Chapter 16

"Oh hell," gasped Meers finally.

"What?" asked Randy, looking around in puzzlement.

Zucher ignored him. "Right, well we need to stop Cassell from going, and if he insists on going, he needs to take a bodyguard."

"Percy!" I said, suddenly.

Percy Meers looked at me in surprise. "What?"

"Sorry, no, not you. I meant Lieutenant Percy. She reports direct to Sir Cassell, she's head of security for something, can't remember what now. Also team leader of his rapid response team, but far more importantly for this, she's ex-SAS. She's almost certainly had training as a bodyguard, but as a head of security she will have clout."

Zucher nodded intently. "I didn't realise she was SAS," he murmured. "She kept that secret well. But you're right. Let's get her in now." He looked up. "AI. Location Lieutenant Priscilla Percy please."

"Lieutenant Percy is in her office on Artemis base."

"In that case, please contact Lieutenant Percy and ask her to come here ASAP. Tell her it is vitally urgent."

"Acknowledged."

Commander Meers spoke up. "Meers to Lipskiy Security, a Lieutenant Percy will be arriving shortly. Please direct her to A9N as soon as she gets here."

"Yes sir," came a muffled response.

"Information," came the AI. "Lieutenant Percy is on her way, it will take her five minutes at most."

Zucher looked at Randy. "Randy, I think you've done everything you needed to do. It's up to us now. I think it's time to get you to safety, and back with the rest of your party."

"Did I do something ... er," Randy looked back and forth between the three men. "What's happening?"

"We think you've discovered an assassination attempt on Sir Samuel Cassell, the head of Earthat Confederacy Intelligence," Zucher told him.

Randy's jaw dropped, and he seemed to go a little grey. He sat down hard, almost as if his legs had given way, but stayed listening. I smiled at him reassuringly. "Nice one kid," I muttered softly. "Well done."

Randy gave a half smile and sat back, listening intently, his eyes watching all of us, taking everything in. I saw him take out a pad of some sort, but what he was doing I didn't know. I turned back to the meeting.

Meers poked his head out of the door and spoke, briefly, to the receptionist.

"Okay," I said, "so we have a probable assassination attempt on Sir Samuel in Gillingham. "This means that you sir," I nodded at Zucher, "need to try and persuade him not to go. But it also needs someone to try and work out who this King of Clubs is. I take it we are still no nearer identifying him?"

Zucher shook his head, a mournful expression on his face. "Sadly not. Nor his people."

"What we need," Meers said, sitting down again, "is to use it as a trap. Is there any way we could send lookalikes in their place?"

"It's an idea," Zucher nodded. "But what... ?"

"Information," the AI interrupted us, "Lieutenant Percy is on Lipskiy."

"Wait one," murmured Zucher.

We didn't have to wait long for Lieutenant Percy to arrive. She looked just as trim and imposing as she had two days earlier when she had briefed me.

"Sirs," she murmured, nodding to us all. "How can I help?"

"Welcome Lieutenant Percy," Zucher started, "may I introduce Commanders Percy Meers and Lew Carter."

"Hello again Commander Carter," Percy nodded to me, "Commander Meers," She shook Commander Meers' hand, eyeing him with slight amusement.

"Oh, you've met Carter?" Zucher asked, surprised.

"I briefed him two days ago," she said, sitting neatly down.

"Ah, good." He quickly explained what had happened since, and that we now believed Sir Samuel Cassell's life was at risk.

Percy listened intently, her eyes boring into each of us in turn, especially young Randy, as if trying to read all our thoughts. I noticed her eyes straying occasionally to Meers for a few seconds, before returning to the conversation at hand.

"Sir Samuel must not be allowed to go," Zucher finished.

"Agreed. How do you propose to stop him?"

"We were hoping you would have some clout with him."

She smiled, wry amusement on her face. "Not that sort of clout. The best I could do is guard him."

"I was wondering whether we could get some lookalikes to go in their place, and use it as a trap," Meers said softly. "Thoughts?"

Percy shook her head. "No," she said decisively. "Sir Samuel wouldn't go for that. He would consider it cowardice on his part. No matter that we would consider his actions to be foolhardy at best, and cretinous at worst."

"We still need to persuade him not to go, and if, as you suggest, that doesn't work, we need a plan B," Meers said.

"I'm plan B," Percy said quietly. "I need to know as much as possible about this cemetery so that I can protect Sir Samuel, and also plan an ambush on his putative attackers." She frowned for a moment. "Who are the other two people?"

Meers told her, and I realised that his eyes had been straying to her, even when she wasn't speaking.

"Don't know them. Are we sure they're not involved?"

"As sure as we can be," Zucher answered.

"That's my job," Meers followed up. "I'll do a deep background check on both and get it to you ASAP."

Percy nodded. "And you've been to this cemetery?" she asked me.

"Two days ago, yes."

"Describe it for me. Everything you can remember. Every little detail."

"I'm not sure I can," I answered. "It was a cemetery. There were headstones and graves. And a couple of memorials, one of which had the names of a couple of my three-greats uncles on it."

"How wide was the gate you went in through?"

"It was wide enough to drive a car. Or a hearse."

"Gates?"

"Er, yeeeeessss. Tall, wrought iron, lots of curlicues and the like. Open. Not sure whether they would have closed and locked. Didn't exactly look closely."

"Where was the sun?"

"The sun? Oh. To my right I think."

"And what time of day?"

"Um, a little after six pm."

Percy thought for a moment. "Right, so you went in through a gate on the north side. Was the road straight?"

"I have a vague recollection it curved gently left."

"Flat?"

"It rose at first, and then dropped slightly."

Slowly, carefully, she took me through my entire time in the cemetery, teasing out everything she could. I was seriously impressed by her thoroughness and the way she extracted all the information I hadn't realised I possessed. It was a useful technique and one I would try and use myself in the future. I hadn't remembered seeing trees, but under her quiet but determined questioning I described two huge oak trees not far from the memorial, and a few more further away. I described the memorial itself, right down to its colour and the type of stone it was made of.

"Describe the two girls," she said. "How old?"

"Both looked to be about the same age. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. A little younger than me I think, but not by much."

"Height?"

"One about five three, the other about five seven."

"Taller one first. Hair?"

"Blonde. Long, below her shoulders anyway."

"Straight? Curly?"

"Slight wave I think."

"Eyes?"

I shook my head. "Don't remember."

She just looked at me, a neutral expression on her face.

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to 'see' the girl in my mind. After a few seconds I opened them again and shook my head. "Sorry, no."

"Mouth?"

"Wide."

"Figure?"

I shrugged. "Nice. Slim. Not sexy exactly, but not unattractive. Almost dressed down I would think."

"Dressed down, huh? What clothes? Top?"

"Er. A coat. A lightweight nylon coat. Mid blue. Over a light or white blouse. Blue jeans. Boots. Brown suede I think. Tatty, well used anyway."

"Accent?"

"Don't think she spoke. In fact I'm sure she didn't."

"But she understood you?"

"So far as I can tell, yes."

"Good. Shorter one."

Again she took me through the description of the girl. This time when she got to the accent I paused. "Um. Welsh. North Wales. It was only faint, but I didn't really think about it at the time."

She just nodded. "Did you speak to anyone else?"

"No." I was definite about that.

"Did you see anyone else?"

I paused, going through my whole time in there. "No," I said after almost a minute.

"Good, thank you."

Percy sat back, deep in thought.

"Do you have an idea, Lieutenant?" Zucher asked her.

"No sir. Just pondering ideas at the moment. I'll need to talk it over with a couple of my people."

"Agreed. But keep it as small a group as you can."

"Yes sir."

Zucher nodded slowly. The meeting went on for no more than five more minutes; we had done and said virtually everything that needed to be said.

Zucher gave a big sigh, and summarised the meeting's action points.

"Lieutenant Percy, you and I will start off by trying to persuade Sir Samuel that he shouldn't go to Earth. I suspect we'll fail, so your primary task is to work out how to protect him from himself, and at the same time catch his assassins. Sir Samuel's safety is primary though.

"Commander Carter, you're going straight back to Mars, but I want you to be on the lookout for anything that hints at the identity of the King of Clubs and his people. Anything you do come up with, pass to Commander Meers." He shrugged apologetically to me. "Sorry, but you're out of it now."

"Commander Meers. Check out Ogden and Vickers. I suspect they are innocent, but let's just rule them out. Then just coordinate between Lieutenant Percy and Commander Carter. Act as a clearing-house for any information. Funnel it to whoever needs it. Lieutenant, if you need additional manpower, ask Meers."

He paused and looked at Randy. "My first task is to get this young man back to his family. They're currently in France, I understand." He smiled slightly. "Disneyland Paris I believe."

Randy's jaw dropped, then a look of sheer relief and delight came over his face. Everyone smiled at his obvious pleasure at this news.

The meeting quickly broke up, and as we left the office, I was amused to note that the two Percys were looking at each other, both had identical looks of wondering confusion in their eyes. I smiled to myself and pretended not to see.

"AI? When's the next shuttle back to Mars?"

"Oh bugger," I grumbled as I got into the shuttle to take me back to Mars.

"You okay?" asked the young man sitting next to me.

"Oh. Yeah, sorry. I just remembered I forgot to pick something up."

I was going back without that wonderful Italian red wine I had bought in London a few days earlier. Oh well, I was sure it wouldn't go to waste.

I briefed Major Thornby on my return. He nodded intently. "Well," he said, when I'd finished, "now isn't that interesting. That explains the slightly odd message I got from Lipskiy a short while ago." He nodded. "Carry on with your work as is, but your task from this Colonel Zucher is important. If you think you've found any hints or clues, you don't need to run them past me, and certainly not past Harper. Just pass it on direct." He frowned. "If you want to run an idea by me afterwards, I'm all ears, but for this you actually report direct to Zucher so you are at liberty to keep me in the dark." He gave a shrug. "Quite understandable, if a little frustrating for me." He nodded sharply at me and gave me the first hint of anything approaching a smile I had ever seen on his face.

"Carry on Commander."

I quickly stood to attention. "Yes sir." Turned, and marched smartly out.

About three days later, I had a message relayed to me, via Percy Meers, from Randy. It contained a large graphic showing links and notes. I read it through with interest, and then went through it again, deleting a large quantity of stuff which I knew to be irrelevant, either to me or to the problem at hand. One particular note caught my eye though. "Shadows," I muttered.

I pondered for a few moments before adding a few extra notes to the graphic, describing in more detail what I now believed could possibly be used as a hiding spot. I dithered for a moment, before sending it back. It was a bit tenuous, but eventually I decided that any little thing could be useful. Even if this 'shadow' proved to be irrelevant, it could trigger an idea or a thought in one of the others.

I didn't hear much about what happened to Sir Samuel, other than that he did survive the assassination attempt, but I also didn't find anything directly about the King Of Clubs.

To be honest, I saw little over the next year that could lead to the identity of the King Of Clubs. The Welsh accent of the girl I met in the cemetery made me look at links to Welsh nationalist groups. Though I found, and passed on, one link that made me think he might at least have strong Welsh connections, in the end that turned out to be a red herring. A slightly more tenuous link to an extreme Scottish nationalist group, that in turn had links to both Irish and Basque nationalist groups, I also passed on. These were the sort of people who, I was beginning to hear, were far more likely to be opposed to the Confederacy.

When Siân arrived back nearly four weeks later, there was more than a bit of celebrating in the home pod. She'd been gone for nearly seven months and we had all missed her. Not unnaturally, some of our celebrations had a rather sexual side to them, and when I took her to bed that night, I smiled at her suddenly smooth mount.

She grinned at me. "I like it like this."

I smiled back. "No problem Babe," and got down to some serious pussy licking of my 'baby' sister.

The following morning, in the office which, along with two other people, we now shared, I welcomed her back more formally.

"Welcome back Private."

"Thank you sir, it's good to be back."

I smiled slightly. "I do have one present for you. Major Thornby, our immediate boss, had a note about you from a commander on the moon. As a result of that, I have been asked to give you this." I handed over an envelope.

Siân looked worried. At my nod, she tore open the envelope and out of it dropped a piece of paper and two pieces of cloth. She looked at them in bemusement, and then began to read the short note. Her jaw dropped and then her mouth began to turn up in a smile.

"Congratulations, Lance-Corporal Carter." Only the presence of the two other people in the office prevented her from leaping at me to give me a huge hug, but I could see she wanted to do just that. I handed her another piece of paper. "Uniform regs, showing where and how to stitch those stripes onto your uniform shirt."

There were just three words on the paper: "Use a replicator." She looked at the piece of paper, and then looked up at me blankly for a moment, before bursting into laughter. "I don't sew them on, I get new uniform from the replicator."

I grinned at her, and waved her to her new desk.

Siân had a lot of work to catch up on, so it was a few days before she and I had chance to sit and really talk. "I did about seventy percent of my training on Lunar," she told me. "Mostly Daedelus, but also on Artemis."

"Did you get back to Lipskiy?" I asked with a laugh.

She shuddered. "Just once. And I only got as far as the entrance."

"Oh?" I looked at her with a puzzled smile. "How come?"

"I was asked to escort this young lad from Lipskiy, take him to Euro Disney to meet the rest of his party."

"Euro Disney?" I asked. My mouth dropped open. "Oh my god. Er, Randy something. Randy Jenkins?" Siân just nodded, a very confused look on her face. "Fuckin' hell," I gasped. "I was in that meeting. The meeting Randy came out of. Was he with someone called Andres Zucher?"

"Yeah, he was. I'd met Andres a few times before then. He was part of the platoon's training team. I'm not quite sure what his role was because I never actually had him, but I did meet him."

I almost couldn't help shaking. "Holy shit. Do you realise, we were probably a few metres apart at that moment." Then I frowned. "How long were you waiting?"

"Um. A few minutes. When I'd delivered him, I had to report to a very scary woman. A Priscilla Percy."

"Yeah," I laughed. "She is a bit scary."

Siân laughed. "Nice, but scary. So where were you?"

"Actually, thinking about it, when I left the meeting, Randy was still there. I went down to my room, I'd been assigned a temporary room down on H North. By the time I'd got my stuff and was leaving, I think Randy must have already left." I shook my head. "I bet you were waiting there when I came out of the meeting. If I'd turned the other way I'd have bumped into you."

"Oh no," Siân managed to look both distraught and amused at the same time. Quite a feat really. "You know, I didn't even know you had left Mars. Certainly didn't know you were on Lunar."

I went on to explain just how brief my time on Lunar had been, and roughly what I'd been doing. As my assistant she would have to know most of what I would be up to anyway.

"You know, he asked me if I knew you. I should have picked up on it, but he threw me by asking if you or I would recognise a Welsh accent."

I laughed. "I wonder why? What did you say?"

I was Siân's turn to laugh. "I spoke to him in Welsh."

"Ohh that was mean."

"Maybe, but I thought it funny that he would ask a Welshwoman whether she would recognise a Welsh accent." She paused. "You know, I bet he never clocked that your name was Welsh. Did he call you Llew or Lew?"

I paused in thought. "I'm not sure he ever spoke my name. Maybe once. And yeah, you're right, he called me Lew. I don't think anyone used my full name."

"That was it then. But I wonder why he wanted to know about the Welsh accent."

I just shook my head. "How strange," I murmured.

The conversation moved away from that, but we chuckled about our near miss for a while.

Dr Werner Leud kept his word, and kept me informed of progress, but suddenly, after about four months work, he stopped sending me information. At least, I stopped receiving it. I left it a week, just in case, then sent him a gentle reminder. The response, when it came back a few days later, startled me into action. "Why are you asking me? You took it from me before we could finish it."

"I know nothing about this," I sent back, "so far as we are aware, you should still be working on it. Who has it?"

There was three days silence before the next message came. "It would seem no-one is telling the truth. I was told you personally had authorised this. The men who came gave me your name. They were Americans."

I looked at the screen and pondered. It was unlikely to be the US government, they wouldn't have known my name. It had to have been some part of the Confederacy. I sent another message asking for clarification. When it came back I was even more puzzled.

The two men may have been Confederacy agents, but they didn't have Confederacy ID cards, nor did they have the physical bulk that many Confederacy personell had. I wasn't too concerned about the lack of bulk, not all Confederacy personal had it, I didn't, but the lack of a Confederacy ID card, while not totally surprising, was a little unexpected. Germany was generally pro-Confederacy after all.

I looked up. "AI?" I asked softly, so as to not disturb the other people in the office. "Do you have any information on this?"

There was a long pause. "No," said the AI eventually. "We have no knowledge of this being taken by the Confederacy." There was another short pause. "We were expecting you, Humans, to finish it without our help. We needed to see your levels of competence when you do not have full access to Confederacy technical knowledge."

"Can you find out for me please?"

"Already on it," came the reply.

I sat back, unhappy at this turn of events.

"What's up?" asked Siân.

I told her about the replicator add on, and then told her it seemed to have 'gone missing'.

"'Gone missing'? How? Where?"

I shrugged. "The person working on it was under the impression I had ordered it removed."

"So someone used your name?"

I nodded. "Uh huh. Looks that way."

"What does this device do anyway?"

"It allows replicator patterns to be edited using a standard Earth designed personal computer, tablet or laptop."

"Oh."

I smiled slightly at her. "Standard replicator patterns are huge. And normally only the very smallest and simplest can be expanded and edited on standard linux. The Confederacy's own replicators can edit them of course, but it's a long-winded, painfull process, designed to be used by species other than Human. Someone came up with the idea that actually only small parts of any design really need expanding out, and this device was the result. Replicator patterns are loaded onto it, it's then plugged into a standard USB5.5 or later port on any PC, tablet or PDA, then using a standard CAD package you can edit just the bits that need editing, without having to open the whole pattern."

"Ah, neat. So who do you think's got it?"

I shook my head. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

I had another idea. "AI, did that scientist from Oxford manage to escape? Sorry, can't remember his name."

There was a pause.

"Dr Ashley Judd was extracted, yes. He is now part of Earthat Confederacy R&D."

"That's him. Can you get his contact details please?"

"They are on screen now."

I looked at my computer screen. "Thank you," I muttered. I knew the AI's didn't need or even expect to be thanked, but it still, after all this time, felt awkward not thanking them. I composed a quick message to Judd, asking what he knew. I was not expecting an answer for a few days, so when one appeared just half an hour later, I was surprised. If anything showed that we didn't use standard radio waves to transmit messages between Earth and Mars, this was it.

Judd's message was brief and to the point: 'Not us. Try US gov. DIA or DARPA. GET IT BACK.'

I sighed. "Siân, get a message to Percy Meer's, I think you've met him, ask him who's the best person to talk to." She nodded. "Also Priscilla Percy. She may be able to ask Cassell for information."

"Yes sir," Siân nodded, and got on with it,

"AI, Contact details for John Maggor and Andres Zucher and," I paused. "Matt Harding." I paused again. I was still scared, even many millions of miles away, of Budd Wilkerson, but if what Percy had told me was true, he might be a good start as well. "Include Budd Wilkerson in that list."

The first three messages I dashed off quickly, but Budd Wilkerson's message took me a lot longer. I also cheated and didn't send it direct to him, but routed it through Major Thornby.

I wasn't sure what to expect next, nor how quickly it might happen, but three days later I got a cascade of messages,

The first, from Judd, simply said 'Thank you.'.

"Ah," I said, looking at it in surprise. Siân looked up, her eyebrows raised. I shrugged and shook my head. She just went back to her work.

Almost an hour later, a second one arrived, through Siân. It was signed simply 'Percy', and the message read "Recovered it." Ten minutes later, a second message, this time from Percy Meers and direct to me, made me realise that the first must have been from Priscilla. Meer's message was a good deal fuller, and explained that through Wilkerson and Maggor, the device had been discovered to have been in the hands of the US government, 'some secret offshoot of DARPA', Percy wrote. "They were reluctant to relinquish it. Even at Wilkerson's 'urging', so Cassell authorised PP to 'retrieve it' through her own inimitable means." I assumed PP was Priscilla and smiled in amusement. "We've passed it on to our own R&D, but we've also passed it back to Lued. Not sending it to Britain."

"Oh crumbs." I muttered.

"What now?" asked Siân.

"Cassell himself got involved."

"And?"

"Well nothing. He's our ultimate boss, and something I put in train got him involved."

"Yeah? Well he does know what's going on, and he's a pretty good bloke."

I turned to look at her frowning.

"What makes you say that?"

"I've met the guy. He can be a bit foolish, even stubborn, with his own safety, but other than that he's a really nice bloke."

"You've met him? Oh wow. I haven't. I saw him in a big conference fairly early in my time on Lipskiy, but I've never actually met him. What's he like?"

Siân shrugged. "Hard to say really. Seems competent. Hates Miles Chandler with a passion, and despises most of the senior officers in DECO. Gets on reasonably well with most people, but does have a bit of a temper. I'm not sure how much of that is just for show though." She shrugged.

I nodded and turned back to my screen, just as another came in. This one from Major Thornby: 'Good call.' was all it read. I smiled slightly. If I got anything from Wilkerson, I would be surprised. I wasn't surprised. I also didn't hear from Matt Harper or direct from John Maggor, and Zucher's message simply said 'Passed to relevant people. Hope you get it sorted. Z.'.

I breathed a small sigh of relief.

Four days later I got another message from Meers. Turned out that the DARPA people wanted it back, and were trying to suppress it. "Tell them," I replied, "that we don't mind them having it, but if they try and suppress it, we will release it publically to every university and research company and government in the world. Including ones that they would explicitly not like having it."

Meers' immediate reply was simply. 'LOL. Let you know.'

In a way it was frustrating. I was trying to control something many millions of miles away, when I really didn't have a clue about what was going on, or who was doing what, to whom, where. Luckily Meers kept me informed.

He called me up some thirty six hours later, while I was having a late evening meal. "They've backed down," he told me cheerfully. "They didn't like it. They were spitting blood about it, but they've backed down."

"Shit, does that mean we've got a new enemy?"

"Maybe. Some of those people never trusted the Confederacy anyway. I guess this has just reinforced their predjudices."

I nodded. "How did you find it?"

"It has a couple of Confederacy components inside. Most of it is Human, but those two Confederacy bits meant that once the AI's knew to look for it, they could find it."

"Ah, right. So I guess it was those bits that DARPA wanted?"

Percy paused, then nodded slowly. "I guess so."

"Better check with the AI's that they are happy about that, about Earth scientists actually reverse engineering Confederacy high tech."

"Will do, but I suspect they're not worried, otherwise they would have complained long ago. To them it's probably very old technology."

"True. Hmm. I had a thought yesterday. I know we threatened to release it to anyone and everyone, but actually, I've just remembered. I worked briefly with somone at MIT when I was based on Lipskiy. I think he would be very interested, and I know they're the sort of university with a huge scientific research department."

"Good idea," nodded Percy. "I'll have a think about a couple of other university research departments, and do some discreet investigations."

"Okay, thanks for your help." I yawned. "Sorry, almost my bed time."

Percy laughed. "All right Llew, you get on. I'll let you know what I do. I'm sure we'll cross paths again."

We disconnected, and as it was now quite late, and really was almost past my bedtime, I took Stacy's hand and led her to my bed, where a heavily pregnant Branny was gently snoring. She was carrying Roger's baby, while Stacy was now about a month pregnant with mine. Siân was still on duty, as we worked a 24 hour shift pattern of 12 hours on, 12 off. This didn't quite match the Mars day of approximately 24 hours and 39 minutes, but it made communicating with Earth that bit easier: we just used Earth time and every now and again discovered that we had shifted from day to night, or vice versa, almost without noticing.

Stacy and I made love briefly, but I really was tired, so after coming to a nice climax, I apologised for not returning the favour, and quickly fell asleep.

Ten days later a simple message from Meers told me he had indeed sent the device to MIT. He had investigated a couple of other universities as well, but in the end had decided against them and sent it only to MIT.

Huw did get his six point six the following year. I offered him Janine, if he wanted her, and he accepted. She had to accept him as well, and when he asked her, she agreed. Janine had six children now. Her two original children, plus two by Huw and two by Roger. Her two original children, and the two by Huw were easy. They went with her. When she asked to also take the two by Roger, I paused for a moment, then, with Roger's sad nod, agreed.

"You're not pregnant at the moment, are you." said Roger. More a statement than a question.

She shook her head.

"In theory," he looked at Huw, "and I do stress the in theory, simply for the sake of getting a wider range of genes, it might be a good idea to have Llew or David get her pregnant now. Llew would have been her next partner in a couple of months time anyway. David would be better this time though as he's a completely unrelated, er, gene bank." He grinned.

Huw thought about it. "Er, yeah, I suppose."

"You don't have to," I laughed. "Dad's right, but you're a sponsor in your own right now so you don't have to listen to him."

"No. I know, but, yeah. It is a good idea." He looked at Janine. "Sorry, Carriad."

Janine just shrugged.

"AI," said Huw. "Make Janine fertile ASAP." He looked at me. "David?"

I nodded. "AI," I added, "make David fertile."

"David is currently having sex with Joanne."

"Oh crap," I muttered. I looked at Roger. "Is Joanne pregnant right now?"

"Yes. It's yours."

"Oh, okay. AI. Make David fertile. Interrupt him and send him out urgently." I looked at Roger and Huw. "Don't want to waste his strength."

When David arrived a couple of minutes later, he looked a touch grumpy, but Joanne was actually quite cross.

"Sorry, this is important," I told them both. I quickly filled David in on what was needed, and sent him and Janine off to make babies.

"You have to make a will," Roger told Huw. "Make one now, leaving Janine and the kids to Llew in case of your death. You can always make another later, if there's someone else you find you'd rather leave her to."

Huw nodded, and did so.

"I'm bloody horny," Joanne announced once all the detail was finished. "And you sods interrupted me. David'll be no use once Janine's finished with her."

I laughed. "Roger? Huw?" I was too busy myself just at that moment.

Roger grinned, but nodded to Huw, who took Joanne's hand, and the pair slipped into another bedroom.

Two days later we were four children and two adults short. Huw moved out, and was almost immediately posted out of the Solar System. I was owed yet another three concubines, one to replace Huw, one as a bonus for converting him from concubine to sponsor, plus a third to replace Janine.

"Oh no," Imogen suddenly said, about three days after Huw and Janine had left. Her hand was over her mouth and she was staring at me in horror, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"What?" I said softly.

Roger, seeing her distress, hurried over. "What's up love?"

"Huw. Now I can't have his baby." She suddenly burst into tears, and Roger, with an understanding shrug, took her to their room to comfort her. We didn't know it then, but we would meet Huw again, quite by chance, nearly twenty years later. By then he was a Master Sergeant with nine concubines of his own, including one of his own daughters. Janine was still with him, and they were still as close as ever. Imogen would, eventually, get to have a child by Huw.

When Roger himself finally capped to six point eight a few months later, I formally offered him Imogen.

He laughed, accepted, as did Imogen herself a minute later. He told me that, like Siân, he would be staying for a while. To be honest, I think it was Mum who didn't want to move out, and she persuaded Dad to stay. However I don't think he actually needed much persuasion. "I've joined the Civil Service. Mars has a large population now, but not enough CS representation, so for the time being I'm staying here. However, in my CS role, I've found us two adjacent pods. We're just starting to get cramped in here. And if we ever get any more concubines we definitely will be."

Of course. Because I was now eligible for two more concubines, one each to replace Imogen and Roger, plus Roger was himself eligible for another concubine. As a family, albeit an extended family now, between us we were eligible for another ten concubines, of which seven were 'mine'.

"Okay, go for it. AI? Are there any spare concubines?"

"Not at this time, however as Mars is now nearly four hundred short, it has been arranged to bring some from the next collections."

"All right, thanks." I looked at Roger. "Let's move anyway. We are starting to get overrun with kids and Mum's occasionally getting a bit fraught. In a way, I now miss Janine. She was bloody good. I almost wish I hadn't offered her to Huw, but what's done is done."

"It was for the best," Roger nodded. "She got on better with Huw than with any of the rest of us, and Huw obviously cared for her. He doesn't have the smarts you or Siân have, so he'll need the help with children far more. I think it was a good match actually."

"Yeah, true, but we do need to find additional help for Imogen."

Roger just nodded and shrugged.

That night, Imogen took both Roger and myself to bed, and wore us both out. I don't think I would ever get over just how sexy and horny my own mother could be. She sucked and fucked us both, together and separately, until none of us could move. Sex with my mother would always be amazing. If I wanted truly exciting sex, I would go to Imogen. If I wanted emotionally satisfying sex, it would be with my baby sister, and for truly relaxing sex, it would be with my twin sister. The only other person who ever came anywhere close was Stacy, who was genuinely in love with me, and showed it repeatedly. Joanne, Kimmee, and later other concubines including, eventually, a daughter, would always be fun; but it was my first four concubines I would always be closest to.

A few days later the new concubines arrived. However, there were only one hundred and forty seven, and there were two hundred and fifty three sponsors wanting a total of three hundred and eighty nine concubines. Roger found a slightly older woman as his second concubine, but Siân and I, for the moment, went without. However as we had a joint pod, the new woman, Susan, just took her place in the mayhem, and nothing was said about who she actually belonged to. As far as we were concerned, she was just a part of a large and growing family.

Susan was from Amsterdam, pretty, blonde, 38, and a mother of four. She'd had to leave two of her children on Earth as they were over fourteen, but had brought two boys with her, seven year old Peter, and eleven-year old Thomas. Though she wasn't the instinctive mother that Janine had been, her very presence still helped Imogen enormously. Susan was also very good in the sack, but after she found out the relationships in our family, I caught her a few times looking speculatively at Thomas. I wondered whether, when he turned 14, she would want to have sex with her own son. I already knew he wanted to have sex with her.

Some months later, Roger asked me if he could transfer her to me.

"Er, why? Problems?" I asked with a frown. I hadn't actually noticed any, but then I hadn't really been looking."

"Oh no. I'm just playing the system."

"Oh?" I frowned at him in puzzlement.

"You got a bonus concubine for turning Siân into a sponsor." I nodded. "Then you got another for Huw. You didn't get a bonus for me, because the bonus was only available for the first two. Yes?"

"Uh huh," I nodded, still puzzled. "So what has that got to do with Susan?"

"She's been my concubine for nearly four months now, and despite all my efforts and persuasion, she really does not want to become a sponsor."

"Oooh," I said, enlightenment starting to dawn.

Roger nodded. "So if I transfer her to you, and then try to get concubines for Siân and myself who we think are capable of being turned into sponsors, we'll get those bonuses. If you remember, we were eligible for them too."

I smiled. "Just so you can get four concubines."

"No!" He gave a slightly embarrassed grin. "Well, yes that as well." His smile quickly faded. "But no. You remember what Danny, your big corporal friend that Branny took a shine to said, and what the Lieutenant on the ship said? About slaves and slavery?"

I nodded.

"Well I agree. As slavery goes, this isn't as bad as it could be, but it's still slavery."

I nodded. "And you want to get people out of slavery?"

"Very much so. If I have four slots, it gives me that much more flexibility in case I pick a dud. Same with Siân. Your mother is now one of my official concubines, and unless and until one of us dies, that won't change. Incidentally, I'm leaving her to you in my will."

I just nodded. I had made a similar, reciprocal, agreement with Siân.

"She doesn't want to become a sponsor. There will always be people like that. But it does only leave me one slot, and that's currently filled by Susan, who also doesn't want to become a sponsor."

"And you need it for someone who is suitable," I stated, nodding my agreement. "In that case, let's do it." He nodded, pleased, and, with Susan's agreement, we made the formal exchange.

About a year later, Roger and I took her into my room and sat her down.

"Thomas will be thirteen in about four weeks, won't he?" I asked her. I had wanted Roger there because we were treating the three households as a single unit, and he was the people expert. He knew what I was going to ask her, but just sat and watched, saying nothing.

She nodded.

"If I correctly remember the regulations regarding thirteen year-olds and sex," I said, "he will be allowed to join in, but only in so far as watching, or taking part in oral sex, and mutual masturbation."

Susan just nodded, a slightly worried look on her face.

"Do you want to allow Thomas to see you having sex? He's seen you naked, and I know he finds it exciting. But what about sex? Do you want him to see you? Do you want to allow Thomas to join you in sex? Given the limitations, do you want to masturbate him, or allow him to masturbate you?"

"I don't know," she said eventually, a troubled look on her face. "I watch you all doing it, and I wonder. I worry."

"There's no requirement, you know that."

She just nodded, but said nothing.

"All right, what about once he's fourteen. What then?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm. Once he has his CAP score, if it's six point five or higher, he will be moving out. He won't be staying here. If he asks to take you, would you want to go with him?"

Susan slowly shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Okay. That one's easy then, if he asks, we'll say no. He has to ask me first anyway, as technically you're my concubine."

Susan's face showed a bit of relief.

"If he doesn't get a volunteer score, if he remains a concubine, I could keep him, but to be honest we don't really need another male at the moment. Maybe I'll keep him for a short while, and then pass him on. How would you feel about that?"

"Get rid of him," she nodded, still looking troubled. "He's only twelve now, still a child. Even when he's fourteen, he's still too young."

"I could wait until he's fifteen before getting him capped? That's allowed. But if he demands to have a CAP test earlier, I can't stop him. You know that, I think."

She nodded. "Yes, I know."

"But until he takes that CAP test, I have to keep him. He becomes my responsibility."

She just nodded.

"Would you be prepared to get pregnant from him then?"

I saw a delicate shudder go through her. Even without speaking, it was obvious from her reaction she wouldn't. She shook her head. "No. Not with my son."

"Uh huh. What about sex with no pregnancy involved?"

She frowned and I knew she was unsure about it. I think she was curious, yet at the same time unsettled by the thought.

"If he wanted to, would you let him?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Do you want to?"

"I don't think so, but, I don't know."

I nodded. "Okay. Well I can ban him from you if you want me to. I can forbid him from having sexual contact with you if you want me to."

"I think so. I think I don't want him to see me have sex."

"Fair enough. Unless you both ask otherwise, you and he are banned from sexual contact. Agreed?"

She nodded. "Agreed." There was relief on her face now, yet there was still a hint of indecision and even curiosity on her face as well.

I saw that and it made me wonder. Oh well, I thought to myself, we'll just have to see. Maybe they will, probably they won't. I could always review it in six months time. Once Thomas turned fourteen I would ask them both again anyway.

"If he does stay for a while, then I will make use of him. Understand?"

"Yes. I understand. That is okay."

I nodded. "Well, in ten days time we'll have been on Mars for exactly three Earth years, so I suppose we had better plan a celebration of some sort."

Susan smiled, relieved that the difficult conversation about her son was over.

The base was mostly below the surface, and the primary way in and out was by transporter. There was a way out onto the surface, but only those who had been trained were allowed on the surface in specially designed suits. I hadn't been trained, despite requests for such training, and concubines weren't allowed. So it was the family, as a whole, that made it bearable for all of us.

Two months after our three year celebration, which started as a party and ended as a sexual orgy, Roger got the new accommodation he had requested, we moved, and a month after that I was reassigned. I got Siân reassigned with me, and Roger got permission from the CS to accompany us, so back to Lipskiy base we went. We had been on Mars thirty-nine Earth months, about six months short of two Martian years.