Starship Starseeker Ch. 04

"Why?' Abbie asked. "Was it because I might've thought that you were just interested in me for my money?"

"No" he answered. "It's because I just don't like stuck up snobs. Most rich people I've met don't act like people like me are very worthy of their attention," he said.

"So, are you saying that you don't want a rich girl like me?" she asked, still confused about what he meant.

"You and your family aren't that way at all. By the way you act, I would never have thought you were rich," he tried to explain. "I'm madly in love with a rich girl like YOU," he told her as he scooped her up in his arms. "You're not like any rich girl I've ever met. "The fact that you're rich and I'm just a poor adventure guide doesn't change anything for me," He said.

"My family sees our wealth as a burden sometimes. Ana, Gia, and Gabby want to be treated like every day Utopians," Abbie told him. "All I've ever wanted was to find the right man. I've found you and I'll be satisfied with whatever you decide to do as a service to the community. I'll be right there beside you all the way,"

"But it will be nice to travel the galaxy in that fancy yacht of yours every once in a while," Erik joked.

"I never said that I thought our wealth was a burden," Abbie reminded them. "My siblings and I are going to enjoy the finer things in life!"

After that, they went back into their room and made love again. Everybody was gone from the house by the time they emerged from the bedroom. Mike and Jo had gone to the smokehouse to help Brad and Chuck for lunch. Gabby and Sally were visiting old friends and even some of Sally's former enemies.

Ana and Gabby had done a good job of explaining Sally's previous behavior during the last twenty years. The women that had hated Sally were angry with Sally's mother for explaining about sex to Sally at such a young age. They blamed her for all of Sally's previous behavior. It was a good thing that her parents had moved to Nirvana to work for Stellardyne there, or they would give her a piece of their mind. Ana and Gabby had also extolled her virtues and how helpful she had been to Gabby when Gabby needed her help. By the time Sally returned home to Eden, she had already been forgiven by everyone, and Sally felt that she was totally accepted in the community again.

Rob had taken Rae to the offices at Stellardyne, to introduce her to the human resources department head, Barb. On their way in, they met Skylar and Cyrus going out to lunch with several engineering department heads. The head of the human services was a good friend of Ana's and had come to several of their barbeques and orgies. She promised Rae and Rob that she would find the perfect job for her.

Gia was on the Council and was at the meeting and Ana was in her office at Stellardyne. After speaking with Rae for a long time, finding out what training she'd had. Barb took Rae up to Ana's office. On the way up, Rae turned the heads of many of the men in the office. Barb just smiled, knowing that she had found the right job for the pretty young woman.

When they arrived at Ana's office, there were several men waiting outside in the reception area looking at their watches. Most of them had come up to complain about something. Ana had an open-door policy. Anyone could come talk to her during her office hours. Today was not an unusual day. Barb spoke to Ana's receptionist Martha, an older lady with a sweet personality. She didn't like to sit in a room full of grumbling employees, but that was her job.

The room quietened considerably when Barb came in with Rae. Most of the employees had some type of clothing on, whether it was a lab coat for scientists or protective coveralls for factory workers. Only the executives walked about naturally. They were impressed by the young woman walking nude into Ana's office. Most of them didn't even complain when she walked in ahead of them.

"Ana, you know Rae I understand," Barb told her friend.

"Yes, she and her family are living with us. She and Rob slept together with me last night," Ana told her friend.

"Lucky girl," Barb said, winking at Ana. "I miss Rob. You need to invite me over to your house very soon," Barb laughed

"I can send him over any night," Ana offered. "Will Anthony mind?" Ana asked.

"Not as long as you come with him," Barb shot back.

"I'm sorry Dear," Barb said to Rae. "Usually we don't talk like that in the office, but Ana and I are lovers, and I'm ready for another night with her and Rob," she told Rae.

Rae understood completely. Rob was the most wonderful lover she had met on Eden so far. Barb called her over to Ana's desk and explained to Ana what she wanted to do.

"Martha is not comfortable sitting in the waiting room listening to all the employee's grumbles," Barb told Ana. "How about giving her some help?" Barb asked.

"What do you mean exactly?" Ana asked.

"We can set up a desk on the other side of the room from Martha and Rae can take all of the complaints," Barb said triumphantly.

"That's a great idea," Ana told her friend. She assumed that Barb had discussed Rae's duties with her but she wanted to make sure that Rae understood what the job entailed.

'Rae would you mind if my employees ogled you while you recorded their complaints?" Ana asked.

Rae laughed and shook her head. "Not at all!" she told Ana. "I'm a bit of an exhibitionist. I love to be looked at. I'm proud of my body and thankful that I inherited my mother's assets," She said. "I wouldn't mind being ogled at all. I can even sit behind one of those transparent desks they have now. A lot of businesses use them for their receptionists," Rae told them.

"That would be perfect!" Ana exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Of course, Martha is still the receptionist, you will be the official complaint taker. Use your womanly charms to keep them from getting antsy while they wait," Ana told Rae.

Rae was happy. Not only was it her first job, it was the perfect job for her! Ana gave her a small voice recorder which was attached wirelessly to a transcription device in Ana's office. Rae was to just get the employees to talk about what was bothering them and the transcription machine would keep a record of their complaint on file for Ana to review. Barb asked Rae if she could start immediately and Rae accepted the job that minute.

Ten minutes later when Ana came out to check on Rae, the room was completely quiet. There were several men gathered around Rae, who was working at a glass coffee table. The men were indeed ogling her as she talked quietly with them, getting up occasionally to refresh their coffee.

Is there anyone here to see me?" Ana asked. One woman stood up and came with Ana into her office. She was wearing a lab coat, so she was either a scientist or engineer. The woman asked Ana about breastfeeding out in the lab. She had just come back to work after being out for maternity leave. She hated to go into the lounge to nurse her child. She missed out on the conversations the other scientists had while she was nursing. Ana asked her who told her that she had to nurse in the lounge and the woman told her.

Ana asked if she had another feeding this afternoon and the woman said that she didn't, she would nurse again after she got off work. Ana assured her that the problem would be taken care of right away. Tomorrow, she could work and breastfeed at the same time. After the woman left, Ana asked Martha to ask the supervision to come up and speak with her.

When the supervisor came in, Ana greeted her warmly, they were old friends. Natasha was not only a Non-Breeder; her health condition would not allow her to carry an implant to delivery at all. She had no understanding of how important it was for a nursing mother to not be stressed.

"Natasha dear," Ana began. What are you and your team working on now," Ana asked her.

Natasha was relieved. She loved to talk about her work and described what her team was doing to Ana.

"That sounds like important work. It must require a lot of collaboration between your team members," Ana said.

Natasha agreed that communication was vital to the project.

"I was down in the lounge earlier today and I saw one of your team in there nursing her baby," Ana lied. "How would you feel about holding your meetings in the lounge when the young mother is breastfeeding? I surely wouldn't want your project to suffer because of a little thing like that," Ana said. "Your project is too important to our company."

Natasha nodded thoughtfully. "That sounds like a good idea," she told Ana. "Starting tomorrow we can do something even better than that. Everybody uses the lounge, but we have a very comfortable conference room off the lab, it's just for our use. We'll start having our collaboration sessions in there, if that's okay with you," Natasha offered.

"What an excellent idea," Ana said. "Always looking out for your team, Natasha. Keep up the good work." Ana said as she rose and led the woman out of her office.

She noticed that there was another group of men sitting around Rae. She was talking and they were nodding their heads in agreement to whatever she was saying. Rae wasn't supposed to give advice to the employees, just take their complaints. Ana wasn't sure if hiring Rae had been such a good idea after all. Unsure of her decision, Ana went back through the transcribed conversations Rae was having and smiled. Most of the complaints were personnel issues. They either didn't like the way their supervisor or another employee talked to them or felt like they weren't being appreciated.

No one except a trained counselor could do what that Rae was doing. She was listening to their complaints and agreeing that they were certainly valid and needed to be looked into. Then she gave them some advice about dealing with difficult people to make the situation go more smoothly next time. Most importantly, she asked them to come back to talk to her in a few days to tell them how it was going, if they were getting along with their coworkers better. Inviting these men back to ogle her again was a brilliant strategy. They would do what they could to keep from telling Rae that they'd failed to make progress.

Ana called Barb and told her to quadruple Rae's salary. She was worth her weight in jadeite. Later in the afternoon, Ana went into her reception area to see how Rae and Martha were doing. There were no complaining workers in her office! She called Rae back into her office and told Rae what an excellent job she was doing. As she went over some of the transcripts, she asked Rae where she had learned all of these techniques.

Rae explained that growing up, she was always getting in trouble at school. It was mostly the kinds of things that bossy little girls had trouble with. Her teacher was an adjunct professor in the Psychology Department at the University who taught all about interpersonal relationships. Rae explained that in High School, she was able to help all of her classmates get along together. A lot of the children of scientists had problems with those issues sometimes.

"Well, wherever you learned it, you learned it well. You also have a natural talent of talking to people and putting them at ease. I am very pleased with your work today," Ana told her. "In fact, I've already called HR and told them to increase your salary. You impressed me that much!"

"Thanks. Miss Maxwell, I don't even know how much I'm getting paid now," she said.

"Barb didn't tell you?"

"Oh yes, she told me my salary, but I got confused about how much would be deducted for one thing or another. Stock options and retirement, that kind of stuff. I meant that I just didn't know how much I would have to spend every month," she told Ana.

"I hope Barb told you how Executives don't ever discuss what they're paid. Other workers talk about it all the time. They have incentives, bonuses, pay grades according to their skills, but executives just get a very nice salary every month that doesn't change very often," Ana said.

"I get that," Rae replied. "Anything that makes the company more successful, the more the workers get paid. That makes a lot of sense," Rae said. "The better they work; the more rewards they reap. That's a great incentive to work even harder," she realized.

Ana shook her head. This girl was incredibly sharp. She would probably run the company one day. She could do whatever she wanted to do.

"Is there anything I can do to make your job easier?" Ana asked. "Do you want me to order that transparent desk for you?" Do you want me to move the coffee maker closer to you?" Ana asked.

Rae shook her head. "A glass coffee table is fine. Maybe you can get me a shorter one. That way men can get a better look at my pussy. I'm thinking about getting all my hair removed down there like you have," Rae smiled at Ana. "About moving the coffee maker closer, I was going to ask if we could move it a little further away. I'm pretty proud of my backside too," she told Ana.

Ana found herself laughing again. This girl was a delight. She liked to use her assets to her advantage. Having the men drool over her body made her better at her job.

"As far as what you will take home, let me get back with Barb," Ana said.

A few minutes later, Barb called Ana and told her Rae's net salary. Ana shook Rae's hand and Rae smiled.

"Is that a good salary?" she asked innocently. Being a Utopian on a regular planet, she had never worried about money, no one did. Everything was available as long as you did your fair share of the work.

"It's very good, and your services to the company are well worth it. Remember, not a word to anybody. Just you, me and Barb know how much you make," Ana told her.

That night as they all gathered for dinner at the Maxwell house, all of the newcomers were excited about their day. David and Ken had met the other scientists on their team, Alessandra had already gotten a patent in her name and a huge bonus with much more to come as the technology developed. Sally was back working with Daniel and Skylar and Cyrus were excited about their engineering jobs, working on the planet's infrastructure. Ana announced that Rae was working in her office now and doing a great job. While Skylar and Cyrus were bragging to each other how much money they would be making, Rae just shared a smile with Ana. Now she knew that she was making nearly three times their salaries.

Erik told them how he and Abbie had already met with a general contractor about building all of the facilities he would need for his business. At the end of the day they had spoken to Ed and Dawn at Stellardyne about building an anti-grav ship designed to hold the passengers and gear they needed to get to the remote areas of the planet that he and Abbie would be taking tourists on.

Ana and Gabby smiled as they watched Abbie's eyes as Erik talked and Erik's eyes whenever Abbie made a comment. They both recognized love at first sight. Abbie and Erik had that look. Ana and Gabby were very happy for them. They were also very proud of Abbie, she had hiked up those slopes where the resorts would be built and had never complained even though her legs had to be burning after all that exercise.

What had happened between Jo and Mike? Gabby wondered. They had always been very close; Brad and she had planned it that way. Gabby saw love there. She would have to ask her mother to see what she thought. After dinner was done and the dishes cleared, the Algoods went home. The boys were tired from all of the manual labor they had done today. Brad brought out a few growlers of the last of the German style beer. He, Rob, Erik and Mike enjoyed that little bit in the family room while the ladies all sipped on a glass of Eden red wine in the kitchen.

When the women came out and told the men that they were ready for bed, Gia came and took Erik's hand. He looked at Abbie and got a broad smile in reply. Sally went for Rob, while Sam went for David. leaving Abbie with Mike. Ana went to bed with Rae, and Jo went back to Gabby's bedroom to catch up on some mother-daughter loving.

The kids still had a few more weeks on Eden before they planned to leave again on their travels. One of their reasons for staying so long on Eden was to solidify and renew their relationships on Eden. They'd been to a number of community orgies here and had visited the homes of many others to make sure that none of their friends had forgotten them. Rae was even dating one of Joalice's friends, Liam. He was an extremely nice guy and great in bed, but he was no Mike. Jo had finally realized that no one else could be like Mike. They had already decided to become committed to each other but didn't really want to get married. Hardly any Gen 4 people were marrying anymore.

Two weeks and two community orgies later, along with making love to their parents at home, and the intrepid explorers were ready to boost again! Starseeker had been restocked, refueled and had all of the new routes downloaded into ALI. Rae would be staying on Eden, as would Skylar and Cyrus. Erik would be joining their group as they continued to explore the galaxy.