Superf***er Vol. 08

In all fifty-nine of my children inherited my magnetic control abilities, including Little Billy; all of them were part of the team. Most of the others that were selected had superhuman strength; Quinn and Crystal's son Eddie was among them. Billy was the only one out of all my children that had inherited both. My older daughter Genny was also part of the team; she hadn't inherited any of my physical talents, but she was invaluable nonetheless because had her mother's sharp mind. She was leading and coordinating the team members being sent up through private contractors. I led the A-team here in Florida, while Billy was in China, heading up the B-team.

For weeks before launch I had nightmares of rockets exploding on the launch pad, as planning a space flight usually takes months, not weeks. Fortunately that didn't happen; one of the rockets did fail shortly after liftoff, but they were able to jettison the rockets and successfully re-entered the atmosphere--but it was that many fewer of us out there in space.

As arranged, the rockets lined up all of the spacecraft roughly together. Then in a giant game of follow-the-leader, I showed them how to skip the ship into and out of Earth's atmosphere, using gravitational forces to accelerate the ships faster than humans had ever travelled. Only when sufficient speed was achieved did we fully break free and head out to intercept the comet.

We swung up from behind it, formed a circle around it, and began slowing until we matched its pace exactly. It felt like we were standing still because there was no reference point to show how fast we were, in fact, still moving. It was eerie; you think open space is pitch black, but in reality there are minute amounts of light passing through it all the time, otherwise you couldn't see distant stars, you know? This thing, on other hand, swallowed everything, and was clearly visible as...I guess you would have to call it blacker-than-black.

Ringing it as we were, we could see now that the comet was huge. I was concerned; not only did we have barely a third of the magnetic-sensitive people I had calculated needed when I undertook this project, the bigger the comet the less we would be able to divert it. Genny plugged the new information into our computer models; we projected the path of this thing straight through to Earth. Based on this information, we determined that our best chance was to push the thing so that it would pass "below" the South Pole. We slid the ships over to the best place from which to push, and those of us that would be "spacewalking" went out to confront the thing. Each ship had one person remain on board, with Genny coordinating them.

We drifted closer to the comet, aligned, and "pushed" magnetically against it. Of course we were much lighter than it was, so the initial effect was to push us away from it. We countered that push using rocket packs, but it was a very delicate balancing act; you had to thrust enough to counteract the magnetism, but if you raised your thrust too high you'd push yourself into the thing. We did the best we could, but it was just too damn big. After 30 minutes, Genny told us to stop so she could measure the new trajectory; she could barely detect any change.

We started pushing again. The real limiting factor, I realized, was the low-power Earth jetpacks. The magnetic force wasn't looking like it was going to be enough to do the job on a rock (or should I say anti-rock?) that big. The second approach would have been gravitational, but while there were people with "super-strength," there wasn't anything they could push against. Even one of us might have been strong enough to redirect a boulder-sized asteroid to buzz the thing and introduce a gravitational effect, what could we stand on to push? These flimsy rockets sure didn't have enough power to redirect a chunk of space rock. What we really needed was a Gravitron, a device that converted the small nuclear force into gravitational pull. Pull up next to this thing with one of those, and you'd be able to divert it in no time. But even on my planet, Gravitrons were very expensive--I'd never actually seen one, and I certainly didn't know enough about how one worked to explain it to Earth scientists.

We kept "pushing" day and night, in shifts. Genny could track changes in the comet's flight, but since its original path would have had it hitting Earth nearly dead-center, we weren't pushing it far enough to avoid impact--we were just redirecting ground zero. By 36 hours, it was clear we weren't going to succeed; we only had enough oxygen to remain up here for another 12 hours before we needed to head back, and we hadn't diverted the comet anywhere near enough. We could head back and try for an even faster turnaround to come back up, but it would be so much closer by then, I wasn't sure even having a Gravitron would be able to exert enough force on an object that big. What's worse, we were heading for an asteroid belt; we'd never survive in there in our flimsy, unshielded Earthling spacecraft.

I pulled out my IMS just to confirm Genny's projections. I forgot that Earth wasn't the nearest planet to my location; in fact the comet was so big, the IMS treated it like a planet. Thus, it calculated the nearest collision...and to my surprise found a countdown timer. I looked behind me, and I could see why: a large asteroid appeared to be heading directly into the path of the comet, and the IMS confirmed that they would collide. This would have been perfect had it not been antimatter, but since the inevitable result was vaporizing the asteroid with a huge release of energy, which would then be taken up as additional mass for the comet, this was just going to make matters worse. And we were in the blast zone.

"Call off the mission," I called into my microphone, "this thing is going to collide with that asteroid over there. If we're in the vicinity, we'll all be torched."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" asked a voice I didn't couldn't identify. "Won't that divert the comet?"

"If that was a regular comet, sure. But it's antimatter--a collision won't divert it." The IMS kept beeping in my gloved hand. Suddenly it dawned on me--it was beeping because this was going to be a large enough collision to create a wormhole in space-time. If I could slip through it, maybe I could get back to my home planet and bring back a Gravitron.

"New plan," I said hastily, "I'm gonna get us a Gravitron."

"What?" asked Billy.

"No time to explain. Centaur 7, evacuate to Centaur 1. You'll have to squeeze into the other ships for the flight home; I need to take one by myself. A wormhole is about to open up."

"A wormhole? Dad, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Plan C. Plan A and B have failed, but I'm not giving up hope yet. But, this is very important: you MUST make sure that there is another large collision in the inner solar system before the comet gets there. Throw a meteor at the moon or something, just something with at least 10 to the 23rd... something big. Got it?"

"Make sure there's another large collision in space before the comet get's there."

"Yup. That'll be my ticket back. In the meantime, I gotta go get some supplies." I steered the smallest spacecraft in behind the wake of the comet. I had just a split second between the time the wormhole opened up and the space around me with filled with massive explosion. But that's the way it ALWAYS is in ultra-long-distance travel. I was headed home.

------------

I glared glumly at the window high over my head. Light poured in, tinged red from yet another volcanic eruption nearby. I sat on the bed that was the only piece of furniture in the room. In my jail cell, that is.

I was being held, awaiting my hearing before the Council of the Nine. A tight, solid collar rung my neck; similar in concept to the alarm anklets used in your house arrest, only this thing would shoot electrical impulses into your neck, interrupting all spinal cord signals. If you were lucky, someone might drag you back into the detention zone before the seizing of your heart and lung functions killed you. In other words, go ahead and try to escape--it's your coffin.

I need to explain a little about my planet. It's big, but not very hospitable--perhaps a third of the total land mass is uninhabitable at any given time, mostly related to volcanic activity. There are some very small areas that are best suited for living, and the population congregates there. Consequently, the entire planet is divided into just nine separate states, akin to your "countries." Further, since we became an intergalactic planet we also have a joint government, the Council of the Nine. This body is in charge of issues of planetary importance, like trade and defense, while each has sovereignty over its own local issues. There is one member on the council from each of the nine states. Four of the states on our planet are similar to your democratic/parliamentary systems, while five of them are traditional monarchies. Politics on our planet have been very stable--read unwilling to change in any but the most trivial ways --because the monarchial states have always vote together as a block and vetoed any attempts at progress that could conceivably threaten their power.

Anyway... I return home and report in, urgently asking for the use of Gravitron to save the planet I had just investigated. But one of the stodgy old kings refuses to be hurried by anyone--he made me present the entire report on the planet, its people, etc. I was getting testy, because time was wasting--I needed to get back with a Gravitron. That just made him more obstinate, and he suggested I needed to give my report under truth serum. A vote was called, and as always the five monarchies voted together in favor, the four democracies against. Truth serum was administered, and consequently when I told the story of Earth I was unable to omit the fact that we were able to inter-breed, and that in fact I had done so hundreds of times. Completely ignoring my pleas that I needed to save Earth from an antimatter comet, this admission was met with scandalous tones and I was sent here, charged with sex crimes and failing to abide by the space traveller's code of conduct. I was facing the death penalty, but I felt as if I were already dead; five billion homo sapiens sapiens about to perish because I wasn't going to be able to save them.

A tall, slender woman in a maroon guard's jumpsuit came into my room unannounced. There was no door, the collar made it unnecessary. I thought perhaps it was mealtime, because usually that was the only reason the guards ever made an appearance; the rest of the time they sat in the office watching holovision. Glancing at my watch, though, I saw it was mid-afternoon. I looked up toward her. "What do you want?" I asked, not rudely just pointedly.

"The Council is discussing your case," she said blandly.

"Were you sent to interrogate me further?" I asked bitterly.

"I..." she paused. "I wasn't sent by the Council. I was just... I was wondering what it was like."

"Earth? Not very many volcanoes, how about that?"

She nodded. "They say... they say you..." She didn't know how to say it, but I knew what she was thinking.

"They say I had sex with the inhabitants of Earth? Yes, I did. Do you know why? Because their planet is about to be vaporized by the biggest antimatter comet I've ever seen. I tried to raise some half-breeds that would inherit some of our characteristics and do something about it. They don't have any control over their magnetism, for instance."

"They don't?"

"Yup. No magnetic sense at all. They could step over the planet's pole and never even know it."

"But how did you know this collision was going to happen... I mean, there were years between when you started... breeding... and when the comet came? What made you even LOOK for something that far out?"

I looked at her more closely. Her face was very smooth and her teeth perfectly straight, like you often fund in very wealthy citizens--but she was just wearing the garb of a simple guard.

"They don't get impacts very often," I explained for the fifth time, "it was literally THE next major impact since the one that took me there."

"Come on..." she said skeptically.

"They're a small planet--and have big planet between them and the outer galaxy. It sweeps up most of the asteroids before they can ever become meteors. Plus, twenty of their years works out to less than two of ours—but the Council never asked me that."

"So you decided you had to try to divert the comet yourself," she said, returning to the focus of her interest.

"ExACTly," I sighed. This was the first person since my return who seemed to be listening closely enough to my story get it.

"But... how did you do it. I mean... how did you force hundreds of female... Earthlings you called them?... to have sex..."

I shook my head. "You've got it all wrong--I didn't FORCE anything on anyone. See... on their planet, male sperm doesn't trigger ovulation. Ovulation occurs more or less randomly, and hidden--neither the male nor the female knows when it occurs. To compensate, females are receptive all the time. It's not uncommon for a mature female to engage in intercourse every single day."

"Every DAY? With different partners?"

"Oh no, that's frowned upon; it happens, but is kept secret. No, women choose partners carefully. Sex becomes a means of attracting and retaining a desired mate."

"So do their men want sex all the time, like they do here?"

"Absolutely. A female that provides sexual access to a man currys his favor, and it helps them form lasting pair-bonds. Humans don't live very long by our standards, but they frequently keep a single mate for an entire lifetime."

"For a LIFETIME?" That was virtually unheard of here. I said nothing. "Their reproductive system sounds very inefficient, but still, if they're constantly engaged in sex—doesn't the average female still end up having dozens of children in her lifetime?"

"No, usually two or three. Later in life they lose fertility, but they also try to control impregnation by using devices. And engaging in non-fertilizing sex acts."

"Non-fertilizing sex acts?"

"Well yes... a human female has three orifices that the man can penetrate, and they may elect to use any of them to provide gratification."

Her jaw dropped. "Sure you don't mean..."

I should explain that one difference between us, one that I guess is mostly cultural, is that we have what you would consider a hang-up about filth and dirt, especially our own detritus. The thought of putting one's penis into an persons' anus would generally be considered revolting. "I do mean. Now that's relatively uncommon, as women primarily provide oral and genital gratification. But because it is uncommon, it is also true that women that consent to anal penetration are highly sought-after."

She put her hand over her mouth; I wasn't sure if she was gasping or trying to keep her food down. She turned and fled my cell without a further word. I shrugged, not sure what that was all about. If only the Council had listened to my story as closely as she had. Depressed, I laid my head down and dozed off, having nothing better to do.

-------------

I was awakened by a hand shaking my body. Two guards were standing over me, one holding the device that alone could release a prisoner's collar. They didn't seem very happy.

"Wake up, you pig. You've been summoned," said the one shaking me gruffly.

"To the council?" I asked groggily. The other one clamped the device onto my collar and began the unlocking procedure.

"Not yet...you'll still have your day in court."

"Then where?"

"Princess -------- has summoned you. Lord knows what she would want with a dirtball like you, but she's a Princess--if she wants to see you, that's where you go. Got it?"

"Yes sir," I nodded. I had no doubts they would just as soon rough me up on the way, and I didn't want to give them provocation to do so. With a click the collar opened and the man pulled it away, scratching my neck in the process. They put me in a restraint very similar to Earth handcuffs and led me to a police cruiser. The hatch opened, and they led me up the ramp in the back. Then it closed, and they took off and headed towards the Princess' estate.

I couldn't imagine why a Princess would want to see me. Yes, we were on her home soil since it was her country's year to host the Council meetings, but I wasn't a citizen here. I have no power, status or rank--if I was, I wouldn't have taken a gig as an explorer to an unknown galaxy. Then I remembered the guard in the afternoon. Maybe she was just curious, too, about the man-who-fucked-indigenous-species. Naturally, being a Princess she couldn't be bothered to come to the prison, so she simply was having me delivered. I sighed glumly, expecting to be the centerpiece of a freakshow.

We landed on a balcony-like protrusion in an immense palace. There was a rocky beach below that might have made for nice views except for the heavy dark clouds turning the entire landscape dark as midnight--volcanoes again. The guards ushered me off and towards a door similar to your French doors, where two household butlers stood to take custody of me. They muttered something about being their responsibility now while they removed my cuffs. All of a sudden I went from being treated like a captured dog to being treated like a visiting dignitary.

"The Princess has been eager to meet with you again," said one of them, "right this way please."

Again? I'd never met this person. I was ushered to the door of the Princess' private apartment, where the two butlers turned me over to a matronly maid. I eventually figured out that I was being shown into what was generally a "female only" zone.

The maid sniffed, nose held high, and headed inside without a word. I guessed I was to follow here. She seemed to think very little of me, either, but she had her orders. She took me to a large, ornate door that was closed. She held the door open for me to pass inside, but stayed out herself. "The Princess is inside," she sniffed.

I took a step in. The bedroom was as big as a house. There was a large four-post canopy bed to my right. There was lots of other stuff in there too, but I didn't note the details because my attention was drawn to the far side of the room. There was a fire roaring in a fireplace, and in front of the fireplace was a sedan chair. On the chair was a maid on all fours with her skirt pulled high and her butt bare. A second maid stood by her, holding a dildo, attempting but failing to introduce said implement into the first one's ass. Both were young and slender, in uniforms of the household staff with their brownish hair tied up in buns. Someone in a fancy pink dressing-gown was sitting on a stool, watching intently, directing it seemed. This was NOT what I was expecting to see.

The Princess whirled about and saw me. "Oh good, you're here," she said breezily as she stood and walked towards me. I was puzzled by the familiarity of her tone until she came a little closer. Her long hair was now down, curled delicately in a way that is completely unnatural for my kind and required much time and effort to maintain, thus marking her as a member of the privileged classes. She wore an expensive gown, but the face was the same one that had visited me earlier that afternoon.

I come from one of my planet's Republics, so I'm never quite certain how to act in the presence of royalty. Giving it my best shot, I dropped to one knee, saying "forgive me, your highness. I did not recognize you when you visited me this afternoon, or surely I would not have been so rude."

She smiled to herself. "Then my disguise was successful. As you may have already guessed, I was intrigued by some of the things you spoke to me of this afternoon, of the ways of humans. You see, I am to wed Prince -------- of ---------- (darn unpronounceable names). I have never met the Prince yet, but I am told by... people that know him... that the Prince is a regular visitor of the prostitutes. If I am to be happily married to the Prince, I see that I will need to... satisfy his desires. It is my duty to bear an heir, but I do not wish to spend the rest of my life perpetually pregnant. Then I heard you speak to the Council of the ways of humans, and I thought that perhaps I could learn something from them. Thus I disguised myself and visited you earlier. What you said was at first revolting, but then I thought, what is more revolting--exposing myself to filth, or having my husband fraternize with prostitutes? Thus, with the assistance of my poor dear maids we have been attempting that which you describe--but we cannot succeed. I have thus summoned you, in the hopes that you might show us where we are going wrong."