Into the Unknowable Ch. 02

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Vashti appears in the Sahara Desert.
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Part 2 of the 22 part series

Updated 10/08/2022
Created 02/20/2014
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The Sahara Desert - 3723 C.E.

The hazy spectre of a camel caravan could be glimpsed far in the distance through the haze that shimmered in the intense heat. The sparse vegetation on the gravel and sand was scrubby and succulent. There were few places on Earth as remote as this.

And that, of course, was what attracted Vikram, Rao, Sandhya and Dorothy to this region of the planet. It wasn't the first time that Vikram and Sandhya had visited a desert: that was pretty much all there was on the Solar System's satellites and most particularly Triton, the most popular tourist spot in Neptune's orbit. However, neither Rao nor Dorothy had seen a desert before and so it was an attractive destination for the two pairs of newlyweds.

The two couples wouldn't describe their visit to planet Earth as mere tourism, of course. They would claim that their voyage so far from family and friends in the outer reaches of the planetary Solar System was the opportunity to honour the sacred sites and monuments of their faith. Although most such sites were in India, and most particularly in the subcontinent's south, any place naturally conducive to spiritual contemplation was a spiritual home for a Hindu. And so, for forty days and nights, accompanied by only their mobile home and all its luxuries, they were holidaying in the parched desert somewhere to the east of Timbuktu.

Few other tourists chose to venture out under the vast open skies of the Sahara Desert, especially on foot and unprotected, but the two couples wished to experience the true isolation of the Earth's greatest desert. If the honeymooning couples were to see a Tuareg cross the desert on the back of the camel, it was unlikely that he or she was any more African by birth than they were. Few of the actual natives ever cared to wander far from the pleasantly air-conditioned astrodomes that sheltered the desert communities with all the paraphernalia of thirty-eighth century life. The only kind of person likely to wander so far afield, particularly on such an unreliable and uncomfortable form of transport as a camel, would be a tourist. There was a high chance that such a tourist might be a Tuareg who'd traversed the immensity of interplanetary space to visit the ancestral home. More Tuareg now lived in Neptune orbit, most particularly in the Adrar n Fughas colony, than had ever lived at any one time in the Sahara Desert.

Nevertheless, even well away from the Timbuktu astrodome and their air-conditioned caravan, the two young couples were still relatively cool and refreshed courtesy of the loose but fully engineered smart fabrics that enveloped them from head to toe. Only their faces and hands were visible. In their home colony of Sadhu, of course, none of them would dream of concealing their bodies in such a way. The lingam and yoni were sacred and it was spiritually impure to hide them. Rao and Vikram were especially proud of their lingam, which were as well enhanced as that of any of their compatriots. Dorothy's and Sandhya's yoni were also enhanced but in a very different way. When they weren't out in the harsh open air, the four lovers would remove all covering from the sacred groins and indeed from anywhere else.

So varied was the Hindu religion, now spread over the vast extent of the Solar System, that most other adherents, even those who recognised Vishnu's precedence in the holy pantheon, had very different notions to those of the Sadhu colonists regarding the most appropriate way to dress. When in India, even in Varanasi or the sacred temples, the four tourists had become accustomed to covering the sacred lingam and yoni: however odd and uncomfortable it might seem to be. But it would be foolish to be unclothed in the desert, even though they were less than five kilometres from their mobile home.

The couples were searching for a place to shelter in the open plain where they could rest and share a spicy meal with chapattis and rice that their accompanying serving robot was carrying for them. The desert wasn't the best place to find a tree or an overhanging rock and they were increasingly resigned to the prospect of having to shelter under a parasol on the cushions that another robot was carrying.

It was Rao who first saw the curious orange cloud that shimmered and swirled only a hundred metres ahead of where the couples were walking. It could have been anything. A dust storm. A swarm of insects. Even a mirage. It had no discernable shape and behaved with no apparent purpose. If it had been blown up by the wind, this would have been strange enough. It was a very still day and the meteorological reports gave no indication that anything other than the mildest breeze could be expected. This cloud had a similar ethereal glow to that of domestic nanobots before they settled down to their household chores.

Dorothy had her own opinions of what they were watching as the honeymooners stood transfixed by the sight. "I'm sure it's an Apparition," she said, referring to the strange phenomena that had been regularly reported on the news in recent months.

"It looks too amorphous somehow to be an apparition," remarked Vikram. "Aren't they supposed to be a lot more visually stimulating than just a swirl of orange dust?"

"The gods move in mysterious ways," remarked Dorothy, who was the most devout Hindu in the company and saw evidence of divine intervention in everything. She was of the opinion that the Apparitions were partial reincarnations that hadn't yet reached a stable state of repose.

"They might do," commented her husband, who despite his faith tended to the opinion that natural events had natural causes. "But all we can see is a cloud of luminescent particles. It could be anything. It might be nothing more than radioactive dust left over from the nuclear wars of the twenty-third century."

"Or even from the twenty-ninth," remarked Sandhya, who was so sceptical of supernatural events that she might as well have been a Buddhist.

The cloud of particles then behaved in a way that was very unusual for a swirl of sand or even radioactive dust. They suddenly consolidated as one and blew at speed towards the four tourists. The particles swarmed around the two couples for less than ten seconds but it was more than long enough to be truly alarming. Some dust even seeped through the tourists' cloaks under which they wore no underwear. While the four men and women brushed and flicked away at the swarm, hoping that there'd be no stings or burns, the two robots who accompanied them stood curiously impassive and made no attempt to intervene.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, the swarm of particles swished away leaving no trace of their presence on the tourists' bodies and gathered together at their original location a hundred metres away.

"You still don't think that was an Apparition?" remarked Dorothy who pulled down her hood and ran long black fingers through her cascading, slightly reddish, brown hair.

Rao shook his own equally long jet-black hair and pulled his hood back over his head. "More likely some kind of flying ant."

"They didn't look much like ants to me," remarked Vikram, as he shook his cloak in the hope that there were none of these peculiar particles still sticking to his skin.

Sandhya pressed her fingers to the indigo skin of her cheeks. "Did anyone else feel a funny kind of burning?" she asked. "Not hot so much. A bit like a tingle. But burning all the same."

"Yeah," said Vikram. "It must be this weird desert heat."

"I'm sure it was an apparition," said Dorothy adamantly. "What else could it be?"

"Whatever it was," said Rao, pointing at the place where the particles had only moments before been gathered but had now vanished, "perhaps it had something to do with that woman there."

"And she's naked!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Perhaps she's a believer."

"Or very stupid," remarked Rao. "Only an idiot would go around naked in the midday sun."

"Or a mad dog," remarked Sandhya.

"Well, whatever she is," said Vikram, "she's not a dog. Though whether she's mad, I can't tell from here."

The four tourists walked towards the recumbent woman whose appearance, as they steadily approached, seemed increasingly strange with every step. The peculiar thing was that what she resembled the most was a colonist from Sadhu. She had dark brown skin and long black hair, which suggested that she shared the tourists' genetic ancestry in the Indian subcontinent. She was a woman in all the most obvious ways and one like Dorothy and Sandhya who had benefited from genetically-induced breast enhancement. Nevertheless, she was also very muscular, rather like Rao and Vikram, and in one particular aspect appeared not to be a woman at all.

Rao and Vikram were rightly proud of their lingams. Even on Sadhu, they were considered well-endowed. But here was a woman who not only had a lingam where a yoni might normally be found, but one who shared with the two husbands, a lingam of proud dimensions.

She was outspread on the gravel and dirt, her penis flopping over a thigh and her bosom high above her chest and off the ground. When the two couples were near enough to examine her face, they could see that it was most definitely feminine but, in keeping with her muscularity and her unusual asset, she could be best described as handsome rather than beautiful. Her eyes were closed, but her face had a peaceful, even peaceable, expression. Despite this, it was obviously not a good policy for her to remain exposed to the hot sun of the barren Sahara Desert.

Dorothy touched the woman gently on her shoulder. There was no response, although her skin was blisteringly hot to the touch as was only to be expected in the tremendous heat.

"What do we do?" asked Vikram anxiously.

"We can't just leave her here," said Sandhya adamantly.

"Perhaps she prefers being here," said Rao without conviction. "Wouldn't it be better to leave her? And why do you think she's here, anyway?"

"Maybe she has something to do with that weird orange cloud," said Dorothy.

"How did she even get here?" wondered Vikram. "I can't see any vehicle. She can't have just been walking across the desert by herself, can she?"

"Maybe that's precisely what she was doing," said Rao.

"It hardly matters how or why she came to be here," said Sandhya impatiently. "What we can't do is leave her here. If she doesn't die from the heat of the sun, she'll be dead from the cold of the night."

"I guess we'll have to take her back to the caravan," Rao sighed. "The robots should be able to carry her."

And so it was that rather than enjoying a picnic under the sun, the two honeymooning couples walked back to their mobile home while the reclining body of the mysterious woman hovered above the two robots who had to abandon the intended feast to the vultures. The blankets that would have served to protect the two couples from the desert's rough ground were now employed to shelter the woman from the burning sun.

The woman still hadn't roused when the party at last reached their mobile home which rested beside one of the few palm trees that dotted the open plain. The robots laid her out on the spare bed in the couple's shared en suite bedroom and she sprawled unconscious with the same beatific expression on her face while the two couples went about the normal business of their interrupted day.

This naturally required them to eat some food to compensate for the picnic that had been abandoned. They waited for the meal to be assembled and cooked and then relaxed after they had eaten it with all the ceremony and ritual that a repast of any kind demanded.

And still the woman hadn't stirred, though she continued to breathe steadily and deeply.

After the couples had rested, they offered ritual thanksgiving to Vishnu, followed naturally by the lovemaking that was as much a part of their faith as incense and scented candles.

Although they were two newly married couples, their faith demanded a spirit of generosity that was best expressed by sharing the bounty of their flesh not only with their spouse but also with the other couple. Vikram ploughed his lingam into the furrow of both Dorothy's and Sandhya's yoni, while Rao took advantage of Vikram's proffered anus for his own pleasure. The two wives took turns at lapping at and licking one another's yoni, while Vikram took Rao's lingam into his mouth, his own now embedded into Dorothy's anus. They enjoyed the sacred practices of sex as prescribed in the Kama Sutra, oblivious to the presence of their sleeping guest and grateful for the air-conditioning that would otherwise have made such heated exertion impossible for the two hours or so that was appropriate for the observance of such sacred rites.

The culmination of their orgy was a climax in every sense as Rao released his sperm into his wife's yoni and Vikram within Sandhya's. This was the proper place for a husband to release the sacred energy and its blessed but viscous outpouring. This climax was accompanied by a matching crescendo of the gasping and grunting and even screaming that attended their orgasmic release.

The repose that naturally ensued was attended by green tea and lit scented candles served by the robots who'd patiently waited for the couples to reach their orgasmic climax. They were now well-acquainted with the rhythm and pattern of the couples' shared lovemaking.

As the lovers sat cross-legged in the lotus position, passing a bowl of tea from one set of open palms to the next, it was Dorothy who first observed that their strangely endowed guest had now awoken. Her eyes were open and she gazed across the room at the four young lovers with an expression of contentment and peace. Her sheet had been kicked off and she lay there naked with her penis slumped over a thigh and her black hair cascading onto the floor.

Dorothy strode over to the woman and placed a hand on her thigh, discreetly below where the penis lay: flaccid but still impressive. Although she and her company spoke to each other in Tamil, she addressed the woman in English. That, after all, was the prime lingua franca of the Solar System although fewer and fewer people still spoke it as their first language.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Have you recovered?"

The woman looked up at her uncomprehendingly, but she repeated the words 'all right' and 'recovered' with no more trace of an accent than Dorothy had used.

"Is she still hot?" wondered Rao in Tamil. "Perhaps she had a fever."

"No," replied the woman in similarly perfect Tamil enunciation. "No fever."

Sandhya crouched down by the woman while the two men took in what they had heard. Very few people in the Solar System spoke Tamil and fewer still in the Sahara Desert.

"Are you Indian?" Sandhya asked. "Do you come from the Indian subcontinent?" India, like America, consisted of many independent states united only under the Terran Economic Union and the overarching responsibility of the Interplanetary Union. It was too much to expect that this strange woman actually came from Tamil Nadu, the ancestral home of the people of Sadhu.

The woman looked confused. "Indian," she repeated. "The Indian Subcontinent." She didn't appear to actually understand the words.

"How come you were in the desert?" asked Vikram. "You were a terribly long way from anywhere."

"The desert," repeated the woman still with no sign of understanding. "Anywhere."

"Perhaps Tamil's not her first language," suggested Rao. "Maybe she only knows a few words." He leaned over the strange woman and spoke in Hindi, the third language shared by the four tourists. He spoke slowly and carefully. "What is your name? Where do you come from?"

There was again an apparent lack of comprehension.

"She's tired," said Dorothy as she stroked the strange woman's hair. "And she probably doesn't speak much Hindi, English or Tamil."

"Are you hungry?" asked Vikram in English, pointing to his mouth. "Or thirsty? Would you like something to drink?"

"Drink," repeated the woman in similarly accentless English with a strange Tamil lilt. She nodded her head in the slightly twisting way that was common to people from India.

"Perhaps she does come from the Indian subcontinent," said Rao, "but doesn't speak Hindi or English. Perhaps she speaks Urdu. Or Bengali."

"I think she's just tired," repeated Dorothy. "Give her something to drink and let her rest." She turned to face the strange woman and addressed her in English which she was convinced she must know better than any other language. "Would you like to rest?" She mimed this by tilting her head to one side on her praying hands.

"Yes," said the woman with her odd flat accent. "I would like to rest. And to drink."

This last word was in Tamil which sounded very peculiar in an otherwise English sentence.

Sandhya gave the woman some tea and when she'd drunk it all, which she did surprisingly quickly given how hot it was, she slumped down on the bed and closed her eyes.

"She must be very tired!" exclaimed Rao.

"As you would be after roasting under that sun in the desert," remarked Dorothy. "Let her be. She'll recuperate at her own pace."

The woman's state of health recovered remarkably fast although her facility at language recovered at a rather slower pace. The following day she was up and wandering about the mobile home as unashamed of her nudity as the two couples, hardly embarrassed at all by the oddity of being a woman with such an unfeminine appendage. But when she replied to the questions posed to her in English or Tamil, it was with a faltering mixture of the two that showed no apparent awareness that she was mixing up the syntax and vocabulary of two totally different language groups. However, from the first day and into the subsequent ones her fluency increased at a tremendous rate, almost exactly at the same rate as she was exposed to the conversation she heard.

"Perhaps she's had some kind of brain seizure," wondered Rao. "Under that sun and in the heat, it's probably fried her brains."

"The little Tamil she speaks is so fluent she must have been exposed to the language when she was young," Dorothy speculated. "She speaks it almost as if it's her first language."

"Her English is improving too," remarked Vikram. "I think she must have had some kind of memory loss. But how did she manage to be out there in the middle of the desert? Whether she's Tamil or not, it's weird for anyone to be roaming about the Sahara Desert without a vehicle, an accompanying robot or even a mobile phone."

"Not to mention without clothes," added Dorothy, mentioning what should have been obvious but was easily forgotten amongst people who didn't normally wear very much.

"Perhaps she was attacked by someone who took her possessions from her," said Sandhya. "Including, of course, her clothes."

"Not many people could overpower her!" exclaimed Rao. "Have you seen how strong she is? I saw her lift up one of the robots as if it weighed hardly anything."

"It was probably still set on hover," remarked Vikram. "But I admit she's got a very firm grip. I'm not sure I'd be able to defend myself against her if she were to pick a fight."

"And just why would she ever want to do that?" wondered Dorothy. "I've never seen anyone so eager to be helpful and accommodating. And she has such a sweet face. She might be strong, but I don't think she's violent to even the smallest degree."

The woman seemed well enough that even Sandhya decided against calling for outside medical assistance. Although the woman appeared to have suffered from amnesia, she was fast regaining her memory for words in Tamil and English. And when she found out how to connect to the interplanetary internet, she began to learn ever faster. At first she was very hesitant. Her first choice of website was related to language tuition and specifically designed for children. Within a couple of days she was accessing news broadcasts and highly academic scientific research.

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