Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Andromeda, The People of (C) By JSR On a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy, there is a humanoid race of people. Their civilization goes back several hundred thousand years. One thousand years ago, a plague nearly destroyed all humanoid life on the planet. Only scattered bands of people survived. In the ensuing years, most of the infrastructure had gone to ruin. In the ensuing years drastic changes were discovered in their lives. The life span of the men went from an average of 80 years to an average of 50. The women, went to an average of 30. However, the onset of puberty, went from 14 years to an average of 8. The gestation period of the girls went from 10 months to 6 months, and 1 in 20 of the young girls died in child birth, with 8 of 10 babies surviving the death of their mothers. In the men, puberty went from 12 to 18. This upset all the normal balance of things. This story is about one tribe of the survivors, and how they deal with these drastic changes. No one in the Cooper tribe could ever remember anyone named Cooper ever being in the tribe, but the name was still used to designate the tribe. The elders had just come back from an inter tribal meeting, where they found out that there were several bands of unattached young men stealing young girls. Most of the girls stolen, were just beginning to be able to have babies. When the girls had been found, most had been fucked so many times by the boys that they were either pregnant, or dead. Some had also lost their minds. The few that had survive, were ones that a boy had ran from his group, and kept alive for his own. The tribe living on the shore of the ocean, were protected by the water, and only had to guard three sides of the encampment. This made things much easier to defend from attack, and all the males, from 10 to 17 were put on the alert and posted to defend the tribe if it was attacked. Nine year old Xeon and his seven year old sister Mison, were walking along the ocean shore, at low tide. Not paying to much attention to where they were going, they were outside the safety zone that the tribe had set up. Since the low tide was a mile off the normal shore line, they did not see the young men at the normal shore line, so they were no longer protected by the tribe. They were about three miles south of their protected zone, when they saw something out in the water, that they could not identify. They headed toward the object. When they were in water up to their necks, they came to the collapsed end of a bridge, but never having seen one they did not know what it was. They climbed up on it to see what it was, and saw that there was a long straight platform above the water. Curiosity got the better of them, and they decided to explore this wonderment. As they walked along the bridge, it was slowly rising further and further above the water level. They did not notice that the tide was now coming back in, and the bridge behind them was slowly disappearing below the water. Mison was getting tired, and wanted to return to the shore and go home. Xeon turned back to talk to her, and saw that the bridge was covered with water, and it was getting closer to them. He told her that they had to hurry forward, or they would be drown by the rising tide. Gathering all her strength, they ran for their lives. Darkness was now falling, and both of them were very weary. Xeon saw that they were now well above the water, so they decided to lay down and sleep. He was very sure that they would be safe, as no one from the shore could see them, or get near them. In the morning, they were both tired and hungry, but the way back was still under water. Xeon decided that they should continue on to see if they could find something to eat or drink ahead of them. They walked considerably slower today, due to their hunger and fatigue. By noon, they saw ahead of them what looked like land. Encouraged by this, they sped up their walking, and in the middle of the afternoon, they were on dry land again. They found some fruit trees and were able to eat for the first time in a day and a half. That night they huddled together for warmth. Mison, being near her 8th birthday, was feeling randy and played with Xeon's cock. He was sound asleep, but she got him hard, rolled him on his back and mounted him. It was the first time for either of them, so she did not realize he had cum inside of her. She just felt sticky when it was over. In the morning, he told her of a strange dream he had, where he had fucked her, and gave her a baby. She said that he wasn't old enough to give her a baby, and he agreed, but said it was very realistic. He had thought he was dreaming when she mounted him. They started walking on the shore, looking for anything that could help the tribe. They did see several deer and other small game that the tribe could hunt here. They also found fresh water pools with fish in them, as well as fish in the ocean. Two days later, they were back to their starting point. They were on an island that at one time had been inhabited by the ancient peoples. They explored inland for several days, and Xeon said that this would be a great place for the tribe, as they could not be attacked, except along the path that they came in on, and it could be defended very easily. He decided to head back toward the shore, and get as close as they could, then wait until the next low tide. At which time they could return to the tribe and let them know of what they had found. It had been two weeks since the two had disappeared. They went back on the bridge, and walked as far as they could. Each day for the next two week, they would get a little closer to the shore, and at the end of the two weeks, they were about where they had first found the bridge. The next morning, they walked to the shore, and followed it back to the tribal camp. Upon entering the camp, the people were all excited to see them, wanting to know how they had been captured and how they had escaped. All Xeon would say was we need to talk to the council. At the council meeting, Xeon told of their adventure and what they had found. Suspecting some sort of trick, the council had both Xeon and Meson examined by the tribal doctor. The only thing he found was that Meson was pregnant. Again both kids were brought before the council. They were ask if what you said was true, how do you explain Meson being pregnant. Meson said, it was my fault. I was getting horny, and when Xeon was sleeping I played with him until he was hard. Then I mounted him. When he awoke he told me that he had a strange dream where he had fucked me and I was pregnant. But he is only nine, everyone knows that a nine year old boy cannot get a girl pregnant, and a seven year old girl cannot get pregnant. I am almost eight she said, and that is how it happened. We will take you to see what we found. Then you make up your mind if we are lying or not. The tribal elder, said Meson, you will not go out of this camp, while you are pregnant, we cannot afford to let you get captured. Xeon, you will lead a group of 10 warriors to this place. When you return we will then decide what to do. How soon can you be ready? Xeon said I am ready now, but we will have to wait for the next low tide. It is the only way to get there. Then that will give us enough time to get the expedition ready, tell us what we will need. Five days supply of food and water for the group. Once we get there, there will be plenty of food and water, and the extra we are taking will be for the return trip. One of the council members ask for a private talk before the meeting was dismissed. After it was over, that council member looked at Xeon, and said, if what you and your sister said is true about her pregnancy, you need also to be kept in the village proper. To see if it is really true, you will live with my eight year old daughter. If she get pregnant, we will believe your story about Meson, if not then we have other ways to get the truth out of you. Once the council broke up, Xeon was taken to Moho's dwelling. Moho was told, that it was her duty to get pregnant by Xeon, as soon as she could. She looked at Xeon and said either you are a midget, or you are to young to get me pregnant. He told her I got my sister Meson pregnant, so why would I not be able to get you also? Everyone knows that a man has to be 18 before he can father a child, and you are what maybe 10? Almost 10 he said, and it is the council order that I get you pregnant or I will be tortured. When the time to leave came, Moho was not pregnant, however Xeon persuaded the council to allow her to go on the expedition, saying that if she is not pregnant by the time you get back, you will stand the truth testing. The warriors, then said let us take the young females with us to do the cooking. It will be better if we have to defend the party, we can then concentrate on the battle. The council also agreed that they could take the almost 8 year old girls, so the party set off on the evening before the low tide. They camped on the beach out of sight of the clan look outs, and had no fire, for safety reasons. In the morning, Xeon led the way followed by the girls and then the warriors. When he reached the bridge structure, he helped the girls climb up, then he went up and waited for the warriors to join them. Once everyone was on the bridge, Xeon told them it would take a day and a half to reach the land on the other end. The warriors were very skeptical, but had been told that he was in charge, and to follow his orders, until they returned. At dusk, that day, they made camp. Even thought they were pretty safe, two warriors were kept on look out, rotating every 4 hours. The rest went to bed with their respective 8 year old's. By noon the second day the land was in sight, and the warriors felt better, but kept alert, thinking that there could be danger ahead. An hour later, they were on land again. They decide to camp for the night and start the exploration in the morning. This time instead of following the shore, they headed straight out from the bridge. They wandered through ancient streets that had not been walked upon for many eons. They saw the large deer population, and many other game animals were in abundance. Birds were flying everywhere, butterfly's, in many colorization's were everywhere. In the evenings, Xeon would tell the warriors and the girls that the tribe could clean out the ruins of the ancient buildings, and use them for shelter, there would be plenty of land to farm, lots of fish, and game. We would only need warriors on the long road to protect us. Once we are established here, he said, our population should grow, and we could become the dominant clan in this part of the world. Several warriors told him privately, that if he wanted to become a council member, that they would support him. They said, you have brains and foresight, that our leaders need. The warriors had fun roaming the island, and not having to worry about being attacked. They said that if the council did not want to move the clan here, they would bring the girls back with us and we could start our own clan. On the day to start back, two warriors said that they wanted to stay, but Xeon said no. We all must return. If you stay behind, the council will think that we are lying to them. We all must return. Once they got back, they reported to the council what they saw. They also told the council members that every girl that had made the trip was pregnant, including Moho. This was astonishing news. So many girls pregnant at the same time was unheard of. When Xeon made his report, he told the elders, do not let the inter tribal council (ITC) know just yet about our discovery. I suggest that we wait until all of our people are move to the island. Then we can send an emissary to the IIC. If we don't, we will be overrun by clans either wanting to take it from us, or wanting to take our lands here. Once there, this land will be up for grabs, but we will not have fight, and will be protected by the ocean. Very sound reasoning, said the Clan Elder, it shall be done as you suggest. The leader of the warriors, on the expedition, said, in my opinion, I think that Xeon should be made a member of the council and be put in charge of the move. All of the warriors on the expedition, said we support that. The Clan Elder, said we will consider that. We will give our decision tomorrow. In the mean time Xeon, take your wife Moho to your family, she is your now. Now he had two wives, Meson and Moho, both expecting a child. However that was not unusual. And after they had their babies, any visitors had the right to fuck them, but if they happened to get pregnant from that, the kids would still be Xeon's. The clan council spent the rest of the day debating whether to admit Xeon to the council, or not. The most opposition came from the youngest member, who at 19 was the youngest and thought it might replace him, with a 10 year old. When it was finally through his head that he would not be replaced, but Xeon would be an addition, most of the arguments stopped, and it was approved, and he was given complete charge of the move. Xeon told the council, it will be 28 days before we can send anyone to the island. In the short term, I want the whole clan to slowly move toward the point of leaving. The closer to that point we get the people, the more we will get to the path to the island, the more we will be able to get there each month. I figure that the whole clan can be moved in 6 months if we work hard and are not attacked. I would like the first group, to be 10 warriors, and their families, and as many others as we can get to the path point, before the water rises, that means we will have about one day, and it takes about an hour to get that far in the water. There should also be one council member in this group. As these people move to the path, a same or larger number should be moved into position over the next month, so they will be ready for the next low tide. Two of the warriors in that first group, will stay at the end of the path, as guards. The second group to go, should be the older people, who might have trouble getting to the path start. Warriors should be helping them get there, and the people on the island should be out to help them down the path to the island. By this time all of our people should be in this encampment, or closer to the path. The first group on the island, should be cleaning out the old ruins, getting them ready for themselves, and for the old people coming in on the second group. We need a cooperative effort to have the ruins ready for the rest of the people coming later. If anyone in the ITC gets wind of the move, we will just tell them that we are moving our clan a little south, and we will contact them when we are done. That should for stall any problems. After the last group is on the path, we then should send an emissary to the ITC, and tell them that we are out of their district and that our old lands are empty for their usage. We can then use resources for building, with out having to spend as much time on war efforts. The council approved Xeon's plan without debate. The move went much faster than Xeon had thought. After the 4th move, there were only about 100 people left, which included mostly all warriors and their family's. Xeon ask for a very strong swimmer, and one guard volunteered. What I want, he said was for you to be the emissary to the ITC. He said I am not a council member, so I cannot be. You need not be for this mission. You will deliver a message from me to the ITC, and then leave. When you leave you are to make sure that you are not followed. You should be back here just about low tide, but if you are late, you will have to swim to the path. Do you have a compass? Yes he replied. Xeon then said when you get to this spot, use your compass and head strait west. We will be waiting for you at what ever point that we can on the path. If you can ride bareback, we will take your tack with us and your horse might carry you out. If he won't then the loss of one horse is not much. You will leave here 4 days before low tide, so with luck, you will be back before we leave. On the day of the low tide, the last group headed for the path. They were about half way there when they heard a horse whinny. The last warrior was on his way and would make it. On the path, Xeon told the warriors, I need two volunteers to relieve these guards. One of them said I will be relieved tonight and Gort will be relieved tomorrow night, so do not worry about us, so the group headed toward the island. Arriving at the island, Xeon reported to the council, that everyone was here, with out any mishaps that he was aware of. The council said there is one MAJOR problem. Xeon looked astonishing at the council and ask what is that? He said every woman on this island that has slept with a man is pregnant. What is going on? Xeon said, the only thing I can think of, is that the ancient plague, must have missed this island, and that there is something in the air that removes what ever is in our bodies, that caused the changes. However, if that is true, we should start building boats and try to find more islands, as this one will be overflowing with babies. Another thing, I suggest we change our clan name to the Islanders, no one remembers a Cooper any way. I also suggest that we change a few laws, and wait to see what other things are going to change in our lives. The outcome was to tell the people that any woman who was not currently pregnant, would be allowed to get pregnant, as long as she was at least 8 years old. Any woman who was currently pregnant, would be forbidden to have another child, until we could amass more data on what was going on. Another was that exploration teams would not include women. The men would have to learn to cook for themselves. It was not enough, but it was a start. Without this law, people would be reproducing like rabbits. While nothing seemed to change in the older people (ages 7 and up) the younger girls were slowly getting older before they were ready to produce babies, and it seemed to stabilize at about 13. The boys, however, the age of ejaculation slowly receded until it was about 11. The older men were still dieing at about 50, and the women about 30. However the men under 20 were starting to live longer, as well as the girl under 15. Xeon became Clan Elder when he was 18, both his wives had, had 4 children by the time he was 20. His clan now numbered 8 islands, and over 1000 people, the largest clan in modern history. By the time he died at age 77, the clan had increased to 38 islands, and there were over 30,000 people in it. On his last excursion to the mainland, he was the oldest man on record, and the people on the mainland were still struggling. The people living near the sea, were very slowly returning to the ancient norms, and he was hailed as the savior of the people Comments and suggestions are always welcome; storytellerxxx5@gmail.com