The Assassin
Chapter 13
My Family (TY13-month 146)
I was exhausted as I stumbled home, late again. It had been two weeks solid of organizing people and solving problems as we continued into the next phase of our orphanage project. Next to the school, we were building an apartment complex. All the pods were occupied as quadplexes. In some cases, we expanded pods farther until the village was more like townhomes, pods practically touching each other and adding on upper floors. In some instances, a large family of concubines wanted to stay together and a wall was removed to combine two of the units. Then another floor was added to gain back a unit. Originally, the pods had housed four groups of eight people—one concubine to every seven children. They had shared a common kitchen, dining, and living area. In the new batch, there was an average of four dependents per concubine but a likelihood that at least two concubines would share a household with their six to ten children. Each unit needed their own family areas.
Cricket handled the negotiations with concubines and there were some who had arrived together but no longer wished to stay together. Apparently, not all households were happy households. Having had the same sponsor did not mean the concubines liked each other.
We got a dozen immediate recruits for the Militia. Ten were men, and the two women were somewhat older and were happy to leave their children with another concubine. We sent the recruits to Drovers Run for training, of course, but half of them had asked about weekend time back ‘home’ with their families at Fort Butler. It made sense and I approved it. We tried to make it obvious that families were important to us.
Several new sponsors and a few Marines had visited the orphanage and another couple of dozen concubines had been adopted with their children. We still had well over four hundred concubines from the new shipment and some twenty-five from the Kindertransport. We were getting them organized and they were quickly discovering what ‘mandatory service’ meant. There were several teachers among the refugees, whom we welcomed with open arms and classrooms. Every concubine began daily training and Militia discipline. It was a new world for most of them.
When I reached my home, I fell into bed between my wives and was asleep in seconds.
Between Rose and Adaliya, I was finally getting used to wake-up sex. Both women were passionate and loving with me, and they worked with the other concubines almost as much as I did. Rose had organized the straw bosses among the concubines into what she fondly called the bitch squad and they were getting things done. I was glad she’d included Yindi in the group as she seemed to lead the twenty-five Kindertransport concubines now.
So, I was really relaxed and enjoying the early morning blowjob I was getting. I tried to decide if it was Rose or Adaliya who was going to get breakfast in just a few more bobs. Adaliya kissed me and I ruled her out. It slowly dawned on me that I had hold of one of Rose’s luscious breasts on my other side. That meant…
“Bae? What are you doing?”
“Is it so bad you can’t even tell what I’m doing?” she whined from my crotch. Then she went back to sucking vigorously, knowing I was now awake.
“But…”
“Hush, love. She’s an adult and your concubine. She wants to show you she loves you, too,” Rose said.
I couldn’t really respond because Bae was taking me to the back of her mouth, gagging a little now and then, but focused on stimulating me to the maximum effect. I lost myself in the sensations and clenched all my muscles as I unloaded into her mouth.
“Come here, sweetheart,” I managed to whisper as I held out my arms to Min-Bae. She crawled up next to me and into my embrace. I kissed her. “That was really wonderful. Just remember, you don’t need to do things your body isn’t ready for.”
“I know, Niall. But my head is ready. I just wish my stupid body would catch up.” We kissed some more and I stroked her naked body, pausing to cup her little buds in my hand.
“Hey,” I said. “When did these start growing?”
“They started almost as soon as I became your concubine. You’ve just been too busy to notice.”
“Do I not pay enough attention to you?”
“You do as well as you can, but it’s not enough for any of us. We just want to love you and be loved.”
“Well, I’m glad to know you are maturing.”
“Cricket says it’s because I’m sleeping with you and Rose and Adaliya. The pheromones are affecting my development. I know I want to play with myself a lot lately.” She pulled my hand down between her legs and over her smooth mound to the wet slit beneath. “Yeah. Touch me, Niall.”
I gently rubbed her slit, parting the folds to find the source of the juices slicking my finger. Eventually, I found her little clit and circled it with my fingers. We kissed deeply as I stroked along the side of her nub and she gasped in my mouth as she came. It was beautiful to hold my girl in my arms and give her pleasure.
Min-Bae was maturing into a woman.
Organizing the Enemy (TY13-month 146)
Meeting with the straw bosses was harrowing. These were some bent and twisted women. Prior to the Kindertransport, nearly all my experience with concubines had been with family or those who enlisted in the Militia. By and large, we were a little rebellious and wanted something better in our lives than being owned as a sex slave and labor force. We didn’t mind the labor so much, but the whole slave thing was grating. I’d visited several of the comrades’ homes after they’d finished their probation and were granted the right to have two concubines. The majority had taken only one concubine. When the appeal went out for comrades with a 6.0+ who had completed probation to take a supernumerary concubine from the Kindertransport, many had taken her as only their second concubine. She and her children were taken as a duty to give homes to as many as possible.
The women arriving on the refugee ship were mostly the concubines of Marines and sailors—many since early in the diaspora. To them, the status of their households was based largely on the number of concubines their sponsor had earned. Their sponsors had been encouraged to take and fuck as many concubines as possible. I was surprised at the number of arriving groups that had four or more concubines in the same household. Sometimes, one or more requested separation from the others of his or her household, often the men expressed interest in the Militia. Usually, a woman who wanted to be separated with her children wanted away from another concubine but wasn’t particularly upset with being a sex slave.
“Why are we here if there are no sponsors here?” demanded Reba. She’d become the de facto head of the concubine refugees by virtue of her dominating personality and her former sponsor’s rank in the Marines.
“You are here because we are safe here,” I said. “Your losses have been reflected throughout the colonies. Our colony is one that has a very low sponsor mortality rate because they aren’t fighting on the front lines. But nearly every new sponsor that comes of age leaves the planet to fight the Sa’arm. They don’t have time to establish large harems before they leave. So, we have a high concubine to sponsor ratio, made higher by your arrival. Many concubines are unhomed. And we welcome you, by the way. That, more than anything, is why you are here.”
“That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Our replicators are slow. We can’t get nice things from them. It takes forever to make simple redecorating changes. And now we’ve been told we need to go to work. We have children! That is our work and our purpose.” There was a lot of murmuring and agreement among the gathered concubines. I noticed Yindi stayed separate from the rest.
“This colony was created to preserve and expand the Earth’s agricultural ecosystems. The intent is that we will ultimately outgrow our need for replicators for food and over the next hundred or so years, even supplant the use of replicators for most finished products. Everyone on this colony works in one capacity or another. Childcare and education are areas that are available in addition to grounds-keeping, arts, cottage industry, labor, research, agriculture, and processing of raw materials. It is likely, based on sheer percentages, that most of you will never have a sponsor again. On Tara, every single person works.”
“That’s not what we agreed to!”
“Exactly how much agreement did you negotiate at your extraction?” I said, getting angry. “Did you agree to sex on the spot? Give blowjobs to attract a sponsor? Pick and choose among sponsors for a good provider? A positive influence for your children? Or did you, like my mother, simply accept a sponsor who could get her off the planet? Did you miss the part of your pick-up where you agreed to be a slave? If you want the hard truth, you are still a slave, and like any slave-owner, I can use any one of you in any way I want to. And I want you to earn your way here. You can earn freedom from slavery with your two years of mandatory service. After that it is simply a work for food system. What you need to do is put your heads together and figure out what you can do to make this place more successful without having the escape of a sponsor to take responsibility. It’s all on you.”
I stood up and walked out to utter silence.
“That went well,” Rose said. I kissed her and watched her enter the hive of queen bees to try to bring them to order. My poor wife.
That was the big difference here on Tara. At least among the Militia—and I had to give the sponsors some credit because they brought the attitude with them when they immigrated. We’re an agrarian society. Our mates and children are our helpmates—our spouses. Whether it’s one or ten, we had a real Midwestern America attitude toward our relationships. I had to admit that even Amos had that. He was as bulked up for heavy labor as Mom and Anne were. If they’d been left petite Asians, he’d have broken them. But just because a guy has good Midwestern values doesn’t mean he’s a nice guy.
The Daily News (TY13-month 147)
News that shifted attitudes came just a few weeks later. Another—the fifth—Sa’arm fleet had invaded Earthat. With the rebuilt Earthat Fleet and parts of the 7th Fleet still patrolling, they had destroyed every single Sa’arm vessel. There were no additional landings. While fleet losses were minimal, many of the orbiting weapons platforms and their resident crews and families, had been destroyed. In this instance, there were no concubine refugees; they and their dependents had all met the same fate as their sponsors.
“There has been an orderly move of people stranded on the moon and other camps in Earthat out to the colonies,” Scarlett said in our briefing. “However, when warning came that the next invasion was imminent, every noncombatant ship was loaded with as many people as it would hold and was sent out to the colonies. I’m not sure how they determined who got what, but we will be receiving ships of refugee concubines in the next three weeks.”
“Thankfully, we’re underway with the new apartment complex,” I sighed.
“You’ll need it, Niall,” Scarlett said. “I’m informed that the planet Frick will be receiving the most damaged of the concubines left from the purge of DECO and Central Command households. Some of those poor people don’t know if they are fish or fowl, male or female. Their sponsors were real perverts. They are headed toward long-term care.” [See Aftermath by Frostfyre.]
“It almost makes me wonder if they were better off under the ownership of the bastards who were executed,” Kotter said. “This report indicates they have had their souls burned out.”
“True, and I agree with your question, but could you or I have ever left them in that condition? No. But we have the second tier headed for Tara,” Scarlett said.
“I’m afraid to ask,” I said. “Who are the second tier?”
“They are concubines who still have a sense of self-identity, but who will never be able to submit to a sponsor again. Many have children and some are obsessed with their children. Nearly all have been abused in some way or another.”
“Niall, we’ve identified another twenty people—some among this last load of refugees—who have an aptitude for counseling,” Centurion Oswald said. “I’d like you to transfer them to me for training. We’ll try to get them turned around before the first ship arrives.”
“Of course. And I suppose all these damaged concubines are headed to Fort Butler,” I said.
“Yes. I’m afraid your responsibility is expanding faster than any of us anticipated. You will have charge of all incoming refugees,” Scarlett said.
“May I remind the governor that this goes against the Confederacy/human contract,” the Tara AI spoke. “While as much as possible should be done to care for underage dependents, damaged concubines should be disposed of at once.”
“And just who do you think is going to take care of all those dependents?” Scarlett nearly screamed at her AI. “Get your fucking system upgraded and stop interfering with every good decision made on this planet!”
“I am abiding by my programming and, while I cannot interfere with your directives, I must inform you of where you are acting counter to the contract. You are liable for your actions when the Confederacy Council meets,” Tara AI said.
“And when is that going to be? In fact, when was the last time the Confederacy Council met? This planet is mine and you will abide by my decisions. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear, Governor.”
“That fucking AI is getting worse with every decision that is made. It wanted every concubine who served mandatory two years’ service and failed to join the Militia recycled. Regardless, Niall, we’ll do everything we can to support you, but don’t depend on the Tara AI for any support.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s clear. Fortunately, Rhett, the Fort Butler AI, and Cricket, the Orphanage AI, are both in alignment with our goals,” I said.
On the way home, I did wonder at the idea that Cricket was now the principal AI for the orphanage, was Rhett’s mentor, and was still active as my home AI.
Housing Shortage (TY13-month 147)
With another refugee ship expected within a month, housing was going to become an issue. Commander Nelson still held no hope that she could furnish pods with the increasing demand on the moon base for ship repairs. She came down to inspect how we’d put the school together and was suitably impressed. She approved the strong post and beam framework and the outer walls made of fabricated bricks. She confirmed for herself that the bricks interlocked with each other and once they were in position, were fused solid. We were using the same construction method for our apartment building. The school had been only two stories high with the assembly hall on one end of the building, stretching up the full two-story height. The other end of the building was two floors of classrooms. We already had over three thousand students between the refugees and Militia kids and two or three thousand on their way. We were building an addition that would double the school’s size.
More importantly, I pulled a crew to expand the play areas and the training field by four times. I’d declared my intent to train every concubine in combat exercises and already had school children age ten and up training in the Pussy Pirate game.
The apartment building was going to be six full floors and would spread out over nearly ten acres of land. The levels were connected by the same anti-grav personal lifts used in pods. Replicators and nanites would be responsible for adding all the services to each apartment. Water, heat, cooling, recycling, and domestic replication. Our replicators were intended to replicate ingredients, not finished products.
That was true of our construction process in general. Replicators provided the materials we needed to build with. People put them in place. Nanites bound them together. Before we started work on the apartment complex, we had the factory replicator produce six more machine shop replicators. These went back to the harbor project. Jeffries immediately adopted our method of construction and had the replicators produce the support structure for the sea wall and then crew people guided the big stone blocks into place where nanites sealed them together.
«Cricket, I’m disturbed.»
«How can I help you, Niall?»
«If we take many more refugee concubines, we’re going to have more unrest. These concubines aren’t like those who grew up here on Tara. Concubines here have always worked. They expect to help on the farm, in the brewery, at the restaurant, and in business. They feel less like sex slaves. Still slaves, but not sex slaves. The concubines on the Kindertransport were all focused on childcare. The most recent batch of refugees seem to be unable to function in an environment other than as a sex slave. They don’t seem to have the drive to even survive on their own.»
«That is true, Niall. The average refugee concubine received in the last load left Earth over nine years ago. That is true of the younger concubines who left as dependents as well as the older and more experienced concubines. In the early days of the diaspora, there were few qualifications imposed on concubines. Only extreme cases were deemed unacceptable. These concubines have spent their service so far as little more than sex slaves who bore children. They were heavily indoctrinated regarding their dependence on their sponsors, many even faced death if they were unsponsored for more than a limited time. My records indicate the first concubines were actually prostitutes hired to service the men training off-Earth before knowledge of the Confederacy was made public.» [See The First Command by Zen Master.]
«Many of the women I spoke with this week expected to work in a brothel,» I said. «I’ve nothing against that, but there is a limit to the number of whores we can keep busy. Even the normal Marine contingents spending three to six months here have dropped off some and the stays of the Marines seem to be getting shorter. There are not enough sponsors to take all the women and children we’re receiving. We need some kind of transition program for concubines arriving on Tara. Even more than I’ve outlined with mandatory service. Can I ever get them out of the headspace that they are slaves?»
«The mandatory service we discussed should go a long way toward making them think they have earned their freedom. After that, it’s a simple trade that has proved effective through the years: No work, no food. Let me inquire with some of the other Tuull AIs to see if there are precedents we can work with.»
«Are there more Tuull AIs on Tara?»
«No. That’s why it might take a while to gather this information. The Darjee contract with humans is so thoroughly ingrained that their AIs are minimally able to deal with changing situations. There was actually a time when concubines and dependents of deceased volunteers were simply sealed in their pods and left to die. Fortunately, we have managed to reinterpret the contract in such a way that concubines are now considered a valuable resource and must be kept active, breeding and caring for children to replenish the war effort. Our Tara AI seems to have gotten stuck in a loop regarding the way the contract was interpreted when it was written nineteen years ago, Earth time.»
«So the Darjee AIs are basically responsible for dehumanizing three-quarters of the human race.»
«Some have become more enlightened.»
«I hope you’ll tell me more about the differences between Tuull and Darjee AIs. I feel like I’m missing valuable pieces of a puzzle that may have no solution.»
Conflict of Interest (TY13-month 147)
“Why aren’t replicators doing this work?” Sponsor Orson Daniels was on a warpath again. He’d seen the amount of manual labor being used to build the seawall and was once again upset that work wasn’t progressing faster. I’d just brought Capo Jeffries a new cadre that had only completed training the week before and was ready to find out what hard work was all about.
“That is technically a matter you should take up with your city council and mayor. My information indicates we do not have specialized underwater replicators available to do the foundation work. It would actually take longer to manufacture and bring in the equipment and get the designs input than it will take to lay the blocks and posts for construction. The machine shop replicators are turning out the blocks rapidly. They have a pattern for blocks but do not have a pattern for an entire seawall and pier.”
“That’s rubbish. I’ll tell you what’s happening. The AIs want us to stop depending on replicators. They’ve actually sent threats to some sponsors indicating that if they did not report for labor, they would be sent to the front for military training. It’s ridiculous. We’re supposed to replicate an Earth culture and society, not a military one.”
I thought the architect was full of shit and his arguments sounded like a convoluted conspiracy theory, but I didn’t say anything. With the way the Darjee AIs had manipulated humanity, he could be right. I didn’t fully understand the reporting structure of the Corps of Engineers, but I understood it had much the same rank and structure as the military. Even Amos, who operated his spread like a martinet with both sponsors and concubines under him, reported to the next level in the chain of command. The last information I had was that there were some fifty-six thousand sponsors on Tara out of a total population of over a million. In order to stay on Tara, new sponsors had to join the Corps, so most left for the more glamorous-sounding occupation in the military branches. We were in a negative growth pattern of sponsors on Tara. There were fewer each year. That sounded like a poor ratio, but over three-quarters of Tara’s population was under the age of fourteen. We had a quarter million concubines and only 750 in the Militia.
“I’m going to Cold Comfort and look at the progress they are making on their port. It’s going much faster than this abomination.” He stalked off.
«Rhett, please pass a message to Deputy Kramer that Architect Orson Daniels is planning a surprise visit shortly to inspect progress on the harbor. Supply any data on the Drylanders Harbor project he requests or that you detect he may need in order to respond to the architect’s questions.»
«Affirmative.»
What I knew was that there was no comparison to be made between Cold Comfort and Drylanders. Cold Comfort was situated on one side of a large inlet with a kind of natural harbor that need only to be shored up and docking infrastructure built. Drylanders had no deep-water inlet and the city had been sited on the most logical place for a port. The harbor had to be literally excavated out of the rock shoreline. We were reinforcing the walls of the harbor as it was being dug.
“Deputy, why do we need harbors?” asked Toni. I had ten thirteen-year-olds who were shadowing me on my rounds today. It was a program I initiated after the Kindertransport arrived. Every dependent nearing the age of decision got a chance to shadow me and was also given a chance to shadow various sponsors in the city. The program had been successful so far, meaning we’d seen a 7% increase in the fourteen-year-olds who tested as sponsors and a 10% increase in those who tested as concubines and decided to enter the Militia. Asking questions like this was part of the learning process.
“Architect Daniels identified part of the reason,” I said, trying not to tell the students he’d gotten most of the problem wrong. “Tara was formed to preserve and enhance the agricultural eco-system of Earth. We might think that just means planting grains and raising livestock, but that would only be a small portion of the agricultural eco-system. The Corps of Engineers Agriculture Division identified a highly complex eco-system that not only looks at the production of agricultural commodities, but at what happens to those commodities downstream. In order for an agricultural economy to subsist as something more than home gardening to get fresh vegetables, there has to be a market. To have a market, you need demand for the products.”
“If replicators supplied everything, there wouldn’t be a market for the produce,” conjectured Lillian. I smiled.
“You hit the nail on the head. It would be a poor economy if all the produce grown on Tara was simply fed into recyclers so the replicators could pump out the very same thing,” I said. “Now on some planets—in fact most of them—there is little in the way of agriculture and whatever organic material that can be grown or harvested is processed so anyone can eat what they want, get clothing, be entertained, or have weapons when required. On Tara, it is possible to get a steak from a replicator that has used animal byproducts to make it. But having a real steak from a butchered cow is a very different deal. And it tastes better.”
“What does all that have to do with building a harbor?” Toni insisted. I liked that girl and wouldn’t mind having her in the camp as a concubine. I had a feeling, however, that she was on-track to become a sponsor, and probably a high-scoring one.
“Part of the eco-system is transporting goods from where they are produced to where they are consumed. Now, we could expend the energy and the crew to have airships that picked things up from one location and moved them to another, but that is overkill when we have a perfectly good ocean we can float them on.”
“But that takes so long!” Grace said.
“By comparison to the instant transport many colonies have gotten used to, yes,” I answered. “But we will be a planet with more people than technology. People need jobs. It’s not conducive to raising sponsor-grade dependents if they have everything simply given to them without working for it.”
“Is that why we don’t just do sleep learning?”
“Yes, in part. The other part is that we can all learn something from each other. When it is just you and the computer, you learn to expect the computer to answer all your questions. Learning at Fort Butler is focused on finding answers to problems, not on simply having knowledge implanted in your head.”
We continued our tour of the harbor project as I explained the processes being used and the purpose of different aspects. It was a good day for the shadows and I felt like I’d accomplished something as well.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
