Ice Backs

"I promise all of you a better life on a new world!"

Abner's family rejoiced. To leave the overcrowded, dying earth for one of the new proposed colonies around a distant star. It seemed a dream too good to be true. Of, course, the journey would take centuries, but they would not age a day as they slumbered in cryogenic bliss and dreamed through the voyage.

Abner kissed his wife Ashley, so beautiful she still was! If one did not know better, an observer would never guess that she was forty-four, ten years younger than Abner. She had an enchanting trim figure and an angelic face under a cascade of red, almost scarlet curls. Abner knew he was blessed. He hugged his daughters, twenty-year-old Bernice and eighteen-year-old Felicia and considered how closely they resembled their mother. Both were radiant, scarlet-tressed beauties. The men of earth were unworthy of either of them. What could any man offer them in the face of a rapidly destabilizing environment, food shortages, and water wars? In another century, more likely, fifty years or less would not the world revert to barbarism. No, that was no future for his children and grandchildren!

**

"Yes Mr. Davis, you must remove everything, including your jewelry. Your valuables will be placed in ship's storage, and you can reclaim them when we reach your destination in five hundred years."

"My wife and daughters?"

"Already slumbering in the women's wing. Now you will feel a tiny pinprick..."

**

"Up at at 'em ice back!"

The words took a while to penetrate Abner's consciousness. It hardly seemed as though he had closed his eyes. Someone was violently shaking him.

"We haven't all day, old man!"

The words formed in Abner's mouth, "Are we there?"

Raucous laughter was the only response.

**

"Things have changed since you all started or your journey," stated the officious looking gentleman in strange garb as his image was projected to all parts of the sleeper ship. "Shortly after you left earth, hyper drive was discovered. An act that put much of the Milky Way Galaxy within easy reach. Earthmen fled the dying earth hinder and yon through all parts of the cosmos. Earth, dried up and dying, was left behind, a fond memory for some, but a bad memory to most. In the subsequent settlement of new planets and the development of old ones, the fleet of sleeper ships was forgotten. Once these ships were remembered, the pressing question became, "what to do about you?"

Abner's body was still stiff from his long slumber, but his mind was making sense of things.

You are all centuries out of time with the rest of the universe. You have no skillsets of any use to us, and we certainly don't need your intellects. In short, you ice backs are an unwanted burden. But new worlds have new rules. Your ship and all its contents were purchased by Shing-Ya salvaging. We will find a place for you. We will assign you jobs that are within your limited capabilities, get you settled and put you to useful purposes. Fortunately, there are some jobs, that technology has not nor ever will supersede, such as courtesans and trash haulers. In a short while we will be landing on Altair IV and your processing will begin. Welcome to the Shing-Ya family folks!"

**

"What does it all mean, dad?" asked Bernice as they stood within the fenced-off landing zone. Every member of the Davis family gawked at the skyline of New Brooklyn. It was a shimmering city of crystal and steel, with green spaces, majestic buildings, and neat rows of single-family homes. Neither earth nor old Brooklyn had looked anything like this for a very long time. To say it was an attractive city was only to state the obvious. This was the Ur city, the abode of man philosophers and geographers had been shooting for since man's exile from Eden.

"Ice backs! Ice backs, go home!" was a chant arising from a mixed group of men and women. Some carried protest signs bearing the same phrase and others that were equally uncomplimentary Eden still had snakes contemplated Abner, but are they the snakes or are we the snakes? The fact that the notion put him at sea, confounded Abner who was used to putting all aspects of life in little checked boxes.

"We don't need you, dumb shits here! Ice backs! What are they good for? Nothing!" The crowd seemed united and paradoxically in the face of such spewed vitriol, amiable!

The Davis family felt phenomenally self-conscious in their centuries-old clothing as they spied the unusual, brief, and flashy attire of the passing citizenry and the closer guards.

"I don't know, Bernice, but just look at that beautiful city. There MUST be a place for us there."

"I wish I shared your enthusiasm, Honey," stated Ashley, "They are clearly hostile, and not a welcoming committee."

"We've been out of the loop for over three centuries," opined Felicia, "We know nothing of current events or technology. We're time travelers."

"That talk of courtesans. They were kidding, right?" put in Bernice.

"I certainly hope so," said Ashley

"We don't know anything yet," put in Abner, "But remember the early immigrants to New York? They came from all sorts of political and cultural backwaters but nearly all of them succeeded in finding a place at the table."

"This isn't New York, darling," stated Ashley flatly. "How do we know that humanity itself has progressed with its technology? A great deal can happen in three, almost five centuries."

"We just have to have faith," stated Abner with as much conviction as he could muster.

**

Abner found himself before a young female doctor.

"Strip ice back and into the analyzer."

"My name is Abner Bozeman Davis."

"Do I look like I give a shit? As if my regular duties aren't enough, the company steals even more of my time for the likes of you. Now get into the analyzer!"

The device closed about Abner, leaving him in total darkness. There were bright lights, various noises, what felt like needle pricks and probing of his every orifice. After a few moments the device opened like a clamshell and a dazed Abner walked out.

"Your old but healthy enough," shouted the doctor as he tossed a robe at Abner. "Move or to the next room, follow the line painted or the floor."

"My clothes?"

"Confiscated! Now get moving!"

In the next room Abner was instructed to sit at a desk opposite a severe-looking man. As he sat, some sort of transparent screen appeared between them, and the man began peppering Abner with all sorts of questions. Complicated math problems appeared on the transparent screen as well as images of faces and objects, most of which were unfamiliar to Abner. At last, the screen vanished, and the severe looking man stated, "If a sleeper ship ever contained anyone above a middling intellect, I've yet to see it. Proceed to the next room."

The next room turned out to be a waiting room. Men filed in behind him and women filed in the opposing door. After a long interval, Ashley, Felicia, and Bernice strode in, clad in just very short robes, shorter even than Abner's. It occurred to him that he had not seen so much of his daughters since they were small girls. There was no question that they were women now.

After a long interval, while the family stood in a daze, they heard, "Davis family, exit through the blue door.

Through this door, the family encountered a youngish Asian man behind an opulent desk.

"Mr. and Mrs. Davis, young women, have a seat." He pushed a button on the desk and four chairs materialized out of the floor. The women and Abner had to sit very carefully to prevent exposure.

"I am Kingston Woo, I'll be your resettlement director."

Abner sighed with relief. Things would happen now of that, he was sure.

Shing-Ya salvaging is an arm of the Greater Shing-Ya corporation. Altair IV is a wholly owned subsidiary of Greater Shing-Ya. In practice as well as legally, you are now owned by Greater Shing-Ya."

"Now see here!" began Abner.

"You are here as a courtesy, Mr. Davis. I advise you to listen carefully.

Abner quieted down.

"You are already familiar with the unfortunate term, "Ice back?" I cannot say that the company condones it, but the public will not stop using it. The prerogative has been applied to people like yourselves, those who have spent centuries in the ice and silence of the army of sleeper ships that fled earth at its moment of crisis. If not for the serendipitous discovery of hyper-drive, you would have left all of earth to die. As it was, the resources needed to produce new ships was almost non-existent because so much material was used to build the ships that carried people such as yourselves. There was much disorder until resources could be mustered to provide the first wave of colonization and return to earth the materials necessary for the rest of the population to flee. Companies like Shing-Ya Consolidated were at the forefront of this movement. While all of you were blissfully sleeping, the galaxy evolved around you. There are now millions of settled worlds.

A great resentment has settled in against all of you sleepers. You are centuries out of your time, generations behind the rest of us. It is doubtful that any of you could find work in our traditional industries. Robots make and service most things, we need programmers, physicists, medical professionals, astrogators, hyper-drive probability engine coders and a host of other fields you could not hope to comprehend. In short, sleepers provide nothing to our society and culture yet use up resources, just as it was when you began your journey. Even the most gifted intellectually of all you sleeping passengers would find no place at our table. Your writers? Your philosophers? Your artists? None of them can hold a candle to our least gifted hologram writer."

"Where does that leave us?" asked Abner.

"At the bottom. Greater Shing-Ya however thinks that you can be put to productive work. We have not written you off as so many other corporations have.

"What sort of work?" asked Ashley warily.

"Work that requires little intellect but is always desired."

"Such as?" asked Abner impatiently.

"After assessing all of your talents and physical attributes we are prepared to house you at the Morning Star Casino near the spaceport. For you Mr. Davis, we have selected the job of robot liaison. For you ladies, waitressing and intimate hosting duties."

"Intimate hosting duties?" repeated Ashley

The casino is a gathering place for space pilots, tourists, gamblers, folks with lots of money to spend on rest, recreation, and reinvigoration."

"I don't like the sound as to the direction of this conversation," injected Bernice.

"Young lady, let me put it this way. This is your only option. If you reject this offer, you will simply be fed into a converter so that your organs can be harvested and cloned. Or many settled worlds, ice backs are not even given the dignity of being roused and are simply harvested while still asleep. Some argue that genetic material is the only asset ice backs possess.

"I resent that sentiment!" spat Abner.

"Mr. Davis, you should be grateful that you were even revived!"

"Does "intimate hosting duties mean" what I think it does?" asked Ashley.

"I'm sure it does. You are quite attractive Mrs. Davis, as are your daughters. The profession is quite respected today and talented practitioners can make quite a bit of money. A four-day work week, excellent benefits, wonderful pension plan. Demand for ice back professionals in that area is actually quite high."

"I didn't raise my daughters to be whores, and Ashley is MY wife not some drunken lathario's plaything. I promised my family a better life on a new world, and by God, that is what they will get!"

"What did you expect, Mr. Davis?" asked Kingston Woo as he leaned forward in his chair. "A new community of like-minded individuals carving out a new frontier like the old American west?"

Abner nodded slightly.

"Yes, I'm not surprised. The sleeper ships contained disproportionally Caucasian and relatively well-off populations. Folks who wanted to flee the "riff-raff" and "undesirables" of earth. Your selfish action in taking the coward's way out practically wrecked the entire earth economy. If not for the fortuitous discovery of hyper drive, folks like me would have perished and earth with it. You left in your lifeboats and said "Fuck you, suckers" to those going down with the ship. Can you understand why that would cause resentment in those you left behind? Times on earth were perilous before hyper drive was discovered. Mass starvation, global pandemics; man was on the edge of extinction. Through a quirk of fate, the rabble has preceded you to this and all the other planets. Your vision of a white paradise with a token few minorities included to demonstrate your magnanimity and open-mindedness fooled no one."

"I haven't a racist bone in my body!" protested Abner.

"Spare me grandpa! You will do as ordered. Shing-Na is serious about harvesting your organs if you are recalcitrant."

"That's murder!"

"Hardly, all of you have essentially been dead for five centuries. The universe hasn't missed you in all that time, what makes you think that it will be cognizant of you now?"

Sufficiently cowed, Abner broke his stare at Mr. Woo.

"Now that I think we understand each other, I will escort you to the re-education facility."

"Will we get clothing there?" asked Felicia, "This robe is really humiliating."

"Yes, you will, young lady. You will also get a fresh perspective on many things."

**

Abner did not like the uniforms his daughters and wife were issued, short black skirts and navel baring clingy white blouses. His own uniform was more to his liking, trousers, a white satin shirt with a green waistcoat. The girls were housed across the hall, while he and Ashley shared a small apartment. For now, everyone was going to classes, trying to fill in the gaps from five centuries of somnolence. There was so much to learn. The emphasis was on the all-powerful Shang-Na Corporation which essentially ran this and a host of other planets. Having its origins in Communist China, it ran things with a strong capitalist flair with patrician overtones. Despite chafing at the fascistic nature of the government. Abner could hardly argue with the results. A tour of the city had revealed a spotless, neatly organized metropolis with no slums, no homeless citizens, and no graffiti. The citizens were uniformly fit and trim. If anything, it was almost too pristine. And that casino!

This surely was not the future he had promised his family. But what had he actually expected? Was this better than the vision of ancient pioneers he had imagined? They were all together, healthy, and safe. The Davis family was certainly not the first one to find itself overcome by historical events.

"A penny for your thoughts, Darling."

"Oh, Ashley dear, I was just musing."

"That's all you've done since we arrived."

"I can't help it."

"You were as good as your word, darling. You promised a new life on a new world, and you delivered."

"True... but."

Ashley brushed back her glorious hair. The light glinted off the huge diamond on her fancy new wedding ring. Its presence reminded Abner of why his wife had been presented it.

"Though no one, other than the weirdly old-fashioned wear wedding rings today, they carry a certain cachet among revived sleepers. They serve as visible reminders of the past and that woman wearing it is from that era. An impressive, over-sized diamond catches the eye of our clientele and makes them aware of past traditions such a marriage and illicit sex with a wayward wife. It really fuels the libidos of our clients, and they spend accordingly." the words still stung Abner deeply.

"I really wish you wouldn't wear that thing."

"Why not? It is beautiful. We never could have afforded this in our old lives."

"But, honey, the reason they gave it to you..."

"My bond is with you and no one else."

"Darling!"

Ashley embraced her husband and planted a sensual kiss upon his lips. "We haven't made love since we've been revived. We should rectify that, Abner."

"But when our month of instruction are over."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"You and the girls. I don't like it."

"Do you think I do? It's better than being dead!"

"I wonder."

"We haven't come all this way, husband, crossed all those light years just to have our organs harvested."

"But."

"You heard the company benefits office speech, a decade of work for us, two for the girls, and we are eligible for pensions and life in a community of fellow revived sleepers! The girls will still be young enough to marry and start families. We can be doting grandparents, living the best lives we ever have!"

"And all of you will be sullied."

"Stop the Grumpy Gus act. No man can take away from me, from us, what we have. You can't let this tear you apart, darling."

"My God! You are actually looking forward to it!"

"I am not. Neither are the girls. We are simply making the best of what fate has delt us."

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so confused, angry, frustrated, I'm all knotted up inside."

"It's called being a husband and father. Your emotional state is universal. You'd be feeling the same way if everything had gone as you planned."

"But Hon--"

"Shush!" she placed a finger on his lips. "Let's use that ever so comfortable bed for something other than sleeping."

Ashley led him towards the bed as she opened her top, revealing her very fine breasts. Her porcelain skin was flawless save for a light dusting of freckles across her shoulders and chest. The sexy short skirt traveled the length of his wife's phenomenal legs, revealing her neatly trimmed crimson feminine triangle. She had that look in her green cat-like eyes, that look that said so much. That look of passion and devilment. He fell into her arms and they both toppled into bed. Later, they shared a sweet, mirthful laugh, after half a millennium of inactivity, everything still worked perfectly!

**

Ashley, Bernice, Felicia, and about three dozen other revived women stood in their scanty casino trainee uniforms as a middle-aged woman gave them instruction.

"Now, ladies, today we are going to learn the fine points of being a courtesan. I'm familiar with all your sexual histories. Those of you who are more experienced please give the less experienced tips and advice. When not serving drinks and chatting up patrons, you will be expected to conduct them to the pleasure rooms. Now, I have gone over pricing. Today we are going to learn the basics negotiation and performance. Today we shall learn all the ins and out of fellatio with male volunteers."

A door opened and a group of naked and very fit men entered the room. Most of them were already aroused.

"Gosh!" gasped Bernice.

"I got your back, sis," responded Felicia.

"Mom? Have you done this before?"

"Yes, child. It's actually quite fun once you get used to it."

"Billy and I only engaged in heavy petting and felt each other up under our clothes."

"We're not on earth anymore, sweetie." said Ashley plainly.

A handsome, brown-skinned man focused on Bernice.

"Golly!" said the ancient eighteen-year-old as she assessed the naked male physique standing before her. She had seen pictures and videos of naked men of all kinds, but never had she encountered one in the flesh. This particular man struck her as an exemplary model of his gender with firm muscles, broad hairless chest, wide shoulders, coils of dark wooly hair, and a truly stunning smile. His manhood, looming from a nest of dark curls was, at least to Felicia's eyes, neither too big nor too small, neither was it too wide. Her fear and embarrassment rapidly faded to a mood of curiosity and awe.

"Now girls," said the instructor, "as we saw in the instructional video."