Outback Gold

Max

This blog page has Part 3 of the science fiction story Old Time Gaming. The year is 1814 and Rylla travels into the Outback, searching for gold. Along on the wilderness adventure is the ancient Interventionist, John Smith, who knows a particular valley in the hills west of Sydney where gold can be found. Rylla has assumed the identity of Sophie, a young woman who was one of the first Europeans born in Australia and who teaches at a school house in Parramatta, not far from Sydney Harbor. John recently arrived in Sydney by ship, bringing with him a small herd of camels which should be useful for carrying gold out of the hills and back to town.

From the future: Maria Green.

Traveling with Rylla and John are Elizabeth, a young maid, and Max, Sophie's little brother, both of whom seem exceedingly excited by the prospect of striking it rich by finding gold. Rylla is not interested wealth, but she needs money to finance her dream of advancing scientific research and technology development in Australia. The gold-hunting expedition progresses as planned, but then must deal with Maria Green, an alien visitor to Earth who seeks to derail Rylla's effort to boost technological progress among Earthlings.

the Trysta-Grean Pact

Maria is a time traveler from a future time when the positronic robot R. Nyrtia fears that changes to Earth's timeline caused by Rylla and John will invalidate the Trysta-Grean Pact.

Part 3 of Old Time Gaming.  Part 1, Part 2

edge of the Outback

After their first two days travel going westward out of Parramatta, the caravan moved on past one last remote homestead and then from that point on, the members of the expedition saw no more Europeans. Diverging from the main road, John indicated that they should follow a narrow game trail into the mountains and at that point, progress became discouragingly slow.

In many places along the trail, John and Rylla walked ahead of their horses, using machetes to hack back the branches of bushes that narrowed the trail. With the nanites that were available for their use and with their tireless artificial bodies, clearing the trail was nothing but a boring task for the two of them. They soon learned that with their shared telepathic linkage, they could entertain each-other while they worked.

John's old flames

Drawing on his vast artificially-stored memories of life on Earth during the past 6,000 years, John told Rylla stories about his many previous adventures. When he described women of past ages who he had known and loved, John and Rylla usually became sexually aroused and they could even achieve orgasms through telepathic sex games and simply by imagining that they were sharing physical love making.

When they made camp the third evening of the journey, Elizabeth was in a bad mood. After dinner was cooked and consumed, she complained, "I stink like a camel." She asked Rylla, "How do you stay so clean? And every day you seem to pull a fresh, new set of clothing off the back of a camel." Pointing at Rylla's pants, Liza demanded, "What kind of cloth is that anyhow?"

Rylla laughed. She certainly could not explain that nanites were constantly cleaning accumulated trail dirt from the surface of her artificial body. "For now at least we have plenty of water. Use it. Alternatively, there is such a thing as bathing with sand, which you could start practicing. If the rains don't come this year, we could face a bad water shortage." She took off her jeans and tossed them to Liza. "Here, you can wear these." Rylla made no attempt to describe the workings of clothing nanites. "This is a fabric called denim. They make it in India from cotton." Rylla sat down beside John and stretched out Sophie's shapely legs beside the fire. He reached out and placed a hand on her taut thigh.

Elizabeth got to her feet and pulled on the denim pants. She shook her head adamantly. "Sand baths might work for the horses, but they are not for me."

Max said, "Horses are clever. They know that when water is scarce it makes no sense to wallow in it. They save the water for drinking."

John told Elizabeth, "On this trip, you don't have to meet the cleanliness standards of the old English ladies back in Sydney. After a few more days, you will grow accustomed to natural human body odor. I assure you, humans really do not need to smell like soap. However, take Sophie's advice. If you get any stinky camel urine or cud on you, wash it off immediately."

Max reclined lazily in the dirt by the fire and proclaimed, "It is a relief not having to wash all the time."

Rylla warned Max, "Don't get too careless with your hygiene. I don't want you to start growing mushrooms between your toes."

Max nodded. "I already learned not to go barefoot in the wilderness. There are too many thorns and ants out here."

John once again warned everyone in the party, "And always stay on the watch for snakes and spiders. Shake out your clothing before getting dressed. You never know if a venomous spider has crawled into your pants during the night."

Max assured John, "Since I found that huge funnel spider on the first day, I sleep with my pants on."

Elizabeth gazed across the campfire towards Rylla and John and voiced another complaint, "I would not mind having an excuse to undress at night, but I suppose nobody wants to snuggle up to my smelly body."

The expedition had three tents, made from old discarded sails, the cloth impregnated with wax. Rylla and John shared the largest tent and Elizabeth and Max each had their own tent. It was annoying for Elizabeth to constantly be reminded that Rylla and John were lovers, although they were discrete. 

Rylla, who was missing her twice-weekly tussles with Elizabeth and trying to find a way to once again have some play time with the girl, magnanimously said, "If you are lonely, Liza, you can sleep with us in the big tent."

Max seemed rather infatuated with Elizabeth and now he gallantly offered, "Or you can sleep with me."

Elizabeth was in a complaining mood. "And there is no real privacy. Sound goes right through the tents." She glared at Rylla accusingly, "At all hours of the night I can here you two talking or... thrashing about. Don't you ever sleep?"

John explained, "All I do is sit in the saddle most of the day. When night arrives, I'm not even tired."

"How can you not be tired? I've seen all of the bush-whacking that you two do each day, clearing the trail." Liza could not conceal her skepticism. "It is maddening to see Sophie fresh as a rose bud every morning. I don't like sleeping on the ground, it is hard on my back. And another thing..." Elizabeth was letting out all of her gripes. "... all of you eat like birds. Something about being out in the wilderness makes me ravenous. I've been eating as much as the three of you combined."

John suggested, "We can make you a mattress. I did not realize that you have a bad back."

"What do you care about poor Liza?" She did not give John a chance to answer the question. Elizabeth continued accusingly, "You have not spent years of your life on your knees, scrubbing horse dung off of floors."

"True!" John jumped to his feet. "I've led a sheltered life. Let's all go wallow in the stream and have a good group scrub-down." Everyone else stood up from their places around the camp fire. He put an arm around Elizabeth's shoulders and suggested, "Rylla can give your sore back a massage... along with anything else that seems needful." He winked at Rylla. "Meanwhile, I'll stuff a sack with dry leaves and make a mattress for you."

Now Max complained, "Aw, do I have to wash? What a way to ruin a perfectly good day."

Rylla told the boy, "You can go to your tent, Max." She took Liza's hand and led the girl down to the nearby stream bed. Rylla proceeded to bathe Elizabeth then began to massage the girl's back. Elizabeth had been Sophie's lover for the past two years, and now she was eager for physical contact. Soon enough, the two women were massaging each-others genitals. 

They lay there together, holding hands and looking up at the stars and basking in the afterglow of their orgasms when John called to them through the darkness. "I have the mattress ready." He was in constant telepathic contact with Rylla, and was feeling a bit jealous over Rylla's sexual tryst with Liza. He could not help wondering: Why don't I want to share you?

Rylla suggested: Manny must have programmed our artificial bodies for compatibility. Even while sharing a perfectly fine orgasm with Liza, I could not stop thinking about how much better it would be to make love with you.

Rylla and Elizabeth returned to the camp site, not bothering to put their clothes back on. Liza came into her tent and found John brushing stray leaves off of the new mattress. By the light of a candle, he looked at her pink skin and said, "You look well... scrubbed. Sophie is a very thorough... scrubber." His penis was swollen and stiff inside his pants. "Although, if there is any part of your body that she missed, I'd be happy to-"

Rylla called through the fabric of the tent, "You don't need to scrub out her vagina. I want you to get your big scrubber into our tent right now."

Elizabeth laughed and spoke to Sophie through the wall of her tent, "I think we should let John decide which tent he wants to sleep in. You don't own his scrubber, Sophie." She laid down on the new mattress and spread her legs before John.

Rylla squeezed into the small tent with John and Elizabeth and said, "You're a horny little devil, Liza."

John suggested, "My theory, based on many years of observations, is that a doe is only truly satisfied when she can find a buck." He told Rylla, "We have an opportunity here to research that hypothesis."

Rylla kissed Liza's slick labia and then told John, "I suppose it is not fair for me to keep you all to myself. Go ahead and ravish the girl, but allow me to watch."

He slipped off his pants and when Liza saw his genitals she said, "Praise the lord!"

John politely asked, "Have you ever made love to a man before?" He straddled her hips and allowed his genitals to swell to super-human proportions.

Liza took hold of his penis and felt its soft yet firm contours. "Now I know what a man is. Before this I've only met with boys."

"Well, if I do anything that hurts you, let me know at once. I want you to enjoy this little scrub down." He slid the head of his penis back and forth along Liza's wet labia. She was doubtful that his huge penis could fit inside her. She used her fingers to stretch open her vagina and he shrank his penis down from comical proportions and pushed it inside her."

Liza grunted and said, "I feel like I might pop!"

John asked, "Am I hurting you?"

"No, this is wonderful. Don't stop!" With the telepathic linkage between John and Rylla, the three of them managed to achieve simultaneous orgasms and Rylla was able to imagine that John's thrusting penis was inside her body, not that of Liza.

In the morning, Elizabeth was in a much better mood, having slept comfortably snuggled between John and Sophie. Even without touching each-other, John and Rylla had each experienced additional orgasms after Liza fell asleep. However, Max complained, "Last night, it was all three of you talking and making noise and keeping me awake."

Rylla told Max, "In a few more years you can join in those sorts of late night adult conversations. For now, remember: youngsters need their sleep." 

For the rest of the journey into the Outback, Elizabeth often came into the big tent after Max went to sleep. John had carefully avoided giving Liza the full benefit of all the thrilling sensations that his artificial penis could stimulate in a woman and Elizabeth remained most interested in making love to Rylla about every other day, although on occasion she was in the mood for vaginal sex with John. Rylla and John continued to develop their skill at attaining magnificent orgasms by making use of their intimate telepathic linkage. For hours at a time during the long nights, Rylla would sink into John's memories of a past experience on Earth, almost always culminating in his making love to some woman from ancient Earth history. In that way, Rylla got to learn about and play the roll of many of John's former lovers.

___________________

Two weeks into their journey, Rylla and John stood on the crest of a ridge-line looking out across a broad valley. He said, "Well my love, this is where Manny told me to bring you."

Rylla's artificial body had simulated the effects of exposure to the sun. She had gone through burns, peals and tanning during the past two weeks, although she had suffered no discomfort. The hair of both Rylla and Elizabeth had become sun-bleached and in Rylla's case, with some help from her nanites, it was now almost all blond.

Lifting a brown hand to shade her eyes from the glaring sunlight, Rylla looked up and down the valley which was similar to a dozen others they had previously seen. "Somehow this all seems familiar. As if I'd seen this place before. Maybe in a picture."

"Apparently Manny programmed us both with clues for how to successfully accomplish our mission. It is almost as if I can hear her whispering to me." The deeper they had traveled into the mountains, the dryer the land had become. John commented, "Well, we want a location with water." He pointed into the distance. "I see three big green patches. You choose one of them."

Manny had indeed programmed information into Rylla's artificial brain circuits so that by cooperating, John and Rylla could find the gold. With no hesitation, Rylla pointed off to the north. "That one."

The next day they reached their destination and made camp among the trees along a dry stream bed. John and Max worked for an hour with pick and shovel digging a hole in the ground and finally they reached water. John said, "There is water here. Let's start getting it out of this hole and to the horses and camels.

As evening fell and the water hole was being dug, Rylla and Liza had spent some time walking along the dry stream bed looking for signs of gold and collecting sand samples. The also took the opportunity to grab a couple of quick orgasms. Now, Rylla stepped out from where she had been waiting under a giant sandalwood tree, went to the newly dug hole and scooped up a pan full of the water from the bottom. She threw in a bag full of sand that she had collected from the stream bed and after a minute of panning, held up a few flakes of gold on her finger tip. "There's gold here, alright."

"But not much water." Perfectly timed to John's pessimistic statement, a distant rumble of thunder was heard.

Max pointed through gaps in the foliage to the south where ominous cloud towers were building. "It looks like water is on the way."

A thunder storm arrived in the valley in the middle of the night. In the morning the stream began to flow as water flowed down from the nearby hillside. They worked all day constructing a sluice and had an hour's use of it before sunset during which they harvested two small gold nuggets and a gram of gold flakes. 

Gathered around their campfire that evening, Max asked John, "How do you know so much about gold mining?"

in America

John told Max, "Before coming to Australia, I saw modern placer mines in North Carolina. I had my own operation and was building up my cash reserves when..." Rylla could telepathically hear the end of the sentence: I was asked to go to Australia. John paused and then said, "I heard that Australia was being settled, do I decided to come to this unexplored continent."

Another storm blew in and they all gathered inside the big tent while it rained. As usual, Elizabeth ate voraciously after the long day of hard work. The others nibbled at dry corn bread and made plans. John glanced at Max and wondered why the growing boy did not eat at least as much as Liza.

Rylla said, "We should set up a search grid and comb the area, looking for nuggets. Once the survey is complete, we'll move the sluice to the most promising site and finally be ready to start mining in a serious fashion."

John had been wondering why Manny had not been more specific in guiding them to the gold deposit. Surely she knew exactly where the richest collection of big nuggets was to be found. Max asked, "How did you know that there would be gold here?"

John said jokingly, "I bought a treasure map from an old cripple in Sydney. He told me that he'd found gold in this valley, but then he broke his leg and barely made it back to Sydney alive."

Elizabeth said, "Let me see the map. We passed a dozen valleys all like this one."

Rylla told Liza, "There is no map. John is joking. My advice is: don't ask any more questions. Get a good night's sleep. We'll need everyone alert and eagle-eyed in the morning when we search for nuggets. If we stay on task, we'll strike it rich. Sadly, I'll soon have to return to Parramatta and my students."

It rained through the night and they all slept together in the big tent. John telepathically took Rylla back in time, using his memories of ancient Athens. They telepathically made love twice and Rylla was so engrossed by John's memories of the people of Athens that she barely noticed the flashes of lightening and crashes of thunder taking place above the valley.

In the morning, it was Max, jogging at double-walking speed and covering more ground than anyone else who found the first big gold nugget. Irresistibly drown to each-other, John and Rylla had rendezvoused in a little glade where they were making love when Max began shouting. Converging on his excited hoots, soon all members of the party had found nuggets of gold. Looking around that part of the stream, Rylla told John, "We can't expect to do any better than this location. In the morning you can move the sluice down here and start mining, but I'll have to leave you to that work. Max, you should return home with me, otherwise mother will kill me."

Still fondling his big nugget, Max protested. "I'm staying. I don't care what mother does to you. Only a fool would walk away from this place, now that we know there is gold here, ready for the picking."

Rylla nodded and accepted Max's decision. "I'm no fool, I simply have obligations to my students back in town. I'll have to ride hard to get back before the end of the three week vacation period."

Liza muttered, "Convenient how you find a way to avoid the hard labor."

"You can return home with me if you choose to do so, Liza."

"No, I'll stay here. I'm feeling lucky." She put a finger on the gold nugget that Max held. "I'm going to find a nugget twice as big as this one."

That evening the stars were glistening brightly in the sky and they sat out late around their campfire, making plans.

John said, "We need to be realistic about this situation. Let's carefully think everything through. There are a million tons of sand and gravel here that really should be examined and sifted for both gold and silver. We could all return to Sydney and hire a work crew, then come back here in a month and do the job right."

Rylla thought about her past gold mining experience and laughed. "Let's not over-think this. I know one fact about winning gold from alluvial deposits like this one. Ten percent of the gold is easy to find and collect. Obtaining that first ten percent does not require a big work force or much effort. I expect to see you all back Parramatta in a month with the camels carrying that ten percent." She told John, "Then, if you like, you can hire your work crew and return to this valley, but don't forget... Australia is full of criminals. Your work crew may decide to murder you and take all the gold for themselves."

John nodded sadly. "It is a shame that there is no existing system for staking a claim out here. All this land belongs to the King. When word spreads that there is gold out here, the Governor could just send in soldiers and take control of the whole mining process."

They discussed several different possible strategies for maximizing profits from the gold deposit. Finally, Max yawned and went to his tent. Liza then went to her tent, but only to grab her mattress, which she took into the big tent where she proceeded to make love to Rylla. After Liza drifted into sleep, John and Rylla had an extended telepathic adventure in the past that included John's explicit memories of a sexually enthusiastic Roman lady from Corduba. Both John and Rylla were unhappy and mournful because they would have to separate in the morning.

After all their late-night planning, and their even later telepathic love making session, the morning brought a nasty surprise for John and Rylla. Max and the horses and the camels were gone. Elizabeth began ranting and cursing Max. John took Rylla to the side and said, "What got into the boy? I'll go after him. I can out-run the camels."

Rylla warned, "All this time I was worried that he'd recognize the fact that I'm not his sister. Now I suspect the our little Max was not Sophie's brother. Manny warned me that I'd run into another Interventionist... a woman named Maria Green."

"You think Max was this woman, Green... in disguise?"

"Call that a hypothesis. Anyhow, while you go for your run, I'm going to have a chat with Manny."

"How will you do that?"

source

"I can teleport back to Manny's base at any time."

John whistled long and slow. "You never told me that."

"I assumed that you have the same ability. Strange that you did not see it in my mind... I often think about Manny."

"When I'm in your mind, I'm trying to stimulate you sexually." He briefly demonstrated how he could sexually excite her using their telepathic link. "No... I have no way of contacting Manny. Occasionally, maybe once a century, Manny appears here on Earth and we have a chat. I last saw her two years ago when she told me to get my ass to Australia and that I'd find a young girl named Sophie in some place called Parramatta."

Rylla nodded. "I had to adopt the physical form of Sophie. You've never actually seen my real ass, Rylla's ass."

"I've seen it in your mind, but I'd still like a chance to experience it first hand."

Rylla laughed. "If we get out of this mess, I'll show you my skinny ass... it is not as round and plump as Sophie's. But for now, what do we tell Elizabeth? I don't want to leave her here alone."

"Ya, that's a problem. The natives have been watching us from a distance, but they may get bolder if it is just Elizabeth left here alone at this camp site."

Rylla sighed, "I guess I'll have to take her with me."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, although Manny may not allow Liza to return to Australia. For all her complaining, Liza is a good worker. I'd hate to lose her."

"Why should we lose her?"

"Manny might decide to keep Liza with her."

"Actually..." John fell silent.

"What?"

"Maybe you should ask Manny to provide us with a dozen copies of Liza. That would save us the trouble recruiting reliable workmen in Sydney and-"

Rylla added, "And you'd be perfectly happy to have a little harem out here in the desert with a dozen Lizas."

"It is a thought."

Part 4

Rylla laughed and kissed John on the lips. "Listen to me lover: stop dreaming about more Lizas and their hot tongues licking your penis... you must go catch Max or Maria or whoever it is that has the animals. I'll check in with Manny and see what I can learn from her."

Next: Part 4 of Old Time Gaming.