Ship of Theseus

In the end, Old Julian had gone out on his own terms, vanishing one day after a Boudoir shift. They'd discussed him, with studious nonchalance, for several days before the word came back that he'd checked himself in at the Elimination Section, where they took the clones whose Primes had died, far out there in the cosmos, if the Ranchers determined they weren't worth keeping.

Old Julian, apparently, had decided he wanted to be a Rancher.

It bothered him that he couldn't remember where it had started with Julian. He'd had hundreds of coworkers over the years to go with the thousands, the tens of thousands, of fertile wombs; he couldn't possibly recall them all. It would come to him, he knew, perhaps by night as he lay pillowed by Bonnie's tits. But it always came to him, eventually.

"New batch coming in next week." Hoover Prime, hailing him from across the fire as Lyona Beta crouched above him with his cock in her mouth. He'd been out of action since last week, the brand-new penile tissue still mending; frequent erections were suggested, which made Lyona indispensable. She'd only arrived on-planet a couple years ago, her womb quickly and obviously classed as defective despite the frequent and enthusiastic attempts by all the men here; she had a sublime body, and patrician features to match. And yet, here she was. Warming beds and sawing limbs.

"No shit?" Dwayne was surprised he hadn't heard. "Good. The current crop should all be knocked up soon."

"Right?" Hoover mussed Lyona's hair fondly as she worked her tongue slow and wet along his new dick. "Good-looking Carriers." Bonnie stirred against Dwayne, and he could almost feel her frown in the darkness.

The bedwarmers never liked hearing their men talk about inseminating the Carriers, but they could fuck off.

* * *

"Well! Look who's here today!"

Dwayne had snickered to himself as soon as Keth had passed him the Assignment today. He always loved fucking Rachel. She was a short, healthy Carrier he'd known for over five years? Six? However long, she still had the same figure she'd had three clones ago. This was his first time with her since she'd delivered her most recent, the one Dwayne had thought might have been his.

Well, his by proxy for whoever's DNA had been in the capsule, of course.

You never did find out, sometimes. Often the Carriers weren't sure themselves, but the DNA match on the clone could always tell the tale, if anyone cared enough to check. Sometimes the Carriers knew, but didn't tell; Bonnie had told him, years ago, that she'd always had an instinct for whose dick had knocked her up, and she claimed she'd never been wrong.

No, wait. Not Bonnie. That had been Tahlia, three bedwarmers ago. But it's the kind of thing Bonnie would say too, Dwayne reminded himself as he grinned in Rachel's doorway. "Looking great, love!" he told her cheerily as she drew herself up onto her knees for a kiss. It was a bad idea to kiss the Carriers, said the psych techs, but everyone did anyway once you got to know them.

"So nice to see you!" she gushed, offering him a smoldering tongue-filled greeting. "I was hoping I'd get you soon, but yesterday they sent me that new guy."

"Yeah, Karl." He'd just gotten out of training and was still probationary. "Young kid. Still got almost all his original parts. How was he, babe?"

"He wasn't you," Rachel cooed, her hand going straight down his pants, and they laughed. Dwayne loved his work, especially with girls like Rachel who loved it too. "He was fine. Good stamina. Nice load."

"That's why they pick us," Dwayne agreed, parting his legs where he stood; she had her greedy little hand down underneath his ballsack, juggling it expertly while her other hand worked at his beltcode. "I missed you. How was the birth?"

'Oh, you know." She shrugged, busy with his clothes, finally getting the code in and then sending that other hand down to join the first, in that humid zone behind his scrotum. She had a thing for sweaty balls, he remembered. "A birth's a birth. Gonna get me pregnant today, Sugar-dick?" she grinned up at him, her tongue flickering over his nipples, his shaft already hard along her forearms as his clothes finished removing themselves.

"Gonna try," he nodded, popping the capsule, and to be fair the chances were pretty good: his motility had been well above average recently, with excellent seminal viscosity, and Rachel was clearly in heat again. Their lips mashed together, the saliva already running, and Dwayne thought for the millionth time how amazing the response was, how mere beauty or sex appeal could take a backseat to genuine enthusiasm. Rachel had him hard now, her fingers lovingly tracing the lines and veins of his dick, and when she pulled away with a saliva-sheeted chin she looked straight down.

"Godsdamn," she husked, taking a deep breath, "I do love you hairless ones." Her hands stayed obsessively low, feeling his flesh, watching his excitement. "You really want to stick that cock inside me, don't you?" she mocked, giggling when he twitched in reply. "You do!"

Dwayne growled as he stepped to her, a feral sound low in his throat, feeling like a king. He'd seldom had trouble getting into his work, literally or figuratively, but there were times when even daily sex with gorgeous Carriers got a little... well, routine. Rachel was one of the special ones, though, one who made it fun. And who always would, too, her lashes drooping low as she fell back onto the mattress beneath him.

He was in her at once, his hips dipping low in an insistent smooth swoop as Rachel's legs spread wide, a gasp ripping out of her throat when he entered. "Fuck yeah," she gloated, low and throaty, giving herself to him with a brief powerful ripple coursing up and down the walls of her vagina: superb control, he marveled, slipping his dick smoothly out before he drove in once more. They set up the rhythm at once, their bodies in synch at that fundamental level that put both of them into a gasp-mouthed flush of passion.

Her legs waved high over their rutting bodies while he plunged into her, churning deep, his veiny penis sawing past her clit like the bow over Jeff P's cello, drawing ragged shattered breaths from her lungs as her body kept up with his. The bedframe was creaking already, the coupling fast and vicious. He felt her nails raking his back, knowing he'd need a quick trip to the clinic before heading to the Bloodhouse, not even caring because this felt so, so very good.

The excellence of Rachel's pussy, it seemed, hadn't been affected by that last clone they'd pulled out of her, and he laughed deliriously in her face as he kissed her again, his bare head sweaty. "I'm going to shoot," he announced, all gaspy, and that's when her legs clung tightly to him, her feet riding his surging ass while his dick plowed her deep and wet.

"Do it," she snapped, her voice breaking as her body let go. "Gods, so fucking good!" Dwayne's reply then was a strangled, choked groan, his body rigid, the cum surging from his balls, boiling along his shaft, and spattering hard past her cervix as he hilted himself, scrotum pulsing madly. "Fuck!" she screamed, her body taking it all, made for it, craving it. He fired five strong, virile spurts into her, that unknown recruit's DNA riding the muck of Dwayne's semen, finding a home deep within Rachel's needy womb.

While their bodies surged on.

* * *

He had time to kill afterward, and she was always game for a snuggle, so as the fake sun rose higher in the fake window they talked quietly, touching, her fingers playing with the sheen of cum he'd left at the base of his penis. "So weird," she marveled, massaging his ball sack, "the idea of living forever."

"It's not forever," he chuckled. "It's all about cerebellar age, babe." He suckled lazily at her nipple, drawing a shiver.

"Well, whatever," she sighed, stretching catlike. "Close enough, anyway, compared to the rest of us."

"Relax," he smiled. "Conservation of matter, Rachel. You'll always be here. The bits and pieces and and molecules and shit? They're not going anywhere." He ran a finger, teasing, along her pussy lips, plucking at her hood. "This clit? The organic matter it's made from? The atoms? They'll be here forever." He sat up, leaning over to give her cum-smelling mound a fond kiss. "The eternal clitoris."

She laughed at that, pulling him back up into the crook of her armpit. The little room reeked of sweat and sex. "But they won't be in the same shape," she pouted. "It'll be somebody else's clit. Or maybe just some piece of a cow."

"Maybe, maybe not." He'd read up on all this, all those years ago after his orientation, and he was vaguely relieved that the knowledge was still there. "The Markusian Genetic Recurrence Theorem. Ever heard of it?"

She smacked his balls playfully. "I barely learned to read, asshole. They knew I was coming to the Clone Farm from when I was eight years old." She stretched once more. "Why waste money teaching me about the Markusian Whatever-The-Fuck Theorem?"

He smiled, summoning the math, doing a rough conversion. "The odds approach 100%," he explained, "that the exact same genetic sequence recurs twice within every six or seven thousand generations."

"What the fuck does that mean?" She was grinning, her hand now tickling lightly underneath, around his asshole.

"It means," he drawled, "that there've been many women in human history, going back to Old Sol IV, that look precisely like you." She gasped, her nipple pinched hard between his fingers. "This tit has appeared before, scores of times. Hundreds, even. And with planetary colonization, the odds increase exponentially."

She nodded. "So you're saying there might be another one of me out there right now? Somewhere? Same girl?"

"Near enough." He kissed her. "And? Long after you're gone? There'll be more." He watched her eyes narrow as she considered the possibilities. "That's almost immortality, Rachel. In a way."

"Huh. But not like you." She prodded again between his asscheeks. "How old are you, Dwayne?"

He could see she was serious, but the question always bothered him. "Old," he said shortly. "Some parts older than others."

"Yeah?" she wheedled, her finger finding its way inside his anus. He squirmed. "How about your asshole, hmm? How old is that?"

"Don't." She giggled. "There's this old concept, from way back when. Early Sol IV. Some culture back then. I forget who came up with it, but the idea was of a ship." She trailed kisses along his chest, gently, redeeming herself for making fun of him. "Not a starship. A sea-ship, wooden, nuke-powered? Maybe even steam." He frowned, trying to remember. "Wind? Anyway. The ship was old, but it needed repair every now and then. Because the wood would rot, fall apart. Like, new hull parts here, new struts there, maybe a new sail some other year, in another year a new cold-fusion core. Whatever. But the older the ship got, the more parts got replaced." He paused. "After awhile, even though it was the same ship, it wasn't really the same ship, the same parts. That's me, angel. All of us."

She nodded thoughtfully. "What's the oldest part of you?"

"Cerebellum," he replied at once. "Frontal and parietal cortices, especially. That's the part they can clone, but not replicate. I've got four or five clones going at any given time in the Farm, waiting around to swap parts." He glanced at the clock on the wall, remembering he had an appointment today, Paminda's errant cutter. "Hell, one of them is probably on his way over right now. He's going to give up a finger today and he doesn't even know it yet." Dwayne wondered who'd get stuck harvesting the parts.

It wouldn't be him, of course. Assignments Section discouraged he and his coworkers from meeting their own clones. Rachel's hand stroked his skin. "Any other parts? Are you wearing anything else you were born with, Sugar-dick?"

He frowned, thinking hard. "Actually?" His forehead wrinkled; it could be so hard to think of these things sometimes. Like his mind didn't want to go there. "Maybe, maybe not. I'm not awake during the surgeries, love." He fell silent, thinking of the screams from the Bloodhouse. Some people didn't rate anaesthetic, not when the battles raged hotter than ever among the stars. Supply and demand. Limbs for the Primes were what mattered, worth infinitely more than the pain of a clone. "Sometimes they tell me what they've done, sometimes not. Sometimes I ask, sometimes not. But I always feel great afterward," he finished, his finger slipping once more into her slit. Not the new, temp finger: it was his old one.

Well, older.

Rachel moaned. "You sure do. Feel great." She propped herself up, body pressed tight and lips parting, those luscious eyelashes drooping once more as his penis thickened again in her hand.

Twice? Why not.

* * *

"New one today." Keth frowned into the screen field, the device compensating for the morning sun glaring through the windows. She dug for the capsule. "How's the finger healing?"

"Better than new." Hands could be tough, but he'd had been two weeks with the new finger and already he had full feeling back. Just yesterday he'd tested it, putting two fingers into that wily little Carrier Lexy, and her pussy had felt just as warm and wet on the new finger as the old. "Nerves seem to be nicely plastic."

"I'm happy to hear it." She seemed to remember something then, her eyes flickering back to the field, then drawing more slowly back to his face. "Oh. And Medical sent a message. They're moving up your Neuro."

"I'm quarterly," he told her flatly.

"Of course." She smiled, and he could see it was forced. "I'm just the messenger, Dwayney-P. Stop on by. They say there's no rush, but." She shrugged. "Have fun with the new girl, hon."

"Thanks." Dwayne called up a grin, close to his usual wolfish one. "I always do."

He was smiling again by the time he passed the motor pool, that old whistled song always putting him into a better mood, the memories. It had been her favorite song, and it still calmed him down even as the screams came thin from beyond the Bloodhouse gate. "6280-G," he called as he neared the Boudoir, and the guard at the gate there smiled at him.

"Dwayne." It was an older guy, one of the ones who'd been on the gate for years, his hair greying now. Dwayne remembered him, vaguely; they'd had lunch once. His Prime had been blown to smithereens, he'd been told, at someplace called Cessvus IVb, freeing him at last from the pens. "He fucked me, though, before he bought it," he'd chuckled, pulling up his trouser leg. "Took my leg to replace his, a few years before. I guess he never learned."

""What's up?" None of the clones had names, really. "Nice day, today."

"A classic." The sky was a blue of almost supernatural brilliance above. Hard to imagine there were such great fleets up there, struggling so hard in so many sectors.

Hopeless, really.

"Who's your bitch today?" the old guard leered, and Dwayne's whistle trailed off.

"What's that?"

"Who are you here to knock up?" Dwayne held the capsule loose in his hand, frowning. Had Keth even told him the girl's name? She always did...

He forced a smirk as he passed through the gate, the day bright and perfect behind him. "They're all the same, y'know?" The two of them guffawed. "Catch you later."

"Sure thing, Dwayne." The foot-trail worn through the carpet guided him needlessly along through the silent hallways, the occasional sound of his vigorous coworkers drifting from some of the rooms; a lot of them preferred to get their fucking done in the morning, before the Bloodhouse tired them out.

He nearly ran right into little Thendra as he took a corner at high speed, the two of them stopping short. "Whoo! Slow down there, Sugar-dick," she laughed, smacking his ass as he kept going.

"Take it easy, Thendy," he called over his shoulder, arriving at last. The rooms back here were where the newer girls tended to hang out, before they felt comfortable coming for the common areas up front. Dwayne juggled the capsule in his hand a moment, then knocked loudly. "Hello? It's Dwayne Prime! 6280-G."

"Yes?" The voice from inside stirred him, its timbre bypassing his brain and worming into his heart, casting a long-ago shadow there. "Come on in!" Dwayne took a deep breath, shaken for no reason he could put his finger on, but then he shrugged it off and put on his pleasant smile, the one he often used for new girls.

"Hi!" He passed in, the room fake-sunny, then stopped short with his head cocked and his smile frozen. The girl sat naked and regal on her stool, her back to him, combing out long straight hair the color of old copper, and it took his breath away.

Narrow shoulders, but well-formed; a slim back, tapering down to the wide, succulent swell of her hips, the crack of her ass rising from the seat to lead the eye back up along her straight, graceful spine. The skin there was smooth, perfect, and he felt certain he knew exactly how it tasted. Her arms eased the comb one last time through those dazzling sweep of her hair before she set it gently on the desk, and then she rose smoothly.

When she turned, the light soft on her nude body, he knew his mouth was dropping open, his eyes out of control, for it was her. Standing there before her in all her youthful, sensual perfection, it was her. Her legs slim and muscular, the wisp of dark coiled hair over her slit, the taper of her hips toward her waist, the pert handfuls of her breasts, topped with rosy nipples, identical, beneath that same face. That same nose. Those wide lips. Those eyes, with that same spark.

That same exact face.

But it couldn't be. Could it? Once in six or seven thousand generations...

His throat bobbed as he tried to contain himself, his brain fizzling at once, heart pounding. She smiled that same smile. "Make yourself comfortable, Dwayne Prime, 6280-G." The smile gained a whimsical twist, and his balls stirred; even her smirk was the same. Incredible. "Meaning, take your clothes off. I want to see you naked."

He forced his throat to work. "Do you!" He smiled then as she turned once more, confident for a new girl, but with a body like hers? Why not. He knew, too, the memories prodding, insisting to be heard, what she'd enjoy. What would get her off. How she'd feel around him. How she'd gasp when they both came. She was making notes on her tabslate, bent slightly, that full ass of hers on display, and Dwayne felt at once that sudden, hot lust he'd always felt.

With her.

His finger ripped at the quick-release to override the belt code, his clothes not slipping softly into a folded pile on the desk, but instead bursting off his body as though he'd activated a magnetic field, flying against the wall behind him. Dwayne was already most of the way erect as he marched across the room, his mind a kaleidoscope of memories and images; was she her, the new Carrier, or her, the woman of long ago? That copper hair: immortality? Or chance? Or did it matter?

It didn't, of course, his hand laying Kethys' capsule with great care on the girl's desk, and then his cock was leading the way toward her sweetly rounded body, her curves so, so familiar as the light played across them. "Just a moment," she mused, her hair falling forward to shroud her face; she felt him coming, but she did not know that he knew exactly what she needed. What her body wanted him to do.

He fell to his knees behind her, the years falling away: she'd always loved him eating her from behind, and just as the Carrier began to turn, her soft eyes wide in surprise and curiosity, he laid trembling hands upon the long, smooth curves of her thighs, sliding up, his hands remembering her while he leaned in, with pursed lips, and there she was far sooner than she had a right to expect: the long, shadowed crack between the cheeks of her ass, and then beneath that the magical cleft where her vagina ran up between those graceful legs.