Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 02

"Well," She fiddled with her hair. "I have a sort of ritual that I used to perform and I wanted to do it again with you here. But we don't have to. I'm just being silly,"

"Danielle, I'd like to know the ritual."

"Then you shall. You know how secretive Ezra was about his destination this time? Well, he never usually told anyone his plans until his mission had begun. Instead, he would leave the co-ordinates in a letter for me, telling me to wait a month before opening it."

"I would wait, but you won't believe how impatient I was. When 'the day' arrived, I'd get up early and tear open the letter. Then I'd shout the destination to Mum and Dad as I ran to school to search for the co-ordinates on the star-map in the library before lessons."

"Later, Dad bought me a three-dimensional star-projector. I'd set it up, lie on the floor and trace Ezra's trajectory on the ceiling."

Twelve years younger than Ezra, even as a woman of twenty-eight, Danielle still idolized her brother, whose exciting adventures were the delight of her teenage years. Danielle did not tell Roger how much she would fear for Ezra's safety nor how much joy she felt when he returned unharmed. She did however confess that her secret desire had always been one day to go with Ezra.

Tomboyish but pretty as a girl, Danielle grew out of her pigtails and dungarees to discover the joys of make-up, parties and boys. Her dreams of jumping through hyperspace, seeking dangerous planets to tame, likewise evolved into a more reliable career as an astrophysicist studying hyperspace pathways.

She still adored her older brother, of course, but for the three trips he had made since she turned twenty, Danielle had not performed the ritual of tracing his trajectory with the star-projector. Either she had been busy at university, or occupied with a boyfriend, or something else had come up and there was no longer the same frission of excitement. This time, however, something in Ezra's manner persuaded her it was his most significant adventure yet. It seemed appropriate to resurrect the old ritual; and to bring her boyfriend of a few months into the procedure.

Danielle had matured into a beautiful woman. At five feet nine inches, she was an inch below the average for a Caucasian woman of the Anglosphere but she was curvy at a time that (to the immense gratitude of all red-blooded men) curves had at last come back into fashion. Her only concession to artifice in a world of undetectable plastic surgery and rejuvenation treatments was to replace her boring straight light-brown hair with exciting wavy platinum blonde hair. In fact, blonde hair suited her large dark-blue eyes and added lustre to her captivating smile, which revealed perfect teeth in a wide mouth.

It was the fifth week after Ezra had kissed his family goodbye and left for Capella. Danielle had waited another week for Roger to return from a trip home to America. Roger was a tall, thin, polite and witty Bostonian. A historian, he liked nothing better than fossicking about in dusty libraries and crumbling castles. Studying in England suited him perfectly and a Cambridge fellowship seemed a likely prospect. It's hard to explain why Danielle also suited him perfectly; nor why Roger suited her, but they made an interesting combination. A thoughtful intellectual, Roger could admire Danielle for her brains not only for her desirable figure and buoyant breasts.

Though there were deep leather armchairs and a long settee to sit on, the young couple lay on the thick-piled rug in front of simulated wood microwave fire. Danielle poured some wine, they clinked glasses and drank to Ezra's good fortune, then she opened her letter and exclaimed. There were no co-ordinates but just one word: "Samothea".

"Cornwall?" asked Roger, putting his glass down.

"Cornwall!" she repeated, turning to look at him, "What do you mean, Cornwall?"

"I mean Samothea is an old name for Cornwall. Why has Ezra spent all his money trying to rediscover Cornwall?"

"Idiot! Trust me to fall for a historian who knows nothing about the contemporary world."

"Fallen, have you?" he asked, pulling her toward him for a kiss.

"Only morally."

She held the kiss for a minute, then pushed him away.

"Now hands off me while I call my parents. You can look up Samothea on the computer." Roger obeyed, sitting down on the couch and picking up a hand-screen.

Danielle put on her robe, sat next to Roger and called down the large viewing screen. She told the house computer to place a video-call to Mr. and Mrs. Goldrick who were presently in Perth, Australia.

Mariotta Goldrick sat in front of the make-up mirror in her bedroom. A society beauty in her youth, thanks to two rejuvenation treatments, she was still a ravishing woman. At age 70, she looked 40. When she accepted the call and switched her dressing-table mirror to a viewing screen, Mariotta was stark naked, proudly displaying to Danielle and Roger two of the most glorious breasts in the galaxy.

"Hi, Honey!" Mariotta said, waving gaily. "Hi Roger!"

"Mother! Why the hell are you naked? Put some clothes on at once!"

Danielle switched off the video signal. Mariotta's screen went blank.

"Oops, sorry! I didn't think Roger would mind."

Roger looked down at his screen and tried not to drool.

"Roger doesn't mind at all, Mother; I do," Danielle insisted through clenched teeth. "Really, Mum, you do the damnedest things sometimes. Are you decent yet?"

"Quite decent, Dear." She had flung a dressing gown over her shoulders. "You can turn the picture thingy back on."

Danielle did so.

"So have you two love-birds been making me a grandchild?"

"Mother, can you be any more embarrassing?"

"Now don't be prudish, Dear. You know that I can't rely on Ezra giving me grandchildren, jetting off alone as he does to distant regions. How many children is Ezra likely to sire on his latest adventure?"

"About that, Mum," Danielle quickly interjected, seizing her opportunity, "he's gone to Samothea."

"Who has, Dear?"

"Ezra, of course."

"Really, Darling? That explains why he wanted to borrow so much money from us."

"Aren't you at all worried? You know how unsafe it must be to prospect Samothea; how far away it is; how no one has ever returned?"

"Now, Sweetie, there's no need to worry. Ezra knows what he's about."

And that was that. Danielle could get no more solicitude for Ezra from her mother who, for all her scatty conversation, was a sanguine woman, not given to exaggerated fears.

"Give my love to Dad, please," Danielle said resignedly. "I'll bring Roger to see you in a fortnight. Love you."

"Love you too, Dear. Now make me some babies!"

"Mother!" Danielle's final protest was half-hearted. She told the computer to end the call.

"You don't mind my mother, do you?" she asked Roger.

"Of course not, Darling. She's got presence. I like her. Now, how about your ritual?"

"Very well." She kissed him. "Here goes."

Danielle fetched some cushions, shut off the remaining lights and called up the projector, which immediately showed an image of the galaxy on the ceiling. They lay down on the rug again to enjoy the view, resting their heads on the cushions.

"Computer, start at Earth," Danielle ordered, and the galaxy wheeled a few degrees, turned sideways and flew toward them, stopping on the outer edge of one of the spiral arms, where a small blue and white planet circled a yellow sun. The constellations were familiar.

"Now find Capella space-station."

The stars shifted a few inches and the focus zoomed in on the constellation Auriga before settling on a system of four stars, a large bright yellow pair and a small dull red pair. A blue circle indicated where the space-station was, in interstellar space two light-years from the Capella system.

"Now, computer, take us to Samothea in, er, ten hyperspace jumps."

The inner rim of the spiral arm hurtled toward them. The scene faded and shimmered, then the stars rushed at them again. This happened nine more times. There were more stars when they passed through the middle of the spiral arm and fewer stars again when they approached the locality of Samothea. The star-projector stopped at a cluster of about forty stars, with a small yellow one in the middle.

"That is Samothea's sun," Danielle announced.

"Why has the projector stopped zooming in? Can't we see Samothea itself?"

"Unfortunately, there is no up-to-date map of the Samothean system. We are about thirty light-years away. That blue ring indicates where the planet should be."

"When you told me the star-projector updates in real time, I assumed the map would project the galaxy as it is today."

"How can it, Roger? Samothea is two-thousand light-years away, so a telescope on Earth (assuming we had a clear view) would see Samothea two-thousand years ago. The reason the map is more up-to-date than that is because we send sensor probes out through hyperspace to take readings, then they jump back to transmit the results. It looks like the nearest a recent sensor probe has been to Samothea and successfully come back is thirty light-years."

"So how old is the data we are viewing now?"

Danielle told the computer to reveal the data sources.

"About seventy years, so we are looking at Samothea itself about 100 years ago, about 20 years after it was first prospected. I guess this image came from a probe sent to find out what happened to the original colonizing mission. It must have travelled by incremental jumps there and back and though it was still working thirty light-years away, it got lost or damaged when it jumped closer."

"I see: that means the map won't ever be more accurate unless we send a new probe," Roger said.

"Well, not exactly. Suppose the probe jumped to just ten light years from Samothea and then tried to jump back but missed its target and transmitted to Earth from, say, 70 light years away. A more recent image, from 90 years ago, will be getting here just about now."

"Is that likely?"

"Well, it's not unlikely when hyperspace pathways are upset by cosmic events."

"Such as?"

"Such as a supernova or stars colliding. Also, navi-comms systems can be fried by x-rays from a black hole swallowing a star."

"Might something like that have happened near the Samothean solar-system? Is Ezra at real risk? Do you think Mariotta should be more worried about him?"

"No, she's probably right. Ezra would have researched the dangers thoroughly and will proceed with caution. He never takes anything but calculated risks."

"And you don't regret not becoming a prospector and going with him?"

"No. ... Well, ... sometimes I do. But I find my work interesting and difficult, so it's really worthwhile. If I can find safe and fast hyperspace pathways across the galaxy, it opens up entire worlds for colonizing or resources to exploit. It benefits mankind like nothing before in history!"

Danielle was wonderfully animated when talking to Roger about her work. She had sat up to explain but now settled down again on her back and he leaned over her to admire her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

"Well, I hope Ezra gets back safely. His sister is very dear to me."

"I'm sure he will - and though I am not quite sure if we should be making babies just for my mother's sake, I don't mind keeping in practise, in case we should want to start."

"Hmm!" Roger replied, "That's an invitation I cannot resist."

As they made love under the stars, the star-map did update itself. A small white star about five light-years from Samothea blinked a few times and then went out, leaving a misty halo that was illuminated by occasional flashes of light. If they had been watching closely, they would have seen the halo expand quickly from the spot where the star had been and gradually grow dark as it expanded.

***********

Ezra woke startled because of a strange weight on his chest. He tried to shake it off, moving his bad left arm and cried out in pain. Tamar and Wildchild, who had been using Ezra as a pillow, jumped up.

"What is it Ezra?" Tamar asked.

"Nothing. Sorry. I forgot where I was. Sorry I woke you two. ... Is it too early to get up?"

Wildchild opened the tent flap and looked out. The sunrise was a yellow halo above the forest. She grunted to Tamar.

"Wildchild says we should get going. Can we help you up?"

"Thanks" Ezra said and struggled, with the girls' help, out of the tent and onto his feet.

The ground was damp and the air was cool as they continued their trek to the forest, chewing more dried meat for breakfast. Mist clung to the ground and clouded a small valley, whose stream they waded across. When Wildchild stopped to delve on the stream-bed for pebbles, Ezra also stopped. He had glimpsed the blue-green flash of a kingfisher darting from bank to bank further upstream. It was the first bird he had seen on Samothea.

"Did you see the kingfisher?" he asked.

"Yes. She's beautiful, isn't she?" Tamar answered.

"Are there many birds?"

"Lots in the forest, few on the plain and none by the sea. Is it the same on Earth?"

"No. On Earth, there are birds everywhere, even in the cities. Some live out at sea and rarely come to land. Also some people keep birds as pets."

"I'd like to see an Earth city. Are they bigger than the Cloner City?"

"How many people live in the Cloner City?"

"I don't know. Maybe forty." It was the largest concentration of people Tamar could imagine.

"Then, yes, Earth cities are much bigger."

The land began to rise out of the grassy plain to the forest through scrubland, low bushes and the occasional lone tree. Even before they left the plain there were meadow flowers, which attracted legions of humming bees, and stands of marsh mallow, fennel and sunflower. The girls plucked leaves and seeds. Some they shared with Ezra and chewed as they walked; others they stashed away in a leather bag.

It was a long time since they had seen any tracks of horse or cattle, so the girls were less wary about being seen but would stand on hillocks and take a good look around to see if there were any plants worth foraging. Occasionally Wildchild would give a whoop and run down from her vantage point to dig out a tuber, bringing it back to Tamar and Ezra with a wide grin.

Happy as he was for food, Ezra more strongly welcomed Wildchild's next offering. Passing by a small thin tree, one of the forest outliers, he asked to borrow her knife. She refused but, understanding well, hacked small new branches off and fashioned them a splint which she tied together with a creeping vine and hung around his neck to support his arm. He thanked her with a kiss on the forehead that made Wildchild look at him with new eyes.

Even though he was exhausted, especially since the walking got harder as the land rose, yet there were things Ezra sorely wanted to know.

"Tamar, please tell me about the tribes."

"Well, the Herders live in the plain," she said. "They ride horses and keep cattle. I can ride but I never had my own horse. You have to be adult for that. They also pasture sheep on the Southern Mountains. There are twenty-four Herders."

"The Woodlanders live in the forest and eat mushrooms and berries. They are kindly folk and good at medicine. I don't know how many there are because they don't come to the trading place."

"The Mariners live by the sea and have lots of fish. I like fish but I like beef better. I think there are about twenty Mariners. They can all swim. I can't swim, nor can Wildchild, but we've been in the sea many times, just to splash."

"The Cloners and the Herders like each other because cattle and sheep don't breed themselves, so the Herders take stuff they trade to the Cloner City and bring back new cows, sheep and horses. Some Cloners are Farmers who grow fruit and corn. They are very rich."

"And the Miners live in the White Mountains to the East, where we are going."

"You said you were a Miner," Ezra said, "but you lived with the Herders. What happened?"

"I've only known I am a Miner for two weeks, though it was a few years ago that I realised I wasn't a Herder."

"How did you realise you weren't a Herder?"

Tamar looked quizzically at Ezra, her large brown eyes wider than usual.

"Of course!" he ejaculated. "You're all clones! There was no Herder woman who looked like you."

Tamar nodded.

"But might not your mother have, er, died?" he asked softly.

"I considered that, so I asked Wildchild. She told me none but very old Herders had died since she has known me. Then I asked some more people and I found out the story."

"Tell me," Ezra said.

"Well, some Herders once rode to the White Mountains checking a rumour about wild cattle. At the White Mountains, they met some Miners, got into an argument and snatched me from my mother. I was a baby and don't remember it at all."

"Why would someone snatch you just because of a fight?"

"All grown women want babies, Ezra. It's almost all they think about. It makes them do strange things when they can't have one."

"I didn't know that, Tamar. Things are very different on Earth. There, churches spend lots of money encouraging women to have children."

"What's a church?"

"A religious institution." Both girls looked blank. "I'll explain later. Tell me how you and Wildchild ran away from the Herders."

Wildchild had remained silent all this time but gave a warning hiss to Tamar. "Ezra is our friend now," Tamar replied.

If Wildchild was not mollified, yet she made no further objection.

"We did a clever thing. The tribe visits the pastures on the Southern Mountains for a month at a time, so Wildchild and I collected provisions for the journey and made our escape in the first week. We left in the middle of the night, during the rain, and headed South, over the mountain."

"They probably thought we ran East into the forest because horses could not easily follow us there but we hid in caves on the South side of the mountain and then headed West to the ocean. Then we walked North along the beach in the shadow of the cliff where we can't be seen from the plain."

"That was until the cliff disappeared, but we were five days away by then. And the next day we saw you, lying in the sea."

"You girls are remarkable." Ezra was genuinely impressed with their cunning and fortitude.

"So how long do you think it will take to get to the White Mountains?"

"I don't know because we are going the long way through the forest, but there is plenty of foraging, so it doesn't matter."

Ezra admired the skinny but plucky girl even more. Her cheerful optimism rubbed off on him, who had been feeling exhausted walking a mere twenty miles or so from the beach. Now he needed to think about what Tamar had told him and asked no more questions until they stopped to rest for lunch.

They entered the forest in mid-afternoon and immediately felt the benefit of the shade. The air was more humid and not much cooler, but it was a relief to be out of the direct sun. Wildchild and Tamar could forage even more successfully here and neither kept to the path for long if there was a bush or tree to pluck of its fruit and berries. Ezra was required to pick the higher fruits to save the girls climbing and soon their bags were bulging and heavy with provisions.

About a mile into the forest, they came upon a track that seemed to be made by people. It ran North-South and, if they chose the right direction, might lead them to the Woodlander camp. Wildchild studied foot-marks in the damp Earth and the direction of broken leaves of ferns and trampled flowers. She showed the evidence to Tamar and finally decided that North was the better direction.

Even before reaching the Woodlander Camp, the travellers were alerted to the presence of other people in the forest. Since entering the woods, they had heard the 'coo-coo-kuk' of pigeons high in the forest canopy. Wildchild had taken a sling-shot out of her bag and grabbed a handful of the pebbles she collected from the stream, but the birds were always too high to waste her efforts on. Now something made a flock wheel about and settle in an open space just ahead of the three of them. Tamar and Wildchild kept low and ran silently forward, trying not to startle the birds, but there was a commotion in the flock and the birds began to scatter toward nearby branches.