She shrugged, almost blushing, noting her reaction, feeling the sudden clutch in her stomach.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve prepared dinner.”
Dinner was on a long table on the veranda with views through the small valley to the sea, giving a perfect view of the setting sun. The food was delicious and the conversation lively as circle members told Prax of their news. About half way through, the conversation was interrupted when a stunning blonde-haired girl walked onto the balcony.
“Sorry I’m late, got held up at the Academy…”
Prax stood immediately. “Ana…” She walked calmly toward him and embraced him tightly.
“Papa,” she said.
Cynthia’s eyes widened. The girl looked almost identical to Prax, almost a clone: the same hair, nose, cheeks, eyes, the same gestures. She had been told that his full genetic daughter Anaxilea had taken after him, but she could not have imagined how much, or how beautiful she would look.
She pushed in between her and Aris, smiling at her with a touch of arrogance. “Papa has told me so much about you. You are undergoing your sexual control training with him I understand?”
Cynthia bristled immediately. The sexual threat was palpable. She quickly looked down at Ana’s body. Prax had said she was the same age as her but she was physically more developed with small, firm breasts.
She decided the best strategy was honesty. “Yes, I’ve started my oestrus. Truth is he was a bit slow in noticing. I had to ask.”
Ana smiled and Cynthia knew that she was very quick and smart, much quicker than her. “Yes, he can be a bit absent-minded, but you are lucky. He is a good teacher.”
“And you?” Cynthia smiled back.
“My eleventh cycle, but I underwent training when I was ten, just before I took citizenship, with Prax’s siblings…”
“Ronja and Sven,” interrupted Aris. “I’m training with them now, but they aren’t here. They belong to other circles.”
“Your aunt and uncle, isn’t that…?” She had wanted to say genetically close, but thought it might be rude.
Ana shrugged her shoulders, gave a half smile and asked for someone to pass her one of the dishes. There was nothing Cynthia could say. It was not unknown for close relatives to conduct the training but most people still preferred someone outside the family.
“Would you like to play some chess? Prax said you were good. He promised to play me but not tonight,” Aris implored as desert was cleared from the table.
And she was good. She had spent many a night on the farm playing with her mother and sister. “Sure, why not?”
He led her to a corner deep in the carved out section of the room, lit a few candles and rearranged some elaborately designed cushions. “What style? Prax said you play different types.”
She nodded. “What do you have? Do you know Japanese Shogi?”
Aris smiled. “Yes, I’ve just been learning it. Bet you can beat me but.” She expected him to fetch a screen but instead he returned with a handcrafted set carved out of ivory wood.
She smiled back. She thought he was cute. Truth is she was sort of glad he had asked because the circle had retired to the living room to watch vids of family events that Prax had missed, with absent family members linking in. She wasn’t sure she wanted to watch home births, birthday parties and children performing concerts.
His complaint about his skill had been a polite ploy. His opening moves suggested he understood many of the classic gambits. She struggled but managed to keep ahead. She may have been a rough farm girl but she was good at games of strategy. Almost half way into the game she noticed him getting restless.
“Stop fidgeting,” she said. “You’re distracting me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She looked at him. He seemed embarrassed. “What?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It’ll go away. Go ahead and make your move.”
“What will go away?”
He sighed. “I’m getting an erection. I can’t help it.”
She laughed. She knew what teenage boys were like. “Show me.” He sheepishly adjusted his position so that she could see. “Oh, it’s only a semi.”
“I know, but I’m losing focus. I can’t multi-task. You know, concentrate on the game, try to think of something else.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “So let it do its thing. Your move.”
“It’s not the point. It’s part of my training – to gain control of my erections.”
“Training eh?” she said mockingly, starting to tease him. She leant back so that he could get a clear look at her vulva. It was the last straw and he rose to the occasion. “Nice,” she said nodding at it.
“Very funny. I can tell you haven’t gained any control. Still playing silly girl teasing games.”
And it was true. She was doing what most pre-adolescent girls do, tease boys to get a reaction, especially if it resulted in an erection at an awkward time.
“Sorry,” she said as she readjusted her position. Except that she was now the one distracted as he made his move. “It’s probably the pheromones or something,” she said to try and lighten the mood. “I’m in the middle of my cycle and your nuts are probably talking to my eggs or something.” She made her chess move and wondered if it wasn’t a ploy to distract her.
His next move disproved that theory. It was a blunder that left one of his gold generals exposed. She looked at his erection and noticed that it was almost straining. She took pity. He was clearly genuinely aroused and it would be unfair to play him when he was distracted, especially unfair on her because she was enjoying the game.
“I’m sick of this game, hang on a minute,” she said.
She got up to look for Prax. She found him outside talking intently to his daughter at the table over a screen. “It’s a question of the Bhairava theorem. It leads to a paradox…” she heard as she walked up, noting the complex formula on the screen.
“Mentor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but can I speak to you for a moment?”
Ana seemed to look right through her.
“Whatever you have to say you can say here.” She had a sense he knew exactly what was on her mind. He usually did. He was testing her.
“I’ve been playing chess with Aris and I’ve become aware…”
“That you want to fuck him,” added Ana somewhat sarcastically.
Prax frowned. “That was uncalled…”
“No, that he wants to fuck me,” she retorted quickly. “I’ve noticed my arousal level. He’s erect. We can try and overcome it.”
“Is there a rational reason for you to try and control it?”
“I’m a guest. I’m your disciple. Exercising control is part of my training.”
He smiled. “Good, you haven’t lost your senses. No, I think that at this time you should go in the opposite direction. He’s young and has considerable stamina. See if you can wear him out and tell him that he has to try and tire you. Use every trick you know but remain conscious and alert. Watch his reactions. Watch yours. Think about technique. Then let me know in the morning who checkmated who.”
She was stunned at his response. She looked quickly at Ana who smiled mischievously. “I’d wager that Aris will keep you up all night. He does have stamina.”
She looked back at Prax but he remained emotionless, unreadable, not giving her a single clue as to how to react. She guessed he would provide a full analysis later.
She turned back to Ana and returned the mischievous smile. “I’m a farm girl from the Arcadian plains. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
Ana laughed and nodded her head in acknowledgement of the challenge to family honour.
She returned to find Aris. “Is there somewhere reasonably private we can go? Prax has set a challenge.” She stepped forward and took his cock in her hand. “To see who can out last who.”
He laughed and led her up a few flights of stairs to a small room that overlooked a forest glittering with two species of firebug, the s
maller green light of the common firebug and the reddish/orange of the bigger bindi firebug. She was prepared to push him to the floor and mount him immediately but he gained the advantage by kissing her tenderly, an opening gambit that left her defenceless.
“That was a bit obvious,” said Ana turning back to her father. “I could sense it as soon as I walked in the room.”
He nodded. “She’s not family. Aris sensed fresh genetic material as soon as he saw her. You could almost see the pheromone cloud around them.”
“Which reminds me,” she said.
He looked at her blue eyes and the face so like his. “About?”
“Papa, I’ve decided to have a child early.”
“I thought you were working on this paradox problem at the Academy?”
“I am, but I can do both. Sure, I know being pregnant will change my focus but the circle has agreed to enter a parenting agreement if I conceive. I’ll have help.”
“You’ve already asked them?”
She nodded. “Since before my first cycle… I even wanted to precipitate puberty but the theraputae ruled against it.”
“Why the rush?”
“No rush, I’m ready now. It’ll be at least eight years before they build the capacity to test the theory anyway. It’s not a priority for the Academy at the moment. Then I can devote my time to it and settle the question in time to have more children.”
“You seem to have thought it through.”
“I have. It’s a rational choice.”
“And I suppose you’ve already thought about the father.”
She nodded but remained silent, teasing him.
“Who?” he prompted.
“You,” she said, stunning him. “I’ve run a genetic simulation. There is a negligible chance of a negative outcome. You and I do not have that many deleterious recessive qualities that might appear in an uncontrolled father, daughter pairing. In fact the simulation shows a good chance of a further enhancement of intelligence by a considerable factor. And frankly, we will need them if we are to solve some of these more complex paradoxes.”
He realised he could not fault her on her genetics or her logic. Inbreeding was a fact of nature and it was theorised that homo sapiens itself might be a result of inbreeding amongst small bands of hominid hunter-gatherers during a population bottleneck in Africa. It was certainly a well-attested phenomenon in biology, especially in selective breeding.
“Don’t you think it might be a bit narcissistic? The child might look a lot like us. It is a form of cloning.”
She shook her head. “Thought of that. The difference is that he will receive the latest enhancements: vision, hearing, strength…”
“A bird-eye?” he asked using the slang term.
She nodded. “A vivid blue bird-eye if I have anything to do with it, the first in our line.”
“You said he.”
“Yes, although maybe I’ll have fraternal twins, but a boy is logical. His genome will be highly sought after and a boy can sire many children.”
He looked intently at her. There was no hint of trickery or deception. She was sincere. He found it difficult to object. Incest was no longer an offence and any pregnancy that might result could be corrected of any defects. There was no rational reason to say no. After all, the mothers of his children had often been just as calculating when they had selected him to father, or part-father, their children. In a strict sense, it was the mother’s right to choose the father.
“So how: take a sample, use artificial insemination?”
She nodded, “I’d much prefer the old fashioned way but that is uncertain, besides you live up at that boring retreat in the mountains.”
He nodded. “So, samples it is. I may be away on this section two for a few weeks…”
“I’ve already thought of that. I’ve borrowed some sterile flasks in preparation.”
“What, now?”
She nodded as she stood to fetch the flasks. He watched her walk to the kitchen area. He noted that rather than be appalled by her decision he was aroused. She was beautiful and his deeper biological senses suggested she was a good biological match. By the time she returned holding two flasks he was already semi-erect.
“Two?”
“If you are up to it,” she said smiling at his aroused state.
He remained silent as she straddled him where he sat. She started to stroke his penis and he became fully erect quickly. She lowered herself onto him, easily taking his full length, thus indicating that she too was fully aroused. The others were inside so they were alone on the veranda and it occurred to him that this whole thing had been discussed and planned.
She came quickly, too quickly he thought. She must have been aroused all night with the thought of seducing her father. She came again and he felt himself getting close. He tapped her on the shoulder. She got off immediately. He expected her to grab the flask but instead she closed her mouth around his erection. He ejaculated and she held it all, carefully expelling it from her mouth into the flask. It was a rational decision. It would have been difficult to direct the spurt of ejaculate into the flask and she had clearly wanted to catch it all.
She held it up and smiled. “Genetic gold. Thanks so much, papa. He’ll be special, just like you.” She returned to the kitchen with a skip in her step to put it in the freezer.
When she returned she was glowing. “Now, shall we return to the equation while you recover, then tonight will you lie with me and we’ll try for a natural conception?”
He nodded. He had always found it difficult to deny his daughter.
17
Akash
Things began to move very rapidly. His computing team successfully constructed a void computer, a powerful quantum computer that stored information, not in remote servers, but in the void. This meant that without a transcription algorithm and the right hardware, data was irretrievable. The v-computer was impossible to hack. From that moment all of Shunyata’s data disappeared and what was left was a ghost: a façade of disinformation. Of course Aviva and her team continued to wage a disinformation war and Shunyata’s ghost system continued to face sophisticated hacking attempts, but the data that was stolen was carefully constructed disinformation that allowed just some of Shunyata’s technology to be copied. The Chinese, Russians, Indians, Iranians and Americans all created quantum computers, but they were never quite as good; besides, they were already redundant.
Meanwhile, the undetectable backdoor that had been built into Shunyata’s government and corporate computer systems began to deliver sensitive information to Aviva’s security division. It began to reveal the secrets of the complex network of hidden global financial transactions and an astounding level of national and corporate corruption. They could have caused a political scandal by releasing it, but earlier examples of high-minded political hacking had proved futile. Instead they watched and waited.
In Brazil his aerospace team constructed the first manned probe and sent it on several test flights. Some locals in remote towns reported seeing UFOs but nobody paid much attention. The world was becoming increasingly distracted by elaborate conspiracy theories as the elites mounted a complex propaganda war. It seemed as if the general population didn’t want to look at what was really happening, perhaps because if they did, they might be required to take action. It was easier to sit at the computer and blame increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories than go out into the streets and physically overthrow the corporate cabals and corrupt politicians. So when a professional nature photographer turned his camera toward a strange globe hovering over the jungle, capturing a crystal clear high definition image, people dismissed it as a hoax created using CGI.
In Bhutan they again sent up a satellite, this time twelve probes jumped into orbit around twelve mesoplanets, seven superterran and five terran. Teams studied the data in shifts. Over a period of a month six were dismissed as dead, meaning they had no active core to generate a magnetic field and thus hold an atmosphere; and four were
dismissed as toxic, with atmospheres unable to sustain life. That left two: Kepler 267f and HD 4621d as worth a closer examination.
The probes placed in orbit around the unsuccessful planets were instructed to jump to other systems. It was a matter of luck. At the beginning of the year the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at Arecibo (of which Shunyata had become a major donor) had listed close to five thousand candidates in the habitable zone, with more being discovered through a systematic program sweeping the sky.
The two remaining probes were sent to the surface using the void field to cancel their mass. One suffered an unknown catastrophic failure in a violent storm before sending any clear data. The other landed successfully. When the first data was received there was considerable excitement. The planet contained water and life. When the images appeared the excitement turned to shock. The atmospheric pressure at the surface was two hundred and fifty kilopascals (roughly two and a half atmospheres); the surface temperature was forty degrees Celsius and the gravity roughly less than twice that of Earth. Indeed, there was life, but under such pressures that it struggled. The images showed a world of strange mounds not unlike the deep-sea volcanic plumes of Earth. There was hushed excitement as the probe detected movement, a worm-like creature slithering through mud. Further data indicated high sulphur content in the atmosphere and a rich layer of microbial life. Someone suggested that the ecology of the planet was necrotic; another suggested it be called the planet Skatos, Ancient Greek for shit, because it would smell of decay – and Skatos it became. They instructed the probe to fly to other parts of Skatos but the story was depressingly similar. The largest form of life was a millipede like creature. Two theories were put forward; that Skatos was in the early stages of creating life or it was in its late stage, a stage of decay - a rotting corpse of a planet.
They were still debating the issue when news came through that the US President had been assassinated. The major news outlets quickly reported that a shadowy US based militia group calling itself the Defenders of the Constitution had claimed responsibility. Few believed it and the Internet was alive with conspiracy theories.
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