Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ________________________________ This is a story about a sexual FANTASY
written for consenting adults.  If you're not both of those, don't read it.
Characters in a FANTASY don't get sick or die unless I want them to.  In
real life, people who don't use condoms and other safe-sex techniques do
get sick and die.  You don't live in a FANTASY so be safe.  The fictional
characters in my stories are trained and experienced in acts of FANTASY -
don't try to do what they do - someone could get hurt.

   If you think you know somebody who resembles any of the characters here,
congratulations, but you're wrong - any similarity between the characters
in this story and any real person is purely coincidental, since all of
these characters are figments of my dirty little imagination.

   This is my story, not yours.  Don't sell it or put it on a pay site. 
You can keep it and/or give it away with all of this information intact,
but if you make money off of it without my permission, you're breaking the
law and pissing me off.  _________________________________ Lost
Colonies:The ZeeGees (MF, FF, SciFi, slow, anal) (C)Copyright 2004 - Shakes
Peer2B shakes_peer2b@NONOsbcglobal.net (remove 'NONO' from the above
address to contact me)
/files/Authors/Shakes_Peer2B/
http://storiesonline.net/library/author.php?name=Shakes_Peer2B

   ________

   As soon as the Folder dumped us into real space-time, Mary and Bill
began searching for the tell-tale signal Mary had picked up once before in
this region of space.  No more than an hour had passed when Bill knocked on
my cabin door and came charging in, portable terminal in hand.

   "Mary wanted to...  Oh!" he turned red when he saw that Gail and I were
engaged in a little extra-curricular activity, "Sorry, Captain!  I just
sort of assumed...  Uh, shall I come back later?"

   "I have a better idea, Bill," Gail answered on my behalf, "Why don't you
take off that shipsuit and join us?"

   Said shipsuit suddenly tented just below its equator, but Bill was too
intent on his quest to falter now.

   "That's very tempting, Doc." he said, "but we've picked up that signal
again and it's definitely CM20951212-2!  As near as our on-board
directional equipment can determine, it originates somewhere along this
vector."

   He activated the terminal's holosphere and an orange line appeared
crossing the sparse field of stars at an upward angle from the center,
which represented our current location.

   "Well," I observed, not bothering to cover myself.  Bill had been in my
bed as often as my other senior officers, and I wasn't about to get shy
this late in the game.  "there don't appear to be any systems for hundreds
of light years in that direction.  What's your take on it?"

   He touched the controls and a green line appeared, cutting a chord
across the holosphere and intersecting the orange line.

   "This was the planned course of the CM20951212-2." he said, "but to
still be in that region of space, she would have had to stop accelerating
before she left the solar system!  As you know, the mission profile called
for acceleration at about a quarter gee to the halfway point of the
journey, then reverse thrust for the remaining half of the first leg."

   "Do we know that she's still on course?" I asked

   "Well, no." he replied.

   "Then let's make a jump to a point out here..." I took his terminal's
stylus and touched it's tip to the region of the display I was interested
in.  "That will give us an idea if she's still on course and add another
vector to locate her precisely.  If you're right, that point should be
closer to her current location and we should get a stronger signal."

   "Mary's already working on it." Bill said, "Shall I notify you before we
jump?"

   "No, Mary takes care of that as a matter of routine," I replied, eyeing
Gail's lush, naked figure on my bed, "and even if she neglected to, I'd
feel the Folder engage."

   As it turned out, Bill was almost right.  Readings from the second
location told us the CM20951212-2 had drifted off-course by about half a
degree, which put her several light weeks off the original course.  It took
two more jumps to pinpoint her location and guage her speed, before we felt
confident that our next jump would put us in her vicinity.  With no gravity
well to worry about, we simply homed in on the CM's signal and depended on
round-off error to ensure that we didn't emerge from sidereal space-time
right on top of the colony ship.

   When you travel for tens to hundreds of light years by folding space and
slipping through to your destination, even with the unfathomable precision
of the AI's processors working on the calculation, there is still a point
where there are just too many decimal places to deal with, and numbers get
rounded off.  On a short jump, that error is minimal - say a few hundred
miles.  On jumps longer than, say, fifty light-years, the error can be
anywhere from several light-minutes to a couple of light-hours.

   Since we had moved closer to the CM20951212-2's projected position with
each jump, the final jump was very short, but even a volume of space only a
few hundred miles across leaves plenty of room to miss a ship the size of a
CM.  Someone did a calculation once that showed the chances of jumping
directly onto a target for which you're aiming are smaller than the odds of
hitting it if you try to jump to one side.

   We expected, of course, to find a drifting hulk of a ghost-ship.  The
CM's were built to last and to take hundreds of years to deliver their
cargo, but this one had apparently been drifting for almost two thousand
years, and if nothing else, just the radiation should have done in her
crew. It was always possible, of course that everyone was still frozen
solid in their SA chambers, but I doubted that they'd still be operational
after that much time.

   I was on the bridge for the final jump, and saw the sensor blip in the
battle plot at the same time the rest of them did.  It was less than two
hundred miles away, but even at maximum magnification, looked nothing like
the CM's we had already seen on this trip.  I didn't have much time to
study it because our velocity vector was almost perpendicular to the CM's
and it took some tricky maneuvering to swing us around parallel to her
course without wasting too much of our impulse mass.  Within a couple of
days, however, we were hot on her trail, and I gave Bill the go-ahead to
hail her.

   Much to my surprise, a wizened, brown face appeared in the viewscreen
almost immediately.

   "Who the hell is that?" it said, the accent stronger than the
Galadrians, but not nearly as distorted as that of the Edenites.

   "This is the Golden Hind." I replied, making sure my face was visible in
the view screen, "We have been sent by the Federation of Earth Aligned
Planets to seek out the colonization missions sent out from Earth in the
twenty-first and twenty-second centuries.  Your transponder identifies you
as CM20951212-2, but I don't recognize the configuration of your ship."

   The face had drifted around the view screen to a different angle.

   "Yeah, I guess we started out as one'a them Colo-whatsits missions, but
if the history programs is right, somepin went wrong, so our ancestors set
up shop out here, and here we be!" the brown gnome of a man didn't seem too
disturbed about that.

   "How many of you are there?" I asked.  If they were in distress, we
could take a few to somewhere more hospitable, but not very many.

   "Oh, reckon we're prolly holdin' steady at about three thousand." the
gnome responded.  "Now, if you're driftin' too, we cain't take nobody else
aboard, but we'd be happy to swap DNA with ya an show ya how we make out.
Don't look like you're doin' too bad though."

   "No, we're not drifting." I replied, having flashbacks to Eden, "Since
your ancestors left Earth, we've invented a drive that lets us traverse
space much more quickly.  We only left Earth about a year ago, real time.
Is there anything you need?"

   The wizened face screwed up in thought for a moment, and replied, "Naw,
just some fresh DNA.  If y'all don't mind swapping, that is."

   "Why don't a few of my crew and I shuttle over and discuss it with your
leaders?"

   "Sure!" the gnome's face broke into a grin, "I'll let the cap'n an' the
gov'nor know.  Shoot, I reckon y'all are 'bout the most exciting thing
that's happened since we passed through that gas cloud back 'fore I'uz
born!"

   "Um, is there a place to dock our shuttle?  Or do we need to come across
in suits?"

   "Oh, yeah!" he replied, "go on around neat th' back end yonder, just
under that big mast, an' you'll see kind of a tunnel through the
plastifoam. Just hang off 'til you're lined up so's not to get fouled in
th' sails.  Keep about a hunnert klicks out 'til then.  Them sails can be
tricky to see."

   That was why the vessel looked nothing like a CM!  The original module
was buried somewhere within an enormous cocoon of plastifoam!  Apparently,
the colonists had simply colonized their ship, using the plastifoam
intended for building planetary habitats to expand its hull.  For many
kilometers beyond the bloated plastifoam cloud that surrounded the original
module, a fine spiderweb of titanium spars and cables stretched an even
finer network of something as yet unidentified.  Closer inspection revealed
a number of suited figures darting about the network.  What they were doing
wasn't readily apparent.

   There were protrusions and satellites attached to the main body of the
ship in various places.  A couple of the satellites were rotating slowly,
and I briefly wondered why they didn't rotate the entire ship to simulate
gravity.

   The maneuvering was delicate, but my pilot was good and got the gig
landed in the standard CM shuttle bay without incident.  The two shuttles
assigned to the mission were still parked there as well, and seemed to be
in good working order.

   The pilot warned us about the null gravity, and as we came through the
bio-shield in hazard suits, our mag-boots automatically activated, but had
little effect since the CM's were made primarily of a titanium alloy to
optimize fuel effectiveness.  They were never intended to be used as space
platforms, though.  The Edenites had put some axial spin on their CM module
to simulate gravity for those aboard the orbiter, but there was nothing of
the kind here.

   I grabbed the handrail of the ramp as my boots floated above my head. 
We still train in Zero G, but most of us never get a chance to practice, so
it took me a while to get straightened out.  The others were having similar
difficulties.  Two even drifted away from the shuttle, and I was wondering
how we were going to retrieve them and get across the shuttle bay, when a
number of suited figures shot like arrows from the vicinity of one of the
hatches.

   One of them deftly grabbed the two of my people who were drifting away,
and used their mass to change directions, swooping to the ramp and handing
them down to grab the rails.

   "Not used to ZeeGee, I see!" one of them said.

   "Trained a little in it, but with artificial gravity, we don't get much
chance to practice!" I replied.

   "The secret," the same voice said, "is once ya git movin', don't stop
'til ya git somewhere, pref'bly where yer goin'!"

   That sounded wise until I realized that in the vacuum of the shuttle
bay, with no air resistance, it would be harder to stop before 'getting
somewhere', than to keep going.

   "That's cute!" I said, "But we have had some training and aren't THAT
wet behind the ears!"

   Like me, once the rest of them got used to the idea of not being in a
gravity field, their training took over.

   I launched myself at the hatchway from which the others had come, and
was gratified to see, in my suit's display, that the others followed in
reasonably controlled fashion.  Since our group was blocking the straight
path to the hatch, our welcoming committee took off like a shot toward the
'roof' of the bay, and caromed, almost as one, at precisely the right angle
to bring them to the hatchway.  There they waited and snagged us as we
drifted in.

   Once through the airlock, the colonists immediately skimmed out of their
suits - NOT, I noted, the clumsy design originally shipped with these
missions.  These vacuum suits were supple, and even easier to get into and
out of than ours.

   The people were uniformly brown, possibly from long exposure to cosmic
radiation, and had short, powerful legs with long supple toes.  If their
legs were disproportionately short, their arms were as disproportionately
long, yet muscular.  Forearms, biceps, triceps, chest and shoulders all
bulged with muscle, even on the women.  Their torsos looked long in
contrast to their legs, but were probably about normal.  The only clothing
in evidence consisted of pouches strapped to their bodies in various ways,
presumably to allow carrying things while leaving hands free for
maneuvering in zero gee.  The men also appeared to be wearing some sort of
harness around their gonads.

   Once free of the suits, they casually gripped one of the ubiquitous
handles that lined the corridors with a long-fingered hand or a long-toed
foot.  It was a little disconcerting to see them clustered about the
airlock exit at all angles and orientations.  This was a people who truly
had no concept of 'up' or 'down'!

   We got through the Med-screen without too much difficulty.  Seems we had
nothing that would come close to harming these people, but they carried
some really nasty strains of viruses that had been virtually eliminated on
Earth.  Docs med-kit synthesized the proper antigens as we waited, but the
leathery-skinned doctor from the CM suggested a few changes to keep up with
the mutation rate.  Apparently everything mutated much more quickly in this
environment than on most planets.

   Once inoculated and declared safe by Gail, we too removed our suits.

   "Whoa!" one voice said, on seeing our relatively pale bodies, short
arms, and long legs.

   "Damn!" said another, "You folks really ain't been in space long!"

   "Compared to you," I said, "perhaps not.  I'm Cecilia Barnes, Captain of
the Golden Hind!"

   Each of them, in turn, extended a hand or foot, whichever was most
available, to be shaken.  I thought I was going to have to have Gail put my
hand through the regenerator by the time I finished the rounds of those
bone-crushing grips.

   "I am Farley Hines, Governor of the Ark." He smiled engagingly.

   "Captain Lucille Davenport, in command of the Ark's crew," she had a
lovely brown face and the grip of a stevedore, "at your service!"

   "I am SO happy to finally meet someone from EARTH!" He wore a kind of
goggles in place of spectacles, "I have studied our history and wondered
what our ancestors were like!  To finally meet an original human!  It's
just too much!  Oh, uh, Henry Unger, by the way!  Historian for the Ark!"

   I introduced Bill and Gail and the other two crew members who had come
aboard with us.  The pilot stayed aboard the gig, just in case.

   "How did you come to colonize your own ship?" I asked.

   Farley smiled and said, "That's a VERY long story Captain, and if you
don't mind accompanying us to a more comfortable meeting place, Henry will
be more than happy to fill you in!  We, of course, would like to know
what's happened on earth since our ancestors left, as well.  According to
our history tapes, it was a planet on the edge of collapse at the time."

   "Yes, of course!" I replied.

   The Arkadians took off at a blistering pace down the corridor, and we
had all we could do to keep them in sight as they launched themselves from
handhold to handhold faster than the fastest sprinter on Earth.

   They finally noticed our difficulty and slowed their pace, waiting
impatiently at each turn for us to catch up.  We tried to emulate their
smooth, hand over hand sort of crawling/swimming motion, but it was tricky
getting the force vectors right so that you went straight down the corridor
and not at an angle that had you bouncing off the bulkheads.  The legs,
apparently, were used primarily for starting and stopping.  A number of
Arkadians stared in wonder as they zoomed past us in the corridor, or
stopped to watch us go by.  Kids - even smaller sprites than the adults -
chased each other up and down the corridors, or played a ball passing game
of some sort.  All zipped and zoomed through the null gravity as naturally
as you or I walk.

   The intersections of the corridors were color-coded.  A small placard at
each intersection held a number of bands of color.  The outermost band on
one end was always white - apparently indicating the starting position for
interpreting the other bands.  One band of color apparently served as
traffic control.  I noticed that whenever the first band after the white
one was green, we continued past the intersection without pause, but when
it was red, we stopped to watch for oncoming traffic before proceeding. 
When we passed from the metal bulkheads of the CM module to the plastifoam
outer shell, I noticed that the second band changed from blue to green, but
the third band remained purple, while the fourth stayed orange.

   As we travelled further along the ship's axis, the fourth band changed
to yellow.  The third band became blue as we moved further around the
cylinder, and further out, the second band became yellow.

   The bands were apparently coded such that the white band was the
reference point for reading the others.  The first band was traffic
control, the second apparently designated cylindrical sections that moved
outward from the original CM hull.  The third band designated radial
position, and the fourth, axial position.  A neat, compact system, but it
required that every person know the key by heart.  Strangers like us could
use it to find our way back to our shuttle, but not to anywhere new.

   Finally, we found ourselves in a compartment that was criss-crossed by
taut cords.  The Arkadians each hooked a limb around one of these and we
mimicked their action.

   "Can we offer you something to eat or drink?" the Governor asked
politely.

   "Not just now," I answered, "we had a meal just before coming aboard."

   That wasn't entirely true - it had been a couple of hours since our last
meal, but I didn't want to be distracted by the intricacies of eating or
drinking in Zero Gravity just now.

   "As you wish!" Farley said, "We actually have livestock aboard.  What
once were sheep and cattle on earth have adapted quite nicely to space.  We
maintain just enough spin on the ranch module to allow them some purchase
for their hooves and keep the grass under their feet, but we keep the
simulated gravity very low, which makes for very tender meat.  Oh and
chickens just LOVE ZeeGee!"

   "I would love to try all of it at some point.  At the moment, though,
I'm curious about how you have managed to survive in space for so long." I
replied.

   The be-goggled Henry spoke up excitedly.  "Oh I've studied that at
length!  When the ship departed Earth, its trajectory was set to pass just
outside the plane of the ecliptic, only a couple of degrees off plane,
thereby missing most of the debris and bypassing the gravity fields within
the system itself.  We missed the asteroid belt by several thousand miles."

   "For some as yet unexplained reason, there were several off-course
asteroids, one of which," Henry continued, "unbeknownst to the crew, was on
a collision course with us!"

   I checked with Mary and she retrieved some historical data.  The courses
of most bodies in the solar system were well known, even in olden times, so
it was strange to hear of an asteroid being off course.  Mary dug up a
report of a CM crash in the asteroid belt a few days before the
CM20951212-2's passage.  The crash had not been discovered until an
orbiting observatory noticed several asteroids out of their usual orbits.

   "Seems one of the ships preceding yours by a few days crashed in the
asteroid belt." I told them, "This caused a chain reaction that sent a
number of asteroids out of orbit or into different orbits."

   "As it turned out, we almost got away with it." Henry said dramatically,
"Had the CM been accelerating infinitesimally faster, or slower, or been a
tenth of a degree off the course it was on, the asteroid would have missed
altogether.  As it was, the crew caught its image on radar and attempted to
maneuver out of its path, but it clipped the main thrusters, tearing them
from the module with very little other damage.  The crew and the failsafes
did their jobs admirably, got the fuel cut off quickly before an explosion
could occur, and saved the lives of the crew and colonists."

   He paused for effect, then continued, "So there was good ol'
CM20951212-2 only slightly off-course, her journey completed almost before
it began.  The maneuvering thrusters stabilized the hull along its new
trajectory well enough, but we had no way to accelerate.  As you may know,
the plan was for the main thrusters to burn continuously halfway to the
destination, and only a tiny fraction of that acceleration was completed,
so it would take practically forever to reach our destination, if we ever
did.  We had literally tons of fuel, but no way to use it.

   "The captain and crew debated just blowing up the ship to end their
misery, but finally decided that no decision should be made without the
colonists inputs.  Now, as you may remember, there were a number of
scientists and engineers on most of these missions, and when they got wind
of what was going on, they figured and calculated and calculated and
figured, and decided that they could just colonize the ship!"

   "They and the crew got out the few vacuum suits we had, and opened the
cargo pods, hauling out the plastifoam and the constructors.  They set up a
solar collector several miles wide that provided energy for almost a
generation.  The plastifoam machinery worked even better in space than in
atmosphere, and because of the greater pressure differentials, they used
less water to make a stiffer mixture so the bubbles wouldn't just burst
through the surface.  The mission planners had supplied us with plenty of
titanium alloy, not knowing what resources would be available at our
destination, but they shipped it as reels of cable so it could be melted
down easily for shaping into whatever we needed to make from it.  We didn't
bother.  The cable was ideal as reinforcement for the plastifoam."

   Henry was a storyteller, and he was in his element.  Had he been in
gravity, he would have been pacing.  Here, he swung absentmindedly from
cord to cord, using feet and hands, to expend the energy the telling of the
story gave him.

   "The CM encountered another wayward bit of space flotsam, apparently
left behind by a comet, a few years later.  It was in no danger of
colliding with the ship, but spectrographic analysis revealed it to be made
primarily of ice." the goggle-eyed gnome continued, "So they contrived to
corral it with the shuttles, then encased it in plastifoam to ensure
against the escape of any of its precious aitch-too-oh.  They had invented
recyclers that could recapture damn near anything, but water had not been
included in the supplies in very great quantities because it was thought
that it would be plentiful at our destination.  Now, stranded in space, we
had our own water supply.  Mind you, the water from that little bit of a
comet has long since been melted down, but the recyclers now reclaim it
from the air, from the sewage, and from the bodies of the deceased.  Still,
we lose about a cup a decade, but not to worry - all that leftover fuel? 
Well it's rich in hydrogen and oxygen, and we make whatever water we need
to make up for the loss.  Any time we pass near a piece of space junk we
mine it for whatever we can get.  That's not often, but we don't need much.
At our current rate of consumption, if we don't get anything more from the
outside, we can probably survive for another three thousand years.  That's
thanks, in part, to the gas cloud we passed through a couple of generations
ago.  We built an enormous scoop to collect as much of it as we could -
mostly hydrogen."

   "But what about radiation?" I asked.

   "We do get our share, and as the good doctor pointed out, things mutate
faster here." Henry replied, "As you can see, we've adapted fairly rapidly
to our environment.  Of course, we have kind of 'helped' evolution along.
We can't afford to allow mutants that can't contribute to our colony to
survive, so we recycle 'em.  I know it sounds callous, but we've got the
whole colony to think about.  Other mutants, we allow to survive and
observe them.  If their mutation seems useful, we allow 'em to have
children.  If not, they live out their lives, but don't leave any
offspring. That's kind of how we got looking like this so quickly.  Of
course, the radiation itself weeded out those gene strains that weren't
resistant to it.  They usually got sterile or didn't survive long enough to
have kids.  Oh yeah!  I forgot!  The Plastifoam, with its high hydrogen
content, actually shields out the few stray neutrons, as well as alpha and
beta particles, but X and gamma rays still get through pretty much
unchecked."

   "What do you mean by 'useful' mutations?" I asked.

   "Well, aside from the usual," the doctor answered, "you know, extra
fingers, toes, etc.  We occasionally get some really useful changes to our
makeup.  Most of the crew tending the sails is extremely resistant to
radiation, and the emergency response teams now are almost entirely made up
of individuals that can actually survive in vacuum for short periods of
time, without a pressure suit!"

   "Yeah," I grinned, "I can see where that would be useful!  But that
brings up another question: What ARE those sails?"

   Henry fielded that one.  "When the CM left the solar system, of course,
the solar collector slowly lost its effectiveness until it was basically
useless.  We needed an alternative.  Turns out, the void of space ain't so
empty after all.  Seems that besides radiation, there are ions, positive
and negative, all over the place.  That little network is basically a
gigantic charge collector.  Whenever a charged particle passes near, its
charge is passed into one side or the other of the sail.  Electrons from
negatively charged ions are collected on one face, and donated to
positively charged ions on the other.  These build up electrical potential
between them that's almost constant, and generates more electrical energy
than you'd think!  We're still adding to it, but it's already surpassed the
capacity of the solar collector."

   "Do you have some way to store the electricity it generates?" Leave it
to Bill to focus on the technical aspect of it.

   "Oh yes!" Henry replied excitedly, "Our forefathers thought of that too!
When they built the plastifoam outer hull, they plated thin coats of metal
on the inside and outside of it.  The charge is stored on those plates like
an enormous capacitor, and if we hit a 'dry spell', our electrical system
feeds off the charge on those plates.  It's really amazing how much they
can store, but if you can imagine a capacitor with a charge surface of
several hundred acres..."

   "And what do the people tending the sails do?" the things these
Arkadians had done to make life possible out here were amazing and
intriguing, and I was excited just listening to them.

   Captain Davenport chose to respond to that one.

   "There's also a lot more tiny pieces of solid junk out here than you'd
think," she said, "and part of the crew's job is to repair the damage they
cause.  The plastifoam just absorbs most of it and reseals itself, but the
sails tear and have to be mended.  The other part of their job is angling
the sails just right to catch the 'breeze' as we pass through ion streams
and such."

   As I was searching for something else to ask, Gail came up with what
probably should have been my FIRST question.

   "Surely, after some eighteen centuries," she asked, "you must have
shortages of something.  Is there anything we can provide for you, or have
shipped out?"

   The Captain and the Governor looked at each other for a few moments,
shrugged, and turned back to me.

   "There are always little things we'd like to have," Farley answered for
both, "but I can't think of anything specific at the moment.  I think it's
been mentioned that we could use some fresh DNA to strengthen our gene
pool, but a night or two of debauchery between my people and yours will
take care of that - if you don't mind, that is...  Of course, we'll have to
add to the hull to compensate for the baby boom, but we've still got
plastifoam!"

   I smiled, "I'm sure the crew would love a night or two of debauchery. 
They've proven themselves quite eager to try sex in different ways, and
have been leaving DNA all over the damn galaxy!"

   They laughed with us, but I sobered quickly.

   "You know," I said, "we COULD arrange a tow or transport for your people
to the planet of your choice..."

   Again they exchanged glances and shrugs.

   "That's very kind, Captain, but we've kind of gotten used to life out
here," Farley replied, "and besides, we're no longer suited to life in a
gravity well."

   "That brings up another question:" I said, "Why didn't your ancestors
just spin the hull with the maneuvering thrusters to simulate gravity?"

   "Couldn't while the solar collector was being built and the hull
expanded," Henry replied, "that took years, and when it was finally done,
it was really too late.  Even if they'd a spun it up gradually, letting
folks get used to it a little at a time, they knew that within a generation
they'd have to shut it down permanently when they built the sails, 'cause
the crews'd just get flung off into space.  Just decided that we were going
to have to live in ZeeGee whether we liked it or not!"

   We spent several more hours in discussion of how they had survived.  We
gave a synopsis of the collapse of Earth's economy along with its ecology
as a combined result of the tech and terrorist booms, the long, slow
recovery, including mandatory population control and the 'green' laws,
including the outlawed use of fossil fuels and fission reactors for energy
production.  We summarized the historical highlights up to the invention of
the Folder drive and the subsequent explosion into space.

   We also told about the recent accidental discovery of a couple of former
CM colonies - one thriving, the other with no survivors - that had led to
the discovery on Earth of the forgotten records, and the subsequent
outfitting of the Golden Hind for this mission.

   Slowly, over the course of the telling, the compartment had filled with
Arkadians, all listening raptly to our story.  By the time we were
finished, we were famished as well, and eagerly took the Governor up on his
offer of a meal.  He pushed his way good naturedly through the crowd and
led us to a smaller compartment down the corridor.  There we found a
spherical space lined with what appeared to be picnic tables.

   Closer examination revealed that the surface of each table was a grate.
There were squeeze pouches containing liquids, but solid and semi-solid
food seemed to be sitting on a plate on the surface of the table.  We
'seated' ourselves by slipping our feet into loops on the 'floor'.  The
'plates' were actually wire mesh platforms, and the food stayed on the
table because there was a constant flow of air into its 'top'.  It was a
good idea to eat quickly so that the airflow didn't cool the food too much
before you got to it.

   We observed how the Arkadians ate and tried to emulate them.  There were
no spoons, as liquids were served in pouches with varying sizes of elastic
diaphragm closures.  A delicious soup was served this way, and I soon got
the hang of squeezing the tube to allow the pressure on the inside to force
the diaphragm open, discharging liquid and bits of meat and vegetable into
my mouth.  Any spillage simply got sucked into the tabletop.  Roast chicken
- plump, tender, and delicious - was served on the 'plates' and eaten with
the fingers.  In fact, almost everything was roasted or grilled with
radiant heat.  Frying and boiling were pretty difficult to accomplish in
free fall.

   A cut of beef that I didn't recognize was also served.  I have never
tasted such tender, delicious beef in my life!  The knife and fork, when
not in use, were held on the table by the airflow, and any juices that
escaped during cutting simply disappeared into the table.  It was a novel
way of eating, but one of the best meals I have had in a long time!

   After the meal, I presented the Governor with a crystal reader and a set
of crystals detailing the history of the FEAP all the way back to the
inception of the CM project.  It included some things about the
colonization missions that none of the original crews or colonists had been
told.  To put a ribbon on it, Bill had rigged an interface that would allow
the reader to be plugged into the old computer systems used at the time of
the Ark's departure from earth.

   With a promise to return later in the 'evening' (the Arkadians, like us,
maintained a 24 hour light/dark cycle to simulate Earth's day/night cycle.)
for a festival to celebrate their 're-discovery' by Earth.

   I gave about half the crew liberty, cautioning them about the Zero Gee
condition.  Captain Davenport had been kind enough to provide us with a
color-coded map of the colony, confirming my conjecture about the
color-banded signs in the corridors.

   Mary reproduced the map as a 3D image that she could feed directly to
our implants, ensuring that we could find our way around the Ark with
relative ease.

   I had noticed that, despite the deliciousness of the meal, they had used
very little salt in its preparation.  On impulse, I had the crew synthesize
about twenty kilos of good old NaCl with a touch of Iodine (for goiter
prevention) from our chemical stores, and presented it to the Governor on
our return to the festivities.

   At first, he looked confused as I pushed the bag toward him.  I poked a
small hole in the bag and touched my finger to it, drawing out a few small,
white crystals, and showing it to him.

   His eyes grew large and round.  "Is that what I think it is?"

   "Depends on what you think it is!" I laughed.

   "May I?" he gestured toward the hole where a few grains drifted slowly
away from the bag.

   "Be my guest!" I replied.

   Moistening a finger, he carefully touched each of the escaped crystals,
drawing back a fingertip lightly sprinkled with the white particles.  I
smiled encouragingly as he touched it to his tongue.

   "It IS salt!" he said delightedly, as murmurs of wonder arose from the
crowd.  "How did you know?"

   "I figured if you didn't have enough salt to season the food you served
your first guests in almost two thousand years," I laughed, "you must be
running pretty low!"

   "Low, hell!  Today's meal is the first time I've tasted even a hint of
salt in almost thirty years!" Farley said, "I think the cook pretty much
had to wipe the meat around the inside of the salt bin to get any flavor at
all!"

   "But how do you avoid goiter?" I asked.

   "Oh, we HAVE Iodine, and feed it into the drinking water supply," he
replied, "but salt is one of those little shortages I couldn't think of
when you asked earlier."

   "Well, now you know at least one thing you can trade for." I said.

   "Trade?" he looked puzzled.

   "I guess I'm jumping the gun here a little bit," I smiled, "but once
word gets out about your little Zero Gee resort, here, and the tasty meals
you serve, you'll have rich folks from all over wanting to vacation here!
Now, you don't HAVE to let them in, but with the money they pay you, you
can buy all sorts of little things like salt or even a fusion power plant
so you don't have to deal with those sails!  You may even decide you need
more plastifoam to expand the Ark to make room for your guests!"

   A buzz started from the people near us as the idea took hold and flew
around the room.

   "You really think people would come all the way out here just to float
around in ZeeGee?" Farley asked.

   "Well, it'd depend on how you sell it." I said, "A couple of places have
tried it, usually in-system somewhere, but they've all failed because they
couldn't get enough staff that could handle null gravity, and nobody wanted
to be on permanent staff.  If you folks wanted to go into the resort
business, you'd already be well staffed with trained personnel, and you
serve some of the best meals I've ever tasted.  Think up a few activities
that rich people can do without gravity, and come up with some
entertainment for them, and you're all set!  But what do you say we talk
business tomorrow?  You invited us to a party, and we're ready for one!"

   A cheer went up around us, and the Arkadians, almost as one, flowed down
the corridor, taking us with them.  Farley passed the bag of salt to
another Arkadian with instructions to take it to the chef for tonight's
feast.

   We wound up in a spherical chamber with another sphere suspended inside
it by numerous cables or rods.  The inner sphere was composed of some sort
of wire mesh, and had, at two diametrically opposed points, a pair of large
basket-like devices sunken into its inner surface.  Everyone found a hand-
or foot-hold on one of the cables supporting the inner sphere, though some,
apparently, were quite comfortable just being suspended in air.

   "We thought you might enjoy a game of 3D soccer before the festival
proper!" the Governor shouted in my ear.

   I nodded, not bothering to try to speak over the hubbub of the crowd.

   "We actually have eight teams!" he continued, "They are fielded by
various 'neighborhoods' of the Ark, and their supporters can get quite
passionate about their team!  Tonight is really an exhibition put on
between the two leading teams, though it doesn't really count in their
standings.  Because of that, you'll probably see more flashy play tonight
than their coaches usually let them try!"

   Two groups of Arkadians, male and female, entered the mesh sphere
simultaneously from opposite sides.  One group wore gold sashes, and
nothing else.  The other group wore green belts.  They swung lazily around
the inside of the sphere as introductions and opening comments were made
over a PA system.  Instead of positioning themselves within the volume of
the sphere for the kickoff, as I half expected, each team of about ten
players spaced itself out around the mesh wall of the enclosure.  An
Arkadian wearing a black belt positioned himself in the basket that
represented the goal defended by green, while a woman wearing a red sash
took position in the gold team's goal.  A pair of Arkadians with
old-fashioned whistles entered the sphere, closing the gates behind them.
Each of the newcomers, presumably the officials, wore a black-and-white
striped sash, and one carried what appeared to be a regulation soccer ball.

   The official with the ball positioned himself at the midline painted
around the inside of the sphere, and without a word, launched the ball
slowly toward the center of the sphere.  Nobody moved.  When the ball was
about ten feet from the center point, the official blew his whistle, and
several players from each team shot toward the ball.  One of the green
players reached it first, and blasted it, with both feet, toward the gold
team's goal.  His effort sent him tumbling, slightly off-angle from his
original trajectory.  Almost without thought, he twisted around and landed
on the side of the sphere, gripping the mesh with his toes.

   As soon as the green player kicked the ball, a couple of gold players
who hadn't joined the rush for the ball launched themselves after the shot.
A third, closer to the goal, delayed, timing his flight to be on a
collision course with the ball.  The first two defenders were too late, but
the third, eyeing their flight paths, passed the ball to one, who launched
it in the direction of the the other.  The green player who had originally
kicked it, tried to intercept, but the gold player, having reached the
wall, used his powerful legs to launch himself in the direction of the
ball, spinning end for end to pass the ball further up the sphere to
another gold player, deep in green territory.

   This one who was flying toward the green defended goal, instead of
powering the ball toward the goal, bumped it only slightly and followed,
dribbling the ball with his feet with nudges and gentle kicks, twisting his
own body into impossible shapes to change direction, and try to avoid the
green players who took off after him, waiting for his teammates to get into
position.

   Like the soccer that I was accustomed to watching, the 3D variety was
fast and furious, and very low scoring.  The action was somewhat different,
however.  The players didn't stay in position in the playspace, but tried
to position themselves around it for the optimum opportunity to make a play
or to zoom across in time to receive a pass.  Bicycle kick?  Routine for
these free-fall athletes!  In fact, since hands were not allowed, as in
regular soccer, the most powerful kick that could be made was performed by
adding the angular momentum of an end-for-end body tumble to the body's
forward momentum through the playspace.  Since there was no 'out of
bounds', the players caromed the ball off the walls of the sphere as often
as they kicked it straight toward its intended target.

   One rule that was added, however, was that no player could kick the ball
while touching the wall of the sphere, the exceptions being the goalie
clearing the ball, a 'corner' kick, which was made from any point on the
line designating the goalie's 'box', a goal kick, or a penalty kick.

   The tackle was an even more effective tactic in this sort of soccer,
since it could knock an opposing player out of position or even nullify his
forward motion and leave him spinning in mid sphere until he either 'swam'
to the nearest point of the wall, or a teammate came by to give him a tow.

   Since I was sitting among the gold fans, I got caught up in their
excitement, and was almost as happy as they when the gold team won by a
score of two to one.

   The banquet served after the soccer game was even more sumptuous than
the earlier meal, and was accompanied by a superb red wine.  As you may
know, wine doesn't hold up well under the stresses of Folder jumps, and so
is not found on interstellar runs.  The Arkadians, though, had learned how
to grow the grapes under controlled conditions and to make excellent wines.
With the addition of enough salt to enhance the flavors of the deliciously
tender meats, the meal was unsurpassed, and even included fish!

   When I asked Farley about this, he called over one of the Ark's
'farmer's' to explain it to me.  Seems the fish didn't care which way was
up, as long as they had places to hide, plenty of food, and well aerated
water.  Like the livestock grown from frozen embryos, the fish had
originally been grown from frozen eggs brought from Earth.  The only real
issue was keeping the water aerated enough so the fish wouldn't suffocate.
This problem was solved by the simple expedient of recirculating the water
in the 'fish tank' through an aerator.

   The meal was served in a much larger hall than the earlier one, and
since the tables lined the bulkheads, the entertainment took place in the
center of the sphere.  Juggling doesn't happen in free-fall, but a similar
skill, involving the passing of a number of objects rapidly back and forth
between two or more performers was at least as impressive.  The highlight
of the evening, however, was the free fall ballet performed to an old Earth
tune that Mary identified as having been composed by someone named
Tchaikovsky.  The grace and beauty of the performers was nothing short of
miraculous, and the way they used each other's mass to keep the motion
flowing was an art form in and of itself.

   As the evening wound to a close, Farley asked if I would care to
accompany him to his quarters.  On the way, we passed a number of
crewmembers and Arkadians in passionate clinches.  The Arkadian women,
especially, were aggressive about seeking out my male crewmembers.

   I raised an eyebrow and gave Farley a smile when I notice four brown
women pulling one of my guys into a room.

   "We have issued a special dispensation in order to capture as much new
genetic material as possible." He laughed, "Any woman who gets pregnant by
one of you will be allowed to give birth.  Normally, an unauthorized
pregnancy results in mandatory abortion.  We have struggled to keep our
population rates constant, but even with high infant mortality rates, if we
weren't very strict about this, we would soon overload our systems."

   "And now?" I asked.

   "Actually," he said, "the debate still rages over whether the new DNA is
worth the strain on our resources, but if your comments before the party
hold any truth, they may also make the arguments against allowing
additional births moot!"

   "I think you have a superb opportunity to become a premier resort. 
Hell, old people might want to just come out here to live!" I replied, "But
that's a discussion we'll have tomorrow!"

   We had entered a room with a vid-screen on one bulkhead, and velcro
straps at various places around it.  Furniture would have been redundant, I
suppose.  How much more relaxed can you get than not having any weight?

   In a strange parody of a romantic lover on earth, Farley turned to me
and folded me into a passionate kiss.  He was actually quite a good kisser,
and I allowed my hands to glide over his muscular back, then drift down
toward his maleness.

   As we tumbled slowly across the room, I stroked him to hardness - about
two strokes worth - and reached lower to fondle his balls.  What I
encountered, instead, was a metal pouch of some sort.

   "Lead." he whispered into my ear.  "We don't have much of it so we use
it where it counts!  Helps minimize the number of mutations."

   "Ah!" I replied.  Not that I'd have to worry about mutations.  I wasn't
allowing myself to get pregnant before the Golden Hind's odyssey was over.

   Making love in null gravity has been a dream of many people in mankind's
history, and the Arkadians certainly knew ways to make it happen, but I'm
here to tell you, if you want a down and dirty fuck, you need something
besides your partner to hang onto.

   Farley inserted himself into my wet pussy as we drifted across the room.
His toes grabbed my calves while his hands grabbed my buttocks.  I figured
the best place for my hands was on his buttocks, and it worked out okay. 
His hands pulled me up.  My hands and his legs pulled me down.  It was a
lot of effort, and not very satisfying for either of us, so the next time
we bumped gently into the bulkhead, Farley turned us so that I was between
him and the bulkhead, grabbed handles and straps with hands and feet, and
started nailing me to the wall.

   NOW we were FUCKING!  At some point, he pulled my legs up and hooked my
calves over his shoulders, then started really pouring it to me!

   It was a good, hard, fuck, but I didn't have to contend with his weight
crushing me.  As a result, I was able, for the first time in my life, to
focus solely on the sensation of the long, hard cock sliding swiftly in and
out of me!  It was incredible, and I wasted no time getting to my first
climax!

   Farley was in no hurry to cum and took his time.  He pulled out for a
moment, and turned me to face the bulkhead.  He guided my hands to
hand-holds, then strapped my thighs almost perpendicular to my body with
velcro straps.  I felt like a specimen pinned to dissection tray - open,
vulnerable.

   Resuming his grip on the bulkhead, Farley re-entered me from behind.  Oh
God!  What a masterful cocksman!  His probe explored every inch of my
insides, driving me to three or four more climaxes, then withdrew, poking
tentatively at my little brown ring.

   I pushed my hips away from the bulkhead to give him better access and
groaned as he filled my ass!

   "Oh yes!" I cried, "Fuck my ass!"

   With my thighs strapped down, I needed only one hand to hold my torso in
place, so I reached down with my right to stroke my clit as Farley pounded
my ass!  He was grunting and had abandoned all pretense at finesse as he
rutted in my fundament.  Fine with me!  I love a good, hard, assfuck, and I
was getting that WITHOUT having to support my lover's weight!  This time, I
came as I felt his cock dumping warm goo deep inside my body!  Farley went
rigid for several seconds, pushing my pelvis against the bulkhead with
every ounce of his strength!

   We rested, twitching and spasming, for several minutes.  It was
wonderful to be surrounded by my partner's warmth without the strain of
supporting his weight, and I drifted off to sleep.

   I couldn't have slept for more than a few moments when I felt Farley's
wilting member pulled slowly from within me.

   "Would you like to shower?" He asked.

   "We can do that?" Somehow, the idea of being able to shower in null
gravity had never occurred to me.  Of course, taking a bath was going to be
even harder.

   "Sure!" Farley replied, "I'll show you!"

   In another chamber - their spherical shape made it difficult to think of
them as rooms - a cylinder about seven feet long was held in place by a
pair of pipes that went into each of its ends.  A big red arrow With the
word 'Head' at its tip adorned the front of the cylinder.  When Farley
pulled on a small handle, most of the front opened outward.

   "Unfortunately," Farley grinned, leering at my naked body, "it will only
hold one person.  Water on/off is here..." he put his finger on a button,
"...temperature control here..." he touched a knob, "...soap dispenser,
shampoo dispenser.  When you turn the water off, the airflow will increase
and you'll be dry in no time.  Air shuts off when you open the door."

   I slipped into the chamber and pulled the door shut behind me. 
Immediately, warm air started flowing into the shower from above my head,
pushing my feet against the grate at the other end.  I touched the water
switch and was pleasantly surprised that the water came out warm from the
first drops.  I adjusted the temperature to suit my tastes, figured out how
to pump the shampoo and soap into my hand without losing too much, and
eventually emerged with feeling refreshed, though my hair was still
slightly damp.

   Against Farley's protests, I insisted on getting back to the 'Hind to
relieve the duty officer and allow the port watch to turnover and get some
liberty.  Ever the gentleman, Farley insisted on escorting me back to the
shuttle bay.

   "You know," I said, as we made our way back through the Ark, "the only
real problem with you guys becoming a premier resort for the FEAP is the
fact that you're continually moving away from earth.  Besides the
navigational niceties that entails for ships wanting to find you, it also
means that eventually you'll get too many jumps away to bother with."

   "Well," Farley replied, "the maneuvering thrusters still work.  The
original crew moved 'em to the outside of the plastifoam in case we
encountered any more space junk and had to get out of the way.  I reckon we
could do a series of small burns that'd eventually get us turned sorta
parallel to Sol's path, if we had the right nav data."

   I started to ask why they didn't just do a single long burn, but then
realized that would be pretty hard on people unaccustomed to gravity.

   "We can give you the nav data you need." I said instead, "You'll have to
keep a close eye on the effect of your first burn to calculate your exact
mass..."

   "Nah!" he interrupted, "Captain Davenport knows all that to the gram! 
Doesn't want to be caught guessing if she has to do any emergency
maneuvering!  She's not too happy about the extra shuttle and bodies right
now, but since it's been generations since we actually had to dodge
anything, I guess we'll be all right."

   The rest of the liberty party was converging on the shuttle bay at the
same time we were, and I bade Farley farewell.  The bosun got a full head
count and I felt a sense of pride in my crew.  They knew how to party, but
they didn't forget their duty.

   On the way back to the Golden Hind, I couldn't help but overhear the
crew excitedly swapping stories about their first null gravity sex.

   "Man, those ZeeGee girls are wild!" one said, "I had three of 'em all
insisting that I get 'em pregnant!  Tell you what, if they ain't carryin'
Earth babies this mornin' it ain't for lack of tryin'!"

   "That's nothin'!" one of the female crewmembers piped up, "I was
free-fallin' with three guys!  Man, they had me watertight an' give me a
right royal reamin' in all three holes, but it was cool, you know?  I
wasn't squashed under their weight!  Damn!  It was like they hadn't had sex
with a woman in years!"

   "Prob'ly hadn't!" another man piped up, "one'a them ZeeGee spiderwomen
told me they ain't allowed to get pregnant unless they got special
permission.  You know, population control an' all, so usually, the women
have sex with the women an' the guys do it with other guys."

   "Yeah, that's what I heard, too!" someone else said, "An' they ain't got
no pills or nothin' to keep 'em from gettin' knocked up, so, to avoid a
forced abortion, they just do it with the same sex!"

   "That's okay with me!" another guy said, "I wound up with a married
couple.  Only way they 'uz ever gonna have kids 'uz if they had a Earth
baby, so hubby jus' pulled up behind me and pretended he'uz doin' his wife,
an' she closed her eyes an pretended it was him doin' her.  Here I am in
the middle, screwin' the wife to beat the band, while her ol' man's reamin'
out my shit chute an' dreamin' of his ol' lady's pussy!"

   That got a round of laughter and some good-natured ribbing, then someone
else told her story, and so it went, all the way back to the 'Hind.

   After a good 'night's' sleep, I had Mary prepare the navigational data
to make the Ark's course change possible.  I got a signed statement of
intent to open a Zero Gravity resort, added nav data and transponder
frequency and signature, and packed it off in the personal mail pouch that
went with the Folder drone carrying our report.  It was addressed to a
fellow I'd once dated on Earth who was in the luxury resort promotion
business.

   We collected the last of our liberty parties and, after roll call
assured us that none had decided to become ZeeGees, headed off to find
another colony.