Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 24

With eighty tons of minerals already stowed, the mission had been a great success, proving the wealth of the mineral sources and the viability of Tatiana's method of making micro-jumps. Now only Moon 18 was left to prospect. Their final target was one of the innermost moons. Large and hot, even viewed through the thickest rings of dust, the side facing the star was bright orange with molten lava. The moon's dark side was black and cool.

If they landed near the terminator, then they could scoop up molten lava and let it crystallise in the star's electromagnetic streams. Ezra called this solar system a natural laboratory for producing new and strange minerals. He might have underestimated its scientific and commercial potential.

Tatiana took the controls for the final micro-jump, which was the most dangerous one they would make, due to the proximity of the star and the intensity of its magnetic flux. She'd taken every precaution, triple-checking the parameters and running diags on the engines. She was confident and the girls were excited.

It was bad luck that, just as they emerged from hyperspace, Moon 18 suffered a volcanic eruption, spewing out lava and shaking with tremors. The ship was encased in lava and smoke. Tatiana reacted with a blast on the manoeuvring rockets to prevent an overshoot directly into the full heat of the star.

She steadied the ship and brought them down on the moon; but it was a moon so hot it was almost all liquid under a thin crust, which was quaking

with aftershocks and small eruptions through cracks in the surface. Seismic waves rattled the ship. Blasts of lava obscured the external cameras and blocked the positioning sensors. Even worse, the moon was not in gravitational lock with the star but was slowly spinning. The stability of its dark side was an illusion caused by a thick layer of black volcanic dust deposited by the smoking volcanic vents. The soot adhered to the thin crust and was burned off and replaced as the moon span.

Warning lights blinked insistently on the piloting console. The camera windows were filled with grey static. Compression hatches on the bulkheads sealed themselves with an urgent hiss. The doors to the galley, head and shower were all locked tight. But it was surprising how calm they all were.

The first problem was that they had only a few hours in their present position before the moon would turn to face the star. Then the flux would fry the ship and everything in it. If they took off from the moon and stayed in its shadow, then, after a few hours, its molten side would be beneath them, radiating heat from the boiling magma. The shields would not protect them for long under those circumstances. Either way, they had to leave.

The second problem was the difficulty of calculating another hyperspace jump without knowing their destination. Even a leap to empty space had risks if there were unknown anomalies on the path. They could be deflected anywhere.

"Is emergency," Tatiana declared in a matter-of-fact voice, without a hint of fear or panic. "We jump out of system to Origin Point. Make ready. Prepare to jettison cargo."

"Yes, Tatiana," the girls said, taking their seats and strapping in. Hazel was at the control, ready to give the command to eject the eighty tons of minerals they had carefully collected and analysed in the last three weeks. But Wildchild had a question.

"Tatiana, can we go back to Moon 17? It was safe and we can keep the cargo."

"Is not possible. We can't make sightings."

"We can use dead reckoning."

"We don't know location of Moon 17."

"We know its orbit. I can work it out."

"Is too dangerous. I promised Daniella."

"Would you jump back to Moon 17 if we weren't here with you?" Hazel asked.

"Da, but I am old and I don't want to live forever. You girls should not take risk."

"Tatiana, we understand that you want us to be safe," Hazel assured her, "but we want to learn how to be prospectors. Facing danger the right way is part of our training."

Tatiana thought for a minute. The girls understood the danger and were prepared to obey her. They were icy calm and thinking clearly. If ever there was a sign of them being good Prospectors, it was how they acted now. Tatiana was impressed.

"I make no decision," she said. "But we get parameters for Moon 17 and I check. Very good?"

"Very good," Hazel and Wildchild agreed.

Wildchild instructed the piloting computer to calculate the micro-jump. In the last three weeks, she had become so skilled at priming the hyperspace navigation system that, aided by a touch of her mathematical genius, she had invented some shortcuts, so the computer finished its calculation in less than thirty minutes. Tatiana checked over the results.

"Is good. How long we have?"

"An hour. Maybe more," Wildchild said.

"Then we take last samples. Same mass as fuel for jump. We go in twenty minutes. Agree?"

"Agreed."

Hazel worked the robot arms and stowed a half-ton of molten lava in a tank, while Wildchild updated the parameters for the micro-jump.

With the navigation system primed, the hyperdrive motor powered up and the crew strapped in, it was time to leave Moon 18. There was a big red button on the piloting console to press to engage the motor and make the jump.

"We're ready, Tatiana," Wildchild said.

Tatiana disengaged the manoeuvring rockets which had kept them in the shadow of the boiling moon, despite the buffeting volcanoes.

"You press button, Samothea," she said. "If we die, then Daniella blames you, not me. We go."

With a smile to herself and a wink to Hazel, Wildchild paused just a second. Then she hit the button.

There was a wrenching sound, a violent thump, searing heat and everything went black.

******

Freya met her kangaroo on a trip into the bush. She was thrilled. Even more so, when Mariotta took her to the petting zoo in Perth, where Freya met wallabies, koalas, wombats, Bush babies and other darling animals that her doting grandmother said were almost as cute as Freya herself.

Cutest of all were three tiny puppies of a sheepdog bitch from the farm. Four weeks old, they slept in a straw-lined box in the barn and made Freya cry with love and laughter at their wobbling attempts to walk. Visiting the puppies was Freya's favourite daily treat.

Mariotta hoped the puppies would be a welcome compensation for separating Freya from her mother, Annela, who planned to go away with Ezra at the end of the week. But Freya was a girl of Samothea. Although only four-and-a-half (Freya insisted on the 'half'), she was used to making her own entertainment, or being handed to any woman who would take care of her. A grandmother was almost as good as a mother for everything Freya needed, which were chores, reading lessons, maths lessons, kisses, hugs, tickles and, after dinner, a warm lap to sit on. With her grandfather, Nathan, and Edgar Fanshaw there, Freya (who had a decided preference for male laps) was spoiled for choice.

Annela was warmly welcomed by Mariotta and Nathan, who loved her like another daughter. She was included in Mariotta's daily activities: her lunches with friends; shopping trips to Perth ("No, Annela: there's no such thing as too many clothes"); and trips with Freya to the interesting landmarks of Western Australia (endless white-sand beaches, deserts, national parks and the Margaret River).

Meanwhile, Nathan and Edgar renewed their friendship. Edgar settled into a pleasant routine in the guesthouse with the nurses, who took their own holidays in turn.

There were visits from neighbours, to whom Ezra and Annela had to tell their stories. Then some of Edgar Fanshaw's business associates arrived. Ezra practised his pitch for investment funds on them and they gave him advice and contacts in the business world.

After a week, Ezra set off for London with Annela. They had many tasks.

******

On their tour of the Outworld colonies, Danielle and Roger landed first on New Exeter for a pleasantly relaxed visit to Mayor Esther Grandley and her family at their holiday cottage (however absurd such a thing sounded on an ice-cold world). It was always winter on New Exeter, but Danielle and Roger arrived during the three months of the year when it was colder than normal.

The cottage was in a farming settlement south of the planet's largest town. Surrounded by pasture and arable fields that were farmed during the short summer months, the settlement was built in a dip between round hills that gave the houses shelter from the freezing winds that howled around the country, smothering the steep roofs with snow.

Esther took her visitors on a tour of the countryside, eager to show off its bleak beauty. For air and exercise, they took a walk around the settlement, wrapped in warm parkers with heated mittens and boots; but most of the time they stayed at home, sitting by the fire, catching up on news and discussing the issues of the day.

It was a rambling cottage with thickly-insulated walls, small doors, small windows and low ceilings with exposed beams on which Roger bumped his head. These features were intended to keep the cold out and the warmth in. It made for a cosy existence, snuggling around the open hearth, chatting as the logs crackled and flames danced.

One interesting item of news Mayor Grandley had was a new policy for the Outworld League she had initiated.

The Outworld League was a political affiliation designed for the twelve Outworld colonies to co-operate on scientific matters, shared administrative tasks, military protection and law-enforcement, such as common arrest warrants.

All members of the Anglosphere accepted three central pillars: the English language, common law and free-trade. No other political affiliation was required, though most Anglosphere members and associate members followed either the Philadelphia or the Westminster constitutions.

The Outworld colonies were the most socially and economically liberal. Such ruggedly individualistic frontiersmen naturally resisted forming closer political affiliations - except when they ganged up to resist interference from Earth.

This was an irony because the Outworld League was originally invented on Earth as a means for the newly-independent planets to take more responsibility for their own military defences. At the moment, Earthside members of the Anglosphere paid for the few military vessels that policed the Sino-Russian border, taking action against smugglers and illegal miners.

The members of the Outworld League made a point of asserting their independence but they never went so far as to relieve Earth of the burden of paying their defence bills. Resentment on Earth was justified and tensions between the Outworld colonies and Earth itself rose and fell with the seasons. The most recent cause of friction was the immigration controls of the Outworld planets, who heavily vetted potential settlers and issued only temporary visas for visitors, workers and students.

Mayor Grandley had successfully negotiated an agreement permitting the free movement of people within the League while resisting pressure from Earth to accept wanton immigration. Earth was home to nine billion people, having reduced in the last two centuries from its peak of fifteen billions. Most of the nine billions were packed into dirty over-crowded cities, where disease, crime and welfare dependency were rife.

Political leaders on Earth were universal in the demand that, because Earth paid for their defence and security, the Outworld Colonies should take more of Earth's teeming population as settlers. But the Outworld planets were rich, industrious, clean and crime-free. They wanted to stay that way and strenuously resisted calls to relax their rules of admission.

Even colonies like Celetaris, who were keen to head-hunt the most talented and ambitious settlers, none the less planned for most future population growth to be organic. This would put least strain on infrastructure and cause least artificial dislocation to the economy, which (with negligible taxation and no welfare state) was performing better than Earth and much better than any nearby Sino-Russian planets.

New Exeter had the smallest population of Outworld planets and wanted more intelligent and hard-working pioneers, having suffered a surfeit of lazy scroungers under the tyranny of Alexander Marazon. But some of the sunnier and richer planets feared that some Earthers would apply to settle on New Exeter merely as a back door to their more appealing colonies.

Mayor Grandley's answer was a common vetting standard for immigration to the whole Outworld League, plus a fifteen-year residency requirement (including a clean legal record) for immigrants to move between planets. With these strictures, the colonies of the Outworld League could allow the free movement of labour.

It was the kind of information that Roger relished for his new videobook on how the youngest colonies of the Anglosphere coped with greater independence. It would be his first contemporary political work and Esther Grandley was a prime source of information. She enjoyed being interviewed, especially when Roger posed difficult questions to her.

"Won't the Outworld League end up just as interfering and bureaucratic as the various Earthside authorities?" he asked.

"It's a danger," Esther acknowledged, "but there are some differences. The League is close to home, not hundreds of light-years away. The population of the League is much smaller and more homogeneous than on Earth, so there are fewer group-interests to placate or buy off with other peoples' money. Most importantly, though, the leadership of the League will be directly elected, so we can get rid of a bad government if we want."

"There's also a cultural difference," Roger noted. "Outworlders are hardy pioneers who resent too much interference by the state. ... My ancestors used to be like that," he added wistfully.

The conversation continued late into the night. Danielle was happy just to listen, curled up on the sofa under a blanket, but she came alive at bedtime. Tonight was 'woman on top night' and Danielle went to it with relish.

Perhaps it was the contrast between the freezing cold outside the small latticed window and the warm thickly-blanketed bed but Danielle was particularly randy and showed it in the gusto with which she sucked his cock hard, crouching over his legs as he lay back and groaned happily.

She turned around and lay on him in the sixty-nine position, taking his cock as far into her throat as she could. He licked her pussy, twirling his tongue around her clitoris and basting her labia until she dripped and ached so much that she could wait no longer. Danielle turned around and lowered herself onto his straining cock.

She rode him slowly, at the angle she liked best, sensuously and loving, while he tried to relax and delay. When they were both at the breaking point, Danielle galloped along like a horny cowgirl, shaking the bed and goading them both to a satisfying mutual finish. He spurted his load into her while her spasm sapped her strength, spreading a warm flush over her skin.

Lying on him, held in his arms, her pussy filled with his seed, his taste still in her mouth, her taste in his, Roger's warmth suffused through her, replacing the heat of her climax, which seeped slowly from her skin. They both relaxed contentedly, but before Roger could nod off, Danielle said:

"I've got something to tell you."

"Mmm, hmm?"

"I need a little more attention than that, husband."

Roger made an effort to rouse himself.

"Yes, dear. I'm listening."

"Besides, you shouldn't be tired. I did all the work."

He gave her bottom a spank.

"Am I awake enough for you now?" he asked.

"Yes, that'll do," she said with a smile.

She told him Stephen Oakshott's idea that she should buy the planet Samothea from the settler company, Outworld Ventures. Typical of her, she went through the difficulties and objections first.

"It depends on us solving the problem of making the new technology work with the Beltway junctions, otherwise we won't have even a fraction of the price. And it will be my whole stake in the Samothea Project. Even then, Outworld Ventures might not want to sell. And we'll never get the money back because I will give the planet to the women of Samothea. I won't allow them to be exploited. So, what do you say?"

"I approve," Roger answered without hesitation.

"It's all our savings and all our future prosperity I'm spending," she warned.

"I do have an income myself."

"Yes, dear, but it's the difference between being comfortably off and being filthy rich."

"I'd rather be comfortably off," he said, somewhat piously. "Besides, there's your airsuit business as well."

"You really approve?"

"I do. Let's buy a planet. I like the idea of owning one-hundred and twenty women. I'll wear jodhpurs and stride around with a riding crop giving orders. And I'll beat them with on their sullen butts if they don't obey me with alacrity."

Danielle patted Roger's cheek.

"We will own only the title to the planet, as you well know, jocular husband of mine. The women will own their own land and their own persons. And no one will ever whip a woman on our planet," she said with surety.

"Unless she likes it," Roger added under his breath.

******

When the new shuttlecraft, CSS Petticoat II, landed on Samothea, in the field beside the Cloner City, it was early morning and the noise alerted everyone. However, a visit from the Samothea Project shuttlecraft was a common occurrence and no longer as exciting at it had once been. Only five or six Cloners came out to greet the visitors and help carry the cargo into the city.

Yael was an exception. She and Carlin had spent another passionate night together. Exhausted but fulfilled, they were kneeling naked on the well-used bed, taking turns to brush each other's hair. At the sound of the rocket engines, Yael put down her brush and kissed Carlin on the back of her shoulder.

"Come on," she said. "Ryan's here."

Yael threw on a short skirt and a slip top and sprinted down the stairs and out of the Council Hall. Racing through the orchard and up the hill to the landing ground, she overtook the more sedate Cloner women who had started in the orchard.

"Ryan, Ryan!" she yelled, as he emerged from the rear cargo door, carrying a heavy box.

"Go on, lad," one of the Petticoats said. "Go to her."

Ryan did not need telling twice. He put down the box and ran to meet her. Yael leaped at him so hard that she almost bowled them both over. She clung onto him, kissing him, while the Cloner women walking to the shuttlecraft stopped to enjoy the scene.

Eventually Yael released Ryan from the clinch and, still holding onto him, looked around for Carlin, who had dressed and followed behind.

Although age and responsibility helped conquer some of her great natural shyness, Carlin demurely held back and smiled to cover her embarrassment. Here she was, about to greet only the third man she'd ever met. But not just any man: her girlfriend's boyfriend. The man whom Yael said was her own boyfriend. The warm pink flush in her face was uncontrollable.

Yael dragged Ryan over to Carlin, her joy overflowing.

"Carlin! This is Ryan! Ryan, look: here's Carlin!"

It would have been better to have met in private, Ryan thought. A resurgent natural modesty made him stop just as Carlin also hesitated. Yael leaned at an angle, trying to pull him along.

"Come on you two, say hello," ordered Yael, a girl with enough self-confidence for all three of them, tugging at her boyfriend, unable to understand their shyness.

Still they delayed, not sure of what to say.

"Come on, Ryan," Yael commanded. "Grab her and kiss her the way you kiss me."

"Shut up, Yael," they both said at the same time. As their girlfriend laughed happily, they at last smiled at each other.