
Secretary. "There is evidently a bounty on 
his head. There are many, therefore, who 
believe that this Godwinian anarchist must in 
some way have a critical role in all this. 
They seem to believe that his discoveries are 
somehow key to understanding the Anomaly."

"Is there any basis to such a belief?"

"None, sir. He has discovered nothing that 
wasn't already known to those who had full 
classified access. His significance is merely 
that he was able to piece together a coherent 
picture from data that was thought too 
archaic to have any contemporary value."

"That information should never have been 
declassified," the Minister sniffed.

"That was a decision made many years before 
the Interplanetary Union even existed, sir."

"More's the pity! I guess we have no choice 
then. This anarchist archaeologist will have 
to join our hapless crew. Okay. Shall we 
discuss some of the other matters of 
significance on this mission? For instance, 
has anyone yet considered what happens on the 
return journey from beyond the outer reaches 
of the Solar System? What measures should be 
taken if knowledge of this mission somehow 
gets leaked into the public domain? And just 
how are we supposed to be able to hide the 
expense of this secret mission from the 
auditors?"

Permanent Secretary Alfredo Miskiewicz 
continued his discussion with the Minister 
for another hour or so in which such 
practical matters were clarified. Further 
meetings were arranged to ensure that not 
only were the logistics of the mission 
smoothed out but that the political concerns 
of all interested parties were resolved. When 
the Minister was finally satisfied the 
meeting came to a halt, his image faded away 
and Alfredo was left alone in his office.

However, his duties were not over. He knew 
exactly where the many cameras were 
positioned: not just the official ones but 
also those unofficially installed by the 
intelligence agencies of the Solar System's 
disparate governments. He needed to be 
discreet as any obviously secretive action 
would immediately attract attention. He stood 
by the office window which opened out onto an 
open plaza beyond which trees grew to several 
times their natural height in the low lunar 
gravity. 

A segment of skin peeled off his wrist to 
reveal sophisticated circuitry that was far 
beyond the technological skills of any human 
manufacture within the Solar System. He 
positioned his hands in such a way that all 
the cameras could see was a nervous twitch 
that was consistent with a senior civil 
servant pondering over his duties. He then 
secretly padded out a message that would be 
sent by heavily encrypted code on a 
wavelength not much different from the 
cosmological background radiation and 
transmitted far out into deep space. 

Alfredo had done his research and knew 
exactly by which route Paul Morris would need 
to travel from Godwin to his destination in 
the Inner Solar System. As all the other 
pieces were now in place, it only remained to 
him to activate the necessary instructions to 
the special agent based on the Ecstasy space 
colony. Until that moment, there had been 
many possible candidate routes and there were 
many other possible agents who might need to 
be activated. Now, the range of possibilities 
had collapsed to only one and it was 
necessary to initiate operations as soon as 
possible.

His message was sent to the agent he only 
knew as BTR679-02 and who, after many years 
of dormancy, was now to be assigned to the 
mission for which she had been constructed.

Chapter Two
Venus - 3725 C.E.

Although it had been quiet for several weeks 
now, Laurent still experienced some 
trepidation as he walked into the Emergency 
Rescue station. It had been quiet for too 
long. When would this spell of relative peace 
come to an end? The long history of 
unfortunate incidents in the South West 
section of Ishtar Terra suggested that this 
would be very soon. The extreme heat and 
oppressive air pressure on the surface of 
Venus along with the tempestuous atmospheric 
storms ensured that life as a firefighter was 
never likely to be boring for very long.

At several hundred metres beneath the 
planet's crust Laurent's station was situated 
at one of the best protected places on Venus. 
Most trouble happened on or near the planet 
surface. Each of the thousands of screens 
scattered around the control room displayed a 
view of the most vulnerable points in the 
planet's defences. These were most often on 
the massively thick shells that protected the 
thinly spread colonies that were still mainly 
connected by long subterranean tunnels. It 
was rare for anyone to venture far beyond the 
protection of these shells and that was 
usually for transplanetary air travel. Such 
an excursion was guaranteed to be a hazardous 
adventure given the weight of the heavily 
shielded vehicles and the planet's inclement 
atmosphere. It was normal for flights to be 
delayed for several days while passengers 
waited for climatic conditions to improve. It 
was far too risky for a space ship to be 
launched directly from the planet's surface. 
It would have to leave from the spaceports 
that hovered near the very top of the 
planet's atmosphere where air pressure was 
only a few times that of Earth and where in 
the early days of Venusian colonisation the 
great majority of the planet's relatively 
small population chose to live.

Unlike most Venusians, Laurent was denied the 
luxury of relaxing in a well-appointed air 
terminal when climatic conditions were most 
bad. It was almost always when the storms 
were at their worst and air travel at its 
most perilous that he had to squeeze into his 
cumbersome uniform and accompany his three 
regular companions on a rescue mission. The 
romanced of his profession inspired countless 
holomovies and attracted far more applicants 
to the Ishtar Emergency Services than there 
were ever vacancies. However, despite the 
heroic status of firefighters on Venus, few 
persevered with this career for very long. 
And that was precisely because of the high 
casualty rate associated with rescue 
missions. On average, a firefighter was 
killed in one of every twenty missions. Even 
Laurent, after nearly thirty years active 
service and innumerable commendations for 
bravery and medals for heroism, was seriously 
considering the option of working in a less 
active capacity.

His companions, Hua, Nathalie and Manfred, 
were sitting in the restaurant just behind 
the station office and dining on another 
scrumptious meal that Hua had prepared. Had 
his vocation not been for Emergency Services, 
he would have made an excellent chef. Laurent 
much preferred Hua's hand-prepared meals to 
anything assembled by machine.

"Any news?" Laurent asked as he sat down with 
his workmates and studiously ignored the 
pornographic holomovie shimmering above his 
head that Nathalie enjoyed having as a 
backdrop to her working day. He'd lost 
interest in pornography or indeed any sexual 
diversion since Magdalene, his wife of twenty 
four years, had died in active service the 
previous year.

"Bit of a storm across the mountain ranges," 
remarked Manfred. "There's a lava flow less 
than twenty kilometres from the Benedictine 
Monastery of Saint Andrew, but it doesn't 
look like it'll flow in that direction. 
Otherwise, it's very quiet."

"It's fucking boring!" moaned Nathalie who 
still had the enthusiasm of a raw recruit. 
"Something must happen soon. Much as I love 
Hua's ratatouille and zucchini, I'd rather be 
doing something more productive than watch 
porn and play cards."

"Speaking of which," said Manfred, with a 
broad grin, as he shuffled the pack in his 
hand. "What will it be? Bridge? Poker?  
Twenty One?"

"You always win, you fucker," moaned Hua 
good-humouredly. "But I fancy trying my luck. 
There are four of us. Let's play Bridge."

"Only if I can play opposite Mannie," said 
Nathalie who was also his occasional sexual 
partner. Not that there was much choice in 
Laurent's team. Hua much preferred men to 
women and Laurent still hadn't recovered from 
his grief. It was bad enough to be widowed. 
It was doubly bad to have been at his wife's 
side when it happened as they were trying to 
rescue people from an explosion in the Santa 
Gesualdo colony that claimed more than a 
dozen lives including Magdalene and the fresh 
recruit, Emilio, whose life she'd been 
attempting to save.

It was two hours into the shift when the 
alarm rang out. Laurent was on a winning 
streak and even Manfred's smirk was less 
pronounced as the chips gathered in front of 
the Station captain. Nathalie had been barely 
paying attention and hardly cared that she'd 
lost almost half her original stake. 
Predictably, it was she who jumped up most 
enthusiastically when the sirens rang out.

"It's a breach in the walls of the Lovano 
colony on the Lakshmi Planum," she said as 
she read out the printed words that streamed 
across the room and cancelled out the view of 
the orgy that was still being screened on the 
holomovie. "That's weird. They're the 
toughest walls on the whole fucking planet! 
What could have caused that? Air pressure is 
leaking and it looks like some ninety or so 
people are at potential risk."

"It could be a long night," sighed Hua, who 
still had the presence of mind to turn off 
the oven where he'd been preparing a Baccalà 
alla Vicentina.

 What neither Laurent nor any of his crew 
could know was that the source of the breach 
had travelled a distance of over four light 
years to Venus. BTR679-02 regretted the fact 
that breaking the shell of the Lovano Colony 
might endanger the lives of biological 
organisms, but if she had to infiltrate the 
human world it was necessary to contrive an 
event that could be rationally ascribed to 
natural causes. The successful outcome of her 
journey across interstellar space couldn't be 
jeopardised by sentimental concerns regarding 
the collateral damage associated with her 
arrival. After all, there were in excess of a 
hundred billion humans in the Solar System.

BTR679-02 was actually rather fond of 
biological life-forms. She'd kept pets for 
many decades, including an iguana whose 
eventual demise upset her much more than 
she'd anticipated. Although she was 
comfortable in her human form—as she was 
programmed to be—like all androids she was 
burdened with a range of emotional responses 
that most robots in her solar system were 
spared, so she was genuinely sad when the 
life of a biological entity came to an abrupt 
end. 

Sometimes she envied the majority of her 
fellow Proxima Centaurans who, by virtue of 
having been designed and manufactured for 
more immediately productive tasks, weren't 
constrained as much by design considerations 
as she was. They didn't have their brains 
squeezed into the tiny cranium that confined 
hers, although she still had many times more 
the intellectual and reasoning capacity of a 
human. 

The space craft that had carried the android 
across the vast empty void of interstellar 
space had mostly disintegrated when it 
crashed through the atmosphere and the small 
core that slammed intact on the planet's 
surface was now reduced to dust. It was wise 
to hide the evidence of her arrival. Humans 
weren't considered to be ready yet to cope 
with the news that theirs was not the most 
advanced culture in the stellar 
neighbourhood, although BTR679-02 sometimes 
wondered whether the machine intelligence of 
neighbouring Sirius was quite as considerate 
of human sensibilities as was Proxima 
Centauri. 

Unfortunately, there was over fifty 
kilometres of treacherous terrain that the 
android had to march through to get to the 
Lovano Colony. This took her very nearly a 
week of slog in which she paused for only a 
few hours at a time to recharge her energy 
cells. The biggest cost was not the effort of 
standing upright under the crushing air 
pressure and the buffeting by winds of 
burning carbon dioxide. Nor was it clambering 
over boulders and bridging the rivers of 
molten iron that dotted the landscape. The 
greatest drain on the android's resources was 
the skin-tight suit that not only protected 
her from the tremendous heat that was fierce 
enough to melt her body, but kept her 
invisible from the detectors humans had 
scattered about Venus mostly just to provide 
an early warning system for the colonies 
located just below the planet's unforgiving 
surface.

The many cameras that dotted the bulging hulk 
of the Lovano Colony would only have noticed 
the android had they been designed to detect 
the footprints of a relatively slender human 
figure or the displacement of atmosphere that 
accompanied her movements. But this wasn't 
what they were designed for. Nor did they 
anticipate that a virtually invisible figure 
would direct an intense beam of energy at 
certain well-chosen points on the hulk's 
surface to generate a chain reaction that 
would crack it open. Once the shell was 
breached, the hot heavy air rushed in to the 
relative vacuum of Earth pressure to cause a 
catastrophic sequence of explosions and 
systems failures whose extent was rapid and 
unstoppable.

Metal and nanocarbon beams buckled and melted 
from the force of inrushing hot air. Chambers 
collapsed. Warning sirens burst into life in 
the brief space of time available to them 
before they too were crushed and fried. But 
what most troubled BTR679-02 were the screams 
of resident Venusians as their homes were 
destroyed and they fled as fast as they could 
from the lethal collapse of the colony's 
structures and the collision of Venus' 
atmosphere with the oxygen-rich and much 
cooler atmosphere within the hulk. The 
android couldn't stay immune from the chaos 
she'd caused. She raced as quickly as she 
could to a safe sector before it was sealed 
by the automatic defence systems and no 
longer accessible. And she pulled off her 
space-suit as she did so.

She was now no longer protected against the 
worst of Venus's climate and the sanctuary 
she'd claimed for herself was hotter than 
boiling water while the Venusian atmosphere 
crushed down on her with a weight not much 
less than a family hovercar. If she'd been 
human she would have died instantly from 
burns, damaged internal organs and, most of 
all, from the poisonous air. Nevertheless, 
human or not, these were still conditions far 
worse than those she was designed to cope 
with for very long and she malfunctioned 
badly within seconds. It would take many 
hours until her internal system repaired the 
damage to which she'd deliberately exposed 
herself. After all, she was designed for 
optimum performance in an Earth-like 
environment. There were robots specifically 
designed for conditions like those on Venus 
but what use would they have been in 
infiltrating human society?

The rescue airship that carried Laurent and 
his crew as they sped as fast as they could 
towards the Lovano colony would be considered 
sluggish almost anywhere else in the Solar 
System. It couldn't cover the hundred 
kilometres to the colony in much less than 
three hours and even that was a considerable 
effort. With no oxygen in the atmosphere and 
weighed down by the massive weight of the 
protective shield, the craft was driven by 
enough nuclear and antimatter energy to power 
an Earth-based craft the size of a small 
town. As it chugged along as high above the 
ground as it could, it was buffeted by 
ferocious winds that sometimes assisted its 
flight and sometimes worked very much against 
it.

Laurent and Hua were strapped to the pilots' 
seats grateful for the padding inside their 
suits that cushioned them against the 
airship's lurches. Nathalie and Manfred were 
similarly confined in the ship's core but 
were at least spared the need to steer the 
ship's motion through the thick clouds that 
kept Venus's surface almost completely dark 
on even the best days. It was impossible to 
navigate on Venus by sight alone, so Laurent 
and Hua relied absolutely on the airship's 
intelligence which they mediated on only very 
rare occasions. Even this part of the rescue 
mission was so fraught that nearly a third of 
all Emergency Service casualties occurred en 
route to a disaster rather than at the scene 
itself. Nevertheless, Laurent was grateful 
that this crisis didn't appear to have been 
caused by one of Venus' many storms. When 
that happened, the craft's progress would not 
only be slow and unsteady it would very often 
result in a malfunction that would require 
another mission just to rescue the stranded 
firefighters. 

"Almost there!" said Hua, more to address 
Nathalie's impatience than anything else, as 
the craft dived down into the heavier air 
pressure near the planet's surface that was 
often accompanied by a very audible crunching 
of the ship's nanocarbon struts. The ship's 
descent was scarcely smooth so it was only 
when it touched down, just outside the gaping 
wound in the Lovano Colony's shell, that the 
crew could at last don their emergency 
uniforms that, even with modern materials 
technology, were cumbersome, heavy and 
uncomfortable. 

The four firefighters stepped out of their 
craft and hurried as fast as they could 
towards the breached hull. This was scarcely 
rapid movement. It took them nearly ten 
minutes to make their way over barely fifty 
metres to the breach into which they 
clambered. They used sophisticated sensory 
equipment to detect any signs of life knowing 
that only those who'd escaped the primary 
affects of Venus' hellish atmosphere had even 
the smallest chance of survival. Typically, 
these would be people stranded in sealed 
units, often unconscious, always with 
multiple injuries and very often with only 
the slimmest thread keeping them from death.

Their optimism might have been buoyed up by 
the fact, for which the Ishtar Emergency 
Services was very proud, that more than three 
quarters of all victims treated in a disaster 
survived and often in circumstances that not 
many generations before would have been 
considered hopeless. Crushed lungs; brain 
haemorrhages; fractured skulls; even exposure 
to as much as five seconds of Venus' 
atmosphere: these were all cases to which 
Laurent had administered and was proud to 
have saved the great majority from otherwise 
certain death.

Not that his skills had spared Magdalene from 
a messy death of course, despite his 
anguished attempts amidst the rubble. 

Survivors were soon found. And others less 
fortunate. Many of those who had died, whose 
bodies Laurent and his crew unearthed in the 
rubble and rubbish, had done so within the 
last hour. It was one of those unfortunate 
facts that had the Lovano Colony been located 
nearer the Emergency Services station, these 
people would now be alive and well on the way 
to recovery. Instead they were the victims of 
what must have been an agonising death, 
unmediated by painkillers and human comfort, 
their lungs seared by hot nitrogen and carbon 
dioxide, their skin scalded from the intense 
heat, and their bodies mangled by metal and 
nanocarbon tubes whose rigidity had failed in 
Venus' crushing atmosphere.

It was a feature of Laurent's profession 
that, although he was the one who would 
determine which of the people he pulled out 
of the ruins would live and who would die, it 
was more just a job for him than a crusade. 
When he sawed through the leg of the 
mercifully unconscious child for whom the 
alternative was rather worse than a fully-
functioning leg transplant, he wasn't really 
conscious of the child as a human being but 
more as the object of the job he was paid to 
execute. 

It had been a much harder task when he'd 
tried to separate Magdalene's barely-
breathing torso from her legs and arms, the 
blood spurting all over his face and hands, 
however much faith he had in anaesthetics. He 
often agonised whether his emotional 
attachment to his wife might have been one 
reason for her death. Had he been more 
detached would he have acted with more 
ruthlessness? How much had his tears of 
sorrow and rage clouded his judgement? 

Nathalie was doing what she most enjoyed and 
this was to scream and shout at the survivors 
she found that they were alright and would be 
saved. Her main duty was to separate the 
walking wounded from the more severe cases, 
but it was the crew of robots accompanying 
the firefighters that performed the more 
routine task of removing masonry and rubble. 
They pulled free the survivors and 
stretchered them off to the waiting medical 
robots deeper within the Lovano colony. At 
least the survivors weren't faced with the 
hazardous journey back to the airship for on-
board medical attention. 

Laurent's job would have been impossible 
without robots. He and his crew dealt only 
with the more difficult cases that robot 
intelligence was unable to handle. But since 
most casualties required only excavation and 
removal with the appropriate care and 
anaesthetics, this was best left to the 
hundred or so robots that were attached to 
every firefighter crew but still utterly 
dependent on their human masters to direct 
their attention in the most efficient way. 

One shortcoming humans still had over 
machines was that they needed to take a break 
from their exertions rather more frequently. 
It was time for Laurent to rest after he'd 
dragged out the body of a small child, minus 
her legs which remained crushed beyond repair 
beneath the rubble. The room in which he was 
resting had been made available for the crew 
within the undamaged core of the colony a 
hundred metres below ground. Accompanied by a 
steaming hot cup of coffee and an array of 
sensory equipment, he kept his eye on the 
stream of data that was reporting the 
progress of the rescue mission. Yes, several 
dozens of people had died, but many more had 
been saved of which the small girl was one of 
many who had to undergo major surgery. There 
were few victims yet to be saved and Laurent 
anticipated that most of those would serve 
merely to increase the tally of the dead. 

The robots were mostly engaged in patching up 
the damage as best they could before more 
permanent repairs took place later. Hua was 
engaged in comforting a man who was half-
conscious and mostly unaware that he'd lost a 
chunk of skull to a collapsed girder. Manfred 
was back in the airship where he was 
monitoring the robots' safety manoeuvres with 
the aid of the much more sophisticated 
machinery at his disposal.

Nathalie, meanwhile, was still clambering 
over the ruins of the colony's outer levels 
and followed Manfred's instructions as she 
looked for any signs of life. She'd already 
had her rest. The task of removing most of 
the lower torso of one of the victims and 
carrying the cauterised and traumatised 
patient to safety had badly shaken her and 
she'd been resting with her head between her 
knees for very nearly an hour before she 
decided that she was ready to return to the 
fray.

"Fuck!" shouted Nathalie through the intercom 
as a holographic image of a fragment of pale 
skin and a human leg flashed onto Laurent's 
monitors. "There is someone else. And she's 
alive. Fucking lucky woman! Looks like her 
clothes have been totally burnt off. No 
obvious signs of burns or even blood."

Laurent studied the image carefully as the 
robots lifted up the massive weight of the 
metal beam that had somehow fallen so that it 
hadn't crushed the body underneath. As these 
beams were made of phenomenally heavy and 
robust material, this was a remarkable stroke 
of luck in itself.

"I'll come and help!" shouted Laurent, as he 
eased himself back into the tight atmosphere-
proof uniform it was still advisable to wear 
even though the air pressure and temperature 
in the inner cavities had been restored to 
normal. Fortunately, he didn't need to wear 
the clumsy nanocarbon-reinforced suit which 
remained discarded on the ground where he'd 
squeezed out of it.

It was still risky to stumble over the 
wreckage of the affected chambers when the 
escalator took him as close to the surface as 
it could. Laurent trampled over the ruins of 
people's lives. The toys that had been 
incinerated in the heat. The household goods 
that had melted and crushed in the searing 
heat and air pressure. The scattered 
holographic images that still flashed 
memories of lives brutally curtailed. And 
worst of all the amputated limbs that had yet 
to be cleared away after the emergency 
surgery that had been necessary to rescue the 
victims. Laurent sighed as he reflected that 
the flash of white leg he'd seen stretched 
out beneath the wreckage would very likely 
become victim to the same necessary but 
heartbreaking duty. 

He clambered over the ash and molten metal 
until he could squeeze through the entrance 
that had been widened by the laser torches of 
the rescue robots and into a chamber that had 
survived despite being so very near the 
breach in the colony's hull.

At the very least, he expected to see the 
third degree burns and broken bones that 
usually accompanied survivors of such 
breaches, but the body the rescue robots were 
uncovering was in much better condition. 
Sure, there were bruises and scratches, but 
this was one very fortunate victim. She 
hadn't even needed resuscitation although her 
breathing was still shallow and her eyes 
tightly shut. It was only when the final beam 
was lifted up and carried away that Laurent 
could see the extent of this woman's good 
fortune.

It was at this point that wholly 
unprofessional emotions passed through 
Laurent's mind as they did through Nathalie 
who, despite her avowed preference for male 
company, had a taste for women as well. 

This naked woman was unusually beautiful even 
in a Solar System where ugliness had been 
mostly entirely banished. Her bosom suggested 
she had chosen further enhancement on top of 
her natural endowments. Although her hair was 
singed, it mostly retained a peculiar bounce 
and silky fullness.

Laurent closed his eyes. These were totally 
inappropriate thoughts for a firefighter. His 
duty was to rescue the victims of disaster, 
not to entertain lecherous thoughts for them.

The woman was eased onto a hovering stretcher 
that, accompanied by Laurent and Nathalie, 
glided to a pedestrian walkway over the 
treacherous terrain away from the worst 
damage. This led to the massive metal doors 
that had so successfully shielded the 
majority of the colony's several hundred 
thousand citizens from the breach that had 
claimed the lives of so many. Everyone in the 
Lovano Colony was at almost equal risk from 
deadly disaster. Even those protected by 
innumerable levels and many such protective 
doors were at risk from a system failure. 
Ruptured pipes. Electrical failures. Leaks of 
lethally hot gases from the planet's surface. 
No one born on Venus or who had chosen to 
live there could be considered immune. There 
had been cases where entire colonies had been 
devastated. Although Laurent never had the 
misfortune to work on such missions, these 
catastrophes had claimed the lives of many 
thousand more lives than were lost this 
evening. 

This breach was scarcely routine, but 
something like this occurred most months 
somewhere on the planet's surface. Although 
such catastrophes happened rather less 
frequently than during the early years of 
Venusian colonisation, it remained an irony 
of which most Venusians were rather proud 
that the planet the most like Earth in many 
ways was actually the last to be properly 
colonised. Even Jupiter had been colonised 
before Venus and the Jovian outer atmosphere 
was even now home to rather more people than 
lived on the second planet from the Sun.

The victim was soon well away from harm's way 
and stretchered to the nearest hospital bed. 
Her eyes were still closed although her 
modesty was ensured by a thin sheet that did 
nothing to disguise her voluptuous contours.

Although there were other victims who needed 
Laurent's attention at least as much as the 
last one to be dragged out from the rubble, 
it was the naked woman he found himself drawn 
towards in the time left before he and his 
crew returned to their station. That would be 
a long journey back and the next shift had 
been on duty for several hours now. Laurent 
could expect at least a day in lieu after 
this mission.

He and Nathalie sat by the woman's bed and 
Laurent's eyes were drawn again and again to 
the curves that even under the sheet reminded 
him of the flash of crotch he'd noticed when 
the victim was lifted out of the ruins and 
before it was covered. For the first time 
since Magdalene died he was feeling an erotic 
charge that he sometimes believed he'd never 
experience again. And it was in similar 
circumstances that he last saw his wife alive 
before she expired from her extreme 
suffering. 

Only on that occasion, Magdalene's eyes 
hadn't opened.

The woman looked around her, clearly dazed 
but unusually alert for someone who would 
normally be expected to remain unconscious 
for many more hours.

"How do you feel?" asked Laurent in English, 
although he had no idea whether the woman 
might speak French or, coming from the Lovano 
colony, Italian.

The woman's voice betrayed no accent. Not 
even that of a Venusian. It was hesitant and 
strangely croaky, but not in the way voices 
normally were after such a trauma.

"All right," she said. "Given the 
circumstances."

 Victims were often able to articulate 
deceptively well after even the worst trauma, 
so Laurent didn't take this as evidence of 
full recovery. However, had she suffered 
worse injuries, the discovery that she'd lost 
a limb would soon cancel her apparent 
coherence.

"What's your name?" asked Laurent. This 
wasn't because he especially wanted to know, 
though identification would eventually be a 
necessary part of her recuperation. He knew 
that questions of this nature were often the 
ones that would most focus a victim's 
attention.

"BTR…" began the woman, before hesitating and 
looking around her with an expression that 
almost betrayed anxiety. She gazed deeply 
into Laurent's eyes and flashed a smile that 
captivated him more than anyone's had since 
Magdalene's. The smile vanished but Laurent's 
memory of it persisted for much longer.

"What's your name?" he repeated.

"Beatrice," she said. "My name is Beatrice."

Chapter Three
Earth - 3752 C.E.

Notwithstanding the fact that along with the 
rest of humanity scattered beyond the orbit 
of the third planet Paul had wanted to visit 
Earth ever since he was a child, his initial 
experience was actually rather disappointing. 

It wasn't just that he'd forgotten what 
normal gravity felt like after the time he'd 
been living on the Moon. There was also the 
drizzle, the chill in the South Pacific air 
and the unaccustomed brush of wind on his 
face. For the first time in his life Paul had 
to wear clothes not only for reasons of 
decoration and decorum but also as protection 
from the elements. Never again would he 
complain about the artificial atmosphere that 
was standard everywhere in the Solar System 
but Earth: the birthplace and fountainhead of 
humanity and civilisation.

The short journey from the Moon to Earth was 
probably the most uncomfortable Paul had 
endured since leaving Godwin. The executive 
government of Earth was so fretful about the 
environmental risk of a space vehicle landing 
on the planet's surface that the flight was 
executed in a series of small hops from one 
craft to another of steadily diminishing 
size. The aeroplane that actually touched 
down on the airstrip at South Pacific City 
was little more than a tube with wings that 
could accommodate fewer than a thousand 
passengers. These poor souls, including Paul 
and Beatrice, were strapped into upright 
seats where they had virtually no opportunity 
to stretch their legs and had to subsist on a 
very limited choice of food.

South Pacific City wasn't dry land exactly. 
In fact, it was many kilometres adrift in the 
southern Pacific Ocean. The city was a 
floating platform of small settlements that 
had expanded by aggregation over the 
centuries from the need to minimise the 
impact of space flight on the fragile planet. 
It now had a total diameter of over a 
thousand kilometres, but even from ground 
level Paul could see that the city wasn't 
contiguous. There were more expansive areas 
of open water than there were of walkable 
surface. 

South Pacific City housed the single largest 
population of any continent on Earth. About 
one in five of the planet's strictly 
controlled population of a billion people 
lived in the city. Nevertheless, this bald 
statistic was misleading as only a third of 
that number was permanently resident and 
three-quarters of the population of South 
Pacific City belonged to this privileged 
minority. As the floating continent was the 
main point of intersection between Earth and 
the rest of the Solar System, it employed 
more people than anywhere else on the globe.

As soon as Paul's eyes had at last adjusted 
to the Sun's bright light on an azure sea 
under a wide uninterrupted blue sky while his 
face was battered by a brisk breeze, Beatrice 
and he were led down a slope to the streets 
and concourses beneath the ocean surface. 
Paul had learnt about all this as a schoolboy 
in his lessons on Earth's geography. To 
support the weight of the buildings above 
water-level, the city needed nine times the 
ballast below. Most of the city above water 
level was reserved for office space and 
luxury residential properties so the public 
spaces were housed in an environment Paul 
found more familiar from a life in an 
artificial colony in deep space. Like Godwin, 
most of South Pacific City was comfortably 
climate-controlled and enclosed by thick 
plates of glass. The imperative at Pacific 
City wasn't to keep out the vacuum of empty 
space but to hold back the teeming oceans. 
Paul could see seaweed, fish and even sharks 
through the metre-thick glass.

"The city attracts a lot of wildlife," said 
Ali, the guide assigned to escort Beatrice 
and Paul. "In a sense, it has actually 
increased the ocean's biodiversity. We do 
have to be careful about whales, however."

"Whales?" Paul wondered.

"They are very big," Ali explained. "It can 
cause quite a shock to the whale and even to 
citizens if one collides against the city's 
underside."

Although it wasn't Ali's job to guard the 
couple, he advised Paul and Beatrice that 
they would still be accompanied by very 
strict security. Although Earth was mostly 
nothing more than a tourist site and 
therefore the Solar System's safest and most 
benign satellite, even here there was a risk 
that there might still be fanatics who would 
want to assassinate Paul. 

Ali escorted the couple by foot for more than 
a kilometre in a city where the only other 
means of transport were boat and bicycle. 
Their destination was a tall building that 
towered into the sky high above the glass 
ceiling and the pavements.

"You'll get a good view of the ocean from 
your hotel room," Ali said. "It towers about 
half a kilometre above the water surface. I 
just hope you'll never have a problem with 
the elevators especially if you want to go to 
the gym. And that's because the gym's nearly 
four hundred meters below the surface."

"Is there as much hotel beneath the water 
surface as above?" Paul wondered.

"Rather more, in fact," Ali said. "Tall 
buildings need a lot of ballast. There aren't 
many hotel rooms below sea level except those 
to hold guests who are here to observe 
underwater life. If it is of interest to you, 
there's a submarine tour to a deep sea 
settlement that's situated by a black smoker 
vent. That might be a great treat if you've 
ever visited Venus and would like to see 
where the technology for living on that 
planet was first actively used."

"That's a trip I look forward to," said 
Beatrice.

The view from the windows of the couple's 
rooms was breathtaking. The hotel wasn't 
quite the tallest structure on the horizon, 
but the distance between similar tall 
buildings was so great that the others didn't 
obscure their view. Although the hotel was 
situated about fifty kilometres from the 
nearest edge of South Pacific City and much 
further from the others, Paul could see an 
ocean landscape extending in all directions 
peppered by a flotilla of disconnected 
artificial islands. From this elevation, he 
could well believe how disjointed and widely 
scattered the city was. Beyond the city 
limits to the South and East was unbroken 
ocean that reached the distant horizons.

Something Paul had always wanted to do since 
he was a child was to open a window, stand on 
a balcony and know that the air he breathed 
wasn't enclosed within a glass tube or held 
under a glass dome; to breathe instead from 
an atmosphere that encircled the entire 
planet's surface. It mightn't taste quite as 
sweet as the air Paul was accustomed to. It 
was, in fact, salty, damp, blustery and 
chilly, but it was genuine unadulterated 
natural and breathable atmosphere.

"Earth at last!" Paul announced. "Isn't it 
great?"

Beatrice strode over to Paul from inside the 
apartment and he was slightly startled but 
not too surprised to see she was naked. 

"It's a lovely view," she said as she pressed 
her bosom against his chest. "And we have the 
privacy and time to do whatever we like. Only 
the occasional sea bird can see us."

"Of course," admitted Paul who immediately 
saw the attraction of making love in the open 
air while looking over an endless vista. 
Another first, he thought as Beatrice slowly 
removed one item of his clothing after 
another and flung them expertly over the 
hotel surveillance cameras.

However much passion a man may possess, his 
amorous ambition must eventually be defeated 
by the evening chill especially when the 
lovemaking is high above the ocean waves. And 
so it proved for Paul, though he was 
distracted for long enough to miss the 
opportunity to view the sunset. This was a 
sight he'd only seen before in an airless 
sky. The apartment lights came on gradually 
as the Sun sunk below the horizon and cast 
progressively longer shadows over the 
balcony. It was too late when Paul became 
aware that this was yet another eagerly 
anticipated first that he'd failed to 
properly appreciate.

He also failed to see the first rays of the 
early morning Sun when they streamed in 
through the balcony windows. In fact, Paul 
was only finally prodded into wakefulness by 
Ali's urgent calls on the holoscreen.

"You have an appointment with Professor 
Giuseppe Wasilewski in just over half an 
hour," Ali announced. "Don't be late. The 
professor's not a patient man."

"Professor who?" wondered Paul after Ali's 
holographic image vanished.

"He's the space mission's Head of Science and 
Research," said Beatrice as she unhurriedly 
slipped on some loose and positively 
revealing clothes.

"Why do we have to see him?"

"He's your boss."

"Boss?" wondered Paul who still found the 
concept both alien and quite novel. "I still 
don't know why we should meet him."

"It's expected of you," said Beatrice. 

That was explanation enough in a sense, but 
Paul was still rather more than an hour late 
and unconvinced by the notion that a man he'd 
never met before should now somehow have a 
position of authority over him. He also 
wasn't quite certain what authority really 
meant beyond being something he'd rather not 
be subject to.

"At last," said the professor. "I'm glad you 
could fit me into your busy schedule."

"Actually, it's not very busy at all," said 
Paul breezily. He was as unfamiliar with 
sarcasm as he was with authority. "I was 
hoping you'd be able to give me an idea of 
what I should be doing."

"And what might that be, Paul?" the professor 
asked as his scorn slowly elided into a tone 
of incredulity. He was accustomed to rather 
more respect from junior academics, even if 
he was accompanied by a wife of such 
remarkable beauty.

"I'm not sure," said Paul. "I hope it's not 
too onerous because I'd like to do some 
sightseeing while I'm on Earth."

"So, you believe the chief purpose of your 
stay on Earth is to provide you with an 
excuse for tourism, is that right?"

"Well, of course," said Paul, oblivious to 
the professor's tone. He wasn't sure what to 
make of Professor Wasilewski and was even 
less sure how to pronounce his name. Despite 
the man's smile, he didn't really seem 
especially friendly. But Paul had come to 
both recognise and disregard the diversity in 
custom across the Solar System. Perhaps 
Earthlings had their own peculiar customs. 
"I've never been to Earth before and I've 
heard so much about it."

"I'm sure you have," said the professor. "I 
see you come from Godwin. That's in the 
Kuiper Belt, isn't it? I'm surprised you know 
anything about Earth coming from so far 
beyond the boundaries of civilisation."

"Oh, we know a lot about Earth," Paul 
continued, warming to the subject. "After 
Godwin, Earth is the place in the Solar 
System we know most about. That and the Moon, 
of course."

"Really?" said Professor Wasilewski.

"Yes," said Paul, wondering where this 
conversation was heading.

"Well, in answer to your original question, 
as far as I'm concerned you can do exactly as 
much sightseeing as you like."

"Well, thank you," said Paul who hadn't 
previously been aware that there was any 
limit to this pursuit.

There was a pause while the professor 
attempted to articulate an appropriate reply. 
Paul looked nervously at Beatrice for 
guidance. He half-expected that she would 
signal that this interview with the not very 
affable professor was over and that they 
could leave. Instead, her face showed 
virtually no expression and her eyes were 
fixed steadily on Professor Wasilewski. Paul 
turned his gaze back to the man he still 
struggled to regard as his ‘boss'.

"When I say that you can do as much 
sightseeing as you like," continued the 
professor in measured tones having now 
abandoned his attempt at deprecating wit, 
"what I mean is that I have real difficulty 
in assigning a constructive role for you and 
your wife. I don't know why you've been 
foisted on me. I simply can't grasp what 
practical use you could possibly serve."

"I've wondered about that too," said Paul 
helpfully.

"Indeed?" said the professor with some 
astonishment at Paul's ready agreement. "I 
thought you could maybe enlighten me as to 
what value a data archaeologist might have on 
a mission to a part of space where as far as 
I know there has never been an archaic 
database or computer operating system at any 
time in all eternity. Do you expect to find 
antique compact discs or binary machine code 
instructions? Do you think the Anomaly is 
best understood through detailed knowledge of 
silicon chips and magnetic hard drives?"

"Paul is on the mission because he identified 
the historical antiquity of the Anomaly," 
said Beatrice, while her husband struggled to 
find a coherent answer to the professor's 
rather bizarre assertions.

"Because he attracted unwanted publicity and 
the attention of every wingnut terrorist in 
the Solar System more like," snorted the 
professor. "It's true that Dr Morris provided 
fairly convincing additional evidence for 
what we had already suspected. That was 
nothing more than that the Anomaly is a 
rather more ancient phenomenon than was 
originally assumed. Beyond that, he's been 
rather more of a distraction than a help. And 
when he hasn't been a distraction, he's been 
a positive nuisance. That is why I firmly 
recommended that he shouldn't be part of this 
mission. And that is also why, young lady, 
that I recommended that you shouldn't be a 
member of the mission either. On both counts 
I have been overruled. And now I find that I 
am expected to assign you to some kind of 
useful endeavour."

"Well, surely there's something that Paul and 
I can do?" Beatrice pleaded.

"What this mission needs are soldiers, 
navigators and scientists. The scientists 
that the mission needs are experts in 
whatever this Anomaly might be. I wonder 
sometimes whether the secrecy surrounding the 
mission is less to do with security concerns 
than the more profound fear that the more 
people knew about the mission the more they 
would realise just how little we know what 
this Anomaly might be. Rather than hide the 
extent of our knowledge, the secrecy serves 
to disguise the embarrassing magnitude of our 
ignorance. Nevertheless, whether the Anomaly 
is biological, mechanical or polydimensional, 
what it most certainly isn't is something 
about which a data archaeologist specialising 
in twentieth and twenty-first century 
computer systems is likely to be expert. Nor 
is it something where a former Venusian fire-
fighter is likely to be of much help."

"That's what I thought," said Paul who more 
or less agreed with everything the professor 
was saying. "So, you wouldn't mind it if we 
spent the next couple of months on Earth just 
being tourists?"

"It's not a couple of months, alas," said the 
professor almost defeated by Paul's naive 
insouciance. "It may be nearer to a year 
until everything is properly organised. For 
most of the hundreds of scientists and 
technicians on the mission, this will be a 
period of busy activity to study all the 
available evidence now they have the security 
clearance to do so. For you two, however, it 
looks like the year will be nothing worse 
than a long holiday at the Interplanetary 
Union's expense."

"That doesn't sound bad," said Paul.

"Isn't there a need for pre-flight training?" 
asked Beatrice.

"There is some standard training for all 
passengers," the professor admitted. "It's 
scarcely more than routine. There will also 
be some general briefing about the nature of 
the mission, the parameters under which we 
operate, and our present understanding of 
what the Anomaly is. The last might sound the 
most enlightening, but is actually the least 
satisfactory part."

"Are we scheduled to attend the training and 
briefing sessions?" Beatrice asked.

"Of course."

"And is there anything more that you want of 
me and my husband?"

"No. Unlike the other scientists on this 
mission you're unlikely to have to see me 
again until we leave Earth. And—whether it is 
agreeable to you or not I don't know—I shan't 
be joining you on the mission. I have no wish 
to waste years of what remains of my life on 
what I frankly believe to be a wasteful and 
wasted expedition to nowhere very useful."

It hadn't occurred to Paul before that the 
professor might be quite old. Medical 
technology disguised all evidence of aging, 
but someone with the seniority to guide the 
scientific part of the mission and of course 
to be Paul's ‘boss' could very well be more 
than a century or two old.

"Is that what you think this Anomaly is?" 
asked Beatrice who was guiding the 
conversation rather more than Paul. "Nowhere 
very useful."

"All these strange apparitions like lamp-
posts materialising on icy planets, elves 
climbing out of craters and fires burning in 
a vacuum..." pondered the professor. "A 
substantial extent of space just beyond the 
Heliopause ripping open like a sore... A 
historical presence that goes back to at 
least the beginning of space exploration and 
perhaps earlier...  It's all very odd and at 
the moment inexplicable. But my guess is that 
like all the other bizarre things that 
humanity has identified—like strange 
attraction, dark energy and lateral time—the 
ultimate solution will be rather mundane 
however elegant the mathematical description 
or incredible its manifestation."

"Do you think the mission is a waste of 
time?"

"Unlike many of my peers I really don't see 
much need for haste in our research. We 
should be thorough and detailed. What we 
probably don't want or need to do is squander 
a significant amount of the Interplanetary 
Union's wealth on a mission that is unlikely 
to be a success. And we still don't even know 
what would constitute success or whether it 
would bring any material benefit. On the 
basis of cost and risk alone, this is a 
mission that should never have been 
authorised. Should some brave politician 
choose to write off the losses already 
incurred and kill the project before it 
squanders even more, then this couldn't 
happen too soon."

"Is that what you believe?" wondered Paul who 
had problems understanding any analysis in 
terms of economic impact.

"Indeed I do," admitted the professor.



Chapter Four
Almond Grove - 3750 C.E.

It was not without a little trepidation that 
Ellis followed the woman who'd greeted him 
when his private space ship docked at Almond 
Grove. Partly, this was because he'd always 
wanted to see for himself the private 
residence of the second wealthiest man in the 
Solar System and this was the reason he used 
to justify to himself the expense and trouble 
of travelling for very nearly a month from 
Venus to Earth orbit. The main reason, of 
course, was that a summons from Alexander 
Iliescu was not one that any businessman—even 
one as wealthy as Ellis Gidding—could choose 
to ignore. 

Almond Grove was built to impress. There 
weren't many trillionaires in the Solar 
System with the wealth to make their home a 
space colony large enough to house several 
million people, although only a minuscule 
fraction of that number actually lived there. 
Even Ellis' immense fortune was only just 
about enough to purchase the outermost level 
of the Aphrodite space colony at the 
equidistant point of Venus' orbit. 

Ellis had inherited the third largest 
teleporter company in the Solar System and 
its shares had continued to rise under his 
stewardship whilst the fortunes of his 
competitors floundered. One quarter of all 
goods bought and sold across the vast 
distance of commercially viable space was 
transported, or rather reconstituted, via a 
Gidding Teleporter. But his riches were a 
mere fraction of that possessed by Alexander 
Iliescu whose patents had revolutionised 
interplanetary trade and commerce. It was 
unprecedented in recent centuries that one 
man should have profited from the exclusive 
patent of so many now almost ubiquitous 
products. Chief of these, of course, was the 
matter convertor that made it affordable for 
virtually everyone to regenerate the raw 
material of one product from the blueprint of 
almost any other. Any molecule composed of 
elements up to the atomic weight of iron 
could be reconstituted at any other location 
within a light hour of its source. And this 
technology was used extensively by the 
Gidding Corporation.

Few people were aware of the full extent of 
Alexander Iliescu's business empire. He owned 
many companies with intentionally unexciting 
names such as Interplanetary Hardware, 
Nanosoft, and The National Bank of Neptune. 
But despite this, his fortune was still 
surpassed by Bunker Little, the 
philanthropist quadrillionaire, the scale of 
whose business and financial empire in the 
Socialist Republics of Saturn appeared to 
contradict his socialist principles.

Gidding was genuinely impressed by Almond 
Grove's majesty. The orbital ring was home to 
forests, deserts, grasslands and even a small 
sea. Only a fraction of it was set aside 
exclusively for human habitation. 

Iliescu's life and habits were a mystery. It 
was known that he had a prodigious sexual 
appetite and the only other people on Almond 
Grove that Gidding had so far seen were women 
who were either naked or very nearly so. In 
the century or so since his business ventures 
first recorded a healthy profit, Iliescu's 
only other known characteristic was a 
preference for privacy.

Gidding followed his guide up a long trail in 
a wooded hillside to a modest cottage. It was 
misleading, of course, to imagine that 
Iliescu lived in such a small residence on 
such a huge orbital colony. The man owned not 
only the cottage but every cubic millimetre 
of earth, air and water within a light second 
of it.

The figure standing at the oak door to the 
cottage appeared to be Alexander Iliescu, but 
Gidding wasn't so easily deceived. Alexander 
Iliescu didn't extend a hand in greeting and 
his skin had a faint shimmer. In fact, this 
was a holograph so remarkably realistic that 
it was attended by a shadow. 

"I'm delighted to see you, Ellis," said 
Iliescu. "I trust your journey wasn't too 
arduous."

"It's a break from Venus orbit," said 
Gidding. "And I'm pleased to see you too, 
Alex. But you still haven't told me why you 
invited me."

"All in good time, Ellis," said Iliescu, 
whose image was exactly like the man Gidding 
expected to meet. He was dressed in an 
expensive suit with blond hair that cascaded 
over his shoulders. "I can assure you that it 
will be a proposition of mutual advantage. In 
the meantime, you must want to recuperate 
from your voyage. My assistant will take you 
to your villa. I trust it will be to your 
liking."

With that, Iliescu's image disappeared and a 
tall black woman with short blue hair and a 
very tight rubber uniform appeared from the 
cottage doorway. She strode up to Gidding and 
shook his hand with the firm shake that 
Iliescu's holograph was unable to do. Ellis 
noted with approval that she was a muscular 
woman with broad thighs and a splendid bosom.

"Daphne," she announced. She gestured towards 
the cottage door. "Come in."

Ellis entered the cottage, past flowers that 
were wreathed around the doorway and a small 
wooden pump that stood by its side. The 
cottage's interior, however, was totally out 
of character for such a rural scene. There 
was no hearth and no window looking out 
across the fields and woodland. Instead the 
room was almost empty and more resembled the 
inside of an elevator. And this was exactly 
what the room was. It travelled smoothly 
inwards towards the core of the orbital 
colony while Gidding could observe what was 
passing by through the glass walls. 
Initially, the view was of solid earth. Then 
immediately afterwards and for as much as a 
minute the view was of an underwater seascape 
in which swam fish, sharks and giant squid. 

The elevator came to a halt on the surface of 
an island surrounded by many square 
kilometres of seawater in a level that housed 
an artificial lake. Daphne took Ellis by the 
hand and escorted him to an idyllic landscape 
of palm trees and seabirds. A villa was 
situated on a glorious sandy beach fringed by 
a palm-tree forest. 

"When will I see Mr. Iliescu for real?" Ellis 
wondered.

"Tomorrow," said Daphne. "But first, we have 
luncheon waiting."

Ellis was usually a busy man. His time was 
mostly spent in the administration of his 
extensive business concerns. But the repast 
laid out for him on an extensive dining table 
on the beach was truly of the highest 
quality.

While Ellis dined on the freshly prepared 
food and was waited on by nude female 
androids, Daphne sat opposite and engaged him 
in very undemanding conversation. Seabirds 
swooped and soared around the island and 
seals sprawled out on the beach. Waves lapped 
on the shore. Out to sea Ellis could see a 
school of dolphins and a flock of gulls 
feasting on fish. No doubt these fish were 
much like those that had been served for him 
on delicate china plates. Ellis was sure that 
the wine he sipped had also been cultivated 
on the colony: no doubt on a different level 
with sunlit hillsides and rich soil.

Alexander Iliescu was obviously well-informed 
about Ellis' tastes and not only of the 
culinary kind. Gidding speculated how the man 
happened to be so knowledgeable. Ellis wasn't 
a man who paraded his partialities to the 
world. The news articles on his married life 
and private tastes placed the emphasis much 
more on his happy children, his collection of 
original Renaissance Art and his untarnished 
fidelity for his wife. Nothing printed or 
broadcast hinted at Ellis' love for rubber, 
leather and a good spanking.

Hardly had Ellis sipped the last drops of a 
rich and fruity vintage with a delicate woody 
aroma, than he felt a rough hand on his 
shoulder. It was Daphne in her tight-fitting 
outfit and her nipples hard, erect and 
protruding through small vents in her rubber 
brassiere.

"You have been a very naughty boy," Daphne 
announced, as she turned Ellis' head round to 
face her and gazed at him with a stern 
expression. Gidding's penis almost 
immediately sprang to life. And when he saw 
the small cane that Daphne brandished in her 
left hand, he gasped with a slow choke at the 
anticipation of the punishment he would no 
doubt soon receive.

And deservedly. 

"I have been very naughty indeed," admitted 
Ellis, already gleeful at the prospect of a 
merciless beating on his buttocks.

Gidding had, of course, indulged his passion 
on the cyberwhores and  sex robots on his 
space ship during the month-long travel 
between the two planetary orbits, but none of 
his robotic partners, however convincing, had 
Daphne's command or natural dominance. She 
was a woman with an almost unnatural 
understanding of Gidding's desire for 
humiliation but who also knew the precise 
limits to which he would allow his buttocks 
to be caned or his penis to be chewed between 
her sharp teeth. She was merciless in her 
demands for his submission as she alternated 
the cane with the hard smack of her hand 
across his reddened buttocks.

She let Gidding fuck her anally, not even 
hinting that she might prefer a vaginal 
penetration, as he let his knees sink into 
the fine yellow sand on the beach while gulls 
flew around them and waves lapped on the 
shore. And then other women joined in the 
sexual frenzy as eager to be anally 
penetrated as Daphne. They were submissive 
also to Gidding's mistress' demands on their 
flesh which was both more vicious and more 
unremitting than that inflicted on Ellis.

The following morning, Gidding awoke in the 
vast bed that dominated the villa's bedroom 
embraced by four naked women, of whom none 
was Daphne. One woman had the red marks of 
birch visible on her buttocks and thighs. 
Another had a prominent bruise around her 
left eye where Daphne punched her when she 
hesitated as Gidding slid his penis inside 
her arse. Ellis rolled around the bed and 
luxuriated in the warmth of the women's 
bodies. He embedded his nose in the vagina of 
the woman who'd seemed most genuinely 
innocent and had complained most bitterly 
during the brutal lovemaking of the night 
before. The aroma of sexual secretion was 
still prominent as too was a trickle of blood 
from her much abused anus.

Daphne appeared at the door to the bedroom. 
She wore only a white apron over her bosom 
and was carrying a silver tray of coffee, 
caviar, toast and marmalade. 

"Breakfast," she announced as she placed the 
tray on the extensive mattress. 

Ellis scraped some caviar onto a slice of 
toast. He savoured its taste on a tongue 
furred up by the previous night's abundance 
of wine.

"Mr. Iliescu will be here in less than an 
hour," said Daphne. "I have prepared a bath 
for you once you have eaten."

Ellis was unable to enjoy breakfast in quite 
the leisure he preferred. He ate only half of 
the food set in front of him and swiftly 
gulped down two cups of freshly ground 
coffee. After a very brief bath, mostly 
administered by his naked female companions, 
he sat waiting for his host in a freshly 
pressed suit on an armchair on the veranda.

"Good morning, Ellis," said the man, who 
appeared from behind Gidding while he was 
still looking ahead. "I trust you slept 
well?"

"Good morning, Alex," said Gidding who shook 
Iliescu's hand, content at last that he was 
greeting the real man and not a holographic 
avatar. "Are you going to tell me now why you 
summoned me with such urgency?"

"In good time, Ellis," said Iliescu, who then 
proceeded to discuss business matters in a 
rather discursive nature. He asked pertinent 
questions about the Gidding Corporation, made 
some apposite suggestions as to how trade 
could be improved and discussed the politics 
of the colonies in Venus orbit and most 
specifically the upcoming presidential 
elections on Aphrodite.

Alexander Iliescu was an unostentatious, 
soft-spoken man who listened to Ellis with 
respect and said relatively little. Gidding 
was drawn to the man but was also 
uncomfortably mindful that his natural 
wariness towards a potential business 
associate or, for that matter, rival was 
being steadily eroded as he drank first 
coffee and then champagne while Iliescu 
proffered his fellow trillionaire a 
sympathetic ear.

"You've stayed well-informed on political 
affairs in your orbit," Iliescu remarked 
approvingly as Gidding described the woeful 
business opportunities and punitive taxation 
in the Aphrodite colony and its impact on 
inward investment. 

"I always keep an eye open for business 
opportunities," admitted Ellis.

"And not just those affecting the inner 
planets," said Gidding. "You've been active 
even as far afield as the Asteroid Belt." 

Ellis hesitated for a moment. "The affairs of 
state in the various nations there have 
always fascinated me," he remarked.

"Especially those of Pallas, I gather," said 
Iliescu.

"Pallas?" wondered Gidding, who was 
nevertheless beginning to suspect what his 
host was hinting at.

"Such a beautiful colony," said Iliescu with 
a broad smile. "One of the earliest to be 
founded in the early history of space 
colonisation. But at the same time such an 
ill-starred colony. Its government's 
aggressive policies towards its neighbours 
have cost it dear. It became very nearly 
bankrupt, I believe. And a bankruptcy that 
could have resulted in a major disaster. 
Especially for a colony with few friends 
amongst its neighbours and whose belligerent 
arrogance had lost it any sympathy from the 
Interplanetary Union. The bankruptcy could so 
very easily have become terminal. But Pallas 
managed to avoid the awful fate of the ill-
fated and equally self-destructive Bellona 
colony."

"That was indeed a matter of good fortune," 
said Gidding, already aware of where the 
conversation might lead.

"Wasn't it just?" agreed Iliescu. "But less 
of politics. We're businessmen. It's our 
mutual commercial interests we are here to 
discuss. No doubt you're wondering what it is 
that I can offer the Gidding Corporation?"

"Indeed, I am," agreed Gidding.

"I have several new patents that aren't yet 
in commercial production but which I'd like 
you to have exclusive rights to," said 
Iliescu. "I don't have to spell out to you 
how much of a competitive edge this could 
give the Gidding Corporation."

"Just what are these patents?"

"I have, for instance, a patent that extends 
the range of elements that can be securely 
teleported to beyond gold and uranium. I have 
patents that prolong the life of some 
normally unstable elements to several years 
half-life. I have patents that double the 
fuel efficiency of antimatter thrust; patents 
that enable artificial gravity to be used on 
the surface of gas giants; patents that allow 
certain microbes to flourish on the 
inhospitable surface of the Kuiper Belt 
Objects; and patents that increase the 
distance to fifty light seconds at which 
terabytes of data can be transmitted without 
the need for transmission boosters."

Gidding almost salivated at the list of 
patents his host revealed to him. These and 
the many others that had emerged from 
Iliescu's many laboratories and workshops 
throughout the Solar System would bring 
enormous financial rewards to a corporation 
with the commercial muscle to market them.

"What do you think of the women who 
entertained you so eagerly last night?" 
Iliescu asked almost as an aside.

"They were delightful company," Gidding was 
more than happy to assent.

"You noticed, I'm sure, that they were all 
sexbots of a model that Cyberwhore, one of my 
companies, will soon be rolling off the 
production line for brothels and private 
ownership throughout the Solar System."

"Well…" hesitated Gidding who had noticed no 
such thing. "I did think they were 
exceptionally compliant."

"And also convincingly reluctant when 
required," said Iliescu. "And what about 
Daphne…"

"Daphne? Your assistant?"

Iliescu smiled and turned his head towards 
the tall Amazonian woman. "Please be so 
kind…?" he suggested.

"Of course, sir," she said.

And then Daphne, the woman who Gidding had 
been fucking with such intense pleasure and 
whose bodily fluids and sexual aromas 
suggested nothing remotely unnatural, put her 
hands to the sides of her head and slowly 
unscrewed it from her shoulders. This was 
something that Gidding didn't know was even 
remotely possible. She then placed her head 
in the crook of her arm, while she continued 
to smile and blink as naturally as when the 
head was in its expected place.

"I am happy to do as you ask, sir," said 
Daphne, quite unnecessarily.

"Daphne represents a model that I shan't be 
rolling out on production lines for a while 
yet," said Iliescu. "An android as utterly 
convincing and versatile as her would be 
wasted if she were employed only as the 
object of masturbatory pleasure for those who 
enjoy the company of women who are compliant 
to the extreme. I'm sure you can already 
imagine countless other commercial 
opportunities that androids like Daphne could 
address."

"The Interplanetary Union will surely insist 
on some very tight regulation…"

"…with which the Gidding Corporation would be 
honour-bound to comply," said Gidding. 
"Though I believe at least one tenth of the 
Solar System is still not bound to the 
international laws of the Union."

"Indeed," said Gidding, who made a 
disproportionate amount of profit from trade 
with such rogue colonies and asteroids.

"I'm sure that I've said enough to convince 
you that there is a great deal that I can 
offer you," said Iliescu as he refilled 
Gidding's glass with fresh champagne. "You 
must already be wondering what it is that I 
would like you to offer me."

"Shares in the Corporation?" suggested 
Gidding. "A seat on the board of executives? 
A controlling interest in one of the larger 
subsidiaries?"

"No," said Iliescu with an indulgent laugh. 
"I'm sure you've already guessed what is that 
I'm most interested in."

Gidding shook his head, but felt distinctly 
uneasy.

"You're not a man who's noted for your 
philanthropy, Ellis," said Iliescu. "You are 
certainly no rival to Bunker Little who has 
done so much selfless service to the 
downtrodden and oppressed of the Solar System 
principally, of course, within the Socialist 
Republics. You've not even been as generous 
as I've been. However, unlike the majority of 
your generous deeds, there is one example of 
your philanthropy that you've chosen to keep 
remarkably secret. Few of those who know you 
as the benefactor of hospitals and schools in 
Aphrodite or of emergency services on Venus, 
or even the founder of animal hospitals that 
ensure that no domestic animal in Venus orbit 
need ever suffer, will have even an inkling 
of your greatest and most selfless act."

"And what was that?"

"Why, the writing off of all the debts owed 
by Pallas which you anonymously purchased and 
paid off. And this just days before the space 
colony's life-support systems would have 
collapsed with immediate catastrophic affect. 
Just why were you so incredibly generous to a 
colony with so few friends?"

"I was persuaded that…" began Gidding 
uncertainly as he began the alibi he'd been 
inwardly rehearsing since his host first 
referred to the colony.

"Poor Pallas!" interrupted Iliescu. "If only 
it had spent its wealth more wisely rather 
than squandering it so profligately on arms. 
If only the wealth of the colonies it had 
acquired with so much loss of life and 
property had been spent on the greater good 
of its people, rather than on building a war 
fleet wholly out of proportion to its status. 
Its efforts didn't even earn the asteroid a 
seat on the Permanent Council of the 
Interplanetary Union. All those arms fairs 
where Pallas outspent Mars, Ceres and the 
whole of the Kuiper Belt. All that huge 
wealth spent on antimatter bombs, dark energy 
missiles, nanotorpedos, the latest cloaking 
devices and whatever else the sales 
representatives from Mars, Saturn or Jupiter 
could tempt the government of this benighted 
colony. And where is it all now?"

"Erm…"

"I know exactly where, Ellis," said Iliescu 
with a twinkle in his blue eyes. "This 
massive arsenal of armaments is housed inside 
a small Kuiper Belt Object nearly a light day 
away from the ecliptic of the Solar System. 
And the current owner of this vast collection 
of the most truly lethal hardware within the 
Solar System but outside the supervision of 
the Interplanetary Union is none other than 
you. Not the Gidding Corporation. But you: 
Ellis Gidding of Aphrodite. What a bargain, I 
would say. The cost of bailing out Pallas was 
but a fraction of what this military hardware 
is really worth. And just why did you buy 
such a deadly arsenal, Ellis?"

"Resale value," suggested Gidding.

"Maybe," said Iliescu. "But more likely you 
just wanted to add it to the largest private 
collection of space cruisers, titanium tanks 
and firearms, both ancient and modern, that 
anyone has ever amassed. It is this death 
star of yours that I want in exchange for the 
patents I am willing to offer. I want full 
ownership. That includes the secret codes 
that enable you to launch this fearsome 
arsenal."

"Why do you want something like that?" 
wondered Gidding. 

"You really don't need to know why I want 
your little death star," said Iliescu. "Maybe 
it's a hobby of mine, as it is of yours, to 
collect military hardware. Maybe I would 
prefer to be the one who has ownership of 
such a lethal device rather than you or one 
of the more errant colonies in the one tenth 
of the Solar System that refuses to be 
governed by international law. Maybe I just 
like the idea of being the most powerful man 
in the Solar System. I would prefer you 
didn't know and I will ensure that should you 
tell anyone of this conversation that it will 
probably be the last thing you'll ever do."

"Have I got a choice in this transaction?" 
Gidding asked.

"Not really," Iliescu admitted. "I'm not a 
man accustomed to having my offers rebuffed. 
But I much prefer the taste of carrot to the 
application of a stick. Although I'm not so 
sure that you mightn't have other 
preferences."

"When would I have access to the patents you 
mentioned?" asked Gidding.

"As soon as one of my assistants, maybe 
Daphne here," Iliescu tilted his head towards 
his assistant who was still carrying her head 
in her arm and looking none the worse for it, 
"enters on board the death star or doomsday 
device or whatever you wish to call it and 
reports back to me that all is in order."

"That would take at least six months space 
travel," said Gidding.

"It'll be rather less with the technology to 
which I'm willing to let you have access," 
said Iliescu. "I'm not a patient man. I have 
many other items on my business agenda to 
attend to. I would urge that you agree now. 
And I would add that should you not consent 
as readily as I expect you to, your sojourn 
in Almond Grove, while still very agreeable, 
may last for a very long time."

Gidding was not used to such blatant 
blackmail, but Iliescu was only applying to 
him much the same business etiquette that 
Gidding also applied in his more lucrative 
commercial transactions. This was 
particularly so with the government of Pallas 
who were initially far from accommodating. 

"I'll need to examine the fine print," said 
Gidding at last.

"I'm sure you'll find it all in order," said 
Iliescu. "I'm convinced that you will be very 
impressed of the extent to which I am willing 
to enrich the shareholders of the Gidding 
Corporation."

Chapter Five
Venus - 3732 C.E.

The scorching wind that blew sluggishly 
across the Venusian plain made progress 
difficult enough for Beatrice, but much worse 
for Laurent and the others in his team. 
Although she could have taken the lead, 
Beatrice tactfully trailed the rest of her 
crew as they struggled with immense effort in 
their thick-shelled space suits across fifty 
metres of dimly lit superheated soil to the 
crumpled wreckage of the crashed shuttle. It 
had fallen victim to weather conditions 
dramatically worse than those anticipated by 
the meteorological office when it embarked on 
a routine flight from the Penderecki dome 
toward the construction site of the new 
Nabokov dome. Several hundred engineers and 
architects had been on board and nearly a 
quarter of them were now dead.

Beatrice had been leading a truly idyllic 
life on the planet ever since she'd married 
Laurent and become employed by Venus' 
Emergency Services. She enjoyed assisting her 
husband in the daily challenge of saving 
lives. It assuaged the conscience with which 
she had been equipped to calculate that she 
had now saved more lives than were lost as a 
result of her dramatic arrival seven years 
earlier. 

Life on Venus couldn't really be much better. 
Her husband was a man who loved her with a 
passion that truly flattered Beatrice even 
though it was an emotion she didn't really 
understand. The considerable satisfaction she 
got from her vocation wasn't at all 
diminished by the many unfair advantages she 
had over her human companions. 

She had made many friends and enjoyed the 
company of many lovers. The former she shared 
with Laurent and the latter she kept secret 
from him. Beatrice had only belatedly 
realised how fundamental monogamy was to 
human relationships on Venus. Her 
considerable sexual appetite made it 
difficult for her to conform to human 
convention, but for Laurent's benefit she 
maintained the appearance of fidelity as best 
she could.

The first year or so of Beatrice's 
relationship with Laurent was almost as 
fraught as it was a pleasure. There were so 
many subtleties to human sexual relationships 
that Beatrice didn't understand. Chief of 
these was the expectation of sexual 
exclusivity that Laurent held in such high 
regard. It puzzled her at first that Laurent 
became so upset when Beatrice brought her 
lovers home with the intention of sharing 
their bodies with her fiancé. The 
interminable quarrels with her husband and 
some independent research convinced her that 
if she were to stay with Laurent, which she 
very much wanted to do, she had to practise a 
policy of deceit for which her training in 
Proxima Centauri hadn't prepared her.

 It was so dark across the Venusian plain 
that it was only through the monitoring 
equipment that trundled ahead that the rescue 
party could determine the extent of the 
damage to the grounded shuttle. The most 
seriously compromised sections were beyond 
hope. Even a small breach in the hull would 
have resulted in the sudden agonising death 
of any survivor. Elsewhere, however, the 
shuttle's emergency systems had attempted to 
shield the passengers from the fatally 
adverse weather conditions in a cocoon of 
inflatable foam. The rescuers' task was 
essentially to drag these cocoons out from 
the wreckage and carry them off to safety in 
the Emergency Services' flying ambulances.

Laurent's crew wasn't the only one called to 
the accident. Two others were already busy 
salvaging survivors from the wreckage. There 
was no way to gain direct access to the 
victims. That would involve compromising the 
shuttle's defences which would only serve to 
admit a lethal combination of crushing air 
pressure and searing heat. Medical assistance 
could only be applied once the survivors were 
safely in a hospital ward. Only robots could 
handle the sealed cocoons and Beatrice's role 
was less to apply medical help than to 
monitor their activity. 

"It's fucking carnage!" exclaimed Daphne, the 
only other woman in Laurent's crew. 

Beatrice could only agree. The dead bodies 
that she examined through the ultrasound 
viewer in her helmet had lost all human form. 
What hadn't been burnt to a cinder was 
crushed flat by the massive air pressure. The 
deaths might have been rapid, but they would 
also have been very painful. Burning 
unbreathable air that was hotter than it was 
poisonous would have scorched the lungs 
before the flesh ignited. 

Beatrice was exceptional at her job. She was 
at her best in the more temperate conditions 
inside the domes where the duty of a rescue 
mission was to save the lives of those 
tangled in the wreckage of a systems failure. 
Emergency surgery was often required to 
extricate the survivors' bodies before a 
breach in the hull let in the certainty 
rather than the mere likelihood of agonising 
death. Beatrice had no difficulty in 
disengaging her empathy towards the victims 
whose limbs she amputated. She also had the 
physical strength to hold up the collapsing 
masonry that would otherwise have crushed the 
unfortunate survivors.

Laurent gave his wife an affectionate kiss 
when they returned to the Emergency Rescue 
Station many hours later.

"You were truly wonderful," he said. "As 
always."

"Thank you," said Beatrice who genuinely 
appreciated Laurent's praise.

"You're almost superhuman," he continued. 
"I've never before had the privilege to work 
with someone so focused on the job and who 
can think so fast. Only you could have 
recognised that the pilot's cabin still had 
people in it. There are at least five people 
who'd have suffered an agonisingly drawn-out 
death if it hadn't been for you."

"I was told you were good," said Alfonso, who 
was a new member of the crew, "but until I 
saw you in action today I didn't know just 
how good. You were fucking amazing. When the 
robot failed and you stepped in... That was 
brilliant. A second longer and the life-
support capsule would have plunged to the 
ground."

"I told you I wasn't exaggerating," said 
Laurent proudly as he placed an arm round his 
darling wife.

Much as Beatrice loved her husband's 
compliments and revelled in the depth and 
quality of their lovemaking, she was 
conscious that her harmonious married life 
wouldn't last forever. This wasn't only 
because she was unable to restrain her lust. 
She'd learnt well how to cover her tracks. It 
was because she was now about to deliberately 
pursue a lifestyle of blatant infidelity and 
gross sexual abandon that was specifically 
designed to rock her marriage asunder. 

In fact, her marriage would soon become as 
wrecked and unsupportable as was the shuttle 
that had been carrying a crew of engineers 
and architects when its systems failed.

It wasn't because her sexual desires exceeded 
what any man could possibly satisfy that this 
had to be done. Beatrice's career in the 
Emergency Services might be rewarding, but 
that wasn't the duty that was her highest 
priority.

It wasn't long after she first arrived on 
Venus that she first made contact with 
Proxima Centauri Intelligence Services. This 
wasn't in person, although there were at 
least a dozen other agents on Venus, but 
through communication channels so highly 
encrypted that no human had even identified 
them as such. The receiver and transmitter 
she used were embedded deep inside her skull. 

Her assignment was fairly routine to begin 
with. She was there simply to monitor and 
observe. Proxima Centauri couldn't rely on 
communication intercepts alone to research 
and study human society. Such information 
could never be as comprehensive as that 
gathered on the ground, even though 
Beatrice's reports were never much more than 
an upload of the sensory data she gathered 
simply by leading an outwardly normal life. 
Sometimes she was required to enter certain 
chambers or to speak to specific individuals, 
but generally all she had to was lead as 
ordinary a life on the planet as it was 
possible for an android to do. 

It was also of paramount importance that an 
agent's activities should not attract any 
suspicion, as this would necessitate the 
mission's immediate termination. This was 
exactly what had happened to the cover of a 
Proxima Centauri agent on Ecstasy. Even the 
slightest suggestion that an agent was not 
quite what he or she seemed could endanger 
not only that operative's mission but that of 
all agents in the Solar System. It was 
imperative that humans should never learn 
about the alien presence that was so much in 
their midst.

As Beatrice's profile was well suited for a 
mission to Ecstasy, it was decided that she 
should now relocate her operations and 
proceed to the outer Solar System. But first 
she had to make her motive for departing 
Venus seem verifiably plausible. 

Beatrice reasoned that the emotional upset 
resulting from the messy break-up of a 
previously idyllic marriage provided good 
cover. Since infidelity was the most common 
reason for such a rupture, Beatrice decided 
that she need no longer hide her many 
indiscretions from her husband.

"I just can't understand it!" sobbed Laurent 
when he discovered Beatrice in their bed with 
Daphne. His colleague fled in acute 
embarrassment as a trail of vaginal fluid 
dripped down her pale freckled legs. "I 
thought you were a changed woman. What have I 
done to deserve this?"

Of course the answer was that he didn't 
deserve it at all. He'd been an exemplary 
husband. He was still, despite everything, 
extraordinarily forgiving and understanding. 
But this couldn't be allowed to stand in 
Beatrice's way even if she did go through the 
motions of trying to achieve a kind of 
reconciliation with her devoted husband.

There was a sense in which Beatrice enjoyed 
every moment of her campaign of open 
infidelity even though it pained her to see 
the anguish it caused Laurent. After the 
tragic death of his first wife, he thought 
that he could at last let her memories rest 
in peace. However, he was certain that 
Magdalene would never flirt so openly with 
Alfonso. Beatrice even had an affair with 
Manfred, who was the only member of Laurent's 
crew still in active service from the fateful 
day when Beatrice was rescued.

Daphne was Beatrice's favourite lover. Her 
exquisite pale skin was liberally sprinkled 
with freckles. Her long red hair cascaded 
over her shoulders and had a faintly straw-
like smell that enchanted Beatrice when she 
buried her nose inside. She would bring her 
lover to a choking vocal orgasm during which 
her juices squirted over Beatrice's cheeks. 
Her fingers and tongue probed deeply into 
Beatrice's shaven pubes. The couple pressed 
their crotches against each other in tribadic 
ecstasy. Daphne's perspiration dripped onto 
Beatrice's thighs which she licked off in an 
expression of worshipful devotion. 

"This is so wrong," said Daphne. "I love you. 
But Laurent does too. I shouldn't be doing 
this."

"Don't be silly," said Beatrice. "And anyway 
you're not my only lover."

"I know. I know," said Daphne sadly. 
"Alfonso. Manfred. It's not right, you know. 
We work together. We can't all be rivals in 
love. Manfred got really upset when he learnt 
that Alfonso's been fucking you too. I didn't 
want to tell him that I was sharing your bed 
too."

"I don't know what's so wrong about that," 
said Beatrice.

"If you were like most women—or men for that 
matter—I wouldn't believe that," said Daphne 
reflectively as she lay on one side. "But 
you? I don't know. I really do believe that 
you don't find anything wrong with it. If my 
wife knew I was fucking another woman, she'd 
divorce me straight away. She's a jealous 
cow."

"But you love her, don't you?" asked Beatrice 
in genuine fascination. "And you love me too. 
What's wrong with loving more than one 
person?"

"It just won't work," said Daphne. "If you 
can't trust your lover to be faithful, what 
else can't you trust? Anyway, although I do 
love Helga I'm jealous of you too. It pains 
me to think of Alfonso's hairy prick inside 
you. I'm even jealous of Laurent, however 
much I respect him and don't want to ruin his 
marriage."

But ruined Laurent's marriage most definitely 
was. After he found Beatrice in bed with 
Daphne, he soon discovered many other 
unpalatable signs of his wife's insatiable 
infidelity. It wasn't just the little things, 
like the love-bite on Beatrice's thigh; or 
the smell of another man's perfume on her 
clothes; or the lovelorn gazes coming from 
both Alfonso and Manfred. 

He now knew that Daphne was making love to 
his wife. There was also Nikolai, the man who 
lived just two houses away in the tree-lined 
avenue where he lived, who Laurent caught 
ejaculating into his wife's mouth. Beatrice 
didn't even bother to wipe the semen away 
after Laurent scared Nikolai off with the 
most ferocious vocal outburst of his life. 
There was Hernandez the geologist who was one 
of the few other people who habitually worked 
outside the domes' protective shields. And 
then, still with the agonised memory of 
Hernandez's humping arse between his wife's 
legs, there was also Lamin, Pierre, Hua, 
Barbara and Francisco.

Laurent struggled to accommodate Beatrice's 
blatant infidelities in his life. He slept in 
one room, most often by himself, whilst his 
wife slept in another room and, rather 
noisily and openly, never by herself. 

Just how did Beatrice find these men and 
women, and not always singly, that joined her 
beneath the sheets? Even Laurent's wild life 
as a single man before he married Magdalene 
had never been remotely as promiscuous as 
Beatrice's. The memories of that hedonistic 
youth—where he'd once even participated in an 
orgy—were why Laurent reluctantly tolerated 
his wife's unquenchable lust, but his 
tolerance was steadily waning.

As a firefighter, Beatrice was no less 
professional than before. She happily 
volunteered for those distressing duties that 
most of her colleagues shied away from. But 
whenever Laurent saw his wife, whether at 
work and at home, he was forever reminded of 
the unhappiness that dogged his every waking 
hour and made his sleep at best fitful. It 
exasperated even the psychoanalyst whose 
advice he desperately sought.

"I know you love your wife," the therapist 
said sympathetically, "but you can't put up 
with her daily blatant humiliation for ever. 
It's obvious from your profile that you 
aren't a masochist, so there's no realistic 
way you can adjust to this unfortunate turn 
in your relationship."

No reconciliation seemed possible when 
Laurent and Beatrice visited the marriage 
counsellor. Not only was Beatrice dressed as 
scantily as a woman could be without being 
naked, there was even a smudge of semen on 
her brow that had congealed on a strand of 
hair.

"I can't put it more forcefully than this, 
Beatrice," said Doctor Ferencz. "Either you 
change your current licentiousness lifestyle 
or your marriage will fail. I recommend that 
you separate, at least for a while, to give 
the two of you the space in which you can 
decide whether your marriage is worth saving. 
I have to say that I've never seen such 
provocative promiscuity in all my life. Most 
relationships can survive the odd episode of 
infidelity, but your behaviour is way beyond 
the norm."

Despite the marriage counsellor's advice, 
Laurent was even now reluctant to separate. 
This was mostly because although Beatrice was 
openly promiscuous she still found the time 
and, more surprisingly, the energy to satisfy 
her husband's lust.

Laurent was determined to confront his wife 
with an ultimatum when the couple returned 
home after their shift. This was even though 
Beatrice had just saved the life of three 
young children who'd been trapped in a lift 
shaft enveloped by a fire that had forced its 
way through a hairline fracture in the dome. 
Instead of a confrontation, however, Laurent 
was once again seduced by Beatrice. She 
urgently unbelted his trousers and plunged 
her mouth onto his almost immediately erect 
penis. This was followed by a session of 
lovemaking that left Laurent's testicles 
aching and his penis drained.

"This can't go on, Beatrice," said Laurent at 
last when the two of them finally lay 
together naked on the sofa. "We can't 
continue to live under the same roof any 
longer."

"I love you," said Beatrice. "I'm sure we can 
work it out."

"It's not going to happen," said Laurent. 
"You've said the same thing so many times 
before. I've taken a lease on an apartment in 
another part of the city. I shall be moving 
out tomorrow."

Beatrice shed tears of bitter regret and 
recrimination which had its intended result 
of making it seem that she was truly sorry 
for having allowed her lust to imperil their 
marriage. In truth, she was pleased that 
she'd orchestrated events so well. Laurent 
left within the week and Beatrice handed in 
her notice at the Emergency Rescue Services. 

She then traced Laurent to his new apartment 
and persuaded him to exchange his rented 
apartment for his old home.

"It's not right that you should leave the 
home where you've lived for so many years," 
said Beatrice after the passionate sex that 
inevitably occurred. "I'm the one at fault. 
Not you. I'll stay here and you can return to 
your memories of Magdalene. She was a much 
better wife for you than I've ever been."

This was true in so many ways but Laurent had 
never known such passionate sex with his 
deceased wife as he had with Beatrice. He was 
disconsolate that the lovemaking he'd just 
enjoyed with Beatrice might well be the last 
he'd ever know.

Beatrice continued to live in her new flat. 
She was unemployed but also extraordinarily 
well provided for by the proceeds of an 
extremely smooth divorce and the pension 
provided by Venus' Emergency Services. And 
she was far from alone. As she now had no 
need for restraint in her amorous affairs, 
she certainly observed none.

"Laurent is still distraught," said Daphne, 
still one of Beatrice's lovers, when they met 
at a nearby ornamental garden. "He busies 
himself in his work, but none of us are as 
capable as you were and he still remarks 
about that."

Beatrice sighed. 

"I miss him too," she said and let a small 
tear dribble down her cheek.

Although Beatrice exaggerated her feelings 
for effect, there was truth to her statement. 
She had loved Laurent as much as an android 
was capable. She would gladly exchange her 
duties in the services of Proxima Centauri 
for a lifetime of connubial bliss with a man 
so generous, kind and sincere. She regretted 
leaving her husband, but she had no choice. 
The expense of transporting her across four 
light years of empty space hadn't been for 
the sole benefit of Beatrice's domestic 
happiness.

She scanned the lawns that spread towards the 
squat buildings that lined the garden's 
perimeter and where the dome's ceiling 
brushed close to their roofs. 

She would miss Venus. The gravity inside the 
domes was much like that on Earth and the 
artificial atmosphere was as pleasant as any 
she could wish for. The Venusians had 
sacrificed so many lives to make habitable a 
planet where the air was poisonous and hot 
enough to melt lead. On the other hand, Venus 
was also a beautiful planet. There were 
mountains capped with frozen metal and lakes 
of molten iron. If only it were possible to 
see this more clearly through the thick 
sulphurous air.

"Not here!" laughed Daphne as Beatrice's hand 
crept up her thigh and tickled the labia 
majora under her scanty shorts. "People are 
watching. You really are insatiable."

Beatrice placed her lips on Daphne's. "Where 
then?" she whispered playfully.

The two women rushed to Beatrice's apartment 
which was on the fourth and top floor of the 
block that overlooked the gardens and in 
which was installed a small fountain and 
ornamental pond. And where also, as Daphne 
was initially rather less delighted to 
discover, a black woman was still resting in 
Beatrice's bed after their shared passion of 
the previous night. 

Beatrice knew her two female lovers well and 
persuaded them to make love together to which 
she contributed far more than her fair share. 
Daphne bathed not only Beatrice but also her 
black lover with the juice of orgasmic 
pleasure. 

Beatrice reflected on the changes to come as 
she relaxed on her expansive bed: a black 
girl on one side and a pale freckled one on 
the other. She would soon leave the sheltered 
domes of Venus and travel across the Solar 
System to the colony of Ecstasy. There was 
much she regretted having to leave behind but 
she was also excited at the prospect of new 
lovers and the sight again of the black void 
through which she would travel. 

"We most certainly do have a need for a well-
qualified Emergency Services Officer on the 
Yossarian," said the recruiting officer of 
the meteoroid mining ship. "And few come with 
as good qualifications as you. But I have to 
ask: why do you want to leave Venus for a 
journey to the most remote locations in the 
inner planetary orbits?"

"My marriage…" said Beatrice tearfully. "I've 
just divorced my husband. I want to make a 
fresh start."

"There are many more marriageable men and 
women on Venus than you'll ever find in deep 
space," said Chief Petty Officer Durer who 
was also conducting the interview. "But you 
won't be the first divorcee to volunteer for 
such a reason."

"It's been very painful," said Beatrice. "I 
know it'll be a challenge, but it's one I'm 
prepared to confront."

"I don't think you'll be nearly as busy as 
you've been in the past," remarked the 
recruiting officer. "It's very rare that we 
suffer the kind of disaster you regularly 
face on Venus."

"If I save only one life, it will be a duty 
well served," said Beatrice. 

"We haven't exactly been overwhelmed with 
candidates for the position who are nearly as 
well qualified as you," said the Chief Petty 
Officer. "The greatest challenge I think 
you'll confront may well be boredom. Do you 
think life on a space ship, confined to less 
than five cubic kilometres of habitable 
space, is really a fair exchange for life in 
a Venusian dome?"

"I'm sure I'll get used to it," said 
Beatrice, who didn't want to explain just how 
well-suited she was. A century or more of her 
life had already been spent in much more 
confined conditions in interstellar space. 
The journey from Proxima Centauri would have 
been impossible for a human, even in the near 
torpor of her resting state.

"You'll have time to fuck every man and woman 
on the ship," commented Daphne when Beatrice 
told her lover of her imminent departure.

Beatrice nibbled at Daphne's reddish pubic 
hairs. "I'm sure I can rise to the 
challenge," she said with a wicked smile.

Chapter Six
Pynchon - 3752 C.E.

The small craft of which Colonel Vashti was 
the pilot weaved in and out of the relentless 
barrage of hostile laser fire that streamed 
towards her from the approaching fighter 
jets. The moment she failed to avoid being 
hit would be the moment when her craft would 
be no more and her mission terminated. 
Although her firepower was outmatched by the 
weaponry set against it, she made sure that 
each one of the laser-propelled missiles she 
launched hit its target. All around and ahead 
was the wreckage of enemy jets. 

It was then then that colonel became aware of 
Brigadier Svenssen's silent presence. Her 
impressive talent for eliminating hostile 
forces quite suddenly faltered and she was 
hit by a laser beam that crippled her craft 
and sent it spinning and spiralling out of 
control through the debris of enemy fighter 
jets. 

"Well done, colonel," said the brigadier. 
"Very impressive."

Colonel Vashti stepped out from the Virtual 
Reality pod where she'd been immersed for the 
last hour or so.

"I was just practicing, sir," she said.

"Well, I certainly hope you won't need those 
skills on your mission, colonel," said the 
brigadier with a good-humoured smile. "We 
don't anticipate any hostile activity out 
there in the Oort Cloud. I dare say though 
that you have more practical experience of 
warfare than most of the soldiers who're 
being trained for this mission. You have a 
very impressive record of service in the 
National Army of the Mariner Federation. 
You've been awarded a dazzling array of 
medals and commendations."

"Thank you, sir," said the colonel. "And 
you'll be pleased to know that there are 
several other soldiers from the Mariner 
Federation on board."

"And many from the Polar Federation as well, 
of course," said the brigadier whose own home 
was the colony of Psamathe in the Neptune 
Federation. That was a part of the Solar 
System that never had to engage its military 
forces in any conflict fewer than a million 
kilometres from the home planet. The 
brigadier envied Colonel Vashti's more 
extensive experience of combat and the 
associated opportunities to be awarded medals 
for conspicuous bravery and the like. "You 
must think this a very dull mission, 
colonel."

"Not at all, sir," said Colonel Vashti. "This 
is the mission I was always meant to serve."

"Well, there's no guarantee that you'll 
return of course," said the brigadier. "Do 
you have any theory what this Anomaly is, 
colonel?"

"None whatsoever, sir," said the colonel. "Do 
you have any, sir?"

"Sadly, no," said the brigadier. "Like most 
observers I've speculated that it might be 
some kind of extraterrestrial intelligence, 
but if so it's chosen a very odd way of 
manifesting itself. Anyhow, colonel, I didn't 
come to see you to discuss the Anomaly or 
even to congratulate you on your excellent 
game-play. Are you coming to the wrestling 
match this evening?"

"The fuck fighting, sir?" asked Colonel 
Vashti who knew exactly what Brigadier 
Svenssen was alluding to. 

"I like a good fight, soldier," said the 
brigadier, "but I like a good fuck just as 
much."

"I do as well, sir," said the colonel who 
placed her hand on the brigadier's crotch 
where she could feel the swell of his 
genitals. Quite clearly the prospect of 
watching some sweaty energetic fucking had 
already stimulated him.

"Not now, colonel," said the brigadier 
sternly but reluctantly. "I have other duties 
to attend to."

"Of course, sir," said Vashti, removing her 
hand. "I shall see you at the wrestling match 
at Twenty Hundred Hours Universal Time."

She saluted her commanding officer who 
acknowledged her in kind and strode off.

Colonel Vashti had been training at the 
Pynchon military colony in Earth orbit for 
several months now and there weren't many 
more months left yet until she and the other 
soldiers would set off for the Space Ship 
Intrepid on its voyage to the very limits of 
the Sun's gravitational sphere. The space 
colony was one of many administered and owned 
by the Interplanetary Union that was 
dedicated to the armed services. It was 
unthinkable that the militia should be under 
the direct control of just one of the many 
nations, planets and colonies that composed 
the Union's special forces This was 
particularly imperative given that some 
member states, such as Colonel Vashti's 
Mariner Federation, were at war with some of 
the others. 

The training camp where Colonel Vashti and 
the other soldiers were based was at quite a 
distance from the other military bases. This 
wasn't especially unusual, but more out of 
the ordinary was the fact that no one in the 
training camp was permitted to discuss the 
mission for which they were training with 
soldiers based elsewhere. To make sure of 
this, only the most senior officers, such as 
Colonel Vashti and Brigadier Svenssen, were 
allowed any freedom of movement within the 
confines of the colony.

The Pynchon was specifically designed to 
accommodate military exercises, so the 
greatest proportion of the colony's habitable 
area was a wasteland where soldiers could 
fire live ammunition and practice military 
exercises with real lethal hardware. This 
made the colony one of the least cultivated 
of the Solar System. The plants that 
struggled to grow in the messy aftermath of 
staged conflicts and the animals not 
slaughtered in the artillery cross-fire were 
entirely abandoned to their own devices.

There wasn't much that the soldiers under the 
colonel's command knew about the mission. 
She'd been ordered to keep it as much a 
secret as possible. All the soldiers knew was 
that they would be travelling into deep space 
and that there was an unspecified and even 
mysterious risk that might require a military 
response. There was nothing more. 
Nevertheless, most of the soldiers guessed 
that their destination was the Anomaly. 
Everybody knew that there was something quite 
extraordinary out there in deep space and few 
believed the official line that it was a 
natural phenomenon best left to scientific 
research. Few believed that, whatever it 
might be, the Anomaly would turn out to be 
just like the other strange phenomena in 
human history for which there had always been 
a perfectly reasonable and quite boring 
explanation. It was an alien unknown presence 
that might even be associated with the weird 
and often preposterous Apparitions that so 
excited conspiracy theorists. 

The soldiers had the same access to 
international media as everyone else in the 
Solar System so they could easily study 
holographs of these mysterious Apparitions. 
There was the huge Viking ship that sailed 
for several seconds across the Asteroid Belt. 
There was the massive banana that spiralled 
round and around for nearly a minute 
somewhere between Uranus and Saturn. There 
was the fierce burning fire on the freezing 
surface of Pluto. And then there was the 
Anomaly itself. It was almost as old as space 
travel and getting steadily bigger and ever 
more peculiar.

The soldiers were required to undergo an 
exhaustive course of training and instruction 
for the mission. There was the standard 
preparation for military action both inside 
an enclosed space such as a space colony or a 
very large space ship, but also in deep space 
where even the slightest compromise to a 
space suit's defences would lead to sudden 
and painful death. The soldiers relied 
heavily on the readiness and quality of their 
equipment to survive. A battle-ready soldier 
had to make very thorough technical checks 
before setting out into the deadly vacuum of 
space.

Colonel Vashti was more fully briefed than 
the soldiers under her command. The more she 
found out the more she appreciated what a 
risk her fellow soldiers were taking. Most 
frightening of all was the fact that nobody 
was sure that there would even be a return 
trip from the Anomaly. None of the robotic 
probes that had entered the Anomaly had 
returned. They broadcast no meaningful 
information once they were inside. Every 
observation of the Anomaly at any proximity 
from outside was exactly as unhelpful as the 
high resolution analyses made from several 
light months distant. Although there was no 
actual evidence that the Anomaly might 
harbour hostile intentions, it couldn't be 
assumed that it would necessarily be 
friendly.

The soldiers also needed to be entertained 
while they were stationed on Pynchon. This 
was taken very seriously by the military 
colony's administrators, even to the extent 
of passing a blind eye on activities that 
were legal in some colonies in the Solar 
System but not so in most of the others. 
Controversially, this included prostitution, 
gambling and drug abuse. The entertainment 
on-hand had to be of a nature that would 
appeal to soldiers and this was unlikely to 
be compatible with a celibate, contemplative 
and quiet life. Amongst the available 
diversions, the one that most appealed to 
Brigadier Svenssen was male homosexual fuck 
fighting or Extreme Hard Core Wrestling as it 
was sometimes known.

Colonel Vashti totally understood Brigadier 
Svenssen's enthusiasm for fuck fighting. What 
could be more entertaining than to watch two 
or more male soldiers stripped to the skin 
wrestle together with the intention of 
gripping one another's testicles and erect 
penis? What greater reward was there for the 
victor than for him to fuck his defeated 
opponent? What greater treat could there be 
for the audience than to watch two oiled and 
ripped wrestlers thrust their erect penises 
deep inside the other's anus and fuck with 
exactly the same animal intensity that they'd 
exhibited in their fighting? 

Even so, Colonel Vashti was conscious that 
such a treat didn't appeal to everyone. There 
were very few women in the audience, even if 
the colonel could count herself as one. There 
was a high representation of shaven headed 
men from Saturn in the audience and many had 
ambitions to be active participants in this 
form of physical recreation. The brigadier 
was on edge throughout the wrestling. He 
would always place a bet on the wrestler he 
wanted to see win, but Vashti could see that 
the wager wasn't on the man who was really 
the better fighter. Brigadier Svenssen paid 
scant attention to the wrestler's form even 
though this was the best indicator of likely 
success. The brigadier generally backed the 
wrestler who was most muscled, the most oiled 
and the one with the largest cock.

This was Brigadier Svenssen's ideal masculine 
form and one on which he'd modelled himself. 
He was well ripped. When not executing his 
military duties, the brigadier was most often 
to be found pumping iron or doing press-ups 
or lifting weights. He enjoyed doing these 
exercises in the nude so that he could show 
off his taut, muscled frame and, naturally, 
his own quite splendid genitals. What he 
liked to do most was to shove his cock up a 
man's arse and have his balls rhythmically 
pound against a man's buttock crack. What 
could possibly be more fun than that?

The brigadier had once again put his money 
where he would like his cock to be. And once 
again he lost his bet. Colonel Vashti also 
liked to gamble but she was far more 
successful with her wagers. It was always a 
matter of satisfaction to assess a wrestler's 
form and predict who would win. It was even 
more of a challenge to guess the actual final 
score, but even there the colonel's 
predictions were remarkably accurate. The 
colonel often knew the wrestler's form rather 
more intimately than anyone, but she didn't 
really want the brigadier to be too aware of 
this. She preferred the brigadier to continue 
to believe that there was something special 
in their relationship. And not, of course, 
just in terms of who was the commanding 
officer.

"You fuck as well as you fight, soldier," the 
brigadier said on the last occasion he'd been 
to a contest.

He was crouched down on his large bed: his 
elbows supported his weight and his buttocks 
raised high. Perspiration streamed down his 
stubbly pate and his expression was as 
agonised and contorted as that of the 
recently defeated wrestler. Behind him and 
thrusting again and again into his muscled 
anus was Colonel Vashti who knew just how 
roughly the brigadier liked to be fucked. He 
wanted his testicles squeezed and his cock 
engorged, red and raw. He wanted to be as 
battered and bruised as a wrestler. Sex with 
the brigadier was like a wrestling match. The 
only difference was that the fucking came at 
every stage of the proceedings. It wasn't 
just the victor's spoils. The colonel and the 
brigadier fucked and were fucked by one 
other. It was a vicious, exhausting and 
generally silent combat. Fucking was serious 
business. Having a dick in your mouth and 
gagging on it was an exercise where cock 
brushed against tonsils and spit and saliva 
slobbered onto the chest. Anuses were 
pummelled. Fists were pushed in deep. Faces 
were slapped. Punches were thrown. And at the 
end there was the spurt of semen onto the 
face, over the arse, on the chest and over 
the sheets.

Or was it the end? 

The brigadier always had the energy and 
determination for a further bout of fucking 
in which the colonel was more than happy to 
engage. Penises would engorge again. 
Testicles would harden. And yet more semen 
would be released.

Vashti and Svenssen sometimes invited other 
men to enliven their lovemaking and there was 
never a shortage of willing candidates after 
a wrestling match. There were many men in the 
audience who'd be happy to dip their cocks 
into the brigadier's arse and those who knew 
in which particular way they had something in 
common with the colonel were even attracted 
to her. The brigadier preferred the wrestlers 
to the other men in the audience. They were 
the ones with the ripped muscles and the 
stamina for a good lengthy fuck. The others 
might all share a love of cock and anal 
intercourse, but they were rather less 
muscled and macho than suited the brigadier's 
taste. If Colonel Vashti's physical fitness 
wasn't well above average, it was unlikely 
that the brigadier could have compromised his 
normal sexual preferences as much as he did 
when the two soldiers began their 
relationship.

Rank was an issue. The brigadier was Colonel 
Vashti's commanding officer. He had power 
over the colonel's career that he could 
exercise if he was so inclined, but his 
command extended to all the soldiers on the 
mission even though he wouldn't actually be 
accompanying them on the Intrepid. He would 
remain with Mission Control on the Moon.

It was unusual for the brigadier not to 
invite over one or two other men to enhance 
the lovemaking between the two senior 
officers. Even though he spoke to the 
defeated wrestler and gave his penis a 
consolatory tug, he didn't invite either the 
defeated Iron Punk or the victorious Steam 
Hammer back to his apartment. Instead he put 
his arm firmly round Vashti's waist and 
guided her back. The brigadier's apartment 
was several kilometres away from the 
wrestling arena and also well outside the 
main training camp where the colonel and most 
soldiers were based.

The two soldiers climbed into the brigadier's 
car and settled down in their seats while the 
car glided over the plains and grasslands of 
the Pynchon colony to the senior officers' 
quarters where brigadiers would normally 
associate only with military men and women of 
similar or greater military rank. The 
brigadier still had to maintain a high level 
of discretion in what he said even in the 
company of generals, admirals and wing 
commanders. Very few military personnel of 
even the most senior rank on the military 
colony were aware of the nature of the Space 
Ship Intrepid's mission.

"Why did you ask me back, sir?" asked Colonel 
Vashti when it was clear that the brigadier's 
stamina had finally flagged. "It wasn't only 
for a fuck, was it?"

"What's wrong with just a fuck, soldier?" 
asked the brigadier. "What more could a man 
want?"

"You tell me, sir," said the colonel.

"Okay, colonel," said the brigadier. "You 
know me too well. It's a delicate matter 
however. I'm not sure I know how to express 
it. Are you, as one might say, special?"

"Special, sir?" asked the colonel. She raised 
herself onto her knees and grasped her penis 
which still wasn't as limp and flaccid as the 
poor brigadier's. "I would say that this 
makes me a fair candidate as someone 
special."

"Well, colonel," said Brigadier Svenssen. "I 
would like to be exceptionally discreet. Are 
you special in the sense that you were born 
the way you are?"

"I've always been like this, sir," said 
Colonel Vashti with no apparent sign of 
understanding what the brigadier meant.

"Alright, colonel," said Brigadier Svenssen. 
"I don't want you to implicate yourself; at 
least not without having the assurance that 
you won't be judged harshly for it. I'll be 
honest with you and I don't want this to go 
beyond these four walls. The fact is that I 
am special. I'm one of the special ones whose 
ancestors were genetically enhanced. I was 
born with features that were more engineered 
than evolved."

"Surely most of us today have gone beyond 
evolution, sir," said the colonel. "We live 
to more than a hundred years. Our bodies are 
repaired over and over again until they're 
hardly at all what we were born with."

"Don't talk like an idiot, soldier," said the 
brigadier with a flash of genuine anger. "You 
know exactly what I'm saying. You don't have 
to be disingenuous with me. Are you special? 
Are you one of those who are supposed to have 
been hunted to extinction, but still exist?"

"I can't be sure, sir," said the colonel, 
although in truth she was absolutely certain 
of what she was. "Do you think that because I 
have a cock rather than a cunt that my 
ancestry has been influenced by the genetic 
enhancement of the twenty-sixth century? I 
thought that after the Jovian wars and the 
mutant pogrom that those special ones who 
weren't slaughtered or were sterilised."

"Those were brutal days, colonel," said the 
brigadier. "What civilised society could 
suppress so prejudicially what it created? 
But it's left a legacy that's lasted well 
over a thousand years. People created from 
gene-splicing and gene-ripping are no longer 
accepted throughout the Solar System. It's 
intended to protect human rights. It's now 
considered immoral to create people for a 
particular purpose and to use genes taken 
from other animals or even artificially 
sequenced DNA to make mutant human beings. 
But, naturally, not all those created so long 
ago or those created clandestinely since have 
been eliminated."

"How do you know you're special, sir?" 

"My parents were, colonel," said Brigadier 
Svenssen. "Their parents were. And so, too, 
back through the generations. I am stronger, 
fitter, more sexually active, more 
intelligent, faster and less likely to ever 
fall ill than other people. This isn't only 
because I take advantage of the excellent 
medical facilities in the Interplanetary 
Union, but because I was born that way."

"And why do you think I might also be 
special, sir?" Colonel Vashti asked.

"It's not just because of your genital 
peculiarity, colonel," said the brigadier, 
"although that is clearly a pointer. Many 
special people have peculiarities, of which 
yours is probably the most delightful and, to 
me, abundantly useful."

"What else makes you think so, sir?"

"I've watched you closely, colonel. I've 
spoken with you. I've fucked you. You're not 
like most people, colonel. You're more adept 
to anyone else in almost every way. You are 
smarter, stronger and fitter than me. You 
even fuck better than me and I never thought 
that was possible. You're superhuman just 
like I am."

"Can't it be just within the normal range of 
possibilities, sir?"

"That's the fiction that protects me and 
other special people, colonel," said the 
brigadier thoughtfully. "Thankfully nature is 
so imprecise that it can naturally create 
people who are much better endowed than 
anyone else. But I know that I fall outside 
the normal range and that's why I'm sure you 
do too."

"I don't think I can be certain of the truth 
of that, sir. I've heard of the various 
genetically enhanced people in the Solar 
System but I've never thought of myself as 
being one of them."

"I find that difficult to believe, colonel," 
said the brigadier. "However, I've also done 
some research on you in the confidential 
files."

"You have, sir?"

"You originally came from Earth just about 
thirty years ago. You then became a soldier 
for the Mariner Federation where you've done 
excellent service for a very long time. There 
is very little recorded about your time on 
Earth, colonel. What happened before then?"

"Nothing very special, sir."

"Well, there's no way to confirm or deny 
that, colonel. The records about you on Earth 
are surprisingly scanty. It's almost as if 
you didn't exist. There are many hiatuses in 
your records after then as well, but warfare 
has many casualties that also included the 
computer facilities where your records were 
stored."

"I assure you, sir, that I don't personally 
believe that I am one of the special ones."

"Perhaps not, colonel," said the brigadier 
who was perhaps hoping for a more conclusive 
end to his conversation. "I think you are 
though. It's possible that you just don't 
recognise it in yourself."

"Nonetheless, sir," said Colonel Vashti, with 
a broad grin on her face, "you are special. 
And now that you've told me that I would 
dearly love to knowingly fuck a special man's 
arse."

"Fucking hell, colonel! Your prick's already 
as stiff as a fucking flagpole. You must be 
special to be able to get a hard-on so 
quickly."

"I don't know about that, sir," said Colonel 
Vashti. "I think I just want to fuck your 
arse again. It's so fucking gorgeous!"

Brigadier Svenssen smiled. Colonel Vashti had 
such a winning way with words. How could he 
resist her?

Chapter Seven
Ecstasy - 3735 C.E.

There wasn't much that Beatrice ever actually 
needed. She didn't need to eat. She didn't 
need to sleep. She didn't really need 
anything apart from a regular and constant 
supply of sexual partners and there was no 
likelihood that she'd ever run short of that. 
But she did need a cover. Humans weren't 
supposed to be able to survive for long 
without food or shelter, so Beatrice had to 
provide evidence that she had the fiscal 
means to survive even though she'd long since 
completely exhausted her savings. 

Fortunately, Ecstasy was a colony that 
provided many opportunities for a girl like 
Beatrice to make a living and unlike most 
colonies, moons or planets within the Solar 
System these credits could be earned without 
the requirement to declare its source. The 
black economy thrived on Ecstasy and the 
space colony's administrators saw no reason 
to throttle a profitable revenue stream 
despite the inevitable protests from other 
more ethical members of the Interplanetary 
Union. 

Within days of arriving on Ecstasy, Beatrice 
had found both an apartment and a steady 
stream of lovers. Some paid for the privilege 
while others had it for free. None of them 
made love in Beatrice's apartment. In fact 
she hardly used it at all. And when she did, 
it wasn't because she needed to sleep.

Beatrice soon determined where she was 
welcome and where she wasn't. She was always 
welcome where she could spend money and there 
were many such places when she'd established 
a regular revenue stream. It wasn't that she 
needed to buy expensive clothes, jewellery or 
electrical goods, but it was expected of her 
and she got gratification from investigating 
these and other human foibles. The boutiques 
and stores where such things were sold were 
also excellent places for meeting people with 
whom she could have sex. This was especially 
so with regards to other women.

At first Beatrice wondered whether there was 
a more efficient way to service her revenue 
stream than by selling sexual services. She 
considered trading in illegal drugs, but 
although she could accurately analyse their 
chemical signature they had no appreciable 
effect on her. As a result, this wasn't a 
trade she could actively pursue with the 
utmost confidence. She also considered theft 
as a plausible alternative revenue stream, 
but this conflicted with the imperative that 
she shouldn't attract unnecessary attention 
from either the legitimate police force or 
those who exercised territorial law 
enforcement rights by unlawful means. There 
were many criminal gangs operating on Ecstasy 
but Beatrice had no wish to be involved with 
them. Nevertheless, it was a simple matter 
for Beatrice to snatch wallets, jewellery and 
even offensive weapons from criminals without 
them being aware and it was a generally more 
prudent policy to practise theft on people 
who were unlikely to contact Ecstasy's police 
force. If Beatrice happened to be noticed by 
the person she was robbing, she was both 
efficient and effective in ensuring that they 
were physically incapable of imparting this 
information. Although murder was easier than 
theft, it had to be done with due care and 
attention. However, few people would ever 
imagine that a girl with expensive shopping 
habits who made a living by selling her body 
could also detach a head from its shoulders 
or smash the brains out against a brick wall.

"You don't understand, doll," said the tall 
well-dressed man with a menacing glint in his 
eyes. "I may not be the proprietor of this 
joint but I own it and everyone who operates 
from its premises."

This exchange was in the Tartan Retreat: a 
Scottish theme pub on the twentieth floor of 
the seventh level. All around were artefacts 
and memorabilia that marked three millennia 
of Scottish history but which mostly 
exhibited a landscape of rugged golf courses 
populated by highland warriors. Unlike the 
staff and waiters, the man who addressed 
Beatrice was wearing no tartan at all. The 
suit he wore was an exquisite import from the 
Trojan Asteroids that Beatrice recognised 
from her frequent visits to the most 
exclusive boutiques.

"Is that so?" asked Beatrice as she tried to 
decide on an appropriate response. She 
couldn't tell him to go fuck himself. If he 
were to react as Beatrice expected she would 
then become a fugitive from the law after 
defending herself by punching a hole through 
his chest. "What do you propose?"

"A modest amount, doll. I'm a considerate 
man. Twenty percent. That's all."

"Twenty percent of what?"

"Twenty percent of what I expect you to bring 
in each night."

"And how much is that?"

The man spread his fingers. "That's in 
hundreds in case you didn't know."

Beatrice nodded. This wasn't an arrangement 
she wanted to be party to. It wasn't that she 
couldn't afford it. What troubled her was the 
consequence of entering into any agreement of 
this kind with a human. There really was only 
one solution.

"You could have demanded so much more," she 
said teasingly.

"Really, doll?" said Beatrice's prospective 
pimp. "It is a percentage. I expect complete 
honesty from you."

"And what should I call you?"

"Al. That's my name. Al."

"Nice name, Al. Is there any way I can 
negotiate with you? Can I cut a better deal? 
For myself, of course."

"What do you propose, doll?"

"Oh I don't know," said Beatrice as she 
placed a tentative hand on his crotch. "I'm 
sure there's somewhere else we can discuss it 
in more privacy."

"And when would that be, doll?" 

"No time like the present, Al."

"I know a place, sweetheart." 

The two of them left the pub, with Beatrice 
threading an arm through Al's and gazing up 
at him in a way that she knew would be 
interpreted as a seductive smile. They made 
an unexceptional couple for this district of 
Ecstasy. Al was wearing an expensive suit and 
Beatrice was resplendent in a wealth of silk 
and satin that was worn only by woman with 
means or those trying to attract the 
attention of men of such wealth.

Beatrice would never return to the Tartan 
Retreat again. It had now become one of 
several haunts she would now avoid. This 
wasn't because she was frightened of meeting 
Al again, though if she did so it would 
indeed be a shock. She had smashed his head 
so hard against the wall that the force had 
splattered fragments of brain and bone all 
over the bank of the dimly-lit ornamental 
canal. She pushed his body to the bottom of 
the water which also served to wash the blood 
off her bare arms. She was careful to ensure 
that there were no stains on her expensive 
dress. She could easily explain away dirt or 
dust when she next took it to the 
drycleaners, but blood was another matter.

She had no intention of being obligated to 
individuals like Al and there was no better 
way of eliminating the problem. She was sure 
that there were many others who were also 
quite pleased that he would never again haunt 
the Tartan Retreat, judging from the 
apprehensive, even fearful, expressions on 
the faces of the other women in the pub, but 
Beatrice was no vigilante. It wasn't in her 
interest to reduce the incidence of organised 
crime on Ecstasy, although it was most 
definitely in her interest not to be beholden 
to it. If she'd chosen to inoculate the 
colony of organised crime she would be 
constantly busy and her cover would soon be 
blown.

Beatrice frequently moved around from place 
to place during the decade or so in which she 
lived in Ecstasy. She would be a regular 
presence at one haunt for a while where she 
would steadily build up a reputation and a 
set of regular clientele. In that time she 
would have new lovers, make new friends and 
gain a reputation for reliability. The venues 
she frequented were all much the same: night 
clubs, pubs, strip bars, even private 
brothels. Wherever she could earn money from 
sex and meet new lovers.

Sometimes she questioned her chosen career. 
Couldn't someone with her skills and 
abilities be better employed elsewhere? 
Couldn't she work in a university or as an 
administrator or in a role more useful to 
human civilisation? She was several times 
more intelligent than any human being. She 
was much stronger, faster and adaptable than 
any biological life-form. There were so many 
ways in which she could make an appreciable 
difference. Instead, her role was to 
parasitically cream off some of the profits 
made by the wealthier residents of Ecstasy 
and the tourists from elsewhere in the Solar 
System

"You're not on Ecstasy to serve humanity," 
she was told. 

This made sense but Beatrice still wondered 
why she'd been assigned such a demeaning 
role. She could easily have been programmed 
with a much more reduced libido and assigned 
to work as a spy in a military or government 
organisation, but she was informed that there 
was no shortage of androids in such roles. 
Her duty was to remain where she was far out 
in deep space at a popular intersection 
between the outer planets and the Kuiper 
Belt. 

Although Ecstasy was a useful meeting point, 
it was undoubtedly remote. There were many 
more colonies and settlements much closer to 
the Sun. The Solar System was sparsely 
populated out here. Ecstasy's primary role as 
a pleasure resort was to relieve the tedium 
associated with this isolation. There were 
several other such resorts scattered about 
the Kuiper Belt, but they were spread widely 
apart at a radius of five trillion kilometres 
from the Sun and much the same distance from 
one another.

Beatrice's profession in the sex industry put 
her in the ideal position to meet new people 
although there were very few that she'd 
otherwise have chosen to get to know so 
intimately.

"I don't understand why you do it, Bea," said 
Gudrun who was one of Beatrice's current 
lovers and worked with her at the Missa 
Solemnis. 

"I'm a good dancer," said Beatrice. She was 
referring to what she was ostensibly employed 
to do which was to gyrate about a small stage 
in a provocative fashion either in the nude 
or in clothes that left nothing to the 
imagination.

"That's true, Bea," said Gudrun. "But for 
most of us girls that's almost all we're good 
for. You can do anything you want."

Gudrun was a woman of such mixed ancestry 
that it would have been difficult enough to 
determine what they were if she hadn't also 
adopted the fashion for body enhancement that 
made her skin reflective like glass and her 
hair cascade in silver coils over her face 
and shoulders. Beatrice not only enjoyed 
making love to her, she liked to regard her 
face reflected on her skin. When she gazed on 
Gudrun's face, it wasn't only her image in 
her lover's eyes that was reflected back at 
her.

"This is what I like to do," said Beatrice. 

"I'd give anything to do something else for a 
living," said Gudrun. "I've been an exotic 
dancer for thirty or forty years. I can see 
myself doing the same thing for the next 
forty years or so. Every night on the podium. 
Every night fucking three or four different 
guys."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"You're the only one I actually enjoy having 
sex with, Bea," said Gudrun. "The others I 
could leave tomorrow. Sex is mostly just a 
job for me."

"Surely you enjoy it a little bit," said 
Beatrice who couldn't really understand why 
someone might not get pleasure from even the 
most inadequate penis or the most inept 
fumbling.

"I might have done so once upon a time. But 
that was when the men and women I had sex 
with were people of my own choosing. Nowadays 
I just go through the motions. I get the men 
aroused as quickly as I can to get the whole 
thing over as soon as possible. How can you 
continue to enjoy it? I don't see how that's 
possible. Some men are real bastards."

"You don't have to go with all of them," 
Beatrice reminded her lover. Of course, what 
she couldn't tell Gudrun was that if any of 
her clients caused her trouble she could 
easily overpower and, if need be, ensure that 
they would never behave badly with another 
girl ever again.

"If I only went with a client because I 
wanted to," said Gudrun sadly, "then I'd be 
out of business."

Beatrice didn't want to admit it, but she 
also sometimes yearned for a change. It was 
the sheer tedium of her job that she 
disliked. She was tired of year in and year 
out having intimate carnal knowledge with so 
many men and occasionally women who for one 
reason or another felt the need for sex with 
no commitments and were often overburdened by 
guilt. The tourists often just wanted to get 
the sexual release that they couldn't get so 
easily at home. This was inevitable since the 
population of most space colonies numbered 
only a few million and sometimes only in the 
hundreds of thousands. Most colonies were 
only a few tens of kilometres in extent and 
often provided no facilities whatsoever for 
anonymous sex. Indeed, some colonies had 
ethical codes and practices that made it 
virtually impossible for men or women to ever 
enjoy sex unless they happened to be in a 
socially approved relationship. 

However worthy the service that Beatrice was 
providing for the sexually starved and 
sexually inadequate of the Kuiper Belt, she 
looked forward to the day that must happen 
when she would be delivering on the promise 
of her manufacture. Gudrun was right.  
Beatrice could do much more than gyrate 
seductively in front of an audience to the 
sound of electronic music while other 
hostesses were sucking penises and less 
wealthy clients gathered nervously around the 
bar. Beatrice could do much more than bring 
men and women to orgasm in the hope of a 
better tip. 

Beatrice was determined to do her best when 
the call to service finally came. She would 
show the administrators of Proxima Centauri 
that monitored her every conversation, her 
every transaction and her every fuck that she 
was worthy of their investment. She would at 
last be able to use those talents that were 
wasted in the sex industry.

So day after day, Beatrice lived a life of 
gilded boredom waiting for the time, whenever 
it might be, that she would serve on a 
mission of true value. 

Proxima Centauri wouldn't be disappointed in 
her.



Chapter Eight
Aladdin - 3753 C.E.

When Captain Kerensky was offered the 
opportunity to be captain of an 
Interplanetary Space Ship, she welcomed it 
full-heartedly. It was exactly the 
distraction she needed so soon after the 
messy fallout accompanying her divorce from 
Veronika. The heartache and acrimony that 
accompanied their separation had driven 
Nadezhda to the psychotherapist's couch for 
the first time in her life. She'd been 
anxious whether this admission of human 
frailty might lessen her eligibility for such 
a responsible role, but it was made clear to 
her that no one in the Socialist Republics' 
Interplanetary Merchant Navy was better 
qualified or, more to the point, more 
immediately available. Her unsurpassed 
experience of shipping freight to and from 
the Oort Cloud was ideal for a mission to 
such a remote location in the Solar System.

Captain Kerensky's delight was compromised, 
however, when she discovered that she was to 
be captain of an antique space ship, the 
Intrepid, and, furthermore, that the mission 
had such an ill-defined objective. The 
expedition was in the company of an 
international militia who were prepared to 
defend the space ship against any eventuality 
but were just as ignorant as Nadezhda as to 
what those risks might be. The captain was no 
more satisfied than anyone else with what she 
was told about the nature of the ship's 
destination. Could it really be true that no 
one knew what the Anomaly might be?

"Surely there must be a better account of the 
mission's destination than what you've just 
told me, sir?" Captain Kerensky remarked to 
Admiral Collins after he'd briefed her.

"I've told you not only all that I'm 
permitted to tell but all that I actually do 
know," the Admiral admitted. "This truly is a 
mission into the unknown."

"But if you don't mind me asking, sir," 
Captain Kerensky persisted, "why has it been 
decided to send a manned expedition to such a 
remote location given the high risk and the 
huge expense? The Anomaly is as far away as 
it's possible to be in the Solar System from 
a colony or space station, so there is no 
possible way to refuel or re-equip the ship. 
Why not send a robot-controlled mission? And 
why is it even necessary to travel such a 
vast distance given that modern telescopes 
can study planets at the edge of the galaxy?"

"These are all valid, captain," the Admiral 
conceded. "Don't think that I haven't asked 
the very same questions. All I know is that 
whatever secret the Anomaly hides cannot be 
observed from a distance. In fact, there's 
some doubt whether it's composed of matter or 
energy at all. Several robotic missions have 
been dispatched to the Anomaly but not one 
has sent back any useful data."

"Is it likely that a manned mission would be 
any more successful?" 

"I don't know. There is an opinion that there 
may be some intelligence associated with the 
Anomaly and that human contact is exactly 
what it expects. The fear is that if nothing 
is done then the entire Solar System may be 
in peril."

"How can that be, sir? The Apparitions that 
some people associate with the Anomaly have 
generally been benign. However mysterious 
they might be, they're unlikely to do as much 
harm as, for instance, a full scale war 
between the Socialist Republics and any other 
advanced nation within the Solar System."

"Not every Apparitions has been harmless, 
captain," the Admiral reminded Nadezhda. 
"Although fewer than a few thousand lives 
have been lost, their frequency of occurrence 
has been steadily increasing over the last 
century and there's always a possibility that 
there might be one in the future whose affect 
will be truly catastrophic."

"In what way, sir?" 

"Some of the more dangerous exotic 
Apparitions have been kept secret from the 
general public," the Admiral confided, "but 
the plasma cloud and the asteroid incursion 
are fairly well-known. Some of the others, 
like the ball of hot fire spotted in one of 
Titan's seas, the Higgs boson agglomeration, 
the brief appearance of an antimatter space 
craft and other such anomalies are equally 
troubling. We have no idea what the maximum 
extent in scale or duration of the 
apparitions might be, any more than we know 
of their composition. The short-lived 
appearance of a neutron star or black hole, 
for instance, would have a major adverse 
impact across the entire Solar System. It 
would be enough to dislodge colonies and 
asteroids from their orbits and bring about 
the death of hundreds of millions or even 
billions of people."

"I still don't understand why a fully-manned 
Interplanetary space ship is needed, sir. The 
mission is incalculably expensive and there 
is no measure by which to assess whether it 
will be a success."

"I'm sure the accountants have made their 
case as to why the mission shouldn't go 
ahead, captain. My private theory is that the 
cost of the mission is justified by the 
belief that the Anomaly might very well be 
the long sought after and equally long 
dreaded first contact with an alien 
intelligence. Why else does the scientific 
crew include not only cosmologists and 
geologists, but also linguists, biologists 
and computer scientists?"

"There have been missions to establish 
contact with intelligent alien life forms 
from the very earliest days of space travel, 
sir. Probes have travelled as far away as a 
hundred light years. And in all that time 
there's been no evidence for any alien life-
form larger than a microbe."

"That is true, captain," said the Admiral. "I 
am bound to speculate as you do whether the 
failure to discover alien intelligence means 
there is none at all or whether it has simply 
avoided contact with our civilisation. For 
instance, it does seem strange that despite 
all the missions sent to other star systems 
there is an apparent disparity between the 
promising signatures of possible intelligent 
or at least organised activity identified 
from a distance and the total lack of such 
evidence when the probes arrive. It's almost 
as if the probes were intercepted and then 
sabotaged to send back only what would suit 
an alien intelligence eager to hide its 
existence."

Captain Kerensky sniffed. She'd heard so many 
conspiracy theories in her life and they were 
all just too absurd to be true. She was sure 
that if the Anomaly was evidence of alien 
intelligence, it was unlikely to come from 
the neighbouring star systems. Any aliens 
that lived there would face the same problems 
encountered by the human race in travelling 
across interstellar space where there was no 
opportunity to refuel and where even a modern 
lifespan wasn't long enough to survive the 
journey's duration.

Even the journey to the Space Ship Intrepid 
took the best part of a year. Captain 
Kerensky had to travel closer to the Sun than 
she'd ever been before. She'd never before 
travelled as far inwards as Martian orbit, 
but this time she travelled as far as Earth 
where the Sun was uncomfortably large and the 
space lanes frighteningly congested. The 
space ship that carried her in the last month 
of her journey travelled at a relatively 
leisurely pace to avoid space traffic and she 
had to spend several weeks on the Moon until 
a shuttle was arranged to transport her and 
her crew to the space ship of which she was 
to be captain.

Nadezhda had no complaints about the quality 
of accommodation she enjoyed on the Space 
Ship Aladdin that transported her and several 
hundred others to the venerable Space Ship 
Intrepid that was circling in an orbit 
exactly parallel to the Earth at a light hour 
to the Solar System's plane. However, she was 
impatient to take up her role and 
uncomfortable being just a passenger of the 
luxury cruiser. She might enjoy special 
privileges, such as being able to sit on the 
captain's dining table, but her only 
professional duty was to study the Space Ship 
Intrepid's technical specifications.

She did have the opportunity to get to know 
members of her future crew, which on the 
Aladdin included a medical officer, a 
boatswain, an engineer and a sports and 
social secretary. However, it was with the 
military officers that Captain Kerensky felt 
most at ease. Although she'd spent most of 
her interplanetary career aboard merchant 
shipping, she was first and foremost a 
military officer even though the Socialist 
Republics' pacifist policies had spared her 
the need to engage in actual military combat.

Although Captain Kerensky had travelled to 
the furthest edge of the Solar System and had 
got to know the Oort Cloud rather better than 
most of the few million people who lived in 
its sparsely populated orbit, she'd spent 
most of her long career in the company of 
other Saturnians. She took for granted the 
ethics that governed a Socialist society 
(even though its accommodation with the most 
aggressive capitalist economy in the Solar 
System often seemed at odds with its stated 
principles) and most of all she accepted as 
normal that the best kind of relationship was 
that between two people of the same sex. 
She'd never once contemplated a relationship 
with a man. She was content to leave such 
doubtful pleasures to other men. 

There were very few Saturnians on the 
Aladdin. The crew and passengers came from 
all over the Interplanetary Union: from the 
orbits of the eight planets, the Asteroids, 
the Kuiper Belt and the intraplanetary 
colonies. The captain was naturally drawn 
towards those who came from Mars and the 
Asteroid Belt. They understood the discipline 
and rigour of a military life more than 
anyone. Although Nadezhda belonged to a very 
small minority in her own society, she was 
fascinated to discover that almost every 
Martian and a high proportion of those from 
the Asteroids (particularly those at war) had 
spent at least a year in compulsory military 
service. Such discipline and its attendant 
respect for authority was surely only for the 
good.

Captain Kerensky first observed Colonel 
Vashti from a distance, but she was 
immediately attracted to the woman. Those 
full thighs, that splendid bosom and, most of 
all, her height was exactly to her taste. The 
colonel possessed a sexual charisma that 
attracted the gaze of both women (which 
Nadezhda had no difficulty in understanding) 
and heterosexual men.

There was a distinct dampness in the 
captain's crotch as she watched Colonel 
Vashti stride across the ship's restaurant in 
the company of admirers of both gender. Her 
buttocks were so full that her tight trousers 
seemed almost about to split when she bent 
down to pour herself a cup of coffee from the 
vending machine. As the colonel wandered over 
to the table where the other Martian soldiers 
gathered, Nadezhda's heart beat almost 
audibly in synchrony with the ripple of the 
muscles in Vashti's thighs and calf. And when 
the colonel sat down, Nadezhda felt certain 
that her bright brown eyes had sought her out 
across the space between her and the 
captain's dining table. She was convinced 
that Colonel Vashti's smile was meant for 
her.

Captain Kerensky had many more occasions to 
appreciate Colonel Vashti's beauty. In fact, 
she actively sought out such opportunities. 
Although it wasn't a captain's duty to 
observe the Martian soldiers practise their 
drill or to examine their living quarters, 
she asked permission to do so. This was given 
with no reservation. The military officers 
were pleased that she should show concern for 
the welfare of the soldiers. 

Every time Nadezhda saw Colonel Vashti, she 
was struck by the Martian's beauty. She was 
tall. She was strong. And above all she was 
sexy. When the colonel leapt an improbable 
height to drop the basketball into the net, 
Captain Kerensky gasped not just in 
appreciation of her skill but also at the 
tautness of her frame. When the colonel 
demonstrated her skill on the firing range, 
hitting every one of the targets with 
impossible accuracy, it was the recoil that 
shimmered through her body that Nadezhda most 
appreciated. When in a game of Rugby Football 
Colonel Vashti fought her way through a scrum 
of male bodies to collapse over the line with 
the ball clasped to her soft but voluptuous 
bosom, Nadezhda marvelled at how well mud and 
sweat agreed with her light brown flesh. If 
only she'd been one of those in the scrum 
that were pressed against her hard sensual 
muscularity.

Nadezhda was troubled more than she imagined 
possible when Colonel Vashti presented 
herself naked during swimming practise. It 
was true that she appreciated the colonel's 
exemplary skill in speeding across the length 
of the pool far faster than the other 
swimmers and, rather more so, enjoyed the 
contraction and expansion of the muscles that 
powered her swimming.  The captain's crotch 
was moistened more than it had ever been by 
the well-worn vibrator in her bedroom. What 
alarmed Nadezhda was the penis that slapped 
first against one thigh as she strode across 
the swimming pool's tiles and then, with the 
next step, slapped against the other thigh. 
Never before had Captain Kerensky observed a 
penis with so much interest and fascination.

In common with most lesbians, whether from a 
predominantly homosexual society as the 
Saturnian Socialist Republics or from the 
heterosexual societies that dominated the 
Solar System, Captain Kerensky assumed that 
as the penis was the most defining masculine 
attribute of a man it was also the very thing 
that most defined her sexual preference. 
Surely it was the absence of such a 
monstrosity that attracted Nadezhda to women 
rather than men. Yet here was a woman whose 
body attracted her in a way that none had 
since her adolescence and its accompanying 
sexual promiscuity. She wrestled with her 
thoughts as her vibrator agitated her labia 
minora during her nightly masturbation before 
she eventually collapsed under the comfort of 
her sheets. What troubled the captain was 
that the image in her mind of that penis 
slapping against those all too feminine 
thighs enhanced rather than inhibited the 
orgasm that shook through her body. It left 
her more sexually exhausted than making love 
with her medical officer could ever do.

Nadezhda hadn't led a celibate life since she 
had divorced Veronika. In fact, she'd had 
more sexual partners in the last year than 
she'd had in the previous twenty when she'd 
been reluctant to take advantage of the many 
opportunities for infidelity that was 
attendant on active service in deep space. 
She'd loved Veronika and believed that her 
love and fidelity were exactly reciprocated. 
Nadezhda was devastated when she discovered 
that Veronika was the unfaithful partner, and 
with a man no less. The end of their 
relationship was inevitable despite 
Nadezhda's best efforts at reconciliation 
where she even practised the use of a strap-
on dildo as an attempt to demonstrate to her 
wife that it wasn't only men who could fuck 
with an erect appendage. And the comfort 
she'd sought in the arms of her boatswain 
badly compromised any chance of an 
advantageous settlement.

It was true that Mariam, the medical officer 
from Uranus, was a delightful woman. Nadezhda 
soon came to appreciate the strangeness of 
the long hair that cascaded over her 
shoulders and the thick curly black hair 
about her crotch. She was also small and 
frail as was the fashion in her colony with 
dark brown freckles sprinkling the black skin 
around her nose and shoulders. But however 
well Mariam practised the amatory arts, she 
lacked the Colonel Vashti's magnetic erotic 
aura and, furthermore, as a woman whose first 
preference was for men rather than women her 
sexual technique exceeded the depth of her 
passion.

It was a mystery to Nadezhda that so many 
women had a preference for men over women and 
she felt wounded whenever her amorous 
advances were rebuffed for that reason. It 
puzzled her. Just what was it that these non-
Saturnian women found so attractive in men? 
Some men even paraded their masculinity by 
growing a beard or moustache. As if hair on 
the head or the groin wasn't bad enough! At 
least women couldn't offend Nadezhda's 
sensibilities in such a blatant way.

What would normally most offend Captain 
Kerensky was the sight of a penis and yet, 
after that first sight in the swimming pool, 
it was Colonel Vashti's penis she was most 
eager to see again. Perhaps she was just 
drawn by voyeuristic curiosity, but 
Nadezhda's gaze forever wandered towards the 
colonel's crotch. 

When the captain first spoke to the colonel 
it wasn't in a gym nor in the swimming pool, 
but in the sauna. Nadezhda was lying down on 
a wooden bench and luxuriated in steam while 
reading a novel she'd downloaded from the 
extensive library housed on the bohemian 
space colony of Dostoëvsky.  Her long voyages 
in space had given the captain much 
opportunity to pursue the relatively 
eccentric hobby of reading fiction. She had a 
particular fascination in third millennium 
fiction, sometimes even reading novels from 
as far back as the nineteenth century when 
space travel was a fantasy and Saturn nothing 
more than a blob seen through an optical 
telescope. Nevertheless, she wasn't reading 
Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy or even James Joyce. 
The novel she was reading was a little-known 
one from the twenty-third century by an 
author who'd spent her entire life in the 
Asteroid Belt, which in those days was about 
as remote as a human settlement ever got to 
be. It was fascinating to read about lives 
governed by low gravity and the very real 
risk of cosmic radiation and crop failure. 
These were truly dangerous days, even though 
the characters in New Byzantium led a life of 
veritable luxury compared to the souls she'd 
read about in the twentieth and twenty-first 
centuries.

"So you like Marilyn Wong?" asked a woman's 
voice that had the peculiar guttural Martian 
accent Nadezhda was only beginning to get 
used to.

"She was a pioneer in lesbian fiction in her 
century," said the captain, as she employed a 
rather obvious line to appraise the sexual 
predilections of the woman who spoke to her. 
She raised her head and looked across the 
chamber to see that the naked woman who'd 
spoken to her was in one singular detail a 
very unusual sight in a women-only sauna. The 
captain was both delighted and terrified to 
see that she had been addressed by Colonel 
Vashti who looked all the more beautiful 
without clothing or even a towel draped 
around her waist.

The colonel's long black hair, with a faint 
tinge of brown, cascaded over her shoulders 
and over the arm that supported her weight at 
the elbow. Her legs trailed over the wooden 
slats and were slightly parted so that the 
captain could observe at leisure the thick 
penis that slumped onto one thigh. Nadezhda 
noticed with approval that her crotch was 
shaved as smooth as any Saturnian's. Indeed, 
except for the hair on her head and the 
slight shadow on her arms, there was no hint 
of hair on the colonel's body at all.

"I've also read Marilyn Wong," said the 
colonel with a broad smile that revealed 
brilliantly white teeth between thick lips 
that were an odd contrast to her straight 
thin nose. "She has an interesting way with 
language. Her style is remarkably adventurous 
without being obscure. She certainly captures 
an age when space colonisation was always on 
the edge of disaster. Hers was quite 
definitely an interesting age."

After nearly a century of space travel, 
Nadezhda had never once met anyone with more 
than the most second-hand acquaintance with 
the novels of Marilyn Wong, or even, as it 
happened, Rika Goldstein, Khadija Nkome or 
Sarah Waters. And here she was with a woman 
remarkably well-acquainted with the great 
lesbian writers from an age when 
heterosexuality was the norm, as well as 
representatives from the rather larger canon 
of lesbian fiction in the Socialist 
Republic's four hundred year history. (Not to 
mention those from the exclusively female 
colonies of Sappho and Hepburn.)

Ancient literature wasn't the only thing in 
which Colonel Vashti was remarkably well-
versed. She had an intimate understanding of 
the beauty inherent in the scattered comets 
of the Oort Cloud, a deep appreciation of the 
hazards of navigating around the widely 
spaced satellites in the Kuiper Belt, and a 
fascination with the discipline of space 
navigation where colonies were spaced light 
hours apart. She also had a love of sports 
even as archaic as baseball and cricket. For 
someone who'd never been to the Socialist 
Republics, she demonstrated an almost 
encyclopaedic knowledge of Saturnian culture 
and history. She expressed knowledgeable 
opinions on the open debate in the Duma 
regarding the rights of heterosexuals and 
whether they should be permitted the natural 
birth and pregnancy that most Saturnians 
understandably viewed with distaste. How 
could anyone from a war-torn Martian colony 
with such a long history of repression of 
socialist and anti-capitalist ideologies be 
so remarkably knowledgeable? It had been a 
long time since Captain Kerensky had enjoyed 
such a rewarding and wide-ranging discussion. 
Even Veronika had no comprehension of the 
awesomeness of deep space and she'd never 
read any literature at all.

All the while, the penis between the 
colonel's thighs continued to fascinate 
Nadezhda as it slowly and steadily stiffened 
and eventually took on heroic proportions. It 
was as thick as the captain's grip and nearly 
half as long as her forearm. As she soon 
discovered when intercourse gradually shifted 
from the verbal kind, her penis was also warm 
and pulsating. She discovered how truly 
arousing was the rich aroma that assailed her 
nostrils as she ran her tongue and teeth 
along its length to the disgust of the other 
women in the sauna. 

Nadezhda had seen penises before but she'd 
never once touched let alone tasted one; and 
certainly not one so erect or one belonging 
to the body of such a totally desirable woman 
whose whole body tingled with exotic erotic 
passion. 

The sauna was too hot for the two women to 
continue their lovemaking in comfort, but 
Vashti led Nadezhda through the door to 
another room where there was a mattress and a 
welcome chill in the air. And it was there 
that the captain was fucked by a penis for 
the first time in her life. Contrary to her 
fears and expectations, it was an experience 
she very much enjoyed. Its flexibility and 
vitality were much more delightful than the 
dildos she'd so often thrust into her vagina. 
Her body shivered and trembled with repeated 
orgasms as the colonel fucked her with a 
persistence that surprised Nadezhda given 
that it was an organ whose fullness was 
determined by nothing more than blood pumping 
through its veins.

Finally the penis did what penises were meant 
to do: and that was to ejaculate. Nadezhda 
was curious to see what it would look like so 
as the first spasms of warm liquid leaked 
inside her, she swivelled her waist round and 
eased the organ out of the grasp of her vulva 
and held it in her hand. It was a very 
strange sight. The semen spurted out and onto 
her breasts with each successive spasm. It 
almost burnt against Nadezhda's white skin, 
while the viscous fluid trailed down her 
wrist and splattered on the sauna walls and 
floor.

Then the penis magically regained its girth 
and potency after having lost barely a third 
of its size in the release of its seed. It 
must have known that even now, despite its 
best efforts, Nadezhda's crotch was aching 
for more and it happily re-entered the moist 
passage that was eagerly awaiting its return.

"I hope we'll be able to repeat this on the 
Intrepid," said Nadezhda to the colonel as 
they lay legs entangled on the captain's bed 
many hours later. 

"Only the most pressing duty will keep me 
away from you, my sweetheart," said the 
colonel whose penis even now was on the edge 
of reawakening to a full erection. 

"It is only right that there should be some 
pleasure in the observance of duty," remarked 
the captain whose love life had suddenly and 
unexpectedly become much more fulfilling.

Chapter Nine
Ecstasy - 3750 C.E.

The lights that illuminated the bar shimmered 
and flashed to the thunderous rhythm of the 
electronic music that accompanied the nude 
dancing on the podium. A serving android with 
a voluptuous bosom and a prominent arse was 
collecting the empty glasses left behind on 
the counter. There weren't very many 
customers and these consisted mostly of 
prostitutes, which was the occupation most 
often adopted by female refugees from the 
war-torn Asteroid Belt or the more 
impoverished colonies in Jupiter's orbit. 
Scattered about the bar was a small number of 
tourists. And sitting on a bar stool and 
nursing a glass of locally produced wine that 
he'd ordered well over an hour before was a 
tall man with persistent stubble and a jacket 
made from real leather.

Lofty brusquely ignored the attention of the 
prostitutes and they returned his 
indifference in kind.  Perhaps he was more 
interested in men than women, although if 
that was so why should he pay a visit to 
Manu's bar in this twilight corner of 
Ecstasy? The homosexual district, mostly 
swarming with Saturnians, wasn't very far 
away. His pale blue eyes scanned the premises 
with intent interest. These were chilling 
eyes that betrayed no softness and matched 
well his chiselled features.

The bar door opened and Manu swept in with 
two male companions and three of his regular 
prostitutes. Judging from their thinness and 
pale brown skin, these were refugees from 
Vesta, the most ravaged of the Asteroids. 
Lofty lowered his head to regard the trace of 
red wine he'd left untouched for so long and 
sipped it slowly while his eyes carefully 
followed Manu and his comrades walk across 
the bar to the room at the back which was 
where the proprietor could most often be 
found. Only when the door slid shut did Lofty 
at last put down his empty glass and step 
down from the bar stool.

No one cared to watch as Lofty strode across 
the bar towards the same door through which 
Manu had entered. And no one noticed him aim 
a laser gun at the door's controls whose 
silent blast caused the door to slide open. 
It was only a few moments later that Lofty 
re-emerged from the room carrying a small bag 
with a barely noticeable rent in the sleeve 
of his leather jacket. He left the bar 
without comment while the women on the podium 
continued to dance and the prostitutes 
chatted with those male punters who were 
rather more susceptible than Lofty to their 
relatively inexpensive charms.

Nobody bothered to enter Manu's private room 
at the back of the bar for many more minutes. 
The first person to do so was Miharu who'd 
been biding her time all day for the 
opportunity to bargain with the delights of 
her body for a well-earned break from her 
duties and the opportunity to visit her 
children and husband in the crumbling slums 
on the sixteenth level. 

The first unusual thing she noticed was that 
the door to Manu's room had been vandalised 
and could be slid open manually. Although 
that was strange enough, even more peculiar 
was the sight of Manu and his five 
companions. Their bloodied bodies were 
slumped in the exact spots where they'd been 
dispatched. The only evidence of anything 
resembling a struggle was around Manu whose 
face was coated in blood and whose nose was a 
crumpled ruin. Worse still was that his hand 
and most of his lower arm had been severed by 
a single slash from what could only have been 
a laser gun.

Miharu took in the scene rather slowly. She 
was, after all, still very high on the drugs 
that made her working day bearable and she 
wasn't at all sure whether what she saw was 
real or a drug-fuelled fantasy. When she'd 
established that what she was witnessing was 
indeed the aftermath of an appallingly 
efficient slaughter, she decided not to 
attract anyone's attention to what she'd 
found. Instead, she rifled through the men's 
pockets. There was no point in doing the same 
for the women's. It was only when she was 
sure she'd taken everything of value that she 
left the room by a back entrance. She was 
quite content to leave someone else to the 
risky business—for a bar full of illegal 
immigrants—of notifying the space colony's 
overworked police force.

Lofty disposed of his laser gun in a 
recycling unit not far from the bar. He 
hardly cared at all that it was one designed 
specifically for paper and organic waste. He 
then continued to walk with no sign of 
anxiety, remorse or haste across the city 
streets towards the luxury apartments on 
Ecstasy's upper levels where Adrian Xerxes 
lived.

Xerxes much preferred to be known by the 
exotic surname by which he may or may not 
have been christened. And who would know? 
Like most of the prostitutes and criminal 
underworld living in Ecstasy his origins were 
far from the Kuiper Belt. 

His penthouse was one of the most luxurious 
in Ecstasy. The garden extended for several 
hectares at the very top of a monstrous tower 
block, almost within a hundred metres of the 
ceiling of the first, and therefore most 
exclusive, level of the city. 

Unlike Manu's residence, it wasn't easy for 
Lofty to gain admittance to Xerxes' 
penthouse. Even entering his exclusive 
escalator, which travelled uninterrupted from 
the ground floor to the top, wasn't 
straightforward. Robots couldn't be trusted 
to check that Lofty wasn't carrying lethal 
weaponry or, indeed, anything else which 
could be used as an assassination weapon. The 
women who guarded the escalator and as good 
as lived in it not only scanned Lofty with 
sophisticated equipment but stripped him of 
his clothes so that he was totally naked when 
he exited the escalator on the top floor. He 
carried only the bag which not long before 
had been squeezed in Manu's tight grip when 
Lofty relieved its previous owner not only of 
his bag but of the hand and much of the arm 
that had tried desperately to keep it in his 
possession. The worst thing about the whole 
encounter had been the sharp blade Manu's 
other hand managed to sneak out from his 
sleeve and with which he slashed Lofty's 
expensive real leather jacket. Chamois 
leather wasn't that easy to find in this part 
of the Solar System.

The only person in Xerxes' huge living room 
wearing any clothes was Xerxes himself. He 
was surrounded by several naked women and a 
pair of stern, exceptionally burly, male 
escorts who were entrusted with laser guns 
that were strapped to their wrists and 
forearms. Xerxes was also built well and 
showed no evidence that he was now living 
well into his second century. Even the 
unhealthy consequences of a life such as his 
that was dedicated to every conceivable 
species of debauchery and perversion—to which 
the bruised and battered body of a prostitute 
lying on the patio with her entrails sprawled 
about her bore uncomfortable witness—had been 
well remedied by hugely expensive life-
extending surgery.

"You have the bag?" Xerxes asked.

Lofty raised the hand in which he held the 
valuable object.

"Put it down on the floor and stand back," 
his boss ordered.

Lofty did as he was told, while one of the 
women, somehow more favoured than the others, 
stepped forward and opened the bag with a 
sophisticated tool that easily cracked the 
encrypted code that secured the bag's lock. 
She put in a hand and withdrew a small 
hexagonal box which she studied with a small 
pen-shaped monitor.

"It's seventy-five percent pure," she 
announced.

"Fuck!" said Xerxes angrily. "Seventy-five 
fucking percent! Hardly worth the effort of 
getting it."

"It's still likely to attract bids of at 
least a million credits," said the woman in a 
measured but cautious tone.

Despite her diplomacy, this reassurance 
earned her a sharp slap across the face which 
drew blood from her nose and upper lip. 
Xerxes rubbed his knuckles with grim 
satisfaction and studied the item inside the 
hexagonal box. 

"I was fucking hoping for at least ten 
million," he said angrily. "That Manu boasted 
it was ninety-five percent pure. He should 
have kept his fucking mouth shut. Then he'd 
still be alive and his whores could even now 
be serving him coke and fanny. What a cunt!"

Everyone in the room was quiet and even Lofty 
was anxious. Xerxes was a man who often took 
out his anger and disappointment on his 
immediate company. Even Lofty, after all 
these decades, had reason to fear Xerxes' 
temper. He'd seen the extent to which the 
man's sadistic urges could go to be 
satisfied, even if his cock hardened only 
very occasionally. One penalty that resulted 
from Xerxes' appetite for depravity was that 
even the most violent and murderous sexual 
acts were no longer guaranteed to bring him 
the sexual satisfaction he so avidly sought.

Xerxes sat down on the divan with a clink and 
a jangle from the thick gold and platinum 
jewellery that he wore not only on his body 
but in many places threaded into his flesh. 
He placed the hexagonal box carefully on the 
table in front of him and shook his head.

"Still," he said uncharacteristically 
reflectively. "A million credits are better 
than nothing at all. Thank you, Lofty. You 
did a good job."

Lofty could at last venture a smile, which on 
a face like his was still tinged with a hint 
of malice.

"I aim only to do my best, boss," he said 
modestly.

"I have another job for you," said Xerxes. 
"Shall we go outside into the garden?"

"Yes, boss," said Lofty obediently. 

Although it was something he rarely admitted 
even to himself, Lofty was as much tied to 
Xerxes' service as were his courtesans or 
prostitutes. If he were ever to attempt to 
leave Ecstasy or even just retire, it would 
only be a matter of time until he would be 
dead. It mightn't happen, however, for 
several years. His death would be prolonged, 
extremely painful and most certainly 
humiliating. He knew this for sure as he had 
several times been the emissary of such 
justice. Although he wasn't a man easily 
aroused by the punishment he meted out, 
especially when it was another man who was 
the victim, there was always a sexual element 
to it that very rarely accorded with what the 
victim might ever desire. It was a bizarre 
reward for service to the wealthiest gang 
leader on Ecstasy that the longer and more 
faithful the service given the more terrible 
the inevitable death would be. Xerxes was 
unlikely to be content with serving abrupt 
and relatively painless justice. Lofty had 
nailed men and women to ceilings. He had 
impaled them with garden implements. He had 
forced men to eat their genitals. Women to 
murder their own children. And roasted others 
on slowly burning spits.

"It's a small job," said Xerxes when he and 
Lofty were sitting on a bench in his 
extensive garden under the shade of a 
sycamore tree. 

Several parrots were resting on the branches. 
Deer were strolling about the lawn mindful as 
ever of the leopard that Xerxes chose to keep 
in their midst. The body of the recently 
murdered woman on the patio would keep the 
leopard and the huge domestic dogs well-fed 
when they were sure that she was properly 
dead, but the deer had every reason to fear 
that they would also soon be prey. Above 
their heads a small cloud passed by, but this 
would do nothing more than obscure the sight 
of the first level's ceiling. The rain that 
fell regularly on the garden came from the 
colony's internal sprinkler system and not 
from the clouds that resulted from its 
evaporation.

"How small?" wondered Lofty.

"It's just one guy," said Xerxes. "He's 
called Paul Morris. Weird name, but he comes 
from Godwin where they've all got weird 
names."

"Godwin?" said Lofty. "Never heard of it."

"Most people haven't," said Xerxes. "It's a 
kind of anarchist colony. No money. No 
government. Fuck all."

"No pickings there then," Lofty remarked.

"Load of fucking utopian idealists," said 
Xerxes dismissively. "Only a fucking idiot 
would try and do business with them. So, not 
surprisingly, not me nor anyone else in the 
family has a presence there. But this cunt's 
on his way here to Ecstasy. Short visit, 
mind. Then he's on his way to Saturn and 
even, I've heard, Earth. That's one place in 
the Solar System I've always wanted to go."

"And you haven't?"

"The fuckers won't let me," said Xerxes 
ruefully. His fame was as great as his 
criminal record and Earth was very choosy 
about the calibre of tourist it allowed on 
its surface, irrespective of however many 
billion credits that tourist might choose to 
spend.

"He won't make it to Earth, will he?" said 
Lofty. "The cunt won't even make it to 
Saturn."

"You've got the idea," said Xerxes 
approvingly. "What we want is a quick job. In 
and out. But no collateral. It's got to look 
like a professional job but fallout has got 
to be minimal. The more casualties other than 
this one little wanker and the less we'll 
get. They're using a sliding scale. Each 
extra death halves what we get."

"One death. No collateral. No problem."

"Good," said Xerxes. "You understand all you 
need."

"So, if the people paying for this are so 
squeamish they must be government, right?"

"Fuck if I know," admitted Xerxes. "This 
didn't come through the usual channels, you 
understand. But there's been enough upfront 
to convince me it's worth our while."

"And why's this guy gotta get whacked?" asked 
Lofty not unreasonably.

"Fuck knows. Why should I care? This is a 
strictly need-to-know job. Just make sure you 
bring back evidence of a job well done. Bring 
me the head of Paul Morris."

"Consider it done."

"Now, you're gonna stay awhile, aren't you? 
I've got some prime virgin meat on the menu. 
Should be plenty of blood. And not just the 
usual."

Lofty nodded. Although he had little appetite 
for his boss's preferences, he knew that such 
a proposal was as good as an order. And 
anyway he'd get plenty of cream on his dick 
before the inevitable disembowelling or 
whatever else Xerxes had in mind to climax 
his evening's entertainment.

This job was so important that Lofty wasn't 
the only man entrusted to carry it out. He 
had to work with Grimaldi and Foo Yong whose 
records as hitmen were at least as impressive 
as Lofty's. This wasn't going to be as easy a 
job as whacking Manu had been. The mark was 
as much tailed by Lofty and his associates as 
he was by some Saturnian bodyguards who kept 
their presence discreet, but not so much that 
Lofty couldn't identify them. Clearly, this 
was a two-stage job. First, they'd have to 
neutralise the bodyguards and that without 
any lasting damage. Only then could he and 
his companions complete their mission. 
Although he was probably the least impressive 
mark Lofty ever had to eliminate, Paul Morris 
was also a guy that Saturn thought worth 
keeping alive. But no way was he someone 
who'd put up much of a fight. He was very 
unlikely to rip up the new leather jacket 
that had cost Lofty most of the proceeds of 
Manu's execution. But okapi was never going 
to come cheap.

Lofty and his two companions spent a 
frustrating day following Paul as he wandered 
apparently aimlessly about the colony's bars 
and tourist resorts. Every step their mark 
made was shadowed by the two bodyguards who 
only the most green would ever fail to 
recognise for what they were. Paul was 
clearly oblivious to their presence and must 
have been about as naïve as it was possible 
to be. The bodyguards made no effort to 
disguise themselves as natives. It was 
obvious they were Saturnians. They didn't 
even wear wigs to hide their shaven pates. 
And if they were the tourists they pretended 
to be, why was one female and the other male? 
Very few Saturnians were comfortable in such 
an apparently heterosexual coupling.

Lofty's luck turned when Paul entered a bar 
and finally strolled off several hours later 
with a woman. Lofty was sure she wasn't a 
prostitute. If she was, it wasn't because she 
was an economic migrant. There was nothing 
about her that suggested she needed to make 
her living as a prostitute. With a body like 
hers she'd be far better off as a model or a 
pornographic actress. What convinced Lofty 
that all would go well was when this woman 
escorted Paul into a tall apartment block 
where it would be piss easy to isolate him 
from the attention of his bodyguards. This 
was no well-defended hotel or crowded public 
space. It was somewhere in which a person 
would expect privacy and where Paul's guards 
wouldn't be able to follow his every step.

"The bitch is gonna let him fuck her, isn't 
she?" Grimaldi remarked.

"She can't be that fucking desperate, can 
she?" Foo Yong remarked. "It takes more than 
luck to get to look like her. She could fuck 
anyone she fancied."

"Perhaps she's just got piss poor taste," 
commented Lofty. "There's no accounting for 
people's tastes."

"Well, it's gonna be one guy's lucky day," 
Grimaldi said. "The skirt has got the scent 
of a bitch in heat. That fucking Morris 
wanker looks like the most he normally tucks 
up in bed with is a book. And a fucking 
boring book at that."

"His academic research on Ecstasy isn't just 
facts and figures," Lofty observed. "There 
can't be many bars on Ecstasy he's not looked 
through the door of. Perhaps the best he can 
get back on Godwin is cybersex."

"Yeah, I can see him plugged into cyberspace 
permanently," Foo Yong admitted. "That's one 
place you're guaranteed to score. No digital 
bitch is gonna know how to say no to no one."

"I guess you'd know about that," Lofty joked, 
but with a touch of malevolence to his 
slight.

"What you saying, you fucking faggot?"  Foo 
Yong retorted with no sign that he was taking 
Lofty's comment in good humour.

"Fucking leave it!" interceded Grimaldi. 
"Once we've disposed of this Morris cunt, we 
can take turns at this bitch of his until he 
lapses into rigor mortis."

"And then we'll see what kind of faggot you 
are," Foo Yong remarked to Lofty who 
diplomatically chose to ignore the comment. 

Lofty was well aware that the collateral 
damage that Xerxes wanted to avoid almost 
certainly didn't extend to this lippy 
Uranian.

The three assassins chose to bide their time 
before going into action. They walked into a 
milk bar that was stationed just opposite the 
woman's apartment block where they could keep 
an eye on whether Paul might leave 
prematurely. They had to frighten off the 
tourists who were occupying the table just by 
the window, confident that no one would 
object to their rudeness. Even the serving 
robots were programmed to recognise when 
trouble was best avoided. The three men sat 
idly together sipping coffee and milk shakes 
at a table nobody else was foolish enough to 
share. 

While they sat together, Lofty's eyes 
silently scanned about him, Grimaldi 
deconstructed song lyrics and Foo Yong leered 
at the women in the bar. Their jackets were 
pulled tight across their chests, but it 
would be an easy matter for any of them to 
reach for a piece if circumstances so 
required.

After a couple of lazy hours during which 
Lofty's eyes strayed hardly at all from the 
doors to the apartment block opposite and 
Grimaldi barely paused in his near monologue, 
it felt about right to move into action. Even 
Grimaldi shut up as the three men stood up 
and strode purposefully across the wide 
street. They accompanied two excitable girls 
whose conversation trailed off abruptly as 
Lofty held open the door behind them before 
it closed and they were inside. It was then a 
simple matter of following the nano-radio 
signal that had been discreetly planted in 
Paul's hair to establish which floor he was 
on and in which apartment.

The floor in which Paul was no doubt enjoying 
sex with the bitch whose fuckability Foo Yong 
had several times remarked upon was no 
different from any other but it was at quite 
an elevation. When the elevator paused at the 
woman's floor, there was nothing to 
distinguish one apartment from another along 
a corridor that extended for several hundred 
metres. 

There was no difficulty at all in identifying 
Paul's bodyguards. They were standing 
together in the middle distance and began 
strolling slowly towards the elevator when 
Lofty and his companions appeared. They knew 
as well as did Lofty that two people walking 
along a corridor was far less suspicious than 
two people standing in one spot. The 
bodyguards were dressed in what they thought 
was appropriate for Ecstasy which served to 
accentuate the woman's bosom and the man's 
arse rather more than it would if they were 
dressed for the relatively staid streets of 
the Socialist Republics of Saturn. 

Lofty and his companions strode leisurely 
forward and let Grimaldi chat on, mostly to 
himself, about the relative quality of 
hamburgers on the seventh level of the colony 
compared with those on the second. Although 
the bodyguards must have wondered at the 
oddness of the three men being here on the 
same floor and might have recognised them 
from earlier, they kept up the pretence of 
unconcern right up to the point at which the 
two groups met. However, despite their 
discipline and training, they were no match 
for the three most ruthless assassins on the 
colony of Ecstasy. 

Grimaldi continued his monologue right up to 
the point when he brushed against the 
Saturnian woman and then, with no warning, 
swung his forearm into her face. The steel 
bar strapped to the inside of his panther-
skin jacket ensured that the impact broke her 
nose and very nearly dislodged her eye. Lofty 
and Foo Yong worked together on the man whose 
feet they kicked up from beneath and followed 
with some well-directed kicks to his face and 
groin. 

Even Grimaldi was quiet as the three of them 
punched and kicked the two bodyguards until 
they were groaning in a bloody mess on the 
floor. Foo Yong had to be restrained from 
pulling down his trousers and raping the 
woman who lay in a crumpled heap with cracked 
teeth and a trickle of blood dripping from 
the corner of her mouth. He had managed to 
rip off her top and had in the process let 
his blade slice through the firm flesh of her 
breast. 

"There's time for that later," said Lofty 
firmly, as he pulled out of his jacket pocket 
the tranquiliser gun that would ensure that 
the bodyguards would be out of action for 
several more days. He was unusually cautious 
in the dosage settings. Any collateral and 
Xerxes might not be satisfied at merely 
reducing the fee he'd pass on to his godson 
after the job was done. In a normal job, 
Lofty would have dispatched the bodyguards in 
a much more satisfactory manner.

"Hey, it's the bitch!" said Foo Yong in a 
relatively low voice as he pointed at the 
woman who'd seduced Paul and was now standing 
just outside her apartment.

Good, thought Lofty. Get the bitch first, 
then the mark. Job almost done. He salivated 
at the prospect of following up the kicking 
he'd administered on the bodyguard with 
rather more leisurely ultraviolence on a 
woman who was totally naked and looked as 
easy a target as any he'd handled. It was 
just a shame she'd have to be left alive. But 
then it was better to fuck a woman streaming 
with blood than to piss on a corpse.

However, the time it took for him to die was 
only slightly longer than the time it took 
for him to be aware that this woman was 
someone who could defend herself with even 
more efficiency than he'd employed to kill 
Manu and his companions. He was barely aware 
of the fist that embedded itself briefly in 
Grimaldi's chest and the flying feet that 
smashed into Foo Yong's face. His neck was 
pulled back and the vertebrae snapped by a 
woman who was now no longer ten metres ahead, 
but just behind him. 

With the strangely enhanced sensory 
perception of a dying man, he slumped to the 
ground on top of his companions aware only of 
two naked thighs on either side of his chest 
and the pressure of a hand on his chest that 
crushed his ribs and the last vestige of 
breath that was left to him.

Lofty had met his match and he'd had no 
opportunity at all to fight back.

Chapter Ten
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

The several thousand passengers and crew of a 
colossal space ship that was travelling 
through the most distant reaches of space all 
shared the misconception that the 
Interplanetary Space Ship Intrepid was on a 
mission directed from the Moon and that 
Nadezhda Kerensky was the captain. However, 
only one human on the space ship knew the 
truth. And that person was, of course, 
Captain Kerensky.

But what use was this knowledge when the 
captain couldn't share it with anyone?

Hers was a very peculiar imprisonment. She 
could roam the ship freely. She could get 
into contact with whoever she liked by 
whatever means she chose. In almost every way 
her freedom was no more circumscribed than it 
had been before Beatrice had revealed to her 
that the Intrepid was and always had been 
under the control of a machine civilisation 
that circled a red dwarf star just over four 
light years away. 

There were two ways by which the captain was 
prevented from imparting what she knew to 
anyone else. The first was the simple fact 
that no one would believe her. There was no 
visible evidence of the Proxima Centauri 
space fleet and Beatrice most certainly did 
not resemble an android. No one who might 
suspect that an alien intelligence had taken 
control of the Intrepid's mission would 
believe that the source of it was Paul 
Morris' wife. There was literally no one less 
likely than the wife of the ship's most 
ineffectual and least respected passenger. No 
one would expect it moreover of a woman 
principally known for her irrepressible 
carnal appetite and whose husband was the man 
aboard the ship most blissfully unaware of 
her marital infidelity.  

The second reason for Nadezhda's enforced 
silence was more difficult to overcome. There 
was a very literal cause for the captain not 
being able to be honest and open. Whenever 
she tried to articulate the situation, the 
words simply could not come out. It was as if 
the very act of thinking about revealing the 
truth prevented her from doing so. It was the 
same when she tried to write the words down 
by keyboard or other writing device. The 
words simply could not be written. To an 
observer, it was as if the captain was 
stuttering or had been suddenly paralysed. 

It is imperative on every captain to maintain 
the respect of her crew so it wasn't often 
that Nadezhda tried to explain what she knew. 
Any such attempt would make her appear either 
foolish or deranged. The senior officers 
might suppose that she was suffering from a 
condition that made her unsuitable to 
continue as captain of the Space Ship 
Intrepid. Nadezhda Kerensky had no choice but 
to pursue the mission exactly as she would if 
it hadn't been compromised by a fleet of 
alien robots. 

Beatrice continued to be a frequent visitor 
to Nadezhda's apartment where she made more 
or less the same demands on her as she did 
before. The Intrepid was travelling as before 
through the vast extent of the Oort Cloud 
where there were millions of kilometres 
between the widely dispersed celestial 
bodies. There was literally nothing to 
navigate around until the space ship arrived 
at the Anomaly. 

"We should continue to make love," said 
Beatrice less than a month after she revealed 
her true self to the captain.

"Make love?" Nadezhda asked. She was 
astonished by Beatrice's directness and 
unsubtlety. How could she make love with her 
jailor? 

"Yes. You've not had sex with anyone since 
last time we made love together."

"How do you know that?"

"I know about everything you do on the ship," 
said Beatrice. "The only thing I don't know 
is what you're thinking."

"That must be a lie. What about this thing 
that prevents me from speaking or writing 
about you?"

"It's not a mind-reading device. Its purpose 
is very specific. It doesn't contain a 
transmitter."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You don't have any reason to disbelieve me," 
said Beatrice. "I'll say it again. I think we 
should make love."

"Why do you ask me that?"

"Because I know that you want to make love to 
me."

"What about you?"

"I would like to make love to you as well."

"How can I make love with an android?"

"It wasn't a problem before. I don't see why 
it should be a problem now."

"I'm not sure."

"I shall take my clothes off and lie in your 
bed. If you want to make love with me then I 
shall be more than obliging."

This was more temptation than Nadezhda could 
resist. It was the truth. In a physical sense 
Beatrice was no less the woman she used to 
love. Even now she was aware that Beatrice 
was a machine—indeed a machine of superior 
intelligence—it was difficult to reconcile 
that insight with the simple physical 
presence of a woman with such beautiful skin, 
such tender lips and such a welcoming vagina. 

Furthermore, Beatrice was absolutely right 
that Nadezhda hadn't made love to anyone for 
a long time. She'd only had two lovers on the 
Intrepid. One was Beatrice who she now knew 
was unusual in a very intimidating way and 
the other was Colonel Vashti whose 
peculiarity was of a very different nature. 
Ever since Beatrice revealed her true 
identity, Nadezhda had become reluctant to 
see her hermaphrodite lover. When Nadezhda 
was with Beatrice she could say what she 
liked with no restraint. With the crew and 
passengers she could disguise her thoughts 
and feelings behind her role as captain. But 
what would stop her from trying to tell the 
truth about her predicament when she was with 
Vashti? If she tried to do so, how much pain 
would she suffer? Would it be the stabbing, 
totally unbearable pain that she could 
relieve only by biting her tongue or driving 
her nails deep into her flesh? A pain that 
could be relieved only by the agony of a 
greater pain. 

Captain Kerensky might not be neglecting her 
duties, but she was neglecting her friends. A 
captain's lot was normally a lonely one. The 
people with whom she most often came into 
contact were her senior officers. She 
respected them all, but not one of them was 
her lover. They came from all over the Solar 
System, none of them from Saturn and most of 
them were men. Moreover, Nadezhda couldn't 
assume that the women officers were remotely 
inclined towards an intimate relationship 
with another woman. Regrettably, most 
colonies and communities throughout the Solar 
System were predominantly heterosexual. 

The captain's other interactions were with 
Mission Control on the Moon and with the 
passengers and crew of the ship. It had 
become increasingly difficult to communicate 
with Mission Control. Any transmission she 
received was already well over a month old by 
the time she received it. Anything she said 
would have to wait another two or three 
months until she received a response. There 
was nothing that could be done to hasten the 
speed of light.

Beatrice and Vashti were the only two women 
on board the ship with whom Nadezhda had an 
intimate relationship. Beatrice was as much 
her captor as she was still her lover and 
confidante. Colonel Vashti was fully occupied 
with the care and custody of the Holy 
Coalition crusaders and, in any case, the 
colonel had never been a frequent visitor to 
Nadezhda's quarters. 

Nevertheless, now was surely the time for 
Nadezhda to become reacquainted with her 
former lover. The captain couldn't, of 
course, just stroll into the military 
quarters and find out whether she was in her 
room. It would attract far too much 
attention. Not all soldiers on the space ship 
came from parts of the Solar System 
sympathetic to the idea of a fellow soldier 
having a sexual relationship with the ship's 
captain. This was especially so given the 
colonel's fame for sexual licence and her 
unusual physical characteristics. 
Consequently, Nadezhda sent Vashti an encoded 
electronic message from a private mail 
account and arranged to meet the colonel in 
one of the unoccupied villas on what was now 
the outermost habitable level. The reason for 
such discretion wasn't to evade Beatrice's 
attention. Nadezhda assumed that the android 
monitored all her transactions to prevent her 
from compromising Proxima Centauri's mission. 
Nadezhda was fully aware that Beatrice had 
also made love to Vashti on several occasions 
so she was unlikely to be jealous. The 
captain was merely protecting her privacy 
from the passengers and crew whose respect 
she needed to retain.

There was no prelude and very little 
introduction to the lovemaking that took 
place when Nadezhda kept her appointment at 
the villa. Vashti had already stripped off 
her clothes. Her penis was fully erect and 
waiting for the captain, who threw herself 
onto her bronzed lover and let her tear off 
every individual item of clothing one by one. 
It was when Nadezhda was dripping with so 
much passion that some leaked down the inside 
of her pale thigh that Vashti retracted her 
fingers from the captain's vagina and 
replaced this intrusion with her throbbing 
penis. Sweat poured over two bodies that were 
pitching each other back and forth against 
the walls, onto the floor, out into the 
garden, onto the lawn and well within sight 
of the deer and antelope wandering about.

"Are you well, darling?" asked Vashti when 
the two lovers finally pulled themselves 
apart.

Nadezhda nodded her head with a broad grin 
fixed on her face. She panted heavily from 
her recent exertions. Perspiration streamed 
over her shaven head and dripped from her 
chin onto a bosom whose nipples were as erect 
as Vashti's cock had been just a moment 
before. 

"Is Beatrice treating you well?" Vashti 
asked.

From most women with whom she'd just been 
making passionate love this question would 
suggest at least a vestigial degree of 
jealousy, but Nadezhda knew it implied 
nothing of the sort. What Vashti wouldn't 
know, of course, was how the relationship 
between the captain and Paul's wife had 
changed; how it had in a sense been reversed.

"Fine," said Nadezhda noncommittally.

"Are you sure, sweetheart? You don't seem 
your usual self."

"I don't?"

"I was just wondering how it was with 
Beatrice. She can be a bit of a handful at 
times. She hasn't been making you do things 
you wouldn't want to do otherwise?"

"What? You mean sexually? Or in some other 
way?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. You tell me."

"It's just... it's that..." began Nadezhda. 
"I mean... what I want to say... it's... the 
truth is..."

There was a struggle going on in Nadezhda's 
head. On the one hand, she wanted to reply to 
Vashti's very reasonable question with 
truthful answers. On the other hand, she was 
fully aware of what would happen if she did.

"What's wrong, Naddy? Is Beatrice hurting you 
in some way?"

"No, it's not that," Nadezhda was able to 
say. "It's... it's..."

"Please, darling. I only want to help. Is 
there something you want to tell me?"

"I... I..." said Nadezhda, as a fresh surge 
of perspiration pasted her face.

"What is it, Naddy? Don't be frightened. Just 
tell me what the problem is."

The pain in Nadezhda's head became sharper 
and sharper. It was as painful as anything 
she had ever suffered and every fresh attempt 
she made to give an answer didn't get beyond 
a single word. Nadezhda wanted to say: "I'm 
being held captive by an android." She wanted 
to say: "The mission has been hijacked." What 
she most wanted to say was: "Beatrice isn't 
what you think she is."

Then the pain became too much and she 
abruptly collapsed, taking her consciousness 
with her.

After this period of clarity, Nadezhda had a 
series of disjointed memories that appeared 
to be happening to someone else as Colonel 
Vashti lifted her up in her phenomenally 
strong arms and carried her along a series of 
corridors to the medical ward where her next 
coherent memory was of the Chief Medical 
Officer probing her pupils with a small 
torch.

Nadezhda swivelled her eyes to see Dr. Benoit 
Yoritomo accompanied by Colonel Vashti and a 
male nurse. She was pleased to see that she 
was once again dressed in her uniform. 
Captain Kerensky was very mindful of the 
dignity associated with her rank.

"I see you've regained consciousness, 
captain," said the doctor. "I can see no 
reason why you fainted. I don't detect any 
unusual cerebral activity. There's no 
evidence of epilepsy or a stroke. Do you have 
any idea what happened?"

"No, not at all, doctor," lied the captain 
who knew the painful consequences of 
attempting to articulate anything more 
forthcoming.

"The colonel says that you fainted away 
unexpectedly while you were talking to her," 
said the doctor. "Is that your recollection, 
captain?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Has anything like this ever happened to you 
before, captain?"

"No. Do you have a theory as to what 
happened, doctor?"

"Not really, captain. There are occasional 
instances of synaptic lapse amongst people 
who've lived an active life beyond seventy or 
eighty years. Modern science hasn't solved 
all the problems associated with life 
extension. But I'm puzzled from what I've 
been told about the incident and the lack of 
any apparent cerebral evidence."

"What should I do, doctor?"

"Just contact me immediately if you 
experience a future occurrence of fainting or 
losing consciousness, captain. I'm not saying 
you will have a recurrence, but if you do we 
should examine you as soon as we possibly 
can."

"I'm sorry for having troubled you, doctor."

"Not at all, captain. How do you feel now?"

"Much better."

"Well, to be on the safe side, captain, I 
recommend you rest a little bit longer. The 
cause could just be the stress you've 
suffered since the attack on the ship."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that 
incident, doctor. How are the other patients 
you've been treating?"

"The Holy Coalition fanatics you mean, 
captain? As soon as I patch one up and return 
him to the outermost level then another two 
come in. There have been more serious 
injuries since we repelled the attack than on 
the day it happened. These people really hate 
each other."

"Well, clearly not as much as they hated the 
Intrepid or its mission, doctor," commented 
Colonel Vashti. "They have to remain isolated 
for the ship's safety."

"If it were an option, colonel, I'd recommend 
restraining them rather more forcefully."

"There are many interplanetary conventions to 
which we have to adhere, doctor," said 
Captain Kerensky. "It might seem that we're 
just giving the Holy Coalition the licence to 
kill each other, but the freedom we allow 
them is the statutorily agreed necessary 
minimum."

"You have visitors, captain," announced the 
nurse.

"Visitors?" wondered Nadezhda as she raised 
her head in the expectation of seeing the 
Chief and Second Officers. It was neither of 
these. It was the rather unwelcome presence 
of Beatrice accompanied by her husband, Paul.

"We saw you being carried away by the colonel 
and wondered whether you were well, captain," 
said Beatrice who crouched down by the 
bedside at eye level with the captain and 
smiled warmly. "You look like you've 
fainted."

"I didn't know you were so strong," Paul said 
admiringly to the colonel. "It was like the 
captain didn't weigh anything."

"I exercise regularly," said Colonel Vashti.

"How are you, captain?" asked Beatrice who 
squeezed Nadezhda's hand while Paul looked on 
idly. Nadezhda could see that he'd only been 
brought along to defuse tension. Nobody could 
say anything of much significance while Paul 
was there since he was so blissfully unaware 
of his wife's many extramarital affairs. 

Nadezhda also guessed that the real reason 
the couple had come to see her was that 
Beatrice wanted to remind the captain just 
who was really in charge of the Intrepid. She 
had no doubt that Beatrice knew about her 
planned rendezvous with Vashti and had almost 
certainly been watching the two women make 
love together. She wouldn't have been upset 
about the lovemaking which, after all, was 
something she'd actually suggested to the 
captain. Beatrice's real concern was the 
captain's attempt to speak to Vashti.

"I'm fine," said Nadezhda. "It must have been 
a kind of turn."

"You don't have any idea what's wrong with 
the captain do you?" Colonel Vashti asked 
Beatrice in a casual sort of way.

"Of course not, colonel. I'm not a doctor. 
You might as well ask Paul that question. 
What do you think happened to the captain?"

"I don't know," said Paul who was startled 
that he'd even been addressed. His attention 
had wandered towards a patient in the room 
next door whose skin was being repaired by 
grafting robots from the savage wounds that 
had been inflicted on him. "I didn't see 
anything. All we saw was the colonel carry 
the captain along the path in this 
direction."

"But it was you who saw the captain first, 
wasn't it?" said Beatrice.

"There wasn't much else going on," said Paul. 
"We were sitting in the garden just after 
we'd... just after we'd..."

"Yes, Paul," said Beatrice with a smile.

"...And the colonel was striding along 
carrying the captain in her arms," said Paul. 
"I didn't even know it was the captain. The 
first thing I noticed was that she wasn't 
wearing any clothes. I thought that was 
pretty interesting."

"I'm sure it was," said the doctor with a 
hint of disapproval.

"So you don't know what was wrong with the 
captain, Paul?"

"Of course not."

"And what about you, colonel? Was there 
anything unusual about the captain that you 
noticed?"

Nadezhda could see that Colonel Vashti was 
being challenged in a blunt way that was only 
possible given the relationship between the 
two women, but she wasn't sure what Beatrice 
thought she would achieve by putting the 
colonel on the spot.

She noticed some subtle eye contact between 
Vashti and Beatrice which seemed to allude to 
Paul rather than Nadezhda. She imagined that 
this was to advise that they guard their 
words for Paul's benefit.

"It happened very suddenly," said the 
colonel. "As I've already explained to the 
doctor, the captain was fine at first, then 
she became tongue-tied and after that she 
lost consciousness."

"I wonder what made that happen, colonel," 
said Beatrice. "What made you ‘tongue-tied' I 
wonder, captain?" Nadezhda fully understood 
the import of the query, but it was expressed 
in a way that seemed merely naive and 
slightly foolish. "I just hope you get 
better."

"I think the captain is already sufficiently 
well," said the doctor. "I've recommended her 
a short period of rest. If she fainted 
because of fatigue from overwork then she 
needs a respite. The fortune of everyone on 
this ship depends on our captain's good 
health."

"I suppose it does," said Paul to whom this 
notion seemed quite novel. "That's what 
captains are for, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, Paul," said Beatrice. "We better 
follow the doctor's advice and let the 
captain rest. We don't want to do anything to 
risk the mission's success, do we?"

Chapter Eleven
Holy Contemplation - 3755 A.D.

There were two pleasures that Archdeacon 
James XXVI enjoyed more than any other. One 
was to have his anus penetrated by a 
monstrous cock, preferably one belonging to a 
black man. The other was to penetrate the 
anus of another man: preferably a youth who'd 
never been so violated before. These refined 
pleasures, like many others the Archdeacon 
enjoyed, he'd discovered through the example 
of his father, Archdeacon James XXV. He still 
loved his father, but he'd loved him most 
when he squeezed his hands around his throat 
and throttled him while his father was still 
fucking the beautiful Asian child that had 
been presented to him on his last ever 
birthday.

The Archdeacon was now enjoying both of his 
principal pleasures. Behind him, a huge black 
man had slid his huge cock inch by inch into 
an arse well used to such extreme treatment 
while in front was a sobbing young boy who'd 
never suspected that the climax of his 
youthful years of prayer and silent 
meditation would be to give the Archdeacon 
quite this kind of indulgence. 

The colony of Holy Contemplation was known to 
most people in the Solar System as a place of 
retreat. Spiritual and Inspirational Leaders 
from all over the Solar System gathered here 
ostensibly for inward reflection and quiet 
study. Most of these came from religious 
rogue states such as Holy Trinity, but it 
also attracted atheist dictators of fascist, 
neo-bolshevist and oligarchical states. 
Beyond the fact that no one was permitted to 
enter the colony without either invitation or 
recommendation, what these leaders had in 
common with each other was that they presided 
over oppressive regimes where no licence for 
divergent opinion was ever tolerated. 

A substantial proportion of Holy 
Contemplation was set apart for prayer, 
contemplation and chastisement, but there 
were few leaders who came so far to use those 
facilities. Their dark, forbidding corridors 
and dismal cells were more akin to a prison 
than a retreat. The food was poor, the few 
permitted activities were tedious and 
unending, the living quarters were basic and 
uncomfortable, and punishments were freely 
given for the infringement of any one of the 
many restrictions that the pilgrims chose to 
submit themselves to. The lessons gained by 
meditation and study in these grim 
monasteries were reinforced by brutal 
chastisement and privation. The only people 
who stayed in such quarters were the leaders' 
retainers or junior ministers, convinced that 
their seniors were intent on an even more 
austere isolation from worldly sin and 
lustful thoughts. 

In that naive but wholly understandable 
conviction, these pilgrims were entirely 
mistaken. 

Instead, Holy Contemplation's more senior 
guests resided in luxurious retreats that 
were brightly lit and lushly landscaped. 
Archdeacon James XXVI, for instance, was 
resident in one of several well-appointed 
mansions reserved for senior churchmen. It 
was modelled on an Eighteenth Century country 
house surrounded by delightful fountains, 
ornate gardens and pleasantly situated 
gazebos. The many servants scattered about 
the house and gardens catered for his every 
whim. These were mostly young men: habitually 
naked and contractually obliged to submit to 
the perverse whims of the senior clerics. 
This was their ultimate reward for many 
blameless years of patient study and quiet 
deliberation. They might have imagined that 
the reward for their dedication would be in a 
similarly glorious garden, perhaps like the 
Garden of Eden, but that this would come only 
after their resurrection in the Second 
Coming. They didn't expect to be living 
somewhere so paradisial in their corporeal 
life. They most certainly didn't expect that 
the penalty for living in paradise would be 
to be always prepared to satisfy every 
contradictory whim of the senior clerics who 
routinely took full advantage of their wide-
open anuses and occasionally expected to be 
returned the same compliment.

Archdeacon James XXVI rapidly tired of his 
sport after he'd released his semen inside 
the youth's anus. The lad was sobbing and 
weeping not only from shame and humiliation 
but also from physical pain. A trail of blood 
dripped down between his thighs together with 
the Archdeacon's semen, but this was such a 
familiar sight to the churchman that it no 
longer gave him reason to pause. It was 
nothing but proof of the indignity and 
distress he'd caused which was one of his 
chief pleasures. There were, however, other 
regular guests of Holy Contemplation whose 
tastes and demands were more sophisticated 
than even the Archdeacon's. These men needed 
a constant flow of new flesh to replenish 
those they'd disposed of, sometimes in the 
most cruel and shocking ways. Naturally, the 
shareholders of Holy Contemplation expected 
such guests to be correspondingly more 
generous with their voluntary donations. The 
New Chalcedonian Pope Leo XXVII was 
especially famous for his decadent habits, 
but fortunately for him there were no 
shortages of volunteers from his colony of 
the Hypostatic Union. They might have 
originally believed that they were honoured 
to be chosen to accompany the great man, but 
they would never have a later opportunity to 
celebrate or even regret their decision. 

The youth slumped prostrate on the lawn. He 
was choking back his tears and his face was 
ugly with sorrow. The black man gripped his 
still erect penis. 

"No, Emmanuel," said the Archdeacon. "The boy 
isn't yet ready for your prick."

He smiled at the youth who gazed up at him 
and thanked the Archdeacon profusely for his 
mercy. A trail of snot dripped from his 
nostril over his chin and onto the grass 
where he lay. He was too petrified to move 
from the position in which he'd fallen with 
his elbows and knees digging into the lawn 
and his arse raised high.

"Did I give you permission to speak?" said 
the Archdeacon, who kicked the youth in the 
face. A trail of blood was now commingled 
with the snot dripping onto his fair skin. 

The youth shook his head and suppressed his 
whimpering.

"Stand up," the Archdeacon ordered.

The youth did so and automatically covered 
his crotch with his hands. The Archdeacon 
slapped him rudely on the face.

"Cover your prick only when I say," he 
commanded. "Follow me."

The Archdeacon then strode off with the youth 
scampering behind him. Although he was well 
over a century and a half old, the 
Archdeacon's libido was still active. Thanks 
to modern science, he'd suffered very few of 
the ravages associated with old age. He was a 
tall man with a medically enhanced penis that 
slapped against his thighs as he strode over 
the lawn. All he was wearing were a crucifix 
around his neck and shoes that cushioned his 
toes from the impact of kicking the boy in 
the face. 

"Here we are," said the Archdeacon when he 
arrived at a grove where three Chief Pastors 
were indulging in an orgy with several other 
boys and two women: all naked and none of 
them enjoying it with nearly the same 
uninhibited pleasure as the senior clerics. 
"More fresh meat, gentlemen," he said to the 
Chief Pastors and pushed the abused youth 
towards them.

"Thank you, Your Holiness," said Chief Pastor 
William. He cuffed the boy around the ears. 
"Say thank you to His Holiness for so 
honouring you, scum."

"Thank you, Your Holiness," echoed the boy 
with rather less genuine enthusiasm.

The Archdeacon smiled at his Chief Pastor, 
but he couldn't be bothered to watch as the 
poor boy was successively fucked by the 
senior clerics. He'd seen the same thing so 
many times before that he was totally jaded. 
He'd had his fun with the youth. It was 
always his privilege to have first taste. 
After all it was only what he'd paid for. Or, 
more to the point, it was what was paid for 
by the tithes squeezed out of his suffering 
congregation. And did he give a fuck? No more 
than his father or his father's father or any 
one of the succession of Archdeacons in the 
centuries since Holy Trinity's foundation. 

What to do now? Well, he'd rest first. An 
hour or so of buggering was enough to tire 
anyone out, especially when the boy had 
struggled so vigorously to escape. He would 
see what to do later. Perhaps for a change 
he'd fuck a girl. They were always worth a 
go, especially when they were virgins. It was 
so delicious to have all that virginal blood 
dripping from his prick. And he'd still have 
his favourite orifice available immediately 
afterwards.

The Archdeacon was greeted by a hooded monk 
as he approached the front door of his 
mansion. 

"Your Holiness," the monk said respectfully.

This man wasn't a cleric from Holy Trinity 
and he wasn't one of the sex slaves at his 
constant disposal. In fact, in a sense it 
wasn't a man at all, but an avatar projected 
by Holy Contemplation's central system.

"Yes, what is it?" asked the Archdeacon 
irritably. Was there an invoice still 
outstanding? Was there a difficulty in 
resourcing the necessary supply of fuck 
fodder? Was there a problem with the disposal 
of sex slaves who were no longer serviceable? 

"The Chief Apostle Wynton Jones Mason wishes 
to speak to you, Your Holiness," said the 
avatar. "He's awaiting you in the Holy 
Tabernacle."

"Did His Holiness say what he wants?" asked 
the Archdeacon.

"No, Your Holiness," said the avatar. "He has 
sent a shuttle to escort you."

"Tell him that I'm on my way," said the 
Archdeacon. 

Shit. There could only be one reason why the 
bugger would want to see him. And did he 
really give a shit? Only in the sense that he 
needed to say the right things at the right 
time. The whole Apostasy thing was nothing 
more than an irritation, although the 
Archdeacon appreciated the financial benefits 
he'd accrued from agreeing to be involved in 
the expedition. It had helped to pay for the 
upgrading of the mansion he and his fellow 
senior clerics were now enjoying at Holy 
Contemplation.

"Ah, James," said the Chief Apostle when the 
Archdeacon arrived at the Holy Tabernacle 
dressed in his sober black robes. "Good to 
see you again. I trust it's going well?"

The Archdeacon truly and deeply detested 
Chief Apostle Wynton Jones Mason. Of all the 
other bastard church leaders throughout the 
Solar System, if there was one Pentecostal 
cunt he'd gladly fuck up the backside while 
he slit his throat it would be this man. The 
fact that he was black like the men he 
preferred to have buggering him would only 
make the pleasure that much greater.

"I'm well, Wynton," said the Archdeacon. "To 
what do I owe this pleasure?"

"What else?" the Chief Apostle said. "The 
Apostasy, of course. Or were you having so 
much fun fucking all those cheeky-assed boys 
that you've forgotten the Holy Crusade?"

The Archdeacon restrained himself from the 
temptation of reminding the Chief Apostle of 
his own preference for anal entertainment. 
The man didn't even look like a cleric. He 
wasn't wearing his black robes and crucifix. 
Instead he was adorned in a checked shirt and 
a pair of blue jeans like someone from 
Twentieth Century North America. But the 
Archdeacon knew who of the two of them held 
the real power. The Third Coming Pentecostals 
were the most dominant Christian community in 
the Holy Coalition and had much more wealth 
and power than Holy Trinity. The Chief 
Apostle was a skilled political leader who'd 
risen to where he was through the ruthless 
elimination of many hereditary bishops. He 
was also almost as vicious as Pope Leo XXVII 
as the Archdeacon discovered when he had the 
dubious honour of being a guest at one of his 
bloodbath orgies, although the victims 
weren't so much innocent boys and girls, as 
would be the New Chalcedonian Pope's 
preference, but political rivals who never 
expected that their demise would involve 
being fucked by what they naively thought 
their General Overseer might also judge to be 
heretics. The Archdeacon took especial 
delight in fucking the men's virgin black 
arses. Once the men had been thoroughly 
humiliated and splattered by semen, they were 
dispatched slowly and in wholly unnecessary 
agony while the Chief Apostle made a point of 
appearing rather bored by the suffering they 
endured on his command. This, as the 
Archdeacon was fully aware at the time, was 
less for the benefit of the unfortunate 
clerics and rather more as a warning to the 
surviving senior clerics and just as much for 
those beyond the Chief Apostle's direct 
jurisdiction.

"What's been happening then, Wynton?"

"It's been a total fuck-up, James," said the 
Chief Apostle. "One big fuck-up. The Space 
Ship Intrepid outclassed the Space Ship 
Paradise in every possible way. I don't think 
you'll be seeing many of your Soldiers of 
Christ ever again." 

The Archdeacon couldn't help noticing that 
the Chief Apostle didn't seem particularly 
aggrieved by this news. 

"Did the mission achieve even one of its 
objectives?" he asked.

"Well, unless you wanted to lose the poor 
fuckers you sent up there to die in the 
carnage, I don't believe it did," said the 
Chief Apostle. 

"When did you hear the news?" 

"A few days ago. My spies at Mission Control 
on the Moon got the news and transmitted it 
straight away. The other major denominations, 
faiths, creeds or whatever got it about the 
same time. You Presbyterian boy-buggerers 
clearly weren't really in the loop, were 
you?"

The Archdeacon squirmed at the insult, but 
there wasn't much he could say to counter it. 
"What happens next, Wynton?"

"You tell me, James," said the Chief Apostle. 
"From my perspective it's just an excuse for 
me to clear out some dead wood. There are a 
few Third Coming Pentecostal bishops I've 
always wanted to see out of the way. I think 
we can make quite a party of it if you like, 
white boy. I know how much you like black ass 
so you'll be welcome to dip your dick in a 
good quantity of it. I'll make sure the 
chocolate comes real shit-flavoured. Those 
bishops will be evacuating their bowels so 
vigorously it'll spurt further than the blood 
from their main arteries."

"You don't believe much in emulating God's 
Mercy, do you Wynton?"

"Fuck that," said the Chief Apostle. "Christ 
and his Heavenly Host can give them as much 
mercy as they like if the bishops squeeze 
through the Golden Gates. In the meantime, 
I'll take pleasure in fucking Bishop Peter's 
ass so hard his shit'll spout through his 
mouth. That'll be something he should 
probably already be used to. Spouting shit 
through his mouth, that is. Not so much being 
fucked in the ass."

"I take it your bishops aren't regular 
visitors to Holy Contemplation, Wynton."

"They are, James. But what they enjoy is a 
rather stricter discipline than we do. 
Twenty-four hours a day of prayer, 
tambourine-bashing and speaking in tongues 
will probably be some kind of preparation for 
their final few hours. I'd hate to go through 
that kinda tedious shit."

"It's not something you've ever done then, 
Wynton?

 "Not willingly," said the Chief Apostle. 
"Have you got plans for any of your clerics, 
James? Any white boy ass for me to fuck, you 
honky quean?"

"It's not something I've ever considered, 
Wynton," the Archdeacon lied.

"Sure you've never fancied the High Pastor 
Charles? Doesn't his white ass make you cream 
your pants, James? You could hold him down 
with your dick in his mouth while I ream him 
well and good. Then we could give him the 
coup de grâce with a crucifixion or some 
other kind of symbolic shit. I could help you 
hammer in the nails."

The Archdeacon had authorised and witnessed 
such punishment on many occasions, but he 
drew the line at administering it. 
Furthermore, he believed there was a better 
and less gratuitous way to dispose of the 
bishop who he'd never trusted to enjoy 
anything other than Holy Contemplation's 
ascetic levels. Not all senior clerics shared 
the Archdeacon's real opinion of the ultimate 
meaning and purpose of his stated religious 
faith. Some of them actually believed all 
that nonsense. 

It would be better to dispose of the bishop 
on Holy Trinity. The charge of failing to 
achieve God's mission was sufficient for the 
man to suffer a painful enough death on the 
pyre. He would soon regret his foolishness in 
associating himself so closely with the Holy 
Crusade against the Apostasy.

"Is the revenue stream still secure, Wynton?" 
the Archdeacon asked.

"Don't worry, James," said the Chief Apostle. 
"You'll get all the compensation you want. 
Then you can splash it out on hiring a few 
good black-ass Pentecostals or Baptists and 
give them white boy dick till their asses go 
white from being pumped with so much honky 
semen. Just make sure you don't fuck a Third 
Coming Pentecostal. Or if you do, don't do it 
without first inviting me along to the 
party."

The Archdeacon was feeling very uncomfortable 
from the Chief Apostle's taunting, but now 
wasn't the time to complain. Indeed, he 
couldn't help thinking that if ever he picked 
a fight with the man there would only be one 
winner and it wouldn't be him. He wouldn't be 
surprised if the Chief Apostle were to stoop 
as low as to finance an assassination if he 
felt the Archdeacon needed disposing of. It 
could even happen in Holy Contemplation, 
however much his Frequent Visitor Insurance 
was meant to provide cover against such 
things. Paying guests were guaranteed 
protection from other paying guests. The 
commercial consequences of not doing so could 
very easily be war which, if it brought down 
Holy Contemplation itself, wasn't a thought 
worth considering. Where else in the Solar 
System could the heads of so many hostile 
congregations in the rogue states receive 
what they believed to be their just desert?

"What about the Apostasy, Wynton?" asked the 
Archdeacon. "Is it still a threat?"

"Do you seriously believe it was a threat to 
begin with, James? What possible threat was 
an unknown phenomenon three trillion 
kilometres away? And if it is a threat, what 
do you think a haphazard coalition of crazed 
and crazy fanatics could do that the 
Interplanetary Union couldn't? The Apostasy 
has served us well. It's given a rallying cry 
to our isolated communities and generated a 
welcome new revenue stream. It's also given 
us all a fresh excuse for some much needed 
internal housekeeping. I'm planning a fresh 
purge in a few weeks' time. That'll put the 
fear of God into my congregation."

"A fresh purge, Wynton? Didn't the last one 
reduce the population of the Christian 
Holiness colony by about a tenth?"

"Not enough, James. People soon forget. 
Anyway, population growth is exceeding 
resources. We're not building new colonies 
fast enough to accommodate all the new True 
Believers. A somewhat stricter interpretation 
of the true spiritual interpretation of the 
Apostasy will be all we need. I just leave 
the rest to local quotas and natural zeal. 
You have a rather less radical policy towards 
keeping your congregation in check I suppose, 
James."

"Purges are risky and expensive to organise, 
Wynton," said the Archdeacon. 

"You're just weak, James. A little bit of 
terror keeps everyone on their toes. Granted 
there are the orphans and widows to take care 
of, but Holy Contemplation isn't the only 
place that's willing to purchase surplus 
population. Have you ever considered 
Interplanetary Human Trade, James? Slaves are 
a precious commodity and women and children 
are in especial demand."

"There's a risk in being associated with 
that, Wynton. My church relies heavily on 
donations from individuals within the 
Interplanetary Union and that could be 
adversely impacted if we are closely 
associated with such traffic."

"Haven't you heard of amnesia, James? It's a 
simple procedure to selectively wipe clean 
the memory of the slaves and then they're 
unable to tell anyone where they came from. I 
can give you a few contacts if you like. 
Discreetly, of course. And any case what's 
deep space for if not to be a useful dumping 
ground for unwanted surplus?"

The Archdeacon always felt inadequate after 
discussions like this with other church 
leaders. Sometimes, as with Chief Apostle 
Wynton Jones Mason or Pope Leo XXVII, this 
was because he was made conscious that there 
were more robust ways in which he could 
express his power and that of his church over 
its congregation. The accusations of weakness 
and lack of resolution particularly stung. On 
the other hand, the Archdeacon was also 
conscious of being a hypocrite. It wasn't 
that the sin of hypocrisy particularly 
bothered him. No sane person could really 
believe the twaddle that was passed as 
religious truth within the confines of Holy 
Trinity, but for all his life the Archdeacon 
had been so immersed in Christian hyperbole 
and rhetoric that somehow he still felt a 
chill when he considered the matter of 
eternal damnation. He often envied the 
Catholics who could so easily gain absolution 
by confessing their sins, but he knew that by 
the terms of his stated faith he was already 
damned. He'd sinned so much, so often and so 
spectacularly that there really was no point 
in changing course now. He might as well just 
prolong his life for as long as he could and 
enjoy it to the full.

It was with this ambition that the Archdeacon 
returned to his mansion. The shuttle dropped 
him down in the gardens where the orgy was 
continuing on the lawn. The new boy was being 
well broken in, the Archdeacon could see. 
Although His Holiness was tired and fatigued, 
there was still a duty to attend to before he 
could retire to bed and perhaps cuddle up 
with another young boy who would be required 
to provide him with nothing more than a 
comforting blowjob.

The Archdeacon retreated to a tiny room that 
resembled more a prison cell than the type of 
cell a cleric might use for meditation. There 
were real prison cells in the mansion, of 
course, along with the complete paraphernalia 
of dungeons and torture but this wasn't the 
kind of sport the Archdeacon most enjoyed. 
But the facilities were available just in 
case he should ever be so inclined. 

"Your Holiness," said the High Pastor Charles 
whose holographic image was broadcast from a 
similar cell on the outer levels of Holy 
Contemplation. While the Archdeacon had been 
fucking boys and being fucked by studs, the 
Pastor had been spending a rather less 
hedonistic visit at the colony where he was 
immersed in Holy Scripture and praying in 
solitude. The Archdeacon rather hoped the 
High Pastor had opted for the physical 
chastisement that could be administered for 
entertaining sinful thought.

"Recall the words of the Holy Scripture, 
Pastor," said the Archdeacon. "Chapter Two 
Verse Eighteen of the First Epistle General 
of John."

"It is the last time: and as ye have heard 
that antichrist shall come, even now are 
there many antichrists; whereby we know that 
it is the last time," quoted the High Pastor.

"The Antichrist has frustrated the best 
attempts of the brave Holy Crusaders, Pastor. 
The Holy Crusade which you led and 
coordinated has come to naught. A great evil 
remains in the world. Recall also the words 
of Chapter Seventeen Verse Fifteen of the 
Book of Joshua."

"And it shall be, that he that is taken with 
the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, 
he and all that he hath: because he hath 
transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and 
because he hath wrought folly in Israel."

"That is correct, Pastor," said the 
Archdeacon. "Many valiant Christians have 
paid a great price to defend the Godly from 
the Apostasy and the Antichrist. And yet 
their efforts have been in vain. There has 
been a great sacrifice of Christian life. 
Many Soldiers of Christ have paid the 
ultimate price. They will ascend into Heaven 
and Glory will be forever theirs. But I am 
truly sorry, Pastor, for you and your family. 
You have been found lacking. There remains 
only one remaining course of action."

"Your Holiness," pleaded the High Pastor. "I 
have done all I can. The failure must surely 
lie with the heathens, heretics and pagans to 
whom this expedition was also entrusted."

"They too will roast in hell, Pastor. But I 
have no jurisdiction over them. Only the Lord 
in his Infinite Wisdom and Mercy can preside 
over the judgment of their souls. However, it 
is I who is your chief vicar in this world 
and although you have served the Lord with 
diligence and steadfastness these many years, 
you have now been found wanting. However, be 
comforted by the words of The First Epistle 
General of John in Chapter Two Verse 
Fifteen."

"Love not the world, neither the things that 
are in the world. If any man love the world, 
the love of the Father is not in him," quoted 
the High Pastor. "Your Holiness, you can do 
as you wish with me. I have no fear of death. 
The Lord will judge me as he sees fit. But 
please spare my family. My wife is pregnant. 
I have grandchildren who are less than five 
years old."

"The Lord's Will must be done, Pastor," said 
the Archdeacon, who nonetheless wondered 
whether it was too late for him to reach the 
contacts mentioned by the Chief Apostle. The 
High Pastor's family could well be spared the 
burning flames of the pyre. It might appear 
weak and unnecessarily merciful to his less 
ascetic senior clerics, but it could also 
provide an extra welcome revenue stream.

The Archdeacon enjoyed the sight of his 
senior cleric's terrified face. He watched 
the holographic image of the High Pastor 
Charles for several more minutes after the 
cleric believed the connection was broken. He 
was gratified to see tears stream down the 
man's face. Perhaps he would now require some 
chastisement. The Archdeacon wondered whether 
to watch the man scourge himself, but it 
would in truth be rather dull entertainment.

He left the confines of the cell and stripped 
himself of the dark robes that he wore 
whenever handling official business. In fact, 
he stripped himself of all his clothes. What 
he wanted now was rest, relaxation and a 
pretty boy. Then he could once again enjoy 
the sleep of the blessed. 

Chapter Twelve
Earth - 3752 C.E.

Whatever else Earth might be—and it was a 
candidate for many honours—in the thirty-
eighth century what it principally happened 
to be was mostly just a tourist resort. It 
was the same wherever Paul and Beatrice 
travelled on the planet: everything they saw 
was labelled and displayed for the benefit of 
tourists. The visitors to Earth might also be 
archaeologists, palaeontologists, musicians 
or climatologists, but they were mostly just 
tourists. Tourism was Earth's principal 
source of income and everything on the planet 
was preserved and packaged to serve that 
purpose. 

This observation was nowhere more valid than 
in London, England: the city Paul and 
Beatrice were now visiting. The metropolis 
had a peculiar significance in Earth history 
from the age of Chaucer to the Twentieth 
Century. It was the capital city of a kingdom 
in which the industrial revolution began. It 
had once been the hub of the planet's most 
extensive empire, the capital of a nation of 
disproportionate cultural influence (even 
into the Twenty-First Century) and the land 
from which Paul could trace his earliest 
known ancestors.

Paul's ancestry could also be traced to 
Armenia, France, Australia, Canada and South 
Africa, but the branch of his family tree to 
which Paul was most emotionally attached came 
from London and villages in what had once 
been the English countryside.

It seemed that every building, every road, 
every courtyard and every item of street 
furniture in London was marked with a plaque 
that explained its historical significance. 
The plaques were sometimes constructed from 
blue metal but most were displayed on a 
plasma screen that even diamond couldn't cut. 
They might celebrate a house where Charles 
Dickens once worked; the site of a theatre in 
which Shakespeare's plays were performed in 
the sixteenth century; a recording studio 
where the Beatles recorded; or the site of a 
gruesome twenty-fifth century murder. 

London was an eccentrically diverse city. One 
cobbled street might more properly belong to 
the age of Samuel Johnson. Another would be 
lined with quaint twentieth century bus stops 
and shop windows that displayed everything 
from umbrellas to antique computer games on 
small metal disks. In amidst this miscellany 
were theatres, museums, art galleries and 
holographic multimedia shows. 

London could best be described as an enormous 
amusement park and there were countless 
people to be amused by it. The million people 
who lived in the city represented just a 
fraction of the city's peak population in the 
twenty-third century. Most of the people 
currently in London, however, were visitors 
like Paul and Beatrice. Some were here for 
professional reasons and these were the lucky 
ones most likely to be authorised to land on 
the planet's surface. Archaeologists, 
biologists, geologists, historians of every 
kind, and other researchers were here in 
great abundance. Paul's discipline however 
would never have been sufficient 
justification for him to be so honoured. 
There was no need for someone whose expertise 
was in antique databases to actually be 
permitted on the planet's surface. The bits 
and bytes of data he analysed were exactly 
the same on Godwin as they were on Earth.

Besides the privileges granted to diplomats 
and business executives, the primary 
qualification that granted a person the 
privilege to walk on Earth's surface was a 
generous financial contribution to the 
planet's substantial conservation costs. Paul 
and Beatrice were constantly reminded that it 
was thanks to the generosity of people like 
him (well, not Paul specifically) that Earth 
wasn't now just dead and lifeless. 

It was alarming how precarious the survival 
of Earth had been. Every age of human 
innovation was associated with yet another 
spasm of global vandalism that threatened the 
extinction of humankind and most other life 
as well. The age of steam and steel marked 
the first era in which the planet was at 
critical risk. The ages of oil and 
electricity, of silicon and satellite dishes, 
of robotics and nuclear fusion: each fresh 
phase of human history was associated with a 
fresh set of environmental risk from which 
humanity just about survived only by the good 
fortune of scientific progress rather than 
prudence or effective conservation.

Most of those who lived on Earth were 
employed in the tourist industry. By virtue 
of being amongst the top twenty destinations 
on the planet, London had one of the largest 
city populations on Earth. And the British 
Isles was one of the planet's most densely 
inhabited tourist destinations. The actual 
current distribution of population was very 
misleading. There were huge cities in China, 
India, Brazil and North America that had once 
housed tens of millions of people, but were 
now of such little interest to tourists that 
their current population only numbered in the 
thousands. In some cities, only memorable now 
because of the economic origins of their 
growth, a single person might live in a tall 
building surrounded by thousands of empty 
skyscrapers.

Beatrice and Paul were shambolic tourists. 
Paul had always wanted to visit London, but 
he'd never been so enamoured with the 
prospect of visiting Ipswich, Toulouse, 
Krasnoyarsk, Chicago and the Namibian Desert, 
all of which found themselves on his 
haphazard itinerary. The couple travelled to 
some unlikely destinations as a result of 
Paul's chaotic scheduling and his ignorance 
concerning travel arrangements on a planet 
where flying was strictly rationed, most 
travel was by electric car or train, and 
where the number of tourists permitted at any 
one time at any one place was strictly 
rationed. Any form of travel that consumed a 
disproportionate amount of the world's 
resources was very rarely permitted. And most 
means of travel were as much museum pieces as 
the destinations. 

Paul was very poor at estimating the distance 
and journey time to his destination. After 
the couple had enjoyed a relaxing but not 
especially productive week in the South 
Pacific Ocean, the time it took to sail by 
ship across the ocean and travel by train 
across Siberia was rather longer than the 
single afternoon that Paul naively allocated. 
The reconstructed luxury liner, Lusitania, 
must have represented the pinnacle of 
progress in the early Twentieth Century, but 
even the most luxurious suite was too cramped 
and poorly fitted (not to mention badly air-
conditioned) for Paul's taste. And he didn't 
enjoy at all his traumatic experience of sea-
sickness. Who would have imagined that such 
relatively small up and down motion could 
have such a nauseous effect? Beatrice, 
naturally, gave no impression of being out of 
sorts at all.

It was very odd to be on a planet that 
existed more in the past than it did in the 
present. Any part of Earth's history with 
historical or scientific significance was 
preserved or newly reconstructed. Almost all 
the planet was either national park or 
museum. Beatrice pointed out that much the 
same was also happening on the Moon. There 
was a natural desire to preserve the past. 
However, as more and more past events and 
artefacts were now considered worth 
preserving, they had steadily accumulated to 
the extent that they squeezed out the last 
few remaining things that had no historical 
significance at all.

Although London had a relatively low 
permanent population, it was in fact one of 
the most crowded spots on the planet. This 
privilege was shared with only a handful of 
other great cities such as Rome, Paris, 
Istanbul, Beijing and New York. There was 
congestion from Charing Cross, along 
Whitehall and towards Westminster where 
tourists from Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and 
other planetary orbits crowded together to 
view the many famous sights they'd always 
wanted to see.

"Let's go somewhere quieter," suggested Paul 
who had only ever seen crowds like this 
before on the Moon. 

Beatrice agreed and the couple set off down 
the escalators at Westminster, which were 
perfect mid-twenty first century facsimiles, 
caught an underground train that resembled 
one from a century or two later, and used the 
iconic underground map to navigate to the 
outer suburb of Richmond-upon-Thames. This 
was still very busy but thankfully rather 
less crowded than central London. 

Beatrice and Paul ambled along to Richmond 
Park which appeared to be the most famous 
landmark in this quaint suburb. Paul looked 
warily towards the sky as he recalled the 
rain that had fallen earlier that day. 
Although the weather forecasts indicated only 
a low likelihood of further precipitation, 
Paul was in constant dread of this peculiar 
meteorological phenomenon. How could anyone 
ever be fond of rain? He'd already endured 
one English downpour and now understood why 
people on Earth owned waterproofs and carried 
umbrellas. Rain was cold. It was persistent. 
It made you very wet indeed. If you ran to 
shelter and you were unfortunate, you might 
have to wait for several hours until you 
could gingerly emerge and hope that you 
weren't going to get soaked by the next 
downpour.

English wildlife, even in Richmond Park, was 
very elusive and, when you caught a glimpse 
of it, singularly unspectacular. Only an 
ornithologist could enthuse about sparrows, 
thrushes and blackbirds. There were none of 
the rather more interesting but quite 
dangerous animals that roamed Africa or 
India. So, after not very long and not having 
seen even one of the park's famous herd of 
red deer, Beatrice and Paul left the park in 
the extraordinarily early dusk. This was late 
autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and the 
days were now tiresomely short. 

This was another characteristic of Earth that 
Paul had difficulty understanding and didn't 
enjoy. Weather was one thing. Seasons were 
another. And he came to appreciate that a 
change of season didn't just entail a change 
in the weather. There was also a difference 
in the number of daylight hours. No wonder 
humanity had fled Earth for the outer planets 
and if not so much the stars then the Kuiper 
Belt.

Beatrice and Paul wandered into a pub. This 
was a peculiar North European phenomenon 
mostly centred on the British Isles. Paul had 
come to rather like these ubiquitous 
institutions which were so often full of 
plaques and memorabilia to commemorate the 
famous people who'd visited them in the past. 
Paul wasn't at all sure who ‘Mick Jagger' was 
but he sat on a chair that had once 
accommodated the backside of this singer of 
an ancient folk music called ‘rock'. Beatrice 
chose to sit in a chair that had once graced 
the bottom of another mostly forgotten singer 
called ‘Madonna'. They were served by a robot 
that pulled them measurements from a quaint 
hand pump of a not especially cold alcoholic 
beverage that was measured in archaic units 
called ‘pints'. 

Earth was in many ways more foreign to Paul 
than anywhere else he'd ever been, but it was 
also the most familiar. He was privileged to 
have seen the actual monuments that were 
famous throughout the Solar System such as 
the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Venetian 
canals and the London Eye.

As he sat in the pub with Beatrice and supped 
the strangely bitter but still intoxicating 
‘ale', Paul recalled his occasional 
encounters with the old man in Nudeworld. 
He'd not had another encounter with him now 
he was much closer to the Sun, although he'd 
quite recently chosen to revisit Nudeworld. 
Yes, he did succumb to Blanche's entreaties 
that he should have sex with her. No, she 
didn't appear to have changed one iota in the 
many months since he'd last visited Nudeworld 
nor did she recognise that this was probably 
the longest separation his virtual lover and 
he had experienced in the many years of their 
relationship.

Nudeworld was no longer what it once seemed 
to be. This was partly because his long 
journey to Earth and the accompanying months 
of marriage now made the virtual world seem 
trivial and inconsequential. Partly it was 
because the frequent attempts to terminate 
Paul's life had made real life appear 
dramatically more exciting than a relatively 
humdrum virtual world in which he had a 
bizarrely ordinary relationship with Blanche. 
Nevertheless, Paul still couldn't resist 
Nudeworld's magnetic pull. He wondered 
whether he would ever again meet the strange 
non-nude stranger whose appearance conflicted 
so much with what he expected in a virtual 
reality that after all only existed to 
address a specific rather niche fantasy. The 
old man's comments in their brief 
conversations niggled Paul. What was he 
supposed to have gleaned from them? Was it 
supposed to provide him with guidance for his 
imminent and epochal voyage to beyond the 
Heliopause and probably even the Oort Cloud?

There was another more mundane cause for 
Paul's recent venture back to virtual space 
and that was because he had more time to do 
so. Paul and Beatrice travelled from hotel to 
hotel across the globe but every destination 
soon came to seem much the same, even if they 
stayed only a few days. Seven days of tourism 
a week wearied Paul and he welcomed the 
opportunity to rest. Beatrice was happy to 
oblige. She told him that she didn't mind 
being a solitary tourist. As long that is, 
she said as she gave her husband an 
affectionate kiss on the lips, he didn't mind 
being left alone in the hotel room by 
himself. "Not at all, not at all," said Paul 
who, in any case, was generally someone who 
preferred just his own company.

So, for almost as much time as they spent 
together, Paul would rest in the luxury of a 
hotel room that might once have been a 
chamber in the home of a Duke, Prince, Emir 
or other potentate in Earth history. They 
were now long dead, along with their titles, 
but they'd left their homes as monuments that 
outlasted in almost every case even the 
nations over which they'd ruled. At the 
moment, for instance, Paul and Beatrice were 
staying in a mansion called Buckingham Palace 
not far from Westminster where several 
generations of British monarchs had once 
lived. It was a peculiar experience to have 
slept in a bedroom where a monarch had once 
lived and upon whose empire the Sun never 
set. However as Paul came from a region of 
space where the Sun was fairly incidental 
this didn't impress him quite as much as it 
perhaps ought to have done.

"Our security guards are over there," said 
Paul, tipping the rim of his glass towards 
the other side of the pub.

Beatrice nodded but she didn't bother to turn 
her head in their direction. "After all those 
assassination attempts you should be pleased 
that there are people watching over us," she 
said.

"I guess so, but I still think it's creepy."

He scrutinised the pair of guards who were 
discreet as always but nonetheless were never 
less than ten metres away from the couple 
wherever they happened to be. One of the 
guards, Grace, was a woman who'd chosen a 
muscular body for herself that might well 
attract some men but didn't really appeal to 
Paul. And anyway he was married to Beatrice 
as he so often had to pinch himself to 
believe. Grace was an Earth citizen from 
South Pacific City who could actually trace 
her ancestry to one of the many scattered 
volcanic islands in the ocean, although Paul 
wasn't sure whether it was one of those that 
had been submerged by the rising ocean-level 
in the twenty-second century.

The other guide was a man. Or at any rate 
just over half a man. He'd been a Martian 
soldier in the planet's interminable war. 
Although he'd been told, Paul couldn't 
remember which side of the conflict Jorgen 
had fought on. The war had done the ex-
soldier no favours. His fighting career had 
ended badly and he was now almost half 
machine. In fact he was actually a kind of 
cyborg. The right half of his face was mostly 
plastic and metal and housed a right eye with 
ocular facilities far beyond that of ordinary 
people. He no longer had a need for 
binoculars or even night-vision glasses. What 
was left of his arms and legs was reinforced 
by the same plastic/metal mix that made him 
stronger, faster and more formidable than 
most other security guards. It was a mystery 
to Paul just how much of Jorgen's body was 
biological and how much synthetic, but it 
wasn't a mystery he cared enough to resolve.

In truth, just looking at Jorgen made Paul 
feel decidedly uncomfortable.

"It's not his fault he looks like that," said 
Beatrice, who was especially sympathetic.

"I know. I know," said Paul. "How did he get 
that way?"

"I don't know," said Beatrice. "Does it 
matter? There are a lot of ways to get 
wounded in battle, if not actually killed. 
That's what happens in warfare."

"I really don't understand it at all," said 
Paul in all honesty. No conflict on Godwin 
could possibly stir up sufficient 
disagreement for one set of people to wish 
harm on another set.

Paul looked back at Grace and Jorgen who, 
unlike most couples in the pub, barely said a 
word to each other and were careful not to 
appear to be watching their wards with undue 
attention. He was confident that whatever 
they were drinking was almost certainly not 
alcoholic. What a dull life his guards had to 
lead.

Paul was slightly drunk when the couple 
finally left the pub, although Beatrice was 
as sober as she'd have been if she'd not 
drunk a single drop. And perhaps she hadn't. 
Paul didn't really keep count. Typically, as 
soon as they were outside it was raining 
again as well as being dark and cold. And 
also typically, neither Paul nor Beatrice had 
an umbrella.

"Should we ask Grace or Jorgen for one?" 
asked Paul.

"I don't think our guards would appreciate it 
if we made it too obvious that they were 
following us everywhere," said Beatrice. "I 
know they're meant to, but it is supposed to 
be discreet and we were asked not to let it 
bother us."

"Well, it does bother me," said Paul. "And I 
would like the use of an umbrella."

"Just a minute," said Beatrice, who slipped 
back into the pub while Paul stood outside 
under the shelter of the porch. She came back 
within rather less of a minute holding a big 
black umbrella that could easily shelter both 
of them.

"We don't have far to walk to the underground 
station," said Beatrice. "Just over the 
bridge and past the shops..."

"That's still plenty of time for my feet to 
get wet," Paul complained as he ruefully 
contemplated the puddles at his feet.

"Don't worry," said Beatrice who kissed her 
husband reassuringly on the lips. "I'll dry 
your feet later..."

And do a lot more, thought Paul as his penis 
stiffened already at the prospect of 
lovemaking on the balcony of Buckingham 
Palace. The only thing that might put him off 
the prospect was the presence of all those 
paintings of short-legged orange dogs on the 
wall. They were a strange lot, the British 
Royal Family. No wonder they didn't last long 
after the fall of the British Empire.

Chapter Thirteen
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

Heads turned as Beatrice strode along 
corridors in the space ship Intrepid that 
were normally reserved for military 
personnel. It was unusual enough for a 
passenger to be seen in this part of the ship 
although there was no security restriction as 
such, but Beatrice in motion was an unusually 
compelling sight even in a Solar System where 
everyone's body was artificially beautified 
as a matter of routine. There was a very 
literal sense that she was attractive: her 
affect on the libido was positively magnetic. 
Her body exuded a sexual charisma enhanced by 
the skimpiness of her attire, which on this 
occasion was a very loose gauze dress through 
which the lack of underwear was clearly 
evident.

Beatrice was a relatively frequent visitor to 
this part of the space ship. The military 
personnel knew about her sexual promiscuity 
and several had enjoyed it at close quarter. 
She wasn't the only woman or man on the ship 
to be so open with her body. The diversity of 
the Solar System was great enough to 
encompass a wide spectrum of sexual mores but 
Beatrice was the one who attracted the most 
comment. No one could agree as to the cause 
for her sexual licentiousness. Those who knew 
Venus assumed it was a result of having lived 
on Ecstasy. Those more familiar with Ecstasy 
assumed that it must be the way of life on 
Venus. And those who knew both assumed that 
it was just her personal choice.

It suited Beatrice to have such a reputation. 
There was always a ready explanation for 
everywhere she went and an explanation also 
as to why she was reluctant to talk about it. 
The complex sexual ethics that humans 
practised throughout the Solar System allowed 
a great deal to be left unsaid and excused. 
She could wander freely on any level of the 
ship in any section and in the company of 
anyone and it would be assumed that there was 
a sexual liaison of some kind involved and 
not necessarily one which the other partner 
would wish to have widely advertised. 
Beatrice only knew the emotions of shame, 
guilt and jealousy from what she'd observed 
in her many lovers, but she understood how 
useful such human emotions could be when she 
needed an alibi.

Even so, there was no subterfuge associated 
with her current encounter. She had an 
appointment to keep with Colonel Vashti and 
one that as usual she kept to the second. 
Unlike her husband, there was no likelihood 
that she would be late or simply forget her 
appointment. Beatrice found Paul's failings 
useful but she could never emulate them 
without making an extraordinary effort. 

Beatrice was fascinated by Vashti even though 
the colonel wasn't her first lover to be so 
unusually endowed. There were many people in 
the expanse of the Solar System who by means 
of surgery, genetic modification or accident 
of birth had a body somewhat like Vashti's. 
Was she even a woman? She didn't have a 
vagina and there was no evidence of a womb or 
other internal organs related to reproduction 
that a woman should have. Her penis and 
testicles were very much those of a man and 
it was even possible that she could father a 
child. Every other aspect of her was 
undeniably female, although she was such a 
trim and muscular woman. That wasn't 
especially unusual either. Beatrice enjoyed 
sex with both genders and appreciated the 
aesthetic qualities of both. To have a 
combination in just one woman was quite a 
treat.

As was the case with anyone with whom 
Beatrice had extensive interaction, it was 
routine for her to retrieve all the 
information she could. Vashti's recorded 
history was entirely from Mars and quite 
inconveniently from the city of Beagle in 
Isidis Planitia. There weren't very many 
other survivors of the nuclear devastation 
that had wiped the city off the map. The 
records relating to Vashti from before that 
incident were sketchy and unverifiable, but 
her career in the Mariner armed forces began 
not long after. She'd been an exemplary 
soldier who'd have risen rather faster 
through the ranks had the war vacated many 
more senior postings. There were several 
accounts of her plentiful sexual 
relationships and these were divided quite 
evenly between men and women. Such records 
were necessarily incomplete as there was no 
requirement to maintain them, but Proxima 
Centauri had the data mining skills to piece 
together as complete a picture of any 
individual as was possible as a result of its 
unfettered access to the Solar System's 
databases.

Beatrice's purpose for seeing Vashti was 
entirely for the pleasure which the colonel 
could provide with great facility, skill and 
attention. There was not one inch of her 
brown skin that Beatrice didn't relish, 
especially the shaft of her penis as it 
plunged inside her and stimulated her to 
repeated orgasm. She admired Vashti's ability 
to delay ejaculation until Beatrice was truly 
ready and then release copious volumes of 
sperm over her face and bosom when required. 
Beatrice had an appetite for semen not only 
for its taste but for analysis of DNA and 
chromosomes. In this regard Beatrice wasn't 
at all surprised to identify that Vashti's 
biological inheritance was from Earth's 
Indian subcontinent.

Surrounding the two women and their 
lovemaking were the scents and images 
generated by ambient software to supplement 
the nature and intensity of their passion. At 
their mutual climax this was torrid, pungent 
and primarily red-hued, but now it was floral 
and calm. Beatrice lay across Vashti's bed. 
The two women's arms were around one another, 
their legs entwined and the perspiration from 
one woman dripped onto the bare flesh of the 
other.

"How do you think Nadezhda is?" Beatrice 
asked. "Is she all right?"

"Are you referring to the occasion when you 
saw me carry her to the medical centre?" 
Vashti asked.

"Of course," said Beatrice. "She is my lover 
as well after all. We make love most days. 
It's only natural that I should be 
concerned."

"I understand," said Vashti. "I was also 
concerned, of course. It was very strange. 
I'm not a doctor, but I don't think her 
fainting was quite what I'd expect from a 
woman like the captain. She exercises often, 
she eats well and there's no history of 
similar events in her past that I'm aware 
of."

"It wasn't like her at all. You don't think 
that the pressure on her is getting too much 
do you? It was me who suggested that she have 
sex with you again. I know how much she 
enjoys it when you fuck her. I hoped that it 
would make her feel better."

"Make her feel better than what?" asked 
Vashti. "Has she been unhappy recently?"

"Perhaps," said Beatrice guardedly. "The 
attack on the Intrepid by the Holy Coalition 
was quite a shock you must admit. Captain 
Kerensky isn't a military officer like you. 
She's not accustomed to being captain of a 
space ship that's been breached by thousands 
of religious fanatics."

"As far as I recall," said Vashti, "the 
captain had very little to do with regards to 
repelling the attack. That was done almost 
entirely by the space ship's automatic 
defence systems. Our forces were principally 
in place to prevent those hostiles who'd 
penetrated the hull from spilling out onto 
the other levels. Were you with her on the 
occasion of the assault?"

Beatrice functioned too efficiently to 
hesitate. "I'd remember if I was," she lied. 
"I was visiting a friend on the fourth level 
at the time. The whole thing was very 
alarming. I know where you were, of course. 
It's thanks to you that my husband was 
rescued."

"I guessed that he'd be the last one on the 
ship who'd respond to a crisis with the 
necessary haste," said Vashti. "I often 
wonder about you and Paul. Does he know that 
you're fucking me at the moment? Does he 
know, for instance, about your relationship 
with the captain?"

"I haven't troubled to tell him and he hasn't 
troubled to find out." 

"Doesn't he ever wonder what you're doing 
when you're not with him?" 

"I make love with him most nights," said 
Beatrice. "And he seems fully occupied during 
the day. I don't think our marriage is one 
where we feel the need to be together all the 
time."

"I suppose not," said Vashti. "But what about 
Nadezhda? She's not a woman who feels the 
need for one other person's company all the 
time, but she's not a recluse either. She 
does seem to have retreated into herself 
recently. Why's that?"

"I don't know," said Beatrice disingenuously. 
"The attack by the Holy Coalition must have 
upset her more than you would have thought."

"Talking of which, Beatrice," said Vashti 
with a slightly conspiratorial smile. "Would 
you like to see how things are in the 
outermost level? It's not something 
passengers can normally see, of course, to 
protect the prisoners' privacy from idle 
curiosity, but it's a facility that's 
available to military personnel."

"Is that something that's allowed?" wondered 
Beatrice, who already knew exactly how the 
prisoners were managing. She had greater 
access to the surveillance systems than the 
colonel, but she didn't want to admit to 
that.

"It's interesting," said Vashti. "If you 
think that what's troubling the captain is 
what's happening to the prisoners, then this 
might interest you."

Colonel Vashti invoked the display of a 
complete overview as it was assembled from 
surveillance equipment scattered throughout 
the outermost level. Lawns and gardens were 
spread pleasingly across the landscape, 
threaded through by paths and streams, and 
interspersed by villas and water features. 
Unlike most other levels there was a total 
absence of animal and bird life with the 
exception of the captive human population 
who, in any case, believed that they were 
inherently superior to all other animals. 

The prisoners were naked and adorned only by 
beards and short hair that in most cases was 
much the same length as their beards. There 
was no evidence that the Holy Crusaders' 
apparent differences had vanished now that 
there was so little diversity in their 
appearance. Instead, they had congregated in 
distinct groups based around their original 
religious allegiances. The villas were 
adorned by crude symbols constructed from 
torn-off tree branches and vandalised 
furniture that proclaimed the prevailing 
faith. Some buildings were adorned by crosses 
that were sometimes further modified in a 
crude attempt to fashion the shape of a 
spread-eagled man. Most villas had emblazoned 
a symbol in one of a multitude of shapes that 
was generally attached to the top of the 
highest structure at hand. Each villa had 
become the exclusive property of one or 
another set of crusaders, but the residents 
weren't much concerned in taking advantage of 
the lavish food, drink and entertainment 
facilities at their disposal. Rather they 
were organised into defensive stations armed 
with makeshift spears or clubs of one kind or 
another. They were far more anxious to 
protect themselves from the predation of 
crusaders of other faiths. There was a 
palpable air of tension as the different 
factions kept guard of what they believed was 
now their own exclusive territory.

"As you can see, the prisoners represent a 
wide spectrum of religious views and 
beliefs," said Vashti. "There are Christians, 
Muslims, Hindus and Jews. Initially, each 
prisoner was given the freedom to live 
wherever he chose, but for convenience's sake 
they were gathered together according to 
language and religion. We knew there was a 
risk of conflict and we wanted to reduce its 
likelihood as much as possible. What we 
weren't prepared for was just how fiercely 
protective the crusaders are of their own 
flavour of whatever religion they profess to. 
Many of them are Christians, but the 
Catholics, the Baptists, the Orthodox, the 
Presbyterians and the other faiths hate each 
other even more than they hate those from 
other religions."

Religious belief wasn't something that 
Beatrice understood. The bizarre human 
tendency to ascribe supernatural intelligence 
to the universe had discredited itself almost 
entirely by having arrived at so many 
incompatible explanations of what the guiding 
force in the universe was and how best to 
celebrate it. The machine civilisations had 
no equivalent system of belief to that of 
religion. The nearest to it of any kind was 
polite disagreement regarding the unknown and 
the unknowable. Where there was disagreement, 
there was also the belief that future 
scientific research would one day bring a 
resolution. It was, after all, in this spirit 
of inquiry—not so different from that of the 
human scientific community—that Proxima 
Centauri took an interest in the phenomenon 
known as the Anomaly. No one would suggest, 
as did the Holy Coalition, that the attempt 
to identify the Anomaly was in any sense 
misguided or sinful. The only explanation 
Beatrice could find for the Holy Coalition's 
perverse attitude towards the Anomaly was 
that it expressed the fear common to the 
disparate fundamentalist religions that its 
discovery would simply expose how nonsensical 
their faith was. Rather more than two 
thousand years of open enquiry in the Solar 
System had left the fundamentalists looking 
exceedingly foolish, but they were still 
attracting new followers. It was obvious to 
Beatrice that nothing revealed by the Anomaly 
was likely to make any change at all to that 
species of human perversity; unless, that is, 
the religious leaders believed the Anomaly 
was some kind of manifestation of what they 
called God. If that was the case, then God 
was most certainly not built in the likeness 
of a human being and had a most peculiar 
sense of humour.

"What's the death toll?" asked Beatrice.

"There weren't many prisoners to begin with," 
said the colonel, "but their numbers are 
dropping by at least one or two a day. It 
would have been a great deal higher if it 
wasn't for the many lives saved by the 
quality of medical care provided by the 
Intrepid. These Holy Crusaders are a savage 
lot."

"Like the warring nations in Mars and the 
Asteroid Belt," suggested Beatrice 
mischievously.

"Those soldiers and passengers on the 
Intrepid who come from opposing sides of the 
Martian wars are aware that there has to be a 
cessation of conflict for the duration of the 
mission. That's as true for me as it is for 
everyone else. Furthermore, ours is a 
territorial conflict. It isn't based on 
ideology, ethnicity or religion. These 
crusaders have a deep visceral hatred for one 
another that goes well beyond morality or 
common sense."

Although the two women had already made love, 
Beatrice could see that her strangely 
enhanced lover was enthusiastic for more. Her 
penis was twitching with reinvigorated 
anticipation. Sometimes Beatrice believed 
that she had at last met her match in libido 
and sexual stamina. No human could be 
stronger, act faster, be more intelligent or 
have more acute hearing, smell or sight. But 
perhaps Beatrice could be outmatched with 
regards to her sexual appetite.

"Shall we see if one of your fellow soldiers 
would like to join us?" asked Beatrice as she 
ran her fingers along the length of Vashti's 
penis which stirred at the notion.

"Male or female?" asked Vashti.

"Does it matter?"

"Not to me."

"I fancy it rough..."

"Male might be better in that case."

These extra few hours might be a distraction 
for Beatrice from her other duties, but she 
was confident that everything was in hand. 
The Space Ship Intrepid was making steady 
progress towards the Anomaly. It might be 
considered slow by Proxima Centauri standards 
but it was phenomenally fast compared to most 
human-built space craft. Captain Kerensky was 
firmly under Beatrice's control as recently 
demonstrated by an instructive lesson on the 
limits to her freedom. The Proxima Centauran 
space fleet had rendezvoused with the 
Intrepid exactly as planned and their 
presence had been totally undetected. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Vashti called in two male soldiers of her 
acquaintance. One was a sergeant from Uranus 
and the other a corporal from Mercury. Both 
preferred to fuck other men rather than a 
feeble woman, but Beatrice didn't mind being 
fucked in the arse. She showed how much of a 
sport she was by strapping on sex toys that 
enabled her to fuck the men with the 
roughness and aggression they desired. After 
the relatively tender Sapphic love she 
enjoyed with Nadezhda and the rather routine 
heterosexual sex with Paul, it was a pleasant 
change to have two men fucking her 
simultaneously, one in the vagina and the 
other in the anus, while Vashti fucked one of 
them and fisted the other.

Nevertheless, Beatrice had to be careful. She 
could never allow herself to surrender 
totally to her passions. If she was as rough 
with the two men as she allowed them to be 
with her she could very easily kill them. 
This was something she'd learnt in her 
earlier days when she'd first spread her 
wings and experimented with sex. It had been 
an unfortunate and rather bloody climax to 
the lovemaking that was also a nuisance to 
have to clean up afterwards.

She enjoyed the excitement of this more 
aggressive sex. She loved the smell, the 
sweat and the exquisite pain in her nipples 
and clitoris from the men's teeth and 
pinching fingers. She enjoyed spitting onto 
the men's faces as much they enjoyed 
ejaculating on hers. Vashti understood 
Beatrice's needs. Perhaps she was the only 
one on the whole space ship who did. 

Although Paul never suspected her, there were 
good reasons why Beatrice could never be 
content in a purely monogamous relationship.

Chapter Fourteen
Ecstasy - 3750 C.E.

Beatrice wasn't at all surprised by what 
greeted her after she left Paul resting in 
her bedroom to investigate the commotion 
she'd heard in the corridor outside. Her 
superior hearing had already established that 
three men were walking towards her apartment 
and she guessed that the victims of the 
scuffle she'd overheard were the two 
bodyguards whose presence she'd been aware of 
right from the moment she'd first located 
Paul.

It was in fact the three assassins who were 
the most surprised in the short time they had 
left to live. There was no advantage in 
hesitation and Beatrice didn't want Paul to 
suspect that his new girlfriend was anything 
other than she appeared. Not that she needed 
to worry about her would-be assailants. Any 
weapons they might use were unlikely to cause 
her much harm. Nonetheless, it took rather 
less time to eliminate the threat posed by 
the assassins than it did to dispose of their 
bodies. 

Fortunately, there was a window nearby that 
could be opened wide enough for each man's 
lifeless body to be pushed through. Beatrice 
carried all three corpses on her shoulders, 
not at all bowed down by their weight, and 
slipped them out of the window to spiral 
downwards to the street far below. Her only 
concern was whether anyone was hit by a 
plummeting cadaver, but the streets were 
mostly empty this late at night. Moreover, 
the elimination of three notorious hitmen was 
most likely to be attributed to underworld 
justice than the intervention of a naked 
woman who'd been engaged in entertaining a 
mostly unimpressive Godwinian tourist.

Paul was wholly unaware of the extent to 
which he should be grateful to his lover, 
just as he'd been unaware that during the 
whole of his time on Ecstasy he'd been 
followed not only by two Saturnian guards and 
three assassins, but also by an android from 
Proxima Centauri. In the days when Beatrice 
discreetly followed Paul's almost random 
meandering, she was confident she'd 
identified everyone also on his tail. There 
was obviously a comic aspect to this game of 
cat and mouse, as one set of interested 
parties assiduously avoided being spotted by 
the others. But, ironically, of all those who 
kept a discreet presence behind Paul's 
movements the one most completely anonymous 
in the Ecstasy colony was the same one who 
was most truly alien.

At that moment, Beatrice's main focus of 
attention was Paul himself, this time not 
from a distance but as up close and intimate 
as she could persuade him to be. For a woman 
programmed with as insatiable a sexual 
appetite as Beatrice, this was a challenge in 
itself. The men and women who most often 
attracted her were those who had enough 
erotic charisma and sexual stamina to come at 
least part of the way towards hers. Paul was 
in no competitive league at all, although 
Beatrice used her skill to squeeze as much 
semen from him as she could while prolonging 
their lovemaking for as long as she 
reasonably could. Even with the aid of the 
performance drugs that made Paul a more 
satisfying partner than he might otherwise 
be, he wasn't exactly the kind of sexually 
exciting and stimulating partner she'd 
normally choose.

Though Paul's conversation was rather dull to 
the average human, it was fortunate that by 
some of it rather fascinated Beatrice. Her 
robot mind found much of interest in the 
academic subject of data-mining especially as 
so much of Paul's research was focused on the 
period of information technology that was the 
earliest prehistory of her kind. It 
fascinated Beatrice to imagine an age when 
robots were automatons with no consciousness 
at all, even of the rudimentary kind 
possessed by those manufactured by humans in 
the Solar System. Computers had once been 
machines tied to binary digits etched on tiny 
wafers of silicon that held information in 
crude packets of eight binary digits. It took 
many years for computer technology to advance 
to the level of sophistication possessed by 
the robots that the original starships 
carried to the Solar System's nearest 
neighbours, although those who'd launched the 
scientific mission could hardly have 
suspected the extent to which left to their 
own devices the robots would achieve 
sentience and soon evolve to a higher degree 
of cultural organisation than the biological 
life-forms who'd designed them.

It took little effort to persuade Paul that 
the woman who was so attentive to him, who so 
evidently enjoyed his rather pedantic 
conversation, and gave him more pleasure in 
bed than he'd ever enjoyed before, was 
someone with whom he should spend the rest of 
his life. He was disconsolate when she left 
and beamed in happiness when she reappeared. 
Although Beatrice had little real 
understanding of human emotion, she was sure 
the love he professed for her was genuine.

Beatrice was more than happy to reciprocate 
with her own protestations of love, but her 
real feelings were more akin to the fondness 
she still had for the pet animals she'd 
adopted over the years since she first 
arrived on Venus. She'd never been as 
distraught as when her pet Labrador had died 
at what was an age that could be extended to 
only forty years. Beatrice felt ineffable 
pity for fragile organic entities whose 
entire being was encoded on the unreliable 
DNA molecules that inhabited every living 
cell. Unlike her, they led lives where they 
could never escape their biological origins 
however much human technology prolonged the 
natural lifespan and enhanced the basic 
biochemical processes.

Beatrice was aware of another task that she 
had do as soon as she'd disposed of the three 
assassins. It was highly unlikely that the 
contract to eliminate Paul that she'd 
successfully thwarted could be written off so 
easily. The three hitmen would soon be 
followed by others and it was probable that 
the eventual collateral cost would soon 
amount to more than the easily remedied 
injuries inflicted on the two Saturnian 
bodyguards. It was imperative that Beatrice 
should neutralise the immediate risk to 
Paul's life as soon as possible.

It was a simple matter for Beatrice to gather 
more data about Paul's would-be assailants. 
The nearest Proxima Centauri communication 
centre was a cloaked device hidden inside an 
unassuming chunk of ice less than twenty 
light seconds away in the Kuiper Belt. 
However, despite the images she'd had the 
presence of mind to record in the few seconds 
she'd spent while disposing of Lofty and his 
companions and the wealth of additional 
information she'd gathered after having 
watched their movements for a couple of days, 
it was several hours until she was provided 
with the information she required. So much 
had to be mined from police computers 
scattered about the Solar System and not only 
were they much slower than any in Beatrice's 
home solar system there was an inevitable 
latency in the time of arrival of data that 
came as far as Saturn and even Earth orbit. 
But eventually Beatrice was downloaded with 
as much information as she needed and she was 
now in a position to act.

Lofty's boss was Adrian Xerxes, a man for 
whom Beatrice took an instant dislike. It 
wasn't just for his criminal activities on 
Ecstasy, even though these included human 
trafficking, murder, blackmail and 
embezzlement. It wasn't just for his 
loathsome personal habits which included the 
murder of innocent men and women for his 
sexual pleasure. There was also his trade in 
the pelt and flesh of rare and endangered 
species, not all of which had been resettled 
or regenerated entirely happily in the 
countless colonies that orbited the Sun. That 
a man should cause harm to humans—of which 
there were many billions—was bad enough, but 
to contribute to the extinction of an entire 
species was beyond reproach. 

In common with all robots in the Proxima 
Centauri system, Beatrice treasured all 
biological life-forms. It was more from a 
concern about the vulnerability of such 
beings that her kind had a policy to remain 
hidden from human sight. Furthermore, it was 
obvious that humans would be far from 
delighted to discover that they weren't after 
all the most advanced beings in the stellar 
neighbourhood. In fact, such realisation 
would almost certainly result in a war in 
which humans had not even the smallest 
likelihood of victory. 

There was no information as to who had 
persuaded Xerxes to take the contract on 
Paul's life. Many agencies and individuals 
had an interest in the Interplanetary Union's 
mission to the Anomaly and their concern 
wasn't entirely benevolent. It could be any 
one of the religious fanatics, commercial 
interests or political bodies within the 
Solar System. It could even be attributed to 
the robot civilisation on Sirius who pursued 
a very independent policy in the Solar System 
that nevertheless rarely conflicted with the 
activities of Proxima Centauri any more than 
it did Alpha Centauri, Wolf, Lalande and 
Barnard's Star. But Proxima Centauri was 
determined that the Interplanetary Union 
should succeed in its mission to reach the 
Anomaly and Beatrice was detailed to do what 
she could to facilitate this.

Beatrice had little difficulty in finding 
time to spend away from Paul's side. After 
all, he had to sleep for some of every day, 
which he did very soundly. Furthermore, there 
were many very convincing excuses that a 
woman resident on Ecstasy could make to be 
elsewhere. It was harder, however, to elude 
the scrutiny of the fresh bodyguards assigned 
to Paul who were now taking a close interest 
in his girlfriend's activities. But Beatrice 
had many unfair advantages at her disposal 
that enabled her to slip discreetly out of 
sight. No radio tag could remain undetected 
and no human could maintain a constant watch 
on someone who knew exactly who was watching 
her and from where.

Adrian Xerxes wasn't expecting a visitor that 
morning. He most certainly wasn't in a mood 
to entertain company and when he was notified 
of Beatrice's presence by the two women who 
guarded his exclusive and private elevator 
his first response was to send her away.

"She says she's a friend of Bob Eugenides," 
said the guard nervously. She was fully aware 
of how extreme Xerxes' reaction could be if 
he was unnecessarily disturbed and half-hoped 
that this confident but scantily dressed 
woman could be summarily eliminated in the 
confines of the lift. All Xerxes had to do 
was signal his intention with a coded 
message. But the woman had used one of a 
short list of secret codes to introduce 
herself. She'd announced that she was looking 
for a dentist as she had a sore tooth and 
wondered whether the two guards could direct 
her to someone with a pair of sonic pliers. 
Therefore the woman had to be treated 
seriously, even though the guard had no idea 
who Bob Eugenides might be. She assumed it 
was another private signal that had a secret 
meaning for her boss.

"Ask her whether Bob had a pleasant holiday 
on Uranus," commanded Xerxes suspiciously.

A moment later, the guard returned his call.

"She says that Bob's fine and that he's now 
returned home to Ceres," she said.

Fuck! thought Xerxes. Ceres. That was fucking 
Priority One. 

"Any friend of Bob's a friend of mine," he 
said. "Escort her up."

 Xerxes was unable to watch the woman when 
she'd passed through the elevator's doors 
because of a malfunction in the monitoring 
system. That was suspicious in itself. Such 
faults rarely happened, but Xerxes was 
untroubled by the threat from a woman who 
revealed no weaponry after she'd removed her 
clothes. She'd be soon disposed of by his 
bodyguards if she attempted to do something 
stupid.

He waited in the huge reception area 
accompanied by exotic jungle vegetation and 
four naked prepubescent girls who'd survived 
Xerxes' previous night of pleasure. They 
little guessed how lucky they were or how 
unlikely they would be to survive a second 
night. Xerxes' two bodyguards stood to 
attention, almost certainly hoping that they 
would have the pleasure of ridding their boss 
of his guest should it turn out that she was 
wasting his time.

The elevator doors slid open and the strange 
woman stepped out. 

This was about as much as Xerxes or his 
bodyguards had the opportunity to notice.

They didn't have the luxury of time to notice 
that the two elevator guards were slumped 
bloody and unconscious on the floor of the 
elevator. Nor did they see that the 
sophisticated surveillance equipment was not 
so much malfunctioning as totally vandalised. 
The only people who had time to observe 
anything at all were the four girls who were 
unexpectedly saved from a gruesome and 
sexually perverse early demise. These girls 
were the only surviving witness of the scene 
of swift carnage that accompanied Beatrice's 
arrival in the reception area and they were 
hasty to leave the scene before the police 
could arrive to interrogate them. Their 
presence on Ecstasy was as illegal as that of 
any prostitute in Manu's bar and they feared 
the police as much as they did the likelihood 
of reprisals from Xerxes' associates or 
friends. 

In truth, there wasn't much they could tell. 
Beatrice left promptly after she'd killed 
Xerxes and his two bodyguards and dumped 
their bodies on the patio. Xerxes' leopard 
now had more human flesh to devour in one 
sitting than he normally would. The girls 
were too busy tending to their bruises and 
knife-scars to pay much attention to Xerxes' 
visitor and only noticed how radically their 
situation had changed long after it was 
possible to make a positive identification of 
the woman whose arse disappeared between the 
sliding doors of the elevator from which 
she'd emerged only seconds before.

It was the bodyguards Beatrice first disposed 
of. She snapped their arms off and threw away 
their weapons before they had the chance to 
appreciate how useless they would be. It was 
probably unnecessary for her to tug the 
genitals off one of them, but it disarmed a 
shocked Xerxes when she threw them onto his 
lap. She twisted their necks with each hand 
and dropped them dead on the floor. And then 
while Xerxes stared at the bodyguard's 
slightly tumescent penis, it was his turn for 
an equally efficient death. Xerxes' head was 
detached from his neck and his own genitals 
ripped off and stuffed into his mouth. 

There was no recorded evidence of Beatrice's 
dispatch of her victims as the elevator was 
the only place were Xerxes had installed any 
surveillance equipment and Beatrice had 
already destroyed it beyond any hope of 
repair. Indeed, it took her longer to destroy 
the equipment than it did to beat senseless 
the two guards in the lift. And much longer 
than the time it took to eliminate Xerxes and 
his bodyguards. Beatrice was well enough 
informed of Xerxes' private habits to know 
that he was unlikely to keep a holographic 
record of his activities in the penthouse, 
but since there was always the possibility of 
planted devices she wasted very little time 
there.

She was right in her assumptions. It wasn't 
until nearly two weeks later that the police 
raided the penthouse and this only because of 
complaints from other residents in the 
apartment block about the commotion from the 
deer in the roof garden that were being 
pursued by a now very hungry leopard. The 
only evidence of Xerxes' and his bodyguards' 
death the police could find was inside the 
leopard's stomach and in its faeces. 

There were few police officers who regretted 
Xerxes' demise. And the two guards who'd 
maintained a watch on his elevator were well 
en route by chartered cruiser to Neptune in 
the hope that they might escape a revenge 
killing from anyone who might wish to honour 
Xerxes' memory.

Beatrice was no vendetta killer. However much 
she sometimes wished that Proxima Centauri 
was active in eliminating crime and poverty 
in the Solar System, she preferred to let 
human life continue undisturbed by alien 
influence. Warfare, crime and oppression were 
just as much aspects of human society as the 
arts, charity and justice. It was best that 
humans were left to their own devices to 
tackle the problems of their own making, but 
the more she saw of human vice, the more 
content she was not to be human. She dreaded 
the chaos that would descend on the galaxy if 
humans were ever to get the upper hand. 

As if it wasn't already difficult enough for 
biological life-forms!

Her main duty, however, was to continue to be 
by Paul's side as he tarried on Ecstasy and 
waited for an interplanetary space cruiser to 
carry him onwards to Saturn's orbit. He was 
so truly besotted by her that it took him 
less than a week to propose that she 
accompany him on his voyage.

"So, where are you going?" Beatrice asked, 
although this was something she already knew.

"I don't know," admitted Paul. "Or more to 
the point I don't know what I'm permitted to 
tell you."

"What dark secrets have you got?" Beatrice 
teased. "Aren't you just going to return home 
to Godwin?"

"No, I'm not," Paul confessed. "The truth is 
that I'm not really all I seem."

"Aren't you?" asked Beatrice who was amused 
at the irony of the situation. She was also 
not really what she seemed to be.

"I'm not here as a tourist at all," said 
Paul, lying back on the mattress of his hotel 
bed. "Well, I'm a tourist while I'm here on 
Ecstasy, but that's not the real reason I've 
travelled so far from Godwin. In fact, 
although my next stop is Saturn's orbit, I'm 
due to travel all the way to Earth."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Beatrice. "I've always 
wanted to go there."

"As does everyone," said Paul. "But there's 
not much more that I'm at liberty to tell 
you."

"I would so much adore to walk on Earth," 
said Beatrice simperingly. "A blue sky. 
Clouds. Oceans. And so much to see."

"I know. I know," said Paul miserably. "And 
I'd so much love to have you by my side."

"Is there no way I could persuade you to take 
me with you?"

"I don't know. I'll have to ask."

Although Beatrice knew Paul would be as good 
as his word, especially after the long 
passionate lovemaking that she left as his 
abiding memory when they parted the following 
day, he was exactly as poor at negotiating 
with the Interplanetary Union's officials as 
Beatrice thought he'd be. He'd had little 
previous practise in dealing with authority. 
On Godwin, there was no concept of asking 
anyone's permission to do anything.

 "This is a most unusual request," confessed 
the sympathetic woman who interviewed 
Beatrice several days later in her office in 
the Interplanetary Union's embassy. They were 
in an impressive building that towered over 
the esplanades and boulevards below. Special 
Officer Patthana wasn't a Saturnian. Beatrice 
guessed that she came from one of the newer 
colonies in Neptune orbit. She was a dark 
skinned woman whose facial tattoo covered 
most of her forehead and shaved head. She 
wore a loose dress that draped low over her 
small pert breasts. Ornate rings were 
threaded through her nipples and visible 
through the gossamer.

"Paul and I are very much in love," said 
Beatrice.

"You've known one another for barely two 
weeks," remarked her interviewer. "How can 
you be so sure that Paul is the man for you?"

"As certain as it's possible to be. We can 
hardly bear to be parted for even a moment."

"As our records verify," said the Special 
Officer. "But you're a very attractive woman. 
You have the choice of any man on Ecstasy 
and, no doubt, the entire Solar System. How 
can you be attracted to someone like Paul? 
He's scarcely what I would consider a catch."

"That may be your opinion," said Beatrice 
with a display of indignation. "But I don't 
believe I've met a better man in my life."

"Which according to the records has been some 
fifty years," said the Special Officer. "You 
originally come from Venus, don't you? The 
records of your childhood and your place of 
birth are very sketchy."

"So much was destroyed in the unfortunate 
accident where I met my first husband."

"Laurent Maigret," confirmed the Special 
Officer. "You say your first husband. Were 
there others?"

"Not as yet," said Beatrice with a broad 
grin.

"It's that serious? I am impressed. Just two 
weeks. My husband and I lived together for 
thirty years before we finally got married."

"It's as serious as it could possibly be." 

"Why did you leave your husband? Ecstasy is a 
terribly long way from Venus and the records 
show you made a very good career for yourself 
on the planet."

"Things didn't work out. I'm sure they will 
with Paul. I can already envisage us spending 
the rest of our lives together."

"Indeed," said Special Officer Patthana whose 
sympathetic smile was incongruous amidst the 
tangle of mystic symbols etched on her face. 
"Has Paul told you where he's going?"

"He said he was going to Earth," said 
Beatrice. "I'd love to go there!"

"I would too," admitted the Special Officer. 
"I especially want to go to Bangkok. That's 
where my roots are. Where are yours, 
Beatrice?"

"I'm not sure. Somewhere on Earth."

"Well, they're unlikely to be from anywhere 
else."

There was a pause in the proceedings as 
Special Officer Patthana carefully examined 
the holographic notes that hovered in front 
of her.

"There's not much I'm at liberty to tell 
you," she said at last. "In fact, to be 
honest, there's very little I'm able to tell 
you. Paul Morris is on a highly classified 
mission the destination of which I've not 
been fully apprised and the nature of which 
I'm no more knowledgeable than you. Unless, 
of course, he's told you more than he should 
have done?"

"All he's told me is that he'll eventually 
arrive on Earth and probably travel on from 
there to somewhere else."

"That's very vague. Hasn't he told you more 
than that?"

"No. Nothing at all."

"Well, that somewhere else may very well be a 
very long way from anywhere else," said the 
special officer. "If you were to accompany 
Paul on his journey, you might well find 
yourself in a more remote location than 
you've ever been before."

"But Paul is scarcely a space traveller or 
explorer," said Beatrice. "It can't possibly 
be that remote."

"Yes, I admit that he's a very unlikely 
candidate for extensive space travel," said 
the Special Officer. "However, were you to 
accompany him, you would be bound by very 
severe restrictions as to who you could talk 
to and what you can say. This is a highly 
classified mission and even what you already 
know puts you in a very high risk status. 
Even if it's decided that you shouldn't 
accompany your lover, you will be bound by 
law to keep secret everything you know about 
him, however trivial it might seem. From now 
on, I'm afraid you're under surveillance 
whether you remain on Ecstasy or travel 
onward."

"It's a small price for the love I feel 
towards Paul."

"It may be a bigger price than you 
anticipate. Just your presence in his 
vicinity puts you at more risk than you 
appreciate. You won't already know this, but 
I can now tell you in confidence, is that 
Paul has been the object of several 
thankfully unsuccessful assassination 
attempts. These have mostly been on Godwin 
but, on the very night you met him, he was 
the intended victim of another such attempt 
here on Ecstasy."

"I can't believe that! Why would anyone want 
to kill Paul?"

"You're asking me a question that I can't 
answer. This isn't just because you don't 
have the appropriate security clearance for 
me to tell you. It's because I genuinely 
don't know."

"What happened on that night?"

"Our agents aren't sure, but it appears that 
the would-be assassins were the victim of 
gangland violence. There's a lot that goes on 
in Ecstasy below the radar, but occasionally 
criminal justice works to the advantage of 
the law. I don't tell you this because I want 
you to think that Paul is embroiled in 
interplanetary crime—a less likely gangster I 
can't imagine—but to emphasise the risk that 
you've unwittingly put yourself in just by 
being by his side. Your life is now just as 
much at risk as Paul's."

Beatrice paused to assimilate this 
information.

"I am ready to sacrifice anything to stay 
with Paul," she said at last.

"Even your life?"

"My life won't be worth living if I can't 
stay with him," said Beatrice with more truth 
than the Special Officer could ever imagine.

Chapter Fifteen
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

Paul had never shown much interest in the 
other passengers and crew of the Intrepid in 
all the months since he first boarded the 
space ship. He didn't feel comfortable in the 
company of soldiers, he didn't need to see 
the crew very often, and there were no other 
computer archaeologists amongst the 
scientists. He was more than happy in his own 
company and, of course, that of Beatrice. 
What more did he ever need? 

Not a lot, Paul mostly believed, but lately 
Beatrice had been spending rather less time 
with him and there were occasions when he 
rather missed having someone around to talk 
to. 

And so it was that Paul was now wandering 
rather aimlessly about the research 
laboratories and meeting rooms where most 
scientists spent their working days. Paul was 
normally rather less fully occupied. When not 
pursuing a line of research that more often 
than not ended nowhere and had very little to 
do with the mission to the Anomaly, he simply 
idled away his time. He might visit virtual 
space. He might spend hours playing games in 
cyberspace. He might even just doze. But what 
he didn't ever do much of was socialise with 
his fellow scientists.

But now he thought he'd do just that. It also 
occurred to him that he might even meet 
Beatrice who often claimed that she was 
visiting other scientists when Paul asked her 
about her whereabouts when she wasn't in the 
villa. Paul never thought to ask the question 
that inwardly troubled him the most which was 
why Beatrice was absent so much more often 
these days. Was it something he'd said or 
done? It wasn't that Beatrice wasn't there to 
share his bed at night, although quite often 
when Paul stirred into brief wakefulness 
during the night hours he'd find that 
Beatrice was no longer by his side.

The Research Centre wasn't the most thrilling 
sector of the ship to visit. The building was 
very similar to where he'd worked on Godwin 
and there was just as much there which was 
wholly mysterious to Paul. He found 
discussion about extraterrestrial life, non-
baryonic matter, entangled particles, 
holographic projections and anti-gravity 
wholly incomprehensible. There was no sign of 
Beatrice so Paul was very soon bored. 

Paul left the confines of the Research Centre 
after only an hour or so of wandering around. 
No one had much time to put aside for him and 
indeed seemed quite alarmed at the prospect 
of him disturbing their concentration with a 
naive question or, worse, by clumsily 
knocking over their equipment. The 
scientists' relief when Paul chose not to 
bother them was quite palpable. But they 
didn't need to worry. If there was anything 
that Paul understood and respected it was 
obsession and dedication. He knew how much he 
hated to be interrupted whenever he was 
working at a problem.

Paul sat on a bench just outside the Research 
Centre and surveyed the landscape on the 
fourth level. The curvature of the Intrepid's 
internal space became more apparent as each 
of the space ship's concentric cylinders 
became steadily smaller towards the core. It 
was easy to see the ground rise up towards 
the horizon where it soon curved behind the 
internal hub which housed the systems that 
kept everything functioning. Paul was still 
in awe of the space ship that had been his 
home for so long now, even though it was on a 
relatively small compared to the colony of 
Godwin. It was still difficult to comprehend 
that where he was sitting on what seemed like 
solid ground in actual fact his feet were 
pointing outwards into space inside a 
colossal vessel that was flying through space 
at something like a quarter of the speed of 
light. It was hard to believe that he was so 
far away from the nearest inhabited point of 
the Solar System that it took more than two 
months for light to travel there, although 
this lag in communication became painfully 
apparent whenever he trawled cyberspace. The 
locally held data caches were good enough for 
most purposes, but if Paul wanted to know 
about the weather on Uranus, the latest news 
from the wars in the Asteroid Belt or the 
fortunes of an interplanetary football team 
he'd have to wait several months till he got 
a response from his query and by then the 
news would be totally out of date.

Paul idly watched the other scientists stroll 
by or chat with one another beside the 
bubbling water of a nearby fountain. He 
caught the eye of a tall black man with a 
huge bush of curly black hair and wearing a 
white overcoat. The man stood up from where 
he'd been reading a book under a tree and 
approached Paul.

"Hello," he said. "You must be Beatrice's 
husband. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," said Paul who was now faced with 
the problem he always dreaded which was of 
thinking of something to say in reply. What 
did you say to a total stranger? The best he 
could think of was to refer to the subject of 
shared interest. "You know my wife, then?"

"Well, yes," said the scientist who took his 
gaze away from Paul and stared ahead of him. 
"She used to be a regular visitor to the 
Research Centre. She still sometimes visits, 
of course, but not as much as she used to. I 
guess you've come here to keep an eye on her: 
to find out what she's doing."

"Er, no," said Paul who'd had no such 
intention. The very notion of keeping an eye 
on someone made no sense to a Godwinian. What 
possible role could he have in deciding what 
Beatrice should do?

"Are you seriously not bothered?" asked the 
black scientist as if surprised.

"What should I be worried about?"

"I must say you're remarkably relaxed about 
it all then, Paul," said the scientist. "My 
name's Barry, by the way."

"Barry?"

"You can call me Dr. White, if you like, but 
I'm mostly called Barry. I'm a good friend of 
your wife."

"Well, that's good to know," said Paul with a 
trusting smile. "She's never mentioned you to 
me, but as you know my wife's got a lot of 
friends."

"She has, hasn't she?" said Barry with a less 
confident smile. "I don't know how she keeps 
tags on them."

"Beatrice has an excellent memory. She never 
forgets a thing."

"Is that so?"

"She's got a much better memory than me, 
that's for sure. So what do you research, 
Barry?"

"I'm an expert in holographic projections and 
other visual phenomena. I'm here to assess 
whether the Apparitions appearing all over 
the Solar System and most densely distributed 
around the Anomaly aren't just holographs."

"That's an interesting idea," said Paul whose 
fascination was genuine. "Is that something 
Beatrice is also interested in?"

"Your wife seems to be interested in 
everything," said Barry evasively.

"You can say that!" said Paul with continued 
enthusiasm. "I don't think there's anything 
she won't get involved in or find out about. 
I don't know how anyone can keep up with 
her."

"Well, I most certainly can't," said Barry 
ruefully.

"How does this holographic projection theory 
work? Do you think the Anomaly itself might 
not be some kind of holographic projection? 
Are these weird things just everyday three 
dimensional images?"

"I don't think they are. Holographs are 
visual phenomena. These apparitions have 
other attributes such as mass, heat and 
momentum."

"So is your journey here a total waste of 
time?" Paul asked.

Barry looked alarmed. "Don't say that too 
loudly."

Paul enjoyed speculation as much as anyone. 
"There are plenty of theories about the 
Anomaly. Scientists from different 
disciplines are investigating it from 
different perspectives. Not all the theories 
can be correct. There can only be one correct 
theory and it could be that it's one that's 
not been proposed by any of the scientists on 
board the Intrepid. And whatever it is, it 
must be the case that the majority of the 
scientific research that's been done here is 
a total waste of time. If there are no 
extraterrestrial life forms, for instance, 
then all those exobiologists might as well 
have stayed home. The same goes for you I 
guess, Barry.  And I don't really know why 
I'm on the ship, for instance."

"If one genuinely doesn't know what the 
Anomaly's going to be then it's best to be 
equipped with as broad a range of scientific 
expertise as possible," said Barry loyally.

"I'd be very surprised when we arrive at the 
Anomaly that we find that it's the result of 
discoveries revealed in Twentieth or Twenty-
First century computer files," said Paul. 
"I'm only here because I did research on 
classified government data from one and a 
half thousand years ago. It might be an 
interesting footnote in the history of human 
knowledge, but it's got no possible bearing 
on what the Anomaly actually is."

"You were the one who demonstrated that the 
Anomaly isn't just a recent phenomenon," said 
Barry. "A lot of theories were proved wrong 
because of your research..."

"But none were actually proved right," said 
Paul. "What's this Anomaly got to do with my 
expertise? Will it be encoded in ASCII or 
EBCDIC? Is it going to reside in a relational 
database? Will it be stored on magnetic 
disks? Since no computer in the Solar System 
currently resembles those primitive machines, 
it's extremely unlikely that the Anomaly 
would."

There was an embarrassed pause while Paul 
felt sorry for himself and wondered again 
just how he'd ended up being propelled at 
astronomical speeds across empty space 
towards something totally unknown. While 
other scientists like Barry could try out 
their equipment to verify or refute their 
theories, the most that Paul could do was 
watch them get on with it. His biggest dread 
was that the whole thing would be a huge 
disappointing non-event and would be 
remembered forevermore as the most expensive 
research project in all human history.

"How is Beatrice?" asked Barry. "I've not 
seen her for a while."

"She's doing well," said Paul, who'd seen her 
last just after breakfast when she announced 
that she wanted to go for a walk. "I don't 
know where she is now. I thought she might be 
here."

"She might be visiting a scientist in one of 
the villas on this level, of course," said 
Barry.

"She says she often engages in discussion 
with other scientists," said Paul. "Her 
curiosity is boundless. She must have got to 
know every scientist on the Intrepid who's 
got the time for her."

"I think you might be right there," said 
Barry sadly.

Paul's excursion to the Research Centre 
wasn't one he was inclined to repeat very 
often. Although he had access to whatever 
resources he might ask for, there was nothing 
much for him to do here. Paul mostly idled 
away his time at the villa that he'd come to 
think of as his new home. 

Paul was a creature of habit and there were 
few days when he couldn't find some way to 
occupy himself while he waited for Beatrice 
to return from taking a walk or visiting her 
friends or exploring the ship or whatever 
else she was doing. Inevitably, much of 
Paul's leisure time included an excursion to 
virtual space, although a sense of fidelity 
towards his wife made him shy of returning 
too often to Nudeworld. It was clearly absurd 
to feel compromised between his love for 
Beatrice and his relationship with Blanche, 
who was just a virtual construct whose hair 
colour, breast size and height he could alter 
simply by changing her parameters. 
Nevertheless, cyberspace was a huge expanse 
and Paul could never get to know it all. 
There was often talk of it being infinite but 
Paul was too much of a mathematician to 
believe that. It had the potential to be 
infinite, but it was bound by finite time and 
resources. 

Today he decided to indulge himself in one of 
the more fantastic and ludicrous virtual 
worlds that he occasionally visited. It 
wasn't his favourite—Nudeworld had that 
honour—but the virtual universe known as 
Dragonworld was good fun and had a very long 
history. In fact, it had now lasted longer 
than the Roman Empire. A version of it even 
existed in the very early days of computer 
technology that Paul researched. In its most 
primitive incarnation, Dragonworld had been a 
kind of online gaming community which was 
amusingly blocky and frustrating slow. It was 
much more sophisticated in the 38th century, 
but still retained some peculiar twenty-first 
century features. For instance, characters 
tended to greet one another as ‘dude', which 
Paul imagined was a kind of honorific title 
whose meaning was now totally lost. There was 
also a curious obsession with opening hidden 
doors, drinking phials and escaping from 
irradiated mutants, but Paul tended to avoid 
the parts of Dragonworld like that. It was 
also fascinating how Dragonworld was 
constructed as a series of parallel 
universes, known as levels, which got 
steadily more hazardous the further one 
progressed.

What Paul most liked in Dragonworld was the 
menagerie of strange beings that he might 
encounter. These also reflected the fantasies 
of an age that was less than half a 
millennium after a time when people actually 
did believe in dragons, witches, goblins and 
trolls. There were also large beings like 
giants, ogres and dragons who somehow managed 
to keep their numbers sufficiently low that 
they didn't destroy the world in which they 
lived. This left the hobbits, elves, orcs and 
gnomes free to wander around to address each 
other as ‘dude' and indulge in a ritual 
called the high five that Paul imagined must 
owe its origins to the mediaeval age where 
these fantasies originated.

There were also humans scattered about these 
fantastical creatures. Many of these, of 
course, were people like himself who were 
just visiting Dragonworld. Often they stood 
around like statues while they waited for 
their real life equivalent to return to 
Dragonworld and resume whatever they'd 
previously been doing. There were many 
knights of both sexes dressed in heavy metal 
armour and carrying ludicrously cumbersome 
swords. There were also damsels who were 
either naked or attired in such fine gossamer 
dresses that they might as well have been. 
Occasionally, Paul would pass another 
reminder of the virtual universe's distant 
origins in the form of a young man wearing a 
baggy tee-shirt and shorts with a peaked cap 
on the head.

It was the damsels that held the greatest 
attraction for Paul, although there were no 
facilities in Dragonworld to make love to 
them as there was in Nudeworld. It was 
possible to slay them with a huge sword or 
one of the monstrous automatic weapons that 
were scattered randomly about. One could even 
touch or kiss them. But this wasn't a virtual 
world in which you could have sex with 
damsels. There were other virtual worlds 
populated by mythical beings where this was 
possible—some almost as ancient as 
Dragonworld—but Paul found them less 
attractive. They just resembled a huge never-
ending orgy where fantasies of breast size, 
hermaphroditism and penis dimension 
conflicted with other fantasies related to 
having sex with something that wasn't quite 
human, like a centaur or a minotaur, but had 
the necessary human-like features to make sex 
feasible.

Unlike most virtual worlds, Dragonworld also 
contained an unusually large number of 
elderly people. Being so rare in the real 
world, it was curious that they existed in 
such great numbers in this virtual world. 
This was also a result of Dragonworld's very 
long history. In the distant past when it was 
designed, elderly people must have been a 
common sight although they tended not to call 
each other ‘dude' or greet each other with a 
high five. There was a certain stereotyping, 
however. Elderly people tended to be either 
ugly crone-like witches or venerable bearded 
wise men. If Paul had ever paused to think 
about it, he might have wondered more about 
an age that never considered that an elderly 
woman might also be wise, but Paul wasn't of 
a reflective nature.

In a way, it was probably no great surprise 
that Paul should meet Virgil, the old man 
he'd got to know in Nudeworld. There was a 
sense that he almost expected to. Virgil 
looked quite different to the other elderly 
men one could meet in Dragonworld. He didn't 
have a long white beard down to his waist. He 
didn't wear a sparkly gown that dragged on 
the ground. He didn't wear a tall pointed 
hat. Instead, he continued to wear the same 
twenty-second century suit that nobody else 
in Dragonworld wore. He looked very much out 
of place, but nobody appeared to notice.

"Are you hunting for dragons?" Paul asked 
Virgil.

"No. Are you?"

"Not here," said Paul. "But I sometimes think 
that's what I'm doing in the real world."

"In the real world?" said the old man. "And 
this isn't as much a part of the real world 
as anywhere else?"

"Of course not. In the real world I'm just a 
victim to circumstances. In Dragonworld if I 
don't like something I can either change it 
or run away from it."

"I wouldn't recommend that you be quite so 
fatalistic. What is it that you're searching 
for in the real world? Does it resemble at 
all the sort of thing you can quest for in 
Dragonworld?"

"I don't think so. I don't think anyone knows 
what it is."

"So, you're searching for something unknown. 
And why are you doing that?"

"Because it's unknown," said Paul.

"So when something's unknown, it's necessary 
to find out what it is?"

"Yes." 

"And if what is unknown is also unknowable, 
what then?"

"If it's unknowable then I guess I'll never 
find out what it is. But how do you know if 
it's unknowable unless you try to find 
whether it can be known?"

"And do you think that what you are seeking 
is merely unknown? Or is it also unknowable?"

"It depends what you're getting at," said 
Paul thoughtfully. "There are lots of things 
that are unknowable though I know something 
about it. For instance, I don't know what 
someone's thinking because I can't read their 
mind, but I sort of know from the way a 
person behaves. So, even if something is 
unknowable in a literal sense we know 
something about it in terms of the effect it 
has on other things."

"And what if what you find out it isn't 
something you want to know?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if it was something you'd rather not 
know what it is?"

"I don't think knowing about things works 
like that," said Paul. "It's not about 
finding out what you want to know, but more 
about discovering what is actual and true."

"What do you think is true? What do you know 
about anything? How well do you know what's 
happening around you? Are you sure what you 
think is true is actually how things are?"

"I wish you'd stop asking questions and give 
me answers," said Paul in frustration. "For 
instance, how is it you can be in both 
Nudeworld and Dragonworld? Are you a software 
virus that's infected cyberspace? Why do you 
keep appearing in strange places and asking 
me all these unanswerable questions?"

The nagging question of whether he could be 
sure of anything remained with Paul when he 
returned to the real world. There was so much 
that he believed in that might not be true. 
And one thing he couldn't be so sure of was 
Beatrice's whereabouts when she wasn't home. 
He now knew that she wasn't always at the 
Research Centre. Where else could she be?

"I've already told you," said Beatrice who 
countered Paul's inquiry by placing her hand 
on his crotch and kissing him on the lips. 
"I've been visiting friends."

"Would you like me to come with you when you 
next visit a friend?" Paul asked.

"Of course I would," Beatrice answered, "but 
you might get bored. It's mostly girl talk, 
you know."

"Girl talk?"

"What girls talk about when they are 
together."

"Why wouldn't I be interested in that?" 
wondered Paul.

But Paul didn't have to wonder for long. The 
following morning, he accompanied Beatrice as 
she visited a friend he'd never met before. 
Lindsey was a Neptunian military engineer 
whose main interests seemed to be fashion 
shows and skin care. 

Paul sat patiently on a sofa while Beatrice 
and Lindsey chatted about pedicures, makeup 
tips and celebrity gossip. Every attempt he 
made to divert the conversation towards 
something of more interest to him, such as 
military engineering or life in Neptune's 
orbit, was treated politely but 
unenthusiastically. It took no time at all 
for Lindsey to steer the conversation towards 
a topic in which Paul had no vestige of 
interest or understanding. 

The only insight into Lindsey's life that 
Paul gained was an account of her boyfriend 
whose company he was assured he would enjoy. 
He was a Neptunian soldier whose main 
interest was playing and watching sport.

"He's crazy about baseball," said Lindsey. 
"He really hates how the news of the 
Interplanetary Championships is two months 
behind. It's weird that when a ‘live' match 
is broadcast what we see is what happened 
ages ago."

"Isn't that the case wherever you are in the 
Solar System?" said Paul. "In Godwin it's 
almost a day late."

"It's a few hours late in Neptune for a match 
played in the Inner Solar System," said 
Lindsey. "But this is something else 
altogether."

Paul had never been so bored by a 
conversation before in his life. He'd never 
had to endure a conversation of such 
unrelenting superficiality as this on Godwin. 
It was respect for Beatrice alone that kept 
Paul sitting passively for hour after hour 
while topics of conversation that Paul was 
convinced had already been covered in 
excruciating detail were revisited and 
further elaborated. Paul was also amazed at 
the extent of Beatrice's patience. She seemed 
captivated by Lindsey's conversation. Despite 
her apparent superficiality, Beatrice was 
astonishingly knowledgeable. Now she was 
behaving exactly like the kind of woman she 
appeared to be on the surface. 

"Isn't Lindsey great company?" said Beatrice 
when she and Paul eventually left. "We had 
ever so much to talk about."

"Yes," said Paul. "A lot."

"Would you like to come with me to visit 
Trisha tomorrow?" asked Beatrice.

"Who's Trisha?"

"She's one of the crew," said Beatrice. "She 
gives advice on health and cosmetics. She's 
really very nice. She knows a lot about 
pedicure. Far more than Lindsey does."

"It's nice of you to invite me," said Paul in 
conflict between the imperative to be polite 
and the need to avoid insufferable tedium. 
"But I think if all you're going to do is 
talk about nail care, it'd be better if I 
carried on with my research."

"Yes," said Beatrice sympathetically. "I 
don't want to distract you from that."

Chapter Sixteen
Earth - 3753 C.E.

"What I don't really understand," said 
Jorgen, "is why you ever got married to 
Paul." 

"It's because I love him," Beatrice replied. 
"Is that so difficult to understand?"

"Well, if you love him," Jorgen persisted, 
"why do you make love to me so often and so 
passionately?"

"Because I'm a passionate woman," said 
Beatrice as she leaned over Jorgen's bed 
where they lay and grasped his penis which 
was one part of his body thankfully undamaged 
by shrapnel but still enhanced by surgery.

"I can see that," said Jorgen. "I've never 
met a woman before as passionate as you."

His last word was prolonged by the spasm that 
shuddered through his body as Beatrice's 
tongue slobbered upwards from the shaft of 
his penis to the glans. Her lips squeezed 
gently on the tip as it glistened with a 
sticky gauze of semen.

"You're cheating on Paul," said Jorgen. 
"Isn't that a contradiction of your assertion 
that you love him? Or is he one of those who 
doesn't mind?"

"He'd mind all right," said Beatrice as she 
rubbed the tip of her forefinger on the 
glans. "That's why I don't tell him."

"It's deceitful," said Jorgen. "He's your 
husband. You should be faithful to him."

Beatrice was bored with this conversation. 
She'd heard this and so many variants of it 
from the stream of lovers she'd had ever 
since she and Paul got married. She couldn't 
understand what the problem was. Her husband 
was happy to have regular sex with her. She 
was happy to have sex with him and with other 
people. Paul wouldn't be happy if he knew the 
extent of Beatrice's sexual escapades, 
especially since the time they'd arrived on 
the Moon and then travelled to Earth where 
there were significantly more opportunities 
for sexual encounters. If the purpose of 
morality was to maximise the scope of human 
happiness, wasn't she working at it as hard 
as anyone? And hadn't she more than fulfilled 
her moral mission given that she'd made so 
many other people happy?

As she was doing now in the company of a man 
who as nearly resembled her as a human could. 
The fact that his body was as much machine as 
biological was bound to fascinate someone 
like Beatrice who wasn't even partly 
biological. He was stronger, faster and had 
more stamina than most humans, even allowing 
for the advances in medicine and surgery that 
had prolonged lives and enhanced bodies far 
beyond genetically prescribed limits. His 
senses, particularly those of sight and 
sound, were acute though not quite as much so 
as Beatrice's. And his ability to make love 
also exceeded that of most humans as Jorgen 
was now demonstrating. He was deep inside her 
and his pelvic thrusts were hard, fast and 
thoroughly agreeable. Beatrice gripped his 
scarred metal and plastic back and 
reciprocated his thrusts with her own. She 
gave vent to cries of passion, not because 
she needed to (as she had total control over 
herself) but because she knew these would 
further inflame her lover's passion.

Beatrice was a frequent visitor to Jorgen's 
bedroom and was aware that Grace knew about 
their relationship. Jorgen may even have told 
her. It was in Beatrice's interests, of 
course, to also seduce Grace and thereby 
compromise any suspicions she might have 
concerning Paul's beautiful wife, but the 
guard was clearly not interested. Beatrice 
was sufficiently versed in human sexual 
behaviour to identify those tempted by her 
charms and those who weren't. It wasn't 
surprising that more men than women were 
attracted to her, but Grace wasn't even 
interested in sexual relationships with men. 
Beatrice understood that there was a spectrum 
of sexual desire which extended from 
perpetual lust to total indifference, but she 
still thought it was a shame. She'd love to 
push her fingers deep between Grace's muscled 
thighs. Beatrice was equally attracted to men 
and women however much or little it was 
reciprocated. It was a design feature that 
could bring her as much distress as it did 
delight.

"And why Paul?" Jorgen wondered when he and 
Beatrice slumped face up back on the bed with 
his torso streaked with perspiration. "I 
can't see how you could possibly love a man 
like him. Don't get me wrong. I understand 
that people are attracted to the most 
peculiar things..."

"What kind of things are people attracted 
to?" Beatrice asked teasingly.

"Don't change the subject. You know just as 
well as I do. Some of these activities 
mightn't even be legal. But what I wonder is 
what you see in Paul. He's not especially 
good looking. He's only averagely intelligent 
and his range of interests is so narrow that 
his conversation ranks amongst the most 
boring I've ever had to eavesdrop. Is it only 
because he's on a secret mission that you've 
taken to him?"

"Secret mission?" asked Beatrice, who didn't 
like the turn in Jorgen's speculation. "What 
do you know about a secret mission?"

"We haven't been fully briefed, but there 
have been hints," Jorgen admitted. "And of 
course there are rumours."

"Hints? Rumours? Tell me more."

"You don't have to do too much thinking, 
sweetie," said Jorgen. "Paul Morris of Godwin 
has been associated with the Anomaly for 
years. And there are precious few anarchists 
from the barren wastes of the Kuiper Belt 
who've been authorised to visit Earth. He 
doesn't have much wealth, his specialities in 
database archaeology would never qualify him, 
and his progress across the Solar System has 
been accompanied by an extraordinary trail of 
assassination attempts..."

"Speculation like that is unavoidable," said 
Beatrice. "But what is the secret mission?"

"I don't know," said Jorgen. "There are 
rumours about the Interplanetary Union 
chartering a gigantic space ship to fly 
beyond the Oort Cloud. There's a rumour that 
the source of the Anomaly was originally on 
Earth given that this Paul Morris established 
that it was first identified one and a half 
thousand years ago. There is a rumour, which 
I find truly incredible, that Paul Morris is 
in some way the mastermind behind the 
Anomaly. No one really knows. Why should I 
know any more than that?"

Beatrice relaxed. Jorgen didn't really know 
anything. "Do you think I married Paul 
because of this secret mission?" she asked.

"It doesn't seem too unlikely."

"What's my role in the mission then? Is it to 
seduce Paul's bodyguards and fuck them here 
to paradise? Is it to weasel dark secrets out 
of Paul? To become one with the mastermind 
behind the Anomaly? It all seems ludicrous to 
me."

"You must admit though," said Jorgen who 
reclined on the mattress with his cock 
drooping temptingly over his thigh, "the 
rumours don't sound much more bizarre than 
the notion that you somehow fell in love with 
a man like Paul and married him after a 
whirlwind romance on Ecstasy."

"That as may be," said Beatrice who grasped 
Jorgen's penis in readiness for a further 
bout of lovemaking. "But it's all the truth 
there is."

Beatrice was grateful for the protection 
provided by Jorgen and Grace, but from her 
point of view these and all the other 
bodyguards who'd shadowed Paul and her on the 
journey from the Ecstasy colony onwards were 
at best a distraction from her central task 
of keeping Paul safe and to keep secure her 
passage aboard the Space Ship Intrepid. If 
the man should fall victim to an 
assassination attempt, it would be 
regrettable for Paul and Beatrice might even 
feel quite sad, but the more serious result 
would be the derailment of Proxima Centauri's 
mission to the Anomaly. There were other 
options, of course, but she'd been informed 
that her role in the campaign was currently 
the most promising. What would Paul think if 
he knew that he was travelling beyond the 
Solar System on the whim of a civilisation 
from more than four light years distant that 
he didn't know even existed?

Beatrice was able to lower her level of alert 
since she and Paul arrived in Earth orbit. 
There were many Proxima Centauri operatives 
scattered about Earth and its satellite: far 
more than in the more recently colonised 
settlements in the outer Solar System. Very 
few such operatives were androids, of course. 
Beatrice belonged to a very elite set. Most 
operatives didn't resemble humans in any 
shape or form at all. Their appearance was 
more likely to be that of street furniture, 
household robots or industrial machinery. It 
was much easier to maintain invisibility in 
such a form than in the intricate structure 
of a human being, especially when you were 
subjected to so many intrusive body scans in 
the name of security. Beatrice knew where 
these operatives were stationed, but even a 
bodyguard like Jorgen with his heightened 
senses wasn't capable of identifying an 
operative disguised as a waste dispenser, a 
light fitting or a home computer. With such 
additional support, Beatrice was able to 
relax but she was also aware that unknown 
threats still existed.

Beatrice and her husband had blundered into 
yet another place on Earth that Paul now 
regretted having decided to visit. On the 
map, Antarctica seemed an attractive 
proposition. It was empty, white and 
beautiful. It was also so cold that Paul 
might as well be in the orbit of the outer 
planets. Even though the air outside the 
Polar Station was breathable, it was so 
bitterly cold and windy that even a moment's 
exposure was enough to kill a man who wasn't 
properly protected. So Paul and Beatrice were 
now lounging inside a hotel which afforded 
them a glorious view of the midnight sun over 
an Antarctic ice-scape that was often 
obscured by snowstorms.

"Don't you ever open the blinds?" wondered 
Beatrice when she wandered back to the hotel 
room where Paul was studying an online book 
about a twenty-second century television 
science fiction program.

"Blinds?" Paul asked. He pressed the button 
to open them and accidentally opened the 
triple-glazed windows that let in a sudden 
gust of icy air that even in midsummer was 
dramatically below zero. He hurriedly found 
the button to close the window while he 
shivered from the intense cold and watched as 
the blinds slowly slid open. It was watery 
sunlight of almost the same intensity at 
whatever hour of the day or night. There was 
a peculiarity about time here, of course, 
which had also attracted Paul to the South 
Pole and that was that the hotel was so 
positioned that it was simultaneously the 
same hour on every degree of longitude. By 
convention the day was measured using an 
archaic measurement called GMT which time 
zone wasn't even adhered to in Greenwich.

"What do you find to do here?" wondered Paul 
as he and Beatrice reclined on the unmade 
bed. Paul was still tired as he'd only woken 
up a couple of hours earlier even though it 
was now nominally evening.

"I was visiting the bodyguards," said 
Beatrice.

"They can't be very busy at the moment," Paul 
surmised. "Not many assassins here. In fact, 
there are hardly anyone in this hotel at all. 
I'm not sure whether we're the only guests."

"There are some who've come to visit the 
fresh water lakes under the ice," said 
Beatrice. "And there's a couple who are now 
spending a few days in the dry valleys."

"You always know more about what goes on than 
I do," said Paul.

"I socialise for the both of us," said 
Beatrice who was slightly concerned that Paul 
might get jealous of his wife's more 
extensive social life. But after eighty years 
or more of living the life of a social 
outcast more from a sense of carelessness 
than purpose, socialising wasn't one of 
Paul's main concerns. Perhaps he just wanted 
more of Beatrice's company. After all, the 
Antarctic was truly both bleak and boring. 
"We'll be setting off tomorrow anyway."

"What's next on the itinerary? I hope it's 
not going to be somewhere as dull as Seattle. 
The historic home of a Twentieth Century 
Operating System was even more dreary and 
desolate than the Antarctic. And it must be 
some kind of an improvement over Timbuktu. 
That was far too hot and sandy."

Beatrice had no need to refer to anything to 
find the answer, but for form's sake she 
picked up the e-paper that displayed the 
couple's itinerary and acted as a kind of 
ticket for their passage. "Tomorrow we travel 
by helicopter to Tierra del Fuego and from 
there by ship to the Falkland Isles. I 
believe they have many penguins and a pub 
just like the ones in London. And then after 
a week there we travel to Lagos by ship and 
from there overland to Moscow."

"Moscow? Is it cold there?"

"At this time of the year, yes. But it will 
be very hot in Lagos."

"Is that in Africa or South America? I was 
hoping to go to that city in Brazil with the 
huge statue on the hill. Is that Lagos?"

"No, that's Rio de Janeiro. We aren't 
scheduled to go to Brazil at all."

"Tourism is a more fraught pursuit than I 
ever imagined," said Paul ruefully. "I'll be 
pleased when we can stop zigzagging about 
planet Earth and head off to the Heliopause."

In truth, it was Beatrice rather than Paul 
who was the most desperate to finally begin 
her real mission. She hadn't really been 
designed to act as Paul's wife, chaperone, 
lover and bodyguard. She'd much rather take a 
more active role in directing the 
Interplanetary Union's mission towards 
Proxima Centauri objectives.

Nonetheless, being a tourist was undeniably 
relaxing though there were many destination 
she'd rather have visited than Paul's 
haphazard and nearly random choices. This 
unstructured itinerary had its advantages 
from a security point of view. No one, for 
instance, would have expected Paul and 
Beatrice to elect to spend a week at Port 
Stanley in the Falklands. There would be no 
Christian or Islamic fundamentalist fanatics 
amongst the penguins and the very small 
number of wretched people who had chosen to 
live and work on this remote South Atlantic 
island. 

Beatrice still had to guard against attempts 
on Paul's life. There was the incident of the 
poisoned dart that was shot in their 
direction when they travelled by steam boat 
along the Congo. Beatrice glimpsed it just in 
time and plucked it out of the air before it 
struck Paul. There was the incident of the 
venomous snake that got into the hotel room 
when the couple were in Perth, Australia. 
Beatrice was hardly bothered by the snake's 
venomous bite when she picked it up and threw 
it out the window, but Paul wouldn't have 
been nearly so fortunate. There was the 
incident of the collapsing bridge over the 
gorge in North America, but Beatrice was 
forewarned of this by Proxima Centauri 
operatives and was able to delay Paul's 
departure by an impromptu lovemaking session 
whose result was that the bridge had already 
collapsed by the time Paul and Beatrice would 
have to cross it.

These were trivial incidents that were 
probably organised by amateurs who had none 
of the operational skills that would be 
expected from a trained assassin with full 
logistical support. It was gratifying for 
Beatrice to be able to take appropriate 
action without needing to attract the 
attention of Jorgen and Grace, who were, if 
anything, magnets rather than deterrents to 
any assassin.

Although Paul was quite content to enjoy the 
Antarctic from only the view he had from his 
seventh floor hotel suite, Beatrice was more 
adventurous. Paul looked on anxiously as she 
piled on the layers of clothing that would 
keep her alive in the snowy wilderness. They 
were rather less heavy and cumbersome 
compared to what she once had to wear on 
Venus, but they most certainly restricted her 
movement.

"Are you sure you want to venture outside?" 
Paul asked.

"Why else are we here?" Beatrice responded.

"It's not like you're going out for air," 
Paul continued. "It might be sunny but it 
most definitely isn't warm."

"I'll be alright," said Beatrice. "I just 
want a close look at Amundsen's flag."

"You mean the Norwegian one at the pole? 
There are loads of other flags there and I 
don't believe it's actually the original. 
Anyway the ice has moved tens of kilometres 
away from where it was all those hundreds of 
years ago."

"I'll be back soon."

Beatrice's main reason for venturing out 
wasn't really to see the flag. When she'd 
trudged a sufficient distance across the 
thick packed snow, she disappeared out of 
sight behind a twentieth century truck that 
was left as some kind of memorial to the 
original South Pole base and quickly disabled 
all the surveillance cameras. She then pulled 
off the heavy coats that served her no useful 
function as her operating specifications 
enabled her to function even in deep space. 
She stood in the snow and ice in nothing more 
than the flimsy undergarments that came as 
standard issue. She directed her body in the 
right orientation with regards to the Proxima 
Centauri mission control ship that was about 
a light minute's distance away. She 
downloaded the data that was transmitted to 
her in reply to the data she uploaded. This 
was scrambled to the extent that no human 
receiver could identify it as a data stream 
of any kind and wouldn't anyway have the 
computational power to decipher. 

It wasn't human interception that troubled 
Beatrice or even Proxima Centauri mission 
control. What sense could humans have made of 
the contents of her communication? The main 
source of anxiety was Sirius' robot 
civilisation whose interest in the Intrepid's 
mission to the Anomaly had been identified by 
Proxima Centauri intelligence. There was a 
real likelihood that their activities could 
conflict with Beatrice's. It wasn't clear 
what the Sirius operatives intended to do but 
the overwhelming impression was that it was 
hostile to the objectives of both the 
Interplanetary Union and Proxima Centauri.

Sirius had sent its own investigative mission 
to the Anomaly, as had Proxima Centauri and 
the other robot civilisations in the 
neighbouring stellar systems, and it was 
unlikely that their mission would have learnt 
anything much different than the others. 
There was still no convincing theory to 
explain the Anomaly and it remained as 
irrational an entity as it was possible to 
be. Just as the scientists from Proxima 
Centauri, those from Sirius would have 
concluded from the biological—sometimes even 
human—Apparitions that the phenomenon was 
associated with human civilisation in a way 
as yet unknown. This was especially evident 
as it was centred on the Solar System rather 
than other parts of the neighbouring Star 
Cluster. However, although Proxima Centauri 
had determined that the success of the 
Intrepid's mission would help them to better 
understand what the Anomaly might be and how 
much of a threat it might pose, Sirius 
appeared to have taken the view that the 
mission was fundamentally dangerous and 
should be stopped at all costs. Or so Proxima 
Centauri intelligence strongly suggested.

Beatrice had never once encountered a Sirius 
operative. There was only a tentative 
diplomatic relation between Sirius and 
Proxima Centauri. It was inconceivable that 
any robotic civilisation should interfere 
with another and, given the vastness of 
space, there was no need for machine 
societies to engage in territorial disputes. 

Nevertheless, this passive strategy of non-
interference was poorly observed in the Solar 
System. Although it was more or less decided 
that humans should remain ignorant of the 
more advanced machine civilisations they had 
accidentally spawned until such time (if 
ever) they were able to deal with this 
revelation in a rational way, all the robot 
civilisations maintained espionage and 
intelligence gathering operations throughout 
the Solar System. These were generally benign 
and non-intrusive, but the presence of the 
Anomaly had rather changed the comfortable 
status quo. On this issue, Proxima Centauri 
and Sirius had taken radically different 
attitudes, while the other robot 
civilisations maintained a principled policy 
of non-interference.

For all Beatrice knew, it was possible that 
humans like Jorgen or Professor Wasilewski 
were also androids, but they showed very 
little evidence that they were. There was no 
doubt that Sirius androids had been assigned 
to monitor and possibly sabotage the 
Intrepid's mission, but this was kept secret 
from even Proxima Centauri's formidable 
intelligence resources. 

The only firm evidence that Sirius was 
actively operating contrary to Proxima 
Centauri interests was the persistent and 
apparently incoherent assassination attacks 
on Paul. Although there were human interests 
that would like to see him dead, their nature 
and their persistence went far beyond what 
could be expected from mere humans.

Chapter Seventeen
Intrepid - 3755 A.D.

The lawn surrounding the villa that Isaac and 
his five surviving comrades had secured was 
littered with the bodies of the recently 
slaughtered. One corpse belonged to Jacob 
who'd suffered a martyr's death in the 
struggle to secure the villa for true 
believers. Two belonged to the accursed 
heretical Baptists who'd obstinately fought 
to defend the villa. But to no avail. One of 
the heretics had died at Isaac's hands. 
Isaac's had jumped on top of the man, tugged 
him forcefully by the beard that the heretic 
had sinfully let grow and smashed his head 
repeatedly onto the hard patio. It took four, 
maybe five, attempts but at last there was a 
satisfying crack of the skull and the fresh 
dribble of blood from the nostrils, ears and 
mouth that was proof that Isaac had released 
the heretic's soul to eternal damnation.

However, had Ezra not been so watchful Isaac 
too might have been killed as another of the 
crazed bearded heretics leapt onto Isaac's 
back while he was bashing open the skull of 
his comrade. Like all Holy Crusaders the only 
weapons at Ezra's disposal were those he 
could improvise from what little he could 
find. In this case, he employed nothing more 
than a rock that he'd dug out of the soil and 
used that to first smash the assailant's nose 
and then to bring it down again and again 
onto the heretic's head until it also 
cracked.

The bodies of the two Baptist heretics and 
the one Christian martyr weren't the only 
ones scattered about the lawn. There were 
three others which hadn't yet been cleared 
away by the Intrepid's waste disposal systems 
and were therefore less than a day old. 
Judging by the fact that the heads were 
shaved as well as the faces, these naked men 
were probably Buddhists. There was further 
evidence that the Baptists hadn't been at the 
villa very long at all from the sticky sap in 
the groove of the cross carved into a tree. 
They'd probably only secured the property 
from the Buddhists a few hours before Isaac 
and his comrades in turn wrested it away from 
them.

One of the Buddhists was moaning. He wasn't 
quite dead.

"What should we do?" asked Elijah.

"He is worse than a heretic," said Isaac. "He 
is a pagan. He should be burnt alive. Recall 
Chapter 7 Verse 15 of the Book of Joshua: 
‘And it shall be, that he that is taken with 
the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, 
he and all that he hath: because he hath 
transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and 
because he hath wrought folly in Israel.'"

"We haven't got anything to burn him with," 
said Elijah.

"It says in Chapter 17, Verses 2 to 5, of the 
Book of Deuteronomy that ‘If there be found 
among you... man or woman, that ... hath gone 
and served other gods, and worshipped them, 
either the sun, or moon, or any of the host 
of heaven, which I have not commanded;... 
Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that 
woman, which have committed that wicked 
thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that 
woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till 
they die.'" said Isaac.

"In that case, then let the Lord's will be 
done," said Ezra who was still carrying the 
stone he'd used to kill the Baptist heretic. 
He threw it with some force into the Buddhist 
pagan's face. Then, with blood staining both 
the stone and his hands, he kicked over the 
prostrate body so that the pagan could look 
directly towards the sky.

"Is he still alive?" asked Elijah.

"Best to be sure," said Ezra who bent down on 
his knees and hammered the stone onto the 
Buddhist's skull until the blood flowed from 
the nose and mouth so abundantly that the 
pagan couldn't possibly still be alive.

"Amen," said Isaac.

"Amen," echoed his few remaining companions.

Isaac surveyed those around him. With Jacob 
dead there was now even fewer true believers. 
The first to die was David and of all the 
recent deaths this was the one that most 
troubled Isaac. The others had died as 
martyrs to the cause: which in truth was now 
simply to find and secure a place to live in 
the perilous regions of the Intrepid's 
outermost level.

It had become ever more apparent that Isaac 
and his comrades weren't welcome in the villa 
that had once been their original home. In 
fact, not one group of Holy Crusaders could 
tolerant the presence of another for very 
long. Civil war soon broke out between the 
different rooms where the diverse factions 
had housed themselves. It was obvious that 
that the Seventh Day Adventists were the most 
numerous in the villa and also those with the 
most fearsome reputation. After they'd 
massacred every last one of the Methodists 
who lived in the adjacent room, it was 
inevitable that Isaac and his comrades would 
be the next to be slaughtered. The only 
reason they delayed their flight was the 
knowledge that this would in itself be risky. 

And so it was. Although Isaac and his 
comrades tried to fool the Seventh Day 
Adventists by leaving singly so as not to 
arouse suspicion, by the time there was only 
two left it was unavoidable that a fight 
should break out. It was a miracle that only 
Amos was to die a martyr's death. Ezra 
escaped with only bruises and scratches.

From then on, Isaac's company were fated to 
wander the outermost level like the Prophet 
Abraham in search of other villas in which 
they could settle. The other splintering 
factions of the Holy Crusaders had all 
independently arrived at the same conclusion 
as Isaac and his comrades. There was no 
countenancing the proposition that they 
should share accommodation with one another. 
Any attempt to do so would result only in 
slaughter. Indeed, Isaac soon realised that 
mutual intolerance might often be determined 
in a rather less merciful solution than mere 
slaughter. 

As they travelled across the level not so 
much in pursuit of their original mission but 
more now of mere survival, Isaac came across 
the bodies of Holy Crusaders who'd endured 
their final moments in unspeakable agony. 
Eyes had been gouged out. Heretics had been 
crucified. Bodies dangled from high tree 
branches. Pagans had been buried alive. Limbs 
had been methodically torn off. These 
weren't, of course, novel sights to Isaac. In 
his capacity as a Soldier of Christ on Holy 
Trinity, he'd often administered similarly 
savage punishment on heretics and doubters. 
The method he preferred was to burn a heretic 
alive. There was usually plenty of time for 
the heretic to express remorse as their skin 
bubbled and burnt in the intense heat and the 
intolerable smell of burning flesh. If only 
the atheist devils had provided the means by 
which Isaac could build a sufficiently 
vigorous pyre.

There were martyrs amongst Isaac's comrades 
who'd made the ultimate sacrifice in the 
cause of trying to secure living quarters. 
This was an endeavour that was much harder to 
achieve than anyone had originally 
anticipated. Three attempts to do so had been 
repulsed with so much force that they were 
lucky that more of their number hadn't been 
martyred. Two assaults, including the current 
one, had been successful. On other occasions, 
prudence had determined what might otherwise 
have been judged a cowardly retreat from the 
fray.

It was necessary for their survival that the 
Holy Crusaders should secure possession of a 
villa. It was only at such a place that Isaac 
and his comrades could partake of the daily 
spread provided by the atheist devils. 
Although this feast provided far more 
sustenance than was needed to feed the 
declining number of Holy Crusaders, the 
defenders of each villa could never share it 
with other crusaders. It wasn't just meanness 
that determined such a policy. It was the 
very realistic fear of being massacred, 
tortured or stoned.

But of all the deaths that Isaac had either 
witnessed or executed, he remained especially 
troubled by that of David. Who could ever 
have believed that a soul could stray so far 
from the course of righteousness?

It was also proof if such was ever required 
of the folly of extending Christian charity 
to those who didn't deserve it. The Holy 
Bible frequently counselled against such 
weakness. Does it not say of those who are 
sinners in Chapter 18, Verse 21, of The Book 
of the Prophet Jeremiah.: "Therefore deliver 
up their children to the famine, and pour out 
their blood by the force of the sword; and 
let their wives be bereaved of their 
children, and be widows; and let their men be 
put to death; let their young men be slain by 
the sword in battle." Yet despite the wisdom 
of the ages, Isaac and his comrades extended 
pity and charity on the solitary soul that 
they found wandering in shame and terror. 
There was also the hope that he might help to 
bolster their depleted numbers.

His name was Jonah. He was also a believer of 
the Holy Trinity, although his faith had 
diverged from those of the true believers 
over a thousand years ago. Nevertheless, he 
believed that the King James Bible was the 
only authentic word of the Lord and there was 
not one doctrine that he was willing to 
dispute with Isaac and his comrades. He'd 
lost his own comrades in a bloodbath of 
terror. He hadn't expected that the 
Episcopalians with whom he shared the same 
villa would turn against him and his comrades 
so violently. It was all Jonah could do to 
wriggle free from the orgy of violence in 
which tongues were pulled out, ribs were 
cracked, necks were twisted and skulls were 
smashed open. Nevertheless, his nose was 
broken and there were black and blue bruises 
over his chest and across his face.

"But the Lord be praised," said Jonah. "You 
have come to save me and carry me towards 
salvation. The sacrifice of my fellow 
believers will not have been wholly in vain."

It was with Jonah's help and assistance that 
Isaac and his comrades were at last able to 
secure a villa. It took some cunning and it 
was in the dead of night, but Ezra had 
noticed that the villa was guarded by only 
one crusader and that he didn't seem to be 
very alert. The fact that he was bearded and 
his head was shaven was evidence that the 
villa was under Muslim control and that the 
residents could therefore expect no mercy 
from good honest Christians. 

And, naturally, none was extended. 

The guard was killed by Elijah who was 
skilled in stalking on his victims unawares 
and throttling them before they could choke 
out an alarm. The crusaders then crept into 
the villa and disposed of the jihadists one 
by one with silence and efficiency. David and 
Jonah worked particularly well as a team. 
They emerged wearing grins on their faces—of 
which Isaac naturally disapproved—only 
minutes after they'd entered the house and 
displayed three freshly decapitated heads. 
Their crude improvised weapons had been used 
with devastating effect.

Not all the Muslims were dealt with so 
swiftly. It was unthinkable that any should 
be allowed to live, of course. The Godless 
heathens deserved the full vengeance of the 
Lord. It was also possible that they might 
regroup and seek vengeance if even one was 
permitted to live. The Holy Bible had many 
helpful prescriptions as to how pagans should 
be punished. As it says in Chapter 15, Verse 
13, of the Second Book of the Chronicles.: 
"That whosoever would not seek the LORD God 
of Israel should be put to death, whether 
small or great, whether man or woman."

There was no limit to the torture and torment 
that Isaac and his companions visited on the 
four Muslim infidels who'd escaped the 
original carnage. They soon discovered that 
the ones who'd already died were the lucky 
ones. No mercy was given and none could be 
expected. As it says in Chapter 22, Verse 20 
of the Second Book of Moses: Called Exodus.: 
"He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto 
the LORD only, he shall be utterly 
destroyed." To be utterly destroyed required 
that there was no relief from the torment 
that Isaac and his comrades inflicted on the 
infidels. It was satisfying for Isaac to know 
that he was doing the Lord's work. The 
infidel's limbs were broken, their testicles 
crushed, their entrails torn out and their 
blood spilled over the lawn on which the 
ritual torture took place.

And after all this, several hours later, when 
the infidels' souls were released to meet 
Mohammed in the special corner of Hell that 
Satan reserved for the most vile of Creation, 
Isaac and his fellows praised God, recited 
the Lord's prayer and asked forgiveness for 
their sins, of which none related to the 
extreme means employed to utterly destroy the 
disbelievers. No man should slacken in his 
pursuit of the Lord's greater glory on Earth 
or elsewhere in the Solar System. Did the 
Holy Bible not say in Chapter 15, Verse 3, of 
The First Book of Samuel, Otherwise Called: 
The First Book of the Kings that of His 
enemies: "utterly destroy all that they have, 
and spare them not; but slay both man and 
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, 
camel and ass." 

What could be more unambiguous than that?

However, Jonah who had acted so bravely at 
first and who Isaac at first believed to be a 
valuable addition to their company soon 
proved instead to be a scourge. He was no 
less than the devil incarnate. But this was 
something that Isaac wasn't to discover until 
many days later.

Life was relatively easy for Isaac and his 
comrades in the villa. They each had a room 
in which they could sleep once the atheists' 
robots had cleared up the offal and human 
detritus that was all that remained of the 
previous inhabitants. All the same, Isaac and 
his comrades still had to guard the villa 
against other Holy Crusaders which required 
that three or four of them had to be on 
constant guard duty all through the day and 
night. There was a real risk that a group of 
crusaders just as determined as Isaac's 
company might attack the villa and perhaps 
take possession of it. Constant vigilance was 
required at all times.

David and Jonah became good friends. In fact, 
theirs was the closest friendship of all the 
Holy Crusaders. The others were naturally 
wary of becoming too friendly with one 
another. Partly this was because it wasn't 
approved behaviour in their home colonies and 
not at all encouraged by their religion, but 
also because there was the worry that it 
might cause conflict should a doctrinal 
difference become too evident. Religious 
tolerance required a certain degree of wilful 
ignorance. The less one knew of the heresies 
practised by another the less inclined one 
was to purge the other person of their 
sinfulness and blasphemy.

It was Elijah who discovered the extent of 
Jonah's sinfulness and of David's slide into 
temptation. He was in the villa in the early 
hours of the morning while Isaac was on 
guard. Isaac's concentration was very much on 
the shadows in the distance that he had to be 
sure weren't just thrown by foliage in the 
artificial twilight. An assault could come at 
any time and was most likely to happen under 
cover of darkness. It wasn't Elijah who told 
Isaac of what had happened, but Jacob who 
came running towards him with a look of sheer 
terror in his eyes.

"Come quickly," he said. 

"What is it?" wondered Isaac who knew of 
nothing that could possibly take priority 
over the duty of defence.

"There is an abomination in our midst," said 
Jacob.

"An abomination?"

"As it is said in Chapter 18, Verse 22, in 
the Third Book of Moses: Called Leviticus," 
replied Jacob.

Isaac knew exactly what Jacob meant. It was, 
of course, David and Jonah. Elijah had 
suspected the worst and his investigation of 
the two men's behaviour together proved that 
his fears were well-founded. They were caught 
in the act and despite their denials, it was 
obvious what needed to be done. As was said 
in Chapter 20, Verse 13, of The Third Book of 
Moses: Called Leviticus: "If a man also lie 
with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both 
of them have committed an abomination: they 
shall surely be put to death; their blood 
shall be upon them."

Such was the fury of the Holy Crusaders that 
little remained intact of the two sinners 
after they had been tortured. Their genitals 
were of course given especially cruel 
treatment as they were the font of 
temptation. They were torn off and thrust 
into the sinners' mouths. Implements were 
thrust deeply into their anuses as punishment 
to the recipient vessels of unnatural 
passion. 

Isaac was merciful. He spared the two men the 
measure of torment he would visit on Muslim 
infidels. Both men were dead within an hour 
of the torture's commencement. It was 
unlikely that either would enter Purgatory. 
The gravity of their sin was such that they 
could only expect the torments of Hell. Satan 
would take their souls to the special place 
of torment reserved for those who behaved 
unnaturally and perversely. 

The sacrifice of the unclean brought only 
temporary reprieve for Isaac and his 
comrades. A savage force of twenty or more 
Catholics descended on the villa and forced 
them to leave. Jeremiah paid the ultimate 
sacrifice for his lack of haste in fleeing 
the Catholic invasion. As Isaac and the 
others hid in the shadows within sight of the 
villa that had so recently been their home, 
they watched as Jeremiah was beaten to death 
and his entrails disgorged while the 
Catholics prayed and chanted in Latin over 
his twitching body.

Although Isaac was as disgusted as anyone 
would be that a good Protestant soul should 
end his days at the hands of such evil 
apostates, he reflected on the relative 
weakness of the Catholics' resolve. The 
apostates had allowed Jeremiah to die after 
less than a quarter of an hour's torture. If 
Isaac had a Catholic at his mercy, he would 
never have been so merciful. He would have 
had all the Catholics flayed, hung, drawn and 
quartered. At the very least.

Now Isaac and his fellows were in their new 
home that had so lately been the territory of 
heretical Baptists and before that of infidel 
Buddhists. It was now incumbent on Isaac and 
his comrades that they should hold onto the 
villa. Their numbers were getting dangerously 
low and it was unlikely that more true 
Christians would arrive to replenish their 
numbers. Indeed, after the disappointment 
associated with the pervert Jonah, it was 
unlikely that Isaac would trust even Jesus 
Christ Himself if He became manifest in the 
atheist space ship.

In many ways, Isaac was in the place most 
like Paradise he could ever imagine. He had 
enough to eat. There was warmth, running 
water, a comfortable bed and a landscape of 
grass, trees and lakes that was so much more 
uplifting than the dark and dismal levels of 
Holy Trinity. The only penalty was that he 
had no access to clothing to cover his shame 
and that he was in constant fear of his life 
from the other Holy Crusaders.

Isaac could never voice his thoughts to his 
comrades because it would be perceived as a 
sign that his faith was weakening, but if it 
were only possible for all the Holy Crusaders 
to return to the state of uneasy tolerance 
that originally prevailed on the space ship 
Judgement then this could truly be the 
Paradise he envisaged when he read the first 
few chapters of Genesis. Was this not a land 
of plenty like the Garden of Eden? Was it not 
also characterised by the nakedness that 
prevailed in a more innocent form before 
accursed Eve had eaten of the fruit of the 
tree which was in the midst of the garden? 
And was there not also a guiding force 
represented by the space ship Intrepid that 
was more benevolent and merciful than God 
Himself?

It was all very confusing.

There was more time to relax now. Although 
Isaac was aware that the nearby villas were 
occupied by infidels or heretics, there no 
longer seemed to be a war for occupancy. 
Perhaps the villas were all now taken and an 
uneasy peace had been established amongst the 
quarrelling factions. Perhaps Isaac and his 
comrades could stay alive long enough for the 
Intrepid to reach the Apostasy and the return 
journey home to the ecliptic. 

It was difficult for a Soldier of Christ to 
admit it even to himself but he was looking 
forward to returning to the embrace of his 
wife's arms and seeing his children once 
again. It had been more than five years since 
he'd left Holy Trinity and it was likely to 
be another year or more until he could 
return. That was assuming, of course, that he 
wouldn't share the fate of Jacob and those 
other crusaders who'd died in one another's 
arms. He looked forward to days of quoting 
from the Holy Bible and finding comfort from 
its words. In truth, the words that gave him 
most comfort weren't the ones from Leviticus 
or Deuteronomy or Revelations that prescribed 
severe punishments on those who wavered in 
their faith but rather those so rarely quoted 
in the chapel such as the words of Jesus in 
Chapter 10, Verse 14, of The Gospel According 
to Saint Mark: "Suffer the little children to 
come unto me, and forbid them not: for of 
such is the kingdom of God." However, as 
Isaac knew so well, the God he worshipped was 
as stated in Chapter 20, Verse 5, of The 
Second Book of Moses: Called Exodus: "the 
LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the 
iniquity of the fathers upon the children 
unto the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me; And shewing mercy unto 
thousands of them that love me, and keep my 
commandments."

The respite Isaac was enjoying lasted only a 
few months. It was long enough, of course, 
for him and his comrades to become 
complacent. They settled into a routine of 
hymn and prayer interspersed by guard duty, 
but as time went by the urgency of their 
quest to seize command of the Godless space 
ship receded as did their attentiveness when 
on guard duty. It truly seemed that life had 
settled down. There were few lone crusaders 
or small bands that passed by these days and 
they appeared to be seeking villas that 
weren't already occupied. Few appeared to 
have the belly for a fight.

When the inevitable assault took place it was 
from the same Catholics who had seized the 
villa from which Isaac and his comrades were 
earlier evicted: the one in which Isaac's 
otherwise pleasant memories were forever 
marred by his recollection of David's descent 
into Sodom. It seemed that the savage 
Catholic crusaders were now intent not so 
much on finding a new home but on expanding 
the territory they already possessed.

When they appeared they did so not sneakily 
and in the dark as before but openly and 
brazenly. This time there were not only a 
dozen or so Catholics who, despite their 
nakedness, could now be distinguished by huge 
red tattoos of the sign of the cross 
painfully etched into their chests. With them 
were many others not so tattooed whose heads 
and beards had been freshly shaved.  They 
were distinguishable by the collar worn 
around the necks and the cords around the 
legs. They many times outnumbered the 
Catholic crusaders but were evidently slaves 
rather than equals. Perhaps they were 
Muslims. Perhaps they were Buddhists. Perhaps 
they were even of a Presbyterian persuasion. 
But in the state of bald nakedness to which 
they had been reduced it wasn't possible to 
know.

It was these slaves, not the Catholics, who 
descended on Isaac's villa. They were 
superior in number but motivated only by fear 
of their masters who showed no mercy to those 
who failed to do their bidding. This Isaac 
could see for sure as he lay prostrate on the 
villa roof and scanned the upwardly curving 
horizon. One slave made an attempt to run not 
towards the villa that housed Isaac and his 
comrades but in a different direction. At 
first, it seemed that his attempt to escape 
would succeed as he ran shouting "All?hu 
Akbar!" The Catholics made no attempt to stop 
him although they shouted loudly in his 
direction in Latin. Then two Catholics that 
had been hidden behind trees emerged from the 
shadows and caught the renegade. And they 
then dealt with him bloodily and efficiently. 
Isaac remarked again on the Catholics' lack 
of true justice by the swift manner in which 
the slave was slaughtered. No time was wasted 
on torture, humiliation or prayer. They 
bundled on top of him and killed him with no 
fuss at all

Isaac looked about him with fear. The 
Catholics' slaves were fast approaching the 
villa and alerted Isaac's comrades as they 
did do. They continued to shout in Latin 
which heathen tongue Isaac didn't understand 
at all. It was likely the slaves no more knew 
what they were chanting than did Isaac. "Ave 
Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum," chanted 
some of them. "Gloria Patri, et Filio, et 
Spiritui Sancto," chanted some of the others. 
Isaac guessed that it must be a prayer to the 
Pope who was known to be the Catholic's God. 
That was nonsense, of course. The Pope lived 
on Earth in a city called Rome. He couldn't 
be the Lord God, all omnipotent and all 
omniscient. It just didn't make sense. And, 
in any case, God spoke English. He wouldn't 
speak Latin or any other language that would 
otherwise be dead for many thousands of 
years.

Isaac steeled himself for the oncoming 
assault. He could see that his chances of 
survival were slim. He might manage to kill 
two or three slaves before they overpowered 
him, but there was no likelihood that he 
could escape as easily this time as he had 
before.

However, death when it came was not in the 
form that Isaac was expecting. It wasn't in 
the form that the Catholic aggressors had 
expected either. Isaac might have reflected 
on Chapter 30, Verse 30, of The Book of the 
Prophet Isaiah: "And the LORD shall cause his 
glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew 
the lighting down of his arm, with the 
indignation of his anger, and with the flame 
of a devouring fire, with scattering, and 
tempest, and hailstones." 

There was fire, there was lightning and there 
most certainly was a tempest accompanied by a 
huge thunderous roar. 

In the confusion, no one could possibly make 
sense of the sequence of events. The sound of 
external impact was extraordinarily loud and 
in itself would have damned all the Holy 
Crusaders to a life of deafness. There was 
also a rushing wind, but it was directed not 
hither and thither but in one direction only 
and with unchallengeable force. If Isaac 
hadn't been pulled off the roof of the villa 
or, more to the point, pulled off the villa 
along with the roof, he might have looked 
ahead and upwards to where the tempest was 
taking him and the precious pressurised 
atmosphere. 

And this was quite simply into deep space. 

At the point of impact there was flame and 
fury, but in the vacuum of space this was 
manifest more as the conflagration of the 
rapidly escaping atmosphere rather than the 
steady flame of a terrestrial blaze.

So ferocious was the force from the escaping 
air that nothing could withstand its blast. 
Death came in various ways. Some crusaders 
were simply dashed against the first obstacle 
in their path and crushed to a bloody mess. 
Any who had avoided the direct impact of the 
storm by being indoors would die a painful 
but brief death as the air pressure 
dramatically dropped and their tongue became 
swollen, their eyes popped out of their skull 
and their lungs exploded. Not one Holy 
Crusader stood even the smallest chance of 
survival.

Death came to Isaac when he was sucked 
through the vast hole created by the external 
explosion. The proximate cause was a 
combination of the impact of many flying 
objects and the lack of breathable air, but 
his body was already limp and lifeless as it 
shot out into empty dark space through the 
hundred metre breach in the Intrepid's hull. 

And then along with all the other debris 
within the Intrepid's reach, his corpse was 
gathered by the waste-collecting pods to be 
recycled by the space ship's antimatter 
engines.



Chapter Eighteen
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

It was over in all of seven seconds, but for 
Paul it wasn't until the final fraction of 
the seventh second that he was conscious that 
anything had happened at all. And what he was 
aware of was more disorientating than 
calamitous. 

It had started with a sudden jolt that 
shuddered through the room and in particular 
the bed on which he'd been dozing. He'd been 
awake for over half an hour but it was his 
habit to drift in and out of the last few 
moments of sleep before eventually sliding 
his feet out from under the sheet and over 
the side of the bed. Sometimes he would lie 
in bed and eat breakfast prepared and served 
by robot, but with Beatrice so often absent 
these days there was rather less pleasure in 
staying awake in bed than there used to be.

The jolt was followed by a thundering 
dislocating growl during which Paul, along 
with everything else in his room, slowly rose 
above the ground. This was a momentary 
failure of the Intrepid's artificial gravity 
system that normally made life in a space 
ship seem so deceptively normal. Although 
this was what most alarmed Paul, it was just 
one of many fears that flooded through his 
mind. Only a truly considerable force could 
disrupt the slow and inexorable rotation of 
the Space Ship Intrepid on its axis. 

The situation then gradually returned to 
normal. The space ship's growl steadily 
dropped out of the audible range. Paul and 
everything else in the room slowly fell back 
to the ground. 

It was only then, after everything had 
already happened, that the space ship's alarm 
system burst into life and the klaxons rang 
out. This was incredibly loud and piercing. 
It startled Paul much more than anything that 
had preceded it. Since the instructions 
broadcast after the alarm were basically for 
him—and everyone else—to stay where he was 
and not panic, it was literally no effort for 
him to act as instructed. Paul's heart 
pounded ferociously in his chest and his skin 
was pasted in a sheen of cold sweat.

What the fuck had happened?

A similar thought might have occurred to 
Isaac and the Holy Crusaders, although they 
would have formulated it differently. In any 
case, every single one of them was dead 
before the alarm sounded. Indeed, given that 
sound couldn't travel through a vacuum they 
wouldn't have heard anything even if they 
were still alive. Had Isaac been protected by 
a space-suit sufficiently proof to nuclear, 
anti-matter or conventional explosions, he 
would have seen a stellar firmament where one 
star, the Sun, shone only a few times 
brighter than the others and where there was 
also the dimming light from the slowly 
extinguishing debris of thousands upon 
thousands of thermo-nuclear and anti-matter 
warheads that had just been summarily 
annihilated.

What Isaac didn't know, and neither did Paul, 
was that the Intrepid couldn't possibly have 
survived without external help. An assault of 
this magnitude had never before been 
unleashed at any one time in the whole of 
humanity's existence. Even a space ship as 
sophisticated and well-armed as the Intrepid 
wasn't equipped to fend off such an 
overwhelming onslaught. It was unfortunate 
that one stray missile had managed to get as 
far as it had and exploded just outside the 
Intrepid's hull. For Isaac and his fellow 
crusaders the consequence of this was rather 
worse than just an unfortunate inconvenience. 
The true miracle, however, was that the whole 
space ship Intrepid wasn't now reduced to 
nothing more than a trail of interstellar 
debris and a glow of deadly radiation.

A space ship like the Intrepid was designed 
to withstand a substantial breach in its hull 
though its survival strategy was fatal to any 
survivors that might still be in the 
outermost level. The shell of the next 
outermost level instantly hardened into the 
same toughness as the ship's hull and 
jettisoned any encumbrance such as oxygen, 
biological life-forms and robots that might 
hinder the speed of this transformation. All 
forms of access were instantly plugged. It 
was efficient. It was fast. And, as had been 
proven many times in the long history of deep 
space travel where there was no prospect of 
emergency services arriving any time soon, it 
was absolutely necessary.

 Of all the passengers and crew on board the 
Intrepid, only Beatrice was truly aware of 
the full facts and even she was taken almost 
unawares.

One moment, she was making love with Captain 
Kerensky. For her this was a duty but also a 
pleasure. The next moment she abruptly jerked 
upright over her conflicted lover, jumped off 
the bed and stood rigidly to attention. She 
had just received an emergency broadcast of 
the ongoing action from the invisible Proxima 
Centauran space ships escorting the Intrepid. 
This might have been unexpected, but Beatrice 
did at least have the benefit of several 
seconds' grace shared by no one, including 
Captain Kerensky, before there was a muffled 
thud against the Intrepid's hull and the 
consequent momentary failure in the 
gravitational system.

In those few seconds Nadezhda was at first 
greatly offended by being so abruptly cast 
aside and then swiftly began to formulate an 
escape strategy. Perhaps Beatrice's operating 
system had somehow crashed. Although rare, it 
did still sometimes happen to the Solar 
System's most complex robots and perhaps the 
same phenomenon might still afflict 
extrasolar machine intelligences. 
Nevertheless, she recognised that whatever it 
was that was happening was affecting not only 
Beatrice as she felt herself float gently 
upwards with her erstwhile lover and now her 
captor.

"What happened?" Nadezhda asked as soon as 
she was able.

Captain Kerensky could tell that her android 
lover was furiously multitasking. There 
followed an unusually slow response from 
Beatrice who was apparently in frantic 
communication with her fellow aliens.

"We passed a relatively small asteroid nearly 
half a million kilometres distant," Beatrice 
replied. "Naturally, we routinely monitor all 
space objects for threat. There was no reason 
to suspect that this asteroid would be any 
different from any other. Without warning, at 
exactly the closest point of triangulation, 
the asteroid let loose a few hundred 
missiles. Within the first two seconds, these 
split into a few thousand and all were 
targeted at the Intrepid. None were targeted 
at or seemed even to be aware of the presence 
of the Proxima Centauri space fleet. This is 
fairly strong evidence that the party 
responsible for this assault comes from 
within your Solar System. Our space fleet had 
only four or five seconds to annihilate all 
the missiles before they hit their target."

Nadezhda tried to assimilate this sudden rush 
of information. "Did you destroy them all?" 
was the only question she could frame.

"Our forces eliminated very nearly all of 
them. The Intrepid's slower defence system 
destroyed the hundred or so missiles 
remaining. One missile exploded within fifty 
kilometres of the Intrepid's hull. It was 
that which caused the anomalous gravity 
event. The explosion breached the hull and 
the space ship's self-repair system 
immediately sprung into action."

"Casualties?"  

"You're perfectly right to ask," said 
Beatrice who was also sentimental about such 
things although she often wondered what 
difference a year here or there really made 
to the lives of these transient beings. "All 
biological life-forms in the outermost level 
were instantly exterminated. This was caused 
either directly by the explosion or from the 
sudden loss of habitable environment. The 
vast majority of human casualties were Holy 
Coalition prisoners so their loss will have 
no adverse operational impact. In fact, it 
will actually help to conserve resources. 
There were a further dozen or so casualties 
in the penultimate level. This was as an 
unfortunate side-effect of the space ship's 
automatic defences. There were a few injuries 
and one death caused by the momentary failure 
in centrifugal rotation."

Captain Kerensky was slightly offended by the 
unemotional objectivity of Beatrice's 
account. These were people's lives she was 
talking about. "What about your lot?" she 
asked. "Were any alien androids killed in 
defence of the Intrepid?"

"None," said Beatrice. "But the missiles 
weren't directed at us. You must be aware 
that if the space ship Intrepid hadn't been 
escorted by a fleet of Proxima Centauri star 
ships and if we hadn't secured it against 
such an attack, then neither of us would now 
be alive. All your crew and passengers would 
now be little more than radioactive waste."

"So who did this? Was it another group of 
religious fanatics?"

"If we knew, then we would have anticipated 
the attack and guarded against it," Beatrice 
replied. "Our intelligence capacity 
exponentially exceeds that of your 
governments and non-governmental agencies, 
but we were still caught entirely off-guard. 
It's true that we expected some measure of 
disruption to the ship's mission—that is, 
after all, why we're protecting you—but we 
didn't anticipate that it would come in this 
form."

"Don't expect me to thank you for hijacking 
my ship," said Captain Kerensky bitterly.

"Such a thought couldn't be further from my 
mind," said Beatrice. She nonetheless 
wondered just what she could do to earn 
gratitude from these flawed carbon based 
beings. She had just helped to secure the one 
thing humans valued more than anything else. 
And that was their continued existence. 

"Do you think we'll find out who the culprits 
are?"

"I'm sure special investigators will be on 
the case in a couple of months when news of 
this event finally reaches your Mission 
Control on the Moon," said Beatrice. "They 
should be able to identify the source. 
However, I don't want to alarm you too much. 
Our analysis of the assault strongly suggests 
that, in this case, the ultimate perpetrator 
might not come from your Solar System."

"What do you mean? If the assault didn't come 
from the Solar System, where else could it 
have come from? The Anomaly?"

"Who knows," said Beatrice, shrugging her 
shoulders. "But I doubt it. Anything that 
emanates from the Anomaly is disturbingly 
random, whereas this assault was meticulously 
planned." 

Beatrice paused for a moment as if she was 
thinking carefully, although Nadezhda knew 
that the android didn't need the time to 
cogitate in the sense that a human might. The 
speed of her processing far exceeded the need 
for such delay. 

"I may have misled you," said Beatrice at 
last. "Our analysis of the hardware employed 
is fairly conclusive. We believe the source 
to have been a secret armoury in the 
possession of a certain Ellis Gidding. We 
have no intelligence that suggests this man 
had any especial hostility with regards to 
the Intrepid's mission, but your 
trillionaires have more reason and means than 
most humans to conceal their actions and 
opinions from public scrutiny. This habit is 
totally consistent with the evasiveness they 
exhibit when required to pay taxes to the 
various governments of the Solar System. Our 
operatives shall explore this line of 
investigation in more depth and no doubt 
we'll soon determine just why this man took 
such extreme action and whether he acted with 
the assistance of alien operatives."

"Operatives?" Nadezhda wondered.

"Androids like me," said Beatrice with a 
smile. "You didn't think I was the only 
android on a secret mission in the Solar 
System, did you? However, your primary 
concern as captain of the space ship should 
be to evaluate the damage and provide a 
report to Mission Control on the Moon."

"Nominal captain," remarked Captain Kerensky 
bitterly.

"As far as we are concerned," said Beatrice, 
"you are still captain of the space ship 
Intrepid. We would much rather it stayed that 
way…"

"As long as the ship remains under your 
effective control…"

"I would rather you called it protection," 
said Beatrice. "Remember: we wouldn't even be 
having this conversation if the ship hadn't 
been defended by a Proxima Centauri space 
fleet."

Still naked, Captain Kerensky surveyed the 
injury to the ship as it was displayed on the 
ship's computers. The holographic display of 
the damage showed just how close the Intrepid 
had come to being totally destroyed. The 
elliptical hole that punctured the outer hull 
was nearly a hundred metres at its widest 
point, although the Intrepid's systems were 
visibly repairing the perforation at a rapid 
rate. The breach would be completely patched 
within an hour or so. It was evident that 
Beatrice was right in her assessment: nobody 
in the outermost level could have survived 
the impact. All that was left of the Holy 
Crusaders were a few distended corpses. Many 
of these were outside the ship and slowly 
tumbling into deep space. There were also the 
corpses of animals that had recently been 
wandering blamelessly about the gardens and 
forests, but no animal, not even an insect or 
earthworm, could have survived the freezing 
temperature and the total loss of atmosphere. 

What of the crew and passengers? Wasn't 
Colonel Vashti supposed to have been on duty 
on the outermost shell? The records indicated 
that was exactly where she should have been, 
but she wasn't amongst those listed as dead. 
How could that be? Where was she? Had the 
computer simply not accounted for her?

Although this was wasting time that should be 
better engaged in assessing damage, the 
captain quickly checked on her lover's 
whereabouts. What a relief! Vashti hadn't 
been anywhere near the outermost shell.  
Nadezhda must have been mistaken. She was 
actually at that moment making her way from 
the sixth level towards the injured 
survivors. 

When Captain Kerensky had gathered together 
all the necessary facts, her duty was now to 
impart as much as she could to Mission 
Control and the ship's crew and passengers. 
This duty was compromised of course by the 
intercession of Beatrice's alien forces. Just 
how much of what she might say would actually 
be received exactly as it was originally 
phrased? An account of the real reason why 
the ship survived the bombardment couldn't 
possibly be transmitted. She couldn't even 
make known the fact that the weaponry used in 
the assault was owned by the reputable 
philanthropist and trillionaire Ellis 
Gidding. However, there were plenty of other 
things that she had to report.  The captain 
had to give an account of what had happened, 
an analysis of the extent of the damage, and 
a roll call of the names of the deceased. She 
would also have to announce a provisional 
date and time for the funerals.

Paul was one of those reassured by the 
captain's prompt announcement. It was 
unfortunate that the ship had been attacked 
(again). It was very sad that some people had 
perished, but good to know that order had now 
been restored. The holographic image of the 
captain, apparelled in full uniform, emanated 
an air of authority and command. A greater 
crisis had been averted and repairs were well 
under way. Captain Kerensky also explained 
that, as the Intrepid continued its voyage 
through the Oort Cloud, there would 
henceforth be fewer and fewer objects in 
orbit around the far distant Sun. In fact, 
there was no celestial object larger than a 
small boulder between where they were now and 
their destination. The captain reminded 
everyone that in terms of distance they were 
probably about half-way to their destination 
and rather less so in terms of travelling 
time.

"So, nothing to worry about," said Paul to 
himself as, still unclothed, he groggily 
lifted himself out of bed and shuffled 
towards the refrigerator for a cold drink.

"Are you all right, darling?" Paul heard his 
wife coo as he closed the fridge door. 

He turned his head to see Beatrice dressed 
only in a simple white kimono and gripping a 
cup of steaming hot coffee in her hands. She 
must have been in the house all along. 

Paul nodded. "I'm fine. It's the others I'm 
worried about. And you, of course."

"I saw the captain's announcement," said 
Beatrice with a look of deep concern etched 
on her face. "It's dreadful, isn't it? Who do 
you think might have attacked the ship?"

Paul shook his head sadly. But he remembered 
the failed assassination attempts and near-
misses that had bedevilled his progress from 
Godwin to Earth, so it was probably too much 
to expect that the trail of destruction would 
end just as he was getting so close to this 
accursed Anomaly. "I've given up trying to 
guess who might be after me... or the ship. 
It wasn't another bunch of religious fanatics 
was it?"

"Well if it was, they didn't do a very good 
job of saving their co-religionists," 
remarked Beatrice in the chilling 
dispassionate tone to which she sometimes 
inclined.

"You must have been as terrified as me when 
this all began," said Paul as he placed a 
reassuring arm around Beatrice's shoulders.

"I just didn't know what hit me," said 
Beatrice with disarming honesty as she 
steered her husband towards their shared bed 
on which her side was still unruffled. "You 
need some relaxation after all that stress," 
she continued with a cheeky smile as she 
squeezed Paul's hardening testicles in one 
hand while her other pushed him gently back 
into the bed's comforting embrace. 

"I think I do," said Paul with a tone of 
resignation.

As soon as the couple fell onto the sheets, 
Beatrice's tongue and fingers once again 
brought Paul's genitals to life. Paul 
wondered whether it was right to have sex so 
soon after a near fatal attack and the 
resultant death of so many people. But then, 
he reflected, in times of war it was 
precisely when things were at their worst 
that people most often resorted to sex as a 
means of escape.

And if the launch of several thousand deadly 
warheads wasn't an act of war then what else 
possibly could be?

Chapter Nineteen
The Moon - 3755 C.E.

"I need to speak to you privately," said 
Oxana Petrovna Korolyov. 

Brigadier Svenssen was understandably 
alarmed. What could this woman possibly want? 
Why would a Mission Control scientist need to 
talk to him? His immediate anxiety was that 
it might be her way of suggesting that they 
have sex. There were colonies in the Solar 
System whose citizens were unnervingly frank 
about their intentions, but he reflected that 
it was very unlikely in this case. Oxana came 
from Saturn. She was slim, very pale-skinned 
and, like all Saturnians, her head was 
shaved. And typically of Saturn, she was 
almost certainly a lesbian. Although the 
brigadier knew little about women, there was 
no evidence that she had amorous intentions 
for him.

"Would you like to speak to me now?" the 
brigadier asked.

"As soon as we can, sir," Oxana said. "But 
preferably somewhere secure."

The brigadier and she were striding across 
the lawns outside Mission Control some 
several kilometres underground and not many 
levels above the busy shopping arcades and 
cultural centres of Lacus Somniorum. "Would 
here be sufficiently secure?" he asked.

"Only if you're certain that there are no 
listening devices, sir," said Oxana.

"We can never be completely sure about that," 
said the brigadier, "but there are none that 
I've authorised. What do you want me to know? 
You have my complete attention."

Oxana nodded and looked around the brightly 
lit paths in the huge cavern in which they 
stood. On one side was the towering but 
anonymous building where the Intrepid's 
Mission Control was based. On the other side, 
looming over them, were stacked level after 
level of walkways, tramlines and low-rise 
settlements. Like everyone else on the Moon, 
they were both obliged to walk with a comical 
bounce in their step but they were well 
accustomed to low gravity by now. Mission 
Control had been based in the Sinus Roris 
Tower for over two years now. Security was 
very tight, principally because the premises 
were shared with other Interplanetary Union 
projects related to space exploration. The 
majority of people who worked on the mission 
believed they were employed on just another 
scientific expedition into deep space rather 
than a secret mission to intercept the 
Anomaly.

"I need to speak to you privately, sir," said 
Oxana nervously. "You are involved in the 
operational aspects of the mission and I have 
some major concerns."

"Am I really the right person to speak to? 
I'm a military man. I don't really work with 
day-to-day operations at all."

"I've raised my concerns at several levels, 
sir, but I don't believe I've really got 
anywhere. Security is very tight, as you 
know. The concerns I've raised are 
scrutinised by very few people before they 
get passed onwards to higher levels of 
command. I just don't believe that they've 
been treated at all seriously. I would have 
expected an appropriate response by now and 
I've received nothing at all."

"Are you saying that the normal chain of 
escalation isn't working correctly?"

"I think that it's being totally blocked at 
some level."

"And just what are your concerns, Ms. 
Korolyov?"

Oxana looked about her nervously. She was 
clearly worried whether someone might be able 
to overhear her however unlikely this was, as 
she and the brigadier strode towards an 
ornamental lake in the middle of the lawn 
where their only company were a few ducks 
flapping over the water and the koi carp that 
occasionally broke the placid surface.

"I believe that the mission has been 
critically compromised, sir," said the 
scientist. "I don't know who by, but whoever 
it is must possess very advanced technology."

"Advanced technology?"

"One more advanced than any currently known 
to exist in the Solar System."

"Aliens?" wondered the brigadier. This was a 
natural conjecture given that the most common 
speculation regarding the Anomaly was that it 
might be a manifestation of alien 
intelligence.

"I can't speculate as to what it might be, 
sir," said Oxana. "I'm not an exobiologist or 
otherwise qualified to comment. My expertise 
is in analysing the events that happened on 
the Intrepid and most specifically the second 
attack..."

"The one that breached the hull?"

"Exactly."

"Carry on, Ms. Korolyov. You still have my 
attention," said the brigadier.

Like most officers at Mission Control, 
Brigadier Svenssen found the second assault 
far more worrying and problematical than the 
first. There was an altogether different 
order of magnitude between an assault by 
thousands of woefully ill-equipped religious 
fanatics and the truly overwhelming 
bombardment that erupted from the asteroid 
that housed the formidable arsenal. Of 
course, it wasn't until two months after the 
event that Mission Control was aware the 
attack had even taken place, as this was the 
time it took for data transmitted by the 
Intrepid to reach the Moon. The news 
immediately resulted in frenetic activity at 
Mission Control involving all senior 
officers. When Brigadier Svenssen was 
notified, he was in mid-session with three 
well-muscled civilians he'd met in a bar. The 
call to arms could hardly have been more 
poorly timed. His cock was in one arse, his 
fist in another and he was being buggered by 
a huge cock from behind. Even though the 
delay between the actual bombardment and its 
announcement was so great, everyone had to 
take emergency action as if it had only just 
happened. Frustratingly, it would be another 
three months until any response to Mission 
Control's enquiries would be received by the 
far distant space ship.

It didn't take long to identify the 
provenance of the military arsenal or its 
owner. It wasn't too surprising that the 
perpetrator was Alexander Iliescu, one of the 
wealthiest people in the Solar System. Only a 
fabulously wealthy individual would have the 
means to launch such a phonomenally expensive 
assault. Even less surprising was that the 
criminal mastermind had already escaped any 
likelihood of capture. Given what the 
brigadier now knew about his recent 
culpability, his death almost certainly had 
to have been self-inflicted, although the 
news accounts about his death suggested that 
it was nothing more than an unfortunate 
accident. 

Alexander Iliescu had left no family, no 
children and no independent trace of his 
criminal activities. When his luxurious 
colony, Almond Grove, was boarded for 
investigation all that could be found was a 
large harem of women sex-workers and computer 
records that had been comprehensively gutted 
of any useful information. The evidence of 
his crime could only be obtained by 
clandestine means.

What was most puzzling, of course, was why 
such a phenomenally rich man should invest 
such a substantial proportion of his wealth 
in the destruction of the space ship 
Intrepid. Alexander Iliescu wasn't known to 
hold extreme or radical religious views. In 
fact, he was known rather more for his 
liberal opinions and generous philanthropy. 
But the reason for this bizarre behaviour 
became just one of a large number of 
mysteries surrounding the man as the 
Interplanetary Union's investigations into 
his life became more extensive. The vast sum 
of money expended on the purchase of the 
arsenal couldn't be traced at all. It was as 
if he'd made a separate fortune even larger 
than his fabulously vast legitimate one and 
then spent all of it on a single ultimately 
pointless project. The man's birth and 
childhood on the Shikasta colony in the 
Asteroid Belt was shrouded in mystery. This 
was partly because the colony had been a 
collateral casualty of the nuclear war 
between Pallas and Ceres and any material 
evidence of his early years was now 
obliterated into tiny radioactive particles. 
There was also a surprising lack of 
supporting evidence from anywhere else in the 
Solar System. Even the means by which 
Alexander Iliescu had made his trillions were 
poorly documented. The more the intelligence 
officers tried to find out about the man, the 
less they seemed to know for sure. 

The man was a mystery, but his role in the 
attempted destruction of the Intrepid was 
incontrovertible. It was he who'd owned the 
arsenal. It could only have been him who'd 
authorised its use. The evidence relating to 
Ellis Gidding was verifiable and unambiguous.  

Another question that troubled the 
investigators was how Alexander Iliescu had 
even known about the mission. His first 
recorded interest in acquiring the arsenal 
wasn't long after the initial plans had been 
proposed. This implied that there was a mole 
in the security services at the very highest 
level. If the hidden source  wasn't in the 
security services, then who, of the very few 
people involved in the project at that early 
stage, would have broken confidence? Why 
would the saboteur be a trillionaire whose 
public interests were arts, medicine and 
philanthropy and whose most prominent private 
passion was to make love to skilled and 
glamorous sex-workers? How could and why 
would a man like him assemble a spy network 
that could penetrate the murkiest depths of 
interplanetary security.

Brigadier Svenssen was aware that there were 
many unanswered questions relating to the 
assault and he assumed that this was what 
troubled Oxana. Was it possible, for 
instance, that she'd discovered that a former 
employee of the master criminal was amongst 
those on board the Intrepid and might still 
offer a potential threat? Was there more 
weaponry that the man had acquired that could 
yet be employed to sabotage the mission?

"My concerns aren't so much with the attack 
on the ship, sir, about which there has been 
so much debate," said Oxana. "My concerns 
relate to the space ship's defence 
capability."

"The Intrepid did a splendid job," said the 
brigadier who felt almost affronted by the 
suggestion that it had done anything else.

"It did a rather better job than it was 
actually able to do, sir. There is a mismatch 
between the ship's defensive capability and 
the size of the force it managed to fend 
off."

"Are you saying it was equipped rather too 
well?"

"No, sir," said Oxana. "There is no way that 
its military defences were sufficient to ward 
off the attack. There is no scenario that we 
can model of the incident in which the space 
ship can survive given the measurable size of 
the offensive arsenal and that of the 
Intrepid's defences. Every scenario results 
in exactly the same outcome. The Intrepid 
simply shouldn't have survived."

"With all due respect, Ms Korolyov," said the 
brigadier carefully, "it must be the model 
that is at fault. The Intrepid obviously did 
escape almost entirely intact. The breach in 
the hull was unfortunate but easily mended. 
I'm not a scientist but my understanding of 
any theory is that it needs revising when the 
evidence invalidates it."

"I'm not sure, sir, that one event in deep 
space can really refute arithmetic equations 
that have been sround for thousands of years 
before space travel even existed," said 
Oxana. "When a smaller force is set against a 
larger force, the chances of the smaller 
force prevailing become progressively smaller 
the greater the disparity. In this case, the 
margin is at least ten to one."

"Those are impressive figures, Ms Korolyov, 
but there has already been a thorough 
analysis of the records transmitted to us by 
the Intrepid. Every hostile projectile that 
was launched has been accounted for. Each one 
was intercepted and neutralised. The evidence 
is incontrovertible."

"And so it is, sir," said Oxana, "if that is 
the only evidence you examine. However, we 
can also view the events through telescopes 
in the ecliptic and we can also examine the 
records of the entire inventory of the 
arsenal. There are two things that become 
apparent. The number of missiles launched 
from the asteroid vastly exceeds the number 
recorded by the Intrepid. At least twenty 
times as many were launched than can be 
accounted for by the Intrepid's systems. This 
number matches very well the actual inventory 
of lethal forces that we know was stored in 
the asteroid. The upshot is that the systems 
on the Intrepid don't appear to have sent us 
an accurate record of events."

"Why would that be, Ms Korolyov? What 
possible reason could there be for the ship's 
captain to downplay the scale of the 
Intrepid's success in countering such an 
onslaught?"

"There is an unusually long gap between the 
visual evidence of the assault as received by 
telescopes in the Solar System and the 
signals relayed from the Intrepid although 
both are supposed to have been sent at the 
same time and both travel at the same speed 
of light. It's very nearly a two second gap, 
sir."

"What's the significance of that, Ms 
Korolyov? What are we supposed to deduce from 
the combination of a gap in transmission and 
a space ship that has performed better than 
expected?"

"I would suggest, sir," continued Oxana in 
the face of the brigadier's evident 
scepticism, "that there has been some 
tampering with the data that's been 
transmitted from the Intrepid. I would 
further suggest that the data has been 
tampered at source and not by Mission 
Control. And I would also suggest that it's 
been tampered specifically to disguise the 
presence of a defensive force that didn't 
come from the space ship Intrepid."

"Are you saying that there has been an 
upgrade of the Intrepid's defence systems by 
aliens?" asked the brigadier. "And that these 
aliens are so modest that they want to hide 
from us the wonderful things they've done to 
our technology."

"I have no conclusions, sir," said Oxana. "I 
only have some very real concerns. And there 
are other questions I find difficult to 
answer. There was a change in the character 
of the daily logs sent by Captain Kerensky to 
Mission Control dating from several months 
before the attack. As you know, she 
broadcasts two logs. One is for the benefit 
of the crew and passengers of the Intrepid. 
The other, of which even her Chief Petty 
Officer is unaware, is broadcast specifically 
for Mission Control. This is a standard 
precaution on sensitive missions to keep us 
informed about concerns and worries the 
captain might have that she doesn't want to 
share with her senior officers..."

"And why is that? What secrets can a captain 
have from her Chief Petty Officer?"

"There's always the risk of mutiny, sir. If 
the captain suspects this might happen, she 
should inform Mission Control rather than the 
people who might be organising the mutiny."

"Hmmm..." said the brigadier who didn't like 
this type of disloyal speculation. "And what 
differences in character have you observed in 
our good captain?"

"Standard analyses are carried out routinely 
on a captain's logs," said Oxana. "They're 
done to determine whether she's under stress 
or is in any other way likely to act in a way 
that could interfere with her ability to 
carry out the mission. It's very rarely of 
much use, of course, because most changes of 
character fall within the expected range of 
tolerance. On a mission that has so far 
involved two major life-threatening incidents 
and where there is no actual guarantee that 
the space ship will ever return to the 
ecliptic, it is only natural to expect that 
the captain should display a greater than 
usual shift in her character. What has been 
observed is that Captain Kerensky has lost 
much of her sense of humour and has become 
significantly more guarded in what she 
chooses to say and how she expresses it. 
There is also evidence of some peculiar 
behavioural traits for which there is no 
previous history in her character."

"Such as...?"

"There is an observable twitch she suffers 
from when certain aspects of the space ship's 
operations are mentioned. It appears to be 
relatively painful. These occur mostly when 
she discusses any aspect of the ship's 
command or security. This trait and the 
captain's newfound caution are consistent 
with patterns of behaviour observed when 
people are under unnatural duress. It is 
commonly employed to make all appear well 
when it quite simply isn't. There is nothing, 
however, that definitively falls outside of 
the normal range, but I still find it rather 
suspicious."

"So, you believe that the Intrepid has been 
apprehended by aliens on the basis of a few 
twitches and a mismatch between events 
observed through telescopes and the data 
transmitted by the Intrepid?"

"Something is definitely wrong, sir," said 
Oxana. "It is consistent with a hypothesis 
which postulates that the ship's functions 
have been subverted by an unknown 
intelligence whose priorities are to ensure 
that the Intrepid reaches its destination."

"As a risk, something that ensures the 
success of the mission doesn't sound much 
like something we should be too worried 
about."

"That's only if that's what this intelligence 
is trying to achieve, sir. There is no 
conclusive evidence that it will always be a 
benign force."

"Do you think all this might have something 
to do with the peculiar nature of the 
Anomaly?"

"If the Anomaly is, as we believe, the source 
of all the Apparitions that have been 
observed, measured and analysed throughout 
the Solar System, who knows how else it might 
manifest itself."

"Too true," said Brigadier Svenssen. "Is it 
possible that the Anomaly is the source of 
all this strangeness?"

"As I say," Oxana said carefully, "all we 
know from the evidence is that there are some 
measurable inconsistencies. It may have 
nothing to do with the Anomaly."

"So, your view is that the Intrepid's mission 
has been compromised by contact with an alien 
intelligence which we don't understand and 
which may be totally independent of the 
Anomaly?"

"Yes, sir," said Oxana.

"Unfortunately as a military man there's not 
much I can do with your suppositions," said 
the brigadier thoughtfully. "My military 
forces are based on the Intrepid and I can't 
brief them without doing so through the space 
ship's communication systems. I also have no 
idea what advice I'm supposed to give them. 
None of them have expressed anxiety about the 
ship being hi-jacked by aliens."

"I see, sir." 

 "I can also understand why there may be less 
enthusiasm than you perhaps appreciate for 
investigating a phenomenon that doesn't 
appear to have damaged the Intrepid's 
operational efficiency," said the brigadier. 
"But, on the other hand, I must admit there 
is something very strange given what you've 
said. Essentially, there is a disparity 
between the accounts we have from sources 
other than the Intrepid. Combined with the 
captain's mysterious change of character, 
this makes you suspect that the mission is no 
longer being run from Mission Control. I 
suggest that you continue to keep me informed 
of anything else that you notice."

"Thank you, sir," said Oxana who left 
Brigadier Svenssen clearly disappointed that 
he hadn't embraced her concerns with quite 
the enthusiasm she'd hoped.

The brigadier walked on towards the furthest 
perimeter of the Sinus Roris Tower gardens 
deep in thought. What troubled him wasn't 
just Oxana's speculation about aliens taking 
over the Intrepid, but a whole host of other 
issues that also persuaded him that the 
Intrepid's mission was fatally compromised. 

He wondered, for instance, why space had been 
found on board the ship for Paul Morris and 
his new wife. Even reasons of political 
expediency didn't fully explain why someone 
of no apparent use to the mission should be 
transported at immense cost from the Kuiper 
Belt and then beyond the Heliopause to the 
very limits of the Sun's gravitational 
influence. And who was this woman so 
enamoured of a man who the brigadier would 
rather kick out of his bed than have the 
dubious pleasure of fucking?

The brigadier also wondered about Colonel 
Vashti, his onetime lover. He was certain 
that she wasn't quite a normal person. Not 
only did she have a peculiar body, her 
historical records were just as odd and 
incomplete as those for Alexander Iliescu. 
Was she and the trillionaire in some way 
connected?

Then there were other people associated with 
the mission, particularly those in positions 
of high authority such as Permanent Secretary 
Alfredo Miskiewicz. As a man who was always 
on the outside of society looking in, both as 
a homosexual and as a man whose genes were 
not quite determined by evolution alone, 
Brigadier Svenssen was more than normally 
sensitive to subtle signs of nonconformity in 
the people he encountered. Very often it was 
because they too had an ancestry that 
involved artificially enhanced genes, but he 
was also aware that if a community of people 
like his could survive mostly unremarked in 
the expanse of the Solar System then there 
was space for other mould-breaking 
variations. Perhaps the mystery associated 
with Alexander Iliescu was in some way also 
associated with Ms Korolyov's hypotheses.

The brigadier was already persuaded that an 
alien intelligence had taken a keen interest 
in the mission and infiltrated the mission at 
every level. What he wasn't able to do was 
determine just what this alien intelligence 
could possibly be.

And, what was worse, he had no way of knowing 
whether this intelligence was good either for 
the mission or for the interests of the 
Interplanetary Union that he so loyally 
served.





Chapter Twenty
Earth - 3753 C.E.

"I'd almost forgotten why we were here," 
admitted Paul when the holographic message 
arrived for him at the hotel in the heart of 
the Amazon Jungle where he'd been staying 
with Beatrice. "It's been such a long time 
since we heard anything about the mission."

Professor Wasilewski's image flickered 
against the window through which could be 
seen a torrential downpour and lofty trees 
from which monkeys were howling at each 
other. The professor wasn't especially amused 
by Paul's remark.

"There are good reasons why we haven't 
bothered you for so long," he said wearily. 
"Nevertheless, your holiday is now over. You 
are urgently required at the briefing centre 
at South Pacific City. Please make sure you 
aren't late for even that."

As the image flickered out of sight, Paul 
glanced over at Beatrice who was lying on the 
bed beside him. "What's a holiday?" he asked. 
"Why is it over?"

"We've got just under a week to get from here 
to South Pacific City," said Beatrice who 
couldn't be bothered to explain to Paul the 
vocabulary of employment used throughout most 
of the Solar System. "It might take all of 
that time to get there."

"Why's that?" wondered Paul. "The Pacific 
Ocean's just on the other side of the Andes. 
It doesn't look like it's very far at all."

"Unless we can board a dirigible at Sao Paolo 
which is two days journey away, the voyage by 
sea will take at least what's left of a week 
to arrive at South Pacific City," said 
Beatrice who understood the urgency of not 
missing her ticket to the Anomaly rather more 
than Paul. "We must leave immediately. I'll 
alert Jorgen and Grace if they haven't 
already been contacted."

"I hate travelling," said Paul peevishly. "Do 
we have to leave? We haven't been here for 
more than two days. We've hardly seen 
anything. Can't this mission wait a bit?"

Beatrice stared at Paul with an expression 
that, for the first time since the couple 
first met, suggested something other than 
undying love and affection. Then she smiled 
seductively. "If you don't come, I'll have to 
go without you," she said teasingly.

Paul knew when he was beaten. "Then I guess 
we ought to prepare to leave," he said with 
resignation.

The last few months on Earth had been just as 
chaotic and unplanned as all the months 
before, but Paul had finally come to enjoy 
being on the planet. There was something 
marvellous about the sheer unpredictability 
of each day. If you didn't bother to access 
the unerringly accurate meteorological 
reports, it was impossible to say in advance 
whether a day would be sunny and warm, wet 
and cold, or just indifferent. There was an 
amazing variety of places to visit. There 
were wide empty hot deserts. Impressive 
historic temples. Wide open rivers. And here 
there was hectare after hectare of rain 
forest populated by monkeys, tapirs, river 
dolphins and brightly coloured birds of 
paradise.

Sure, there were things like this on all the 
colonies in the Solar System. Godwin had its 
own wildlife park and a lake large enough for 
dolphins, seals and sharks. However, the 
sheer variety of natural landscapes on Earth 
bound not by human design but by the natural 
lines of latitude and topology was quite 
beyond compare. Paul was already beginning to 
wish that he'd appreciated rather more the 
sights and sounds of the Sun's one and only 
naturally habitable satellite.

The journey from the hotel in the heart of 
the Amazon Jungle to South Pacific City was 
every bit as tortuous as Beatrice predicted. 
The necessity to restrict environmental 
impact had so reduced the choice of 
transport—especially in such wild regions of 
the world as the Amazon Jungle—that the time 
it took was indeed very nearly a week. The 
voyage by steam boat down the River Amazon 
was the most enjoyable episode although Paul 
soon discovered that there were stretches of 
river along which the boat travelled close 
enough to the bank for the many voracious 
insects to fly aboard and nibble at his arms 
and ankles. Naturally, Beatrice was immune to 
such pests so while Paul hid inside the boat 
to avoid being bitten, she rested on the deck 
with Jorgen and watched the monkeys leap 
across the canopy of the forest that hemmed 
in the river.

There was no ship berthed at Sao Paolo when 
Paul and Beatrice arrived, but there was a 
dirigible due to travel to Japan. Jorgen and 
Grace negotiated an unscheduled diversion to 
South Pacific City for the two tourists. All 
the same, the couple still had to wait a 
while in the sprawling city which Paul had 
already visited and didn't really care to 
visit again. It also rained the entire time 
they were there. This was one of many species 
of inclement weather that Paul was content 
never to have to endure again. The dirigible 
eventually arrived and, despite a delay 
caused by strong wind, Paul and Beatrice were 
able to float to their destination over the 
Amazon Forest, the Andes and the South 
Pacific.

Paul regarded the acres of forest in the 
Amazon from above with a faint feeling of 
regret. He would probably never again see so 
much verdant forest. Nowhere else in the 
Solar System was so much space put aside for 
the cultivation of trees. Nowhere else, 
indeed, was there such a long chain of snow-
capped mountains as the Andes or such a wide 
open ocean as the Pacific. There were many 
splendid sights beyond Earth, but few of 
these were the result of the biological and 
tectonic activity of the only genuinely 
living planet in the Solar System. 

The couple re-joined Mission Control in a 
suburb of South Pacific City where they met 
the scientists who couldn't be spared as 
readily as Paul. This was on a floating 
artificial island separated by several 
kilometres from the next point of land to 
which it was connected by long translucent 
tubes deep beneath the ocean surface. 
Security was as tight as any that Paul had 
experienced since he first arrived on Earth. 
The Briefing Centre was disguised as an 
Interplanetary Union military base although 
there were very few actual military personnel 
apart from those guarding the facilities. 

Most of the scientists who had the pleasure 
to meet Paul and Beatrice for the first time 
had no idea who they were or that they were 
even part of the mission. They were delighted 
to be introduced to Beatrice who was 
charmingly adept at social niceties and 
polite conversation, but rather less so Paul 
who had no idea at all of how to comport 
himself. He was socially awkward and had 
little to say that was likely to be of 
interest to anyone he spoke to. Although Paul 
was generally happy to leave polite discourse 
to his wife, there were the occasions when he 
would launch into discussion with an 
unsuspecting physicist or geologist where he 
would expound a half-understood hypothesis 
and display his ignorance of the scientist's 
actual discipline. Not surprisingly, those 
who experienced the dubious pleasure of 
conversation with Paul were reluctant to seek 
him out again. 

The main reason for Paul and Beatrice being 
there was not for the opportunity to 
socialise as they were soon to discover when 
they gathered together with several hundred 
fellow scientists in a spacious semi-circular 
auditorium to be briefed on the rest of the 
mission. The couple were positioned close to 
the front where not only did they have a very 
good view of who was making the address 
without needing to gaze at the holographic 
screens on either side of the central dais, 
but, more uncomfortably, could easily be seen 
by those on stage. It was obvious that 
Professor Wasilewski wasn't especially 
enthusiastic to see Paul and Beatrice sitting 
together only three rows back from the front 
row when he eased himself into his chair 
behind the dais.

The proceedings began with a general address 
from Doctor Livingston Achebe, the Director 
of Training for the mission. He thanked 
everyone for being there and made jokes about 
the recent storm that had blown over the city 
which drew appreciative laughter from 
everyone except Paul who'd been on a boat 
cruise around the Black Sea when it happened.

"It's been a challenging year of study and 
research," said the Director to almost 
universal agreement from the scientists 
gathered about him. "You might have wondered 
whether it would ever be over and whether the 
mission itself could possibly be more 
challenging than the work you've already 
engaged in. I know it's been a time of long 
hours dedicated to research where you've 
taken advantage of the wealth of classified 
data at your disposal, but the real mission 
is now about to begin. Soon you will be 
carrying out your research far closer to the 
Anomaly than any human has ever been before. 
Naturally, many of you will be frustrated 
that your valuable research has barely begun 
before you have to leave Earth, but you'll be 
delighted to know that there will be 
extensive research facilities for the entire 
mission and that you'll be able to continue 
just as well as you have at South Pacific 
City."

The audience expressed a general sense of 
satisfaction, while Paul felt slight tangs of 
guilt. What had all these scientists been 
doing for the last year that had kept them so 
busy? What was so valuable about their 
research? Was there literally nothing that he 
could have done other than travel haphazardly 
to the sights of planet Earth?

The audience were then introduced to Captain 
Miriam Deng of the Interplanetary Union Navy. 
She was a short woman with long yellow hair 
that flowed down to her ankles and a tight-
fitting uniform that hid very few details of 
her petite but perfectly formed figure. It 
was this rather than her words that Paul 
focused on while the captain spoke. 

"The space ship Intrepid is over five hundred 
years old, but it was built in an age when 
there was a short-lived craze for space 
cruises beyond the ecliptic. It is one of the 
largest space ships in the Solar System and 
has the capacity to journey even as far as a 
remote stellar system although it's never 
been employed for that purpose. Despite its 
advanced age, it has been fitted with the 
latest technology. So, what you will be 
living in for the next few years is a 
combination of Thirty-Second century luxury 
and the best that is currently on offer."

The captain went on to describe the space 
ship in more detail with the aid of 
holographic images that filled the entire 
auditorium but was so designed that everyone 
could get a clear view. Paul's eyes, however, 
stayed fixed on Captain Miriam Deng's 
remarkable embonpoint rather than the 
intricate and complex image floating above 
his head. He managed to hear enough to 
impress him about the scale of the space ship 
and the way in which each level was almost a 
miniature colony with lakes, rivers, parks 
and woodland. His mind wandered when the 
captain described how the ship was powered by 
antimatter and nuclear fusion energy and how 
the space ship utilised particles of matter 
that it gathered from deep space as it 
travelled. It was peculiar to imagine a space 
ship behaving like a huge vacuum cleaner. So 
much interplanetary matter had been converted 
into either the raw material or source energy 
of colonies and space ships that the Solar 
System must be a much less cluttered place 
than it once had been. Would there ever be a 
time when there was no longer enough free-
floating matter, even in the Asteroid Belt, 
to satisfy the Solar System's demands? 

"A space ship of the Intrepid's size cannot 
fly freely in the ecliptic," continued the 
captain. "It would be far too dangerous. The 
risk of collision with a colony, planet or 
moon might be very small, but the consequence 
of an encounter with a fast moving space ship 
of the Intrepid's mass is too appalling to be 
contemplated. It would be truly cataclysmic 
if there was ever an accident or a terrorist 
attack that impacted on a human settlement. 
If the Intrepid crashed into South Pacific 
City, it wouldn't just be a disaster for all 
of us sitting here. It's quite likely that 
the impact would be as great as that which 
caused the extinction of the dinosaurs some 
sixty-five million years ago. Although, 
unlike the dinosaurs, mankind would 
undoubtedly survive this is only because we 
don't all live on this verdant but fragile 
planet."

Paul noted the reference to Earth's 
vulnerability. Although he appreciated that 
the planet's biosphere needed careful 
maintenance, he sometimes wondered how Earth 
had managed before humans were around. There 
had been plenty of extraterrestrial impacts, 
supervolcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and 
methane belches in that time. On the other 
hand, the scope of humanity's negative impact 
had already exceeded any event since the 
Permian-Triassic catastrophe and that had 
been over a quarter of a billion years 
before. 

"The Intrepid is currently a light hour or a 
billion kilometres away," said the captain. 
"It will take you approximately two months to 
reach the space ship of which most of the 
first week will be spent escaping from Earth 
orbit."

The Intrepid was about as far away from Earth 
orbit as Jupiter and the journey there would 
be on a series of five or six different space 
craft of steadily greater size and 
acceleration.

"There is a sense in which your first contact 
with the Intrepid will be within a month. 
That's when you'll intercept with the 
Intrepid's shuttle craft for the last leg of 
the journey. You'll be pleased to know that 
this space shuttle is much larger and more 
comfortable than the one that transported you 
to South Pacific City." There was 
appreciative laughter from an audience that 
had suffered the cramped and uncomfortable 
conditions of terrestrial air flight. "There 
will be a dozen or so space shuttles waiting 
for you and they are each about half a 
kilometre long. They will all be accommodated 
inside the Intrepid for the duration of the 
journey so this will give you an idea of the 
space ship's relative scale. The next time 
that you're likely to board one of these 
space shuttles again is either on the return 
journey or, if need be, when you reach your 
destination."

The captain then gave details regarding the 
accommodation and facilities aboard the space 
ship Intrepid. These sounded rather better 
than Paul had expected. Indeed the more he 
heard about the Intrepid the more it 
resembled a manoeuvrable space colony than a 
space ship. Indeed, there were some space 
colonies—especially the older ones—that were 
smaller than the space ship where Paul and 
Beatrice would soon be spending several years 
of their lives.

"The waiting will soon be over," said 
Professor Wasilewski to the audience after 
the captain's address. "It's been a long and 
frustrating year, I know, but I'm sure that 
it's been time that's you've spent usefully. 
We've given you sufficient resources for you 
to continue your research from the moment you 
leave Earth and for your entire journey on 
the Intrepid. We have provided you with as 
much information as we possibly can, but as 
Doctor Achebe has already stated there will 
be a rather greater quantity and quality of 
data the closer the Intrepid approaches its 
destination. The journey to the Anomaly is 
expected to take slightly more than two 
years. The return trip will be approximately 
the same depending on the Earth's relative 
position within the Solar System. The 
unknown, of course, is how long you can 
expect to be orbiting the Anomaly. In that 
sense, the mission is open-ended. There are 
sufficient resources for the Intrepid to 
remain in orbit around the Anomaly for many 
years. The Intrepid was designed to maintain 
self-sufficient flight in deep space for 
generations, but we wouldn't wish the mission 
to take quite as long as that. Our present 
expectation is that the Intrepid will remain 
in orbit around the Anomaly for a period of 
up to three years."

Paul added all the years together. This 
amounted to at least six or seven years. 
Taking into account the journey to Earth, the 
return to Godwin and his year-long holiday, 
the whole duration of the mission from 
leaving his home colony would be nearly a 
decade. That was a huge commitment for 
anyone. And he was barely a fifth of the way 
through. He whispered his observations to 
Beatrice.

Beatrice was totally unimpressed. And how 
could she be otherwise? She'd already 
committed many human lifetimes to this 
mission and most of that had been spent alone 
and isolated in deep space through which 
she'd travelled a distance far greater than 
the Intrepid needed to reach its destination 
at a speed that was much faster than human 
space ships were as yet capable. She had no 
real concern about how long her mission would 
take but what she knew that no one else did 
was that it wouldn't be Professor Wasilewski 
who'd take the decision as to how long the 
Intrepid would orbit the Anomaly and what 
else it should do after it had travelled so 
deep into space. It wouldn't be Mission 
Control on the Moon either. Nor would it be 
the Intrepid's captain. The decision-maker 
and mission-controller would be none of these 
humans. It would, of course, be her.

"When I say the Intrepid will be in orbit 
around the Anomaly," continued the professor, 
"I am speaking metaphorically. Or using the 
best analogy I have available. The Anomaly 
has no mass so it exercises no gravitational 
force that the Intrepid can use to establish 
an orbit. Furthermore, it has no extent in 
the normal sense of the word. We have no real 
understanding as to what is even meant by its 
radius or circumference. We believe that 
there are points located behind the Anomaly, 
just as there are above and below, where it 
doesn't continue to impinge into space. No 
robot craft has yet penetrated the Anomaly 
and continued to return a coherent signal. 
There is no electromagnetic radiation 
emitting from the Anomaly and it is quite 
clearly not a black hole or a body of any 
measurable mass at all. However, I must 
stress that this is not a suicide mission. 
The mission is not one-way. Our intention is 
that all of you shall return home after 
you've collected enough scientific data to 
help us understand just what this Anomaly 
happens to be."

Beatrice reviewed what the professor had just 
said. Proxima Centauri had been orbiting the 
Anomaly for over a century now and had 
undertaken rather more research than the 
human crew and passengers of the Intrepid 
could possibly do. She knew that Mission 
Control shared the view of her machine 
civilisation that the presence of humans was 
somehow critical in understanding the 
Anomaly. Why else would there be so many 
bizarre anthropocentric Apparitions? Beatrice 
also shared the view that there was no good 
reason for the Intrepid to be launched on a 
suicide mission. What possible value could 
there be in losing contact with a human space 
ship which would be no more capable of 
continuing to broadcast information from 
inside the Anomaly than a Proxima Centauri 
probe? In this matter, Beatrice and the 
professor were very much in agreement. 
However, it was another matter entirely 
whether the Intrepid would be allowed to 
return to the ecliptic. It would depend 
entirely on the circumstances pertaining at 
the time.

"Your patience will be rewarded," concluded 
the professor. "The first shuttles for the 
Intrepid will be departing within a week. The 
last of you will have left planet Earth 
before the end of the following week. I'm 
sure I don't have to stress how much 
importance the Interplanetary Union places on 
this mission. It only remains for me to wish 
you all the best of luck!"

"At last!" thought Beatrice.

"Hooray!" cheered the majority of scientists.

"Oh shit!" said Paul. "Does it have to be so 
soon?"

Chapter Twenty One
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

It had been a long time since Captain 
Kerensky last had to squeeze into a space 
suit. It wasn't really what a captain of a 
space ship, especially one as large as the 
Intrepid, was ever expected to do. Why would 
a captain ever need to go anywhere that 
wasn't climate-controlled? 

The last time Nadezhda had put on a space 
suit was many decades earlier when she held a 
very junior rank on a much smaller space 
ship. On that occasion, she was assigned to 
go outside the space ship to examine the 
outcome of a meteorite impact. This fairly 
standard procedure was normally handled by 
robots or external cameras, but just 
occasionally a meteorite impact disabled the 
very equipment that was designed to do that 
job. For a junior officer still flush with 
enthusiasm for space travel, it was thrilling 
to leave the comfort and security of a space 
ship's interior for outer space where there 
was no up or down and where she could 
experience for real just how far from home 
she really was.

On that earlier occasion she was millions of 
kilometres from the orbit of the next nearest 
planet, but she couldn't possibly have been 
as remote in space as the Intrepid was now. 
It was far beyond the Heliopause and 
approaching three light months from the Solar 
System's ecliptic. The Oort Cloud in this 
vicinity was so sparsely populated that the 
distance from one chunk of ice or rock to 
another could be measured in light minutes. 
However, this time Nadezhda wasn't going to 
float outside the space ship. The task 
assigned to her and the Intrepid's senior 
officers was to determine whether the 
outermost level could be fully restored to 
habitability after the recent assault.

It was Chief Petty Officer Singh who was left 
in nominal charge of the Intrepid while 
Captain Kerensky made the expedition with two 
Scientific Officers and Second Officer Nkomo: 
a truly gorgeous woman who Nadezhda had 
always lusted after. Captain Kerensky's 
presence was far from essential for this 
investigation. In fact, a captain's presence 
wasn't needed at all. But it was the only 
means she had to escape her effective 
imprisonment by a lover whose affections she 
would happily exchange for those of Sheila 
Nkomo if that was ever possible.

Would Nadezhda have any more liberty than she 
had in the ship's innermost levels? She was 
in the sense that she could evade the space 
ship's surveillance system if she chose and 
that there was no excuse for Beatrice to 
accompany her. It wasn't normal practice for 
a passenger's wife to be assigned the 
potentially dangerous task of surveying an 
area that had no atmosphere, where the 
ambient temperature was only three Kelvins, 
and where the Intrepid was unable to maintain 
the centrifugal force that provided the 
illusion of gravity. Nadezhda could imagine 
her android lover being annoyed at losing 
direct control over the captain for even a 
short period of time. That is, if it could be 
assumed that androids actually did get 
annoyed. Or angry. Or happy. Or even an 
emotion of intimate feeling towards her lover 
other than sheer animal lust. 

It was an illusion, of course, to imagine 
that she was truly free from Beatrice's 
attention or that of the accompanying fleet 
of invisible alien space craft that the 
Intrepid was unable to detect. She also had 
no ability to explain to darling Sheila Nkomo 
about the real hierarchy of command on the 
Intrepid. Not that Second Officer Nkomo was 
the kind of woman who was likely to believe 
her. There were few senior officers less 
disposed to apparently fanciful notions than 
the slim black woman Nadezhda secretly lusted 
after. She was dismissive of all the wild 
speculation regarding the Anomaly that 
implied intelligent behaviour or an alien 
presence or a combination of the two. She 
would never entertain the idea that it was 
associated with aliens or parallel universes 
or any other fanciful hypothesis. She was 
more inclined to the view that the Anomaly 
was an active interaction point between dark 
energy and the vacuum of space or that it was 
a perturbance in spacetime generated by the 
seven invisible dimensions. 

Captain Kerensky and her officers wore 
spacesuits that were designed to be as 
comfortable and close-fitting as possible. 
For a Saturnian, this was no problem as the 
captain was used to such a tight fit. The 
spacesuit was like a second skin: just a 
slither of a few millimetres of fabric over 
bare skin. It was almost as if Second Officer 
Nkomo was naked, but this was the nearest her 
captain would ever come to relishing such a 
delightful sight. A backpack was attached to 
the spacesuit to enable limited propulsion, 
but this would only be needed for relatively 
long journeys of a kilometre or so.  The 
outfit was crowned by a thick clear helmet 
that was so reinforced that it was the part 
of the spacesuit least likely to be damaged 
in an accident. The security offered by the 
spacesuit wouldn't be compromised should an 
arm, a leg or almost any other part of the 
space-suit be damaged as it was designed to 
amputate an exposed limb rather than allow 
the wearer to die. Better to lose a limb than 
a life. 

After all, limbs were easily replaced.

The outermost level of the Intrepid was an 
airless wasteland where anything that wasn't 
fixed to the ground had already escaped along 
with all the breathable air through the huge 
hole in the hull that was now fully secured. 
The only remaining corpses were of those few 
people that had been wedged inside the villas 
and couldn't float free. The Intrepid's 
regenerative systems had already disposed of 
anything that might compromise its ability to 
repair the damage, but the level still hadn't 
yet returned to anything like a habitable 
state. 

The area around the actual breach had been 
patched but not fully restored. This area was 
clearly distinguishable from the surrounding 
grassland simply because it displayed the 
toughened metal and plastic that was normally 
only visible from outside the ship. It served 
to remind the captain just how the space ship 
was constructed. The ship's hull was actually 
the floor of the outermost level, so what 
might seem to be the walking surface was in a 
sense the ceiling. When she and her fellow 
officers drifted down onto the metal surface 
of what had been the breach and stood on the 
magnetic soles of their spacesuits' shoes, 
their feet were directed outward towards 
empty space rather than inward towards the 
space ship's core. 

The Captain and Second Officer walked across 
the metal surface while the two Scientific 
Officers probed the area of the breach to 
confirm that there was no residual leak into 
outer space. 

"Where were the prisoners confined?" asked 
Captain Kerensky.

Second Officer Nkomo looked around her. "It's 
difficult to be sure. They occupied the 
majority of the level, so it's possible that 
they were living all around us. Shall we have 
a look, captain?"

"I think so, but I don't expect it to be a 
pretty sight," said the captain. "Shall we 
head to the nearest villa?" She pointed to 
one only a few hundred metres from where the 
breach would have been.

This villa had been caught in the full 
hurricane of escaping atmosphere. The 
surrounding trees had been uprooted and the 
villa's roof had been swept away. One side of 
the building was blackened by flames from the 
actual explosion while the other side was 
scarred by flying debris that included a tree 
that was now thrust through the window of the 
living room. A table that had once been laid 
with food for the Holy Crusaders was wedged 
between the tree and a huge sofa. The grass 
around the villa was blackened and charred on 
the side facing the breach while on the other 
side the grass was brittle and hard from a 
frigid cold that no biological life form 
could possibly survive.

The two officers entered the villa by what 
would once have been the front door and 
surveyed all the rooms. There was a dead body 
in one room, but the absolute loss of air 
pressure had sucked all the internal organs 
through the mouth and the eyeballs out of 
their sockets. This Holy Crusader had been 
caught in the act of going to the toilet and 
the refuse that had once been contained in 
the cistern was splattered all around the 
walls and over the body.

"Gruesome, eh?" said Second Officer Nkomo. 
"Have you ever seen anything like this 
before, captain?"

"Yes, but not in the lavatory," said her 
captain thoughtfully. "I once served as a 
junior officer on the Windward when it was 
hit by a commercial cruiser. That was very 
distressing."

"I heard about that, captain. How on earth 
could something like that have happened?"

"Systems failure on the cruiser," said the 
captain. "It was one of the older models that 
the rogue states still employ for which there 
aren't any replacement parts. Several 
centuries of bodged repairs and maintenance 
resulted in it reversing backwards into the 
space ship at a speed many times faster than 
sound. Fortunately, the Windward was designed 
to survive impacts rather greater than that, 
but the cruiser was less fortunate. Whereas 
we lost only a small percentage of the 
several thousand crew and passengers on 
board, not one person on the cruiser 
survived. Their bodies were left to float 
about in empty space.  The cruiser had been 
overcrowded and we wondered whether it might 
have been used for slave trafficking."

"A slave ship," said the second officer in 
disgust. "Can't the Interplanetary Union stop 
that?"

"As you know, the Interplanetary Union has no 
jurisdiction over rogue states," said the 
captain. "As long as the slaves are bought by 
and sold to other rogue states, there's 
nothing that can be done. The most 
Interplanetary Union ships can legally do is 
board the slavers and check whether any of 
the slaves come from states within the union. 
As this bureaucratic procedure can be made to 
drag on for several decades that does act as 
some kind of deterrent to the trade. In any 
case, this cruiser had been masquerading as a 
leisure ship, although it's beyond all 
plausibility that so many thousand people 
would choose to go on an interplanetary 
vacation crammed so closely together that 
they barely had enough space to defecate in 
privacy."

"I feel sorry for the poor souls who live in 
such rogue states," said Second Officer 
Nkomo.

"Like these poor souls?" the captain said, 
nodding from inside her helmet towards the 
Holy Crusader's body. "Not all rogue states 
are evil. Some have very peculiar but not 
actually bad reasons for disengaging from the 
mainstream of the Solar System. There are the 
hermit colonies in the Kuiper Belt, for 
instance, where penitents lead a life of 
silent contemplation. Then there are those 
who simply reject all forms of materialism. 
As long as they don't need to trade with the 
Interplanetary Union, they might actually be 
better off for staying outside of it."

"Not much of a life for them though, 
captain," said the Second Officer 
sceptically. 

The two officers continued their exploration 
of the outermost level. The damage caused by 
the initial force of impact became steadily 
less devastating the further they walked from 
the breach in the hull, although no living 
being could survive the loss of atmosphere. 
All around they could see signs not only of 
the damage caused by the explosion but also 
of what the Holy Crusaders had inflicted on 
one another in their mutual pursuit of 
uncompromising religious purity. There were 
bodies that had been tortured and abandoned 
in rooms that preserved evidence of the crime 
although the perpetrators were now floating 
off into empty space. It was very 
distressing. The captain showed sympathy to 
the second officer who'd never expected to 
have to witness such an unremitting catalogue 
of horror. 

The officers' circuit of the outermost level 
soon returned them back to the scars in the 
hull around the breach. They dropped slowly 
onto the grass near where the two Scientific 
Officers were carrying out in their 
inspection.

"So, gentlemen, do we know any more about 
what happened than we did before?" asked 
Captain Kerensky who knew that if she 
attempted to betray the operational 
intelligence Beatrice had disclosed she would 
be instantly and very painfully punished.

"Not a great deal more," said Dr. Irvine 
Chong. "The whole thing is very peculiar. 
Perhaps Mission Control will get to the 
bottom of it but we won't know the results of 
their investigation for another five or six 
months. Who in the Solar System would launch 
an attack with such a vast arsenal this far 
out in deep space? It's a miracle we 
survived."

"Be thankful that we have," said Dr. Mohammed 
Schmidt, the other Scientific Officer. "The 
Intrepid performed rather better than 
expected."

"It really has no precedent," said Irvine. 
"We're in a region of space so remote that 
it's astonishing that there were any 
meteorites at all. Who would choose to leave 
a military arsenal around here that could 
annihilate whole moons? Why would they direct 
it at a scientific expedition?"

"The Holy Crusaders had strong feelings about 
our expedition," Captain Kerensky reminded 
him.

"They were just mad and deranged, captain," 
said Irvine. "You saw how they've behaved 
here the last few months. They could have led 
a life of luxury, but instead they turned the 
outermost level into a living hell. If ever 
that lot stumbled into the Garden of Eden, 
they wouldn't just pick fruit from the Tree 
of Knowledge. They'd have cut it down and 
used its sharpened branches to torture each 
other. Whoever arranged this knew what they 
were doing. They just underestimated the 
power of the old Intrepid. It's a true 
soldier."

"What is your assessment of the damage?" 
Second Officer Nkomo asked. "How long will it 
be until the outermost level is habitable 
again?"

"Not long," said the Scientific Officer. "The 
Intrepid managed to recapture most of the 
escaping debris before it was beyond reach. 
There should be enough to regenerate the 
level. There'll be no difficulty in 
relocating passengers on this level for the 
return trip."

"Let's just hope no one chooses to attack us 
on the way back," said Second Officer Nkomo.

"If the point of the exercise was to prevent 
the ship reaching the Anomaly," said 
Mohammed, "then doing that would be utterly 
pointless."

Captain Kerensky was thankful to return to 
the more normal gravity of the Intrepid's 
inner levels. She removed her spacesuit and 
gazed longingly at Sheila Nkomo's naked body 
for a few precious seconds while she slipped 
on her uniform. They then strode off to the 
bridge to brief their fellow officers and 
discuss operational activities. 

There was little new to discuss while the 
Intrepid continued its voyage through 
uninterrupted nothingness. From behind, the 
Solar System was detectable more by its 
gravitational force and magnetic field than 
by its visible presence. The Sun was just a 
dot only slightly brighter than all the 
others in the firmament. Ahead was the 
Anomaly. This remained as mysterious as ever. 
It was an absence rather than a presence. It 
might be menacing in scale but as yet the 
only visible affects on the Solar System were 
the mysterious and bizarre Apparitions.

These days Captain Kerensky was a very 
dutiful officer. She spent many more hours in 
the bridge with her fellow officers than she 
ever did in relaxation. She stayed alone in 
her room for as few hours as she could. 
Indeed, her heart sank when she had to return 
to her quarters after meticulously preparing 
her report on the current condition of the 
outermost level. Just as she feared, there 
was Beatrice waiting for her naked on the 
bed. She no longer even pretended that she 
needed the captain's permission to enter her 
bedroom. 

"Don't look so alarmed, sweetness," said 
Beatrice as she raised herself off the bed 
and approached the captain. She gently and 
seductively removed Nadezhda's clothes while 
the conflicted captain moaned in anticipation 
at the promise of sex. "And I know that I'm 
nothing more than a shadow of the beautiful 
Second Officer Nkomo."

"You are?" asked a visibly unsettled 
Nadezhda.

"She's a beautiful woman, isn't she?" said 
Beatrice. "Perhaps I should model my 
appearance on her to be even more attractive 
to you. I can, you know. My android form 
isn't fixed. I can change my skin colour, my 
hair type, my proportion, everything. It's 
not a problem for me, though it might confuse 
the crew if they discovered that there were 
two Sheila Nkomos on board the Intrepid."

"No, don't," said Nadezhda. She was 
intimidated by Beatrice's teasing. Did this 
android get pleasure from the captain's 
humiliation? "I don't think your husband 
would like that."

"I wonder if he'd even notice," said Beatrice 
with a smile. "Perhaps I should seduce 
Sheila. Then we can enjoy a threesome 
together. We can both make love to her at the 
same time. Three women: one black, one white 
and one an android. What could be more 
delicious, sweetheart?"

"You can seduce Sheila?" asked Nadezhda. "I 
didn't think she was a lesbian."

"She isn't," said Beatrice. "She isn't 
bisexual or even bi-curious. But I can seduce 
anybody. It's a talent I have. The person 
I've seduced may wonder just how they ended 
up making love with me, but she will have 
done. If it makes you happier—and it is your 
happiness that concerns me most—then I shall 
do whatever is necessary."

"Don't. Don't," said Nadezhda who was almost 
tearful as Beatrice stripped off her final 
vestige of clothing. "My affection for Sheila 
Nkomo is best left unrequited if it's not 
something she wants."

"You are such an incorrigible romantic, my 
darling," said Beatrice. "I love you so 
much."

"You do?" 

"In the sense that I love to make love with 
you, yes," said Beatrice. "Why do you have to 
question me like that? Does it matter whether 
I love you in the same way as a human? What 
difference does it make?"

"It just does."

"I despair sometimes," said Beatrice with a 
sigh. "Oh and by the way: I didn't know that 
you were an officer on the Windward..."

"You were listening to my conversation with 
Sheila?" asked Nadezhda. "Do you follow me 
wherever I go?"

"Yes, naturally," said Beatrice. "At least 
part of me does. What did you expect?"

"Some degree of privacy," said Nadezhda 
bitterly.

"You aren't going to have that, darling. You 
are far too strategically important for me to 
allow that to happen."

"If you know so much, how is it you didn't 
already know that I'd served on the 
Windward?"

"A detail I hadn't noticed, sweetest," said 
Beatrice. "And you're right. It is dreadful. 
Slave trading in the thirty-eighth century! 
You'd have thought that nearly two thousand 
years of censure would have amounted to 
something."

"Why don't you robots and your advanced 
machine civilisation do something to stop 
it?" said Nadezhda bitterly, even as she 
allowed herself to lie across the bed with 
Beatrice's arm around her naked shoulders.

"Our attitude towards your rogue states is 
pretty much the same as your Interplanetary 
Union," said Beatrice, "only more so. 
Although, in our case, we don't understand 
the relative concepts of freedom and slavery 
in quite the same way as you do. Remember 
that I was built to serve a purpose, so 
choice has never been a part of what I am. 
Nevertheless, we recognise that the distress 
and suffering associated with slavery 
presents a persuasive argument for ending the 
practice. On the other hand, how can we 
justify putting an end to slavery if we don't 
also bring to an end the pointless warfare 
that permeates the Solar System? By which I 
mean, of course, the incessant conflict on 
Mars and in the Asteroid Belt. And if we 
chose to interfere in the affairs of the 
Martians, where should our intervention stop? 
What do you think, sweetheart?"

"I don't know," whimpered Nadezhda as her 
lover gently stroked her clitoris.

"Just be grateful that we don't interfere 
more than we do, darling," said Beatrice. 
"The Anomaly is a special case because it may 
well have an effect on our civilisation, but 
generally you humans can do whatever you like 
as long as the impact is limited to the Solar 
System. You could blow yourself up tomorrow 
if you so chose and we wouldn't do a thing to 
stop you."

Chapter Twenty Two
Almond Grove - 3755 C.E.

There were many good reasons why Alexander 
Iliescu had earned a reputation as a man with 
an abnormally high sex drive. There were few 
moments in the day when he wasn't either 
enjoying sex or anticipating it. And sex was 
exactly what he was enjoying at the time he 
expected the arrival of a very important 
visitor. 

The current object of his attention was 
Haruki, a relatively short oriental woman, 
who tightly gripped the bed sheets while 
Alexander relentlessly thrust into her. There 
was little evidence that he was any nearer to 
releasing that elusive ejaculation, while 
Haruki had repeatedly reached explosive 
orgasm. Several times now. She was expecting 
many more spasms to come as Alexander lifted 
the woman up with her legs wrapped around him 
while ploughing deep into her lubricated pink 
furrow. Although Alexander had the choice of 
many sexbots, he much preferred the flesh of 
a real woman. Haruki was a much more 
delightful fuck than any machine however well 
programmed. Alexander got his greatest 
satisfaction from experiencing the shudders 
of a real woman's orgasm. He was proud of his 
ability to orchestrate a fulfilling climax in 
each and every one of his lovers.

Haruki was one of several hundred women 
employed in Alexander's harem. And they had 
all been seduced rather than hired. None 
needed to stay unless she so chose. No 
contract tied Haruki to Alexander and she 
would be well compensated if she were to ever 
leave Almond Grove, but there were few places 
in the Solar System as paradisial as 
Alexander's private estate. There were men on 
the colony—not to mention countless male 
sexbots—who were there more for the harem's 
gratification than for Alexander's. Haruki 
had a freedom greater than that of most 
concubines or mistresses. She loved to wander 
the groves, gardens, hillsides and beaches on 
the colony's many levels. 

After a well-sated Haruki departed for her 
hillside villa on the seventh level, 
Alexander slipped into an elegant silk gown 
and strode towards a waiting car that hovered 
half a metre above the well-tended lawn. He 
clambered inside and let it carry him towards 
the space port where his important visitor 
had just arrived and whose presence was total 
unknown to the thousand or so humans who 
lived in Almond Grove. Indeed, his visitor's 
arrival was so secret that he'd come in a 
space ship that was completely invisible and 
virtually undetectable.

Although every one of Alexander's business 
and social transactions was utterly 
confidential, there was especially good cause 
for secrecy in this case. This visitor was 
totally unlike what any shareholder in 
Alexander Iliescu's many listed companies 
could conceivably expect to meet.

In fact, Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator 
Zhou wasn't even human.

The visitor was a polyhedral object with 
multiple limbs, antennae and other appendages 
that made him resemble a factory robot. 
However, unlike such machines, Zhou was a 
robot as much organic as metal and had far 
more processing power than any human or 
android. 

Zhou hovered out through the door of a space 
ship that was only now visible since it was 
docked within Almond Grove. It was seventy 
metres long of which nearly sixty-five metres 
was reserved for the engine. 

 "Welcome," said Alexander. "You bring good 
news I hope?" 

His words weren't spoken as such. They were 
broadcast by a process of digital 
transmission that was much more natural to 
him than speech.

Zhou wasted no time on protocol or other 
superfluous dialogue. The four-metre high 
polyhedron hovered relatively close to 
Alexander. Most appendages were retracted but 
several antennae were directed towards his 
trillionaire host. This didn't disconcert 
Alexander. He was, after all, a Series Twelve 
Android. He was totally comfortable in the 
presence of a robot that came from Sirius 
regardless of its physical appearance. 

"I don't bring good news at all," the 
Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator replied. 
"In fact, it could hardly be worse. The whole 
operation has been seriously compromised. 
Proxima Centauri has taken an active interest 
in the space ship Intrepid and its mission. 
The only way now to pursue our interests is 
to take aggressive action."

"Proxima Centauri?" wondered Alexander. "I 
knew the culture had business in the Solar 
System, but I assumed their operations were 
strictly non-invasive."

An external witness of Alexander's discourse 
with Zhou would have observed only a long-
haired man in a nightgown standing curiously 
still, even motionless, in front of a bizarre 
and wholly silent device that did nothing 
other than hover. Only very sophisticated 
equipment well beyond the technological 
capability of any member nation of the 
Interplanetary Union would have been able to 
eavesdrop on the conversation.

"We are in the process of re-evaluating our 
intelligence on Proxima Centauri activity in 
the Solar System," said Zhou. "It can't be as 
purely observational as we hitherto believed. 
Their behaviour directly contravenes the 
agreements made between our cultures with 
regards to intervention in human affairs. We 
believe that they've also infiltrated the 
Solar System with androids. The evidence is 
that the androids they've employed are of a 
superior manufacture than ours."

"More so than me?" wondered Alexander.

"Android technology as practiced in the 
Proxima Centauri system is of another order 
entirely. Even Sirius can't match the build 
quality. The androids are designed to fool 
human monitoring technology. They can survive 
operating environments that would cripple 
even our Series Fourteen androids. They can 
operate on the surface of Venus, in deep 
space, and on the icy crust of the Kuiper 
Belt Objects."

"How have they managed to manufacture such 
high-quality androids without us knowing?" 
asked Alexander. "We have as many agents 
operating in Proxima Centauri as in the Solar 
System. Surely we'd have noticed something?"

"Our agents' intelligence gathering appears 
to have been fatally compromised. There will 
be a thorough review of our procedures, but 
it seems we've been far less well informed 
than we believed. Nevertheless, it is to our 
credit that Proxima Centauri was as equally 
unprepared for our appearance as we were by 
theirs."

"I take it that the death star operation was 
unsuccessful?"

"More by bad luck than anything else. The 
Proxima Centauri space fleet that we now know 
had been shadowing the Intrepid was taken by 
surprise and at least one human-manufactured 
missile made partial contact with its target. 
Unfortunately, the impact wasn't decisive. We 
shall now have to intervene more openly if we 
are to prevent the Intrepid reaching its 
destination. There is some debate as to which 
of our strategic interests takes priority: 
our clandestine operations in the Solar 
System or the imperative that the Intrepid 
shouldn't intercept the Anomaly. It is likely 
that we will have to reveal our presence in 
the Solar System in order to eliminate the 
greater threat that the Anomaly presents."

"Do we yet know what the Anomaly is and how 
it might endanger the Sirius stellar system?"

"Not at all. As you know, we've been orbiting 
the Anomaly for nearly a century now, as has 
Proxima Centauri, but we are no wiser as to 
what it is and why it's there. What we do 
know is that it is continuing to grow ever 
larger and potentially more unstable. None of 
the probes we've sent inside the Anomaly has 
returned useful data. However, we still 
believe that the fact it has manifested 
itself in the Solar System and not elsewhere 
strongly suggests that the Anomaly is 
operating as a kind of honey-trap for humans. 
It is imperative that no human intercepts the 
Anomaly before we are certain that such an 
event wouldn't precipitate a more general 
galaxy-wide catastrophe."

"What is the Proxima Centauri strategy?"

"We still don't know. They appear to be just 
as determined that humans should safely make 
contact with the Anomaly as we are to prevent 
it. We fear that this conflict of interest 
won't be resolved to our satisfaction unless 
we resort to exceptionally prejudicial 
action."

"Do you mean of a military nature?"

"This won't be the first time that competing 
interests between the robot civilisations has 
taken a violent turn," said Zhou. "As you 
know, several planetoids and even a dwarf 
star have been annihilated to ensure that the 
boundaries of our culture is respected by the 
others. We hope to keep the engagement 
strictly local. Nevertheless, we shall have 
to be cautious as we don't yet know the true 
nature of Proxima Centauri's interest in the 
Anomaly."

"What is the current condition of the 
Intrepid?" wondered Alexander.

"Nothing more than external damage," said 
Zhou. "Proxima Centauri has restored the 
vehicle to good working order. Without 
further intervention, the Intrepid will 
almost certainly reach its target."

Alexander considered this information. It was 
indeed disastrous and not just for the 
Sirius's strategic interests. It was with 
little surprise that he heard what Zhou next 
had to say.

"There is no doubt that the Interplanetary 
Union's security services will trace the 
source of the military hardware we used," 
Zhou continued. "The trail from Pallas to you 
via the Gidding Corporation is unlikely to 
remain secret for long. We will soon see 
reports in the Solar System's extensive news 
media regarding the incident. Antimatter and 
nuclear explosions of that magnitude are 
easily detectable from this distance. 
Questions will be asked about your patents in 
advanced technology, particularly with 
regards to the robots and androids marketed 
by the Gidding Corporation. This affair has 
greatly imperilled our covert activities in 
the Solar System. It is imperative that the 
trail goes cold before it can be traced to 
Sirius."

"Does my mission in the Solar System now come 
to a close?"

"As of this moment," said Zhou.

"What happens now?"

"Almond Grove can remain as it is. We have no 
wish to unnecessarily terminate biological 
life-forms. Our strategy is to contain the 
human threat, not to interfere with it. Any 
advanced technology in Almond Grove that 
hasn't already been patented will be 
annihilated. The humans who live here can 
remain for as long as they wish. I believe 
this colony is fully self-sufficient and has 
a life expectancy of several millennia. 
However, it is imperative that you be 
terminated as soon as you can determine a 
suitable exit strategy. We suggest a 
controlled explosion in interplanetary space 
that leaves as little debris as possible and 
results in no collateral damage."

"Can I not return to Sirius?"

"We have no use for androids anywhere else 
but in the Solar System," Zhou stated baldly.

This was true. Unlike biological life-forms 
that are generated almost randomly and earn 
the right to exist merely by having been 
born, no robot from Sirius was brought into 
being unless it served a quantifiable 
purpose. Its continued existence was 
contingent on it continuing to fulfil the 
function for which it was designed. In most 
cases that function could be projected into 
the far distant future, but more specialist 
units such as Alexander Iliescu were less 
fortunate in that regard.

"You knew, of course, that you would be 
terminated at some point or other," said Zhou 
sympathetically. "You have provided good 
service and we are grateful for that. 
However, you've not been programmed to grow 
old and die as humans do. It would be 
tactless in the extreme to permit you to 
operate for very many more years. Human 
investigators would soon be suspicious about 
the existence of a prominent businessman 
who's lived for as many years as you have 
with no history of age treatment. Even these 
days, it is unusual for a human to live for 
over two hundred years. We expect you to 
execute your termination within the day."

"I understand," said Alexander, fully aware 
that there was no possibility of a second 
opinion. It was now that he most regretted 
that he was programmed with the same 
imperative for self-preservation that was 
natural for biological life-forms.

Zhou's spacecraft departed less than an hour 
later. It took that time for the swarm of 
nanobots to scan the colony for non-patented 
technology and to eliminate every last trace 
of it. And then Alexander felt more alone 
than he'd ever been before.

He wandered about the jungle on the 
fourteenth level where tigers and other wild 
animals lived in complete ignorance of the 
fact that their world was entirely contained 
within a huge floating cylinder. He would 
have one more sexual partner that day, a 
pleasure he wished to savour for as long as 
he could, and then he would use the excuse to 
set off by space shuttle for an unscheduled 
meeting with shareholders in Mercury orbit 
that would never actually take place. He had 
already decided at what point his space craft 
should self-destruct and scatter his atom-
sized remains throughout the vacuum of empty 
space.

Alexander reflected on his legacy. The one he 
was most proud of was Almond Grove itself. If 
nothing else, it had been used to preserve 
certain endangered species of animal. He was 
also proud of the billions of advanced robots 
and androids his corporation had manufactured 
and sold throughout the Solar System and who 
also acted as silent monitors of human 
activity for the benefit of Sirius's 
scientists.

But it was stupid to wallow in the emotions 
that were a side-effect of his design. 
Alexander wandered towards the nearest 
elevator. It was several weeks since he'd 
last had sex with Marianna and she'd always 
been a favourite of his. 

What way was more fitting to bring his term 
in the Solar System to closure? 

Chapter Twenty Three
Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

Beatrice wandered contemplatively across the 
freshly grown lawns on the outermost level of 
the Intrepid. The space ship's restoration 
systems had at last made the level habitable 
although not everything had quite returned to 
the condition it had been before. New trees 
had been planted but were modest in 
comparison to those uprooted by the 
explosion. New villas had been constructed to 
replace those that had been destroyed. 
Animals had been relocated to replace those 
that had perished. The space ship had done 
well to repair the damage, but only Beatrice 
knew how much its capabilities had been 
enhanced by Proxima Centauri technology. It 
might take months for the ravages of 
destruction to be wholly repaired, but there 
was surely enough time for that before the 
Intrepid finally reached its destination.

There was now less than a year's travel until 
the mission arrived at its objective. What 
Beatrice also knew and nobody else did was 
that this would also be a rendezvous with the 
larger fleet of Proxima Centauri space craft 
that were orbiting the Anomaly. And then what 
would happen? This Beatrice didn't know. This 
phase of her assignment would come to an end 
at that point. Beatrice had no doubt that 
this would happen with no further incident. 
She was proud to have discharged her duty 
with so much success and was already looking 
forward to being re-assimilated into the 
cybernetic mainstream.

Although her feet were bare, as was the rest 
of her, the occasional sharp object scattered 
about the grass didn't trouble her at all, 
although she felt it as acutely as would any 
human. In any case, her highly sexed libido 
got a sensual jolt from the pleasure of 
nudity. An independent observer might notice 
this but wouldn't also be able to guess that 
she was the de facto commander of the 
Intrepid. 

She paused outside the shattered ruins of a 
small house that had been devastated more by 
the vicious Holy Crusaders than by the 
Intrepid's close encounter with the forces 
unleashed by Alexander Iliescu. If the human 
passengers only knew how much they were 
indebted to the presence of an invisible 
space fleet, surely they would be more 
grateful than dismayed at learning about the 
effective seizure of their space ship. But 
Beatrice knew enough of human sensibility not 
to take the risk that they would behave so 
rationally.

Beatrice stepped over the rotting corpse of a 
muntjac deer whose neck had been broken in 
the recent impact and which the ship hadn't 
yet recycled. She was sad for the animal's 
fate, as she was with regards to the death of 
any biological organism. She was even sadder 
when she considered their frailty and 
suffering. Such pitifully short lives despite 
the best endeavours of human science. Lives 
full of such pain. How could sentient life 
tolerate its arbitrary contingency? If only 
humans could take the extra step and fully 
embrace the benefits of machine technology.

She wasn't alone in the wreckage. Ahead of 
her was a smartly uniformed Colonel Vashti 
who was walking towards her. She didn't 
appear at all disconcerted by the sight of a 
naked woman. She appeared to be assessing the 
devastation with as much proprietary 
attention as Beatrice. The colonel strode 
right up to Beatrice and greeted her with a 
sympathetic smile.

"The Intrepid is a marvellous craft," Colonel 
Vashti declared. "Who'd have believed it 
could repair itself so well. I was in this 
level less than a week ago and it was totally 
uninhabitable!"

"32nd Century technology is much more 
resilient than most people imagine," Beatrice 
remarked.

"In fact it seems extraordinarily advanced," 
the colonel commented. "Tell me. How is 
Captain Kerensky?"

"I take it you've been watching her daily 
briefings. Doesn't she seem well to you?"

"Almost as if nothing had happened," said 
Colonel Vashti. "And, yet, on the day when 
she collapsed in my arms I thought she might 
be seriously ill. It was a very peculiar 
fit!"

"Nothing that modern medicine can't cure." 

"That's another miracle for which we should 
all be grateful," said the colonel. "Just as 
we should be with regards to the Intrepid's 
almost entirely successful retaliation 
against the missile attack. Has Nadezhda told 
you—privately of course—who she thinks 
unleashed the missiles?"

 "The captain suspects that it might have 
been privately funded," said Beatrice. "There 
are several wealthy individuals within the 
Solar System with the material resources to 
launch such an assault."

"Now we are so far out in the Oort Cloud 
there is surely no more risk of being 
attacked before we rendezvous with the 
Anomaly."

"One would hope so, but we must remain 
vigilant."

"Of course," said the colonel. "Who knows 
what unexpected surprises may still be in 
store?"

Beatrice was tiring of this foreplay. There 
could only be one reason why her 
hermaphrodite lover had sought her out on 
this level. And it was a long time, almost a 
day, since she'd last had sex. That had been 
with Paul who was never an especially 
satisfying partner. 

"The grass is very soft," she said, "and that 
patch over there is clear of debris."

"Indeed it is," said Vashti who took the hint 
and unhurriedly pulled off her clothes.

There were now two naked women on the 
outermost level. One an android and the other 
peculiarly endowed. And this bonus attribute 
was already fully erect and visibly in need 
of release.

There was no one else on the level to watch 
the two women sink down onto the grass, but 
should anyone be wandering across the ravaged 
landscape there was little to doubt the 
passion experienced by the two women when 
Vashti plunged her penis, lubricated by 
Beatrice's saliva, deep inside a vagina that 
sloshed with desire and craved the colonel's 
extraordinarily felicitous member. Such a 
voyeur would need to tarry quite a while to 
observe the whole sequence of brutally 
intense lovemaking. So accomplished a lover 
was Colonel Vashti that despite her lover's 
pleas, she resisted the temptation of final 
release as she thrust ever deeper into 
Beatrice's vagina.

The android gasped and yelled in ecstasy not 
at all caring whether anyone could see or 
indeed hear her. Sex was what she hungered 
after most and the human characteristic she 
would most regret losing when she was sooner 
or later assimilated. 

Then Beatrice became conscious that the 
rhythm of Vashti's thrusts had slowed down to 
virtually nothing even though her penis was 
as deep inside her as it had been before. 
Indeed, as her unusually attuned senses soon 
determined, she was pinned down by a penis 
that was inserted more deeply inside her than 
before and much larger in dimension. Had she 
been human it would no longer be yells of 
ecstasy that filled the air, but screams of 
acute agony.

"Sweetest," gasped Beatrice as the Martian 
officer held her pinioned by her monstrous 
member, "I never believed that you…"

She gazed up at Vashti who regarded her with 
an expression that was most certainly not one 
of sexual ecstasy, but rather one of grim 
determination. 

Fuck! Something was wrong.

"Sweetheart," Beatrice suggested. "Shall I 
take your penis in my mouth?"

"It stays where it is," said the colonel in a 
peculiarly dispassionate voice.

Beatrice struggled under Colonel Vashti's 
weight. She was alarmed that she couldn't 
ease the penis out of her vagina even though 
it was so well lubricated by the flow of 
orgasmic juice that dripped onto their 
conjoined thighs.

"Let me go!" she cried. And then she lied: 
"It hurts!"

"It does not," said Vashti.

"It does!" insisted Beatrice. "You're too big 
for me."

Vashti shifted her arms so that they pinned 
Beatrice's shoulders to the ground. Was this 
some peculiar species of rough play?

"Please. It's too much!"

"You don't have to pretend to be in pain, 
Beatrice," said Vashti calmly. "Just try to 
escape."

Beatrice did so. First she used the human 
strength that was her default level. When 
that failed, her struggles escalated to a 
level greater than that of even the strongest 
human. When that in turn didn't secure her 
release, she pushed Vashti upwards with her 
real android strength which would have been 
more than enough to fling an elephant off her 
bosom. 

But she was still trapped.

"What the fuck!" she exclaimed when she 
ceased to struggle. "You're not human, are 
you? Are you an android? That would be one 
explanation for your peculiar assets."

"An android, Beatrice?" said Vashti. "You 
mean an android like you?"

"You knew already?"

"I knew from the moment I first met you, 
Beatrice. The civilisation that manufactured 
you knew what they were doing. Alpha Centauri 
A? Proxima Centauri?"

"Proxima Centauri," Beatrice acknowledged. 
"Are you an android?"

"I am a machine like you," said Vashti, not 
relinquishing her grip and pressing her 
buttocks down with such force on Beatrice's 
thighs that they were effectively paralysed. 
"But I'm not an android. In fact, I am not 
even an individual. I am a community."

"A community?"

"A community of what you call nanobots, 
though the technology that created me has 
raised nanotechnology to a level far beyond 
what your civilisation has achieved."

"Where do you come from? Are you from the 
Barnard's Star system? Or Sirius? Do you even 
come from a local stellar system?"

"If your question is whether I was 
manufactured in the Rigil Cluster, the answer 
is no. And if your question is whether I come 
from a stellar system beyond the Solar System 
the answer is also no."

"Are you an alien? Do you come from deep 
space?"

"Like you, I am an alien in this Solar 
System, Beatrice," continued Vashti, "but I 
don't originate from the same spacetime 
continuum that you do."

"I don't understand."

"You remember our discussion before we were 
attacked? You speculated whether the Anomaly 
was an intrusion from another cosmos in the 
multiverse. It was an appealing theory and no 
doubt based on the knowledge that the Proxima 
Centauri culture has about the greater set of 
universes that exist in a sense parallel to 
this one. It's from such a parallel universe 
that I've come, though it isn't quite as 
parallel as you imagine and doesn't resemble 
this one very much at all. As you also know, 
travel between one such universe and another 
isn't achievable with the level of human 
technology prevalent in the Solar System, 
nor, I'm afraid, in yours. However, at the 
nanotechnological level it is feasible and—as 
I am living proof—possible."

"You come from a parallel world?"

"To be honest, I don't know very much about 
the universe I come from. It may not even 
have planets and stars. It may not even be 
governed by the same cosmological constants. 
There's only a limited amount of information 
that can be conveyed from one brane to the 
next and I suspect that my universe is rather 
more distant than being just the one next 
door. I do know that it's a universe in which 
exist manufactured beings like me that are 
composite communities of trillions of 
nanobots, rather than such comparatively 
primitive robotic entities as you."

"You're a community? You appear to be a 
convincingly coherent individual."

"All living beings are communities. You 
included. But the individual elements that 
make up your body and that of biological 
entities cannot exist individually. In my 
case, they can."

Vashti quite suddenly released her grip on 
Beatrice. Indeed, she appeared to vanish 
altogether. One moment, the colonel was a 
corporeal being that was mercilessly pressing 
Beatrice down onto the grass. The next there 
was nothing but a cloud that would be totally 
invisible to a human and which even Beatrice 
could only vaguely discern in the space 
ship's warm still air.

And then, bit by bit, a cloud of particles 
cohered into a vaporous and then steadily 
more solid image which after several seconds 
was unmistakeably that of Vashti. The colonel 
now stood legs apart above Beatrice. The 
android tried to budge but was as securely 
pinioned to the ground as before, although 
the colonel's erect penis was now no more 
than a memory imprinted on the flesh of her 
overstretched vulva.

"I believe you," gasped Beatrice. "Now let me 
go."

"Not yet," said Vashti. "I don't want you to 
do anything foolish. I know that you've been 
frantically communicating with the Proxima 
Centauri space fleet that's in orbit around 
the Intrepid. However, just as you've 
intercepted poor Captain Kerensky's daily 
briefings and altered them to fit your 
purposes I've done the same with yours. Your 
fellow robots believe that you are still 
making love with me. Just as you took control 
of the ship's computers, so in turn have I. 
Indeed, I did so from not long after I first 
arrived on the ship, although your systems 
won't have been aware of this."

"Why are you telling me this?" wondered 
Beatrice. "Wouldn't it have been better to 
leave me in ignorance?"

"…As you did poor Captain Kerensky?" remarked 
Vashti ironically. "It's too late now to do 
anything else, my sweet Beatrice. We've 
passed the final point in the Oort Cloud 
where there is sufficient matter for nanobots 
transmitted from my universe to reconstitute 
themselves. I've transmitted the relevant 
coordinates to my universe and as I could 
easily display to you, but really see no 
need, your fellow robots are now dealing with 
a rather more pressing issue than the welfare 
of their undercover android agent. This space 
ship and your robotic space fleet are now 
surrounded by a vast force of objects 
composed of baryonic and exotic matter, whose 
presence your fleet won't have yet detected 
and which they are incapable of fending off. 
Neither the Space Ship Intrepid nor your own 
interstellar starfleet is any longer under 
your control. It is now under mine."

"Is it you who's created the Anomaly? Is it a 
doorway to other spacetime continua in the 
multiverse?"

"No, it isn't. That much we do know. If it 
were, we'd have used it to enter your 
universe rather than by the tortuous route 
we've been forced to use. In fact, we would 
never have entered your universe at all if it 
wasn't for the Anomaly. There is no benefit 
to my civilisation that I should enter a 
universe so different from our own when there 
is no possibility that I could return. The 
truth is that we are as ignorant as you as to 
what the Anomaly might be."

"So why are you here?"

"The Anomaly is not as local as you might 
imagine. Its impact extends over an array of 
innumerable parallel universes. We have come 
here to your universe because we have 
identified that this is the one in which the 
Anomaly is to be found. You might wonder what 
the impact of a huge rent in your universe 
might be. We wonder why there is such a great 
rip in the fabric of all the adjacent 
universes."

"And do you believe the Anomaly is 
dangerous?" wondered Beatrice.

"If our models are correct," said Vashti, 
"then yours is not the only universe that 
could be destroyed by the continued presence 
and unrestrained expansion of the Anomaly."








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