Singularity 1 Book 2 Yellow: Galactic Repopulation and Metamorphosis

Singularity 1

Book 2 Yellow

Galactic Repopulation

and Metamorphosis

James E. Jackson

Copyright © 2013 by James E. Jackson.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4931-1895-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4931-1896-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 11/07/2013

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1       Firefly

Chapter 2       The Outer Cluster

Chapter 3       Exploration

Chapter 4       Metamorphosis

Chapter 5       Expansion

Chapter 6       Consolidation

Chapter 7       The Council

Chapter 8       Origins

Chapter 9       The Mapmakers

Chapter 10       Gaye

Chapter 11       Legends

Chapter 12       Faire

Chapter 13       Elfie

Chapter 14       Alien skirmish

Chapter 15       Alien negotiation

Chapter 16       The Queen’s reward

Chapter 17       Aisha

Chapter 18       Fairies

Chapter 19       The King

Chapter 20       The Gray Woman

Chapter 21       The Chase

Chapter 22       Na

Chapter 23       Bureaucracy

Chapter 24       Erik and Rika

Chapter 25       Bernadette and Temperance

Chapter 26       The Giants

Chapter 27       Giza

Chapter 28       The Vice President

Chapter 29       Diaspora

Epilogue

Prologue

In 2093, twins Ben and Ruth Glassman were conceived by human parents, a few years before the start of the Great Earthquake in Los Angeles.

As embryos, they were genetically transformed by two members of a different species, Homo Colossus (HC) and became members of that species themselves. The HCs who changed them were called Rok and Glee. Their species had many powers, which Ben and Ruth inherited and extended, and used to fight evil and to transform the Earth. They learned the truth only when they met Rok and Glee again as adults. Eventually, they coupled with Rok and Glee, having HC children of their own—Riana and Ray to Ruth and Rok, and David and Joy to Ben and Glee. They fought wars with Alien species, and defeated them, but at the cost of losing Joy in battle. Rok became moribund, unable to breed, useless. Ben had a second family of HCs, and a large number of humans and HCs, but the HCs were young, untested. David and Riana, at eighteen, were the oldest of them.

Rok and Glee remembered a time when there were near one thousand known HC people throughout the Galaxy, but that number had declined to just seventeen—Ben, Ruth, Riana and David, Glee, Aimee, Adele, Spring, Daisy, Clea, Lara, Lark and Toby, Ray, Edith, Tina, and Sky, and David, or eighteen if Rok was included, but not all were useful.

The untimely death of Riana’s brother Ray was more than a wakeup call. It signaled crisis that could not be ignored. HCs were long-lived, with an average lifespan of three millennia. The loss of the two young HCs within a single century was a blow of incalculable proportions. Mere person-years lost meant nothing—it was the depleted web of relationships that hit hard, the ghostly spaces where someone was expected to be, in a population where everyone knew everyone else.

Recovery would not be easy in any event, but to add to the sense of despair the HC species had two critical weaknesses that were well-known to them—they reached maturity only from the biological age of fifty, and the ovulation of the females occurred only within ten year cycles. The women were fertile through cycles, and had the ability to park fertilized ova in their wombs, to be delivered later. A single HC mother could carry a dozen or more fertilized eggs. They also had a strong tendency for multiple births, but psychologically, they could afford no more losses. They all knew that they had to grow. Ben thought himself to be the dominant personality of the group, and in important senses he was. It was he that had control of the vast bulk of the family fortune, and it was he that had the political clout as the Lifetime Senator at large, but there were other forces coming into play, and Ben’s unchallenged reign would soon be tested.

*     *     *

A group of nine women with bare feet met in the darkness, ignoring the snow. A lone wulf watched them, but did not approach them. Wulves had never bothered Muses. They were sentient, intelligent and could communicate telepathically. They roamed in packs, of up to a few dozen, but widely spread. Another woman approached, walking close to the wulf, who remained docile to the point that she could pat him she also scratched his fine black mane.

*     *     *

Then it’s agreed. The last five have been disappointments, so I’m happy to vote with the majority and give this one another go. He got close last time.

I agree, too. I think we put too much weight on his appearance. He’s not as ugly as all that when you get to know him. You should handle this one Rika. Welcome to the sisterhood, by the way, we love getting new recruits. Because it’s such a big one, I think we all should help you.

The leader stood, and looked to the sky. She pointed far off.

Look, the others are coming now. It’s time to move, Rika. Good luck darling. Try to make a good impression on him.

The women embraced and dispersed their separate ways.

*     *     *

HCs did not have formal hierarchies or chains of command. Instead they relied on democratic caucusing using telepathic networks to coordinate activities. Individual responsibilities faced outwards, as in their Custodian system, designed for protection of species and planets, and built around Couples. Coupling had some of the features of human marriage, and was the main vehicle for procreation.

Ben was well aware that his surviving people were in a parlous state, weakened by war or tragedy, and living together physically but apart in mind. The long-standing Coupling of Ben with his sister Ruth began to crack, as did Ben’s informal relationships with numerous other women, a mixture of HCs and humans, and a few blue Gideonese. Ben, with Ruth at his side, had always been their leader. Ruth had been his beloved partner, but had accepted concubinage with him. It had started out well, but with seventy others now, she was downgraded to a thing to use. He used her as he did others, taking his pleasure in almost nameless bodies.

All grew weaker in face of Ben’s incipient madness and Ruth’s descent into black despair. David retreated into himself and whilst he remained part of the family in a physical sense he took no part in family affairs, and the effective population was, for a time, just fourteen. Ray’s body was cremated, and interred in an urn near that of Joy, in a ceremony attended by all, not only the family. Dignitaries from Earth , Gideon and Angelica came to pay their respects, and the men of Gilead sent a regiment of troops to fire a salute for their respected comrade. The two urns were separated in order that Joy’s sword could lie between them, signifying comrades in arms. The sword was an object of veneration, untouched by any hand save Joy’s, with only the deadly bile of the Alien Queen cautiously removed and incinerated.

Interregnum

Ben could have accepted the inevitability of extinction, and lived comfortably and productively through the millennia since the normal lifespan of his species, flowing down from the genetic codes of Rok and Glee, was of the order of three to five millennia, and as the heir to the Glassman fortune, and the recipient of royalties and click rate payments for his own technology, he was wealthy, exceedingly so. He shared some of the money with Ruth, but not commensurate with her contributions. He was also highly influential in the government of the Galaxy, and could have engaged other’s resources to carry his burden, but Ben wasn’t made that way. For him, nothing less than complete recovery of his adoptive species would suffice, championed, if not completely accomplished, by ‘his’ species, and therefore beholden to no other. He would achieve his ends with his team. Ruth had been the primary contributor of political accomplishments, and an equal contributor of technological discoveries. She invested most of her wealth in Angelica. Planetary investment was a bargain in those days, for patient money.

Ben restored the old HQ building on Gideon, and moved the whole family into the cavernous space of its darkly brooding bunkers. This meant that everyone lived in sight of the shadow of death, with the ever-present and inescapable reminders of the tragedies that affected them all, and had devastating effects on the already fragile mothers, Ruth and Glee, and on Ben himself. The wild indigenous vines and shrubs in the earthen walls of the bunkers did nothing to cheer the desolate view.

It was possible that there were other HC people to be sought and found, but the Galaxy was a big place, and space travel was slow. Ben preferred a solution he could control, or at least influence—breeding back the lost numbers. Surrender of his adoptive species had never been an option.

The Boy

An embryo stirred. It was dark in the womb. Wil knew roughly where he was, on a planet called Gideon and in the womb of a woman called Erika. He met a nice little fertilized female egg, but she was sickly, and would not do as a ‘sister’. Wil was selected for the role by his ‘mothers’, except the one called Erika, who had never been a natural mother, and who baulked for a while at taking on someone as ugly as Eric, but she needed a man to impregnate her for the prosecution of the sisters’ great plan, and Eric was available at least.

Wil made his goodbyes to the sickly Hermione, and selected another, whom he named Jen, then threw his mind outwards, to contact his sister. He called to her Jen! Its Wil, I’m here.

She responded Wil. I’ve found you. I await you. Thank you for choosing me.

There was silence.

There was movement.

Wil knew what was going on, and he had done his homework, so he knew all of his subjects. There were more than he expected, but that was cool. Wil was a breeder and by no means an ordinary one. Unlike others, he could handle deviations from plan.

He accepted this assignment deliberately because he had done a couple earlier stints as a HC, and they were good to work with if they weren’t klutzes, and they often had cute women. Even if they were klutzes, they would be a better class of such.

In Wil’s experience, Gideonese women also were always sought after—they had always been so for him. A planetful of them would do quite nicely when leavened with HCs.

This time, he was a HC breeder, the top level for his sub-species, and even basic HCs with skills many levels below his developed their mental abilities faster than their physical plumbing. HCs looked pretty much identical to other common species such as humans, but under the hood their organic material embedded fundamental atomic particle (FAP) material. In earlier days, Wil would have been seen as a Super-Empowered Individual. Using FAP components for individuals was new.

Wil’s FAP components were greatly more extensive than those of a simple HC like his ‘grand-aunt’ Ruth. Ben and Ruth had discovered how to manipulate FAP technology, but had not taken the step of embedment, now commonplace for HCs, but not yet ubiquitous. Part of his task was to remedy that.

None of the women were actually related to him, not even his ‘sister’. The only real connection was to his biological mother, Rika, but that was suspect as well. He didn’t count the lesser dummies. It took time to knit all of the components together for any individual, particularly the links between primitive flesh and blood on the one hand and FAP material on the other. In the stages of growth of a FAP-fitted HC embryo, mental acuity came early in the process, followed swiftly by specific FAP-based powers. Wil knew he was a breeder, and the mere fact that he had a species memory would have been enough to tell him that he was also based on the HC species. He was of it, but not like it. His breeder powers were the difference, and this was no mean difference. His powers were orders of magnitude greater than others. Mentally, he was an adult, chafing to grow, and to get on with fulfilling his destiny. This made him a little more short-tempered than usual. It was always that way at the start of a new job.

He watched the whole process of his mismanaged birth, aghast as he mentally ‘saw’ the knuckle-dragging adults removing him and his sister from their mother’s womb, and parking them with separate surrogate mothers. Ben was the guilty party. Wil forgave Ruth and Glee, because it had not been their fault, and they were cute where it mattered, with breasts that were not too big, and not too small, sort of like fairytale bears for the post-pubescent.

Wil surveyed the other denizens of his zoo, starting with his ‘real’ mother and father. He gave them scant attention, except to note that his mother would probably also have been a good milker. He didn’t need that now, as his focus was elsewhere, working to make the jump from embryo to fetus. As a fetus he would need nourishment quickly and reliably. Once he got past that, things would be sweet.

His next need was deadly. There could not be two breeders. He had to stalk and kill any rivals. There were two of them, already fighting. He prudently waited until one killed the other, and immediately consumed the wounded survivor and the carcasses of Hermione and the other. Hermione was the bigger feast. He knew those little tricks from experience. He turned his attention to the pair who now hosted him and his ‘sister’—and a third woman, younger. He needed to know if they could sustain him before and after birth. It was a borderline call, but with his sister parked, his fetus could feed from all of them. He didn’t worry about whether they could feed him, as he had turned desert sands into lands of milk and honey in previous lives, something a normal HC couldn’t do. He had always liked milk borne by honeys.

Normal HCs, FAP-fitted or not, had only one life. It was a long life, but when it was over it was over. As a breeder, he would have one life for each mother. This was good for both sides, as if he was successful every new mother would add another lifetime to both sides. Since he was opening a new life, He wanted to meet his earlier mothers, like Clio, the slender one, who fed him mostly by artificial milk substitutes and weaned him early. He liked all nine of his previous mothers, but now there were ten counting the one in whom he had met Hermione. Her name was Rika. He had eleven mothers if he counted his surrogate mother, Ruth. His sister shared Rika as a mother, but her surrogate was Glee. He noticed the other HC women further away, all young, also close by on Gideon, and impossibly beautiful, but they were a distraction at this time.

Wil used the energy absorbed from the carcasses of his Hermione and his erstwhile brothers to examine the minds of the nearest three women. Here, there was a snag. The two older women, Ruth and Glee, were not quite the full nickel, and the two men with them would together struggle to be half a penny. That didn’t bother him, since his business was with the women. He would need women to breed from, but just how crazy were these women? Finding other women was possible, but his energy was limited. He had to play the hand he found, where he found it. They weren’t all bad—perhaps a bit less well-endowed in up there thinking capacity than he would have preferred, but their other endowments looked OK, and were generally more interesting.

Reluctantly, he decided to enter their minds.

His reluctance was purely pragmatic, in that such contact would allow him to tap into their mental energy, which he needed after the double movement out of one womb and into another, but on the other hand, it would alert them to the presence of a breeder, and commit him to use them. He would have chosen a more subtle approach if it had not been for his energy constraints, but right now that was what he had.

He sent a mental command to the women. They paled as they listened to the deep male voice speaking from Ruth’s womb.

Ladies, Let me introduce myself. My name is Wil. I am your breeder. Breeding means continuously improving the quality of biological species, usually mammals, but also including fish and birds, with the purpose of enhancing desirable qualities. This is what I will do with you and it won’t cost you a penny.

Are there questions?

Feeling rather foolish about her gesticulation, Ruth put up her hand.

There’s always one. I’m sorry Ruthie. I always get a bit grumpy at the start of a job. Shoot.

How exactly do you do this?

I’d thought you already had children?

I have, but how do you do it?

I do it the customary way

So you will be inseminating us?

Do you have an improved approach?

"No, little darling, I don’t. If your question relates to the method, I will inseminate you the regular way, not by artificial methods. It will be plain old-fashioned porking.

To be honest, I like it this way. You lovely ladies and I share a strong destiny, with me as your leader, and a lot of hands on. To accomplish our destinies, you will need to obey my every command. Immediate obedience is important to me and I will teach you that first. Your immediate role is to prepare me and keep me safe. From now on, this is your first mission in life. Know it, and believe it. I have suitable roles for all of you. One of the reasons that I like HC women, which is what most of you appear to be is that you generally have a fondness for sexual stimulation. I will accommodate that. It’s what I do. I understand your situation. In your place, I would have trepidation myself. Mostly you will bear children to me. They will be your children, not mine. I know that some of you are a tad sluggish, and I can work with that, but a couple of you have the lights plugged in. Use your skills. I will accept no half-measures, but if you do have difficulty holding a spoon in your mouth I will accept you so long as you’re cute or good in bed. This may sound odd to you, but my business is to revive the populations in the Galaxy. I will do this by breeding from you and others. I will not harm you, and I will not force you as children or as adults, but if you give your consent as adults, meaning at least eighteen years of age, I will definitely take pleasure in my work you and with others. I’m part machine as a few of you are, essentially an android in my case, and gynoids in yours, but we both need our biological components in order to breed."

All three hushed. Without further question, they now knew that their lives had changed, and irrevocably, for better or worse but never again would they be the same. They understood that the microscopic embryo in Ruth’s womb now owned them. Only he knew that he would own them forever, or as long as he wished until it was his time to go, but maybe this time he would survive. The fear began to retreat as the women realized that they would come to no harm. There was a glimmer of hope as well, for the concubines, as they could see a purpose in their new destiny and many wanted children. By and large, HC women were indeed receptive to a little pleasure, which had been tarnished since the Alien war so they suspended judgment, and went about their business, relying on Ruth to keep them posted, as it was she who carried the enigma in her womb.

*     *     *

The appearance of a breeder was extremely rare and none of Wil’s predecessors had FAP components. None had appeared in recent millennia, and certainly none in living HC memory. Now there was one in their midst. Moreover, he would breed from them before he turned to others, and there would be others, they were sure of that. Nobody would gainsay a breeder. They could do no more than follow accept his assurances of fair dealing, and hope that he would indeed treat them well. For his part, Wil had access to guidance from his mothers.

The women hastened to prepare. There were things they had to do. Men didn’t. A breeder would not waste his time on drones, which in Wil’s estimation included idiots like Ben who had some tech smarts, but had had an easier ride with women than he deserved. He thought that Ruth was, like a turkey, more cerebrally gifted than Ben, and meaning no disrespect for turkeys.

*     *     *

Months later, Wil looked out from his mother’s womb, dissatisfied at what he saw. He was thoroughly annoyed in fact. His species memory told him that he was based on the HC species, as were his mother and father, except that was all they were. So far so good. He didn’t want to be a hybrid, and Homo Colossus was the most attractive species for a breeder to work with. Outside, there was fear, yet also an anticipatory frisson. In some ways, the link between a breeder and his subjects was a pure partnership.

The women understood the need for recovery, and most wanted at least one clutch of children. There did not need to be unwanted exploitation. The women knew that he would need access concomitant with breeding requirements, but he would not pull them apart and re-build them. So far, they could take comfort in that. To the extent that they worried, their concern was about getting a fair share of both babies and sex.

When Wil got his first brief look at his mother from the outside of the womb he was pleased. His real mother would be OK in the feeding department and she was cute. His ‘grandmother’ also was cute, but more importantly both had dual purpose jugs—suitable for work and play—highly desirable at all ages. With his biological pieces coming together, albeit slowly, he now appreciated such fine details rather more. His FAP components couldn’t care less, except for feeding. Their energy came from their own equivalent of a metabolic system that piggy-backed on his biological one, so if his metabolism were to fail they would die also. His sentient FAP components knew that, and they were reliable and subservient to his biological self. It did not work the other way. If his FAP—based components were to fail, he could replace them.

It was his ‘father’—and his ‘grandfather’—that irritated him—both were ugly as sin. None of them were actually related to him, except Rika, and arguably the ugly bastard beside her. This was a disaster! For a breeder, that could never be a good start, and being third generation ugly could turn it into catastrophe. He’d always been smoothly sophisticated before this. He detested his father on sight, but his mother came as part of a package with the repulsive man. Certain bits of her were good but there was no going back now, with the damn woman shoving him out and making such an unnecessary fuss about a simple thing like that. Squeeze, Splat, that’s it! It was bloody Ruth who was doing the shoving. He now didn’t like either of his biological parents, or their silly names. He was still hostile, belligerent—he was totally pissed off, in fact with his so-called grandfather, for masterminding his extraction from parking when he had just met his sister and settled down to grow. Some gee-whizz mastermind that was! His ‘grandfather’ made a planning 101 mistake. Anyone with enough neurons to break wind could have seen that he would be needed early. Fortunately, from Wil’s perspective, Eric disappointed everyone else by leaving the family, ostensibly to explore the Cosmos—and good riddance for that—leaving behind both him and his twin ‘sister’, and thereby saving Rika’s tail until he could find an opportunity to explain his displeasure with Rika in person for being so complaisant, giving him two reasons to entertain her bum. Sensitive messages of this type were better delivered to the butt, bare, with larger hands than he had now. Ruth’s butt had about the same size cheeks as Rika’s, so he mentally measured his hands on Ruth’s cute little derriere in the interim. He liked observe his surrogate mother’s bum. From his location in the womb, he could see that it was right in so many ways, shape, firmness, position—even location, and the hips were right, so she wouldn’t make too much of a disgusting mess in childbirth and not endanger him through birth trauma.

*     *     *

Going off in pairs was not unusual for HC’s but leaving the burden of child-raising was. Erik was declared missing, presumed dead, an outcome Wil whole-heartily supported, though he would have added Ben and Rok—low-grade apparatchiks would always be easy to find and replace and the upside of Erik’s disappearance was that he would lose his place in the succession to the interloper that was Wil. Erik would contribute nothing except his share of ugly, which wasn’t something in short supply. Wil and his sister were left in the care of Ben, his grandfather, and Glee, his ‘grandmother’, but as parked fertilized eggs, sometimes loosely called embryos, but not all eggs were fertile.

His re-implanted embryo was hosted by Ruth, until Ben realized his mistake with all the speed of sludge climbing a cliff and his embryo was jacked out from parking in Ruth’s womb, and backed into the lane for the birth canal. Wil was happy with his name, and more so with his sister’s name, Jen. Wil chose the names himself, and was proud of them. Both had been given other names, but Wil wasn’t in the mood to let the mastermind get away with wrong-footing him again.

He was stuck with both of the grumble bums, Ruth and Glee, so named by him because they moped around all the time, whining about Joy. He couldn’t understand why they did this, instead of just cloning the bitch. All it needed was a wheelbarrow and common FAP-enhanced chemicals available at any hardware shop. OK, there was a little more to it than that, but it should not be seen as much of a challenge for a B-grade post-grad student. It was more a matter of legalities.

At eighteen, he decided to bring them up to speed. He spoke to them.

"Ladies, gather around and pay attention. I’m displeased with your poor performance. In fact I’m completely pissed off. You spend too much time obsessing with Joy. Stop that right now. I will handle it in good time. It’s more important that you understand what I require of you, and that you demonstrate your suitability for your roles. I appreciate that you have tried to entertain me, but that’s not what I need. What I do need is to understand how you tick. Forget my appearance as a young lad. Inside, I’m a mature man, and mentally a great deal older than you. Dump the toys and get naked. You thirteen will be my toys. If you perform well enough, and keep the apparatchiks out of my way, I’ll keep you. If you fail, I’ll replace you, but don’t get complacent about it. If I go, you’ll go—but elsewhere, with your drones on your backs, get so get those cute little bums into gear while you still have the chance. You are my property. You do my bidding. Do not offend me by attempting to conceal that which I own. I congratulate you on your hips and tits, which are quite satisfactory, but if I strip you I want you to stay stripped. If I leave you at the page marked bums, I want your bums available when I am ready to work with them. I’m here to breed women, not clothes. I will now assess you for long-term breeding—learn and enjoy, and above all, participate, and yes, I do mean with each other. I want you humming when I get to you, and I don’t want to find other men’s genes befouling my property."

*     *     *

For most of the next two years, Wil’s toys were naked in bed, as Wil worked to understand how they ticked. As they got into the swing of things, they ticked pretty well, forgetting their depression as Wil’s hands probed every crevice in their bodies, and tested every swathe of skin. This gave them something to think about—more in line with his expectations of them. He settled them with mental stimulation of their erogenous zones. After their initial surprise at his peremptory instructions, and his surprising grasp of what gave them pleasure, they adapted quite well. They were a little embarrassed at sex play with each other, but the boy was implacable. He liked it, end of story, a simple message for simple minds that could help get him through till his dick came online. He’d have to calibrate it, of course, but that was one of the fun bits, and getting them tuned and keeping them tuned always paid dividends. Fortunately, tuning had to be done one on one. Ben and Ruth had experienced something similar in the monster orgasm they had when they merged their minds, but when he’d trained them, Wil could invoke it in them, from any erogenous zone.

*     *     *

Still at eighteen, by their measurement, and with his father ‘dead’, Wil did become Ben’s heir and with direct lineage to both of the apparatchiks through Rika and Erik, he inherited the succession. This did not make him a prince, but it would give both prestige and wealth, which together amounted to power over his species, and strong influence over others. It would also make him the breeder of choice and with luck he may escape the treadmill of breeding work, or at least get to settle in some nice little time-space with a select group of attractive and obedient women.

*     *     *

Wil called the women together again.

Girls, you’ve improved a lot. I accept you. You will now be the nucleus of my breeding program. I will ride you hard, and you’d better enjoy it. When I’m ready, I will impregnate you. I have learned enough to ensure that I will enjoy the ride, and that you enjoy it too. This is functionally important for the biological parts in each of us. Now, Ruthie I’ve finished with my FAP components. I apologize for the delay, but I am the first breeder to be FAP-enabled. I will discuss that little issue with my mothers later.

How many mothers do you have, Master?

Wil kept talking,

I have nine. They are Clio, Thalia, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Calliope, Terpsichore, Melpomene and Urania and of course Rika and now you. I’ve over-achieved a bit, and I’ll have to follow up with all of them when my hands are bigger, but that’s OK. I don’t mind a little hard work. My earlier mothers gave me a good grounding in things erogenous, and I can now incorporate their knowledge into mine. Do exactly as I tell you and you’ll find the experience to your liking. For those of you who want to keep count, my goal is to have two hundred mothers, all of them obedient.

*     *     *

Wil had been delivered from Ruth’s womb, as per instructions, making her his pseudo mother, as well as his ‘grand-aunt’. He sometimes called her ‘mum’, but she preferred to be called Ruthie, which became his pet name for her. Wil knew the scope of his task, and that he could not directly control all of his subjects.

For naïve HCs and for other species a breeder was merely a healthy young man whose role was to impregnate women. The women had no special name. They were expected to be available to a breeder if they were of sound body and mind and not yet pregnant. Breeders were not compelled to impregnate women, but they were pointless if they didn’t. Wil was determined to be pointed—the sharper the better and he had no plans to use artificial insemination. This time, he would go by the book, mostly, but Ben had left some enticing blank sheets.

*     *     *

Glee, in particular, had long experience of HC children, both of natural members of the species, and also of HC children who, like Ben and Ruth, had been converted from humans into HCs, and should have been in an excellent position to raise a normal HC child, but this baby took that role himself. Glee was middle-aged when she met Ben and Ruth, approaching the end of her first millennium, but like Ruth she had the body of a girl in her early twenties. Unlike Ruth, Glee had had other daughters, nine of them, who had all Coupled and gone off with their partners in the HC way, with their children. They were Glee’s little secrets, born when she had no formal partner and the result of unions with three different men, all pure HCs, and with three sets of genes, unknown even to Ruth, but Glee’s mind was open to Wil’s inspection, which it should not have been, because of a privacy convention. She was the most intellectually challenged, but he didn’t need smarts in a woman if her other attributes were satisfactory, which they were, and in spades.

Ruth and Glee remained friends with each other, and worked together to raise Wil within the limits he allowed, and to prepare him for his role as a breeder. She, Ruth, and Riana, the sister of Joy, would give their wombs unstintingly, but they would need more than three women to repopulate their species, and the other species in decline. They accepted that this small baby would eventually take them to his bed as concubines, as was the way with HC breeders, and that he would also service other species in decline, but that would be long in the future, up to fifty years, of which thirty two remained. He decided to write off the fourteen year difference, and synchronize his correct measurement to their naïve one.

*     *     *

The HC species had always used concubines, and their breeding favored females, as well as multiple births. One man could service multiple women. It was a simple matter of arithmetic. Like parking, it provided them with a means of compensating for the danger of extinction in a small population. Another strategy was to use incest, judiciously, to boost numbers in times of stress. Their most extreme strategy was cloning, using DNA from corpses, which reproduced the dead donor, but without their previous memories. Wil had several species memories, from previous lives, not all male, including humans and Gideonese and some Aliens. Wil didn’t visit with his other selves, except for one female version with whom he had a female HC child. He demurred on impregnating her. Her name was Crystal, and her mother was Jade. All three enjoyed playing with each other, as the current ‘Wil’ did with his ‘mothers’.

Part of the preparation of a breeder was to modify his embryo so as to have anonymous genes. Incest and concubinage were deemed appropriate in these circumstances, as recognized tools for breeders. Anonymous genes would dodge at least some of the consanguinity problems inherent in incest since if a breeder proved capable of fathering children, the children would have only the mothers’ genes. It was also necessary to ensure that the breeder himself could not establish a dynastic line. Wil wouldn’t limit himself to his female family members, but they would be a good starter kit at least. Oddly, Wil didn’t commit incest for a long time, as Ruth and Glee were not actually related to him, though they thought that as surrogate mothers they were. Wil didn’t much care either way, but he was less pleased when the idiot Ben called him ‘boy’. He forbore to terminate the wretch, though he was severely tempted, but it wouldn’t look good in his assessment.

The problem for all of them was Wil’s age. They were so close to extinction that even the brief period of the remaining thirty two years for normal pubescence could not be tolerated. They had to accelerate. Under Wil’s direction, all three women worked to hasten his development. He worked on his FAP components by day and on his women’s biological bits by night. He liked working on their biological bits, some more than others. A breeder could not be successful if he was indifferent to sex. He also enjoyed retro-fitting FAP components, which entailed a lot of intimate contact, but the best bit which both sides enjoyed, was tuning them. FAP-fitting wasn’t break-sweat complex, since the pieces knew where they had to go, but it was a slow process, and the only fun was comparing one naked female body with another, or playing games to see how little of them he had to touch to invoke how big an orgasm.

Like most males, Ben and Rok were miffed bordering on homicidal when he shut them out, but they weren’t breeders, so they could like it or lump it. There had actually been very few breeders since ancient times, their presence generally obfuscated by religious explanations. Ben and Rok knew which role they would play in any homicide, on the inside of the chalk marks. Wil’s FAP components never slept, and always surveilled his environment. An undetected approach was not possible, not even in the womb.

Wil liked his time in the womb, mostly productive, as his awareness gave him a different perspective on how the process worked. Only breeders had this level of awareness, giving them the opportunity to correct defects. His only issue was the separation from Jen, who was still parked in Glee’s womb—and, of course, his puberty. His sister didn’t matter so much at this stage, since her role was elsewhere. Wil and his sister had interlocking destinies—a fact that Wil knew, but that he could not reveal to others.

*     *     *

Wil now focused on fecundity. Like normal HC children he was a precocious child, fast of learning, but he was also fast of growth. He was voracious, and his breeder powers were supplemented by some odd predilections, making him a difficult child to manage. He continued to be suckled by both Ruth and Chuckles, as he called Glee, partly as a play on her name, and partly because, like Ruth, she rarely smiled. Wil had talked to them mentally from the womb, which wasn’t so unusual for HC people, but as a breeder, he could also command them, and all eleven of his inherited HC women, but he was immune to commands from others. All eleven had lived long on Gideon, and had adopted the Gideonese form of dress, which was basically a transparent or translucent gown, with modesty panels that partly obscured the view of their genitals, but Wil knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t in any sense modesty. He insisted on something more titillating—that would help hasten puberty fecundity he could penetrate them, but not impregnate them. He summoned the women again.

A hareem! You’d have to be joking!

"Do you see me laughing, Ruthie? I know that you have graced a hareem for Ben. You will do it for me, but better."

I think it’s nice Wil, I’ll wear it.

Ben’s women, including Riana and Marie and Odette, had been in what Ben called a hareem, but which was really a simple house with a lot of bedrooms.

Thank you, Riana. You will all wear it, and you will decorate your bedrooms in a complementary style. Your goal now is to hasten my fecundity.

HCs did not normally have a mandated age of maturity. Instead, they used puberty. A girl was considered to be ready to breed from her first ovulation, a boy from his first ejaculation. They were referred to as ready or not ready, and with a breeder ready he would be the sole breeder unless he explicitly gave others limited breeding rights, which Wil was in no hurry to do. He figured that he needed a few under his belt before he thought about sharing. The first thousand, at least, seemed fair. Maybe two thousand? . . . Nah! it was better to play it by ear.

At one level, Wil’s first interest in the female body was for business. At another, it was for fun, fueled by the universal complaisance of the women around him. There was now restriction on having fun. He suckled with Ruth and Glee and Riana for four years, delighting in his discovery of some HC powers that augmented his breeder powers. He liked the telekinetic powers, which he used to bring them to his cot to feed him and change his diapers. He was also mischievous, and frequently indulged his fun side by using his powers to pin them to walls or tables, and pose them so that he could examine their bodies more closely from different perspectives. He was both boy and man as he grew, and did boyish things like removing clothes that that got in the way, sometimes hiding them. Ruth occasionally demurred, but just a look from Wil was enough to overcome her reticence, and a nod would make her his plaything. Grumble bums became partners in fun. The others of the thirteen were younger, and more beautiful, and they were more fun, but Riana was his favorite toy. Wil was proud of his ability to give a one-touch orgasm, but it didn’t do a great deal for him.

Still at eighteen, he found, to his delight and Riana’s, that he was precocious of puberty as well, even by human standards. This capability went back to ancient times, when the onset of puberty was more rapid. He explored his new capability with Riana in a night of delirious passion, which he repeated continuously, with his top three, tuning them at the same time. This was a stunning surprise to everyone, Ben not the least, because HC people normally took fifty years to reach puberty as it had done for him. Tuning was all about erogenous zones. Ruth and Glee were surprised that their dry wells flowed, but Riana, a virgin, was most surprised. Wil was less so, because it aligned with the dichotomy between HC and breeder physiology and he’d already used the big orgasm on her.

*     *     *

Riana had always been the closest to him, and had frequently slept with him, cradling his head on her breasts. Will didn’t need to command her. For her, any contact with Wil was desirable, be it a kiss, a caress, or another attempt to stir his reluctant tumescence. With Wil, her whole body was a never-fail erogenous zone that didn’t need tuning, She enjoyed her unusual maternal capability, and still nursed him on demand. Spanking was fine with her, but Wil never drew tears. And now the young lad had more demanding needs. He now slept with one or other of ‘his’ women, as a matter of routine. They were always nude. If they didn’t come naked he stripped them himself, punishing them with a spanking, and confiscating their clothing before delivering the thrust of his message. Thrusting was good for him. Wil liked Riana most, because she wasn’t a sourpuss like his ‘grand aunt’ and his ‘grandmother, aka Ruthie or Nanna, or mum. Riana indulged him in everything, and soon became his best friend as well as his ‘aunt’ and his lover. For Wil, she was a willing slave. She would remain his regular lover, not exclusively, but always available—only to him. Riana had helped him with his first erection, but none of the women and girls in his life knew this at the time and awaited the coming of the breeder’s puberty and hence his power—and they wanted his children. A touch was all that was necessary to bring women into his fold. The hierdom and breeding rights were also a big deal for all species. Many, including his girlfriends stayed close by in Ben’s self-propelled houses, hoping to be among the first to be selected as his concubine. Three schoolgirls, Dulcie and Brenda and ‘Hilda ran to Riana’s house after school, because Wil lived at her house in one of the bunkers. Bunkers were well insulated against sound, and ideal for partying and making out. Dulcie and Brenda were humans, and ‘Hilda was Gideonese. Gideonese women always had aspirated names, with an exaggerated ‘huh’ or ‘hih’ sound at the beginning. In written form, in the native Gideonese language, it was represented by a symbol similar to an apostrophe, and rendered as such in non-Gideonese texts. An ‘ih’sound as in ‘istory’ was disparaged, and it was the same with ‘erbs’ versus ‘herbs. Like HCs, they favored single names, and HCs also favored monogamy and lifetime bonds. Wil agreed with lifetime bonds for his women, but he was not was not so fussy with others. Wil also got a large bunch of Gideonese, led by ‘Hera and ‘Halsa when Ben failed to register them.

Wil was fascinated by ‘his’ family’s history, and demanded to be told, and re-told interminably, the stories of Joy and the Alien wars. He often walked alone the short distance to Joy’s grave, maintaining vigils in the rose garden for as long as twelve hours at a time, lying on the soft lawn that surrounded Joy’s grave. He commanded Ruth and Glee to bring food and drink, and made love to them before sending them home. Sometimes, he used his girlfriends or their mothers—if they were sufficiently cute—like Dulcie’s mother and Brenda’s mother. This helped to reduce their fear of the place and was good training for Wil because it afforded him the opportunity to blood himself in this life with species other than HCs. He didn’t have to command the adoring Riana. Riana was herself adored, and not just by Wil. She had the looks of a movie star, and was admired by men and women almost alike.

Wil found his surviving relatives in the bunkers. There was a good clutch of humans, including Isabella Gonzales and Lucia Chavez, both adopted into the family, both had daughters, as did Odette Pontier and Marie Glassman, both old, but in good working order. There was also an old woman called Judy Washburn. Wil registered all of them as his concubines, including their servants and their children. The women were surprised to find themselves now owned by a person they had never heard of, in a system they did not understand. There was no immediate change, since he had his hands full with the others. A few lived in a sleepy hamlet on Earth, and he didn’t yet have a convenient means of transporting them to Athol. He was in no particular hurry, since the Concubinage Bureau was responsible for protection of his property until it was claimed, and most bureaucratic functions on Earth were turgid at best. A few months or years of delay were to be expected within normal service levels, and tea breaks had to be fitted in somewhere. Some of the younger women had dopey names. Jackie and Johnny were nurses, and lived in the bunkers. Both were females with men’s names.

Dolores, Rita, and Carina, were maids. Except for Dolores, the younger women all had children. Searching further, he found others, mostly girls, which suited Wil. He mentally examined them from afar. Apart from age and a few repairable cosmetic defects they were suitable for his professional exploitation and personal enjoyment. These included the daughters of a Lucy who were called Erin and Benya. There were others called Doris and Rose. He got a lot of dirt on Ben, which could be useful someday. Ben wasn’t quite a three legged camel, but he was close—maybe a three and a half-legged camel. The best of the humans was a tall woman called Becky. She had been poorly tuned by the idiot Ben, but she would be easy to fix. There were also a few dozen older women who spent a lot of time pissing around with their fingernails. He did not overlook his other thirteen HC women. He liked his HC boy called Toby but Toby was too young to play with women, as he would need to await puberty. In the meantime, Wil attended to Ben’s beautiful daughters. When they were tuned properly, their performance went through the roof. Wil decided to FAP-fit all of them to make his communications with them easier. He didn’t bother with the men. They could walk to talk.

*     *     *

The Interplanetary Senate was the supreme governing body for the Galaxy. It met in a grandiose building, located on Gideon between a Teachers’ College with an attached Girls college and the HQ building, where the family was domiciled, conveniently close to Riana’s house and the school. It had lax security, because Gideonese people were law abiding and unaccustomed to crime. There was only one policebot on the planet, Patrick, and his duties were few. He did have a choky, useful for the occasional inebriated human that needed to dry out. It didn’t run to the exalted status of having a lock, Patrick was an old school cop, not one of the newer breed of scientifically orientated policebots emerging from the factory these days. He was more the neighborhood keep the peace kind of cop, and he had had centuries of experience on his planet-wide beat and knew almost everybody on his beat. He also had a flyer, which he used to conduct occasional patrols around far flung communities on the planet.

The construction of the Senate building was a godsend for Gideon, as was the new school. Typically, construction work was performed by workerbots, but these remained on Gideon after construction was completed, and were re-purposed as farmerbots, which had the effect of improving productivity, but also reduced job opportunities for people.

Gideon wasn’t a rich planet. Her main industry was agriculture, specifically the growing of habanero chili and some milder chili peppers used in chili chocolate for children. It was a large industry, made possible by the kind of soil and humidity favored by chili and chili pepper, and cheap to grow and harvest. They also grew cacao, and with a dairy industry as well in cooler areas they made fine chocolates, but these industries alone were insufficient for the growth of their population, currently over eighty million. Gideon welcomed the location of the Senate, and the new school, but that had been long ago, and many of her people, mostly men, had already chosen the path of migration, gaining work on other planets such as Athol, easily reached by personal sub-light ships.

The Senate, and the colleges, both offered long term jobs for some and the temptation of rich pickings for Wil. Temptation didn’t have to work hard with Wil, but his favorite temptation, and the one that paid the most dividends in his business, was lust.

*     *     *

The Senate building was not a masterpiece, with its labyrinthine corridors, and dark alcoves, but the labyrinth was appreciated by Wil, since he could always find vacant rooms for nefarious purposes, such as deflowering the school headmistress, Marly, and the PE teacher, Roberta, in each following a one touch orgasm (OTO) followed by the regular penetrations. They were handsome women, not beautiful, but with rippling muscles that they could pose to perfection. Both were tall, with satisfying breasts. They enjoyed Wil’s spankings, and his other magic incursions on and in their bodies. With them, Wil liked positions where he could see and feel the movement of their muscles. Their breasts were too big for gymnastics, but they were magic with nude calisthenics, and once he’d tuned them they could provide Wil with refreshment after exercise, and he could also use them as self-adjusting beds. He could have projected an image of himself as older and larger, but chose not to do so, since there were things he could get away with as a slip of a youth, but not so easily as an ugly old man.

Wil also used the labyrinth of the Senate building as a hiding place for clothes he removed from women, and for meets with his other girlfriends, and on slow days for him, to eavesdrop on proceedings in the Senate. It had ten members, nine of them human, with normal voting powers, and Ben, the lone HC representative with a roving responsibility for implementation of legislation for the recovery of endangered intelligent species. Its focus was all species, not just HC.

Wil had a stroke of luck, a not unusual event for him, when Ben had a typically poorly conceived and poorly executed brainstorm and came up with a project called Rebirth.

*     *     *

Project Rebirth became Ben’s responsibility. It was partly his response to the breeder. It had two main planks. The first, for funding a much extended migration system, was not contentious, and passed quickly into law. The second and more radical plank was an amendment to the old voluntary concubinage system. The Senate, normally staid and sleepy, became a house of turmoil as the legislation was hotly debated, and much amended, with the four female Senators bitterly fighting each word, each sentence, each paragraph. It passed on Ben’s casting vote, in a wild conflagration of publicity. Wil gleefully seized the opportunity.

Nobody noticed the youth with the unkempt hair who walked with the tail of his shirt hanging out via the school that he was too young to attend to the Senate building he should not have entered, so as to be present for every debate and every vote, all of which were closed sessions not cleared for release. Only Ben knew that minds could be tampered with, and the eighteen year old Wil had no difficulty in ensuring that Ben saw nothing of his doings.

Other folk, from other planets, took sub-light trips to see for themselves. The women would remain, of course, when seduced with the assistance of an OTO, but the men and their dinky little ships were unnecessary. For women in larger numbers, he could use his mental powers to project a no-touch orgasm over a broad area.

Wil downloaded both parts of the final released legislation. He knew what money was about and sex was the main line of business for a breeder. He already had a starter pack of concubines, but having the role formalized with the backing of law would make his business easier, and having a stable string of concubines would enhance his bid. There was no way that he would be left out of the fun when the breeding frenzy commenced. He saw money in the migration law and sex in the amended concubine law. Neither of them had any reference to age. Each had provision for pre-registration. Neither mentioned consanguinity, which didn’t matter all that much, since he had anonymous genes. All of his subliminal suggestions had been acted on, right down to the first in first served provision, and the built-in delay for other registrants who had to scramble for kit, like DNA readers, which were necessary to identify property. Perfect. He bought up all of the DNA readers on the planet, using Ben’s account, which, as Ben’s heir, he was entitled to do. It was HC policy not to deliver legacy money in a single lump sum. He mailed back his pre-registrations, including DNA identification, for ownership of all of the women he knew—Ruth, Glee, Ben’s girls, ‘Harriet, Riana, and a few teachers from the nearby teachers, college and twelve of the most attractive female teachers, from the girls’ college, whom he added to the calisthenics group with Marly and Roberta, figuring that a little light exercise would tone their bodies without tightening their muscles too much in advance of their babies’ deliveries. They fell to him easily with OTO but making out had to be disguised as detention—for such a naughty boy, reasons were easily found. They couldn’t actually discipline him whilst lying on their backs, but they could spread their long limbs beautifully. Wil also searched other sources of women, mostly beautiful ones, but he added the four dissenting female Senators to the mix of models and actresses and sportswomen, and others that he found attractive. Not all were beautiful, as he valued skills in the scientific and technical communities, who were generally presentable rather than beautiful. With the growth of the calisthenics group they had to move to the Teachers College hall which was controlled by Marly and Roberta. He was careful to pack their clothes neatly before he hid them—he couldn’t abide mess.

Patrick was surprised to see so many naked women chained to the walls of his little choky, using evil looking chains supplied by Wil, some of them in clothes, but clothes from the hareem. Patrick was on his rounds at the time, and missed the worst of the riots. For several months, after his return to the city, His quiet life was disturbed by protest marches, as women, led by Senator Doreen Woolf, fought a rearguard action to protest the new law, but the male Senators, including Ben found an never before heard of reserve of spine and the women fought in vain. Wil made sure that his picture was captured in the front ranks and succeeded in getting arrested by Patrick, along with the four Senators, giving all of them the opportunity for some stand-up OTO’s, but sadly, the choky was too small for calisthenics.

Out on bail, courtesy of an angry and frightened Ben, he pre-registered his unborn sister, Jen, and registered his current ‘real’, mother, Erika, and all of his previous mothers. As a breeder, he liked to collect mothers, and he liked to collect kin. His earlier mothers were the showpiece of his collection, maintained in perfect operational condition, which he tested regularly. He submitted a pre-registration for all of the migration routes to all the planets he knew of including the warlike planet of Gilead. He sat back to await the responses. He was still eighteen, but he expected that his groundwork would cause at least one of