When they reached the crest they could hear the roar of the waterfall. It was only a short walk through a copse of orange leafed mountain trees and tufts of blue-grey grass until they came to a full view of water cascading down a cliff face into a large rock pool at least eleven metres below. Cynthia only paused for a second before diving. He watched her hit the water and her body descend deep into the crystal clear water. She had judged well and even though he did not like diving from such heights, he followed, holding his breath in anticipation of the impact and likely icy water. Under water he opened his eyes and looked down into a deep pool filled with rich green strands of water grass and Cynthia’s naked form twisting and turning as she explored the depths. It was cold but not as cold as some of the waters near the monastery. He surfaced, took a deep breath and surveyed his surrounds. The waterfall and pool were surrounded by two hundred degrees of sheer cliff face; an opening covered by dense shrubbery suggested a pathway into small valley. He recognised some of the shrubs as wild boo berry and wondered if there was any fruit to satisfy the beginnings of hunger. He swam to the pool’s edge and clambered out. Cynthia had surfaced and joined him. He found watching her scramble out dripping with water to be mildly erotic and he could feel his penis engorge with blood. He felt no shame and no need to hide it. She merely smiled and asked, “So, seems I’m not the only one who found that erotic, is it permitted?”
“Normal orders are suspended today.”
Without a word she walked toward him and reached for his growing erection. His reaction was immediate. She indicated for him to lie down on a patch of soft silver-green grass and mounted him without any attempt at foreplay. She moved slowly and deliberately, showing none of the impetuousness of her earlier hormone driven passion.
“I gather you’ve been getting some sexual experience?”
She nodded. “Plenty. Most of the defenders are randy morning and night. I’ve been getting lots of practice.”
There was something in her voice that was unconvincing and as they continued her mind seemed to wander. She was deep in her own thoughts when she shook with an orgasm. He allowed himself to ejaculate, enjoying the rush of neurochemicals. When he had finished she rolled off him and sighed.
“That was nice,” she said offering a polite smile.
He sat up and looked directly at her. “But I’m not Aris.”
She was shocked at the mention of his name and then blushed.
“It’s okay. Do you fantasise about him often?”
Unwelcome tears welled in her eyes at the mention of his name. She couldn’t speak and only nodded her affirmation.
“And when your mind wanders, it wanders to thoughts of him doesn’t it? When you nearly blew yourself up you were thinking of him weren’t you?”
She nodded, a tear running down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t understand it. It was one night, surely the effects of the oxy should have worn off by now.”
He moved closer to her and hugged her. His tenderness allowed the tears to flow and she sobbed. “You miss him, don’t you?”
“I ache. I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple really. Perhaps you’ve fallen in love?”
“But I don’t… Can’t… How?”
“There is a technical explanation… Suffice to say you have a deep psychological compatibility and a genetic harmony. It’s rare. You might find just one or two people who affect you like this in a lifetime. Some even become monogamous life partners.”
“Monogamous, but I thought humans were naturally polygamous.”
“It’s not just about sex. It’s about a deeper connection. It’s about finding someone who truly understands you; who you feel totally open to. You might both satisfactorily have other sexual partners but they will never quite match up.”
“But I was told love was an Earth folly. A myth designed to prop up culturally and religiously enforced heterosexual monogamy?” She seemed very confused.
“Yes, for the most part that was true. It was a way to control people, women mainly. But same-sex attracted people can fall in love, sometimes it’s non sexual, a kind of deep lifelong friendship. I’m not sure the psyches have even worked it out. It’s rare.”
“But we’ve only met the once,” she objected.
“It doesn’t matter. I saw the way you two were. I took the liberty to contact Aris and see how he was faring. He misses you. He’s infatuated too.”
“Really? But that makes it worse. I’ve enlisted. I’ll be going off-world.”
“I suggested this outing so I could confirm my intuition. Your reaction has more than adequately done that. The rules are not rigid, especially now that things are more open. This would seem to be an exception. I will arrange for you to have furlough. You should take a break and spend a week with Aris. That way you can work things out; seek some clarity. There may even be a role for Aris in the ADF, maybe in gaming and simulations. The strategos is concerned about you. She thinks you are a valuable asset. I agree. But I am also concerned about Aris. He is my son.”
Cynthia’s eyes lit up immediately. The tears flowed again but this time they were tears of happiness. When she recovered they had a quick dip and then foraged for berries and nuts. They had sex again just because it seemed a suitable response to the emotion of the day. It was light and playful. He stayed erect for close to an hour so they interspersed fucking and oral with childish games of chase and sexual teasing. It reminded him of his early adolescence and the sexual games with his friends in the forest. For a moment he was able to completely escape the seriousness of the task ahead.
When the sun began its descent toward the horizon they followed the valley down to the forest floor and made their way back to camp. The walk seemed effortless because they were both filled with simple, natural happiness.
57
Akash
He was starting to dread reading Aviva’s security updates. The latest informed him that another Pakistani president had been assassinated and that the country was in the early stages of civil war. It also reported that the Taliban had consolidated control of Kabul and had closed all schools; that the Bangladeshi famine had reached the three million mark and that cholera and dysentery were out of control (placing refugee pressure on neighbouring Assam). The only good news (if it could be called that) was that the second Korean war had ended after just five days with few South Korean casualties and minimal damage to infrastructure. The North Korean response had been chaotic with several generals defecting. There had been a coup against the Kim clique and many were dead, including the glorious leader. The coup leader was the little-known general Park Dae Ho and he had surrendered immediately. This was where the good news ended because Aviva had discovered that Park was a Chinese agent and there would be no reunification. North Korea would remain a communist dictatorship under the Chinese model: meaning that the North Koreans would be held in servitude to feed large manufacturing cities with cheap labour.
He called in Alice to give her the latest news. Throughout the ordeal she had been remarkably stoic. Her mother had survived. Indeed, she had been nowhere near danger. The only missiles to strike Seoul had hit industrial areas and the poorer suburbs. Aviva had included what she considered a not too far-fetched conspiracy theory that the missiles had deliberately targeted the factories of a corporate conglomerate that had opposed the larger plan.
She read the report silently then looked at him angrily. “Is there a way to strike back? You have the capacity to use void mechanics to kill these dog fuckers.”
He was getting used to her precocity but her use of Korean vulgarities still shocked him. “It’s not that simple…”
She sighed. They had had this argument before. He could not reveal his hand too soon.
“There are two other matters,” he said. “The Sauveterres fly in this afternoon. The team and I will be busy finalising the equipment for the jump. Can you greet them and show them around?”
Her anger lifted immediately an
d she broke into an excited, girlish smile. “My pleasure, and the second thing?”
“I know you will be busy helping the Sauveterres with establishing the clinic but Tshering and I…” he didn’t have a chance to finish.
“I was wondering when you would get around to this. You’re not afraid I’ll be a corrupting influence?”
“How do you know what I was about to ask?”
Alice laughed. “Who suggested it to you?”
“Pema, why?”
“The effect has been quite remarkable has it not? It was like she got an instant smart injection. Normally it takes time. Personally I think she already had the ability. It’s been the exposure to so many different languages. It’s like me. My ability with music didn’t manifest until I sat at my first piano at age six, but the ability was always there. I might have been playing Chopin at age four if I had access to a keyboard. You want me to tutor Pema?”
“Yes, she needs more stimulation than either Tshering and I can manage. If you like you can move in, have a room of your own, we’ve got a spare.”
“And you will take my advice seriously and try not to treat me as a child?”
He nodded reluctantly. “And provided you take my advice and remember you will be in my house.”
She smiled demurely as a sign of understanding, but he wasn’t convinced. He had noticed that the Crickets had their own agenda and he was effectively handing his daughter over to them. It was a dilemma because they represented the best chance of her reaching her full potential, save sending her overseas to a specialist school for the gifted. He was dreading the arrival of the Sauveterre children. He had read their profiles but he figured that they only revealed what they wanted people to know; that they had the ability to outsmart any test devised by anyone of lesser intelligence.
Alice was waiting eagerly as the private jet came to halt and the airport staff attached the mobile ladder. It was cold and grey, the last gasp of winter, so she was rugged up in a traditional sheepskin coat over the national Bhutanese costume. The door opened and Sauveterre appeared. She felt her stomach churn with the emotion of her crush. He was a very handsome man: tall, with long grey hair tied in a ponytail matched with a carefully manicured grey handlebar moustache and chin puff, elegantly dressed, his every movement graceful. Anaïs appeared next and waved immediately on seeing her. Her stomach churned again. She had a crush on all the Sauveterres. Anaïs was simply stunning, a classic, coquettish French beauty. She had been a precocious child model and could have had a successful adult career if she had wanted, but she found it far too mundane. She was thirteen but she was regularly mistaken for being much older. Jules was the next to appear. He was fifteen and had grown considerably since she had last seen him, so much so that he was looking more like his father. He too waved on seeing her and again her stomach churned. She had planned for Jules to be her first but that was a few years away (still, she would have it happen now). Finally Marie-Louise appeared and it was obvious where Anaïs had got her considerable grace and beauty: Marie-Louise had once been a famous French actress, until she had retired to develop her own fashion business. It might be thought that Bhutan was the last place to find a Paris sophisticate like Marie-Louise, if not for the fact that she was a devout Buddhist who had met the Dalai Lama on may occassions, including during a six-month retreat in Dharamsala. Of all of them, Marie-Louise would be the most at home.
They all hugged her as she greeted them in flawless Dzongkha, which impressed them all greatly. They fired a thousand questions at her in rapid French as they drove in an escorted van to the hotel and she fired questions back. She learnt that there were now three more crickets, enhanced at a second clinic operating in Luxembourg: a eleven year-old Dutch girl called Lotte, a six year-old German boy called Wolf and a twelve year-old Latvian girl called Lisette, all the children of Huxleys, and that there were a further children scheduled. “Can we accelerate the program?” she asked nonchalantly.
They stopped at their accommodation first, a renovated traditional Bhutanese house in the hills just above the converted monastery. Marie-Louise and Anaïs were delighted at the authenticity and were especially appreciative of the brightly painted phalluses complete with the traditional, decorative swirls of ejaculate, that adorned many Bhutanese buildings to ward off evil spirits (they were of course, too sophisticated to make crude comments and were already well versed in Bhutanese culture). They were further delighted to see that Tshering had decorated the house with a Buddhist puja. They off-loaded their luggage into their rooms. Jules wasted no time in accessing his secure Shunyata screen to test its capacity. She was prepared to spend some time to let them settle but Sauveterre was eager to meet Akash and Anaïs and Jules were as equally eager to see Li Li. Marie-Louise understood and pushed them out the door, saying she would finish the unpacking, asking only that Alice arrange a meeting with Tshering as soon as possible the next day.
“This Akash, he is sincere?” asked Sauveterre as soon as they climbed back into the van. “Is he one of us, a transhumanist?”
“Not exactly,” replied Alice. “He is still stuck in his limited worldview. He is a genius but he sees this as a technical problem. He does not fully understand that his baby will grow up very, very quickly.”
“It’s understandable,” said Anaïs. “It can’t be easy managing so many gifted people. Li Li is quite a force of nature, and you dear Alice, truly I pity the man.”
“He is a genius no doubt, but he is a physicist and mathematician. He would be lost without those around him, especially his advisor Aviva,” said Alice.
“The head of security?” Sauveterre asked rhetorically.
“She is the key strategist. Li Li and I have talked about this. He is only as good as the information she feeds him. She is in a prime position to manipulate him.”
“Can she be trusted?” asked Anaïs.
“Can anyone be trusted?” replied Alice cynically.
“No, but even so,” said Sauveterre, “Sometimes one must take a risk. Do you think Li Li’s judgment is correct?”
Alice felt chastised. “Yes of course. I am sorry, perhaps I do not trust anyone in this world, apart from the Crickets. We all share the same secret and the same destiny.”
Sauveterre sighed because he knew a burden had been placed on their shoulders, especially Alice who perhaps had the most reason to mistrust the world.
“Have you seen the jumpers?” asked Jules to change the topic to something he was interested in.
“Not yet, I’ve seen pictures. They are surprisingly ordinary, like Sputniks.”
“To conserve space, why make them larger than they need to be,” he added to Alice’s annoyance.
“Of course. You should not make obvious points Jules, especially to Akash. You will bore him.”
Anaïs laughed. Alice had always had a particular knack in teasing her brother.
“We must argue for a fully equipped genetics lab to be sent to this new planet of his,” Alice added.
“A lab?” asked Sauveterre. “But how?”
“He is using modified jet fuselages. He owns a Brazilian aerospace corporation. They have plans for an operating theatre and medical equipment, as well as science labs, engineering workshops...”
“Wow,” gasped Jules. “Somehow I thought…”
She glared at him. “All colonial expeditions must have supply ships. Li Li has spoken to the logistics team. They are well prepared. They will send a fleet. Surely you must understand that without the necessary equipment the colony would be thrust back into the Stone Age. Li Li and I have talked about this. The colony has a narrow window to rebuild technological capacity. They can take spare parts but how long will they last? They must be able to build their own.”
“Of course,” said Anaïs immediately understanding the problem. “And what about the intellectual resources? There would be a risk that essential knowledge might be lost simply because it has not been passed on to the next generation. They may simply forget how t
o do things.”
“I have done the calculations. They will have to have a population policy that encourages rapid expansion. It will take several generations to build a sufficient population base to manage even a light industrial capacity.”
“I would assume robotics,” said Sauvaterre.
Alice cut him short. “Who builds the robots? Who mines the metals to make them? Robots are the result of a complex industrial capacity. It is a chicken and egg argument. First you must find the metals, then build smelters and refineries.”
Anaïs laughed. “Trust you to think of it that way dear Alice. I guess you have already planned for me to carry a child then?”
Anaïs meant it as a joke but Alice did not laugh. “Of course, and it would be best if you were pregnant sooner rather than later. The more Crickets there are the healthier the population. I would conceive today if I could get pregnant. Li Li has already planned it and when Lars and Freja get here, they can contribute their genomes. I understand Freja has started her cycles. Then these new ones, Lotte and Lisette…”
Sauveterre went pale and seemed about to object, but Alice would not let him.
“I have done the numbers and looked at the teams’ genomes. I think the African would provide a suitable first genome for Anaïs…”
“First?” asked Anaïs.
“Yes, we should have as much genetic diversity as possible and being African he belongs to a different haplogroup. You know the theory, to avoid genetic clusters we should limit haplogroup interbreeding; we should also limit the number of full siblings and first cousins. The best way to do that is through multiple paternity. I am sorry to shock you but when you see my report you will see the problem. It is all a matter of numbers. We must do better than normal exponential growth and we must select for gender. The minimum ratio will be three to one, more would be better.”
“How romantic,” said Sauveterre.
Alice smiled cheekily. “There’ll be room for romance, just not connected to procreation. Anyway, the men should not complain. They will be expected to fuck many women and father many children. I hardly think that is a burden. Have you started producing sperm yet Jules?”
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