Chapter 12 - What the Probe Brought Back

Life settled down again once Tintagel Castle left for home. As expected, Brent's retest scored him as a five nine and James quickly ordered him thrown in a recycler. After that, the citizens appeared to be concentrating on the slow expansion of the colony and setting up the new living area for visiting crews.

The musical practice was now all about perfecting the dances and singing. As we could all see it coming together there was a contagious enthusiasm creeping into the concubines. Anytime three or more concubines gathered, there were whispered conversations about the various scenes. Janice was even politicking the AI, trying to convince it that the multi-use room needed to be temporarily remodeled to provide the perfect stage. We all expected her to fail, but one day she was in the pod and asking the AI the question over breakfast and James immediately spoke up. "AI, allow her to request changes to that room. She's supposed to be organizing some bands and I'm guessing this has something to do with that."

Of course, my sister concubine whirled around in shock. She had not realized that James was in the room. I watched her cover her mouth in fear, but James merely shook his head and smiled more. "Don't worry, I still have no idea what the surprise is other than that you want to make changes to the multi-use room for it," James told Janice. "And I'm working hard at not finding out. I get a feeling I'll like the surprise."

Janice just stood there blushing for the next fifteen minutes as James ordered a quick breakfast, ate and then left the room as quietly as he arrived. Once he was out the front door Janice collapsed into a chair.

"Oh god! I nearly spoiled it all," she wailed.

I got up from tending the babies and rushed over to cuddle my sister. "Nearly doesn't matter in this case. Just stay calm, the secret has held. Only two more weeks."

Janice nodded. "I know, but it was sooo close."

I gave her a couple loving kisses in the neck. "Is it all ready?" I asked. After I had stumbled during a couple of dance numbers, everyone agreed that I would be one of the few musicians set up to provide the sound effects and other musical interludes we were not pre-recording. Some of the scenes had slightly variable timing and having a couple of musicians had proved to be a huge help. Unfortunately it meant that I had not seen the whole performance as most of the dance numbers used recorded music. We just did not have enough concubines to stage large ensemble numbers at the same time we had a full orchestra playing.

In truth, James was rather distracted that day, as he had been for the past week. He continued to dote on the family, alternately either offering to take care of the babies or almost smothering one of us with affectionate kisses and caresses. Alexis might have a fear that the men of the planet would try to control her, but if my master was any example, they were enchanted by the babies and saw no reason to exert themselves to dominate anyone.

There was something else distracting James and the others. At first I thought it nothing more than worries about additional ships arriving, but after the visit of Tintagel Castle, the concubines working in the command post reported that the few reports they were receiving indicated that ships attacking the Sa'arm were jumping back to Borneo and Kelor when challenged rather than pursuing their targets into Sa'arm controlled systems. It made little sense to me, but Candi and Randi happily reported that the Sa'arm appeared to be trying to redistribute their forces to protect the goods they were moving between Ursus and other planets deeper inside their territory.

It was a few hours after Janice's scare that we discovered what had James so distracted. He was relaxing in the rabbit pod with one of his favorites. Janice and I had decided to accompany him and, with our babies slumbering peacefully in their cribs at home, had been teasing him as he brushed out the fur of the rabbit. We were bantering back and forth when Ulla's voice interrupted us. "James, we are receiving a signal, but I don't understand it."

"What is it?" James asked as he set the brush down and picked up the rabbit. Before Janice or I could react he had stood up and was walking towards the rabbit's cage.

Ulla replied in a puzzled voice. "I don't know. The voice sounds much like the AI units as it's completely toneless, but it just keeps repeating 'Eureka' again and again."

James just nodded and then placed the rabbit back in the cage. He gave Janice and me absent hugs and left the room without a word, leaving us standing there.

"Should I follow him?" I asked quietly.

Janice shook her head. "No, we can leave him a few mysteries. We can go visit Yvette's pod though. Perhaps one of her concubines knows."

I smiled and gave Janice a hug of my own. Since the talk with Tina, I had tried to remember to hug and kiss her often. We were spending more time together and I noticed that she seemed even happier than before. She returned the hug with a wiggle that made both of my nipples harden in moments and then released the hug to take my hand.

"Or perhaps we can go home and cuddle," Janice said with a sigh.

"I'll do anything for you," I replied. "I love you Janice."

Janice laughed as she led me to the door. "And I love you, but let's try to ambush James tonight. Perhaps I can get him to help me double-team you and return a little of the attention you have been giving me the last couple of weeks."

I blushed and stopped walking. Janice took two more steps before turning and smiling at me. "What?" she said. "You thought I had not noticed that my best friend, the sister of my heart, was paying even more attention to me? You are gentle and quiet, but you give almost as much love as James does, so it was impossible to ignore forever. I just didn't want to say anything."

"You are happy?" I asked in a whisper.

Janice stepped back to me and wrapped her arms around me in a crushing hug. She had bent down to flatten her breasts against my own. I could feel some milk leaking between us as she placed a kiss on my cheek. "I am in love and loved," Janice said. "You have almost as much of my heart as James does. My only regret is that you can't be in the musical."

I giggled. "I love playing the music for it. My father was against me learning any instrument, but I love playing the flute."

Janice nodded as she released me with a final kiss. "Good. Now let's go and visit Yvette's. It's not nice for James to have secrets from us."

I nodded and we finally left the room, allowing the AI to turn the lights out behind us. Once in the hallways we paused to listen to the calls and cries of the children and parents enjoying a quiet day. It was a peaceful sound as we made the short walk to Yvette's pod.

We arrived to find the door open and Carol standing in the doorway. She looked up and waved. "Don't worry. Marie has the older children at school, and Esther is on baby duty right now, so you aren't disturbing me. Where are your babies?"

"Bethany volunteered for baby duty," Janice replied. "Although I think Kitty was planning on helping her."

"Which means that Brittany will probably help as well," I added quietly.

Carol giggled. "Those two do seem to be close. I can't believe they never met before arriving here."

"They share memories that few of us really understand," I said. "Most of us have never had an abusive master like they did, and for it to happen when they were still fourteen probably is something we'll never understand. But that's not why we are here."

Carol shook her head. "No, I don't know what Yvette, James and the others are up to. I do know they didn't expect anything this quickly, and that they are a bit worried, but they've told no one about it. Or at least, it's never been discussed in front of a concubine."

"So you have no clue either?" Janice complained.

Carol smiled. "I haven't really worried about it. Yvette seems very confident, and that's all I need for now."

I sniffed, but stayed silent. Janice started asking questions about Carol's experiences as Yvette's concubine. I listened distractedly while trying to figure out what my master was working on.

My mind was coming up with no ideas. I was about to ask Janice if she wanted to return to visit the bunnies when Yvette dashed up. She saw the three of us just outside the pod and smiled. "I might have guessed. Don't worry, nothing bad is happening."

"But Mistress, why are you running home then?" Carol asked plaintively.

Yvette blushed. "When Ulla made her announcement I was relaxing with some coffee. I spilled it all over my lap. I'm just stopping here to change into a clean outfit."

"Couldn't you have done that anywhere?" Carol asked.

Yvette grinned wickedly. She put her arms around her concubine and gave her a long and lusty kiss. "Maybe I wanted my concubine to help clean me up," she purred as she pushed Carol into the pod. The door slid closed behind them, leaving Janice and me in the hallway.

"That's it," Janice said. "We go to the command post and bug James. I need a kiss like Carol got."

I giggled as we skipped through the tunnels. As we approached the command post, we noticed that most of the population of Ishtar appeared to be hovering nearby. We found Paula sitting on the floor just outside the command post cuddling her baby.

"Have the twins said anything?" I asked her.

The girl shrugged. "Nothing that made sense. They did say that they will be home in an hour and are hoping for a big celebration and feast."

I could see that Janice wanted to scream in frustration. Part of me agreed with her, but before she started to vent Terrence appeared in the doorway to the command center. He looked around at the gathered crowd of citizens and concubines and sighed.

"Boss," he shouted, turning back to the inside of the command center. "I think we have the whole colony gathered outside to hear what's going on."

"Send them to the recreation hall," I heard my master call back. "We'll use one of the screens there to explain everything. Tell them to expect it to take a few minutes. We need to finish reviewing the record."

Everyone seemed surprised by that comment, but the shout had been loud enough to start a slow exodus from the hallway. Janice and I joined up with Paula, taking several minutes to look at her baby while we made our way to the hall.

Janice and I immediately claimed our favorite table near the door. Paula glanced around for the rest of the twin's household and then joined us with a sigh, placing her baby in her lap. We took her hands to offer comfort while we waited for the announcement.

The rest of the population of Ishtar seemed to stream into the hall. I saw Yvette dash in leading Esther and Carol. She glanced at our table before joining Debby at another table. I was going to shout in protest when strong arms lifted me up. Before I could turn or scream I was deposited on James' lap.

Tyson slid into the chair I had been sitting in. "Sorry for the scare," he said smiling at me as I pressed my cheek to James chest and snuggled into him.

I was about to stick my tongue out when Tamara and Tiffany dashed in and grabbed the last two seats at the table.

"We have"

"set communications"

"to signal"

"here."

Tyson coughed as the twins finished talking. He glared over at my master who was running a finger over my thigh. "Do they always do that?" Tyson demanded.

"If they're excited they do," James replied. "I'd say this is exciting."

The twins giggled as Tyson looked around. I was concentrating on the warmth of James' body. My eyes were almost closed due to the joy of being so close to him, so I was startled when Yvette called out.

"I know we already have your attention and silence, but we're going to make this quick. The signal we received was from a computer-controlled probe we sent to one of the nearby stars. The probe was supposed to scan the various planets and return. During a scan it was making of an airless moon it found evidence of an alien base. A preliminary review of the data shows that the technology is not Confederacy tech. We believe we've seen evidence of some of the tech being used by Sa'arm ships in the area. This could be a civilization they either wiped out, or a dead one that left artifacts they could scavenge. The plan for now is to...."