Starry Starry Ride

She just lay there, gasping, until she caught her breath. Then she felt how the rear section of the saddle began to warm. The dildo deflated and gently retracted from her pussy. A bump in the center pad rose and started to play around her tortured pussy lips.

The twin hollows in the rear end of the saddle that cupped her buttocks slowly moved apart. From the rear slit a small tube extended, and she felt something warm and slick being sprayed between her spread cheeks. Then a thin probe rose, about as thick as her finger, liberally coated with lubricant. Its round tip carefully nosed its way forward until it came to rest against the entrance of her anus. She sighed, relaxed until the tip of the probe slipped into her, and soon she felt it advance.

"Do you like that?" Shan asked suddenly.

"You know I do", Zena said softly. "Go on..."

The probe sneaked further into her rear hole, then retracted. After a second or so it moved back in again, and slowly it began to pump in and out of her. More lubricant was released from tiny pores in its surface, and Zena let out a soft "Ooohhhhhh... yeah..." as she relished the slick wet friction of the smooth, slippery surface against her insides.

Another dildo came up, this one studded with bumps and ridges, and slowly it began to penetrate her.

"No, not that one", Zena whispered. "Not yet."

The dildo deflated, and she barely felt it slip out from between her pussy lips. Another one came peeking out of the saddle, smooth and much thinner this time. It entered her pussy like a torpedo sliding into its launch tube. Then it started to vibrate, and she felt herself grow hot again. The anal probe began to vibrate as well, and the strokes with which it was pumping her became longer as the Chair sensed her rising excitement through the biofeedback sensors. Not long now, not long now... A bump at the base of the dildo touched her clit with each stroke.

"It's coming", she panted. "Yes, fuck me, fuck me, yes, a little more... harder, harder..."

Her breath came fast.

"Go on, go on, yes, yes... Oh, ohh... oh... oh.... oohhh, yeah, ooooohhh... ohhhhh.... hhhhooohhhh.... OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

She bucked against the saddle, her sphincter gripping the anal probe as pleasure exploded inside her and she came, hard, and the vibrations somehow prolonged the orgasm and made it more intense, burning like a blue flame with the intensity of a supernova.

She didn't know how long she sat like that, gasping, panting, sweat running down her face. The anal probe and the dildo had retracted, but the surface of the Chair was caressing her gently wherever it touched her skin. After a time she opened her eyes. Cool, dim, quiet starlight. So beautiful... so peaceful...

She felt warm lubricant being sprayed onto her from both sides, front and back. A conical plug with a slender tip and a thicker bulge at the base extended from the rear opening of the saddle, and she pushed herself forward to receive it more easily. As she did so, at the front end of the saddle another thick dildo rose from below and slowly but irresistibly drilled its way into her waiting pussy. She closed her eyes and felt how she was being filled from both sides. A little more, a little more... The anal plug slid home and stayed there. The dildo kept on coming, moving further into her, and with it rose a second manipulator from the slit, which came to rest against her clit. With its rounded tips it gently pulled up the hood, then stopped.

The breast cups came on, the nipple pads sucking and squeezing. The tips of her breasts, hard and sensitive, felt like they were being licked, nibbled, sucked both left and right. She realized tears were running down her face, so delicious were the gentle caresses. Other parts of the Chair's surface started to work on her skin as well, and it was as if she was being stroked by countless hands.

Then the clit probe moved up and down a fraction of an inch, and more than anything else it felt like a smooth finger caressing her clit. She gasped. Slowly, the dildo began to move inside her as well, not pumping this time, but gently moving forward, sideways, bending and turning, and occasionally moving a fraction of an inch out of her and back in again. The plug retracted a little, and she felt the round bulge at its base pull at her sphincter, but not enough to make it slip out of her. Then it pushed itself in again, and it too started to rotate, slowly, carefully, first left, then right.

She thought she'd go mad with pleasure. Anchored at both front and rear, there was nowhere she could turn to, nowhere she could go. The straps kept her in place on the Chair, and he had no other choice but to sit there and take it, until she felt herself begin to peak again. She felt how it came closer and closer, the familiar pleasure rising as the clit manipulator pushed her onward with gentle, expertly timed ministrations, further, further....

Then the moment arrived when she felt sparks shooting out of her clit, and she screamed as she started to come. A stream of stars seemed to gush from her cunt as the orgasm burst inside her with a blinding flash of white light, and the wave of pleasure from her pussy connected with her rear where the anal plug was still doing delicious things to her rectum. She convulsed with the intensity of her orgasm. Without the straps she would have lifted herself from the Chair.

Shan let her recover for only a few seconds, then resumed to work on her with the plug and the dildo, which had begun to pump in and out of her pussy. She started out easily, but soon the stimulations became more insistent, and Zena felt another orgasm approach.

"Shan...." she gasped. "When I come... don't stop. Just go on. Turn on everything. The works. I want it all. Hard."

Shan didn't reply, but the dildo started to pump in and out of her, and the clitoral probe began to vibrate. Soon she hovered on the brink of another massive orgasm.

When the Chair's biofeedback sensed that she was ready, a thin jet of water squirted from the clit probe's head in a sharp burst. It hit the tip of her supersensitive button at exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment and she exploded, screaming and convulsing in intense pleasure. And this time the Chair did not stop, nor did it give her time to recover. The dildo started to vibrate, the butt plug began pumping harder, the breast cups went mad. Her next orgasm arrived on the heels of the last one, and she felt the dildo inflate inside her as it continued to pump and vibrate. The butt plug was oozing lubricant continuously now, which leaked from between her buttocks to coat the saddle with a shiny, slippery layer.

Harder and harder the Chair ravaged her. The butt plug deflated at the base, elongated and changed shape as hollow chambers inside if filled with hydraulic fluid, and gradually it turned into a ridged shaft that mostly resembled a series of tightly strung beads, each the size of a walnut. It started to pump in and out of her tight hole, the lubricated beads slipping through her sphincter one by one, stimulating her most sensitive spots. Its tip began to vibrate and sent waves of pleasure through her.

Her fingers gripped the handholds so tightly that her fingers ached as another orgasm rapidly built. The whole center pad of the saddle started to bulge. It moved and vibrated as the Chair fought to keep up with her arousal. She howled as she came again, this time even more intensely.

The front dildo retracted and immediately another one rose from the saddle to replace it. Her pussy, waiting there right above it, was sopping wet and the dildo's thick head slipped straight in, pushing on relentlessly until it was deep inside her. This time it was the thicker shaft with the bumps and ridges that she had rejected earlier. She welcomed it now, and when it began to pump in and out of her she felt its smooth thick head slide up and down in her love tunnel, the textured shaft massaging the entrance of her pussy as she sat on it. She moved with it as it pistoned in and out of her most intimate part, and the anal probe changed its rhythm to match her movements as she rode the Chair with short, hard strokes, the beads slipping through her sphincter and back again, providing her with their delicious, lubricated friction.

Soon the Chair sensed that the golden moment was close again, and another spurt of warm water hit her clit. This time the burst of pleasure was sharp and intense as she came, but her contractions intensified the stimulation, and the orgasm soon took her on to the next one in a biofeedback enhanced chain reaction of pleasure.

"Oh... oh... oh... oh..."

Her breath came ragged, almost gasping, and she whimpered as she got near her next orgasm. The dildo now started to vibrate as well and pushed her over the edge. She let out a long, loud "Ooooohhhhhhhh!!!" as she came, powerless to stop it.

The Chair held her captive in the straps. She rode the saddle, from one nova-hot explosion of pleasure to the next, taking everything the Chair did to her, and wanting more. And she got more, as the anal beads slowly inflated and continued to ooze more lubricant while pistoning in and out of her hole with slow, deep strokes, and the dildo, deep inside her pussy now, kept on pumping and vibrating stronger and stronger, one of its bumps hitting her clit with each stroke. Again she came in a burst of intense pleasure.

It must have been about then that she lost it. Somehow, all conscious thought vanished. There was no time, there was no space, there was no awareness. She no longer existed as a person or as a consciousness... All she knew was pleasure, almost painfully intense. She came, came again, and kept on coming as each climax triggered the next one...

* * *

When she opened her eyes she dimly realized she must have fainted somewhere along the way. She felt completely exhausted, completely drained. Her vision was blurred, but she saw that the Chair had moved on its air cushion and was now standing directly beside her bed. The straps were gone.

With what seemed a superhuman effort, she lifted herself off the saddle. If Shan hadn't reduced the ship's gravity she wouldn't have made it. She flopped down on the bed. A compartment in the wall popped open and the medsensor package fell out. She fumbled with it, managed to place its pad against her upper arm, felt its clamps move into place, and then she sank down into a bottomless void, like a stone into dark, still water.

* * *

Waking up was a slow, reluctant thing. She just lay there, eyes closed, mind quiet, body unmoving... A simple, animal bliss. Her arms and legs felt heavy. After a while she lifted her hand and felt between her legs. Not sore. Good.

It was so nice just to lie there and just drift, drift... But eventually she opened her eyes to find the deck bathing in warm, yellow sunlight.

"Shan, fifty percent gravity", she said. Her voice croaked.

"Good morning, Zena", Shan said. "How do you feel?"

The cabin gravity began to drop. A steaming glass of tea appeared at the autokitchen's delivery table.

"Sleepy..." Zena yawned. "Sluggish... but otherwise pretty good. How long have I been out?"

"Just under twenty hours", Shan replied. "The diagnostic sensors indicated that you needed more than just a night of natural sleep. Since no emergencies developed and this starsystem was unlikely to come up with any surprises, I decided to let the med package keep you asleep as it deemed necessary."

"You dropped the probe?"

"Yes, I did. Everything went according to schedule."

"But then why..."

Zena sat up, almost bouncing herself off the bed in the reduced cabin gravity. Sunlight! What had gone wrong? They should have been on their way out of the system already!

"I hope you don't mind", Shan said. "As soon as the third and fourth planet came into scanner range, I saw that they both qualified, although the third is a bit hot. I first dropped a probe on the third on approach. The moon made it a little tricky, but there were no problems. Then I followed through a slingshot orbit around the third, so that we arrived at the fourth with a significant reduction in speed. I went into orbit around the fourth planet, and dropped the probe from orbit."

Zena shook her head.

"But... Shan... Why?"

She stood, took the tea from the 'kitchen delivery table and sipped. It was sweet. Shan must have decided she needed a little extra sugar after last night. She ran her finger along the inside of her right arm and sure enough, the medpack had given her an IV while she slept. Water and glucose, probably.

Shan hesitated before she answered, in a completely uncharacteristic way. Zena began to feel more than a little worried. If Shan started to malfunction, out here...

"I... thought you might want to see this", the computer said finally. "I have a visual feed from the probe on the bridge screen."

Zena slowly made her way to the front of the ship and looked down on the fourth planet. From this altitude was a fluffy ball of swirling white, blue and greenish brown. Then Shan activated the main display and she saw the landscape that the probe had chosen for its descent.

Green, rolling meadows... Lush prairies and, in the distance, a majestic range of white-topped mountains against the horizon. Blue sky, white clouds... Suddenly here eyes were full of tears.

"Oh Shan.... It's beautiful... It's perfect!"

The computer was silent, as if it didn't know what to say.

No, Zena told herself. Not "it". She.

For some reason, she suddenly found herself unable to think of Shan as an artificial construct anymore.

"I wonder..." she said very softly. "We never got such a good look at the other planets... but if they were as beautiful as this... Then the program is going to work... It just has to."

For millennia mankind had looked up at the stars, and wondered. For centuries radio telescopes had scanned the heavens, listening for signs of intelligent life. With one exception, which had never repeated itself, nothing had ever been heard. Robot probes that left the solar system through realspace, and later through hyperspace, had carried messages to alien civilizations, in case they would ever encounter other life. Later yet, interstellar expeditions had always looked for traces of other intelligent life as part of their missions. And found none.

Eventually someone realized that intelligent, earth-like life would be attracted to habitable, earth-like planets, and the probe seeding program was developed. When robot ships proved unsuccessful, manned ships were sent out on trajectories that took them along the right types of stars. If they found a planet that would sustain earth-like life well enough to qualify, their mission was to drop probes that, in the centuries to come, would detect the arrival of visitors, if any, and signal Earth. When the network of probes would finally span enough lightyears, it almost had to be successful.

"You thought I might like it?" Zena said.

"Yes... I did", Shan replied.

Zena said nothing as she looked at the nav display, until she was sure she'd read it correctly

"What's our position?" she asked.

"We're clear to leave the system. We can use the third planet for another slingshot trajectory to regain almost all of the speed we shed when I approached the fourth."

"No, I mean our position relative to the sun", Zena said.

"We are in the ecliptic, currently eight lightminutes and forty-one lightseconds out from the primary."

Eight lightminutes. About as far as earth was from its own sun, the sun that was so much like this one. Zena looked up, felt the warmth on her face, let the yellow sunlight filter through her closed eyelids.

"Shan..." she said slowly. "Last night... when you were.. doing me, on the Chair... How often did I cum?"

"You experienced a total of twenty-six orgasms, the last three of which you did not register consciously, but during which your body still responded to stimuli", Shan said clinically.

"Did you learn anything from it?"

Shan hesitated again, but now Zena believed she knew why.

"Yes, I did", the computer finally said. "But I'm still analyzing it. I'm not sure what I have learned, but your responses to the different stimuli were not at all what I expected."

"In what way?"

"For example, there was your reaction when I tickled you. You enjoyed it when I overrode your command to stop. Then there was your sexual response pattern while you told me about your experience with group sex. Your arousal peaked at points in the narrative that had little to do with sexual stimulation, and in an unusual way. Your voice pattern and brain wave frequency spectrum indicated emotion and arousal much more than your physical feedback did. And I am sure that some of the stimuli I administered later on would have been uncomfortable at other times, but from your biofeedback I concluded that now they weren't."

"So what made you decide to park the ship here in orbit?"

Again Shan hesitated.

"I'm not sure", she said. "Maybe I just wanted to learn your reaction."

Maybe? A computer doing something for reasons of "maybe"? Yeah, right. Zena smiled.

"Shan... Remember what I said to you yesterday, about you just being a piece of hardware with no personality? I'm sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. It's not true."

"But I am indeed not human, Zena", Shan said.

"No...", Zena said. "Not quite... Not yet. But you're learning, Shan. You're learning. Maybe you're not a full person yet... but you're getting there. And you're doing fine. Think about what you have learned. And ask me about anything that doesn't make sense. I'll do my best to explain. Once you understand this, you will be more fully human than you ever were, and maybe even more human that some humans I've known."

Shan said nothing. Zena reached over to the nav console to punch for an exit course, and she watched the parameters scroll across the display.

When Shan announced that all was ready, the engines began to whisper and slowly the planet drifted out of the scope. Zena gave it one last look as she left the bridge on her way to the shower. Beautiful as this system might be, they had many more left ahead of them.

The sooner they got going, the sooner she'd be home.