Message-ID: <43304asstr$1057756207@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: PJcocoa@aol.com
X-Original-Message-ID: <1c4.c2237d9.2c37846c@aol.com>
X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 21:31:24 EDT
Subject: {ASSM} {Pirates} Pirates of the Carob Bean by Gary Jordan [3/3] (ScFi, nosex)
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 09:10:07 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2003/43304>
X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com>
X-Moderator-ID: RuiJorge, dennyw
(Part 3)
Gyra knew she was no diplomat, but somehow she must convince this
Captain Indigo to... if not embrace her course of action, at least
accept it. And from the redness of her face, the pulsing of that
vein in her throat, the merchant captain was not predisposed to
agree.
Still... When Captain Indigo opened the tin of confections, Gyra had
half expected a concealed weapon. She had not expected the nearly
instant calming effect the treat had caused in the merchant
skipper's demeanor. And that half moan-half sigh had sounded - and
looked - almost sexual.
Curiosity overcame her. "May I..."
Indigo opened her eyes, startled. "Oh, of course! I should have
offered. Let me..." She looked at Gyra, head cocked slightly,
considering. "What's your favorite chocolate?"
"I've never had the pleasure," Gyra replied. Until she'd seen the
look on Captain Indigo's face, she'd never noticed its absence,
either.
Captain Indigo smiled back at her. "A chocolate virgin, eh? In that
case, I think..." she looked through the top layer of the tin, then
chose a foil-wrapped bite-sized selection. "This seems appropriate,
although your first introduction to chocolate should really be
undiluted by other things. Later, when my crewmen are brought to
join us, they have bricks of pure dark chocolate. But these cordials
are quite good."
This diversion into epicurian delights was welcome only insofar as
it dissolved the tension of just minutes before, and Gyra dreaded
returning to that discussion. But she knew she had to, or her crew's
fate was sealed. She'd politely taste the candy, then carefully
steer the conversation back. She bit into the unwrapped dark brown
sphere...
She hadn't realized she'd closed her eyes, until Captain Indigo
giggled. And she supposed the moan could have come from the other
woman, but she suspected it hadn't. She glanced at the other half in
her fingers, a creamy scarlet center surrounded by that sinfully
delicious coating. She popped it in her mouth and licked her
fingers. Belatedly, she realized that she might have breached
etiquette...
"You have a little cherry cream..." Indigo said, trailing her own
fingernail from just off-center on her own smiling lip downward.
Gyra pushed the errant filling into her mouth with her index finger
and sucked it again. Captain Indigo laughed.
"Any woman who truly appreciates chocolate can't be all bad," she
said. "Shall we return to the issue of piracy?"
Gyra held up a finger. "First, what was that? Have you drugged me?"
Indigo laughed again. "I suppose I have, and addicted you for life."
Gyra's eyes widened. "No-no, not in the sense that you mean," she
quickly corrected. "Chocolate isn't a narcotic, or any sort of
controlled substance. Back on Earth, they sell it in most stores, in
some form or another, and the people take it for granted. The only
thing that restricts access to the populace as a whole is that its
status as a highly coveted export item has driven the price up."
Gyra breathed a sigh of relief. The merchant continued, "The
addicting part is just that it's so sensuous to the palate, like a
taste of sex."
Gyra laughed now. "I had that thought myself! There's no direct
comparison, but..." She blushed. "I think I understand some of the
humor some of my crew was displaying when we were examining the
cargo in your module."
"Which was...?"
"Some of them used the expression, 'pirates of the carob bean'."
"To be terribly technical, that should be 'pirates of the cacao
bean'," the Merchant Skipper said with a bemused expression. "But
that brings us back on topic." She clasped her hands before her on
the table. "Whatever face you want to put on it now, attempting to
stop a ship in space for the purpose of seizing her or her cargo is
piracy."
"We did not want your ship or your cargo."
"No?" The lifted eyebrow, steely glint, twisted smile on Captain
Indigo's face all told how truly she believed that statement.
"No." Gyra looked at her own hands. "I will not lie. It's too
important that you believe me." She paused for several heartbeats.
What she would say next would constitute a breach of security, and
might well lead to either an interstellar incident or her own court
marstial.
"Had we been forced to actually fire on your ship; had we employed
deadly force to achieve our goal, we would be guilty of piracy, and
we would have behaved as pirates. We would have seized the ship and
crew, taken it to a 'neutral' system, sold the cargo and arranged to
ransom the crew and passengers. My government and my navy would have
disowned me and my people, perhaps hunted us down as renegades and
destroyed us... afterwards.
"But that was not our mission, and only failure of the mission could
have made us outlaws. We were prepared for that outcome; every one
of us, from myself to the lowliest able spacer aboard volunteered
for this mission.
"Technically, the mission has failed, but your words, sarcastic as
they may have been intended, may yet permit me to save my ship and
my crew. I fully expect to be cashiered; my government would need a
scapegoat to offer yours. I'm as prepared for that as I was to
perform the mission itself."
"Mission, mission, mission!" Christina scowled. "Just what was your
bloody mission?" Hearing of this Captain's willingness to turn
pirate had not swayed her over to the woman's cause; quite the
opposite. And she still retained a loaded sidearm.
Gyra's face was stone. "Our mission, to be accomplished without
bloodshed if possible, but at any cost if not, was to stop your
vessel, board, and remove the four escaped bio-terrorists Adel
Johansen, Robert Nacon, Darwyl Carruthers, and Eva Saint-John."
Christina blinked. "Bio-terrorists?"
Gyra nodded. "Those four were the leaders of an extremist faction of
a dissident element of our people. They formulated and carried out a
biological attack on the entire populace of our planet. Altered our
genome. Changed our chromosomes....
"They were captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life
imprisonment" she continued, "but other members of their conspiracy
managed to free them and smuggle them aboard a departing merchant
vessel.
"We want them back."
"I see." Christina pondered the sincerity of Captain Geordon's
words. She needed to think. To buy time, she asked Gyra to tell her
about the nature of the biological attack.
There aren't many garden planets in the galaxy, not for organisms
bred on mankind's home planet. Some, yes; Lipton's Refuge was hailed
as the Eden of biblical legend. There, man could grow whatever was
planted and eat most of what was native.
Tesla's Challenge was not such a world. Part of that was the levro-
dextrorotary differences in the DNA of native life versus imported.
Part of it was the relative abundance of feral life forms both
microscopic and macroscopic which, though they could derive no
sustenance from humans or their domesticated animals, persisted in
trying. Part of it was the higher gravity, half again that of Earth,
and the higher sea-level pressures that drove man to the higher
elevations. Part of it was the extreme nature of the weather induced
by a thirty-degree axial tilt and a slightly more eccentric orbit
than Earth's.
Despite all that, over a million people called Tesla's Challenge
home. It was a home with a garrison feel, armed against a hostile
world, but there are always some who relish the challenge as much as
the achievement.
Not all; even on Challenge (locals tend to shorten the name) there
are those who prefer a more mundane existence. Challenge was the
home of Genie Gengineering, Inc., a respected corporation famous for
the development of terraforming plants and bacteria provided to any
world who asked, and was Challenge's main employer and exporter.
Fully a fourth of Challenge's population lived in Wheeler City, the
capital and central headquarters for GGI. Many of that city's
populace never ventured from the enclave.
All, even the rugged individualists peopling the outlying enclaves,
agreed that Challenge needed more people. There was always some
immigration; not enough. Like any pioneer society, Challengers
tended to larger families; but Challenge forced a higher infant
mortality rate. Population growth was gradual.
It would seem obvious that the people and their government would
turn to their scientists at GGI. They did.
GGI was, at its core, an ethical company. They cautioned against
excessive tampering with nature's handiwork. Excesses during the
infancy of genetic engineering back on Earth had pounded caution
into the consciousness of every scientist or engineer in the
profession. Their motto was, "Non Sarcire Nisi Fractum: Don't fix it
if it ain't broke."
Certainly some tried-and-true methods were employed. Challengers
tended to have higher metabolisms and denser muscle mass than most
of humanity. That reduced their life expectancies nearly 10% from
the normal ten-score-and-eight. Their immune systems were more
aggressive than the norm. Average gestation for a Challenger female
was 47 weeks instead of 40. That last improved the survivability of
the fetus, but slowed the birth rate.
GGI also introduced a strain of Kudzu which aggressively choked out
native vegetation. Unfortunately, it also choked out Terran
vegetation, and had to be controlled by a rust engineered to affect
no other plant. Seeded in locations distant from and lower than any
human habitation, it had the unintended effect of driving predators
closer to humans as their prey moved away from the inedible
vegetation. An entire sub-continent had been depopulated of native
flora and fauna this way and reseeded with Terran stock. No one as
yet lived there, but plans had been made.
Despite GGI's corporate integrity and "Do No Harm" approach, a
corporation consists of people. Some people are more active in
politics than others, particularly where it concerns their own
lives. And some people think they know better what's good for the
people than the people do.
The factions divided up over the debate of how to increase
Challenge's population more rapidly. More people would mean more
security; more people to fight off scavengers, grow crops, reclaim
land, manufacture goods and provide services.
One faction favored increasing the immigration subsidy and providing
larger plots of un-reclaimed land to the immigrants. This of course
was opposed by the older, established agricultural families who
would see their influence diminished over time. Increase the
subsidy, yes; the land allowance, no.
Another faction favored easing the immigration restrictions rather
than increasing the subsidy. Ignore the genetic and social barriers
completely. "Give us your tired, your poor, et cetera." The weakest
would succumb to the planet's depredations, the rest would
intermarry and inherit the genetic variations that made Challenge
easier to live on. The "root, hog or die" approach was opposed by
those who were certain the less hardy would become city dwellers of
questionable contribution.
Still another faction wanted to convince GGI to provide a genetic
strain which would improve the viability of the fetus and shorten
the gestation period. GGI insisted that such a goal might be
possible, but might also result in unforeseen and undesirable side-
effects that would damage the people in the long term. The longer
gestation period itself was an unexpected effect of the alterations
which produced the beneficial musculature genome, as were the
metabolism and lifespan changes. Those changes were accepted on
dozens of planets as necessary to deal with higher gravity;
eventually, they might be spread through interbreeding to all
humanity.
There were a dozen other factions on this issue alone, and this
issue was not the only issue facing Challengers, but it was from
this faction that the bio-terrorists sprang.
The Splicers, as the four called themselves, were leaders of a small
radical wing of the Gene Manipulation faction. Employees of GGI,
they were also citizens of Challenge and independently researched
the feasibility of their faction's position. What they found was
that ultimately, the proposed manipulation was rife with dangerous
"mutations." Undaunted, they looked into alternatives. They found
one.
If the problem was long gestation periods per birth, why not have
more births per gestation period? The predisposition for twins had
been charted and mapped back on Earth, long ago. Why not manipulate
that to a dominant effect?
The four modeled the effect to locate any potential drawbacks.
Unfortunately, while they were very good at their jobs, they weren't
the best. Moreover, in their zeal to "fix" the "deficiency", they
overlooked some research. They determined that the effect could be
spread via a strain of influenza which would, at worst, produce
cold-like symptoms, and would breed true. The effect would be
inherited. They began to breed the manipulated flu for distribution.
Had they done more and better research; had they constructed better
models and extended them for a generation; had they tried the models
themselves, they would have discovered the drawback. By itself, the
engineered gene would have produced a predisposition in all women of
Challenge for multiple births. The incidence of twins would have
risen to exceed the incidence of single births, and one in a hundred
women might deliver triplets.
But the people of Challenge were already genetically engineered to
improve their survivability in heavy gravity environments and to
fight off infection from hostile microorganisms. The combination of
these manipulations...
Gyra watched the Captain's face. If shock was too strong a word,
surprise was too mild.
"You're always fertile?" she asked.
"Unless we're pregnant, yes," Gyra replied. "Menses is a word I
learned in school, not a personal experience."
"You've never had a period?"
"A period of what?" Gyra asked. It annoyed her that Captain Indigo
laughed rather than answering.
The woman looked beyond the room, her eyes unfocused. "It might
almost be worth it to never have another period."
Gyra bristled. "Are you being deliberately insulting? Are you really
that insensitive?"
The merchant rushed to apologize. "I meant no offense; as someone
intimately acquainted with the phenomenon of menses, which for time
out of mind has been called 'a woman's period,' let me assure you
that that aspect of decreased fertility is highly overrated." She
elaborated, "It's three to six days of discomfort and mess and
emotional swings. On the other hand, perhaps you're perpetually pre-
menstrual," she continued drolly, waving a hand at over a dozen foil
wrappers in front of Gyra. "That would explain your sudden craving
for chocolate."
Gyra was startled. She couldn't remember unwrapping a second of the
candies, let alone the number represented by empty wrappers. There
was one in her fingers. She carefully set it on a wrapper and pushed
it away. Then she reached for it, placed it in her mouth and chewed.
Some kind of nutmeat inside, this time. What had been in the others?
"Perhaps you'd better close the tin and place it out of my reach for
a while."
She did. And she seemed to reach a decision. "Captain Geordon, may I
call you Gyra? I think first names are appropriate for a discussion
as intimate as we're having. I'm Christina... or my friends call me
Chrissy."
Gyra nodded. "Thank you, Christina. I hope we can be friends. I'd
definitely prefer that to enemies."
"Gyra, I can understand that... increased fertility could be an
annoyance, but..." she hesitated. "Is there some cultural or
religious reason you can't use contraceptives?"
"Chrissy, we use contraception. Multiple forms, in fact. The typical
subcutaneous injections that work for the rest of the human race are
no more than 90% effective for us. Our bodies tend to neutralize or
counteract the hormones which those methods use - it's that
increased immune system. Our bodies see the excess hormone as
unnatural and act to limit them.
"I'm told that the amount of semen produced by our males is
unusually high compared to the baseline, that it contains
proportionally more sperm, and that the individual sperm is more
energetic and hardier."
"Was that an intentional effect of the gengineering?" Christina
asked.
"They claimed not," Gyra answered, "and their recovered notes seemed
to support their claims. There's another peculiarity with the
sperm..." It was Gyra's turn to look into the beyond.
"Well?" Christina asked after a reasonable delay.
"Oh! Sorry... I was thinking about my daughters."
"You have daughters?"
Gyra nodded. "Four of them. Two are ten, two turn seven today."
"And you had to be here," Christina said softly. More briskly she
asked, "Two sets of twins?"
"Yes." She smiled, but it was a pale smile. "I love my girls. I
wouldn't trade them for all your chocolate. But the other
peculiarity - and this one was intentional - well, ask yourself how
you could more rapidly increase a population, given the childbearing
roles of men and women."
Christina saw it immediately. "Either the majority of the 'extra'
sperm carry the 'X' chromosome, or those were selected to benefit
most from the gengineering."
"The latter." Gyra sighed. The female sperm were already hardier;
making them just a little faster than the males tilted the odds
significantly toward female children. Nearly 90% of my generation is
female."
Christina's jaw dropped. "This happened a generation ago?" Her mouth
worked, but nothing came out.
"You want to ask how it was kept secret," Gyra supplied. Christina
only nodded. "I don't know."
Christina glared. Gyra waved a hand. "Everyone knows some of it.
There was a five year stretch where Challenge was quarantined. I
mean, even today we don't get a visit from a freighter every month -
maybe four a year. Back then, less often. Most ships visiting
Challenge belong to GGI, and they would not permit their own ships
access without draconian sterilization procedures. The original
strain of influenza was eradicated. Not merely cured, but hunted
down to the last virus and destroyed."
"That's a relief. If I sneezed now," Christina observed darkly, "I'd
be very suspicious."
"Please don't sneeze."
"I'll try not to. So, GGI killed the genetic plague. Have they been
able to reverse it in any way?"
"No, and I have no idea how close they are to a cure." Gyra said.
"It isn't something that's public knowledge. At the trial, part of
the condemnation was that the sites the four criminals chose for
modification had the potential to cause any number of lethal
mutations. It was extremely reckless." She looked at Christina,
unsure. "My understanding is that GGI can't tailor a virus to simply
remove the mutation; they have to find an alternate location that
counteracts it safely."
"You don't seem very certain."
"It's not my field of expertise," Gyra admitted. "I've occasionally
speculated that the higher ups are willing to put up with the
mutation until the population reaches 'satisfactory' levels." She
looked disgusted. "I'm not the only person who's noticed that it has
gotten much easier to recruit male immigrants."
"I bet." A grin would not have been unexpected. Instead, Gyra saw a
frown on Christina's face. What's your population growth rate like,
since the mutation?"
"High." Gyra looked thoughtful. "There were over a million people on
Challenge when the plague was released. There are twenty-two million
now. Perhaps half a million were immigrants.
"Take my own case. I'm a career woman; I had no intention of having
children any time soon. But I've gotten pregnant twice, despite
precautions. My sister shares a husband with four other women. She's
delivered twenty-three children to term in fifteen years."
"Good lord!"
Gyra nodded. "Last time I was home, she was talking about adding a
sixth wife. Homer is apparently a decent lover, and sex twice a
night makes eventual pregnancy a certainty."
"Your sister has sex with her husband twice a night every night?"
Christina was astonished. "Every night?"
"Of course," Gyra replied, puzzled by Christina's astonishment. "You
know how men are. Sometimes it goes soft before her second turn - he
needs his sleep, and sometimes he's just too tired for a second time
with all of his wives."
Christina's voice seemed strangled. "He has at least five, and as
many as ten orgasms every night."
Gyra scoffed. "He's a man, remember? They have orgasms if the wind
blows right. No, Homer doesn't move on to the next wife until the
one he's with has an orgasm. I said she claims he's a decent lover.
It's just that sometimes his erection subsides before her second
turn. Adding a sixth or seventh wife will reduce all their chances
of becoming pregnant somewhat."
Captain Christina Indigo held up a hand to forestall further
conversation while she digested what she'd heard. Then she thought
about dear, sweet Sven still asleep aboard Anne. Sven would love her
whatever happened.
She suspected that the plague had not been as completely wiped out
as Gyra believed, or no native Challenger woman would ever settle
for marriage to an immigrant. No, it was probably administered as an
inoculation. Gyra's suspicions about the cure were probably dead on,
though.
She made a decision. She'd support Gyra's version of events. She'd
even work toward extraditing the renegade geneticists. Claiming that
her own over-reaction had been the reason for abandonment of her
cargo would undoubtedly cost her her command and her status as
ship's master, though. She'd be fined and fired, at the very least.
What the hell - she'd made enough money for one lifetime. Rather
than live on Desdmona in shame, she and Sven would emigrate.
She knew just where they'd go.
To Be Continued, Someday, Maybe.
<1st attachment begin>
<HTML removed pursuant to http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/erotica/assm/faq.html#policy>
<1st attachment end>
----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------
Notice: This post has been modified from its original
format. The post was sent as an email attachment and
has been converted by ASSTR ASSM moderation software.
----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------
--
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> |
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}|
|Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+