CostLess Cosmos

"This will come out in the next few days. It's perfectly okay to say you did it for the money. Or, you wanted to have more baby Kevins toddling around. Or, your own reasons, whatever."

"Now, we are VERY aware that some of the pregnancies might not go to term, just as they might not on earth. Or, that some of the children may not survive due to radiation or some other factor. We go into this exercise aware the risks might be huge, but we're willing to go on anyway. There can be no negligence here - we all understand that we don't know things. We will learn from the process, while showering all our children in love."

"So that's about it. Thank you for coming, and thank you, my Husband, for 'Coming', and I hope to see you in a couple of months when we have some good money rolling in from finding all the Barzoom Princess's gold and gemstones."

"Love to you all. Be safe, Please!"

Ellen was amazing.

== ==

One of our comms rooms was known as the privacy closet'. It was a standalone port-a-potty shelter (though much larger, closer to bedroom sized) that we used for making private videos, usually for a spouse. The other comms rooms were on-base, but some sound leaked from those no matter what we did, sometimes the plastic was translucent, and privacy was sometimes Really Needed.

I had to tell Ellen what I really thought.

"HEY! Ellen! Wow, you knocked it out of the park, great job! I'm happy with all this. Since I couldn't coordinate, I'm presuming telling me like this had some legal reasoning. Still, Gotta say, dear! WOW, what a surprise on the 'seduce my husband' thing."

I wasn't kidding.

"So we went from, cope with this Catherine thing, to, 'please have noisy public sex with all the women on your big crew'. I'm exaggerating, of course, but it might just play out that way in public. I'm guessing that the noisy part is going to be realistic, because we're in bunk rooms and there's not really a lot of privacy outside of the clinic. So, yeah, noisy, and public, because, yeah, no privacy."

I sighed and leaned back in the chair. I was still absorbing the full impact of what this would mean. "I really didn't want the engineering crew of my expedition to be made into a harem story. I think it sells short the idea that women can be great engineers, that the only reason I brought them was the sex. I genuinely think... believe, really... that brains are handed out evenly between men and women and most of humanity is stuck in the dark ages."

"Many of the women on my crew are married, to other people, and I get that this puts them in a tough spot for those relationships. Thus some said no, I heard that. Still, I don't want to be hated by their spouses, and I'm going to commit to not commenting on what happens between these women and me, as far as I'm concerned publicly, my default position is that they are getting ejaculate in the amount that normally fills a condom. That way, it's implied but not stated what's going on."

"We just watched your presentation, so I haven't spoken to any of the women yet, and I think my default will be that I not comment on what has happened there, in any way, since I don't want to damage their professional reputations or their personal reputations. I have to say, though, that my sense of awe at having married a super-smart hottie is ever-increasing."

"When I get back, we can talk in depth about what's going on, and I hope maybe someday, when things are far more comfortable here, you can come back here with me and I can show you some of the amazing sights and landscapes and watch the way these people are doing work that shows the best that Mankind can do."

"I love you, Ellen, with all my heart. I already love my crew, as brothers and sisters, but I have a feeling I will be turning some of that love from Philios into Erios and it makes me nervous. I think I'll be very happy to return to Earth and live out my days in ever closer union with you. Be well, my darling, and I will send you another missive after I've spoken somewhat frankly with a few of our erstwhile surrogates. Toodles!"

I turned off the recorder, encrypted, and sent the video. What the hell was I supposed to do?

'Feel free to seduce my husband?'??!?!?!?

She didn't have to live with the implications of that, in my shoes. The lawyer was right. I was in a minefield. I hadn't moved yet, but the world was moving and shifting around me.

== ==

Dr. Jennifer Gristhold, Ph.D. Geochemistry (Yale), was a 26-year-old recent graduate with legs of steel and a face that was made for radio.

That is, (having read her bio I knew) she'd been out on field expeditions across many landscapes. The resultant lines and freckles across her face gave her a somewhat weathered look, but my only concern when hiring people was their smarts and experience and she had that in droves.

How much is in a drove?

Her bespeckled appearance went down her chest, I'd seen from the showers and close-quarters, but the rest of her body was toned, fit, and wowzers-in-my-trousers.

I'd never dated a redhead. I'd never really dated much anyway, so my experiences were limited to watching porn and what few glimpses I gathered from her and several others on the expedition who had red hair.

She had invited me to the 'privacy closet' shelter where we normally filmed videos, and given it was mostly private (surrounded by brickwork and piled over with bulldozed soil ten feet thick), we were in no danger of being interrupted.

I walked in and saw she'd carted over four 20-liter buckets of water right by the airlock door. Washrags hung over the side, and I knew what that meant.

We talked across the 50 square meter shelter. She was already naked, sitting cross-legged on the bunk bed on some University of Michigan-logo blankets some alum had decided to throw onboard.

Knowing where this was headed, I was feeling shy, but there's not much way to be shy when taking off our pressure suits.

She made small talk, asking about who was assigned for a 2-night long overnight scouting mission. I had no idea. "I have to stay out of personnel assignments temporarily so I'm not seen as playing favorites."

"Well, I'm glad I get to be your favorite tonight. If you didn't know."

"Know what??"

"Technically, and by the rumor mill also, this will be the first sexual intercourse on another planet."

I laughed, this was outragrously funny to me. "You mean Huggins and Dawson haven't??"

"Oral only. She swore on a bible. They both have been super-tired, EVA's all day, no showers, dust everywhere, caustic nasty, and even though she's married and her wife said okay 'cuz she's bi, well... the stigma might be a problem. Her wife's an Oklahoma state judge, and she's just barely getting elected despite being a lesbian because she's quiet about it."

"Ahhh.." I thought a moment, "And... not on the Moon?"

"Planet. Moon's not a planet."

"Ah."

"And, this is publicly known, what we're... about to do. It's purposefully not secret. I'm not married, no worries for me, and you're... well, you have a different set of rules, dictated by Ellen, who's..."

I filled in the blank, "A force of nature."

She laughed, "Exactly. I was thinking, 'Epic Daring Explorer-Woman'."

I was naked by this time and washing off. I'd already taken a more-or-less shower in the med tent, but I wanted to make extra sure nothing sticking to the inside of my suit got on the outside of me.

She watched me with some interest, I could see, and I looked over at her.

Her breasts were slightly dangling free as she leaned forwards onto her crossed-leg knees. I knew my interest in her body was increasingly obvious in a certain way that human males indicate such things.

"Jen, I don't know if I'm a great lover. I'm at least medium, I think. I'm attentive, or I try to be, so if you tell me what you like?"

"Ohh, you bet your ass I'm going to tell you."

We laughed.

I was clean, so I walked over to her on the bunk. She backed up and held out a hand to pull me down, so we both lay down on our sides facing each other. "Sir. Until you leave this shelter, everything we say to each other will be forever sealed, a secret between us. You can tell me anything, ask me anything, I'll do Anything for you, within reason. In return, I'd like your solemn word that you agree to the same terms?"

"I'm going to tell Ellen what we did, I have no secrets from her. I love her more than anything, except maybe Kermit. I'll get her to agree to the secrecy, though - we'll respect your privacy. Otherwise, I agree."

Jen's eyes looked sideways, confused, "Cool, but... What about the doc.?"

"Let's agree that if there's anything out of the ordinary, we talk about what it might be before we mention it to the doc. It might go into a report and then get shared."

"This is so odd. Reminds me of 7th grade, deciding whether I was going to kiss a boy at a party, and then negotiating with my best friend about what I would and wouldn't tell her about what happened later."

She was looking at my lips as she said that, and talking softer, so I leaned in and we kissed.

We did, in fact, establish that it's possible to make love in a one-third gravity environment.

Chapter: End of Section One

I'm dividing this memoir into sections, and I'll just hint about the following, since it's stuff you know already if you know any history at all.

Yes, we had many babies on Mars.

Yes, we made shit-tons of money from mining minerals there and bringing them back to Earth orbit.

Yes, I went back and made an Even Dozen babies with Ellen. Kermit's 11 siblings have made good lives for themselves and hopefully none will be called upon to build odd spaceships and pick up stray engineers in KostLess parking lots.

That said, I can think of no better event in my entire life than the moment I asked Ellen to go with me on that grocery run.

May all of you, my fine readers, have such great luck, too. Regardless of who you find, love them and work together to make (in the words of a Rabbi we knew once), "the best of all possible lives - ones filled with many noisy chaotic loving kids - and celebrate the Universe in all its myriad glories, reflected in their eyes."

The End (for now)