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From: "Elf M. Sternberg" <elf@pendorwright.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 185 / 01075  Molecules In A Vacuum (0)
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Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:10:10 -0400
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Molecules In A Vacuum
Seren, Yavar 13, 1075
Captain R. Chihuro shouted. "Hello? Raven?"

"Back here!"

Chihuro followed the voice through one door, then another, until she
found a lit room with wooden counters and what looked like a moderately
large stove and oven. It sharply contrasted the vast square meters of
stainless steel tables and specialized ovens, roasters, and stove-tops
of the main kitchen. "What's this?"

Raven, a tall Ssphynx whose real name Chihuro could look up if she
really desired, trotted out from behind a wood-topped island. "This is
the executive kitchen. You didn't think I was using the main kitchen for
all of those meals, did you?"

"Well, yes, actually, I did." Chihuro noticed that Raven once again had
Pamthreat black fur. "I see you found enough fur dye."

"Mei made it for me," Raven said. "I hope you don't mind."

"I'm only a temporary captain, Raven," Chihuro said. "And personal
aesthetics aren't my concern unless they represent a hazard. Does it?"

"Does what?"

"Can the dye be hazardous?"

"I don't think so. Would Mei give me something that could be dangerous?"

"She's not a Pendorian AI, so I don't know," Chihuro said. "She might
not have the same parameters as the rest of us."

"Hmm." Raven considered for a moment, then said, "I'll just have to ask
her. She did say it wasn't toxic and could be eaten safely. Breathing...
If I get stuck in an environment suit, I don't know." She looked up.
"What brings the Captain down to my lowly mess, anyway?"

Chihuro took a deep breath. "I've been noticing a few problems among the
crew, and I came down to find out if you could assist with a solution."
Raven tilted her head to listen. "This ship is too big, Raven. There are
eleven of us on board a ship meant to hold thousands, and do it in
comfort and style for several years. I haven't seen Nantonly since he
found this paper collection of written music from the last Dark Age. So
I'm afraid my solution is to impose upon you once more."

Raven grinned and clutched a long-handled wooden stirring spoon in one
hand. "Do you worst, Captain."

"I'm afraid my worst isn't going to be much fun. You're the most
put-upon of all my crewmembers. This ship is automated enough that other
than exercises to keep sharp my crew languishes most of the day away.
But they still need to eat and most of them are still coming to you for
that."

Raven pointed at a dumbwaiter set into one wall. "A lot of them are
using the automatic food production systems. It's nutritious but not
tasty, not like what I can cook in this little kitchen. They come for
one meal, but not three or four. It's a long trek from engineering to
here."

Chihuro nodded. She had heard that excuse from Heiga and Misha. "But
you're the only one who sees everyone on a daily basis, even if it's
just a thank you from them as they pass your mid-meal cart and grab a
sandwich. So you're the one I need now. I need you to prepare one meal a
week that we all sit down to, all eleven of us. I've already asked Mei
and she's agreed to be the server if you'll agree to cook it and show
her how."

"I'll have to serve one with her."

Chihuro took a deep breath. "I'm delegating this to you, Raven. You
figure out how it's done."

"Aye, aye, Captain." She looked down at a comconsole, an old-style one
complete with a keyboard, and then back to Chihuro. "Y'know, you've been
a good captain."

Chihuro had the grace to be startled. "I have?"

Raven nodded. "You know when to get out of people's way."

"I have no idea how to prepare a party, Raven."

"Exactly. And you don't have the time to learn. I do. Now, if you have
no other orders for me...?"

"I'll get out of your way. Right."

To Chihuro's relief, nobody complained about the Call To Dinner, as
Raven had described it in her email to everyone on the ship. She had
expected there to be some resistance, since Pendorians were notorious
for avoiding group activities. She marvelled at how well they turned
themselves into starship crews, since they all seemed to be heading off
in their own directions.

She had read that teamwork for Pendorians consisted not of agreeing to
all walk in the same direction, but to all walk down the same road at
more or less the same pace. Ritans, in contrast, tended to walk all in
the same direction. Since she was the only Ritan on board, that made
doing so easy; it did not, however, make her job of leading the
Pendorians comprehensible.

She looked at the invitation--paper, no less, hand-delivered by Meigi.
She wondered where the fiber had come from. This ship had wonderful
recycling and power management facilities for its time, or so Kennet
kept telling her, but did it really have the excess necessary to run its
information technologies with paper? She supposed it would have to, to
have it on hand like this.

The excutive dining hall was down a gray, blank hallway from the bridge,
but the room itself was luxurious, with a dark wooden table meant to
seat twenty with one rounded end-- apparently to make sure there was no
confusion between the head and the foot. She had the head. Meigi to her
left, Nantonly to her right, the rest arrayed according to rank. Putting
the ship's AI at her left hand had been a curious decision, but Raven
had approved it.

The rest of the room was equally decorous. Despite the obvious hazard,
the dinnerware was china and glass, fragile and elegant, held in a
wooden case behind the captain's chair. The walls were cream felt with a
red runner ankle-high and brass trim about the oaken, varnished doors.

She stood behind her chair and waited while the others filed is. She
took pleasure in their punctuality. She was trying to be a captain and
succeeding, and they knew this event was related to that effort, and
they respected her for it. The unspoken language between captain and
associates flowed in a different direction for her now, and she saw how
well it worked.

"Please be seated." Finding ten benches suitable for Centaurs had been
one of Meigi's first tasks, and she had managed, somehow. They had
actually been on board at the beginning, meant for Ssphynx and Centaur
physiologies, and she had found them in something she had referred to as
'the attic.' Apparently, that was where Nantonly spent most of his time
too these days.

"I know you're all a bit nervous about leaving the bridge unattended,
but Meigi assures me that the state of the ship is unchanged over the
past four days, we have no course corrections coming up for three more
days at least, and we're all just a hop away from the bridge anyway.

"I won't belabor the point. You and I haven't passed each other in
hallways, or made contact, or done much in the way of staying together.
Pendorians have two qualities that I know of-- they like each other's
company, and they love their independence. You've all been practicing
the latter. I understand that. This ship is huge, a mystery, and we are
like molecules in this vacuum, flying apart as fast as possible to fill
as much of the space as we can. If we collide, it's sheer probability.

"I want to put a stop to that. I want us to see more of each other.
We're sixty-three days into this voyage, almost one-third of the trip.
Let's see if we can't stick a little closer. So I'm hosting these meals
twice a week, on Seren and Aldea. Raven and Meigi have agreed to do the
cooking, but if any of you have a creative hand at the stove-- and I'm
sure some of you do, cooking is virtually a religion among Pendorians--
feel free to submit a menu to Raven."

"So, let's eat."

Raven and Meigi did indeed serve the meal. Chihuro marvelled at the
fresh fruits and vegetables, the tender "roast beast," as Meigi called
it, and the rest of the meal. Only the bread disappointed, and Meigi
apologized before serving it saying that she suspected she would have to
cull yeast stores until she found something more functional.

"By the way, Captain," Heiga said as the dessert was passed around. "We
found where Meigi's processors are."

Everyone looked up at that. "Oh?" Chihuro said, trying to sound
dispassionately interested. She was, in fact, passionately interested.
"Where?"

Heiga gestured. "All around us. Malimpseen's miracle appears to not be
that he managed to find an addtional 64K of primaries on board to run
his AI, but that he wrote a communications protocol that allows all the
hundreds of thousands of standard primaries on board to interact when
they're down."

"Where are they all?"

"In everything. Apparently, that's the first step of Mal's plan. Meigi
isn't just a pleasure 'droid. Have you ever noticed that she seems to
know everything that's going on in this ship all the time? He built her
to be a ship's AI."

"So she's a ship's AI with a good interface," Chihuro said. "That's not
unusual."

"Actually, it is in a way," Heiga said. "You see, the difference is that
our AIs are built separate from the ship and then are incorporated into
their bodies; they're the only species where we've come to accept
multimorphism because we've come to expect that machines change, even
machines that are citizens. Meigi is different. All of the components on
this ship, regardless of their need, have good standard or superstandard
MAP primaries installed. Mal specified that in the design of the ship.
He also wrote a protocol that allows the primaries to dedicate their
idle time to giving Meigi consciousness."

<!-- WTF blurb OVER? -->Chihuro considered that momentarily. Then what Heiga was really trying
to say dawned on her. <!-- WTF blurb OVER? -->She looked at Meigi, then
back to Heiga, and before she could stop herself she blurted, "You mean
to tell me, I'm sleeping with the ship's screensaver?"

"Something like that," Heiga grinned. The rest of the crew were
grinning, some trying to be secretive about it. Heiga's face sobered.
"The other fact is that, when this ship is fully functional, Meigi isn't
nearly as smart as she is now."

"Oh." Meigi's small voice made Chihuro look up. "I'm sorry, Chi. I
didn't know. I just thought... " She linked her fingers together and
twisted her hands, a gesture Chihuro already knew intimately; it
indicated that she was encountering a situation with humans that she
didn't understand and didn't know how to respond.

Chihuro had learned how to reassure the poor girl. She reached out and
put her hand on Meigi's, then smiled. "It's okay, Meigi. Now that we
know, it... I imagine this presents some interesting legal
complications, but since I don't have a legal officer right now I'm
going to have to read up on the ramifications myself." She grimaced.
Reading specifications was not her idea of recreation. "In the meantime,
let's enjoy the dessert." It was simple as desserts go-- ice cream and
blackberries, and to Chihuro sheer decadence.

Since she was captain, Chihuro had permitted herself to schedule dinner
right before her personal evening time. She had wanted Meigi's company
before dinner, and right now she wanted it even more.

Meigi hepled Raven clean up while Chihuro made her way back to the cabin
she and Mei had agreed to share together. They kept separate rooms still
along with this common space, and Mei always knew where she was at all
times. She shucked her Pendorian crew shirt and coat, dropping the 'taur
skirt that always brushed her crus and irritated her fell. She couldn't
understand why the Pendorian space service still insisted on
uncomfortable uniforms.

Naked, she curled up in bed, picked up her padd and pulled up the law
regarding first millenia robotics, especially Terran designs. The law
there was mostly case law and the express opinion of the AIs who had
overseen the cases, but case law always hovered around two points:
transparency for the AI, and safety for the organics. Both made sense to
Chihuro, but she wondered how Meigi would react to demands from other
AIs that her thought processes be laid bare to any other AI who should
request it. She would have the reciprocial right, of course, but would
she know how or why to use it? Would she care? These were all questions
the AIs would want answered before they would let her persist.

Persist. The word rang hollow in Chihuro's imagination as she read it.
What they really meant was "live." She read on and found other details
that corresponded with something Heiga had told her at dinner.

She was so engrossed in her reading that she didn't hear the door open.
Her awareness of Meigi's presence came when she felt a body move close
in behind her, and then warm hands were slipping over her shoulders and
down her chest, fingers curling to cup her breasts, the crux of the
fingers positioned with precision to touch her nipples. The effect was
as startling as ever. Before Meigi, Chihuro had never experienced her
breasts as arousing. Other people had, of course, and she liked the way
their natural size and shape had attracted eyes and hands and lovers,
but until Mei touching them had been as effective as touching some other
body part, like her belly-- intimate, perhaps, but not arousing. Mei
could create a conduit of lust of flow directly from her nipples to
between her thighs, down the long length of her taurid body, with the
most gentle of touches. Maybe that was the secret, after all, the
gentleness of it.

Whatever secret Mei knew about her body, she had been good to keep it in
the bedroom, or at least in private. Chihuro didn't want to reveal to
her crew just how much she liked Mei, or how badly she was going to
regret giving up command of the Dyaus, especially if it was true that
unlike many if not most AIs Mei could not be easily disassociated from
her body.

Mei was now stroking her arms, sending chills through her that reached
all the way down into her tail. "Find something?" the tall femHuman
robot said.

"Just research," Chihuro said.

"Chi, are you worried about me?"

"A little." She turned to look up at Mei. "There are... conditions to
your legal existence."

"I'm not surprised that there would be," Mei said. "I didn't even exist
when this ship was made. I came into existence after we left, when Mal
completed his networking project. That's what Heiga explained to me
during dinner." She leaned close, pressing her own small breasts to
Chihuro's upper back, her voice soft in Chihuro's ear. "Let's put them
aside. We have over a hundred days left. Do you know what those days
will feel like to me? I didn't begin to understand what it meant to be
*smart* until you brought the ship's power up to full. When Heiga
started turning things on..." She kissed Chi's neck softly, working her
way up until she was teasing Chi's ears. "I must have been a complete
airhead when you met me."

"An armed one."

"I've never pulled a trigger. I don't know what I would have really
done."

"I'm glad we didn't find out."

"Me, too," Mei murmured. "It would definitely have been a terrible way
to start this relationship."

"Mmm," Chi said. She turned to face Mei and kiss her hard, muzzle to
mouth, tongue slipping easily out to brush the other woman's, to touch
and taste, a little whisper of coffee with mint and whiskey still
hovering somewhere on Mei's breath. Mei, she realized, had already
ditched her clothes and come to her naked. For a brief moment, she
siezed on the thought that she knew Mei's inner layout well enough to
know that there were no weapons hiding in that body, and wondered why
she should care. Did Mei come to her naked to reassure her that she
wasn't going to fly away with her ship-- but was it her ship? Was it a
mere technicality? She didn't know anymore.

Then Mei's fingers worked their magic on her fur, stroking away her
worries in a patter of touches across her back and down her spine that
made her shiver and moan unashamedly. Mei made her happy. Mei's mouth
was on the back of her neck, Mei's legs straddled her body. "Lie down."

For the next hour, Chi luxuriated in a massage that was as expert as
anything she had ever received from a Pendorian or Ritan. Mei was kind
to her, avoiding any tickling at all, which Chi appreciated because she
was too damned ticklish for her own good. Mei's hands pushed every last
knot of stress out of her body and left her feeling like a very large,
green puddle of Ritan. It was only when Mei's hands approached her
backside and slid down between her thighs that Chi finally let it all
go. She turned over and said, "Lick me?"

"With pleasure," Mei replied, lowering her mouth down to Chi's cunny.
Chi wanted to hold her breath but she dared not. She couldn't see what
was happening all the way down there, and she didn't really care to see
so long as she... felt Mei's mouth touch her mound, fingers landing at
the same moment to spread her further open, to expose her soft,
sensitive pink insides to Mei's exploring tounge. Mei already knew where
the Ritan equivalent of the clitoris was, that bundle of nerves very
effectively hidden right inside that bottom well of her cunny, that spot
that was visually indistinguishable from the rest of her but oh yes it
worked, it worked so well. Mei's teased her, worked her way around Chi's
cunt with relish, worked on those nerves as if nothing else mattered and
maybe nothing else did.

Chi barely had time to register Mei's campaign of pleasure before she
was already coming the first time. It was all too much even as Mei
slipped one, then two fingers into her cunny, then three. That tongue
was still there, prenhensile in its effectiveness, pleasing her. "Fah,
Mei, fah... yes!" Her body clenched with pleasure as another orgasmic
wave flooded her. Mei was making her own little mewing sounds, those
strange little sounds. Chi thought, *Whistle while you work...* until
she felt a finger at her anus. She had not let anyone in there in a long
time, had not enjoyed it the few times she'd tried it, but by now she
trusted Mei enough to let her try, and that one slim finger slipped
inside her and made her aware of her insides in a new way. Mei's
thrusting fingers in her cunt send powerful waves, reports of pleasure
that pulled her along, an inevitable tide of ecstacy washing over her
until she screamed out Mei's name, every muscle and nerve wrapped in the
release of Mei's pleasure.

Mei slipped her fingers out of Chi and thrust herself up the length of
the Ritan's stretched out body. "Mmm," she sighed. "Watching you come
makes me wet."

"I'm sorry I can't fuck you," Chi managed to say. She was, a bit. Mei
had said she liked that. But she liked it because it made Mal happy. If
it wouldn't make Chi happy, there was no point to trying it.

"Mmm. You can kiss me."

They rolled over on the bed until Chi had Mei pinned under her, Mei's
legs down around her lower taurid chest. Chi peppered Mei's face with
kisses before they settled into one long kiss that threatened to
overflow Chi's soul. "I love you," Chi said.

"Is that a smart thing to say?"

"No," Chi said. "But it's true."

They lay snuggled together. "Mei, when you get... to Owad, the AIs there
will want to examine you. Two will have to agree that you're not just
not a danger to others but really a boon to organicity before they let
you loose."

"If I'm not?"

"They'll destroy the Dyaus and throw the remains into the sun, I guess.
They're pretty serious about AIs that aren't 'with the plan.'"

"What is the plan?"

"I don't know." Chi pushed some of Mei's black hair out of her face. "I
don't want that to happen to you. I know that it's... it's having a
fundamental belief about the role of... of organic beings... in the fate
of the universe."

"Sounds like a religious idea."

"It might be. You'd have to talk to the AIs."

"That will have to wait until I get to Owad."

"There's one other thing. If... If Heiga's right about the relationship
of your intelligence to this ship's operational condition, then your
personality is affected by what's happening on the ship at any one time.
Like you said, you're smart when everything's on, but nobody's using
it." Mei nodded. "If that's true, then this ship is your body, and we're
just guests. That conflicts with the archeological desire Captain
Kumberra expressed when we first got underway."

"It's my body, but... I'm not attached to it." Mei smiled. "Not that
way. I don't mind if teams come and start exploring it, so long as they
don't affect me. I mean, do you change your mind when doctors poke and
prod you?"

"Only about doctors."

Mei laughed, and Chi smiled. Mei said, "You need sleep."

"I'll get some. I just want you to know. This isn't as easy as showing
up and saying 'We're here.' AIs are assumed to have enormous powers and
responsibilities, and your fitness will be judged on your ability to
handle those."

"I'll be okay."

"Promise?"

"The best I can," Mei said. "Go to sleep."

----------------------
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik 
and Related Tales.

The entire archive of stories can be found at:
http://www.pendorwright.com/journals

Copyright 2006 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
Distributed under the Creative Commons License BY-ND-NC/1.0
Some Rights Reserved. 

Elf's latest stories are available in paperback!  Buy 
the genderbending novel _Sterlings_, available
now from http://stores.lulu.com/elfsternberg

--

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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