Blood Sabers

by Burbaugh, MF;

  “I was barren, until you commanded me, I was forbidden. I do not remember a problem after that command, do you?” she asked.

  “I concede, I am beaten,” I said.

  We discussed state affairs for a while longer and our plans to go to old Earth.

  “If you ask will they help? I understand they are rather pompous asses at times.” The General looked at Aawasa for an answer.

  “I do not think we will ask. Jake made it pretty clear we will need to get control of their military. They have a rather corrupt system of government.”

  He said to me, “Well, we might be forced to persuade them that following our ideas are in their best interests. Rodel, Linda, and Latwasa assure me we have certain things they have been developing from the Koteck records and Latwasa’s pure genius. With Linda’s help and powers it gives us a strong edge, that will help.”

  “My God,” Aawasa said.

  I saw all the women arch a little and smile.

  Queastra said, “Family link.”

  “Mary found you are not the only back archer in this world.” Aawasa smiled.

  “Rodel, tell Chief she will soon need to perform another marriage.” I was content. “Poor kid.” I didn’t say which I meant.

  Linda addressed us all. “At my suggestion, Latwasa ran high altitude tests on our pets. My lion and Jake’s sabertooth are immune to space as am I. The offspring sabertooths unfortunately are not, though they appear immortal. She needs Jake there as soon as possible, they are figuring the equipment needed aboard the new ship.”

  “We know she loves you, always has, make sure you limit what equipment she tests,” Aawasa said, but the huge burst of laughter from all proved it was a joke.

  “We have anything else? I can go do it now. I want to look over the ship anyway,” I said.

  “I think we are done for the day,” Rodel said.

  “K, a little tea, and I am off.”

  Aawasa was the only one with me. We drank tea when I noticed none of the others followed; I knew I was in a set up. “Okay, what is up now?” I asked.

  “Jake, please…we have your love. Nothing has changed, we have but a week max until we space.”

  “What, I just ask every woman I see, ‘Hey want to have my kid?’”

  “Exactly what you do, my love, if they say yes, send them to Linda.”

  I went to the labs and met Latwasa. She was all bubbly and kissed me and stared into my eyes. “Troubled eyes, I see.” I told her what Aawasa said and she just said, “Oh.”

  She put me in the pressure chamber and reduced pressure. I felt faint.

  “Nope,” she said.

  She had me call my pet and tried again, “Nope.”

  She had me call up my bio-armor, “Bingo! You need no suit, yours is a natural! Good, one less problem.”

  We finished and I was getting ready to leave, the room was empty.

  Latwasa called me. “I owe you for the happiest life a woman could have ever had. Ask nothing say nothing, let me help you, please?”

  “You’re married, your husband should give you children, not me.”

  “I’ll ask him. Linda does it, right?”

  I nodded then I wandered back to the castle.

  Aawasa gave me a count. I told her Latwasa wanted one. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised.

  I went out the gate and was sitting on a fountain down the hill a bit. It contained a statue of a mythical mermaid holding a jug on her head that spilled water from several holes. I was in a funk, and I guess it showed.

  A well-known one star general came and sat by me; my four star appeared and sat on the other side.

  The one I will always think of as My Captain, the four star, said, “We sense sullenness in our king. What is the matter? Surely not offing that despicable Bill guy?”

  She put her hand on mine. I patted it. I told them the tribe’s trouble with the seed, and my orders from Aawasa and Rodel and what was being done, and I felt terrible about it.

  My Captain said, “Would that I could.”

  The one star said, “Sire, a question please, or two?”

  “What?”

  “The new ships, they say 5 to 8 crew, correct?” she asked.

  “Yes, family units, we cannot go real big yet. Facilities, not abilities, limit us. Family and a courtesan or three. Or two families. Might be stationed somewhere for six months or a year.”

  “An honest guess, how long until their home planet is found and us grunts get involved?”

  “Two to three years after guard stations are set. They have destroyed us at every encounter, so we never got to track them, even then plans will need to be made and so forth.”

  “I can have a thousand women lined up and ready in, oh, an hour,” said the one star. “I do not jest.”

  Katawasa had been standing behind me, unseen. “Sounds like a plan, my husband, of course you think you were ribbed before? Queastra will have a ‘and ah 1 ah, and ah 2 ah’ field day!”

  I thought of it and laughed as we told the two generals about it. They finally knew what was behind the joke none in the army had understood, and they cracked up.

  The one star laughed a bit more thinking of it. “If Queastra keeps cadence and our king can keep up, I can guarantee the lineup, no problem!”

  My Captain said, “Hell, I’d get in line and hope no one noticed me!”

  We all had a good laugh.

  Katawasa said, “We like it no better than any, but through two lifetimes we have been brought together, our special group, to do battle. All else is gravy, as they say. We know what the tribe needs and accept that. Aawasa said she saw us all dead.”

  The one star looked seriously at Katawasa. “Really?”

  Katawasa just nodded. All knew Aawasa was a seer. “Deal. Only thirty or so,” Katawasa said.

  My Captain said, “Strange times, two generals and a wife negotiate over a guy and he sits there. We never use to let them sit in before.”

  “True, but that was mating call for sex. This is just implants of fertilized eggs by Linda as needed,” Katawasa said.

  “You don’t really think a single one of them will admit that, do you? We have legends to protect and expand,” the general said, as straight-faced as you can get.

  In a few hours Linda serviced thirty women, some with our wives’ eggs, some with their own, all left pregnant. Rumor was already running around that I serviced fifty women in a row.

  I went to the kitchen and had a bit of tea.

  Aawasa sat staring at her cup and said, “We are done, thanks to the general, all in one night. You know none will say how their king got them pregnant and his legend will explode far beyond what it is now.”

  “Not funny, Aawasa.”

  “Maybe not, but true.” She was in a rare somber mood.

  The next day was quiet. It was almost dark, no one had been by all day, only a message from Latwasa that the ship had been tested, and all was ready.

  I sat in a funk on the throne. Aawasa had watched me and said nothing. The others had been back and forth. I just stared.

  Aawasa finally had enough. She came and sat on the dais in front of my throne and placed her head on my knee. She didn’t look up, she just hugged my leg. “It is not your fault, my husband. It is mine and we both know it.”

  I found her head and absently rubbed it.

  “Look to Earth’s history, in the beginning we women were blamed as the cause of all troubles. Eve with the apple, Delilah with Sampson, and so on down the line. It took a long time, but we Amazons found how to take charge of that for which we were being blamed anyway, nothing more. Your male sensibilities took two lives to get under our control, it is also legend.” She looked up at me and put her head back down. “Not all women can control with the proper blend of reward and no reward. Some try to punish and that is always a failure. You have fallen prey to some of the best ever. We are not only swordmasters; think of it, the skills to master the blade pale in comparison with mastering the heart.
” She patted my leg. “Do you think the idea that we rip out and caress and massage your heart is all a fantasy? Did you not notice we always kissed it when putting it back?” She gave me a glance to ensure I caught her words. “It is part of our seeing gifts, we know what you think we do, we love you, and only that love is permitted such an intimacy.

  “No my husband, many things you always thought under your control were being, um, adjusted by us, individually or as a group. Chief sees far beyond that which is. If we had you do last time all that you did this time, most notability the twins, we would not have been forced to all come back and finish this battle. It is not natural to the universe.

  “We failed to break your sensibilities and there was nothing to be done. The mother now would have been then. Just a quick bar fling at the builder’s town, an adjustment by Linda, and all would have changed. They, our children’s children, not us, would have handled the threat. Now, you will question our judgments and yours, wondering if it really is you or us.

  “I love you far too deeply to let you blame yourself for that which you honestly have little control over. I say once more, sex and love among us are completely separate. Every soul I have picked for you is special, special in its needs, its desires, and its loves. Yes, we are your army, we are balanced in our abilities. I must tend that as well, but yes, we all love you to our very souls, and I make sure all are able to love one another before you marry them. As first wife, that is my function.”

  She stood up, and kissed me. “We will miss the passing of the trust that will no longer be there, but I evoke ‘truth’ this one time that you know. I do, and have always loved you and have done nothing in any life that was not necessary, because of, or in spite of, that love.” She bent and kissed me again, she was crying. “So you know it, Chief and I both see more wives in our future, eventually twelve souls will be linked to yours for fulfillment over various lifetimes.”

  She walked away.

  I sat by the little fountain. I found its bubbling soothing. Soon both my generals were there. “You two have magic, too?” I asked.

  “Being here, you mean?” My Captain asked.

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  Laughter. “Wish that we did!” the one star said.

  “Both our homes, by design, overlook the entrance to the castle. We need but glance to ensure all is well. When you are out here, all is not well,” My Captain said.

  I evoked ‘truth’ on them both and told them what I was told.

  The one star said, “We have known before records that The Chief and others saw many things that could not be seen. I can feel emotions, not see, but seers see souls, individually and interactively. Chief sees the future, and many of us see a little ahead. Almost any can identify a lie. Any woman alive knows if she handles everything just right any male can be controlled.” She looked at me tenderly. “I now carry your child. I know just in its being you feel you have failed in the correct duties the universe places upon the head of the family.”

  My Captain said, “When I say I wish I could, I do not wish to. I am on birth control; if it was known your seed could overcome it I would have been in line, as any others. We do not desire your child because you are some sex legend, Sire, we desire it because it is needed and our souls have spent most of eternity adapting to the needs of our tribe. Wanting only for the tribe.

  “You always care for us as individuals, always have, and will. We all hope the children will be as kind and knowing. We all know the tribe needs them. It is the same reason we would go, and have gone, to our deaths. That others may live and love, and the tribe continues. The tribe is all of us collectively, not individually.

  “Control, it is so hard to make you understand. As a man you only needed the final wave when you sex your wives, it is your release and their final orgasm. We Amazons feel every wave, for day after day, for our pleasure, our needs, our wants. I studied it carefully, it is how we killed our males of long ago—we all shared in the pleasures. Damn it, we are the ones who take advantage. That is ‘Truth’. Some of us do it because we feel it is compensation to bear the pain of children, their having and rearing; others just because they can. Do not be fooled, not a single woman except those in your family that are soul linked are ‘forced’ to go through the pleasure waves you produce. A simple mind command will turn it off, we all know that command, and ignore it. I doubt if more than a few had the guts to turn it off. I am not ashamed of giving you a child, it is truly an honor. I am ashamed that so many of us take advantage of you in our minds, if only to make up for lifetimes of denial.” She looked at me, looked at My Captain and sighed.

  “Wise beyond her years that one, Sire,” My Captain said. “Listen, help or no, it is ‘truth’ with my life to forfeit. If you sexed every woman on this planet and got every one of us pregnant, you would feel it was all your fault, but we would all know it was our desire—you would be totally helpless in the doing. Aawasa is the controller and she sets the limits. Like Chief for The General, and Sekala, Big Guy’s number one. All our males are totally controlled. We were once the true Amazons of Earth legend, and it was always about the control of our men and resisting the Greek male domination.” She kissed my cheek.

  “I just feel terrible, thirty women, many I don’t even know, pregnant in one day. Getting pregnant should be from joy and love, not implanting for some king,” I said.

  “I see the problem, not its solution, Sire. I am one of those. I bear your child. You see no joy in it, you feel no love connection, yet so many of us have tried desperately to show you there is, was, and always will be one. You once told The Chief that loving a river or a sky or a computer is as real in its giving, even if the receiver has no ability to know, or understand that love. You remember it?”

  “She wanted to know if it was okay to love a computer. Yes, I remember.”

  “Sire, listen please, my heart won’t allow it more than once. You cannot know or understand that to every single girl, every woman, or old crone on this planet, you, and a few of our men and women like Aawasa and Linda and The General, are to us, the flowers, or the rocks, or the sky, or the computers. We love you, yet you cannot ever see, know, or understand. Have you never noticed that absolutely no one argues with Aawasa except you and Katawasa? I have said way too much.” She was crying, which always tears at my heart.

  I found myself hugging her.

  I kissed her, she returned it with controlled passion. I just realized almost everyone from Camelot who ever kissed me did it with controlled passion. “Controlled passion, my God I never saw it before, such control.”

  “Yes, My King, we all must keep it under tight control.” She got up, patted my hand. “I will never do that again.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Truth, the pain is far too great, and the reward is nonexistent.”

  “I say ‘Truth’, you two may have saved my sanity if not my entire family. I thank you,” I said.

  “Then I am most pleased, and know again I am a very happy woman to carry your child. Please bare no shame in its doing!” She walked off and I went home feeling different.

  That night five queens got a royal spanking; they all knew they deserved it, even the goddess did not protest, and all cried tears as they realized they had been forgiven. What could I do, I loved them all.

  In the corner, two swords glowed fiercely.

  The next day I sat on the fountain again. As always, both came to see me.

  My pregnant one rubbed her butt and said, “Yes, I suspect we all deserved that too,” and smiled. I found out not only orgasms could be felt worldwide.

  “I am content and wished to thank you both. I always knew the women here were both beautiful and sexy, but I never knew, until last night, they were in fact and deed, all soul linked. The random few who aren’t die young and usually horribly, like the blue/brown girl on the Koteck cross. I thought it amazing when I first came here that so much in any culture could get done so fast or change so completely and so quickly, bu
t when every woman on the planet is linked, damn. I knew kissing spread like wild fire, now I know why. I feel like I have been making love to, not my wives, but to my whole planet!”

  “Basically you have,” My Captain said. “He has been much distressed, The General has known, Big guy has known, why should our king, who probably needs to know more than anyone, not be told?” she asked.

  Rodel said, out of a speaker in the fountain, “I thought we decided centuries ago not to?”

  “Times are a changing, Rodel,” the four star said.

  “You or I?” asked my one star pregnant beauty.

  “You do it. Rodel or I can correct any flaws.”

  “The History of the Koteck in brief,” she said, beginning a monologue.

  “What have they got to do with it?” I asked.

  “Sire, if you continue to interrupt we will never get done. You wish to hear it or not?” she asked.

  “Because you bear my child I shall allow you to keep your insolent head!” I harrumphed and smiled. “I await your command to speak.”

  She continued, “Rodel’s little robot you brought from the ship, you have not seen it since a little after the bogus rescue he made at the great slaughter.” Hadn’t realized it, but true.

  “Latwasa built a military computer to his specs in her factory, his main board is there still. We built and installed a remote for him. We shielded it well and he went to dig the melted ruins of the Koteck. Several years later, he found one, an original library, complete to the destruction time. Since the time of their awareness, they worshiped only one goddess. Every time one claimed a different deity, it was consumed in fire or eaten. Anyway, they went to the stars, there was a split among leaders. Who was supreme, the planet, or space ones?

  “The space group found a few human developed planets, one had a group of fierce women warriors who captured and used their men—the men were pure sex slaves and often as not died from exhaustion. They were blue, not black or brown or any other color. The Koteck invaded, they took many as slaves, but they could not defeat them, so they spaced and destroyed that planet. The captives were bred for sex perversions and all the ‘ugly’ ones were destroyed and eaten by zoo animals.” She paused but a second. “They enslaved another planet, Redlious, black people with white, blond, brown, and red hair and different colored eyes. They fought battles and the Koteck finally left and destroyed it as well. They again weeded out the ugly ones and sexed or killed the rest. No known blue or black ever had a baby from a Koteck, the reason was never known, but it may be because their Creator wanted purity in her offspring.