Return of the Asterothropes

The mystery of Wilken and the Ret'fai

When I completed the 8,000 word story "The Olivine Intervention" at the end of 2020, I imagined that at the beginning of 2021 I would quickly write the story of what happens to Jantiff and Glisten on Marune (a project begun way back in 2012). However, there were some loose ends remaining for the story of events on Yerophet. Now that I am over 98,000 words into "The Alastor Network", it is almost time for Ryl Shermatz to finally meet up with Glisten on Yerophet. But first, in part 22 of "The Alastor Network" (below) Ryl makes progress sorting out the mystery of the ancient Asterothropes.

Ryl arrives at Frost Hills on Yerophet only a short time before Glisten. Ryl meets with his daughter, Voyt, and makes use of her expertise to get an analysis of Patrycya's genome. Voyt has been working on Yerophet during an alarming spike in cases of "cold fever".

 

The Connatic's family.

Arriving on Yerophet for his first visit in 2 decades, Ryl Shermatz meets a robot (Vacu) from Triskelion who previously worked with both Ryl's father, Rujyan, and with Ryl during their missions on Yerophet many years in the past. During one such visit, Ryl developed an intimate relationship with Lora Shaw which resulted in the birth of his daughter, Konywhn. Konywhn now works at the same Whelm facility on Yerophet where Voyt is stationed. Voyt has only recently learned that they are sisters.

 

lo'Whots the Kerub

In part 21 of "The Alastor Network", while Ryl and Voyt struggled to understand the complex genetics of telepathy, Ryl's mother, Eleyn, and his son, Heshlo, went to visit Lora at the Trading Post in nearby Goslewenn. Heshlo was surprised to learn that Lora runs a genetics research lab that coordinates gene transfers for a decades-old telepath breeding project.

 

Lora is a human-Kerub hybrid and the mother of Heshlo's half sister, Kony (often called "Konie"). Lora's childhood friend was Pepha, another alien hybrid who has the general appearance of a Kerub, but who, like Lora, has a more human-like body temperature physiology. During the same time when Oman and Lora were a couple, Oman's brother, Wilken, was romancing Pepha. The child of Pepha and Wilken is lo'Whots, however lo'Whots cannot tolerate warm temperatures and lives across the boarder in Kerub territory. 

 

Human-Kerub hybrids: Konie and lo'Whots

Ryl Shermatz knows that the Kerub are hermaphrodites who have been breeding with humans, but he was never told about the secret genetics project and laboratory in Goslewenn that was built long ago by his grandfather with the assistance of R. Gohrlay. Ryl's father, Rujyan went off to Earth with his wife Eleyn for their investigation of Asterothrope genetics, having never shared that secret with Ryl. 

 

telepathic positive feedback

The recent rise in cold fever deaths is due to increased interaction between the Kerub and humans. The Kerub themselves have begun their own independent genetics experiments which involve attempts to bring a wider assortment of human gene patterns into the Kerub-Human hybrid gene pool. Will Ryl's brother, Wilken, return from his hunt for Ret'fai DNA in time to contribute to the formation of the Lavany mind clone network?

The events described below at the start of part 22 are taking place in parallel with the journey to Gosleween that was described in part 21.

 

⎯ The Alastor Network ؄

Part 22. The Patrycya Genome (read part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11) (part 12) (part 13) (part 14) (part 15) (part 16) (part 17) (part 18) (parts 19 and 20) (part 21)

made using EliseComfy10 and KayleeRelax13 by Eclesi4stiK
available under this Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Ryl was listening to Voyt's enthusiastic description of correlations between Josef's analysis of signals in the Phari Telepathy Network and her own genetics research findings. After only a brief, non-comprehending glance at the genetics data, Heshlo became impatient. He wanted to meet his half-sister, Konywhn. Heshlo placed a hand on his father's shoulder and whispered, "You two can crunch the numbers. I'm going to explore the station."

Ryl looked up from the data display and watched Heshlo depart from Voyt's suite of rooms which included both her living space and her office. An adjacent part of the Whelm station held Voyt's small, highly automated genetics lab. With a little wave of her hand to her son, the retired Connatica Eleyn turned and also departed. The robot Ra followed behind Heshlo and Eleyn.

Voyt was oblivious to the movements of Heshlo, Eleyn and Ra. She was thinking deeply about how to correctly interpret her research results. "Sadly, this is little more than a black-box analysis. I feel certain that these unusual gene patterns on Yerophet are not arising by random gene assortments."

Ryl asked, "If not by random meetings of sperm and egg cells, then what? Some kind of selective breeding program?"

the Phari Network

Voyt was slowly shaking her head. She had been obsessively thinking about her friend Konie. Immediately upon first arriving at the Whelm communications monitoring station on Yerophet, Voyt had felt a strong telepathic connection to Konie. After finally being invited by Konie to a quiet dinner in Konie's apartments, Voyt had secretly obtained some of Konie's cells and had performed a genome analysis. "No, father. Look at these data that I'm showing you. This is a totally artificial arrangement of human and Kerub gene patterns on these chromosomes. Something like this could never arise my meiotic recombination events."

Ryl sighed. "I'm sorry, but I can't follow all the genetics terminology." Ryl could see a code number on the genome, but no name. "Where did this hybrid chromosome come from?"

Voyt reluctantly admitted, "This is DNA from one of the staff members here at the station." She again voiced her frustrations, "What I really need is access to the genome data of her parents, but you won't let me leave this station."

"Am I a mean ogre of a father?" Ryl laughed and placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "It is not safe for someone with your telepathic sensitivity to be on Yerophet during this epidemic. Joole thinks I'm crazy to even allow you to be working here so close to the Kerub territory." 

A priority call came to Ryl on his comring. He told Voyt, "Let me take this call." He walked a short distance away from Voyt and spoke into the comring, "What is it?"

Konywhn and Voyt. Made using
Onboard2 & Redspec8 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Konywhn asked, "Did you assign Vacu the job of guarding your son?"

Ryl replied with his own questions, "Why do you ask? Where are you?" He could see that Konie was in a dim location, possibly the parking garage of the station.

"I'm taking your mother and your son out for a look at the border. I guess Vacu gets to go along for the ride. Sorry to have bothered you." Konie broke the connection and ended her call.

Ryl returned to Voyt and having overheard his conversation with Konywhn, Voyt said, "They get to go to the border, but I don't?"

"That's right." Ryl patiently explained, "You fit the profile of most cold fever victims, they don't."

"Was that Konie who called you?"

robots of Triskelion

Ryl replied, "Konywhn."

Voyt turned her eyes back to the displayed gene data. "Konie is my best friend here at the station. She's clearly a human-Kerub hybrid, but genetically unlike any other in the database."

Ryl pointed at the displayed chromosome and asked, "This DNA is from Konywhn?"

Voyt nodded. "Konie's mother is on this side of the border. It would be safe for me to visit her and sample her DNA." Voyt looked carefully at her father's face. She had not yet been able to find out from Heshlo if he'd had a chance to talk to their father about Konie. Josef claimed that Konie was their half sister, but Voyt did not really want to believe it.

Ryl said, "Voyt, I have something to tell you."

Voyt asked, "Are you really Konie's father?"

Ryl nodded. "I assume your friend Konie is Konywhn, the communications technician here at the station. Back... way back, over two decades ago, I lived here on Yerophet for almost two years with Konywhn's mother. I was here on this planet doing my post-graduate research, trying to reverse engineer a robot from Triskelion... Vacu. I was in love with Lora and had started talking to her about moving with me to Numenes. She refused to even take that idea seriously, saying she could not leave her business."

Voyt laughed. "I must say, it is difficult for me to picture my father making love to a Kerub! I'm an innocent little girl, but... don't they always live at sub-freezing temperatures?" Obviously her father had survived his sexual relationship with Lora without freezing his penis off. She was also worried about Heshlo and the vision she'd had of him thrusting his penis into a Kerub.

Ryl explained, "Lora looks like the typical fur-covered Kerub... well almost. She carefully removes her facial hair and makes herself up so that she has the appearance of a human. Since she lives on this side of the Kerub border and sometimes has to deal with the authorities, she needs to be able to pretend not to be a Kerub."

Voyt asked, "What authorities?"

"Well, the Whelm for one." Ryl thought back to the many months he spent flying back and forth between the Whelm station in Frost Hills and Lora's home at the Trading Post. "Lora lives and works only a short distance from here, over in Goslewenn. She can't avoid interactions with the Whelm agents who patrol the border."

"And that is how you met her?"

"Yes. A group of us who were stationed here would often go ski Mount Kadynce. We got equipment and supplies at the Trading Post. I fell in love with Lora and asked her on a date. We were telepathically linked and I was quite susceptible to her sashei..."

Voyt asked, "Love at first sight?"

"Something like that. Given our telepathic link, I'm not sure that I even had to see her. I could instantly sense that she has a special mind. Certainly her blue fur was no deterrent to my ardor. But then it got complicated."

Voyt could not contain her interest. "Lora became pregnant."

"Not right away. No, I had the pleasure of making love to her for a year before our barely-compatible gametes finally found a way to merge. That was a real surprise to me when it happened. The sperm receptor on Kerub egg cells does not recognize human sperm. I suppose I must have simply put so many sperm inside Lora that a random cell fusion event occurred."

"No, dad. Why don't you listen to me?" Voyt briefly placed a tissue sampler against her father's arm. "Let's step into my lab." She led Ryl into her small genetics lab and started the equipment working to analyze his genome. Turning to her father, she said, "I'm sure we will see that most of the human genes in Konie are from you, but they have been mixed together with both Kerub genes and other genes from various alien sources. Konie's genome could not have arisen from just one of your sperm cells and one of Lora's eggs randomly combining." She turned on the data display and saw the beginning flood of her father's gene sequences. "Tell me, what was so complicated about your love affair with Lora?"

Ryl explained, "After discovering our pleasing sexual compatibility, Lora explained to me that there are different kinds of human-Kerub hybrids. Some, like her, inherit the human pattern of body temperature regulation. Other hybrids retain the Kerub system that allows them to survive under the extreme cold of Yerophet. The hybrids like Lora all live on this side of the border, but because they look like Kerub they tend to live on isolated ranches and avoid humans. Lora told me that she had a lonely friend..."

Voyt giggled. "So you had a threesome with Lora and her friend?"

Ryl grinned. "That would have been fun, but no. We took my brother Wilken and Lora's Kerub friend, Pepha, on a double date."

Voyt asked, "What ever happened to your brother?"

Sex World

Ryl replied, "He went off on some crazy mission to the far end of the galaxy, but not until after he'd impregnated Pepha."

"See, that just can't happen. You know that human sperm and Kerub eggs are not compatible, yet all these hybridization events keep happening here on Yerophet." Looking at the gene data, Voyt was able to confirm that Ryl was Konie's father or, at least, Konie's genome contained many genes that had come from Ryl. "There is something going on here that we are not seeing."

Ryl continued, "Anyhow, Pepha was very upset. She'd asked Wilken to take her with him on his interstellar adventure, but he refused. He told her that he might be killed while on his mission and he would not put her life at risk, or that of their unborn child. And all these many years later, he has still never returned from that mission." For a minute, Ryl reflected on the past. "And then, not long after that blowup with poor Pepha, it was time for me to return to Numenes. Lora refused to leave Yerophet and we separated. I went back for a visit when Konywhn was born, but then I met your mother..."

Dreavero

Voyt pointed at the data screen, "You have many Iidi genes, dad. You're an alien-human hybrid yourself."

Ryl nodded. "The Idite Dynasty originated from some old genetic engineering project on Dreavero."

"See, that's exactly what I'm seeing here on Yerophet." Voyt tried to put her genome analysis results into language that her father would understand. "Konie's genome was built, engineered... carefully crafted. But who could have done that genetic engineering... without telling you, while letting you imagine that Konie arose naturally?"

Ryl pulled a small vial out of his pocket. "I have a DNA sample for you to analyze." He handed the vial to Voyt.

She could see a code designation on the vial: PM-B and the current year. "Where did you collect this sample?"

"On Brevik."

"This is related to the pirate raid on the Starling?"

"Yes."

Patrycya

"Why didn't you have the genetics lab on Numenes process this sample?"

"This is personal."

Voyt giggled. "Oh, no! Are you going to introduce me to another one of your love children?"

Ryl briefly contemplated the chances of having impregnated Patrycya. "This DNA is from someone on Brevik who has an unusual phenotype."

Voyt shrugged and put the sample vial into the intake port of the genome sequencer. "This will run as soon as your genome is complete."

Ryl suggested, "You can look my genome up in the Rujyan database."

"What's that?"

"My father kept a special database with genome sequences for the royal family. The data are in the family archives at Lusz." He told Voyt, "So switch this machine over to the Brevik sample."

Feeling somewhat annoyed that she had never heard about her grandfather's interest in genetics, Voyt canceled out the analysis of her father's DNA and started up the decoding of the DNA sample from Brevik. Voyt asked, "Why did Eleyn return to the Cluster alone, without Rujyan?"

the magic of Asterothrope genes

"He's busy researching ancient records about the Asterothropes. Eleyn is going to return to Earth and keep working on that project."

Voyt pointed to the sequence data that was being generated from the Brevik DNA sample. "This is a woman. I suppose you don't want mom to know about this."

"Listen, Voyt, I had to link up with this woman in an orgasm trance in order to re-activate Josef. Your mother knows."

Voyt laughed. "Orgasm trance?"

"Your mother came up with that name. It is a way to amplify telepathic abilities."

Voyt said skeptically, "It sounds like a pickup line in a science fiction movie. Pardon me Miss, but I'm going to have to ask you for an orgasm trance so that I can amplify my telepathic powers."

Ryl chuckled. "Your mother and I have been experiencing these trances for years, without recognizing their value beyond using them as a source of sexual pleasure. However, telepaths like PM can do amazing things with an orgasm trance. PM helped bring Josef back from the dead!

"Josef was dead?"

Ryl explained, "This is all top secret, but during a Whelm mission to Yrinna, Josef was knocked off line. Completely inactivated."

The tryp'At Guide to Oxypathin

"So that's why Netal and Heshlo were gone for a few days." She thought about how Josef's artificial mind had seemed different upon their return to Yerophet. But what did it mean for an artificial intelligence to die? Dismissing that AI puzzle and returning to her father's sexual dalliance, Voyt asked, "So, just how amazing was your orgasm with PM?" Glancing at the accumulating gene data, Voyt could see that PM was some sort of hybrid. Before Ryl could formulate a verbal description of the wonderful orgasm he had shared with Patrycya, his daughter said, "Hey, dad, I've seen some of these weird alien gene combinations in some DNA samples here on Yerophet.

"Weird is how I was going to describe PM's anatomy." Ryl chuckled. "She has four breasts, two of which make a psychoactive molecule that is called oxypathin."

Voyt asked, "That's what it took to bring Josef back from the dead... a woman with four breasts?" She ran a search through the accumulating PM gene sequences. Most of the protein coding sequences had already been deciphered and the genome analysis was moving into the slow phase of sorting through the vast tracts of repetitive and non-protein coding DNA. "Well, this is weird. In addition to having four oxytocin genes there are several oxytocin-like genes. One of these codes for what looks like a secretory protein, so it could be an oxypathin gene." She widened the search. "Bingo. Here is the same gene in a genome from my Yerophet database."

Asterothropes and time travel

"Who is the source of that oxypathin gene here on Yerophet?"

"I don't know any specifics." Voyt tried to tell her father the truth, but was unable to push past the infite-enforced lock on her memory. Voyt's secretive collaborator, the mysterious Eynta, did not want word spreading of how she had shared genome data with Voyt. Voyt constructed a convenient lie: "I have an arrangement with some local hospitals to get DNA samples from their patients, but they refuse to identify the sources because of privacy issues." Voyt looked away from the data screen and stared at her father. She placed a hand against his face and closed her eyes. She could feel the general flow of his mind. "Somehow you knew." She opened her eyes. "You knew... don't tell me that Lora has four breasts?"

"No, she does not. However, Wilken told me that Pepha has some interesting alien anatomy, including some extra rows of nipples going down onto her abdomen."

Plesypy-human hybrids

Voyt shook her head. "The only alien species I've heard of like that are all quadrupeds like the Plesypy. Interestingly, there was a migration of some Plesypy to Yerophet starting about a hundred years ago."

"Do you have any Plesypy genomes in your database?"

"No, but I'm sure there are some in the Whelm's Whole Cluster Genome Database." She checked for correlations between the archived Plesypy gene patterns and what she had in her own database. "No... Plesypy sequences don't match the alien genes in this PM sample. I'm going to widen the search and see if I can find any matches for your PM mystery DNA in the entire WCGD." She set up the search program. "It will take this little quantum computer many hours to search through that huge database." 

Now Voyt put both hands against the sides of Ryl's head. Again she closed her eyes. She saw a flashed image of a pair of big breasts with bright pink nipples. Voyt opened her eyes and thought about what she had just seen in her father's mind. Below the two large breasts had been two smaller breasts. And below that, there were additional rows of nipples. "There's something else you are not telling me."

___________________

original cover art by Ed Emshwiller

Ryl was writing a letter to Acyreff. After a page full of descriptions of his never ending love for his wife, he wrote: "As I have previously told you, it was only by making use of orgasm trances that we were able to bring Josef back. However, I failed to mention the unusual anatomy of Patrycya. She has four breasts and six nipples, the lower two way down on her abdomen. I feel like I have seen something like this before, but I don't-"

That was as far as he got when Eleyn came into Ryl's office and said, "Now we can talk."

"Where is Yurahs?" Ryl checked the time. "It is almost time for her to return to Numenes."

"She may not have time to say goodby to you." Eleyn said, "Yurahs had a little problem to take care of down on the recreation deck."

With concern in his voice, Ryl asked, "Did she injure herself? She often over-does the exercise."

"She's fine, just swell." Eleyn waved her hand dismissively with a finger pointing towards the ceiling. "We need to talk about what Rujyan and I have learned on Earth... it explains a lot." She was undressing. "You've seen this before, but you were just a baby..." She pulled away her undergarment revealing her four breasts and extra nipples. "I've learned that these are Asterothrope phenotypic traits. Someone has begun inserting Asterothrope gene combinations into the gene pool of Alastor Cluster."

With his eyes bulging, Ryl reached out and touched one of Eleyn's smaller pair of breasts. "Are these functional?"

"Those two smaller breasts don't make milk, but they do produce their own unique secretion." Eleyn's nipples began to stiffen as Ryl ran his finger tips over and around them. She did not bother to suppress that reflex as she could have using the nanite over-ride systems in her replicoid body.

Alastor star cluster

Ryl nodded, "Yes... I've seen breast like these before."

"You have? Where?"

"Recently... on Brevik." Ryl thought back more than 20 years." And years ago... just before Wilken went away, he told me about a woman on Yerophet who had extra nipples." He now touched the lower row of nipples on Eleyn's abdomen. They were pink, stiff and erect, but small.

Eleyn told Ryl, "During our investigation on Earth, we also learned that the big penis you inherited from your father is a characteristic trait of male Asterothropes. I suspect that the Iidi have access to Asterothrope genes and are now making human hybrids that have Asterothrope features. Apparently, the Asterothropes had a form of telepathy that worked best between lovers."

"So, this whole orgasm trance phenomenon is an Asterothrope trait?"

"I don't know, but it seems possible. There is no science of molecular genetics on Earth... you and Voyt will have to figure this out."

"I don't think it will be that easy... all of our progress on genetics stems from Triskelion. It is only here in Alastor Cluster that we have genome sequencing. The rest of the galaxy is a desert of biology." Ryl finally moved his eyes off of Eleyn's big breasts and noticed a flash of pink down at her crotch. He reached out and touched the glans of her erect clitoris, which was larger than a normal human glans.

hermaphrodite chromosomes

Activating a special nanocircuit in her body, Eleyn allowed her clitoris to swell to its maximum size. "There were apparently three types of Asterothropes: males, females and hermaphrodites. The females had large vaginas and a correspondingly big clitoris."

Ryl recalled that Patrycya's clitoris had also been rather big, but nothing like Eleyn's huge one. He asked Eleyn, "When you were breast feeding me, I suckled at all four of your breasts?"

"Well, no. By the time your were born, I'd learned my lesson with your older brother Wilken. He was my first born and taught me many things. He got addicted to the secretions from my two smaller breasts. I was intrigued because when he drank that fluid, he and I achieved a stronger telepathic connection. Wilken was a little devil. When he turned two, he would sit there sucking down that special Asterothrope secretion while playing with my clitoris. I had to cut him off. His penis was growing extremely large, which I've learned is an effect of oxypathin."

"Oxypathin?"

"Oxypathin is the special Asterothrope hormone produced by my second-tier breasts."

________________________

in the Buld Reality
original cover art by Kinuko Craft

Ryl finished telling Voyt about her grandmother's Asterothrope features. "Eleyn told me that the telepathy-amplifying Asterothrope hormone is called oxypathin."

Voyt put a hand on her nearly flat chest. "I wonder..."

"What?"

"If I inherited the ability to respond to oxypathin." While listening to her father's description of Eleyn's big clitoris, Voyt had felt her own clitoris stiffening. She shut her eyes and saw a flashed telepathic image of Eleyn, or rather, an image as seen through Eleyn's eyes: a gigantic blue penis. Voyt felt herself blush and muttered, "We should look at Eleyn's genome." She turned back to the data processing station of the genome sequencer and soon lost herself in the complex task of assembling Patrycya's unusual genome.

Deciding that Voyt was busy with her work, Ryl when to his assigned apartments and ate a snack. Then, feeling tired, he sank into a comfortable chair and slept. 

Next: part 23 of "The Alastor Network"

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