by Nobilis Reed
Sending him a message for a rendezvous was out of the question. Even though we could send it pretty much anonymously, we couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t be intercepted. The Scouts didn’t have their eye on me, as far as I knew, but they were definitely watching him.
The next morning, a thought occurred to me. Suna was a newgen. So was Zun. From the few conversations I had with them, I knew they had communities of similar newgens not far from the academy. Where were they actually located?
While Shirley was having her morning shower, I took out my tablet and did some research. There were several groups of newgens, numbering from a few dozen to a hundred or so, scattered around the headquarters. A group of Chevalier newgens lived quite close, just a couple of kilometers along the ring. Some more inquiries found that their living and working areas were just beyond where we had met Joco. If we went there, we’d travel right through his area.
Shirley came out of the fresher and looked over my shoulder. “What have you got there?”‘
“The historical information is so impersonal. I want to interview some newgens in person. There’s a group nearby. I thought I could go interview some of them.”
“Sure, why not? You’re doing well in most of your studies. We can bring our tablets and do some review along the way.”
We dressed and packed up our things, but instead of making our way to the promenade, Shirley took me down a corridor I had never used before. The sign over the door read Transit Hub.
I groaned inwardly. Of course the station would have some way of moving people and goods quickly; it was too big to depend on just walking. I had expected something like Joco’s little truck, but instead, we found ourselves climbing into what amounted to a large elevator car mounted in a tunnel that ran around the ring of the station rather than up and down. Shirley waved her implant over the car’s reader, spoke our destination, and we started moving. We were going to go right past him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As we sat in the accelerating car, Shirley turned to me. “What’s wrong?”
I tried to wave it off. “Nothing.”
“You’re worried about Valka, aren’t you?”
Air started rushing past the car and a strong vibration ran through the frame. What could I say? I couldn’t lie to her, but at the same time, could I trust her with the information? There was little else I could do but take the risk.
“We’re looking into it.”
“Challers!” She put her hand on my knee. “You can’t.”
“We can.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. I hoped that if there were listening devices in the car, the noise of the rails and the wind would make it hard to hear what I was saying. “We found a place where we can get secure access to the network and it won’t get traced back to us. I found out who Cassandra’s instructor was at the academy.”
“Who?” she whispered back.
“Joco.”
She nodded, recognizing the name. “So that’s why you wanted to come out this way today.”
“Yeah, except this route’s going to go past him. I expected to go out on the oxygen deck.”
“That would be a long walk, wouldn’t it?”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I guess I didn’t really think this through.”
“If you had told me what you were trying to do, I could have helped.”
“You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“I guess I owe it to Masters since I never tried to help him while we were partners.” The car slowed down, approaching our destination. She helped me to my feet. “We’ll figure something out. Besides, talking to the newgens will be good for your research. Just be careful.”
We disembarked and walked into a large circular plaza, several levels high, with balconies on either side. It was empty, except for a desk in the center of the floor where a single newgen sat working at a console. He didn’t look up as our footsteps echoed through the vacant hall.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I wonder if we could talk to someone?”
He looked up from his console and looked me over, lingering a bit on my cadet uniform, and then over at Shirley. “About?”
“I’m doing research on newgens—history, culture, that sort of thing.”
“I see.” He arched a thin eyebrow and went back to his console. “I shall contact Kal Oreis, our arts director. It will not be a problem to make time for you. Please proceed to the second balcony on your right. Director Oreis will meet you there.”
“Thank you.”
We made our way up the wide ramp leading to the balconies. “I have the impression I am being indulged.”
“You’re a Scout,” said Shirley. “We’re the whole reason all of them are here.”
At the top of the ramp, we were met by a tall Chevalier newgen in a short white tunic with a red stripe down one side. Her long black hair made me think of her more as female than male, even though I knew the concept was meaningless for them.
“Welcome to our little community,” she said. “I am Kal Oreis. You’re interested in learning more about newgens.”
“Yes. I’m Cadet Challers Dizen, and this is my mentor, Captain Shirley Smith.”
“Pleased to meet you both. How can I help you?”
“Ahm . . .”
I kicked myself for being so unprepared. If I had been thinking, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I could have thought up some questions on the way. Now I looked like an idiot standing there in front of someone who was clearly an important person in the community.
Shirley saved me. “Perhaps we could start with a tour? I’m sure Challers will remember the questions he prepared once we get started.”
Kal smiled. “Of course. If you’ll follow me?”
The newgens lived in apartments that ringed the central plaza on the upper levels, and worked in offices below them, monitoring automated factories in other parts of the station, analyzing and balancing resource needs, and operating mining drones in the asteroid belt. Exactly the same kind of thing you’d see on any other station.
“What do you do for fun?” I asked.
“Oh, the same thing anyone else does. Games, sports, long walks out on the oxygen deck. Gossip. Come on, I’ll show you.”
We found the recreation area in a set of terraces overlooking the oxygen deck. Water cascading down from fountains near the top filled tubs and pools as it flowed down to a stream that ran across the oxygen deck to the river. Some pools steamed with warmth, some had a thin covering of ice. Most were empty, but there were newgens in groups of twos and threes and fours lounging here and there.
Director Kal turned to me and smiled. “Care to join me for a swim?”
Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe. “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
From the look in her eyes, I could tell she had more in mind than just a dip in the water.
“Mister Dizen. You’re here to learn about our people. As you’ve seen, we’re really no different than you, all very mundane, except for one thing. Sex. If you’ve come here to learn about us, then there’s really only one way to do that.”
I felt Shirley’s hand on my shoulder. “Actually, Challers, an encounter like this was already planned. It could have come a little later, but given your interest in newgens, I thought today would be perfect for it.” She moved next to Kal and took my hand. “Director of art includes the sexual arts, Challers. It’s part of the job.”
My heart thudded. “You could have warned me.”
“Would you have paid any attention during the tour if we had?” Kal kicked off her slippers and descended a set of stairs sculpted into the side of a pool. With her back to me, she pulled her tunic up over her head and laid it on the side. Her slim back was muscular, but not enough to dispel her femininity.
“I guess not.”
Shirley took my hand and led me to the edge of the water. “Come on. You can do this.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t
miss this for anything.”
We stripped off our uniforms and joined Kal in the waist-deep water. I was glad for the luxurious warmth of the water, because otherwise, I would have been trembling. All of the anxiety I had felt talking to the newgens by the river had returned. Back then, I was worried that they would want to have sex with me, but with Kal, it was coming true.
Shirley stood behind me, urging me forward by simply not giving me anywhere else to go.
She whispered, “Touch, Challers. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Touch.”
I put one hand on Kal’s ribs, and she turned her head and smiled over her shoulder at me. She took my hand and moved it around to her chest to cup one small, firm breast. I felt her nipple rub against my fingertips.
Slowly, she turned to face me and lifted her face towards mine. Our lips met and she put her hands on my sides, not quite an embrace, but close. She smelled like butter. Shirley pressed close behind me, squeezing me between their bodies. I felt something brush my thigh.
“Was that . . .”
“Yes, Challers,” said Kal, “that was my cock.”
“Do you want me to touch it?”
“I would like that very much, but if it makes you uncomfortable, then don’t.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat. I was as nervous as the first time I was naked with Shirley, or the first time I stole a kiss in the communications room with Valka. All the control and reserve I learned in my sessions with Shirley evaporated.
Shirley reached around me and stroked my cock while Kal’s hands caressed my chest and shoulders. My own hands felt most comfortable on Kal’s breasts, so I kept them there. I closed my eyes and let my head roll back, enjoying the sensation of four hands roaming over my body.
I could feel Shirley moving around to my side, and then there was a splash and we separated. I opened my eyes. Shirley had lifted Kal out of the water and set her on the side of the pool, so she could bend down and take Kal’s rigid cock into her mouth. After a few slow plunges, she took the organ in her hand and turned her head towards me.
“Give me your hand,” she said and reached out to me.
In a daze, I gave her my hand, and she pulled it in and put it on Kal’s body, just below her cock. Folds of skin connected the underside of her penis with the lips of her pussy. In truth, it was all one organ—no clear boundary where cock ended and pussy began. The entire area was hairless, either from a depilatory or by design. I stroked it as Shirley went back to sucking the male end, and Kal lay back on the hard stone patio that surrounded the pool. Kal took my hand and guided it to her breast, inviting me to play with it the way I had before.
“You like this?” asked Kal, between sighs of pleasure.
I swallowed. I had to admit, the novelty of Kal’s body excited me. There was something unnameably frightening about it, but the fear was more like the lurch of going out of an airlock for a hull inspection—not something to be avoided, but an excitement to savor.
“Yes,” I said. I was aroused watching Kal become aroused, but also by watching her cock disappear into Shirley’s mouth.
“Then after,” she said, “it’ll be your turn.”
My turn for what? The possibilities drove my anxieties to new heights, yet I couldn’t deny the erotic power of the images in my imagination. Then Kal arched her back and growled, gripping my hand tight to her chest. Shirley rose from between her legs, licked her lips, and swallowed.
“Marvelous.” Kal sighed and opened her eyes. She propped herself up on her elbows and raised an eyebrow at me. “Ready?”
“No,” I said, boosting myself up onto the edge of the pool, “but I’m not going to let that stop me.”
Shirley and Kal traded places. Kal bent down between my legs and Shirley rose up to kiss me. I tasted Kal’s cum on her tongue. It tasted faintly of apples, reminding me that Kal wasn’t quite human—at least, not the way I thought of humans. Shirley’s breast grazed my chest as she leaned over me, touching just with the tip of her nipple.
At the same time, Kal’s lips and tongue played up and down the almost painfully hard shaft of my cock. She was teasing, it seemed, taking her time. With my mouth and hands engaged with Shirley, I could do nothing to encourage Kal. She licked and kissed every part slowly before even making the slightest motion to take it into her mouth, and then it was only the head, and just for a brief moment.
I groaned with frustration into Shirley’s mouth. She pulled away and gave me a questioning look.
I looked down and said, “Kal, please . . .”
Kal replaced her mouth with her hand and smiled up at me. “Yes?”
“I can’t take any more of this.”
“You don’t like it? It certainly seems like you do.” Her smile turned mischievous.
“No, I mean, please . . .” I needed her mouth back on me; her hand wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. “Suck me.”
“Gladly.” Even inside her mouth, though, she managed to make it last. She moved only enough to maintain my erection at full intensity. I tried to protest, but Shirley put one fat nipple into my mouth and the conversation was over.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, falling back on the meditation techniques Shirley had taught me to reach orgasm faster. Focusing my attention on my cock, I pulled the sensations around me and dove into them, accepting them along with all the erotic imagery that was playing in my imagination. Then, unbidden, Valka’s image came to mind. Instead of disapproving, however, I imagined her there, her mouth around my cock, or her breast in my mouth.
I opened my eyes and thrust the images away. Shirley had warned me against that, and I wanted to be there for both of them, a full participant in what we were doing. I took Shirley’s breasts in my hands and guided her away from my face.
“I want to watch Kal,” I whispered. She nodded and helped me up to a sitting position.
Kal used a technique I had felt Shirley use on me several times before. With my cock nestled in the back of her soft throat, she moved her tongue up and down the underside of my shaft while her hands caressed the base. It felt wonderful, of course. Kal knew as much about oral sex as Shirley did–perhaps more, as she was touching an organ that she herself possessed, more or less.
My orgasm finally arrived, teased to a dizzying height, and I felt my body pulse again and again, filling her mouth with my cum. She tried to swallow each jet as it came, but there was too much, and when the cum started dripping out of her mouth, she pulled back. The last few spurts hit her cheek, chin, and neck. With a groan, I collapsed back into Shirley’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shirley and I strolled along the path next to the river. I was quiet, focusing on my thoughts about the experience with Kal.
“You’re awfully quiet,” said Shirley. “Something bothering you?”
“Does every Scout have sex with a Chevalier newgen?”
Shirley chuckled. “No, you seem to be developing a specialty in newgens, and since the Scouts have need of someone who can operate in those circles, I’ve been developing your talents that way.”
“I see.”
She gave me a questioning look. “Is that a problem?”
“Well, I would have liked to have talked about it.”
“It wouldn’t have been the same experience for you if I had. Was it that bad?”
“It wasn’t bad exactly, but I am a little worried.”
“About what?”
I took a moment to figure out what to say. “You remember Trace, that cadet who was about to leave for her training cruise? I talked to her before she left. She used to be a man. They put her through the gentank to turn her into a woman because she prefers sex with men.”
“Prefers?”
“I guess not exactly. She wasn’t capable of having sex with women at all. I suppose that’s more than just a preference.”
“That makes sense.”
“It does? She didn’t seem to think so.”
“Oh, no, I’m talking about her me
ntor, Umber. He was a woman last time I saw him. I bet he went into the gentank in order to take the job.”
“Umber used to be a woman? But he was such a . . .”
“Swaggering fool? Yes, well, he always did like playing a role.”
That gave me a bit to think about. Trace’s situation seemed a little different in that light.
Shirley put her arm around me and squeezed. “Don’t worry. Just because Kal had a penis doesn’t mean you’re like Trace. We’re not going to make you into a woman. At least, not permanently.” She saw the look of alarm on my face and chuckled. “Oh, it happens. As something of an educational experience for students who fall behind in certain areas. It can be useful to find out how it feels to be the opposite gender, for some people.”
And that turned the whole situation back at me again. Would I want to do that, to feel how it was to be a woman? How about a newgen, like Kal or Suna, or one of the other types I had studied?
“Was there something wrong with Trace?”
“Someone like Trace isn’t well suited to being a Scout. I’m surprised they went to such lengths to accommodate her, actually. Do you know any reason why they didn’t just send her home?”
“She said that people like her got killed on her station.”
“Good enough reason to keep from sending her home. You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you be? She was miserable.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. As much as Umber can be, well, Umber, he’s a dedicated Scout and I’m sure he wants the best for Trace.”
“I hope so.”
We walked in silence for a few minutes, bringing us down to the water, where we then turned towards the academy.
Shirley scanned the area and frowned. “You know, the odds of us meeting up with him are pretty slim. Chances are, he’s out in the fields somewhere fixing a robot, not driving that little cart around.”
I shrugged. “I gotta take the chance.”
We stayed alert while we walked, keeping conversation to a minimum. I kept the pace slow to give us more time to spot him. We passed the little bower where Shirley and I spent the night, and then after a couple more kilometers, we spotted the dust cloud. That had to be him.