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Mar 27, 2021

GIF 2021


I've previously made some use of GIFs (for example, see "Dead WS Video").

This blog post is just an attempt to display a large (17.1 Mb) GIF on Blogger. 

Image source: Empress of Starlight - Animated Version

See: Empress of Starlight by EldarZakirov.

I've previously blogged about a dream I had soon after I began reading printed science fiction stories (almost 50 years ago). In that dream, I held a book that had an animated cover image. The book's cover was thin, like a piece of paper. I hope to see such books in stores before I die.


Here (shown to the left) is the Analog Science Fiction and Fact cover from 2018 where Eldar Zakirov's "Empress of Starlight" was used to illustrate a story of that name by Gerald Nordley.

Related Reading: illustrations for science fiction stories

Next: the Notteng robots of Triskelion

Exodemic


New Black

1951 cover by Wayne Woodard
Here in March, I've had fun writing the first ten chapters and 55,000 words of the science fiction novel "Meet the Phari". In Chapter 12 of that tale, Eynta meets Jenny Ebernal and her robot companion Niel on Ottengla. Niel is one of the telepathic Notteng model of robots crafted on Triskelion who I first wrote about 8 months ago. I previously introduced the idea that with the manufacturing of sophisticated humanoid robots on Triskelion, the human population of that world declined. Is there a link between robotics and population growth and how might that impact the use of Alastor Cluster as a laboratory for breeding human telepaths?

Seventy years ago, in the November 1951 issue of Marvel Science Fiction, there was coverage of the topic of human population growth:



the threat of metal men

It is rather surprising to see the arguments presented by Arthur J. Burks opposed to population control, which include the flat statement that because the Bible says "be fruitful and multiply" there should be no efforts to control the growing human population of Earth. I don't really expect a science fiction magazine to publish a discussion which includes an argument based on the author's interpretation of a religious tract, but there it is. Interestingly, Burks calls the bible science fiction. Burks stated flatly: "If ever population is controlled, man is utterly doomed."

Burks tells his readers that if God and Nature had intended humans to control their population then people would have a breeding season. Burks confidently stated: "Women cannot endure going all their lives without knowing if the can bear children." Of course, that turned out to be wrong. 

New Dawn
During the past 70 years, it has become apparent that when women are educated and allowed to have careers, the human population can even decrease and nations will begin to offer financial incentive$ for having children.

Arguing for population control, Leiber presented his side of the discussion in the form of a science fiction tale that includes population issues on Mars in the 23rd century. Leiber pointed out the difference in population growth rates between urban (fewer children) and rural (more children) populations. Leiber argued that even religious people realize that one should not have more children than can be properly educated. Leiber wrote: "Educate people and raise their standard of living and they'll want to control population increase."

image source
Leiber also mentioned "the robot revolution", which put an end to people doing menial labor. In the past 70 years, the world has seen more and more "mindless work" being automated, leaving people free to do creative work. From the perspective of the 23rd century, Leiber wrote: "Today we take for granted that we plan the size of our families just as we plan our careers."

Standard Value Unit
In that same issue of Marvel Science Fiction there is a Jack Vance story called "Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater" which is a spiritual sequel to his 1947 story "I'll Build Your Dream Castle". Vance wrote many amusing stories in which the quest for money was central to the plot. 

image source
Most memorable for sheer quantities of cash is The Killing Machine in which the protagonist, Kirth Gersen, steals 10 billion SVU from a notorious criminal. For brevity, I like the line devised by Vance for when the mad poet Navarth in The Palace of Love demands a million SVU. The billionaire Gersen has the money, but he casually asks, "Should I bring you the money in a sack?"

interior art by Vincent Napoli
In Chapter 12 of "Meet the Phari", Eynta finds herself running low on money. Eynta is well over 1,000 years old, but she has never previously had to worry about money because while working with Grean the Kac'hin, she was always kept well supplied with cash. In "Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater", poor Dover invests 200 million to corner the market on Lunar metal mining, exactly on the same day when it is announced that a cheap and practical means for transmuting one metal into another has been developed. Suddenly the lunar metal mines are worthless, but the hero of the story goes on to use the transmutation technology to make the Moon habitable, turning apparent financial disaster into an opportunity for big profit$.

This image made with Elena17
and yennefer by
Eclesi4stiK available
under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
In the case of Eynta, she has just spent 20 years working diligently to help craft the specific types of alien-human hybrids that Grean needs on the planet Yerophet. Believing that one final set of critically important genes is to be found on the planet Kwenslo, Eynta does not let her lack of cash prevent her from traveling across Alastor Cluster to reach the planet Kwenslo. These "lost" genes are needed for Grean's mind clone project and Eynta will obtain them, at any cost.

Eynta is a human-Iidi hybrid with deep purple skin pigmentation derived from her Iidi ancestors. Eynta has memories going back well over 1,000 years, but she occasionally gets a new body. Also, Eynta has access to medical nanites that slow the aging process, so during the events described in "Meet the Phari", Eynta is in a body that is 'biologically' about 25 years old. Given her exotic alien features and access to advanced nanotechnology, how can Eynta quickly raise the money she needs to travel to Kwenslo? See this blog post.

interior art by Frank R. Paul
Also in that 1951 issue of Marvel Science Fiction was "Mountains of the Mind" by Richard Matheson. I first crossed paths with Matheson when I saw "The Enemy Within". I don't think I can adequately express the extent to which I despise 'good vs evil' plots such as that in "The Enemy Within". However, I believe that Star Trek episode was my introduction to duplicating people by using a teleporter, and I can't resist using that imaginary technology in my science fiction stories (older, newer).

interior art by Frank R. Paul

"Mountains of the Mind" reminds me of stories like "Breeds There a Man... ?" because it seems to be about "ancient aliens" who are secretly at work, guiding Humanity into the future. I say "seems to be" because Matheson could not be bothered to explain the source of the amazing technological wonders (such as the 'wave machine') buried under the Rocky Mountains. When protagonist Dr. Fred ditches his sexy girlfriend Katie and goes off to the mountains with Dr. Raschler, they don't actually get to meet the aliens. 😢  

"Mountains of the Mind" raises the question of whether humans could be said to have free will when dealing with super-advanced aliens who can use their super-duper 'wave-machines' to control human thought. It was not until the end of the 1950s that people finally began thinking seriously about miniaturization, so for Matheson, bigger was better. The ginormous 'wave machines' of that controls the Fate of Humanity remind me of the massive technology of the Krell in Forbidden Planet.

Araal. This image made with
  ElfyReborn2 byEclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
In the case of the characters in "Meet the Phari" who work as agents for Grean, they can be guided in their behavior both by Grean's telepathic ability and by her use of infites, a form of nanotechnology that allows Grean to edit human memories. Are Grean's helpers therefor nothing but puppets? No. In fact, Grean makes a huge effort to keep her helpers well motivated so that they do not need to be forced into doing what Grean needs to get accomplished.

In Matheson's story, the aliens rely on telepathically sensitive men like Dr. Fred and Dr. Raschler to keep Humanity going, but the poor Docs are forced to give up their cute girlfriends. In contrast, Grean goes out of her may to make sure that her telepathic helpers are very interested in sex. Eynta has had dozens of children down through the centuries, including Araal. In Chapter 12 of "Meet the Phari", Eynta discovers that she is pregnant once again.

Rosicrucianism advertisement in a 1950s Sci Fi magazine.

 

interior art by Frank Freas

This blog post is called "New Black" because I recently read two of Isaac Asimov's more obscure Susan Calvin stories, one of which features the return of Dr. Black, a physicist working at Hyper Base. Black was first used as a character by Asimov in his 1947 story "Little Lost Robot". In an amusing scene from that story, readers learn how Dr. Black's intemperate use of profanities so upset a poor robot that the machine went into hiding.

In the 1955 story "Risk", Dr. Black helps Susan understand why the first "manned" hyperspace flight failed. The robot pilot for that flight was "too strong", so when it threw the switch to activate the spaceship, it broke the "on" switch. The story focuses on the psychological trick that Susan uses to manipulate Black's behavior and trick him into placing his life at risk in order to solve the mystery of the failed spaceship Parsec.

A humanoid robot. Made using
SciFi02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Asimov depicted Dr. Black as being "anti-robot" in his attitudes. Never having understood Asimov's decision to depict anti-robot sentiments among humans, I was surprised to find myself including the idea in The Alastor Network and "Meet the Phari". If robots all looked like the one shown to the right (above), I might understand how people could dislike them. 

However, I have fun imagining that in the far future there will be more human-like robots such as the one shown to the left. Asimov himself did not entirely avoid the issue of lovable robots and human sex play with robots. Asimov depicted a romance between Gladia and Jander the humanoid robot in his post-sexual revolution (1983) The Robots of Dawn.

Sadly, most of Asimov's imagined robots were depicted as being male. An exception to that general "rule" is found in "Feminine Intuition".

interior art by Enoch Sharp

I only recently read Asimov's 1951 story "Satisfaction Guaranteed". I've previously described how Asimov re-wrote his Susan Calvin story "Liar!" for the 1950 compilation of robot stories I, Robot, so I was surprised by what I read in "Satisfaction Guaranteed". Asimov claimed that he edited "Liar!" because when he wrote it he had not even had a date with a woman. Why then did he turn right around and write "Satisfaction Guaranteed", which in my view is a far more offensive portrayal of a female character? Oh, well, I'm no expert on what will offend people and I admit to having a fairly fundamental dislike for all old Sci Fi stories featuring stereotypical housewives. Susan has too small a role in "Satisfaction Guaranteed" to satisfy me.

Related Reading: "Helen O'Loy" in 1938

Next: eye candy

See also: Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari"

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Mar 24, 2021

Sightwall

cover by Paul Lehr?
I have no memory of exactly when I first read Isaac Asimov's story Nightfall. That was sometime in the mid-1970s, not too long after I first discovered Asimov by reading The Gods Themselves. I may have read Nightfall in Asimov's collection of stories called Nightfall and Other Stories.

Ancient Aliens
Included as one of the stories republished in Nightfall and Other Stories was a "novelette" called "Breeds There a Man... ?", a story first published seventy years ago in the June 1951 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. In "Breeds There a Man... ?", Asimov asked readers to imagine that the human species had long been subjected to experimentation by space aliens. Asimov constructed an analogy between the fate of we humans and the fate of bacteria growing in an experimental microbial culture plate in a research lab.

primates on Earth
I love the idea that we might exist in a universe where intelligent creatures similar to we humans first evolved several billion years ago. If so, then what kinds of interactions might primates on Earth have with those ancient aliens?

Genetics
One of the reasons I'm a sucker for Asimov's science fiction is because he could come up with some interesting imaginary biology for his stories. Published in 1950, in the first issue of Galaxy magazine was another Asimov story called "Darwinian Pool Room". According to the ISFDB, the only previously published story with the word 'Darwinian' in its title was "A Darwinian Schooner" in Pall Mall Magazine, August 1893. The story told in "A Darwinian Schooner" makes no sense to me, but it included the full page illustration shown to the left. The story is a fantasy tale about a crew of "monkeys" on a ship who are led by their monkey captain.

Reconstructed Denisovan. Image source
I'm intrigued by old stories like "A Darwinian Schooner" and "Atlantis' Exile" (see also: The Sea Lady) because even before the space age and the flood of science fiction stories about space aliens, story tellers were prone to inventing cryptozoological adventures. We now know that there were times when multiple types of humans (such as Denisovans) existed simultaneously on Earth. Do we have an instinctive fascination with other humanoids? I'm fascinated by this question: how would humans get along with aliens who are vastly more technologically advanced than we are? Exploring that question is the purpose of my Exodemic Fictional Universe, and the first thing to be said is that I'm not interested in a situation in which the advanced aliens seem like gods.

See: Little White Phibs
Having never previously heard of William Livingston Alden (the author of "A Darwinian Schooner"), I was intrigued to learn that he was a founding member of the Theosophical Society, which had as one goal: "To investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man." The idea that humans have latent telepathic powers has been a popular topic in science fiction.

Sadly, "A Darwinian Schooner" has nothing to do with anything Darwinian, but what about "Darwinian Pool Room"? Asimov raises the issue of "creation for a purpose". For my current story, "Meet the Phari", we can ask: did humans evolve by random chance or were we created

see Asimov's "A Statue for Father"
"Meet the Phari" is set thousands of years in the future and the answer seems to be that humans were carefully constructed as a way to produce telepathic primates.

In Asimov's story, he states that: "A conscious act of creation without a purpose is ridiculous." The backstory for "Meet the Phari" is that billions of years ago, the Huaoshy came into existence and eventually transcended their biological existence and turned themselves into a type of artificial life that exists in the Sedron Domain. The Huaoshy were horrified to discover that most intelligent species were not so lucky and tended to die in various forms of technology-induced catastrophes. To mitigate this horror, they sent their minions, the pek, out into the many galaxies of the universe in an attempt to help other intelligent creatures also transcend biological existence and attain immortality as Sedronites inside the Sedron Domain.

see "Damned Lies and Robotics"
However, in the case of Earth and humans, the Huaoshy plan went awry. With the connivance of the bumpha, positronic robots (probots) were created and found to have a powerful form of telepathy. This starting point for the importance of telepathy in the Exodemic Fictional Universe is inspired by Asimov's stories about telepathic positronic robots. However, Asimov seemed content to view the origin of telepathic robots as a kind of mutation, an error in the manufacturing process. But what if there is more to the story?

In "Darwinian Pool Room", the main character frets about the mystery of "the passing away of the dinosaurs." The suggestion is made: what if the dinosaurs had to be subtracted from the stage of Earth in order for the ultimate purpose of the "creator" to be fulfilled? If so, then scientists could spend an eternity speculating about asteroid impacts and climate change as causing a mass extinction, but maybe there was no "natural" cause of the dino demise, just a special intervention by aliens (like the Huaoshy?) who happen prefer hairy bipedal primates.

interior art by Gaylord Welker
Having gone that far in "Darwinian Pool Room", Asimov then pulled out a theme that was soon to take center stage in his novel, The End of Eternity, the idea that humans are not subject to Darwinian forces of evolution. "Evolution is finished with the evolution of man. The old rules don't apply any more." Asimov concludes his story by suggesting that what might be next in the Great Chain of Being could be a form of artificial life, a "cybernetic" advance that will replace humans with the next great thing.

In the Exodemic Fictional Universe, the pek are a type of artificial life form and there are positronic robots such as R. Gohrlay and R. Nyrtia. R. Gohrlay and her tribe of positronic robots invented the "replicoid", a type of femtorobotic artificial lifeform that can become a host to a human mind. However, R. Gohrlay is guided by the Laws of Robotics and a devotion to the future of the human species. "Meet the Phari" thus has robot characters, but is concerned with the genetic engineering of telepathic humans.

Reality Chain
Previously, R. Gohrlay spent 10 million years developing the telepathic Asterothropes, but they were a separate primate species, similar to we humans, but distinct. "Meet the Phari" takes place in the Asimov Reality where there is competition between the positronic robots and Grean the Kac'hin to successfully create telepathic humans. Previously (in the Foundation Reality), R. Gohrlay solved this problem at the cost of embedding the Laws of Robotics inside the human genome, making a human variant that could not harm fellow humans. For "Meet the Phari", the goal is to find another way to make telepathic humans that does not involve converting humans into pre-programmed robot-like creatures.

Alien Hybrids
I've previously blogged about Asimov's telepathic human-martian hybrids. In "Breeds There a Man...?", Asimov suggests that unseen space aliens have long been performing experiments on humans. However, after allowing for a "flowering" of human civilization and a period of rapid cultural advances, the watchful aliens always "sterilize their experimental plate" and start a new experiment. In the atomic age, the aliens are ready and waiting for Humanity to suffer a devastating nuclear war.

However, just as a microbial culture plate full of bacteria might be treated with an antibiotic and then (because of mutations) give rise to an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, maybe humans can become resistant to the alien desire for a "reset" (nuclear war). One particular physicist develops an amazing "intuition" and is able to figure out how to make a "force field" that can protect people against nuclear bombs.

The force field generator being tested.
"Breeds There a Man...?" raises the interesting question: if humans are being watch by technologically advanced aliens, is there some "trick" by which the low tech humans can take control of their own fate? And if so, how might the aliens "fight back" and try to maintain control of unruly human mutants?

That type of human struggle for agency is the fundamental issue of stories set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

cover art by Jasper Schreurs
In "Breeds There a Man...?", the story begins in mid-stride as the brilliant physicist Dr. Ralson is being induced to commit suicide. At the same time, he is desperately trying to be institutionalized and placed in a padded room where he can't commit suicide. Ralson is so brilliant that he has a hard time explaining to other people the many things that seem obvious to him, such as the idea that people are similar to bacteria when viewed from the perspective of the mysterious space aliens who control events on Earth. Asimov published a more light-hearted story like this in 1956 called "Jokester". For someone like me, who despises the typical alien invasion story, Asimov's odd stories about mysterious alien "watchers" are a breath of fresh air.

genetics of telepathy
In the case of my story "Meet the Phari", events take place in the future in Alastor Cluster, one of Jack Vance's literary creations. The trillions of humans living on the 3,000 planets in Alastor Cluster are being used as breeding stock for an effort aimed at creating telepathic humans. In addition to the human settlers on the worlds of Alastor Cluster, there are native inhabitants of the planets, many of them having advanced telepathic abilities. Those humans who can "tune their minds" to the telepathic "channels" used by the natives have a better chance of surviving. For example, on Trullion, the merlings capture and eat humans, so anyone who can telepathically detect and avoid the merlings has a better chance to pass their gene combinations on to future generations.

 Image made with
 Audrey03 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
"Breeds There a Man...?" is set in the time when people were worried about nuclear war, but it is not totally gloomy. In the end, Dr. Ralson kills himself, but only after providing the secret to how to make a force field defense against nuclear bombs. In full-blown commie paranoia mode, the folks in "Breeds There a Man...?" even contemplate the idea that evil Russians might have figured out how to induce American physicists to kill themselves.

 In "Meet the Phari", the test tube humans of Alastor Cluster are being bred for telepathy by both positronic robots and by Grean the Kac'hin. The pek, bumpha and Huaoshy mostly remain offstage until Chapter 11. Grean cultivates human helpers as well as select human-alien hybrids for use as her agents and helpers.

In "Breeds There a Man...?", Dr. Ralson suggests that anytime a human figures out that the aliens are in control of Earth, that particular human is eliminated (in his case, Dr. Ralson is induced to kill himself). 

Kwenslo
For "Meet the Phari", I imagine that Grean can use advanced nanotechnology (infites) to edit the memories of her helpers, thus avoiding the need to kill anyone who learns of her existence. Grean can simply erase the memories of her helpers when they learn "too much" about how humans are being genetically engineered.

This blog post is called "Sightwall" because of the special role that is played in "Meet the Phari" by people who do not have a normal sense of vision. Might people who are born blind or with very poor vision be able to devote more of their brain to telepathy? 

In some sense, does our excellent human sense of vision inhibit most humans from developing their latent telepathic abilities?

Made using EliseComfy10
and KayleeRelax13 by Eclesi4stiK
   Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
In Chapter 9 of "Meet the Phari", some of Grean's operatives arrive on the planet Kwenslo in search of "lost" gene patterns that could be used to make more powerful human telepaths. Kwenslo was originally settled by blind human settlers who came into conflict with native inhabitants of Alastor Cluster, the Phari. However, now that some special alien-human hybrids have been created on Yerophet, it might finally be time for humans to successfully communicate with the Phari.

Grean is creating a mind clone network (see The Alaster Network) that will utilize all the gene combinations that are available in Alastor Cluster in order to allow for humans to achieve telepathic contact with the Phari.

Next: New Black

Related Reading: Chapter 11 of "Meet the Phari"

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Mar 23, 2021

Heredity

Image made with Tamara
 by Lady-Pain and ElfGuard01 by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
Below on this page is part 10 of the science fiction story "Meet the Phari". Kwanya returns to her home on Roceinne and investigates the mystery of her 'alternative' father, Miahco, who is from the future. Kwanya's sister, Kwystolf is telepathically linked to her duplicates who exist in other eras of Time.

Aara visits her parents on Marune and is given a new assignment by her mother, Grean who is preparing to reveal the existence of the Hui-chi. Aara contacts the new Whelm agent on Marune and provides her with hints about the on-going smuggling of robots by the Tre.

Kwystyk and Konywhn visit the planet Kwenslo where they take far longer than expected to obtain the last few gene sequences that are needed on Yerophet. The 'lost' genes will be included (by genetic engineering) in the genome of the embryonic mind clone soon to be implanted inside lo'Whots the Kerub.

1941 cover art by Robert C. Sherry

Eighty years ago, Isaac Asimov published a science fiction story called "Heredity" in Astonishing Stories. That story was about two brothers who were born on different worlds. Regardless of their different upbringing, the two brother were able to work together. 

In "Meet the Phari" some of the characters have the same mother, but they seem worlds apart. For example, Aara looks like a normal human while her brother Kwystyk has blue skin and long pointy ears. Grean can genetically engineer her children so that they are suited to perform their specifically required roles as part of her effort to create the telepathic mind clones who will soon be able to communicate with the Phari.

Meet the Phari ؄

Part 10. Escape from Polyamrew. (read part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9)

Kwanya arrived home on Roceinne and answered all of her parent's questions about Numenes, including suspicious questions about why their daughter had returned from the trip three days later than expected. Late that afternoon, Kwanya's little sister, Kwystolf, came home from school and the whole family had a celebratory dinner welcoming Kwanya home. After dinner, Kwanya began questioning her parents about their family history and ancestors. The name 'Miahco' meant nothing to her parents.

"I know nothing about my ancestors. I was adopted." With no records of her early life, Kyodora showed her daughter images from her wedding day. "That dress was amazing... with a vision prosthetic integrated into the weave, it gave me a full view of my surroundings. Too bad I only got to wear it once."

Thoughtfully contemplating the mysterious Miacho, Kwanya's father, Horace, suggested to Kwanya, "Maybe I have a brother who looks like me. Like your mother, I was also adopted and never learned anything about my birth family."

Later, as Kwanya was getting into bed, Kwystolf arrived in her sister's bedroom, took off her little hat which was a vision prosthetic and got into bed. The sisters wrapped their arms around each other and Kwystolf said, "I hope you are done disturbing mom and dad with your questions about the family."

"Yes, I am." Kwanya still had on her necklace which was her favorite vision prosthetic.

"There is something new in your mind." This was the Kwystolf that always frightened Kwanya. Kwystolf had powerful telepathic abilities and could look into Kwanya's memories when they touched. Kwanya could feel her sister poking around inside her mind, but Kwanya had never learned how to examine her sister's memories. "Who is this Kwystyk... guy... with breasts?"

"Yes, he's a guy, don't be fooled by his cute breasts. We met when I was on my way to Numenes and he was going off to visit Yerophet. On what was to have been my last day on Numenes, he appeared and... well, that's why I missed my scheduled flight."

"So you could spend the day in bed with him?" Kwystolf poked at her sister's crotch with a finger. "He must have a great penis." 

"He does, and a cute little vagina, too, but the amazing thing is how I was able to see into his thoughts. I now know what it is like for you when you are snooping through my memories. I could see in his mind that there is a man on Yerophet who looks just like dad."

"The mysterious Miahco."

Kwanya suggested, "Dad and Miahco must be twins."

 Image made with
 Audrey03 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
Kwystolf sighed. "No, it is not that simple. The first thing you need to realize is that Ofy is real."

Kwanya giggled. Since even before learning to speak in sentences, Kwystolf had talked about her imaginary friend, Ofy. Then at age ten, her stories about Ofy had ended. "Are you serious?"

"Of course, I see Ofy's mind. Minds. I could never have made up all those stories I told about Ofy. She's just as real as I am, even if she lives in our future... or the past."

Kwanya asked, "You are in telepathic contact with Ofy? Right now?"

"It does not work that way. When I was little I did not know how to control my visions from other Times, although I new they only came when I was in the dark. These days, the best connections to Ofy happen when we are both having orgasms. Sadly, that does not happen very often... it is not easy for us to synchronize our sex play, so there is a randomness to our linkages. That big vibrator you gave me when I turned fourteen helped a lot by getting me into a regular routine of masturbating."

"I'm glad to hear you are getting good use from it. I was one of my favorites, handed down from mom."

"Anyhow, it is not only Ofy... there are copies of all of us in Ofy's family. Families. And just like me, Ofy is pregnant. All of them!"

Kwanya asked, "You still have not told mom who the father is?"

"It isn't that simple. I don't think there is a father. At least not just one. I've never had a man's penis inside me."

"Ya, right."

Grean (image credits)
"I wish you would believe me, Kwa. Anyhow, I tried to tell you what is going on." 

Kwystolf rolled away and tried to leave Kwanya's bed, but Kwanya grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry. Don't go." She pulled her sister back beside her on the bed. "It is just so hard to believe that time travel is possible! Do you believe that this Miahco traveled back through time?"

"Why not? But again, it is not that simple. According to Ofy, her dad, is still there with her. There is no version of me in the future who lost her dad."

"How can that be?"

"I think Grean made an extra copy of Ofy's dad. His name is Horace, just like our dad. The Horace copy from 500 years in our future studied genetics. Grean must have made a copy of that Horace... he became this man, Miahco."

"Strange. Kwystyk told me that his mother is named Grean." Kwanya could not remember any details, but she had seen strange memory fragments in Kwystyk's mind concerning Grean. She wondered: Why are those memories of Grean all jumbled? Kwanya struggled to recall one particular interesting little oddity about Grean that had been glimpsed by Kwanya in the middle of the night when she and Kwystyk were resting after their third or fourth orgasm. What was that? "What do you mean extra copy?"

Kwystolf explained, "I've always known that there are many copies of me, but there is something new. It is there in your mind. Grean not only travels through time, she also has teleportation technology. Now I understand that Miahco must be a copy of the Horace... the one in the future... a copy that was made by using a teleporter."

"Wow." Kwanya now remembered what she had seen in Kwystyk's memory: Grean telling her son that if needed to do so in an emergency, she could teleport him back to the safety of 11a. Kwanya asked her sister, "What is 11a?"

"I don't know." Kwystolf could clearly see Kwystyk in her sister's memories and even get a second-hand view into Kwystyk's memories. "Some place that Kwsytyk knows well. I think it is where he grew up, with Grean... and a sister named Aara."

For five minutes they lay there in silence then Kwanya said, "The big mystery remains... why are there two copies of our family?"

Kwystolf giggled. "I know you were disappointed to not be able to play with Kwystyk's testes, but do you really think two is a magic number?"

"What do Kwystyk's testes have to do with anything?"

"Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out his alien anatomy. Forget the testes. Besides Kwystyk's cute penis, the important point is that there are many copies of our family, at various places in time, both past and future. I suspect that Grean wanted to make use of Jochaim for several purposes."

"Jochaim?"

"That was the name of the original copy... the source... of dad. All the other Horaces were made as duplicates of Jochaim."

"This is really weird." Kwanya tried to imagine the fates of a dozen copies of her father in various eras of Time. "Are you saying that our father might get sent off on some mission... just like Miahco being sent to Yerophet?"

"Yes, but it might already have happened. We'd never know if a copy of dad was made and sent off through time to another world. And it is not just dad. Grean has plans for you and the babies." After another long silence, Kwystolf added. "Oh, and by the way. You do need to go to Kwenslo. Kwystyk is stuck in some sort of trap... with a hot lady who has blue skin and big breasts."

"How do you know all this?"

"Grean occasionally visits me, or one of the copies of me. Grean wants the babies for a time network. That's what 'ofy' means, you know, 'time'..." Kwystolf reflected on all she had learned from Grean through the years. "Until this evening, I've never been able to speak to anyone about Grean, but I can mention her name to you."

Kwanya asked, "How can I get to Kwenslo? It is an abandoned world." 

Suddenly Grean was sitting there at the end of the bed. Grean told Kwanya, "Just let me know when you are ready to go. I'll send you directly to Voyt's spaceship."

Startled, but with their surprise being modulated by Grean's infites, the two sisters sat up and looked at Grean. Finally, recovering from the sudden appearance of Grean from out of nowhere, Kwanya found her voice. "Voyt?"

Grean was well satisfied with Kwystolf's performance that evening and she now sent some complex memory editing nanites into the girl's brain. Grean told Kwanya, "Voyt is the Connatic's daughter." Grean was not interested in explaining everything. "Look, don't sweat the details. You won't be allowed to remember your little excursion to Kwenslo. Think of it as a short lay-over on the way to Ottengla."

"Ottengla?"

Grean sent some infites into Kwanya that would convince her that Kwystyk was in need of help. "Just let me know when you are ready." Grean splintered into her component nanites and the nanite cloud dissipated quickly.

"Did that just happen?" Kwanya rubbed her eyes and yawned. She looked at her sister and found her asleep on the bed. Kwanya was terribly tired and slumped over, her last thought a vision of Kwystyk in some underground cavern, trapped and unable to get out.

_________

Lemarque. This image was made using
  GwenStewardess02 and BlondeElf02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
Aara arrived back at her childhood home in city 11a with Rob-N in tow and a desire to investigate Efraim's land of Scharrode in the Rhune realms. She was greeted at the door by Tuttuhr, Ox and Grean. After hugs and some cheerful small talk they settled in at the table in the kitchen where the robot staff was preparing a feast to celebrate Aara's return. Grean said, "I'm glad you came directly home. I have a new chore for you."

"I don't want to miss the big show-down at Ottengla." Aara knew that her mother was planning to confront the probots at Ottengla and try to put an end to their support of starmenter raids.

"Don't worry, darling, we'll both be there at the critical time, but there are other things happening around the Cluster. The new Whelm agent just arrived and is stirring up trouble over your dear father's disappearance."

Ox asked, "Who is the new agent?"

Grean explained, "Her name is Lemarque. She's also trying to figure out how Efraim got sent off planet and what happened to 'Blue Bell', the mystery woman."

Aara's thoughts drifted into sweet memories of sex play with Efraim... both copies. "When will Efraim return to Marune?"

"I can't say too much about Efraim's future because of temporal paradox restraints."

This image was made using ElfHuman by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
After dinner they went out for a stroll as was common for the residents of 11a. Aara had to repeatedly deal with neighbors who wanted to hear from Aara about her big adventure outside the city. Finally they were back home, settled into the comfort of the big central lounge in Grean's comfortable home. After three years away, Aara's perceptions had changed and she was amazed at how large and grand the house actually was. Grean said, "It has been rather quiet here with both you and Kwystyk gone."

Aara asked, "Is Kwy going to be okay on Kwenslo? Eynta seemed certain that she would be needed at Kwenslo, then she ran off looking for someone named Rupert."

"Yes, all these travel arrangements are a mess. However, this was the optimum solution once Nyrtia started resisting Delpha's plan to liberate Ottengla."

"Nyrtia is making trouble for you?"

"Well, after relying on the starmenter system for so long, it is a hard habit for the probots to break. Maybe success with the mind clones will win the argument and bring an end to reliance on all the random breeding that Gohrlay seems to prefer."

A Tre of Marune. This image was made using
  GwenStewardess02 and Neeya06 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
"So, this mind clone project is actually a Gohrlay education project?"

"Along with bringing back the lost genes of Kwenslo. It is depressing to think of all the promising gene combinations that have come and gone here in the Cluster. It really is past time to be rationally recombining them." Grean was drumming her fingers on the leg of Ox. Grean was seated in the middle of a love seat, comfortably sandwiched between Tuttuhr and Ox. After a long silence she continued. "In the morning, Lemarque will introduce herself to you."

"How does she even know me?"

"Well, an anonymous tip from the University drew her attention to a new student, Lony Rhux, who is the daughter of a smuggler. Anyhow, take that opportunity to provide Agent Lemarque with some tantalizing information about your father, Alexyk." Grean sent some new infites into Kwystyk with details about her new mission. "With some help from you, we can distract the Whelm from the issue of 'Blue Bell' and Ox. We need to make sure that Lemarque becomes aware of the role being played by the Tre to bring illegal technology into the Rhune realms. That is the wedge that will eventually lead to revelations about the Hui-chi."

Aara asked, "You expect me to play the role of a student, Lony Rhux? I do hope that is a girl's name."

"Exactly." Grean smiled at her daughter. "You will study at the University under that cover identity." Grean reviewed some of Lony's life history: "You've lived your whole life on other worlds, most recently, Zeck, but you want to study the art and literature of Marune, so..." Grean explained, "Tomorrow you move into your dorm room on campus." 

Aara and Lemarque. Image was made using Elves03,
  GwenStewardess02 and BlondeElf02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
"Dorm room?" Aara had grown used to living rather luxuriously on Numenes and the idea of having to live in a dormitory held no appeal. 

Grean nodded. "At least for your first semester. If you do well in your studies then you can move off campus. However, I can't discuss that phase of your work with you because of-"

Aara interrupted. "Temporal paradoxes." It was frustrating that whenever Aara wanted to know something, her mother would claim there were temporal paradoxes that blocked her from understanding what was going on. Aara began processing her new infites and learning about the first two decades of the life that Lony had supposedly lived through.

"After all these long centuries of hiding..." Tuttuhr mused, "I can't believe it is finally time for the Hui-chi to come out into the open."

"Well, not quite yet, but soon." Grean patted Tuttuhr's thigh. "The Tre first! We've ramped up their smuggling operations so much that the Whelm is already quite suspicious. However, timing is critical."

Aara asked, "Exactly what is the timeline for revealing the Tre?"

Grean shook her head. "Sorry, but I can't be specific. You are going to play a big role in making sure that Lemarque figures everything out at just the right moment. This will play out exactly like your mission on Numenes. You won't understand what is happening until after everything is over."

________

Investigating the power of nanocoids.
When Sally Lanting, Rupert and Eynta arrived onboard the Nykark, Sally's two robotic assistants, Vez and Coz, greeted Sally in her suite. Sally took off her civilian clothing and began pulling on her Whelm uniform. She was thinking about her brother Trevance and his refusal to depart from Numenes. Sally had offered to take him along to Ottengla, suspecting that he could help Nykark's mission with his telepathic powers. Vez asked, "Should I stand guard over Rupert and Eynta?"

Sally shifted her thoughts away from Trev. She was eager to learn more about Eynta's telepathic abilities, but she needed to be in the control room and seen by the crew as being in command of Nykark as they departed from space dock and began their trip to Ottengla. She told Vez and Coz, "You can both go to our guests' quarters and entertain Rupert and Eynta. I'll join you there as soon as I can... in about an hour."

Vez asked, "Entertain?"

Sally nodded and told the sexbots, "You know what I mean. See if you can get them to relax and try to push them into a state of mind where I can invite them to link with me in a joint otrance."

Coz asked bluntly, "You intend to have sex with Eynta?" 

Sally nodded. "Exactly. I need to look deeply into her mind. Try to get both Rupert and Eynta in the mood for sex play." Sally headed for the control room and the two robots went to the guest quarters. Along the way, Coz and Vez were in telepathic communication. Vez suggested: The key seems to be Trev. Both Sally and Eynta can't stop thinking about him.

Coz agreed and told Vez: Almost certainly Trev is endowed with not only a large penis, but also a well-integrated nanocoid. I'll try to simulate the features of Trev's mind pattern that Eynta found so appealing. You distract Rupert.

Three hours later, Sally was still being briefed on the upgrades that had been made to Nykark. She noticed when Coz and Eynta shared an orgasm trance, and for fifteen minutes her thoughts seemed to resonate with those of Eynta, but there was another telepathic presence clouding Sally's view into Eynta's mind. Sally was finding it hard to pay attention to the briefing that she was getting from her second in command, a long-time Whelm officer who had little confidence in Sally as a former pirate and newly-minted Whelm officer. After almost four hours, Sally was finally able to escape from her duties as the commanding officer of Nykark

When Sally arrived in the guest quarters, she found Eynta in bed, mounted on top of Coz and working her way slowly towards a second orgasm. Sally told Eynta, "I'll be right back." She looked into the other bedroom and found Rupert sleeping in the arms of Vez. 

Sally beckoned and the robot tried to slip out of bed, but Rupert awakened. He glanced at Sally and asked, "What happened?" 

Vez told Sally, "Something strange happened when Eynta had her orgasm. Rupert was knocked unconscious!"

Sally asked Rupert, "You two had a shared otrance?"

Rupert shook his head, "I was having fun with Vez, then I felt Eynta's mind inside me. Don't ask me what happened next. I woke up and saw you."

"You sure you felt Eynta's mind?"

"Well, it was complex. Eynta plus..."

"Ya, that's how it seemed to me also. My first guess was that Grean might be watching us, but..." Sally shook her head. "I'm going to try for an shared otrance with Eynta. You two see if you can synchronize with us." She turned and returned to Eynta's room. Eynta had pulled her slick vagina off of Coz and was playing with his lovely erection, holding it in her hands. With approval in her voice, she told Sally, "This is a well-programmed sexbot!"

Sally giggled, "I've never found fault with either Vez od Coz." Quite eager for her own orgasm, she tore off her uniform and slid her hot wet vagina over the robot's stiff penis. Vez positioned Eynta's genitals over his mouth and began to stimulate her orally.

Eynta sighed with pleasure and told Sally, "It feels like his penis is inside me, but I know it is inside you!"

Sally explained, "Vez can shape his tongue into any convenient form." Sally was quickly approaching her own sweet orgasm, but what about Rupert in the other bedroom? Sally knew that Vez and Coz could communicate continuously. She asked Vez, "How is Rupert doing?"

Vez managed to talk while continuing to stimulate Eynta's clitoris. "Coz has Rupert ready." Five minutes later Sally lost complete control and experienced a satisfying orgasm. Her mind tumbled into a blissful thought space that was crowded with a thick presence of multiple minds. Sally was surprised when she realized that she was linked telepathically to Captain Tirret.

Later, after the effects of their shared otrance had dwindled away, Sally, Rupert and Eynta assembled in the dinning room of the guest suite and the two robots served them a meal. Sally was now certain that while in her otrance, she had learn the current location of Captain Tirret. During their shared otrance, Rupert had linked telepathically to his mother and learned that she and Lord Gensifer wanted to return to Yrinna. Eynta had telepathically linked to Grean and had been told that she was doing just fine and that she had made the right choice to not go directly to Kwenslo.

 As the Nykark sped on towards Ottengla, Vez told Coz: I think Captain Tirret was trying to invite Sally to the hidden genetic engineering facility of the pirates.

Coz added: Yes, that was my impression. And somehow it seemed to me that... I believe that Eynta is pregnant.

________

Ottengla
On the planet Ottengla, Lord and Lady Gensifer were at Ebernal ranch and growing rather bored in their role as bait for space pirates. Lady Gensifer was intrigued by the buzzing minds of the Ple who mostly resided in the Hierion Domain, but who seemed to recognize her special telepathic abilities. She asked her husband, "Doby, can't you feel this crowd of Ple minds watching us?"

"No." With nothing better to do, he was reading reports about championship hussade matches from all around the Cluster. Without looking up from his reading, he added, "You are always more sensitive to telepathy than I am."

"I wouldn't bother you, but the Ple might be giving us a warning. At least, they seem to be telling me that we must leave Ottengla. Now." Lady Gensifer closed her eyes and tried to 'see' past the Ple and link to other parts of the Phari network. She was much better at linking her mind to the natives of Yrinna than these odd Ple. "This is hopeless. I feel like I'm in a telepathic prison. I think it was a mistake to come here."

Finally, Lord Gensifer put away his reading and gazed at his lovely wife. "We had no choice." Lord Gensifer suggested, "We could try another orgasm trance..."

Lady Gensifer opened her eyes and smiled at Doby. "You old goat. I've lost track of how many times you've already mounted me today."

He shrugged. "There's nothing else to do. Besides, if you weren't so sexy, I'd have less reason to..." He had his hand inside his wife's robe, which was not doing much to conceal the curves of her body. She spread her legs and he slipped a finger into her wet vagina. Lady Gensifer took hold of her husband's erection, pulled back the foreskin and licked its sensitive tip.

Just at that inconvenient moment, as lord Gensifer's erection attained full size, Semod the Plesypy came into the room and said, "We have the Kraken on radar."

Plesypy
Lady Gensifer jumped up. "Tirret actually fell for it!" She bent down and kissed the tip of her husband's penis and advised him, "Get dressed, unless you want to put on a show for Tirret." If all was going according to plan, Acyreff's flagship and other ships of the Whelm were nearby, ready to capture the Kraken should Tirret take the bait. Lady Gensifer told Semod, "Mobilize your defenses. Don't do anything different than what you usually do when Tirret visits Ottengla."

Semod rushed off to manage the herds. He ordered that all nearby Plesypy converge on Ebernal Ranch. By massing their forces, they could telepathically repel the starmenters.

Both Lord and Lady Gensifer dressed themselves in utilitarian jumpsuits and then word arrived from the planet's automated radar system that the Kraken was dropping down from orbit and moving towards the ranch. Lord Gensifer asked, "Do you think she knows it is us down here or is she just going after a convenient telepathic target?"

Lady Gensifer replied, "She knows my mind and the flow of my thoughts quite well, but with these pesky Ple mind patterns in the way, I don't know if Tirret can actually sense my mind. She may simply have heard that we were seen in town yesterday."

______

Tirret
Less than half an hour latter, the Nykark arrived above Ebernal Ranch, having altered its course from a planned raid on a suspected pirate base in the nearby asteroid belt. While her spaceship hovered at 10,000 feet above the ranch, Captain Lanting came down in an aircar with Rupert Gensifer and Eynta. They met Semod on the front porch. Impatiently she demanded, "Show me where you last saw the Gensifers."

Semod led the way indoors. "They were here, engaged in sex play." Semod sniffed at the chair where Lady Gensifer had been seated when he last saw her. 

Rupert went down the hallway to the bedroom suite that his parents had been using since being brought to Ottengla by Acyreff. He was looking for items that had belonged to his parents. Looking around the room and glancing in the closets, he found nothing that looked unusual. He emerged from a closet and stood looking at the big bed and thought about looking under the pillows, but according to Semod, they had not been in the bedroom when they were taken. He thought: Knowing mom and dad, they would not be bothered with little details like using a bed when they wanted to make love.

Out in the main lounge, Lanting asked Semod rather sarcastically, "You were watching them have sex?"

"When I told them that Tirret was on the way, Lady Gensifer was licking Lord Gensifer's erection, but I could sense that Lord Gensifer was ready to insert his penis into-"

"Okay, I get the picture. But you did not actually see them disappear?"

"Nobody did."

"And the Kraken never got below 100,000 feet and no aircars came down. You are sure that they did not hide down inside your underground complex?"

"I'm sure." Most of the human population of Ottengla lived underground, hidden from the space pirates, but the Gensifers had never been told about that. And the Ple had been blocking Lady Gensifer's telepathic abilities, preventing her from learning the truth.

"Then it must be teleportation." 

Just then, Acyreff called through to Lanting: "Well, what's happening down there?"

Sally spoke into her comring. "Nothing. We lost them. Nyrtia must have teleported them off of Ottengla, just as you suggested."

"Damn! I never thought that Nyrtia would do something like this." Acyreff was wondering if Grean might show up and lend a hand. "What are our options?"

Sally said sarcastically, "Well, if I had a fleet of Whelm spaceships..."

The problem was, once a pirate ship was using the intersplit drive, it was very difficult to track them by any means. Even having a fleet, as Acyreff did, was not going to magically reveal the location of the Kraken. Somehow the starmenters had obtained the technological tools needed to track powerful telepaths through the intersplit, and now it appeared that Tirret had access to teleportation technology as well. Acyreff asked Sally, "Can't you follow them, using your telepathy detector?"

"That's the first thing I tried, but my equipment is useless here. It can't cut through all the Ple chatter."

"What if you moved Nykark away from Ottengla?"

"Suggest a direction and I'll go." The more she thought about it, the more convised Sally became that both Nykark and the rest of the Whelm spaceships watching over Ottengla had been telepathically infiltated by Captain Tirret. Upon aproaching Ottengla, Sally had taken her assigned mini-fleet to a nearby asteroid where she felt certain a secret pirate facility was located. At exactly that time, the Kraken had taken Lord and Lady Gensifer off of Ottengla. Acyreff's larger fleet of spaceships had also been away, off prowling through a nearby star system that had thousands of unexplored planetoids and asteroids.

Acyreff activated a star map. "Independent of any telepathic hunches, we've been trying to figure out where Nyrtia's secret genetics lab must be located." The map showed the most likely such locations which were places within 10 light-years of Ottengla that had not yet been searched by the Whelm. "Take your pick among the million places to look. I'm willing to go with a lucky guess right now."

Lanting said, "This is pointless." Still, she had nothing better to do than randomly prowl the cluster and hope to get lucky. Sally was determined to find a way to capture Captain Tirret, and now she burned with a sense of personal embarasment at having been so easly tricked by Tirret's telepathic powers. 

Using her aircar, Sally dropped Rupert off in Portmedio where he intended to met up with Dr. Milsna and her research team. For cover, Rupert was using his new name, Albert, and hoping to avoid being recognized as a Gensifer.

When Eynta stepped out the aircar and watched Rupert walk off towards the tree-shaded streets of Portmedio, she stayed in the spaceport and went to check on the limited schedule of outbound commercial flights. 

Waving goodbye to Rupert and Eynta, Sally took the aircar up and returned to Nykark. She made her best guess about a destination and slipped into intersplit, trying to get out of range of the Ple telepathic chatter.

__________

Image made with
   TrissCity01 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
Aara experienced a sleep orgasm and awoke in a strange bed next to a warm body. She ran her hand along the soft flesh of the other person and decided that the stiff glans of her clitoris was pressed against the leg of a woman. Then Aara felt the other occupant of the bed awaken with a startled jump. The room was dark and Aara had no idea who it was there with her in the bed. "Ariel?"

"Kwanya?"

Kwanya rolled off the bed, using her vision prosthetic to navigate in the near total darkness. She turned on the room lights. "Where are we?"

Aara gazed into Kwanya's white eyes and then her eyes wandered up and down Kwanya's sexy body, lingering on her erect nipples. "I was on Marune, in my new dorm room. Then I woke up here."

Kwanya sat on the end of the bed, aiming her visual prosthetic at Aara's sweet little breasts. "I was at home, on Roceinne. Grean..." She tried to remember what Grean had said.

"Grean?"

"I'm not sure why I thought of Grean, but I'm thinking that she sent me to Kwenslo."

Aara got off of the bed and found some clothes that almost fit. They seemed to be the clothes of a girl, somewhat smaller than Aara. Now dressed in tight fitting clothes that belonged to someone else, the two women opened the door of the bedroom. They were in a luxurious suite with many rooms. They cautiously explored the suite and finally they were found by Rob-B. The robot said, "Aara and Kwanya! How did you..."

Aara marched past Rob-B, now expecting to find her sister on board this ship. After looking around the big central lounge area, she asked Rob-B, "Where is Kwystyk?"

The robot replied, "Kwystyk and Konywhn went down to the surface. That was three weeks ago."

With dismay and disbelief coloring her voice, Aara asked, "Three weeks?"

Aara went to the control room of the spaceship and checked the chronometer and the navigation log. Aara discovered that after arriving from Yerophet, this spaceship had been in orbit around Kwenslo for three weeks, with some occasional little trips down to the planet's surface. She demanded, "What the hell, Rob-B... what have you been doing for the past three weeks?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

Kwanya placed a hand on Aara's arm and said, "Calm down, Ariel. If this is really three weeks in our future, then something very strange is going on. Time travel..."

Aara traced back her memory chain. The day after returning home to Marune, she had met Agent Lemarque of the Whelm and passed along some damning information about smuggling operations on Marune and the illegal import of robots for use in the Rhune realms. Then she had spent a relaxing evening meeting new friends in her dorm, two of whom she took to bed. After some delicious sex play with with the two students, she had drifted into sleep. Now, suddenly, it was a date three weeks later and Rob-B and Kwanya seemed just as confused as she was.

Rob-B made tea and Kwanya and Aara sat down at a small table in the fancy kitchen of the spaceship. Rob-B was telling the story of events three weeks previously when she and Kwystyk had arrived at Kwenslo and then met Konywhn in orbit, Konywhn having arrived from Yerophet in Voyt's luxurious spaceship.

made using
SciFi02 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Aara said, "Okay, so this is Voyt's spaceship. Very nice." She asked Rob-B, "What have you been doing recently... I mean just before Kwanya and I arrived today?"

"About 12 hours ago I went down to the surface for another look around. I found Eynta's little spaceship, still sitting there right where Kwystyk left it three weeks ago, and there is still no sign of Kwystyk or Kwanya."

As if on cue, the voice of Eynta came through the comsystem. "Voyt? Can you hear me Voyt? This is Eynta."

Aara replied, "This is Aara. I hear you Eynta. Where are you?"

"Look at your radar. I'm here, in this old freighter, just making orbit. Go ahead and dock our ships together. Eynta added, "I don't trust the jets on this old piece of space junk."

Ten minutes later, Eynta had her own cup of tea and she was explaining the frustrating and challenging events of her past three weeks. "After Tirret captured Lord and Lady Gensifer, I decided I should come to Kwenslo, after-all. However, the Whelm was in a tizzy, having lost the Gensifers, and they had no sympathy for my plight and my need for transportation. There are no commercial flights to Kwenslo. I've been unable to get any help from Grean. I thought sure she would help me, but apparently she want's nothing to do with me now... she may be under the constraints of a temporal pardox. All on my own, I had to raise some money... Eventually, I got my hands on the old tub of a freighter and here I am. I'll spare you the details of who I had to screw so that I could afford to buy the freighter... suffice it to say, it was the cheapest ship available in the cluster and only cost me a few dozen well placed orgasms."

Kwanya shook her head in wonder. "Clearly you have had an adventure, Eynta. Aara and I were simply teleported here from across the cluster. I never imagined interstellar teleportation as a possibility! Now, here we are. Grean must have brought us together at this time, here near Kwenslo, for some special reason."

infites
Aara asked Rob-B, "What do you think happened to Kwystyk and Konywhn?"

"I want to believe that they found a way into the underground city of Polyamrew, but again today, just as was the case during all my other inspections of the surface, I could see no evidence of an entrance to underground facilities. All I ever found was the clothing of Kwystyk and Konywhn."

"You found their clothing?"

Rob-B explained, "Well, I found his pants and her skirt. Based on what I saw, I'd say that three weeks ago, when they first went to the surface, they had partially disrobed, had sex and then not had time to get dressed again before they disappeared."

Kwanya said, "This sounds like Grean playing around with teleportation and time travel." She told Aara and Eynta as much as she could remember about her sister's story of there being multiple copies of her family scattered through Time. "My little sister Kwystolf said that Miahco must be a teleportation duplicate of Jochaim."

Eynta nodded, "Yes, that makes sense. But what happened here on Kwenslo? Kwystyk and Konywhn disappeared just about the same time that the Gensifers were teleported off of Ottengla."

Aara suggested, "It may be that the truce between the probots and my mother has gone sour."

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Gerard Quinn
Harold McCauley  and Malcolm Smith
"A Time War?" Kwanya said, "I can't see why the probots would teleport us here. Grean must want us here for some reason."

"But for what?" Thinking about the effort she had expended to reach Kwenslo, Eynta added, "It is all wasted effort. The window for getting any additional genes needed for the mind clone embryos closed weeks ago."

Aara said, "Forget the time issue. If we are being pushed around in Time, then we can always get sent back into the past. My mother is always telling me to do the best I can with what I have." She looked around the comfortable confines of the spaceship. "Now, what do we have that might help us solve this mystery... find my sister?"

Rob-B said, "I've tried to send signals to Kwystyk, assuming that he went underground. My telepathic and conventional signals have all been unanswered, but..." The robot was ogling the bodies of both Aara and Kwanya, their curves only minimally covered by some of Voyt's tight-fitting clothing.

Image made with
  ElfFlowerCrown11 by Eclesi4stiK  
  available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
Eynta followed the robot's eyes and considered the sexy bodies of Aara and Kwanya. "How good is the telepathic link that you two share?"

Aara giggled and replied, "It gets pretty strong when we touch and is best when we have simultaneous orgasms."

Eynta nodded, "I'm going to assume that we ended up here for a reason." She looked at Rob-B. "Even this robot." She watched as Aara took hold of Kwanya's hand. "When did you two ever have simultaneous orgasms?"

Aara said, "It was my last day on Numenes. We were at the beach, then I took Kwanya into a bar to get a cold drink and... well, one thing led to another in a nice big booth towards the back of the bar."

Eynta shook her head. "You two made love in a public bar?"

R. Nyrtia and R. Oliveene Nhevrix
Kwanya giggled, "In my defense, it was a big drink with a lot of alcohol in it." She remembered her sleep orgasm and told Eynta, "And just before I woke up, here on this ship, I had an orgasm... sadly I think it failed to synchronize with Aara's."

"I can't blame you for poor timing when you are asleep!" Aara kissed Kwanya rather passionately on the mouth. "I'd be happy to try again."

Eynta pointed towards one of the facilities she had noticed inside the luxurious spaceship and said, "There's a nice hot tub in there."

Aara pointed towards the bedroom, "There's a nice big bed in there."

Kwanya plucked off Aara's skimpy little top and kissed one of her stiff nipples, "I'm not fussy. The only difficulty I can see is that we seem to be a little short on penises." A quick search of Voy't bedroom turned up a fine collection of vibrators. After Rob-B set the ship's autopilot to return them to the planet's surface, she contributed her own artificial robotic penis to their group sex effort. 

Soon they were bouncing around on the big bed and all feeling a swelling pressure of telepathic sashei. Their mind patterns were starting to synchronize. Eynta reminded her team, "Remember, for best results we need to synchronize our orgasms. With luck, you two share nanocoids that will go into positive feedback and amplify your telepathic abilities. Don't be in a rush! We need to try to reach out with our minds and discover if Kwystyk and Konywhn are trapped below ground."

Iidi
"What if they are? How could we get them out?"

"We need Grean's help."

"Grean always says: don't expect help, just help yourself."

Aara and Kwanya stopped talking and applied their tongues to the erect glans of each others clitoris. Making Aara and Kwanya the center of their sex play, Eynta slid a big vibrator into Aara's vagina and Rob-B did the same for Kwanya. While providing stimulation to Kwanya's vagina and making full use of her robotic versatility and flexibility, Rob-B slid her robopenis into Eynta's magical vagina from behind while Eynta knelt over Aara. After about five minutes of Rob-B's artificial penis stimulating her vagina, Eynta said, "This robot has me ready to explode. How are you two ladies doing?"

Aara and Kwanya both gave a thumbs up. Floating in their warm clouds of sashei, neither Aara or Kwanya wanted to stop licking each other. Each sexual thought returned to them amplified. A minute later, they all fell into a joint mind space of blissful pleasure. Eynta reached out with her mind, trying to imagine the lost city of Polyamrew...

______

Inside Polyamrew, Nyrtia and Delpha met for the first time in two thousand years. There with them was a purple Iidi and a Pharazen. Delpha approached the Pharazen and asked, "A synthetic Pharazen?"

The Iidi explained, "This a stored copy of a replicoid copy of one of the last Pharazen, from not long before the species became extinct." The Iidi proclaimed, "The Pharazen should have a voice in any discussion of events on Kwenslo."

Nyrtia ignored the Iidi and asked Delpha, "Why are you sharing teleportation technology with the humans?"

"Technically, I've shared no technology."

"You teleported two humans into your ancient workshop, not far from here. Why go to the trouble?"

"It is no concern of yours, Nyrtia. I promised Konywhn a little fun as a reward for her many years of loyal service on Yerophet. Does it upset you that she got to spend a few weeks luxuriating in sex play with Kwystyk while also having the fun of solving a little puzzle?"

"Puzzle?" Nyrtia complained, "I can't believe you are letting her learn how to use the equipment that is inside your workshop."

"Where is the harm?" Delpha suggested, "It is good exercise for Konywhn's mind. She's a clever girl. The controls in my workshop are not really all that different from the Whelm equipment that she knows so well."

replicoids
The Idii held up her hands. "Will you two behave? This is not a pissing match."

"I don't know why Delpha is playing silly games and giving her operatives vacations on Kwenslo." Nyrtia shrugged. "Since Delpha violated the terms of our truce, I've already taken my compensation. I teleported Lord and Lady Gensifer off of Ottengla. They are on their way back home, to Yrinna."

Delpha smiled and was glad that she could shield her thoughts from probots. She had worked hard to maneuver Nyrtia into that rash act. She said, "Don't forget... Lord and Lady Gensifer are no longer starmenters. You might even say that they will now be Whelm agents on Yrinna."

"Bah!" Nyrtia laughed. "Once a pirate, always a pirate. I have two billion years of experience... I know what I'm talking about." Nyrtia vanished.

The Iidi told Delpha, "The Phari are watching your antics. They are curious... they don't understand why after all this time you revealed the remnant civilization of the Kwenslo settlers."

Delpha explained, "The Cluster is changing. The Kwenslo remnant civilization is happy where they are and will remain in the Hierion Domain... I just want to make use of some of their special gene patterns. However, more is soon to come! Next I will reveal the existence of the Hui-chi, who were also forced to hide themselves... they will flourish when they can mix with the rest of Cluster society. It is time to end the secrecy of efforts aimed at creating human-alien hybrids. The whole process must be brought out into the open and amplified a hundred fold."

The Pharazen said, "That is dangerous path. My own people were driven to extinction by contact with other species. The human society of Alastor Cluster is fragile and may not survive this new stress."

"I have viewed the future. Everything will be just fine. The old comfortable ways must yield to a new age of diversity and change." Delpha teleported away and returned to her workshop. A moment later the Iidi also departed from Polyamrew, pausing only to return the Pharazen to storage inside a complex virtual reality, a simulator of the ancient Kwenslo society.

_________

Inside Grean's old workshop near Polyamrew, Konywhn had spent three weeks studying the control systems of the teleportation and time travel equipment. She understood how to power up the equipment, but not how to actually use it. In her spare time, Konywhn had the enjoyment of spending many long hours in sex play with Kwystyk.

During the long days while Konywhn studied the mysterious equipment inside the workshop, Kwystyk had been exploring the physical exits from the workshop, and had so far discovered seven of them. They led by way of devious mechanical doors and secret passage ways to more doors and passageways. He suspected that at least one of these led to the lost city of Polyamrew, but the most useful ones he'd discovered so far led to a bathroom and a pantry. The bathroom was well equipped and even had two different styles of adjoining hot tubs and a nice sauna. The pantry had a molecular food synthesizer and by using it to prepare their meals, they had learned some of the machine instruction coding that also applied to the main workshop control systems.

Konywhn and Kwystyk believed that between them they had remembered everything that the white eyed visitor from the future had told them, but they were not familiar with the language. Konywhn spent many hours trying to invent a new alphabet for the language that woman had spoken, which Kony believed was a variant of the ancient Galactic that had been spoken back in the era when Alastor Cluster was first explored by human settlers. The control system surfaces in the workshop would occasionally blink and show three letter sets of the ancient Galactic letters which Konywhyn tirelessly recorded in the datacore of her comring.

Image credits.
At the end of another long day spent trying to discover a tunnel leading from the workshop to the city of Polyamrew, Kwystyk returned to the workshop, shared a meal with Kwanya and then they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible on the one padded chair that they had found in a small side room off the pantry, a room which seemed to be some sort of high tech theater or gaming room. At a slow pace they began their sex play, taking great delight in the the rising tide of their telepathic sashei as their minds resonated and merged.

Later, emerging from their shared orgasm trance, Konywhyn asked Kwystyk: Could you feel Eynta there with us?

Kwystyk was trying to sort through his memories of his just-completed telepathic vision state, so unlike any he had previously experienced. I was in communication with Kwanya.

Konywhn sat up, straddling Kwystyk and still holding his erection inside her. For a moment she rubbed the stiff glans of her clitoris against Kwystyk and played with his breasts. She was trying to understand what had been telepathically detected in Eynta's mind. I think Eynta is looking for us.

In Kwanya's mind, I saw her sister. Sisters. I don't know! It really makes no sense. It was like an echo chamber. There were dozens of them. Duplicates... triplicates... Kwystyk tried to imaging why her mother would make a dozen copies of a person.

Konywhn was very sexually aroused and for five minutes she worked her way to another orgasm during which she looked deeply into Kwystyk's mind. After her tingling orgasm finally ended, she lay against Kwystyk, her hands on his shoulders, her head resting between his soft breasts. Suddenly she understood what she had seen in Kwystyk's memories. "That's it!" She pulled herself off of his hot erection and ran through the passageways back to the teleporter room.

Teleportation
Kwystyk arrived, his erect penis swaying from side to side as he walked. He saw Konywhn set the apex mark above the teleportation equipment to the symbol 'Ծ'. Crossing the room, Kony passed Kwystyk, kissed the tip of his stiff penis and then went to the downwhen time travel machine. After setting it to ع, she told Kwystyk. "I saw this in your memory of Kwanya's sister." She next set the upwhen time machine to display '🔱'. She turned to Kwystyk and explained, "It is a code, a pass phrase. 'Ofy' means time, and we need to travel through time!"

Kwystyk looked at the three pieces of equipment and asked, "These symbols, Ծع🔱, they mean something to you?"

"Yes" Kony explained, "That is 'Ofy' translated into old Galactic." Konywhn adjusted the control setting on the downwhen time machine. "How long were you here at Kwenslo before I arrived?"

This image made with Elena17 by
Eclesi4stiK available
under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
.
"Maybe 12 hours." Kwystyk watched Kony move over to the teleportation controls He was enjoying the sight of her beautiful naked body in motion, responding to her almost frantic need to activate the equipment as quickly as she could. "All the systems seem to be working, including this viewer. I'm now detecting the Whelm listening station in orbit." She pointed to a view screen. "There! That must be you... three weeks ago you were inside Eynta's little spaceship."

"With Rob-B." Kwystyk gazed into the display screen. "That was three weeks ago. How can we be seeing this now?"

"This is a view mode for the time travel equipment, which allows us to look into the past. But I think we can transport ourselves out of here..."

Kwystyk complained, "We can't alter Time."

"Why not?" Kony pointed to the datamodule they had received from the white eyed woman of the future. "We have to get the gene data to Yerophet before the mind clones are created. I'd send us back even further into the past, but we need that spaceship."

"If you send me back in time, there will be two of me on Eynta's ship."

Konywhn laughed, "I hope you like threesomes!"

Original cover art by Robert Jones
and Reginald Hubert Rogers
Made using Onboard2 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
"But there will be two copies of you, too..."

"Don't try to confuse me, Kwy. We need to deliver these gene sequences. We can sort out the details later. Get up on the platform."

"Which one?" He stepped up onto one of the platforms and turned toward Kony, his erection still aimed at the ceiling. 

Kony picked up the datamodule with its gene sequences from the future and jumped onto another of the platforms. "It does not matter. All the platforms are now linked, ready for use and set to our destination. I set a ten second delay and then-"

Kwystyk jumped off the platform and then saw Kony disappear. He went to the temporal controls and moved them ahead in Time. He found Voyt's fancy spaceship right at the point in Time as it arrived at Kwenslo with Kony on board. Locking the targeting system of the teleportation equipment on that spaceship, Kwystyk got back on the platform and five seconds later he disappeared from Grean's workshop.

_______________

Rob-B asked nervously, "Do you really think it is safe to land?"

"Maybe not yet." Kwystyk began using the little ship's navigational radar to search for another spaceship in orbit around Kwenslo. Then he felt a wave of telepathic sashei.

Teleporting in from Grean's workshop, from a point in Time three weeks in the future, Kony arrived in the little bedroom of Eynta's spaceship and could feel the nearby presence Kwystyk's mind. She stepped through the doorway and saw him look up. They rushed towards each other and hugged. They kissed and then Kwystyk asked, "Where did you come from?" He was also wondering why she had arrived naked.

"It is a long story, Kwy. Three weeks. But please get us on our way to Yerophet." She waved the datamodule at him. "I lost my skirt, but I have the lost genes. I'll explain everything."

Two hours later, they were in the bedroom, enjoying their celebratory sex play and with Kony still holding Kwystyk's erection inside her vagina. She described the three weeks trapped inside the workshop then discovery of the passcode that had finally allowed her to use the time travel and teleportation equipment. "The only mystery is what happened to you. At the last moment, you stepped off of the teleportation platform."

Kwystyk had one hand on Kony's left breast and the other was playing with the stiff glans of her clitoris. "Knowing myself, I can probably guess what happened... I would have been worried about you. The other copy of you that is on the way to Kwenslo from Yerophet."

"Ah, I see!" Kony relaxed and lay against Kwystyk's body. "I wonder..."

Mixing telepathy genes on Yerophet.
"About what?" Kwystyk was trying to sort out in his mind the change in Time that Kony had caused by going into her past.

"Where those two will go. Our copies."

"We have other concerns." Kwystyk reached out and picked up the datamodule. "This device looks odd. Not like any datapax I've seen before."

Kony turned her head and looked at the data storage device. "It would be absurd for Grean to lead us through all this and not be able to get the lost gene sequences off of that device."

_________________

Yerophet
When Kony and Kwystyk reached Yerophet, Miahco took one look at the datapax from the future and said, "Yes, this sort of device will become popular in about two hundred years. I know how to access the data it holds." Miacho set to work with Larryfial pulling the lost Kwenslo gene sequences out of the device.

Kwystyk said, "We've been calling these lost genes, lost back in the time of the Kwenslo wars. However, I'll bet that my mom had them designed, constructed and tested in the future."

Konywhn turned to Lora and said, "So, these gene sequences will only go into the lo'Whots embryo?"

Lora led Kony and Kwystyk out of the lab and back to her office and explained, "The first version of lo'Whot's mind clone did not successfully implant into her uterus, so we must make a new embryo for lo'Whots. The other two mind clone embryos are already growing inside their moms."

the Lavany embryo
Kwystyk suggested, "It is almost as if that first embryo was aborted on purpose."

Kony asked, "What do you think is the function of these 'lost' gene sequences from Kwenslo? What advantage will they provide to lo'Whot's baby?"

The story continues: Chapter 11 of Meet the Phari

Next: Sightwall

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