Dane watched as Iliev put all three other households in the family into action. He walked out and grinned as Jarun ran by going the other way. Kiev would be fed and he wasn't worried about his children any longer either. Iliev had jumped to that point 'two seconds' into his explanation.
Dane did like the female in the parlor. They talked and got acquainted. Iliev saw to it that lunch was served, breaks taken and dinner was pleasant for all herself that day. Dane wasn't exactly comfortable, but the support of the family had helped Kiev and being acquainted with the female seemed to make it easier for her when their time came after dinner. Iliev was there to see they all got to Kiev's apartments and 'tucked in' for the night when they were done. She almost guided Kiev and Jarun almost supported Dane to get them there. It was the first night. They had nineteen more.
To say it got easier would be a misstatement. It became more familiar. Dane learned he could spend a solar unit with a female alone in the breeding room and help them both get ready. He didn't become an accomplished lover. The object was to get it done and make it a not unpleasant experience for two strangers. That bit of time was all he had with the first he held each day. He usually had some time during the day to get acquainted with the one in the evening. The schedule was exhausting for all of them. Giving the command was as emotionally difficult for Kiev as obeying it was physically difficult for her slaves.
When the twentieth day ended, the other four came to help get Kiev and Dane to her apartments. Dane made it about halfway, then slowly folded. Kiev blinked a few times then sat down beside him, tipped over and went to sleep with her head on his chest. The four got help fast. They hadn't told the family it was finished. Jarun had Kiev in his arms and two of Iliev's slaves had Dane on a stretcher in under two minutes. They'd all been watching over them to see they made it. Yan told Jarun he wanted to talk to him. Kiev hadn't had time and he knew it. He also could see Jarun was hurting.
"She just hasn't had the energy or time to talk to you, Jarun. She's also been struggling to keep Dane from realizing it until this was done."
"She's in love with him."
"I think that's why you have four children. She saw it was going to happen."
"I warned her it would, when she said she wanted a body slave. She was so sure it wouldn't."
"She wasn't expecting Dane. It wouldn't have happened with me, Taral, or probably anyone else and no one else could have put emotion on hold for a year to give a second set of children. No one else could have hidden and controlled it long enough to finish this. She wants him to give some of your girls the children they want too, Jarun. I figure she might be able to keep him from realizing it another twenty or so days. After that, I don't know. They're different."
"She may be able to command him because he knows she does want some of the girls to have his children, but there was no possibility she could have convinced him with a stranger."
"I don't know that either. They break the rules we're all sure can't be broken. They make me wonder if the upper limit of translight travel is really a limit, or we just haven't found a way around it."
"Please, I'm already sure my sister doesn't make mistakes. If you turn out to be the physicist of the millennia, it would be a bit much."
"That 'bit much' would probably be in the family coffers."
"My, what an interesting idea. I do hope you discover something new. It hurts, Yan."
"I know that too well. Every slave does. It's the one thing we all understand. It was harder on Dane than most. He couldn't have been a slave if he didn't love her far beyond life itself. What's the difference between master and slave, Jarun? Is it that ability to love so deeply that one can subjugate one's will to another? Do we love masters because they can't? Were the original masters and slaves the 'born' leaders and followers?"
"Those are the questions we've asked ourselves almost eight hundred years. The answer is we just don't know. I'll get my girls to choose amongst those of them who really want Dane's children. I'm going to include the rest of you in it. I'm going to tell them my sister has left no uncertainty that she wants it done and those who want your children will have them now, or choose another as father when they're ready."
"Not very many, Jarun. A few each, please. I know of three who have said they want mine."
"I know of five who do. I think that's reasonable as a limit and will tell them I do. Some of them may have made other choices already. It's time I knew them as well. Thank you, Yan."
"Jarun, I know she did intend to talk to you, but she wouldn't do it until she could do more than just say it and walk off."
"I know it too, Yan. I know her to the depths of her soul and I love her with all of mine. Trennon is in love with her too and so is Wren Taylo. Perhaps every male who comes to know her well will fall in love with her."
"I fell in love with her two seconds after I saw her the first time. When she walked away, I started planning how I'd convince whoever bought me to sell me to her."
"I think you're in love with Dane too, Yan."
"Shh. Slaves aren't supposed to fall in love with other slaves. It took two years for Dane to accept he was a slave. Let's not confuse him."
"I see. Your response to Dane is as if he was a master."
"Yes, and it's more than he speaks with Kiev's voice. What makes a master and a slave, Jarun? I'm a complete bisexual. I fell in love with two, female and male. I know the difference in what I feel for them and the love I have for my master's other slaves and several in your household, including you."
"Thank you, I think. It's a bit difficult to judge how I feel about what you've said. The knowledge the one I will always be in love with is in love with another hurts too much for me to notice any other feelings at the moment, but I did expect it. Goodnight."
"I'd wish the same, but I know it won't be."
"No, this night won't be."
Jarun called all his girls together and told them to decide if they wanted children by Kiev's five. He told them no more than five sets of twins fathered by each and the time was now because his sister obviously wanted it finished for good. Gedin said she didn't blame her a bit and the others agreed. In the morning, Jarun carried a list of twenty-five to Kiev. She looked at it and smiled gently.
"You know."
"Yes. I think I always expected it and last night it became obvious. Yan saw I'd seen it and talked to me. He told me you'd planned to, but wouldn't do it until there was time to really talk."
"True, but I was also having a great deal of difficulty in finding the words. We need this day to rest. One each the next five. Since there are five each, he won't see why I'm hurrying so. I love you, Jarun, but it's becoming more in the old way of our kind every day."
"I think I knew that was coming too. You're going to hold none but your five when this is done."
"I don't know that yet."
"I do. I also know it's going to be difficult for you to hold the other four, but you will because they need it so desperately. Wren Taylo once told me making love to you may have been the biggest mistake he ever made and he was very glad he'd made it. I'm beginning to understand exactly what he meant. I know Trennon does. Be careful, loved sister. Every man who has come to know you well is in love with you."
"I don't plan on any more getting to know me well. I nearly dodge male slaves who aren't in love with another master now."
"And you were rather distant with the slaves Mother chose for you. I understood why even then."
Kiev gave the list to her five and told them Jarun had understood she wanted it finished for good, perhaps even better than she had. She asked them to understand, as well. Yan told her they did because it was very obvious to all of them that it was difficult for her. She smiled and told them she expected it to be much easier to give the command when the females were known and loved, but she did want it done.
It was easier, even with Dane. One of those on his list was Gedin. That surprised her a bit. She didn't know Jarun had chosen for her because
he knew she would never choose for herself. When it was finished, they had a day to be together before Dane, Yan and Taral started classes. They spent it in her apartments.
Shortly after they finished dinner, Jarun knocked on the door. He grinned and told Kiev the house no longer had a breeding room. Their uncle had remodeled the wing where it had been and they now had six classrooms. He'd said no one in their home would ever be pushed into the arms of a stranger again and he'd probably slug the next person who brought up the subject of a breeding council recommendation. Kiev laughed and told him persons who said their uncle had "mellowed with age" were obviously a bit premature.
Chapter Five
Kiev took her three to the university to enroll in classes. They came home and Kiev hunted her uncle. They'd been told there was a course requirement they had to fulfill and it had surprised her and them. She understood why the requirement had been added and agreed with it in principle, but it was going to be time-consuming and she disliked the idea of her three having to spend ten to twelve extra solar units at the university at least every other day.
"Uncle Tarun, the physical education classes make sense, but the extra time they'll have to spend training to get good marks in them is a problem. I just learned Mal is the only one of my slaves who knows how to swim and Kano is the only one who ever had any sports training."
"You want a pool, gym and trainer here."
"Yes. I know you're busy with the dock expansion, but I can't even estimate the cost of what's needed because I don't know what is needed. How big should a pool be? What kind of equipment is needed for a gym? What type of sports should it accommodate?"
"Big enough for a hundred children, everything we can think of and every sport we can imagine?"
"Uncle Tarun, doubling the size of the dock has gone to your head."
"Suddenly realizing there are going to be at least eighty children on this estate has affected my reasoning. I didn't expect your brother to bring sixty females into the family. I have noted he's going to pay for any further enlargement of his apartments. Hopefully that will slow its growth a bit."
"They fall in love with him, Uncle Tarun."
"I'm hoping he'll give fewer the opportunity to do so. I told him he had quite enough females to provide variety in his sex life and the menu did not need to include every female slave who hadn't chosen a master on this planet. He admitted he was rather busy and his sleeping platform did tend to get a bit crowded. I'll put Chessa to work on planning and construction and have your mother locate the right person to supervise it."
"She'll buy one, Uncle Tarun. She does not think of hiring people."
"I know. In this case, that's not a bad idea. If we're going to have a swimming pool in our home, as Wren says many humans do, I want someone here to watch over it and make sure all the children know how to swim and the rules for its safe use, just as he says they do. I'm telling her because she isn't likely to choose someone for your household or Jarun's."
"I don't want more, Uncle Tarun. I especially don't want one who is still searching. I love Kano and Mal, but I almost wish I hadn't chosen them."
"Three are already two too many?"
"It's becoming obvious to everyone, isn't it?"
"I suspected since you decided to have children four days after you bought him. I became sure of it when I watched you nearly stay away from him until you were pregnant the second time. Your mother and I are both in love with our body slaves. If we'd found them before she had you, we'd have no children. The way you did it made a great number of young people ask questions of their parents. They're discovering that many more masters fall in love with slaves than they realized and having children before they begin choosing their own slaves might be a good idea."
"Is this new or have we been hiding from it?"
"I think it's increasing, Kiev. Our mother and uncle are in love with each other. Our cousins are and so are their mother and uncle. Your cousins are, but they too are young."
"How are they?"
"Venlo says they're all well and prospering in Plainsland City. I spoke to him four days ago. Truval is pregnant. She seems to think you had a good idea."
"Truval was probably looking for an excuse to have children now instead of waiting a few years."
"Quite possibly Are you going to tell him now?"
"I don't plan on telling him at all. I imagine that means I'll blurt it out at just the wrong right time."
"We're too much alike, Kiev. I understood that perfectly. Have them start with something besides court sports or swimming. We can put exercise mats and pads on the walls in a room for them, until the sports area and pool are done."
"Weightlifting and kindit were the only things which would fit in Dane's schedule this quarter."
"They're teaching kindit?"
"Yes. The course description stressed the philosophical part of the discipline and the course can be used to fulfill philosophy credit requirements."
"If it's got a philosophical part, it was borrowed from human martial arts. Kindit philosophy is do more damage to the enemy than the enemy does to you. I studied it for about a year when I was a bit younger than you are now. I have a suspicion they're teaching a human martial art and calling it kindit."
"I like humans, Uncle Tarun."
"I can think of no one, whose opinion I consider worth listening to, who doesn't. Wren Taylo is rather a good ambassador for his people. Their official ambassador and her staff are nice too. In the forty years since the turgee introduced us, we've gotten used to the idea there is a species a great deal like us in this arm of the galaxy."
"Wren says they've been deliberately going slow in building an association with us because they have a tendency to overwhelm other cultures and their ways could threaten the survival of our species."
"I like to think their culture is much like ours would have been if Tregdull hadn't tampered with the way we reproduce and almost wiped us out. Of course, the fact Tregdull did tamper and the difference between their martial arts and kindit tell me I'm probably wrong. I ignore those facts and think what I like."
"My generation is going to have much more contact with them than yours."
"Both of our species are too curious to maintain the current level of contact much longer. If that slave of yours is right about there not being a limit on translight speed, we're going to suddenly have them as close neighbors."
"What?"
"Jarun told me Yan is wondering if the translight limit is really a limit, or as much a fiction as the speed of light was, before Haloss discovered the translight equations."
"He's seen something. I think it's time I found out what. Thanks, Uncle Tarun."
He watched Kiev nearly run for the door and chuckled. Then he sighed. His planned ten days off, while preparations were made to begin the next phase of construction on the space dock, were getting rather busy. He decided he'd have gotten bored with nothing to do for ten days, anyway, and called his sister and Chessla, his surface construction engineer. The speed with which she'd moved on his decision to get rid of the breeding room indicated she was already rather bored.
Kiev arrived back at her apartments just as Mal and Kano got back from their day's work at the company offices. She sat her five down to talk and asked Yan what he'd seen. He told her he'd found there was another value which would work as one of the constants in the Haloss equations. He'd made an error when working one of the simpler ones for practice and then realized he'd almost solved it with the value he'd entered incorrectly. That had made him curious and he'd hunted the value which would work. They all stared at him when he said the constant multiplied by pi to one hundred thirty-four significant digits had done it.
Yan noted they were all staring at him and explained he'd just hit the pi function pad by accident, and if he'd known a bit more about what he was doing, he'd have probably just corrected the error because a lot of equations could be almost solved with the wrong value for a constant.
"I've been wor
king on the set of equations with the new value for about a year. I think I'll have them ready when I have to come up with something for a publishable work to get honors when I get my rankings in mathematics and physics.
"Yan, have you told anyone else about this little accident you had?"
"No, Kiev, I haven't finished solving all the equations yet. I've been pretty busy completing all the regular course requirements and haven't had a lot of time to work on them. I thought I was going to have more now, but they stuck those other requirements in on us and about scrapped that idea. I should still have them done in two years though."
"Oh, Yan, sometimes I forget how young and inexperienced you really are in most ways. Dane, since you're the one trying not to giggle, you get the job."
"Oh, thank you, Kiev. I always wanted to set off a bomb that would shake the foundations of science and change the universe."
"But they're not finished, Master. If I worked on them full time from now until the end of the quarter, I might be able to finish them by then. I'm sure the value will work, but I can't prove it until they're done, then they still need to be physically proven."
"You planned that as your university laboratory project?"
"Well, no, I figured I'd see if Dane and Taral would team with me on that and we'd work on Taral's design for a more efficient power conversion system. We'll need it for ships to travel at the speed the equations say they can. I thought I could probably convince Membis to let me do that as my first project when I start work for the Evrun research and development department."
"Uh, Taral, you have a design?"
"Thanks, Yan. Well, Dane actually gave me the idea and Kano and Mal helped."
"Kano, do you remember helping?"
"No, Mal. Dane, have you been handing out ideas?"
The Lonoki Solution Page 5