Voyage

by C. Paul Lockman

  “What about down the pub?”

  “Hardly…you’re about the only really attractive girl I’ve ever seen in there. It was rather a shock, and a nice one, when you walked in.” She took the compliment with a smile.

  “What about casual girlfriends?” I shook my head. “That’s a shame.” I agreed. A brief pause. “Would you like one?”

  I looked up at her. She was looking straight back at me, eyes full of interest, lust, activity. “That would depend on who it might be”, I replied, trying to sound an alluring mixture of coy and bashful.

  She stood up, put down her drink and pulled her blouse out from her skirt. She looked almost immediately like a sexy schoolgirl who was naughtily breaking the uniform rules. She loosened the top three buttons of her blouse. “How about me?”

  I stood, went to her, stopped short and admired her figure. “I think that would be very nice indeed.” She loosened more buttons, exposing the pale, milky skin of her breasts. They were as large and as firm as I had hoped. “You are beautiful”, I whispered.

  “Want to help me with this?” I reached back to unsnap her bra as she finished with the buttons. Her breasts fell free, topped by hard, brown nipples. My hands went to them and, leaning forward, I gently kissed her mouth. As I massaged her nipples, her hand went down to my cock, which was straining the confines of my jeans. “This feels nice… wow… how big are you?”

  I smiled at her, kissed her. “Want to see?” She nodded quickly, cheekily. I unbuttoned my jeans, pulled down my zipper and brought out my cock. I was two-thirds erect but already big enough to bring a little gasp from Gemma.

  “Hello there”, she whispered. “Nice to meet you”, she added, taking hold of my penis and stroking him gently. “I think we’re going to have a lovely time together”. She returned to kissing me while masturbating my swollen member. He was at full hardness in moments.

  “You know what he really wants?” I asked between kisses. She looked at me enquiringly, licked my lips with the tip of her tongue. I ran a hand down the back of her skirt, feeling the contour of her ass. “He wants to know what’s under here…”

  She unfastened her skirt, pulled down the zipper and let it fall. She was wearing very cute, lacy white panties. “I want to show you everything”, she whispered into my ear. “I want to give you everything.” We kissed with increasing passion, her stroking of my cock becoming quicker, as I caressed her ass and began to nudge down her panties. “Do you want to make love here, or in your bedroom?”

  “Let’s start in here”, I replied, nudging her panties down further. “I don’t want to stop…” She tongued my mouth, helped me with her underwear. I pulled off my t-shirt and, while she tied back her dark hair, got rid of my jeans and underwear. We faced each other, naked. She sat on the sofa, eyes full of lust, and parted her legs, feet right on the edge of the sofa. She was unshaved, with swollen, dark pink labia. I knelt in front of her and kissed her inner thighs, behind her knees, and up towards her bush.

  “God… please, don’t stop… it’s been so long since I felt… please, kiss me…”

  I parted her lips with my fingers, enjoying the excitement of exploring a new girl, a new pussy, and such a beautiful one… Slowly, I ran my tongue from her entrance to her clit, with a broad, flat tongue stroke. She tasted strong, wonderful, feminine. I gave her more of these long strokes and then focussed on her clit. She was moaning and wriggling as I pleasured her. I slid a finger into her juicy cunt and sucked quite hard on her clit. She came, instantly. I backed off, gave her gentle strokes around her entrance, sucking her labia, and then seized her clit between my lips once more and let my tongue dance over it. She began a lengthy series of orgasms, frequent peaks on the pleasure scale, and her juices flooded out.

  After perhaps a dozen climaxes, she gently pushed me away, hands on my shoulders. She was flushed, breathing fast. “How did you learn how to do that?”

  I just smiled and lay on her, between her legs, as she reclined on the sofa. My cock rested, thick and hard, on her stomach. “Let’s go to bed”, I whispered, and kissed her. I helped her up and, slightly shakily, took her up to my bedroom. We entwined on the bed together, rolling around on the big king, so that she was sometimes on top of me. When she was, I made sure to suck gently on her nipples. When I was on top of her, I rubbed my cock around her bush, or over her stomach. She looked down admiringly at my member.

  “Would you like to push that inside me?” she asked. I nodded, reaching for the bedside table. Good old Hal. A whole box of condoms, different types and colours. I chose a regular one, with ribs ‘for her pleasure’, and she helped me slide it on. “God, you’re big”, she breathed as the ring slid into place near the base of my cock. “This is going to be fun.”

  I mounted her, kissed her, and parted her cunt lips with the head of my cock. We tongue-kissed sexily as I entered her, taking my time, giving her a few inches, then withdrawing to the tip, then more. Finally, I gave her my whole length. Her eyes were wide, breath coming in gasps. “Gently, please…”

  I made sure not to give her too much, but set up a regular rhythm of strokes into her pussy. She was wonderfully wet, hot and welcoming. After a few minutes on top of her, she asked me to roll over and she took the lead, sliding down deeply onto my penis and letting it fill her. Her rhythms were slower, deeper, finding the right places inside her to press against. Eyes closed, hands on my chest, she built her own orgasm with slow strokes, grinding her clit against me every chance she got. Finally, she started to come, face flushed red, mouth open, back arched, pussy spasming with pleasure. Her cunt muscles were incredibly strong and gripped my cock hard as she came.

  She collapsed forward and I cuddled her, still making small movements inside her, back and forth. “I’m not sure I can take much more… you’re huge…” she gasped, “just… huge.” We kissed, and she lifted off me to the disappointment of my penis. “Let me take care of him”, she offered, rolling forward the condom and sliding it off me. “We need to make friends… hello again”, she whispered to it, face right by my balls. “I could very easily fall in love with you”. She kissed my heavy, full balls and planted gentle kisses all the way up my shaft, to the tip, and then gently took my cock into her mouth.

  Gemma knew what she was doing. She kept a steady rhythm on my shaft with her hand while gently sucking, kissing and licking my tip. She would alternate gentle licks with stronger sucking, moving my foreskin up and down with her hand. The two worked perfectly together. “Are you going to come, darling?” I nodded. “Are you going to give me a lot?” You have absolutely no idea, I thought to myself. “I want all of it…” she said, between moments of wonderful licking. The pleasure mounted and I knew I couldn’t be responsible for the volume of cum that was boiling away in my balls. When had I last come? Jesus, I hope she’s ready for this. I felt the need to warn her.

  “Gemma, there’s going to be a lot of cum… I mean, really a lot. Can I come over your body?” She smiled, finished licking me.

  “You can come wherever you want”. I knelt up between her legs and let her finish me with her hands.

  “Point my tip downwards, towards your tummy, otherwise you’ll get drenched…” I smiled. I was really close. She did as I had asked, jerking me through the point of no return, and I could feel just how much was coming. “Are you ready, baby?” She nodded, licked her lips. God, this was building massively, ready to burst its banks… Oh, here it comes…

  The first spurts were the hardest. A thick jet struck Gemma under her left breast, and another beyond that, near her neck. Then the main body of my orgasm started. Endless jolts seized my cock and each jolt produced a large spurt, over her beautiful tits and her stomach. She pointed me down so that I came over her bush, four or five big spurts coating her hairs with my juice. And then more arcs of cum onto her tummy. To my surprise and delight, she sat up and took the final few spurts into her mouth and then took my penis between her lips, letting my final jolts send cum right down her throat. When
I was finished, she sucked me deeply into her mouth to clean my cock.

  Forty years of semen, released all at once. God, I needed that, I thought to myself. She was drenched. I hobbled to the bathroom and brought her some towels. We cleaned each other up and then headed to the shower. Giggling over the enormity of my orgasm, and cuddling warmly in the recollection of some wonderful sex, we soaped each other, kissed each other everywhere and emerged feeling clean and satisfied.

  “You hungry?” I asked, pulling on some loose, canvas trousers I got in Cambodia.

  “Actually, I’m starving. What have you got?”

  I smiled. “Whatever you want.”

  I returned after a decent interval with a plate of nachos piled high with cheese, salsa and olives. The replicator had worked perfectly, first time. Once we had eaten, we cuddled up close and she drifted off to sleep. I waited until her breathing was slow and regular before inching away to check in with Hal in the spare room.

  “Good evening, Hal.” His green light swished to and fro.

  “Hi. Everything is normal.” Informal and profound, all in the same sentence. “What can I do for you?”

  “You know that conversion you talked about with my car? Can you get it done overnight?”

  Hal thought for quarter of a second. “With these two robots the average conversion time for a petrol engine is around 90 minutes. Slightly longer for a diesel, maybe 100 minutes. We can start right away.”

  “Go for it. She’s asleep. Isn’t the electric engine really slow, though?”

  “The model we intend to use would give your vehicle a maximum sustainable speed of 174 mph. Its maximum burst speed would exceed 200 mph. But this might damage the car. We can accommodate this into the design, if you wish.”

  I stared at the black box, hiding under my spare room bed. “You’re going to make my twenty year-old VW Golf cruise at one hundred and seventy miles an hour?”

  “Yes”, he answered simply.

  “Be my guest.” He woke Brunel and Forager and I left them to it. I could hear the faint patter of Brunel’s feet as they descended the stairs, but hopefully the garage would insulate any other sound. Gemma was still asleep in my bed and I joined her. She was lovely, I decided. Smart, cute, seriously sexy, confident.

  What the hell was I doing, I wondered.

  Chapter XXXV: Strategy

  Breakfast in bed is always nice, but straight-from-the-griddle French toast with maple syrup, Kona coffee - and juice so fresh Gemma asked if I’d picked the oranges that morning - that’s a particularly nice way to begin the day. She had to rush, she said – appointment with her advisor at lunchtime – so we finished breakfast and I introduced her to my car. Hal’s genius shone through once more. The little team had not only converted the rather tired petrol engine to a completely clean fuel-cell model and powered it up from a regular-looking socket in the wall, they had cleaned the Golf, inside and out, until it gleamed.

  Gemma was impressed, and I had us to the station in a brisk few minutes. We exchanged numbers and emails, kissed tenderly, and then I waved her off as her train pulled away. Immediately I brought out my phone. “Great work with the car, Hal. Fire up your interior design circuits. We’re going to give the house a makeover.”

  He called me back ten seconds later. “To what do you want me to set fire?” he asked. I laughed throughout the ten-minute drive home from the station; we were going to have to work on the distinction between the literal and the figurative, I could see. Back in my living room, the robots had just finished cleaning the house. This had taken the hour or so I had been gone, and the place was immaculate. The bed was made, dishes were stacked neatly away, the carpets seemed vacuumed to perfection and the place even smelled better, as though it had been aired out.

  “Did you three do all this?” I asked, staring around at the show-home I was now living in.

  “Not exactly”, answered Hal. “I took a certain liberty overnight. The car’s engine conversion only occupied a thousandth of one percent of my processing power, so I applied myself to other things. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Two medium-sized robots, quite a bit larger than Forager and Brunel, emerged from behind the sofa, where they were finishing the cleaning. In the same way as Brunel, each had multiple arms which could become any kind of utensil, but these were specialised for cleaning. There were brushes, polishing pads, cloths and scourers as well as the usual grabbing and lifting equipment.

  “I have instructed these robots to make themselves scarce if you have company, but to spend the rest of the time cleaning your house and generally looking after you. At night, if we are confident they won’t be seen, they can also tend the garden. Is this acceptable?”

  It certainly was, I assured him. “Hal, I need to link you up to a screen of some sort.”

  Hal thought for a moment. “Would you like a new television?” There was an idea. Hal sent the instructions and, after a refreshing pitcher of water, Forager began producing parts at an almost alarming rate. “And I have some suggestions for the interior design of your home, if you don’t mind.”

  I relaxed with a smoothie from the replicator and watched the little robots work. Their tireless industry was most impressive. Hal, however, looked and sounded under-utilised. Brunel was attaching the black plastic shell to the new plasma screen TV when I had a thought.

  “Hal, are you connected to the Internet?” He replied in the affirmative. “Are you able to access data from the stock market?” Again, he said that he could. “Are you able to gather sufficient of the right kind of data to make predictions?”

  Hal took a full twenty seconds to answer that one, so I knew something good was coming. “I find that the probability of making a correct assessment is around 97%. This is based on test runs predicting stock market movement based on all available corporate data, every day for the last 37 years. The level of data becomes unsatisfactory before that time. Certain events, such as those on September 11th 2001, render the market volatile and unpredictable. However, with an initial investment of £10,000 I can guarantee a return over the course of one year in the order of £59,000, plus or minus three percent. Is this acceptable?”

  I pondered this. Although Forager could print money until the cows came home, I was uncomfortable with the idea. I felt the need to earn what I spent. Maybe it was my folks, I thought, who worked hard every day until retirement and never grumbled. I couldn’t just print the stuff. It felt wrong.

  “Hal, I’m giving you power of attorney over my financial dealings and liquid assets. What’s in the bank right now?”

  Hal checked his records. “£318.41” he replied. Jesus. The coffers were almost empty.

  “And how much did you guys print last night so I could go out?” They had produced about £2,000. Not much by way of a head start. We needed more. I sat and thought for a moment while Brunel attached the massive 50-inch plasma screen to the living room wall.

  “Hal, are you able to gamble via the internet?” He replied that he could. “Do you have access to information on the form of race horses?” Again, this was an affirmative. “What races are on today?” There were meetings at Newmarket, Ripon and Warwick. “Make me some money, Hal. It’s your show. While you’re doing that, let’s talk design.”

  We mocked up a 3-D plan of the house on my new TV. Hal had intelligent suggestions about the use of space. Several walls could safely be knocked down and the kitchen could be realigned to almost double its area. The garage was tired and needed to be replaced. There were problems with the roof. “OK, we’ll get to that in a moment. Hal, bring up the first stage of our plan for Earth and let’s talk about it.”

  Hal’s ability to multitask began to pay off. While placing strategically thought-through bets on each race of the afternoon, dwelling on the implications of enlarging the garden by curving the driveway round it, and monitoring world news as he always did, Hal was simultaneously able to search the internet for likely places to buy our first Project property.

&nbs
p; Our needs were quite exacting. I needed a manufacturing plant of some size, on land which lent itself to half-burying the buildings so that the environmental impact was minimal. It needed to be near a source of water, and if possible a major motorway. And, most crucially, it should be on or very to near a disused airfield which could either be bought or rented for a long period of time. Runway length was a consideration, as was the problem of local objections to our activities, which were almost certain. There were hundreds of candidates, most of which had drawbacks of some kind or another.

  “Hail to the Chief, winner of the 3.20 at Newmarket. £2,400 profit.”

  “Nice one, Hal. Don’t let me stop you.” Hal was showing me Google Earth and other satellite imagery of the candidate sites, along with information on transport links, likely cost and environmental factors such as the height of the water table and average rainfall. He was also able to access data on likely planning permission issues. I sat back in the sofa, sighing heavily.

  “Hal, this looks like complex shit. Is there no easier way? I mean, how much lying can we get away with?”

  Hal took me through Garlidan’s thinking, paraphrasing the extensive lectern notes we had both made during our meetings on the Daedalus. “The original plan, to produce the solar arrays on Takanli and transport them back in the Phoenix was shelved due to your own objection”, he reminded me. “You stated that this entire project must have the feel of a human endeavour, and that ultimately, when the problems we are addressing have been solved, humanity should feel that it has triumphed.”

  “That’s right”, I nodded.

  “Alien involvement is to be concealed in several ways. Firstly, no-one is permitted to see anything in the process of construction, or any of the construction robots. Secondly, elaborate ruses are to be put in place to persuade the public that our site is being staffed by several thousand people, and that dozens of delivery trucks arrive every day. Thirdly, planning permission, aircraft and spaceflight permits, and other pertinent paperwork is to be filed with the fullest possible rigour. There is to be no side-stepping of the bureaucracy.”