Tunnel-Ball

during a tunnel-ball game (image source)

On this blog page is Part 8 of the science fiction story "Telepaths of Site Q". Irhit has begun neglecting his tunnel-ball practice sessions while developing his new relationship with Yenti the Asterothrope. Irhit can't even fully explain to his team mates his reason for missing practice because there are behavioral suppression nanites in his brain that limit what he can say about Yenti. His friends assume that Irhit is love-smitten and that is enough explanation for them.

However, Irhit is operating inside Observer Base as a secret agent of the tryp'At. Initially puzzled when a small colony of tryp'At was established on Earth, Manny has watched with growing interest as Irhit grew up on Earth and then was brought to Observer Base by Grean the Kac'hin. In a technical sense, Grean is Earth's Overseer, but the tryp'At Council is scheming to take control of the teleportation equipment at Observer Base.

Hedy Wolcat

In his spare time between tunnel-ball games, his work at the fishbowl and dates with Yenti, Irhit has begun searching Earth for the origins of Richard and Henry Morkeghsen, two artists at the out-lying Yaddo chamber of Observer Base.

Unexpectedly, Irhit runs into Betty's friend Catski at his tunnel-ball match. There with Catski and a group of other long-distance runners is Miss Olyv, a physical education teacher at the Core School of Observer Base. Miss Olyv provides Irhit with a useful hint that puts him on the trail of Hedy, a mysterious girl who grew up on Earth not too far from Irhit's home in Mars, Iowa. 

Irhit is arriving late for his game, having stayed late at the fishbowl to investigate if there had ever been anyone named Morkeghsen on Earth. With a telepathic transfer of information, Irhit is soon to learn that the two Morkeghsens of Observer Base began life on Earth as Hedy Wolcat who grew up in Iowa before moving to California and beginning a career as a biologist.

Part 8 of "Telepaths of Site Q" (part 1)(part 2)(part 3)(part 4)(part 5)(part 6)(part 7)

Irhit arrived at the remote nexus chamber for the tunnel-ball game and his team mates immediately began teasing him about the new distraction in his life. Gossip had spread wildly through Observer base about the mysterious glamor-girl, Yenti. Karl, the captain of Irhit's tunnel-ball team said, "I was hoping you'd bring along this new girl. She's set tongues waging all over town."

Whitken, the team's goalie, said, "Irhit seems intent on keeping the poor girl to himself and under his tongue... er, thumb."

in the Ekcolir Reality

Irhit grinned and accepted the teasing. He still harbored a suspicion that Yenti might be from a hidden Asterothrope community on Earth, much like the tryp'At colony in Mars. In fact, he was investigating the hunch that Betty's new friend in Yaddo, Henry, might be either an Asterothrope or a tryp'At. Of course, he could say nothing about that to his friends. He asked, "Are we going to play a game today or spread gossip about our girlfriends?"

The squad moved off towards the other side of the chamber where their opponents waited. However, Irhit had noticed the arrival of a large group of runners who began doing stretching exercises. He recognized several of the runners including Catski, a close friend of Betty. He walked over to the runners and said, "These tunnels are reserved for our game."

Miss Olyv, a trainer for the endurance runners, turned towards Irhit and said, "Not the D4 loop. That is reserved for the 50k race."

After a glance at Irhit, Catski did a little sprint towards the center of the chamber and Irhit followed along and by so doing he was moving closer to the two tunnel-ball teams where they were now discussing the local ground rules that applied to the nearby tunnels. He called to Catski, "I thought maybe you'd be off to visit Yaddo with Betty."

Catski kept running in place and shook her head, "No, I'm not joining Betty on her adventure. She asked me to go, but she went to Yaddo with her sister, Lany. There's some guy there named Henry who has managed to get Betty all hot and bothered." Catski added, "I hear you have been having your own little heated adventure."

the D4 loop

Irhit was feeling self-conscious about his shrinking penis and he could not avoid a wince upon hearing Catski's use of the word "little". He shrugged and said, "Yes, I have a new girl friend. I expect to be seeing more of her." Irhit thought of the Akufowofiro ceremony and Yenti's nhezaurish.

Betty smiled and said, "From what I've heard, there is a lot to see."

Irhit nodded. "She's even taller than Betty, if that's what you mean."

It was time for her race to begin and suddenly Catski ran off, passing right through the group of tunnel-ball players, provoking a few cries of outrage, but mostly lustful catcalls. All the runners were hurrying off to the mouth of tunnel D4, but Miss Olyv was there at Irhit's side. 

Irhit was momentarily startled by how Miss Olyv had quietly crept up so near. He turned to her and said, "I didn't know you came out for these events."

Miss Olyv laughed. "You think I'm too old to get out of the school house?"

"Not at all!" Irhit had long felt that Olyv was one of the sexiest instructors at the Core School. "I just always saw you at the nadatorium and the other school sports facilities."

"You don't need to be embarrassed because you play an underground sport, Irhit. I won't tell anyone!"

Tunnel-ball had never been part of the school curriculum. "It is a game that suits me just fine... few rules and lots of opportunity for creativity."

"Yes, well, among sports enthusiasts we simply call it 'cheating'." Miss Olyv laughed rather gleefully. She looked up at Irhit and said, "My, you seem taller than ever."

In Irhit's mind, if there was no rule against a particular element of tunnel-ball then it could not be called cheating. But now, he was using Yenti's medical nanites to cheat on biology. He was feeling somewhat uneasy about the technique that had been used by Yenti to make him resume growing taller. Irhit tried not to think about his shrinking penis. Suddenly, Irhit imagined that Miss Olyv was gazing into his thoughts. 

 Miss Olyv told Irhit, "I recently saw you at the Serothic."

"You were there that night?"

"Yes. And that tall girl you danced with... that's the Yenti who everyone is gossiping about?"

Irhit nodded. "She's a bit of a mystery... newly arrived in Observer Base." Again, Irhit felt like he was somehow linking his mind to that of Miss Olyv. He could almost detect some of her thoughts, as if there was something she wanted to say...

Karl's loud voice echoed across the cavern: "Let's go, Irhit... stop hitting on the ladies!"

Irhit shook his head and ran off to join his team mates as the tunnel-ball game began. All during the game, Irhit could not stop thinking about Miss Olyv. What if she did have telepathic abilities? Irhit was not really much concerned by the rather spicy sexual fantasies he'd sometimes had about Miss Olyv... well maybe, to be honest, maybe he was slightly embarrassed about the one that involved getting Miss Olyv, Catski and Betty all in bed with him at the same time. That fantasy had popped into his head one day while Betty was talking about her long-standing research into hermaphroditic space aliens. But what did Miss Olyv have to do with hermaphrodites?

As the tunnel-ball game progressed, a little melody was looping through Irhit's mind: Oly trained Catski and Betty wants Hedy but Henry is ready when Catski is running from Oly who trained Catski to train Betty to want Hedy while Henry was on... growing annoyed, Irhit tried to stop that jumble of words from endlessly cascading in his mind.

Reality Chain

Trying to order his thoughts, now Irhit struggled to remember exactly what Betty had said on that long-past day...

Betty had been talking about her mother, Sara, taking Betty for visits to the Writers Block. Irhit knew that there were many old science fiction stories in the archives of the Writers Block, many of them from the Asimov Reality. Irhit also knew that the tryp'At had been designed and created in the Asimov Reality and he had always been fascinated by the idea that there were tryp'At hermaphrodites. Of course, no tryp'At hermaphrodites had been sent to Earth to live at the Mars colony. 

During the past few days, Irhit had become intrigued by the idea that Yenti had an hermaphroditic lover. But what about Betty? While discussing a particular story from the Writers Block archives that her father, Allyn, had illustrated, Betty had told Irhit, "Almost certainly Grean is just one member of a whole race of Kac'hin hermaphrodites, but nobody has ever met a second Kac'hin."

Even while Irhit was in the middle of the tunnel-ball game, he continued to think about Betty and hermaphrodites. He asked himself: where were all the other Kac'hin? And in a similar vein, how could a colony of Asterothropes -complete with hermaphrodites- be hidden on Earth? For a moment, Irhit imagined some secret underground facility where hermaphrodites could be hidden away. Then he laughed and dismissed the idea as absurd. Asterothrope hermaphrodites were less than four feet tall and would be hard to hide anywhere on Earth without provoking interest and comment.

After the tunnel-ball game, when the two tired teams had gone to a tavern for refreshments and post-game banter, Irhit sat quietly, still pondering the mystery of why he had linked Miss Olyv, Catski and Betty in his mind with the mystery of alien hermaphrodites. Whitken prodded an elbow into Irhit's side and asked, "Why are you so quiet?"

"I'm thinking about a strange result I got at the fishbowl today."

"This is why you were late for the game?"

"I wasn't late."

"You missed the pre-game warmup drills. And you skipped practice yesterday."

"I'm busy these days."

"With what? You are making me suspect that Yenti has a sister. It would take at least two women to keep you this busy."

For a moment Irhit thought about all his sexplay with Yenti and Wysy during the past few days. Now feeling Whitken's eyes boring into him, Irhit wondered why he had begun imagining that everyone could look into his mind and read his secret thoughts. He asked Whitken, "Do you know that there has never been anyone named Morkeghsen on Earth?"

"That's because nobody could have pronounced it. What did you say... Morkingson?"

 "Morkeghsen. Yet, here at Observer Base, right now, there are two men named Morkeghsen. How can that be?"

Whitken shook his head. "This great mystery is what's keeping you away from practices? Are you attracted to weird names because of your own strange name?" Whitken had long wondered how Irhit had ended up with such a strange name. "Yenti... that's a strange name that I've never heard before either."

Suddenly Irhit had a new idea. Turning away from Whitken, Irhit stood up and quickly departed from the tavern. He was tempted to go directly to the Writers Block, but he swallowed his guilt and went to Betty's house. When he knocked, the Dryswyn household robot opened the door. "Hello, Irhit." Hana appeared in the doorway behind the robot and said, "Betty isn't here. She went back to Yaddo."

The robot gestured to Irhit and he stepped inside. Irhit was surprised to see that the Dryswyns now had a robot. The robot closed the front door and then went about its duties. Irhit told Hana, "Yes, I know." Irhit was trying to ignore the fact that Hana's cute little breasts were peeking out from her skimpy blouse. He watched the robot as it walked out of the room and then muttered, "Since when do you have a robot?"

Hana giggled and leaning close she whispered to Irhit, "I'm not supposed to gossip about this, but that's Kate, the sexbot that Lany earned as part of her remedial sex education."

Irhit briefly wondered why Lany was so uninterested in sex, then he said, "I'd like to speak to your mother." Hana led Irhit from the front entryway and on into the house.

Irhit now saw Hana's friend Judy there, on the couch in the great-room. Hana invited Irhit to take a seat and then went upstairs to get her mother. Irhit had interrupted the two girls in the middle of some casual sexplay and Judy made no effort to repair her state of undress while she said said, "So tell, me Irhit..." Her rather pendulous breasts wiggled as she spoke, "What did you do to poor Betty? Everyone around here is too embarrassed to talk about it."

Irhit shrugged and replied, "You're lucky... it can't happen to you."

Judy giggled. "What are you talking about?"

"I guess the simple way to describe the situation is to say that Betty and I are not sexually compatible."

Judy looked at Irhit with suspicion. "What do you mean it could not happen to me? Are you calling me a slut who could never have a-"

"No! I never said that. It is just... well, my understanding is... you like girls. So you don't have to ever deal with pesky issues of male anatomy." He really did not want to explain to Judy how quickly he had lost his erection while making love to Betty.

Sara and Hana returned from upstairs and now Hana took hold of Judy's hand and pulled her off the couch. Hana took Judy off to her suite of rooms. Sara was almost wearing a thin silk robe, but she had not bothered to really cover much of her body. Judging from her well-tumbled hair, Irhit imagined that she was fresh from a spirited wrestling match with her husband, Allyn. Sara told Irhit, "I'm surprised to find you here."

"Please don't act surprised..." Irhit tried not to look at Sara's sexy body. "Mrs. Dryswyn, in the past you've always been kind enough to share your knowledge of the Writers Block. I hope that won't change now. I need your help...not your disapproval."

"Well, it might upset Betty to hear that you have been here."

"I saw Betty at the fishbowl and she seems to be just fine. We are both moving on with our lives. I don't think you have to worry that you will upset Betty just by being kind to me... as you always have..."

Sara flopped down in a chair and made a halfhearted effort to cover her pink genitals with the robe. Her pointy nipples seemed to point accusingly at Irhit. "Well, get to the point, then. Allyn is upstairs waiting for me."

Irhit was only half surprised to see that the glans of Sara's clitoris was large, exactly like Betty's. Trying not to stare at Sara's genitals, Irhit stammered, "Back...oh, I don't know... it was over a year ago. You once mentioned a story to Betty... a story from the archives. At the time, I thought it was some sort of fantasy tale about animals. I didn't pay any attention. You and Betty laughed about it. In my mind, I pictured something like a fable. A story for children about mice."

Sara nodded. "I remember the occasion."

"You do? Good. Lately, I've been wondering... thinking about Grean." Judy's loud laughter could be heard. Sara glanced up at the ceiling then turned her eyes back to Irhit. After an awkward silence, Irhit added, "You know, the rumors... that she's an hermaphrodite."

Sara said, "She is a hermaphrodite. Why do you care?"

"Fifteen years ago, I think Grean brought two people up from Earth and immediately changed their names and hid them away in Yaddo. Why would Grean do that?"

Sara frowned and said, "This is about Betty."

"No, no! Well, to be honest, she did get me thinking about-"

"Irhit, don't go investigating the past of Henry and Richard."

"But what if-"

"What if they are like Grean? Is that what you mean?"

"Well... maybe. Okay, yes... that would be the most interesting way... What if they are hermaphrodites?"

Sara asked, "What made you think of this?"

"Well, it started at the fishbowl when Betty asked me for help searching the databases. There have never been people on Earth named Morkeghsen, or how ever you pronounce it."

Sara drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. "Well, so what?"

"I came here to ask you... what was the name of that book... the one about the mice?"

With a sly smile on her lips, Sara repeated her earlier question, "Why do you care?"

"Go ahead and laugh at me if I'm mistaken about this, but I seem to remember you and Betty laughing because, well... please tell me... is there some Sci Fi story about hermaphroditic mice?" Irhit expected Sara to laugh at him.

Sara did not laugh. She got out of her chair and walked out of the room and went to the adjoining library. A moment later she returned with a datascan and she handed the thin sheet to Irhit. He activated the book and when it glowed to life he saw that it was called "The UCD Mice: a report by the Writers Block Investigative Unit". He glanced up and saw that Sara was already halfway up the stairs. He asked, "This is not science fiction?"

Speaking over her shoulder, Sara said tersly, "It is a report on rodent experiments... that were first carried out on Earth..."

"Thank you, Mrs. Dryswyn!" He took the book and departed from Betty's house. After folding up the digital fabric of the book, he stowed it in his pocket and began hurrying towards Yenti's apartment.

It was not until the next day that Irhit had the chance to read "The UCD Mice". He'd rushed to finish his assigned Earth Observations then he began reading the book. He was very tired, having gotten little sleep in recent days, but the book held his attention. It began with:

The UCD Mice: a report by the Writers Block Investigative Unit. Chapter 1.

Methods. 

Candidate hermaphrodite genes (HGs) were originally identified as described in H. Wolcat; J. Mam. Genomics[b]. We repeated the identification of candidate genes at Observer Base starting with DNA from an hermaphroditic sy'paz volunteer. Embryonic stem cell line H23 was transfected with the Vertoxgen vector and our cloned HGs. Viable clones were expanded in cell culture then frozen and genome sequencing carried to 0.5x coverage, which was adequate to eliminate clones with major chromosomal defects (see H. Wolcat; J. Mam. Genomics[a]). 

Twenty-five transgenic mice were generated from twenty-five unique clones. Subsequent inter-breeding of these mouse lines (Supplemental Material A) identified morphologically interesting mice that were tested for fertility. Two fertile hermaphroditic lines were housed for six generations before the lineage HM2 breeders were all euthanized. The behavioral experiments described in this report, below, were all performed with young adult mice from the HM1 breeding colony.....

Irhit was intrigued by a brief description of the HM2 mice: "HM2 mothers would not care for their pups. Possibly this was due to the observed failure of the pups to produce ultrasonic vocalizations." In the case of the HM1 mouse line, behavioral tests had been performed at Observer Base by a telepathic synpaz replicoid named Nasur. Nasur concluded that the mice were not only hermaphroditic, but had telepathic abilities. Nasur had discovered that one mouse could be trained to run a maze, then watch while a second mouse was placed in the maze. The second mouse would solve the maze instantly, with no errors. Interestingly, this telepathic transference of knowledge only worked among breeding pairs who has been housed in the same cage for several weeks.

Conclusions. Our laboratory work seems to confirm the almost-published research reports of Hedy Wolcat. We estimate that only about a dozen novel genes are required to turn a two-sex mammal into a viable hermaphroditic variant. Subsequent sequencing work has found these candidate hermaphrodite genes in all tested hermaphrodites (on the H chromosome). The telepathy results are presented here with admission that we have low confidence in these apparently positive results. Only six out of a total of 19 tested breeding pairs showed signs of telepathic information transfer in the maze test.

After reading the report, Irhit quickly searched through the Earth historical databases and confirmed that Hedy had worked on Earth as a biologist until 15 years previously, just about exactly when Henry and Richard appeared at Observer Base. Hedy's disappearance (having been teleported to Observer Base) from her research lab was a minor mystery among the biologists at UCD and with no physical evidence or leads available for the investigators called in on the case, Hedy was soon forgotten by the police on Earth.

Irhit was curious about the location of the laboratory where the sy'paz genetics experiments had been performed. He was tempted to go ask Sara about that issue, but it was growing late and Yenti would be expecting him. He shut down the data terminal and departed from the fishbowl.

While walking to Yenti's apartment, Irhit marveled at the idea of telepathic mice. If there was one thing he knew about telepathy, it was that useful information transfer could only be achieved by technology-assisted telepathy. Biological brains contained nanoscopic endosymbionts that made telepathy possible. Positronic robots could efficiently generate and interpret coherent twitino signals using their positronic brain circuits. Irhit had never imagined that other species such as mice would be capable of telepathy. Why should mouse brains contain endosymbionts?

However, as he entered into Yenti's suite of rooms, Irhit was having a change of heart. He wondered: Why shouldn't mice also have endosymbionts? Sadly, the information available at Observer Base concerning the mechanism of telepathy was all sketchy and from dubious sources. In short, most of what was "known" came from science fiction stories written by residents of the Writers Block. Irhit had never found it possible to believe any of it.

twitinos

Yenti was there waiting for Irhit and she threw her arms around him as he came in through the door. After they shared a long wet kiss, Yenti began undressing Irhit, but as she touched his stiffening penis she could telepathically "read" some of his thoughts. She asked, "What is all this about twitinos?"

Irhit could feel Yenti searching through his mind but he was having trouble thinking about anything except the feel of her warm, soft hands on his genitals. He was excitedly looking forward to getting back inside her allzaurish. He replied, "Nothing, dear. Just a little research problem that I was investigating at the fishbowl."

Yenti was happily holding onto his erection. She kissed the tip of his penis and said, "I think we'll be a perfect match today, my love. I don't want you distracted by your work." She took his hand and led him to her bedroom. 

Irhit looked at the bed, expecting to see Wysy the sex toy, but at first he could not understand what he was seeing. There in the middle of the bed was a strange tangle of limbs. Yenti told Irhit, "This is my hermaphroditic lover, Reia."

Irhit could now see that Reia was sitting on the bed, her limbs encircling Wysy who was energetically at work between Reia's legs. Irhit could sense Reia in his mind and she told him telepathically: Nice to finally meet you, Irhit.

Wysy stopped thrusting her penis in and out of Reia's nhezaurish. Wysy turned to look at Yenti and Irhit and it could be seen that her penis was in its large caliber mode.

Reia

Yenti told Reia, "Sorry to interrupt your play! Wysy, continue as you were... Irhit and I will make do with the foot of the bed. She knelt on the floor and pointed her cute bottom at Irhit. As Wysy resumed thrusting her penis into Reia, Yenti said, "Don't be jealous, Reia... I'm using my allzaurish to keep Irhit entertained until my Akufowofiro ceremony."

"Yes, you told me that he is a tunnel-ball expert." Wysy giggled at Reia's joke. Irhit had gone to the collection of condoms, but Reia told him, "No need for that today, Irhit. Yenti is no longer fertile."

Irhit touched a finger to Yenti's hot allzaurish and found it slippery and much more relaxed than the previous day. With no further hesitation, he slid his erection inside her allzaurish. He was looking right at Reia, who did look like a young version of the hermaphroditic little statue on Yenti's alter. Yenti told Wysy, "I've got a much stronger telepathic connection to Irhit today. See if you can synchronize with his rising sexual excitement."

Wysy was skeptical and asked, "Without even touching him?" Then after a short time, Wysy spoke over her shoulder to Yenti, "Yes, his telepathic ability is nicely awakening. This should be fun!"

Next: Part 9 of "Telepaths of Site Q".