Journey to Year 1,000,000,000 Ch. 17

Journey to the Year 1,000,000,000

By Gary L.M. Martin

Chapter 17

[Note: This is a Science Fiction story with some erotic scenes. It is not a story with erotic scenes in every chapter. Some chapters have incredible sex scenes, but many others have none. ]

"Despite their advanced nature, despite being literally constructed from the building blocks of matter itself, they seem to have emotions, just as we do," said Victor.

"But they're in denial of them. That could be the most dangerous thing of all," said Taylor.

"You have to keep trying to reach Pam. Turn her to our side," said Victor.

"I am trying, Victor."

"But you haven't fucked her," said Elizabeth.

Taylor gave her a look of shock and surprise.

"You heard me. That's what she wants. It's obvious. It's written all over her. So why don't you?" Elizabeth asked.

"It's complicated," said Taylor, turning his chair away.

She turned it so it faced her again. "Make it simple, so a Ph.D. in the Scientific Branch can understand." Her tone was a harsh one.

Taylor looked up at her angry face. "Elizabeth, you remember our experience with the United," said Taylor. "We were all forced... to do things that we didn't want to do. If you recall, one of the things I was forced to do was to have sex with Jennifer. But it wasn't Jennifer, it was that thing Jennifer had become. As I... put myself into her, I found myself staring at those dark eyes. Those cold, dark, alien eyes. It was...traumatizing."

"And yet you managed to get the job done. You're a man," said Elizabeth contemptuously.

Only by thinking of Pam.

"Yes I did," said Taylor. "But it was not pleasant. I... I wouldn't want to do it again."

"That's it? That's your reason? Taylor, you fuck anything that moves. I've seen it firsthand!" said Elizabeth

"That's enough, Elizabeth," said Victor.

"Anything with a hole, you'll shove it into-"

"Elizabeth, that's enough!" Victor yelled.

No one had ever heard Victor yell before. She was startled into silence.

"We all know your feelings on this," said Victor. "But we have got to find a way to reach Pam."

"I quite agree, Victor," said Elizabeth. "That's why I want him to fuck her."

"You do?" Taylor asked.

"I don't want to die again, Taylor," said Elizabeth. "I want to go home, like all of you. If what it takes is a good fucking, then close your eyes and do it for queen and country."

Despite the crudeness of her tone, Taylor smiled at her use of the anachronism.

"She does have a point, Michael," said Victor. "If you can reach her, through intercourse-"

"I don't think I can," said Taylor. "Right now that's what's holding her back. The fact that I haven't had sex with her. It's data she desperately wants."

"But sooner or later she's going to run out of patience," said Victor. "Or the others will make her."

"Victor... I... I... I just feel it's the wrong strategy," said Taylor. He had instinctively wanted to say he had screaned it. Why would he say that? "Every time she asks me to make love to her, she says her human body wants it. Not her. I feel if I comply, that it will be underwhelming, and that will be the end of it."

"So what are you waiting for?" Victor asked. "For a diagnostic tool to want to have sex with you?"

"Yes," said Taylor. "She is more than just a diagnostic tool. Much more."

"How can you be sure, Michael?"

"I... I screan it." There. He had said it.

Elizabeth gave a derisive laugh.

"The United gave me the isotope, Elizabeth," Taylor said sharply. "It changed me. It changed my perception of things."

"Obviously."

"This is the right way to proceed."

"What do you think, Victor?" Elizabeth asked.

Victor shrugged. "The Survey Service had very good reasons when they put Michael in charge. He's a survivor. Perhaps we should trust his instincts."

Taylor nodded slightly, but still felt Elizabeth's glare on him.

********

They were staring at a star cluster, in pink, brown, and yellow colors.

"The universe is alive," said Pam.

"What do you mean? That some of the stars have planets, and some of the planets have life on them?" Taylor asked.

"Partially. But it is much more than that. The planets, even the stars... many of them have self-awareness."

"Self aware planets? Self aware suns?" said Taylor. "Can this really be?

"Yes," said Pam.

Suddenly, they shifted to another plane of existence. They were in a solar system, but the sun and planets looked... different.

They pulsated with life. It was more of a feeling than a sight.

"Do not look with your eyes. Try to screan." Pam said.

Taylor closed his eyes. He reached out with senses he wasn't even sure he had. He listened, he waited, and he listened some more.....

And he felt it. Life. Not on the planets, but the planets themselves. And they weren't simply alive, they were intelligent, on some level thinking beings. He could feel their enormous minds, thinking, ruminating, processing.

"How... how is this possible?" Taylor said.

"I have found a metaphor in your mind which might make it comprehensible to you," said Pam. "You have something called icebergs on your Earth, do you not? The icebergs are quite large, but on a waterbound ship you can only see the tip of them. The rest is submerged. It is the same with planets. What you see, in your narrow version of time and space, is a gaseous body. Or an iron nickel core. But in other planes of existence, it is often associated with organization. Awareness. Intelligence. Sentience."

"Are... are all planets like this?"

"No," said Pam. "Some are barely self-aware. Some are not aware at all. Sometimes you have to dig down through thousands of layers of planes of existence to find awareness, if you do at all. But some are connected to intellects that are quite, quite sentient, even by your lax standards."

Taylor felt the intelligence from a green rocky planet. The intellect was part of the planet, and yet, also separate from it. He couldn't sense what the planet was thinking, only that it did think, it did exist. And it was aware of him! The universe... so much of every part of the universe was aware of its other parts.

"That is the key to their interconnectivity, and the key to maintaining Tisson Crae," said Pam.

And then Taylor turned his attention to the Sun. It radiated intelligence as well. But there was something... familiar about it.

And then he opened his eyes, and saw Pam framed in the sun. "You," he breathed. "You're the sun."

"How could you know that?" said Pam, looking startled.

"I... I don't know. I suppose I screaned it."

Pam was bewildered. "You should not have this ability-"

Her voice was cut off as Taylor grabbed her and kissed her. She instinctively wrapped her arms around him. The feeling of having him close, of feeling his warm body against her, was so intoxicating, so powerful.

When he pulled back, Taylor said, "You're so beautiful. Both of you. All of you." Pam was a star, a real star! It took some getting used to.

"This... this body thanks you," said Pam. "This body is... very flattered. Very excited."

"Only the body?" said Taylor sharply.

Pam nodded, looking sad. "Only the body. It wants.... It very much wants...."

"I know what it wants," said Taylor, gently pushing away from her.

Pam had tears in her eyes.

"So... you're a star, and a human being?" Taylor said, pretending the tears weren't there.

"And more," said Pam. "I..." she wiped some tears away. "I have a multiphasic existence."

"How are you part of your group? This star must be many light years from Earth."

"It is a star you call Clara, some 842 light years from Earth. But distance does not matter," said Pam. "Only volition," she said, looking into his eyes.

"I have never kissed a star before," said Taylor.

"Neither... neither have I," said Pam, sniffling.

********

"I feel like it's all worth it, Victor," said Taylor.

"Worth it?" said Victor.

"The things I've seen.... I joined the Survey Service to be an astronaut," said Taylor. "But the things I've seen here... the dawn of the universe. The nature of infinite dimensions in an infinite universe. The idea of other planes of existence, where everything is interconnected. The understanding that planets and stars, on other planes of existence, can be sentient beings. It's all so amazing. It's more than I expected when I joined the Service. It's more than any astronaut could have expected. Even if Pam kills us when this is over, I think... I think maybe I'll die happy."

Victor smiled. "Remember when you asked me why I signed up for this suicide mission? Now you know the answer, Michael. I only wish I could have come and seen what you saw."

"Maybe Pam will let me take you," said Taylor.

"No," said Elizabeth. "She only takes you. She has a very singular interest. Have you fucked her yet?"

"Elizabeth-" said Victor.

"Have you, Michael?"

"No," said Taylor, hurt by her harsh tone. "We had a moment... when I discovered she was a sun. She was so... beautiful, so blindingly beautiful, in all her forms. I... I think I screaned it. The way she was framed against the yellow sun.... there was a moment when we... we could have...."

"But you didn't," said Victor.

"No, we didn't," said Taylor.

"Maybe you still will," said Victor.

With a gasp, Elizabeth got up and left. Vincent followed her.

********

"Elizabeth!" Vincent called after her, as she walked quickly down the corridor. "Elizabeth, wait!"

She stopped. "What do you want?"

"I... I... I want to help," said Vincent.

"Really?" Suddenly she was arms akimbo. "And how do you propose to do that?"

"I... I don't know. Maybe if we talked."

"And what would we talk about, Vincent? The time you whipped me, on my back and my chest and my breasts?"

"I...."

"Or the time you brutally broke me, and turned me into a slave?"

"Elizabeth-"

"Or how about the time you took off my clothes and made me wear black slave panties, and put a slave collar around my neck-"

"Elizabeth, that was almost a billion years ago!" said Vincent, grabbing her arm.

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "It feels like it happened just yesterday. Time travel is funny in that way, isn't it?" She pulled her arm away. "And don't you touch me ever again. Don't you dare touch me." Her eyes ablaze, she fast marched off.

********

Pam and Taylor were watching another Taylor making love to Elizabeth.

"Ummmm," said Elizabeth, smiling like a cat. "I love feeling you inside me, Michael."

Michael smiled and kept plowing inside of her.

"Feeling your thickness, your fullness inside of me, impaling me... it all feels so good, Michael. You feel so good," said Elizabeth.

Michael nodded, stiffened, and cried out. A moment later, so did Elizabeth.

"I love having you cum inside me," said Elizabeth. "I love feeling your-"

Her voice cut off as Michael kissed her.

"The female was communicating with you," said Pam, as they watched. "She was telling you that she enjoyed the reproduction ritual. But you said nothing. Why?"

Taylor looked away.

Pam turned his head to face her. "Michael, I asked you a question."

"I liked having sex with Elizabeth," said Michael.

"But?" said Pam.

"But I did not love her. Not as she loved me," said Michael.

Pam watched the other Taylor thrusting in and out of Elizabeth, in a repeat of the past performance. She watched the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his ass cheeks as he performed the ritual of reproduction.

She turned to him. "You say you will not make love to me because I do not want it. But you made love to Elizabeth when you were not in love with her. Is that all that is required, for the woman to love you? Are your own feelings irrelevant?" She looked into his eyes.

"No. They are very relevant."

The scene changed.

Suddenly, he was watching another version of himself, plunging between Jennifer Hale's legs.

Taylor winced.

Jennifer's vagina felt so wonderful. It was tight, and moist, and it stimulated the head of his penis like none other. As he briefly looked down, he saw her field of carefully tended dark pubic hair had been shaved on the sides to make her thick labial lips stand out.

But Jennifer's eyes were as cold as steel, as dark as night. She had a wicked smile on her face, as she enjoyed giving Taylor exactly what he wanted, in the worst possible way.

"When you think of making love to me, this scene comes into your mind. Why?" Pam asked.

"I... I was in love with Jennifer," said Taylor. "But that thing... it looked like Jennifer, but it wasn't. It was an alien. It was cold."

"The same way you view me," said Pam, running a hand across his chest.

"Not... not exactly the same way," said Taylor, feeling her hand roam. "She... the United were malevolent. They forced us to have sex under threat of giving us an isotope, which would change or kill us. You... you are not like that. In fact, the only way I was able to... perform with Jennifer was by thinking of you."

Pam raised an eyebrow.

"The other you. My Pam," he said.

"And that is why you will not have intercourse with this body. Because you know I am something else."

"Partially," said Taylor. "But also, because you don't really want it."

"I do want it," said Pam. "For experimental purposes, for data gathering-"

"No," said Taylor. "Not the right reasons."

Pam looked surprised. "This body is attracted to you," she said, her fingers lingering on a nipple, rubbing it through his shirt.

"I need more than just the body to be attracted to me," said Taylor. He looked into her green eyes. He tried to screan what was behind them, but couldn't. They were not lifeless as they once were, but... he could not clearly see beyond them.

"I am a diagnostic and research tool. I cannot be attracted to you."

"That's a pity," said Taylor, turning away.

"Yes," said Pam, with regret in her voice. "It is."

********

"I am getting closer to completion," said Pam.

"You have been saying that for some time," said 1012.

"I would be closer to completion if you hadn't interrupted," said Pam. "How am I expected to work productively when you keep killing my subjects?"

"Don't exaggerate, I only killed them once," said 1012. "There was no harm done."

"1018, are you getting closer to completion?" 49 asked.

Pam paused. She knew the answer they wanted. The only answer they would accept. "Yes."

"When?"

"In a few minicycles," said Pam, hoping that was good enough.

"Good. Finish your work, pattern the results and upload them, and then let us move on," said 49.

********

"Have we met before?" Taylor asked Pam.

"What do you mean?"

"Before we met, at the pyramid. Did we meet before that?" he asked.

Pam frowned. "I do not believe so. Why do you ask?"

"When I was a prisoner of the United, in the year 500,000,000, I had a number of dreams. It seemed I was being helped by people who had died or been taken over by the United. They said they were reaching me through the help of someone else. And then, when my despair was at its height, you appeared to me in a dream. You told me we would meet again."

"A dream, of your Pam?"

"So I thought, except... in that dream, Pam didn't talk like Pam... she reminded me more of you, now that I recall it," said Taylor. "She said she travelled 500,000,000 years to find me, but she said she came from the future, not the past." He looked intently at her. "Did you appear to me in a dream? Or was that just my mind playing tricks on me?"

Pam frowned, and was silent for a long moment, which was uncharacteristic of her. She looked up and said, "It was not me. At least, it was not me, yet."

"Yet?"

"Perhaps in my own future I will go back into the past and assist you. I cannot speak for what has not happened yet."

Taylor stepped forward, so that they stood face to face. "Now, why would you go back into the past, to help a minor finiteral, one you intend to kill fairly soon?"

"It does not kockk. I agree," said Pam. "Except...."

"Except what?"

"I would never call you minor, Michael Taylor," she said, and she gently touched his cheek, and stared at him for another long moment.

********

Then she turned and faced him again. "But temporal paradoxes can and do occur all the time, whenever the timeline is changed."

"Can you give me an example?"

"Certainly," said Pam.

And then, at that moment, a second Pam, identical to the first, appeared.

"What? Who are you?" said Taylor. Was this the man who looked like Doug, playing another trick in disguise?

The second Pam said nothing. She went up to Taylor, and gave him a passionate kiss. Then she smiled, and faded away.

"What... what was that?" Taylor asked.

"Excuse me one moment," said Pam. She suddenly disappeared.

A second later, she reappeared.

"Don't tell me...."

Pam was silent.

"Well?"

"You asked me not to tell you," said Pam, giving a small smile. At that moment there was just something so incredibly cute about her. She was flirting with him again, he was sure of it!

"Did you just go back in time and kiss me?"

"Are you sure you wish to know?"

"Yes."

"Then I did," said Pam.

"Why did you choose to demonstrate temporal mechanics with a kiss?" Taylor asked.

"I thought it was a simple enough demonstration which would captivate your attention," said Pam.

"Really? All for the cause of science, right?"

"Yes," Pam smiled smugly.

"Exactly what I'd expect from a diagnostic tool which has no feelings," said Taylor.

Pam raised her eyebrows. "Of course, that is only an extremely basic demonstration of what can be done. Would you like to see something more... elaborate?"

"Will it wipe out all life on Earth from ever existing?"

Pam considered. "No."

"Then all right," said Taylor.

And then suddenly, they were in a room full of Taylors, and a room full of Pam's. The Taylors each held a Pam in their arm. And each Taylor was kissing the Pam. Taylor watched as a roomful of himself kissed a roomful of Pams. When they were done, they all had very satisfied looks on their faces. Then they were gone.

"How...."

"You see, this time you were the one who did the kissing," said Pam, in a playful yet accusing tone.

*********

"Hello again."

"You!" Elizabeth cried. 1012 had just appeared in her quarters.

"Don't be afraid," said 1012.

"Don't be afraid? The last time I saw you, you killed me!"

"Very briefly," said 1012. He sat down on her bed. She shrank away. "Very, very briefly."

"What... what do you want?" Elizabeth asked.

"To help you," said 1012.

"I really, really doubt that," said Elizabeth.

"No, I really do. I realized we both have the same problem."

"We do?" said Elizabeth.

"Yes," said 1012. "I want 1018 to return to her primary function."

"1018? You mean Pam, don't you?"

"Yes, Pam," said 1012, saying the name with clear disgust in his voice. "I want 1018 back, and you want Michael Taylor back."

"No... no I don't."

"Yes, yes you do," said 1012. "You love him."

"No!"

"You cannot lie to me. Your mind is such an open book, I need not even expra it; I can screan it from here."

"I... I was in love with Michael," said Elizabeth. "But... he's infatuated with her. You've seen him!"

"What if I could help you win him back?"