Brave New World Ch. 01

Roy sighed. "I guess I feel... numb."

Vard nodded. "There's someone I'd like to introduce you to," he said. "Her name is Tami. I've asked her to meet us here. Let me find out where she is."

He looked up, then spoke in a language that was almost familiar to Roy. A voice answered. The voice sounded neither male nor female, and Roy could not pinpoint the direction it came from.

"I'm sorry, Roy," Vard said, seeing the puzzled look on Roy's face. "I probably shouldn't have done that to you. What you just heard was an aspect of the hab's onboard computer. It doesn't speak old English, though. Languages have changed quite a bit over the past four centuries. We learned to speak yours when we were assigned to your medical team."

Roy sighed again. "That makes sense, I suppose," he mumbled.

Vard looked at him, then nodded. "Don't worry too much about it right now," he said. "Tami will help you deal with that."

"Are you peddling my services again, Vard?" a female voice asked. Roy looked up and saw an attractive young woman step out of the bushes that surrounded the pool. She looked... different, Roy thought. She had half-long black hair and a creamy complexion. While she had a nice figure, she wasn't the sort of wet dream inducing traffic stopper that Reesh was. She was also a little shorter than Reesh, and her breasts were smaller and less full, although they did look quite good on her. Her hips were nicely curved, and the patch of pubic hair between her legs was neatly trimmed. Her mouth was large and generous, her bottom firm and tight in a manner that could only be called perky, and her smile radiated warmth and happiness. On the whole, Roy found that he liked her a lot. She had a down-to-earth sort of reality about her that he found rather appealing.

"It's what I do, Tams," Vard answered, smiling. "Roy, meet Tami. She's been a valuable member of our medical team. She's a hard worker, which means I can spend most of my time working on my tan and catching up on my beauty sleeps."

Reesh made a face. "Don't believe him, Roy," she said. "Vard has been putting in more work during the early stages of your revival than any of us. He is our leading specialist on cellular biology. Tami is a neurologist, among other things."

"Translation: she keeps us all from losing our marbles," Vard said comfortably. "As I said, a valued member of the team. No telling what I might do without someone to safeguard my sanity." Reesh poked him in the side with her elbow.

"And you, Reesh?" Roy asked.

"Endocrinology and nanotech, mostly," she answered. "But all of us have several areas of expertise."

"Yes. Reesh is a damn good cook, too," Vard commented. "But then, so is Tami."

"Stop thinking with your stomach," Tami said good-naturedly, as she stepped into the pool and sat down next to Roy.

"I do some of my best thinking with my stomach," Vard said.

"But only when you're not thinking with what's below it," Reesh quipped.

Tami gave Roy a long-suffering smile. "You see what I have to put up with?"

Roy nodded. Somehow she made him feel comfortable. Her smile was sweet and genuine, and there was an open honesty in her eyes that he liked.

"You're looking well, Roy," she said. "You still need quite a bit in the way of treatments, of course, but you're doing alright."

"So what's next?" Roy asked.

"Well," said Reesh, "First of all, the nano's rebuilding your tissues are pretty much done, so we need to flush them out. Then there's some more tissue reinforcement ahead, but we're going to use the autodoc for that. We also need to balance your body chemistry, and then we'll see."

Roy slowly nodded. The sense of bewilderment began to get the better of him again. Autodoc? Tissue reinforcement?

Tami looked at him thoughtfully. "Is any of that really urgent?" she asked.

Vard shook his head. "One or two days won't make much difference."

"Good. Then I'd like to show you a few things, Roy," she said. She turned to him and put her hand on his arm. "If you want to, of course. There's no hurry."

"Sounds good," Roy said. He found himself faintly curious about this woman and her world, and it would be nice to spend some time with her.

"Don't worry, we'll take it easy," she said. "I know you've got a lot to take in right now. But I think this will do you some good."

Roy smiled. "Thanks."

"Shall we go, then?" She rose and held out her hand. He took it and stood.

"We'll see you when we see you," she said to Vard and Reesh. Vard lifted his hand and waved lazily. Reesh stood and gave Roy a warm hug. 'Enjoy yourself," she said. "We'll see you soon." Then she sad back down in the pool next to Vard and took his hand in hers.

"I think we should leave these two to their own mischief for a while," Tami said to Roy, smiling. Reesh grinned widely and flung a handful of water at Tami. Then she turned to Vard and looked deeply into his eyes, as Tami and Roy stepped out of the pool.

* * *

She held his hand as they walked through the soft, green grass. Suddenly he noticed that his body was completely dry, and so was hers. But they had just gotten out of the water! How was that possible?

"Tami..." he began.

She looked at him. "What's wrong?" she asked softly.

And suddenly it all became too much for him. "What's wrong?" he asked angrily. "I'll tell you what's wrong. I just came out of the water and now I'm dry! We're under a sky full of stars but there's light everywhere! We're supposed to be in space but I'm standing right on the ground in a... a... in a fucking garden! What the fuck is all this?" He glared at her. But as soon as his anger had risen, it dissipated again. He slowly shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand. 'I'm sorry... I... I'm sorry. It's just..."

She nodded, and in her eyes he could see that she understood. "I know," she said. "Your recovery has been going well from a purely physical standpoint, but you are going through a severe culture shock, and on top of that you are still grieving for all that you've lost. And you haven't had a chance to even start working though any of that."

Roy sighed. She pulled him against her and put his arms around him. "Give yourself some time, Roy," she said softly. Her embrace felt strangely comforting.

Roy sighed again, then nodded. "Sure," he said.

She took his hand. "I will get you some answers soon," she said. "There's something I want to show you."

They slowly walked on, until Roy saw a low gray wall ahead of them. The wall had several doors in it.

"The hab is laid out like a honeycomb," she explained. "Each cell is about a mile in diameter. Between the cells are the living quarters, engineering, corridors and all that. But the wall ahead of us is an outside wall." She pushed a button next to the door in front of them. It slid open with a faint hissing sound. Behind it was a corridor that stretched ahead of them. At the end of the corridor Roy could see more stars.

"I'm going to take you into an observation bubble. Are you afraid of heights or do you suffer from vertigo or motion sickness?"

Roy shook his head. "Not that I know of."

"Good," she said. "As we walk down the corridor you will feel yourself grow lighter and lighter, until you are entirely weightless. It will feel like you're falling, and it may take a little getting used to. But you will be safe at all times. I promise."

Roy smiled at her. "Alright... Lead on," he said. Strangely enough, he did feel safe. She seemed to have that effect on him.

They stepped into the corridor and walked ahead slowly. Suddenly Roy felt as if he was being lifted up somehow. He halted.

"Is this what you meant?" he asked.

Tami nodded. "Take another step when you feel ready," she said. He did.

They slowly made their way through the corridor. It was a strange sensation, as if the floor was dropping out from under him. He felt his arms begin to float. There were rungs mounted on the wall, and Tami put her hand on one of them to steady herself. She held out her other hand and Roy took it. Then, as he took a final step, his feet left the floor.

"Slowly," she said. "If you push too hard or move to quickly, you'll start to tumble."

Roy said nothing, totally caught up in the new experience. Being weightless was exhilarating, although his stomach felt just a bit uncomfortable. Using the rungs, he pulled himself slowly forward. She moved with him, and the two of them gently drifted to the end of the corridor which, as far as Roy could tell, ended straight into open space.

"We're about to enter a transparent bubble," Tami explained. "There will be no floor, so we'll be able to see in all directions. The dome will be practically invisible, but don't panic. You will be safe."

Roy squeezed her hand as they slowly floated out of the corridor and into the transparent sphere mounted at its end. And he gasped.

They appeared to float out in open space. All around them was blackness filled with stars, stars, stars...

And directly below, one and a half thousand miles beneath their feet, hung Earth.

But not the Earth he remembered. Instead of the beautiful blue-green sphere that he had known, this Earth was smudgy, with large, brown-grayish streaks and an overall dirty haze. It was nothing like the home he remembered.

"What..." he began, but then his voice failed him as a terrible sense of loss filled him. Earth, the planet he grew up on, the planet that had been his home, was gone. He stared at the murky brown sphere below him, unable to speak. Finally he covered his face with his hands, unable to look anymore. He felt Tami put her arms around him.

And Lieutenant Roy Beaumont went to pieces.

Great, wrecking sobs tore through him, and his pain and grief all poured out in a huge wave. First he cried, then he screamed, unable to hold in the agony of his loss.

She held him while he cried himself out, one arm around his shoulders, the other around the small of his back. It took a long time. Finally his grief subsided. If it hadn't been for the lack of gravity he would have collapsed. He felt completely exhausted.

She continued to hold him against her. His breathing came in irregular, ragged gasps in the wake of his crying. Eventually he calmed down to the point where he could speak again.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice hoarse.

She shook her head. "Don't be sorry, Roy. This is one of the things you need. You have not had a chance to deal with your grief. This won't take your pain away, but it's a start." She wiped away his tears with her hands. "Do you feel any better now?"

Roy shook his head.

"You will," she promised. "It will take time, but you will."

She gently pulled the two of them back into the end of the corridor. There they floated, weightless, against a background of stars. He felt her breasts press into his chest, her nipples against his skin. It was then the he noticed that his body had begun to respond to hers. Embarrassed, he began to draw away from her.

She smiled, and with one hand she reached down and stroked his rapidly swelling cock. "And maybe this is also something you need right now," she said softly. She gently held him until he was fully hard, then she put the head of his cock against the entrance of her pussy. She wrapped her legs around the small of his back, spreading her thighs. Then she put her hands on his buttocks and slowly, slowly pushed him inside her. She was warm and wet and ready, and he entered her without effort.

Roy could only stare at her face. She enveloped his cock like a warm, velvet glove. She moved her hands up to his back and held him there, anchoring the two of them together with her arms and legs while they floated there, unmoving.

"I..." Roy began.

"Ssshhhh..." she whispered. "The body knows what it needs. Just let it happen."

She began to move, pulling herself off him ever so slightly, then pushing him back in again with her legs wrapped around him. Out, in, out, in... Suddenly, without warning, he came, and he sighed as he felt his seed flow into her.

She continued to hold him, and after a while his cock softened inside her. Eventually he began to relax. He sighed, and she held her face up to him. Roy did what seemed the logical thing to do: he bent down to kiss her. Her mouth opened when it met his, and their tongues explored each other, first hesitantly, then with growing passion, until he gave in to his raw, desperate need. She reached behind her, grabbed one of the rungs, and slowly pulled them further into the corridor. When a touch of gravity reasserted itself they gradually sank to the floor, her legs still wrapped around him, until Roy found himself lying on top of her, wrapped in her arms.

She smiled. "Shall we go outside and find a sheltered spot?" she asked. "Or would you rather say here?"

Roy looked into her eyes and tried to return her smile, but he felt so emotionally exhausted that a sad grin was the best that he could manage. "Whatever you prefer," he said softly.

"Let's go then," she said, and sat up. He felt himself slip out of her with a brief pang of regret. He stood, and he took her hand as she led him back into the domed garden that lay behind the door. The sunlight was bright when she opened it and Roy blinked, his eyes feeling gritty and sore after his weeping.

"Come," she said, "I know just the spot." She led him around a stand of bushes close by, into a shielded patch of grass with flowers. There, surrounded by the smell of green, growing things and warm sunlight, she took his head in her hands and kissed him. Then she slowly pulled him down until they both sat on their knees, their lips still locked together.

Suddenly Roy felt his passion rise, and his cock rose with it. He kissed her harder, more insistently, and his hands clasped the back of her head as his lust soared. He pushed her down on her back until she was lying in the soft, green grass, and he covered her with his body. His hands moved to cup her firm breasts, and he felt her nipples harden under his thumbs. She reached down and took his swelling cock in her hands, stroking it to full hardness. The feeling of her fingertips on the engorged head made him groan with pleasure.

As soon as he was ready, she spread her thighs and put the tip of him against the entrance of her pussy. With a firm, powerful stroke he plunged into her and, not wasting any time, began to thrust into her.

His lust became a raw need, a savage, primitive thing. He grunted as his hard cock ravaged her pussy, his hands squeezing her breasts, his fingers pinching her nipples. He felt strangely out of control, as if something angry and wild had taken hold of him. He simply fucked her, hard. There was no tenderness, no consideration, no thought... Just need, rough and hard.

As he plowed into her she began to moan, and her breath came faster. "Yes... Yes..." she muttered softly. Roy continued to ravage her, and she grunted softly. She spread her thighs even further and wrapped her legs around him. "Go on, don't stop..." she whispered, and in spite of having cum so recently, Roy felt himself getting close to orgasm again. He grunted, and thrust into her even harder.

Suddenly he felt her body grow tense, and she gasped. He continued to move inside her until she let out a long, loud moan. He felt her legs grip his hips like a vise, and her pussy squeezed his hard cock as she came. He continued to pump in and out of her as she moaned, her body pinned down below him.

Then he felt his own pleasure begin to peak, and he thrust, thrust, until he could no longer hold it, and stars seemed to burst from the head of his cock. His scream was a raw, primitive sound as he came deep inside her, and the grunts of his pleasure were savage as he filled her with the hot cum spurting from his cock. When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, exhausted.

* * *

"Don't try to analyze it', she said, as they lay on their backs in the green grass, her hand in his. "The body knows what it needs, and that's enough."

Roy looked at her sharply. "Are you reading my mind?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. That's impossible. As far as we know, at least. Telepathy has never been proven to exist. But I can make a very good guess what you're thinking." She sat up. "I'm an empath, Roy. I am very much in touch with other peoples' feelings. And as you have probably guessed by now, that's one of the reasons why I'm here." She smiled. "Not that I'm not enjoying your company, though. You're a good man, and I like you. I know you're not always this rough. I know you're usually a considerate lover. But right now this is what you needed. And that's alright." She hugged him. "And I must admit that I did enjoy it. I didn't expect to, but I did."

Roy was a little surprised at the fact that he believed her. She was an easy person to trust, but there was something else about her, too, something that made him feel good, something that made him want to go on and live life to the full. A part of him realized that that was almost certainly her intention, something that she was deliberately doing in the course of practicing her art on him. But another part didn't care.

He sat up, too. "There's something... different about you," he said.

She nodded. "Maybe it's because I'm a natural, Roy. Unmodified. I'm sure Reesh told you about naturals. I am one. Not out of any personal conviction, but because I don't want to risk messing with my empathy. I'm too good at it. One day, when I get older, I'm sure I'm going to have the mods, but for now what you see is the real me." She smiled. "I'm twenty-six, Roy. Only a little younger than you are."

"Yeah, right," Roy said glumly. "I'm only over four hundred years old."

She shook her head. "That's not the way to look at it, Roy. You have lived, truly lived, for only twenty-eight years before you entered coldsleep. You are still young. And you will learn to live in this world. You will fit in and find ways to be happy, and we will help you with that."

She looked at him, her eyes intense now. "And you will help us, too. Reesh told you that we need your knowledge, your insights. We know the hard facts that led up to the war: the fossil fuels running out, the pollution, the failed crops, the energy crisis, the resulting international politics, the armed conflicts as a result of all that... But there's so much that we don't know. How did people feel about it? What were their hopes, what were their fears? How could all this happen? How could all those nuclear and chemical and biological weapons still exist, decades after they were supposedly dismantled? We need to know these things, Roy. It's stuff that matters. It's what we need if we want to make sure this doesn't happen again. And we're going to need your points of view to figure all that out."

Roy sighed. "I'm not sure I can do all that," he said. "I'm not a historian, and that cultural stuff you're talking about was never my strong point."

"You'd be surprised," she said. "You've been helping us already. The things you have said, the things you have done, they all help. And we haven't even started yet. When you're ready you can answer questions. But don't worry about that now. Right now you need to continue your recovery. And that starts with me, making you feel good." She smiled. "But not right now," she said. "Not yet. Let's go see how Reesh and Vard are doing."

"Speaking of Reesh..." Roy said as they got up. "She's told me she's sixty-seven. I can hardly believe that."

Tami nodded. "Reesh, as I'm sure she's told you, is definitely not a natural. She's very much in favor of embracing everything that modern medical technology has to offer. Me... I'm not so sure. Of course some mods can bring one great sexual pleasure, but I myself very much enjoy the fact that whatever I feel and whatever you see is just me, and nothing else." She looked thoughtful. "I also don't agree with her that having as many children as possible is what we really need at this point in time. Right now our main problem is finding habitable regions on earth, before we boost our population."