Old Time Gaming

The Mind Clone Network

The science fiction story Old Time Gaming is an origins story for both Rylla and human knowledge of hierions. Almost three years ago, I began writing stories about Rylla (see Green vs White). "Rylla" is a shortened, alternative form of her actual name which is "Verella". Verella's mother used the name "Vendela Pekkanen", which was apparently a joke aimed at mocking the pek. 

Not very much is known about Vendela beyond these three facts: 1) Vendela abandoned her daughter at a young age and 2) Rylla inherited a special collection of Asterothrope gene patterns from her mother and 3) Rylla and Vendela had different tastes and Rylla did not like the name Verella, which she only used on business documents.

Vendela

The most obvious phenotypic consequence of Rylla's special Asterothrope gene combinations was that they endowed her with two sets of breasts, the smaller, lower set tucked down under the normal upper pair, and being small, they were fairly easy to be concealed.

As shown in the image in the upper right corner on this page, early in the 21st century Rylla gave birth to her daughter Marda, a node in a mind clone network that allowed for telepathic connections between Earth and Observer Base. Observer Base exists within a space-time bubble of the Hierion Domain, but in order to account for its easy access to Earth, Interventionist agents often pretend that Observer Base is hidden under the surface of the Moon.

Abigail in 1820

In Chapter 1 of Old Time Gaming, below on this page, Marda's young son, Brak, is causing turmoil on Earth because he is a universal telepath, able to use technology-assisted telepathy to access the minds of everyone around him, including other telepaths at Observer Base who can communicate with Earthlings by means of hierion nanotubes. Using Brak as an information conduit to the Writers Block, Rylla becomes aware of the fact that her special collection of chromosomes was assembled with the help of a strange loop in time. A copy of Rylla was sent back through time to 19th century Australia where she helped bring together two of her own ancestors, a girl named Abigail Longfellow and a young man, George White. 

Can Rylla find Abigail
and bring herself
into existence?

In essence, through the trickery of time travel, Rylla played an important role in bringing herself into existence. As told in Old Time Gaming, when Rylla travels back to the colony of New South Wales in 1814, she is constantly suspecting that her Interventionist actions in the past have altered the historical timeline of Earth, creating a new Reality that is quite distinct from the one that she learned about during training for her mission on Earth.

Occasionally, when Rylla's insecurities and doubts begin to grow to alarming proportions, an appendage of Many Sails named Manny is teleported to Earth so that she can boost Rylla's confidence. Manny also appears in Chapter 1 of the story, below, where the events are taking place in the year 2037...

Part 1 of Old Time Gaming.

Georgy White

Zeta was trying hard to use the mind clone network as her way to communicate with Observer Base. Rylla's grandson, Brak, was the key to this new effort. Zeta could not be certain, but she thought that by linking through Brak, she was able to attain a tenuous telepathic connection with Georgy, the golden girl from Australia who had won herself a trip to the Moon for having discovered hierions.

Distracting sounds were coming to Zeta from down the hall and Brak was starting to fidget, portending the end of Zeta's telepathy experiment. Zeta got up and closed the bedroom door, marveling at the intensity with which Rylla and the Editor were shouting to each-other. They were playing some computer game; Rylla was in her room and Zeta's husband was in the den. 

Fundamental particles: hierions

While playing together as a team, Rylla and the Editor were wildly shouting game commentary up and down the hallway that separated them. After closing the bedroom door, Zeta stepped over a stuffed animal and returned to her king-sized bed where Brak had been taking a nap. Zeta saw that Brak was looking at her with eyes wide open and sparkling. "Awake now, baby?" She picked up one of the soft, huggable toys that was on the bed and handed it to Brak, wondering if he might drift back into sleep.

Hearing footfalls on the basement stairs, Zeta glanced back over her shoulder and saw her daughter Tihri coming through the bedroom door, arriving from her room down in the basement. 

Tihri strode briskly into the master bedroom suite and said, "I'll take him now that his nap is done."

From down the hall, Rylla's voice could be heard, "Tihri, we're waiting for you to finish this turn."

Calling down the hallway, Tihri replied to Rylla: "The game is over... I'm upstairs in your mom's room". Leaning past Zeta, she scooped up Brak off the big bed, took him to the nearby sofa, pushed aside a collection of small books that had accumulated there and stuck a nipple in his mouth.

Computer game scene generated by Rylla: the imaginary Australian city of Rylaton.

In her bedroom, realizing that the game was on pause until the next lull in baby juggling, Rylla stood up and stretched her legs which had grown cramped and a bit sore after the intense gaming session. Rylla had a peddling device which she always used when sitting down for gaming sessions. Glancing at the counter, Rylla saw that she'd just peddled fifty miles during the gaming session. She turned off the fan that had been blowing directly on her and keeping her cool as she had obsessively peddled.

Rylla's younger set of twins.

She turned and looked at her twin babies who were still asleep in their playpen and would rest peacefully there until Rylla nudged them telepathically. Giving birth to her second set of twins had been a real strain on Rylla's body and she regretted no longer being a young athlete. For a minute, while massaging her sore thighs, Rylla peeked into their minds, then she telepathically shielded herself from the strange fantasy world that the two babies constructed and inhabited while they slept.

Rylla was more than just a little afraid of allowing her mind to be sucked into the virtual world that was inhabited by the two baby mind clones while they were asleep. That alternate world seemed to be a jumble, containing information from both the past and the future. Feeling slightly dizzy, Rylla tried to get a firm grip on objective reality and push away the bizarre images that danced in her children's minds. 

On the wall was an old poster she had made, showing a scene from one of the computer games that she and the Editor had enjoyed playing back when she was young and had first arrived in America from Australia, more than 20 years previously. Briefly, Rylla thought about her childhood in Australia and the additional five years she had spent back in Australia after first becoming a mother. But as much as she enjoyed life in Perth, eventually, she had returned to America, the better to coordinate her writing efforts with those of her grandfather, who she had taken to calling "the Editor". 

Rylla took her eyes off of the poster and her mind off of Australia and she went down the hallway to check in on her older pair of twins. Both of them were in their bedrooms, diligently engaged in their online school work. Before Rylla could open their bedroom doors, both telepathically "checked in" with Rylla. Rylla turned away from the back bedrooms and set off back up the hallway, intending to have a word with her grandfather about their sub-optimal coordination of play during their computer gaming session, but noticing that he was busy looking up historical information on the internet, she instead went into Zeta's bedroom.

Brak snack

Zeta was telling Tihri, "I wish you wouldn't do that." Zeta was squeamish about the way Tihri, Rylla and Marda would all nurse any baby in the house.

Tihri ignored her mother. The children made no ownership claims on their mother's breasts and even Brak, who now got almost all his calories from solid food, still enjoyed the comfort of being held at the breast and the boost that physical contact provided for telepathic communication. While sifting through the chaotic thought streams swirling Brak's young mind, Tihri asked Zeta, "Is it Georgy or not?"

"I can't be certain." Zeta was trying to sort through the thought fragments that lingered in her mind after her latest experiment with the mind clone network. Unable to shield herself from her daughter's thoughts, Zeta asked, "Who is Manny?"

Rylla sat down next to Tihri, placed a hand on the young woman's arm and could sense that Tihri was concentrating and trying to telepathically link deeply into Brak's mind. She answered Zeta's question, "Manny is a friend of Marda... from school."

Distracted by Rylla's touch, Tihri lost the thread of memories that she had been tracing through Brak's mind. Taking note of the perplexed expression on Zeta's face, she added, "Manny was my partner in the game and with her help we were beating Rylla and dad!" Marda had gone into town for a regularly scheduled medical appointment and had arranged for Manny to take her place in the weekly gaming session, linking in via the internet from her home in town. 

Rylla mused, "Manny must have been cheating. It was as if she knew what we were going to do."

Tihri laughed merrily then she reminded Rylla, "You know, even when I'm in the basement, I can hear you and dad shouting plans and strategy to each-other along the hallway."

Georgy's memories edited by nanites

Rylla shook her head, "I don't care if you can hear us, Ti... or even if you peek into my mind. You never take the game seriously. You were bumbling around in the game, like usual." Rylla and Tihri had always been on two different telepathic sub-nets of the mind clone network. However, Brak seemed to be a special telepath who could link to anyone, and lately, Rylla and Tihri had begun to learn how to weakly connect their minds by using Brak as a conduit. "It was Manny's scintillating game play that catapulted you two into the lead. She's some kind of gaming wizard."

For a minute, Zeta and Rylla watched Brak playing at Tihri's breast. He was tickling her stiff nipple with the tip of his tongue in a provocative way that he had learned by watching the Editor while he made love to Zeta. He had one hand up under her shirt and was gently caressing her other breast.

Rylla was struggling mightily to telepathically link through Brak's mind to Zeta. Now able to sense some of Zeta's memories and thoughts, she told Zeta, "Yes, that's Georgy who was in your mind. I think maybe she was trying to tell you something about Perth or possibly something about her family's history... maybe concerning her famous ancestor who arrived in Sydney with the First Fleet...." Rylla really could not make much sense of the jumbled thought fragments she was sensing in Zeta's mind.

Tihri was growing impatient with Brak. She told him, "Either eat or go play with your toys." She shifted him to the other breast which under his manual stimulation was leaking milk. Brak giggled, but he altered his tactics and began sucking powerfully on Tihri's left breast, which was his favorite one in the house.

Zeta was surprised that Rylla could now snoop so effectively through her thoughts, but she asked herself: why not? The telepathic landscape was changing. Brak was a powerful telepath who was not constrained by the old rules that restricted telepathic linkages among members of the mind clone network. And there had always been something spooky about Rylla's cognitive abilities. Rylla had some near-magical intuitive ability that often allowed her to guess the most productive path into the future. Reflecting on what she had seen in Brak's mind while he slept, Zeta suddenly felt certain that Brak had been trying to warn her about something that involved Rylla, but "pa" had also been prominent in the baby's thoughts. There was no question that Brak had a special bond with the Editor, but what did that have to do with Georgy White? Zeta uncomfortably shifted her bra, relieving the tension that had built up on her erect nipples. Zeta was feeling sexually aroused by being telepathically linked to Tihri while she nursed Brak.

Observer Base

Rylla completed Zeta's thought, "Ya, and why doesn't Georgy just contact me directly if she has something important to tell me?"

Zeta gave her head a quick little shake. "Someone at Observer Base is worried about you, I can sense that much. It is clear that Brak knows more about what is happening at Observer Base, but I can't successfully search through the jumble of his memories. Babies have such non-linear minds!"

Rylla knew that the children of the mind clone network had particularly complex minds because of how they established telepathic linkages to each-other even before birth. And now Brak was staring intently into Rylla's eyes and poking excitedly at her mind. Rylla whispered to Brak, "Tell grandma Rylla what you know. What did auntie Georgy tell you?"

Brak suddenly released Tihri's nipple with a break in the suction that caused a loud pop and he told Rylla, "I'm afraid."

Tihri told Rylla, "Leave him alone. He doesn't want to talk about it."

Rylla chastised Zeta, "You really shouldn't be trying to use Brak as a telepathic information source. Particularly not now, when Marda is not even here to comfort him." 

Brak picked up a book and handed it to Tihri. She began reading it to him, not even bothering to speak out-loud. Brak knew the book by heart and could "read" it by following Tihri's thoughts. Just for comfort, Brak again took Tihri's nipple in his mouth, holding it loosely between his lips.

Zeta gazed speculatively at Rylla and with Brak in the room, she was able to skim the surface layer of Rylla's thoughts. As usual, Zeta's husband was right there, constantly in Rylla's thought stream. It had always been obvious to Zeta that Rylla and her husband shared a special bond of common interests, such as the history of Australia. 

It had been quite a relief for Zeta when she began to use Brak as a way to access Rylla's thoughts and had learned that Rylla had no concealed sexual obsession for the Editor. Zeta had always been able to see that special place that Rylla held in her husband's thoughts, and now Zeta could sense that the powerful cognitive bond between the two of them was like a feedback loop of high energy resonance... never pausing and never ending. Zeta could not help being jealous of that scintillating linkage that far transcended ordinary human concerns like sexual desires and friendship between family members.

Even Rylla's relationship with her first born, Marda, although amplified by 20 years of constant telepathic communication, could not dislodge the Editor from his place of primacy in Rylla's thoughts. Zeta followed the thread of thought from Rylla to her husband. Zeta telepathically observed him searching the internet for information about Pine Gap, Australia. For many decades, Zeta had known about her husband's interest in Roswell, New Mexico and now she was not surprised to learn that there was a rumor concerning the existence of a secret underground alien base near Pine Gap.

Rylla noticed that Zeta was staring at her and asked, "What?"

Rylla grew up in Perth, Australia,
where hierions were discovered.

Zeta shook her head. She had the feeling that her husband had somehow stirred things up at Observer Base, but she said nothing about that to Rylla and Tirhi. Zeta could telepathically sense that he was still intellectually engaged with the game that he, Rylla, Tihri and Manny had been playing. Some element of the game play had led the Editor to investigate Pine Gap. Zeta asked Rylla, "Why are you two so obsessed with that new computer game?"

Rylla explained, "It is another game set in Australia. Your husband is taking our experience with the game as an opportunity to learn more about the history of Australia."

Zeta knew that the Editor had recently begun writing a new science fiction story about Australia and time travel. She could not quite understand the relevance of that to Georgy and Observer Base, but Zeta had the uneasy suspicion that the two were linked somehow. For some reason, Zeta could not stop thinking about hierions and the role of those fundamental particles in making time travel possible. Zeta felt quite certain that time travel had ended decades previously, so why was time travel once again on her husband's mind?

While telepathically sorting through memory fragments from Zeta and Brak, Rylla nodded slowly and told Zeta, "Yes, Georgy was trying to tell you something about me and grandpa traveling back in time... to 19th century Australia."

Tihri laughed nervously. "Time travel, again? Why is dad so obsessed with time travel?"

Zeta explained, "You know that your father believes he was once taken into the future, just to prove to him that time travel is a real phenomenon."

Tihri shrugged. "Yes, I've heard that story a hundred times, but I don't believe it."

Zeta sighed. Tihri had been trained by her dad to be a skeptic. With no evidence that time travel was possible, Tihri viewed it as nothing but a science fiction plot device. Zeta continued, "Then, later, near the end of the 1900s, time travel was terminated. Near the end of the previous millennium, it was made physically impossible to travel through time when the Huaoshy altered the dimensional structure of the universe. So... it is no longer possible to travel in time, but he's still studying the phenomenon. He's worried that if the Huaoshy ended time travel, they might also have altered the physical parameters of the universe in such a way that it put an end to interstellar space travel." Tihri rolled her eyes and shook her head.

from the archives of the Writers Block

Brak now slipped out of Tihri's lap, sat on the floor, and began playing with some building blocks. Tihri pulled her shirt down to cover her left breast and used the fabric to mop up the spilt milk that continued to dribble out of her right breast. Her right breast was painfully engorged and Brak had not made a serious effort to get any milk from that side. She could telepathically sense that her own newborn daughter was still asleep, in their bedroom down in the basement. Tihri stood up, put her arms around Zeta and asked, "You don't really think he'd take Rylla back into the past of old time Australia?"

Zeta shrugged. "I don't know what to think. Brak's amazing telepathic abilities have me completely disoriented and rattled."

Tihri went to the basement. She had willingly moved down there with her daughter to give Rylla and her many children more room together on the main floor. She picked up her daughter and was relieved when the hungry baby started eagerly draining her over-full right breast. Tihri could sense that her daughter was telepathically linked to Rylla's twins and she had to fight to resist the temptation to slip into their shared mind space. However, having done that once, she was afraid to do so a second time. She quietly lay there in the basement, following Zeta's thought stream.

It was through Tihri's telepathic link to her mother that she had some insight into her father's thought processes. However, Zeta's brain had been damaged in a "telepathic burn-in" accident, and almost all of Zeta's thoughts were continually obsessed with the goal of protecting Tihri's father and creating conditions that allowed him to keep working as "the Editor" of science fiction stories that had been found at the Writers Block. Every time Tihri looked into Zeta's mind, she had to deal with her mother's intimate reflections on the joy of making love to the Editor. Tihri was now gradually learning how to make use of Brak's telepathic abilities as another channel into her father's mind. While feeding her baby, she telepathically watched in dismay as the Editor read about UFO conspiracies in Australia.

Up on the main floor of the house, by making use of Marda and Alexina as a telepathic bridge, Rylla was now in telepathic contact with Georgy. She told Zeta, "Georgy seems ignorant, but I'm having trouble fully accessing her memories. However, I've discovered this: apparently Stacy recently found something odd in the archives of the Writers Block."

The Georgy-Rylla link.

Zeta asked Rylla, "Can Georgy telepathically block you from accessing her memories?"

Rylla replied, "We shall see. This is odd. Normally her mind is open to me, but now she just keeps repeating: temporal paradox. Or maybe that is a warning message... somehow being imposed upon her... from outside. I don't know. I've never previously experienced this kind of interference in the operation of our side of the mind clone network." Shaking her head in frustration, Rylla moved to the doorway and said, "Well, if the game is on pause then I'm going to start dinner. Marda should be home soon." Marda had finally allowed herself to be used as a telepathic link to Observer Base only after putting her car on autopilot while returning home from town. Rylla could telepathically sense that Marda was again in manual control of the car and negotiating the winding road that led up into the hills.

When Marda arrived, she was not alone. Rylla looked up from her work in the kitchen, saw Marda come into the house and did a double take. With Marda was another young woman. Marda said, "Hi, mom. Do you mind if Manny joins us for dinner?" Marda went to the freezer and deposited the little bags of breast milk she had pumped while in the car.

"Not at all." Rylla wondered how she had failed to telepathically sense that Marda had driven home with a passenger in the car. "Hello, Manny." Rylla had previously seen glimpses of Manny and knew that she was beautiful, but here, in person, Rylla was greatly impressed by the girl's charms. Manny looked like a physically perfect young woman... her perfection surpassing the limits normally imposed by human biology.

Manny

Manny nodded to Rylla, stepped into the kitchen area and waited until Marda went off to the other end of the house in search of Brak. Manny then told Rylla, "We need to talk, but it can wait until after dinner."

Rylla could feel someone shuffling through her mind. She suspected that Manny was an Interventionist agent with telepathic abilities. Rylla nervously asked, "It's you that put everyone at Observer Base into such a tizzy?"

Manny shook her head, sending her lovely hair swaying into a shimmering swirl. "No, I'm just cleaning up yet another mess here on Earth." Manny explained, "Stacy stumbled onto an account of your other life in the 1800s."

The Editor came into the kitchen and stopped short. "Manny?" He looked carefully at the girl and felt the touch of her telepathic mind pattern. He had felt this powerful mind once before. He asked, "You are an instantiation of Many Sails?"

Rylla explained, "This is Marda's friend from school."

The Editor laughed loudly and told Manny, "I haven't seen you since... when was it? Twenty years ago? Twentyfive?"

Rylla telepathically looked into the Editor's mind and suddenly she was in a shared thought space with both him and Manny. Manny told them both: I'll explain as best I can, but I'm constrained. There are temporal paradoxes in play.

Rylla asked: So, time travel is still possible?

Manny replied: Time travel is no longer possible... Marda returned to the kitchen with Brak in her arms. Manny shifted back to speaking and said, "We are part of a tangle of time loops that link Rylla's future to the past."

Marda laughed and said to Manny, "Not you too!"

Manny asked innocently, "Me too, what?"

"Time travel." Marda gestured towards Rylla, "My mom and my grandfather are obsessed with time travel." She turned to the Editor and said, "Don't dump your wild time travel stories on poor Manny. She's far too susceptible to science fiction nonsense."

The Editor asked Marda, "What did the doctor have to say?"

"Nothing useful. She thinks I'm crazy." Marda set Brak on the floor who then went directly to Manny. "She would not authorize the brain scans as a diagnostic test for health purposes. She did suggest that I could contact a research lab at the university that might be able to include me in their research study."

Manny picked up Brak and took him into the family room where they began playing with his toys.

Over the past few months, Marda had been experiencing strange periods of unconsciousness. She suspected that Brak was involved, but she had stopped short of telling the doctor about her ability to telepathically link her mind to Brak's. Marda had proposed to her doctor that in some mysterious way, Brak could enter into a behavior pattern that triggered her to have an absence seizure, and she claimed to be worried that Brak might have the same affliction. Her doctor refused to even consider doing brain scans on such a young child, claiming that growing neural networks could be disrupted by powerful magnetic fields.

Australia of an alternate Reality?

Dinner was ready and the evening progressed with a large degree of normalcy, but telepathic linkages were being used all around the table and the conversation was rather disjointed and lackluster, at first dominated by the Editor telling Marda about events in the computer gaming session that she had missed out on playing. The conversation drifted into an analysis of the differences between the game and the real world Australia where Rylla had grown up.

The Editor told Rylla, "It does not matter to me if these games are historically inaccurate. During the past 20 years, they have led me to learn much of the history of Australia, such as it is." He shook his head, saddened by the lack of good historical information sources about the lives of ordinary people.

Rylla suggested, "The best sources of the type of information that you want are diaries. And most of those were kept by women. Sadly, most old diaries have never gotten published and are not even available to professional historians." Rylla suddenly realized why Manny was there. Rylla telepathically asked Manny: Stacy found a diary in the archives of the Writers Block?

Manny telepathically replied to both Rylla and the Editor: Stacy found some stories written by Emma Phillips that were inspired by Emma's discovery that Maria Green was an alien visitor to western Australia in 1830.

The Editor asked Manny: The same Maria Green who sent Georgy to Observer Base also sent this Emma to the Moon?

Zeta and some of her clone sisters.

Zeta was watching the Editor and Rylla. When she felt herself telepathically isolated from her husband and saw them both gazing at Manny, she allowed her eyes to rest on the girl. She was gorgeous in a rather unconventional way and Zeta suspected that her shimmering hair was artificial. Now Zeta realized that Manny was an artificial life-form, too perfectly designed to be biological. Zeta sent a telepathic question to the Editor: what's going on?

The Editor replied to Zeta: I'm not sure. I'll tell you after dinner.

Zeta was waiting impatiently, but explanations did not come quickly. After dinner there was yet another gaming session during which Manny again demonstrated her amazing gaming skills. After the game was completed, Manny, Rylla and the Editor went into the den and closed the door. Eventually, after midnight, the house was finally quiet and Zeta had the Editor in her bed. He had just spent an hour alone with Manny and Rylla, a long, agonizing hour during which Zeta was telepathically blocked from linking into her husband's mind. Zeta had tried to open the door to the den, but it seemed frozen shut. Snuggling up to her husband's warm body, Zeta asked, What was that all about?

Gohrlay aboard Many Sails.

The Editor was still trying to sort out what he had learned from Many Sails. "Let me talk it through... It will help me make sense of-" He stopped short, realizing that some memory locks had been placed in his mind by Many Sails. While sorting through the discontinuities in his memories, he took the opportunity to kiss Zeta. Pausing for a breath, he told his wife, "That meddlesome bitch! Many Sails locked down some of my memories. However, I'll tell you what I can..."

Awed by the idea, Zeta whispered, "So, this girl 'Manny' is really the sentient spaceship, Many Sails?"

"Manny is an appendage of Many Sails." The Editor was being distracted by Zeta's lovely body. He slipped his erection inside Zeta's silky vagina and sighed. After some more kissing, he could sense that Zeta was impatient to hear what Manny had said. "Anyhow, this all concerns the discovery of hierions, a critical event in Earth's history that had to be accomplished in just the right way. Manny described that historical event as being a chaotic temporal nexus. Humans had to be made aware that hierions exist, but they could not be given access to hierion-based technologies until much later."

in the Hierion Domain

Now telepathically sensing that Tihri, Marda and Manny were down in the basement having a wild sexual encounter, Zeta was unable to suppress her own sexual desires. She pushed the Editor over onto his back and began sliding his penis in and out of her hot vagina. "What does that have to do with Rylla?"

For a minute the Editor thought about his grand-daughter and enjoyed the feel of Zeta's wet vagina massaging his penis. Feeling Zeta's eyes on him and feeling her telepathic mind probes pushing at his memories, he said, "You know how clever Rylla is. Many Sails was not satisfied to simply make use of Rylla here in this century as a telepathic baby factory. Rylla was a time traveler... repeatedly sent into the past, to a specific time and place, in an effort to create the world as we know it. Well, a copy of Rylla was the time traveler....."

Relieved that this tizzy only concerned past history and unable to ignore her sexual needs, for the next five minutes Zeta concentrated on achieving an orgasm and then she rested against the Editor's body. Catching her breath, she asked, "So our Rylla is safe? She isn't going to be sent into the past?"

"I'm pretty sure that the era of time travel is over, so this has nothing to do with future events or sending Rylla off into the past. Apparently, our Rylla is a copy of another woman who lived further back in time. That earlier, time traveling Rylla was all..." He was being distracted by the wonderful rhythmic contractions of the muscle tissue in Zeta's vagina. When those massaging contractions finally stopped, he said, "That alternate copy of Rylla was used as part a major Intervention in the 1800s aimed at making sure that two hundred years later Georgy could discover hierions." The Editor now rolled them over and after enthusiastically thrusting his penis into Zeta's vagina several times he quickly achieved his own orgasm.

Zeta waited until her husband reached his climax then telepathically and impatiently asked: why is all this happening now?

Stacy at Observer Base

Still gently massaging Zeta's vagina with his erection, the Editor explained, "Apparently it was a chance discovery by Stacy, who has been working her way through the archives of the Writers Block. A woman named Emma Phillips wrote a whole series of stories about Rylla's adventures in 19th century Australia." The Editor fell silent.

For a minute Zeta simply enjoyed the way that her husband was massaging her genitals. When Zeta convinced herself that he was only casually playing around in her vagina with his penis and not about to try for another orgasm, she asked, "What about those stories?"

"This is where things get complicated and I'm not allowed to tell you everything that Manny told Rylla and I."

"If this is about past events in the 1800s then why can't we talk about them?"

"I'm not sure. Manny said that you are still going to play a role in the 'second discovery of hierions' and that could be disrupted if you know too much about the past."

Zeta asked, "Who was Emma Phillips?"

"Rylla is trying to get that information from Observer Base. Apparently, Emma was the grand-daughter of a woman named Kate Phillips, who knew Rylla and actually met Maria Green in Australia about 1830."

Zeta sighed. "So, what we know about... the first Rylla... comes from stories written by someone who never actually met Rylla?"

preparing Plato for his mission on Earth

"Yes. Apparently, Emma was told tales about the Australian frontier by her grandmother and then Emma started publishing science fiction stories based on those old tales. Crazy stuff... about robots from the future teleporting around the Outback of Australia in the 1800s. Eventually, Emma was taken off of Earth and sent to live at Observer Base. According to Many Sails, published stories about Interventionist agents using teleportation on Earth in the 1800s simply could not be permitted, even in the guise of science fiction. Those stories were too close to the truth. It was only the diligence of Stacy, reading through the archives of the Writers Block, that allowed her to discover copies of Emma's stories and reveal the existence of Rylla's mission in the past."

Zeta was now happily drifting into sleep, content that neither Rylla or her husband was in danger of being sent into the past on some crazy time travel mission dreamed up by Many Sails. However, she could telepathically sense that the Editor was thinking about the past and what it would be like to live in ancient times. She asked, "Why are you so obsessed with the past?"

"Manny claims that I'm like Rylla... the copy of someone who was used as an Interventionist agent in the past. She claims that I -or, more accurately, that other version of me- helped create the world as we know it."

"Wait, now. Are you saying that you lived with Rylla in the 1800s?"

The Editor could sense that Zeta's jealousy was in full red flame. "Apparently, my copy -the other version of me- was a time traveler, sent into the far past, to 4,000 BC."

"But you did eventually meet up with Rylla in 19th century Australia?"

tales from the Writer Block

"Remember, it wasn't me. It was some copy. According to Manny, that other copy of me was turned into an artificial life-form that was able to survive and live on Earth for 6,000 years."

"Well, I'm still jealous if in that other life you ended up as Rylla's lover in Australia."

The editor laughed. "I seem to recall that you were once sent on a training mission into Earth's past during which you became a mother and raised your first child. I'm not jealous just because you've had other lovers."

"Yes, I did live in the past for a time, but you don't know the man who impregnated me, so you have no cause to be jealous. I've raised Rylla like my own daughter, so I can't abide the thought of you having sex with her." Zeta was carefully watching her husband's mind. It was almost a human mind, but he was a tryp'At, a human variant that had been sculpted and modified so as to allow him to blend in among the humans of Earth. His emotional responses were typically tryp'At, not human.

source

The editor kissed Zeta's nose playfully. "Relax my love. Whatever may have happened is lost in the past. I'm not going to believe anything that is found in old science fiction stories that Stacy digs up at the Writers Block. Authors insert imaginary sex scenes into stories just to spice things up when the plot is dragging." Soon he drifted peacefully into sleep.

Down in the basement, when Manny had successfully provided both Marda and Tihri with two orgasms each, Zeta was finally able to quiet her mind and slip into sleep.

_________________

zeptites

 1814. Manny had been carefully watching Sophie McKnight through all 21 years of her life in the colony of New South Wales. Now, Manny activated her teleportation equipment and made a teleportation duplicate of Sophie. When the newly created Sophie copy arrived inside Many Sails, Manny sent a cloud of zeptites into the girl and told her, "Welcome! I'm Manny."

Sophie felt slightly disoriented, but mostly she felt intrigued by the flood of new information that was present in her memories, having been provided by the zeptites. She smiled at Manny and said, "Hello, Manny." She asked, "So... I'll never return to Earth?"

Part 2 of Old Time Gaming

Both Manny and Sophie were naked. Manny put her arms around Sophie and said, "I'm afraid not, however, I have an important job for you and I don't think you'll miss Earth very much." After watching Sophie for so many years, Manny's first desire was to make love to her. Only after that pleasant task was accomplished did Manny explain to Sophie the nature of her 'important job'.

______________________

The story, above, is Part 1 of a new science fiction story about Rylla's adventures in the 1800s.

Next: Part 2, Rylla in the 1800s.

Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers