Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 20

"Like fuck, she does!" Solange exclaimed. "I never did!"

Gloria laughed quietly.

"Why don't you have Brad yourself, then?" she asked.

"The Council ruled that I'm unavailable to him," Solange said.

Gloria laughed again.

"The great Solange Malkasdaughter, Protean chief of the mighty Herders, now obeys the Council? How wonderful!"

Solange laughed as well.

"Ex-chief," she corrected.

However, she took Gloria's hand and rested the palm on her belly. There was a slight bulge that the near-sighted woman had missed when she studied Solange naked by candle-light. Gloria kissed Solange on the cheek.

"Congratulations!" she said, "and about time."

"There'll be the same four-year gap as we Herders have between Clones."

"Very wise," Gloria said.

"Now, no more deflection. Why not you and Brad? Just to know what it's like. It'll help you make decisions about the future, when more men come."

"If more men come," Gloria corrected. "Brad has to make it back to Celetaris alive, and the next ship-load of men have to get here unscathed."

"Yes, counting all that. Men will come, Gloria, and they will change Samothea forever. The more we know of men, the better we will be prepared."

"I'll think about it. Goodnight, Solange."

"Goodnight, Gloria. We must do this again sometime."

******

A couple of days later, most of the women of Samothea were in the Cloner City to meet Brad, to learn about the Samothea Project and to hear the Council's discussions. Many of Ezra's bedmates were there with their daughters, which gave Ezra great joy.

The girls went to the school in the morning and, after lunch, there was an hour's playtime before chores and preparing for dinner. Ezra came to every playtime, which was always raucous. He would kiss his daughters and let them climb on him. He kissed the girls from the Cloner, Farmer and Miner tribes as well, so they shouldn't feel left out.

Some of the younger Cloner girls picked up the habit from his daughters of calling him 'Daddy.' He didn't want to hurt their feelings by correcting them, so they all came to call him 'Daddy.'

Ezra would sit comfortably on a bench and watch the girls playing tag or having running races (Freya usually won). They danced around the maypole or enjoyed the rough wooden see-saw and a wooden climbing frame that Yumi made.

Some of the Cloner mothers and Ezra's bedmates would also be on-hand in case of injuries or tantrums, though there were few injuries and fewer tantrums. It seemed that there was no time for such nonsense when there was always so much work to do and playtime was so short.

Yumi's son, Hayate, joined in the games or neglected them as he wished. If there was any doubt that a boy growing up among thirty girls might not develop boyish characteristics, the idea was quickly dispelled. While the girls daintily avoided the muddy puddles left by the night-rain, Hayate dived in face-first.

Anything interesting, however dirty, that didn't go into his mouth ended up on his clothes. No girls, charging around the play-area or the obstacle course, had such a suicidal disregard for their own safety as Hayate, who climbed everything and jumped off everything. He could climb almost as well as Freya, who was more than a year older than him. Yumi thanked God many times a day that there were no roads with cars for him to run thoughtlessly into. And woe betide anyone who said to Hayate "Don't do that!" because that's exactly what Hayate most wanted do from then on.

Whenever he watched his daughters play, Ezra was surprised at how different their personalities were. Aged between two and four (there were younger girls with their mothers at home), they mostly took after their mothers in their looks (Ezra was relieved to see) but their personalities were their own.

Already he could see which girls would be vibrant and which would be calm; which would be pensive and which inquisitive; which jolly and which sedate. Even Megan Herder's identical twins, who had identical cheeky smiles, had different personalities.

It was fascinating to any observer. Ezra's only problem was that, except for Freya who was the oldest, Vera Herder's daughter, Penny, who was the tallest, Tahney who was the bossiest (which he was happy to report to Solange) and maybe ten more, he struggled to remember their blessed names.

It was embarrassing and Carlin and Yael, who often joined him, helping the girls skip rope, a dozen at a time, teased him for his poor memory. It was easy for them, he complained, besides being younger and female, they grew up in society with few books and had to train their memories. That poor excuse made them laugh even harder at him.

******

After a week, Brad had all the information he needed to give the most welcome report possible to the Samothea Project. He wanted to stay the rest of his life on a planet full of single women, but his duty was to go back and report. He could excuse a week-long visit to gather data but Danielle would crucify him if he further delayed bringing back the good news about Ezra.

Reluctantly, Brad said goodbye to his new friends and put on his air-suit. With the audience a safe distance away, he engaged the compressed-air cylinders. There was a roar from the jet-pack as he leapt straight up into the air.

He flew over the Cloner City, waving goodbye. Heading south-west toward the equator, he turned out to sea and began his climb, accelerating as he went, forced air hissing madly as it refilled the cylinders in preparation for a final rocket-burst into space.

In three hours he'd caught up with his space-ship and, not long afterward, had primed the beacon, set the computer to guide his path and punched the button to engage the hyperdrive motor. Brad was on his way back to Celetaris.

******

After Brad left, there was a meeting in the market square to discuss the new situation. The women were subdued, partly in reaction to the excitement of Brad's visit and partly in recognition of an awesome change to their society.

The first thing to be decided was the political structure of Samothea. Cloning was now redundant. So was the Currency Committee. If men were coming, there needed to be someone to talk for the whole planet. A change in the government of Samothea was the logical response. It was time to revive the old position of 'Prefect of Samothea'.

Gloria put herself forward and, for the second time in a year, Solange stood for a new political position. There were other candidates but not the most popular one: despite many women trying to persuade him to stand, Ezra steadfastly refused.

That afternoon, Gloria was elected Prefect. She appointed Solange as her deputy and recruited the Currency Committee, the tribal chiefs and the Cloner Council as an Advisory Committee.

Gloria and the Advisory Committee held public discussions in the Council Chamber, inviting anyone with an opinion on the future of Samothea to come to the high table and speak (so long as she kept her statement short and to the point).

The meetings were well-attended and passionately argued on all sides. Solange, Madam Scientist and Madam Medic, aided by Yumi and Ezra, were in favour of resuming the colonisation of Samothea, saying it would be a good thing if more people came, bringing with them modern technology, modern medicine, transport and communications.

Hover-cars, jet-boats, computers and laser hand-tools would all improve life on the planet. They could re-stock the forest and farms.

The anti-colonisation party included Mirselene, Madam Recorder and Madam Lawspeaker. They were fearful of the damage male colonists would do to the existing society of Samothea.

Mirselene argued:

"If, despite his strong objection to it, the women here treat Ezra with exaggerated deference (and need I remind you quite how loopy you Cloner women were about Brad?), then what effect would more men have?"

"Ezra is a gentleman and we were lucky that Brad was, too," she added, "but we mightn't be so lucky again. The women of Samothea are simple folk. What would stop other men dominating us? Who will protect our freedom and property from clever interlopers?"

It was a serious problem for the pro-colonisation party and left Calliope, Galatea, the Farmer Chief and the Miner Chief all uncommitted.

As chairman, Gloria was neutral, asking questions of both sides and intervening only when the discussion strayed too far from the topic. The dispute went on for days and there was no sign it would be resolved before Brad returned with a bigger crew.

******

With the Advisory Committee entrenched in argument, the rest of the women began leaving the Cloner City to go home. They all had work to do.

Mirselene gave Yael permission to remain another week to stay with her girlfriend, Carlin, sharing her work as a Junior by putting on an apron to wait at the table or wash up. Yael was also useful in mentoring Freya, who attended the nursery school in the Cloner Hall, making friends with her half-sister Tahney, while Ezra helped the Committee with advice and information.

When discussions in the Council Chamber began repeating themselves, Madam Medic excused herself from the Advisory Committee and went back to work. She doubled up on Carlin's medical training, to make up for the time they'd missed.

While Carlin was occupied, Yael went exploring. Toward the end of her week, she took a long trek upstream from the Cloner City, following cart-tracks into the foothills of the White Mountains. She walked through a patchwork of green fields planted with potatoes, carrots, beetroot and turnips.

As she climbed into the undulating foothills, the crops turned to grey oats, white cattle beans, green wheat with proud upright heads and golden barley with sensitive drooping heads.

Yael was looking for Hazel and Wildchild, whom she found at mid-day digging irrigation channels. The channels got clogged over time and sometimes needed diverting into other fields as the crops were rotated between cereals, legumes and root-vegetables.

It was a lovely surprise but Wildchild and Hazel had little time to chat. They put Yael to work and the three of them dug channels until sunset.

After a hard day's work, they needed to rest. They sat on the ground looking downhill toward the coast. The Cloner City was about ten miles away, its white box buildings and larger Council Hall recognisable as shiny dots. The snaking river lapped its northern edge, flowing lazily into the wide estuary, shimmering pink in the setting sun.

Yael sighed.

"What is it, Yael?" Hazel asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "It's odd. I want things to change and I don't want things to change. I want to have hover-cars and jet-boats and all the things Ezra and Brad talked about; but I also want the life we have now: simple, friendly and peaceful."

Yael sighed again.

As the red sun set, the ears of corn in the field seemed to catch fire, their stalks throwing black shadows over the girls' feet.

"Do you think there's a way we could have all the technology but also keep our lives as they are?" Yael pondered. "I mean, with the tribes and Ezra and everything?"

Wildchild answered:

"I don't see how we can have the technology without the technology itself changing us, besides the new people who will come. I'd welcome some changes myself, though I don't know why we have to change everything. I want to think about how to manage the changes that will occur."

"Come on, Yael," Hazel said. "Let's go to the feast. You've earned it."

"You won't believe the food the Farmers eat," Wildchild added.

Yael was welcomed by the Farmers and Miners. She slept with Hazel and Wildchild in their hut. Lying between two hot naked girls, who took turns to kiss her goodnight, Yael felt comforted. She hugged her friends and they intertwined their legs and arms. This was the first time the horny couple had slept together without making love.

Yael stayed another day, making new friends among the Herders and Miners. She loved the way they worked, singing together as they hoed, dug, weeded and sowed, sometimes in a long line across a field, their skirts flapping in the cool breeze from the mountains as they dispersed the corn from wicker baskets.

When she returned to the Cloner City, Yael was ready to go home.

******

A few days after Yael's departure, while the Advisory Committee were meeting in the Council Chamber, there was a raucous disturbance in the corridor outside. A girl's voice cried out:

"Daddy, Daddy! I want Daddy!"

It was Freya, running from the school into the Chamber, tears streaming down her red cheeks, crying with distress.

"Excuse me, Ladies," Ezra said to the Council as he got up to comfort his oldest daughter. "I think these are real tears."

He picked up Freya and carried her to the steps outside the Hall, sat down and held her in his lap.

"What is it, Sweetheart?" he asked.

"Them naughty girls ...!" Freya answered, spluttering between her sobs.

"What did those girls do?"

"... they said I wasn't a clone. Tell them I'm a clone, Daddy!"

"Do you know what a clone is?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it's a good thing to be a clone?"

Freya had calmed down now she was in his lap. The question further pacified her, giving her something to think about. She frowned as she contemplated.

"I don't know, Daddy. What's a clone?"

Ezra hesitated. How could he explain that easily, without suggesting that one kind of child is better than another?

"Well, there are two kinds of people on Samothea: clones and, er, 'mixed' people. Clones are exact copies of their mothers. Other children, like you, Yumi, Hayate, all my daughters and me, we're all 'mixed' because we've got mothers and fathers."

"You're not a clone?"

"No."

"And I'm not a clone?"

"No."

"Are we better than clones?"

"No, certainly not. All my bedmates are clones. You're mother's a clone."

"Mummy's a clone?"

"Yes."

This made Freya ponder. She understood most of what Ezra told her, and she dearly loved her mother, though she had been asleep more than a year in the Escape Pod. Freya remembered her as an image of angelic beauty, love and calm; but what worked most on her was her father's soft voice and placid manner.

Crystal, who was acting as a school-teacher, now ran up, apologising:

"Sorry, Ezra, I couldn't stop her. I had to settle the other girls before I could run after her."

"I know, Crystal. Don't worry. Freya's very fast."

"I am," the girl herself agreed, proud of her athletic prowess.

"I'm sorry for running away, Miss Crystal," she said earnestly, entirely without prompting from her father, stickler for good manners though he was.

"Good girl," he said to Freya. "Now give me a kiss and go back to the classroom with Crystal."

She kissed him and as the girls walked away, hand-in-hand, Freya told Crystal what she'd learned:

"I'm not a clone and Daddy's not a clone but Mummy is a clone. Are you a clone, Miss Crystal?"

"Yes I am, Freya."

"That's all right, Miss. It's no better to be a clone than a mixed."

******

Back with the committee, Ezra waited for the end of the session to announce his decision.

"Madam Gloria, Ladies," he said. "You have Yumi here to answer your questions about Earth. If you don't need me, I'd like to go back to my bedmates. I feel I'm neglecting them."

No one could fault Ezra's sense of loyalty and only Solange, with whom he had been sleeping for the last week, had a good reason to keep him in the Cloner City. She generously let him go.

"I will come with you," Mirselene said. "I've also neglected my duty to the tribe long enough."

Mirselene was content to let her anti-colonisation argument be carried on by Madam Lawspeaker and Madam Recorder: women just as hard-headed as she.

Galatea and Calliope also left for home at the same time.

Ezra took Freya with him and renewed his progress through the Outer Tribes, starting again at the end of the week with the Woodlanders.

2 Bad publicity

Brad returned safely to Celetaris. His debriefing brought profound and unexpected joy to Danielle, who wept at the wonderful news about Ezra.

When Brad told them about Ezra's thirty bedmates and thirty-five children (so far), those who were media-savvy counselled that they should try to manage the release of that item of news. No one, especially not Brad, should talk to the press for now.

The first person Danielle sent the good news to was Yumi's brother, Itsuki, because she knew she'd forget everything else as soon as she began talking to her parents. Yumi had requested that neither her family nor Michio Nakatani be told about her son; so Danielle left that item of information out of her message.

Afterward, Danielle spent hours talking to her parents on Earth, weeping again and wishing they were together to rejoice. She didn't know quite how to mention the subject of Ezra's children, so she just blurted it out in a single breath. She was grateful for the twenty-minute delay between their messages; but actually Mariotta and Nathan Goldrick were unfazed. Mariotta, in particular, was unshockable.

"I told the boy to get himself a wife and start giving me grandchildren," she said. "And if he didn't, then I would choose him a wife myself. It looks like my words finally sank in."

"Thirty-five grandchildren, Mum," Danielle cautioned.

"The more the merrier, I always say!"

******

When the Samothea Project Team met in the Physics Department of the Celetaris Institute for Science to plan the next mission, Rosa had some bad news.

"From the data gathered by Brad's instruments," she said, "we know that the cosmic rays are more powerful than we predicted. I doubt the shielding on Brad's beacon will last much more than six months. To be safe, we should send a traveller and a new beacon to Samothea within three months."

"That's an incredibly short schedule but I think it's feasible," Danielle said. "Do you have a vehicle in mind?"

"The current engine can take a fifty-ton traveller through a tethered link," Rosa answered, "but we need extra shielding, so I suggest a five-man mission in a planetary shuttle-craft with a hold for a pod and a twenty-ton beacon."

"The pod is for the woman with a brain tumour," Danielle explained to the team. "We have sponsorship for her treatment in the Medical Centre here."

"If we're to be ready in three months," Danielle concluded, "then we'll have to work to our maximum capacity. I'm counting on you to perform miracles. Do you all know your jobs? Yes? Then off you go!"

******

The publicity from Brad's mission was positive at first.

There was praise for an amazing technological achievement. The Physics Web was abuzz. There was wonder at finding the long-lost colony still surviving. Diplomatic offices were alive with the news. There was widespread interest in an all-female society; though some parts of the general public had salacious fun with the story of a man stranded on a planet full of women, triggering the kind of smutty male humour that circulates in rugby clubs and on the stock exchange.

So far it was just risqué jokes but Ezra's story was itching to be released. Despite multiple warnings that the story should be released carefully, Brad's mouth betrayed him again. He blurted out the details at a drunken party he was given to celebrate making the furthest and fastest manned hyperspace jump in history. No one could really blame him. It was too good a story to hold in and was bound to come out anyway.

However, Brad's report scandalised the prurient society of Celetaris, on whose benefaction the Institute for Science strongly depended. Stern opinions were recorded from local dignitaries and political bigwigs, so that the Institute's Board of Directors feared that Ezra's sexual exploits on Samothea might bring the Samothea Project and thus the University into disrepute.