Subtle Redundancy

"Mmhmm." Nodding knowingly, Leonor brought them onto the new course and banked so that Erno could do his observations. "Tell you one thing, though," she admitted candidly. "Being pregnant hasn't made me any less horny."

Rielle shrugged. "As long as you can physically manage it, sex is fine," she explained airily. "That is, if you can find a guy to fuck you."

Leonor tittered. "Don't worry about that." They giggled, the shuttle rattling around them.

* * *

Janicka, finally done setting up the last of the tents, leaned back on the makeshift sofa underneath the shelter and watched thoughtfully as the tamed waters slurped at the shore. Time was, Plastic Harbor had been a ravaged beach with constantly breaking waves; the effort to build and anchor the hatchery booms had taken ten local months. Now the carefully planted coral breakwater marched further into the bay with every passing week, according to Erno's calculations, and the near corner of the harbor was a fairly gentle lagoon, the dark waters a shuddering mirror for the clouded moons. "Someday," she sighed, "there'll be a town here."

"Yup." Rielle smiled at her. "And they'll need a surgeon."

Erno laughed, then shut it off short; he always seemed awkward when he showed too much amusement. "Going to settle here, Rielle?"

"Only if you do." Rielle had no reputation as a flirt, but she enjoyed doing it anyway. At least, now that there were stakes. She glanced opaquely over at Erno. "We could, you know. The history books are going to remember that Elon Weathers was the Interim Commandant, the founder of whatever civilization this planet becomes." She shrugged. "Why not Taconic and Fourbee as the founders of the city at Plastic Harbor?"

"Why not." She surprised a smile out of him, that rare thing, and she raised her glass. He leaned over for the clink. "But we'd need to attract settlement."

"Easy." Rielle took another sip. "We'll legalize prostitution." The group laughed, tired out after their long day, the air still feeling fresh and sharp after the rain.

"Like it matters." April yawned. "Why would anyone pay for it? I'd say the Wad has a vibrant sexual culture already." Nods, along with a sidelong glance or two toward the two Domestics. "I mean. For citizens, anyway." And then all the glances flipped to Erno, and the silence afterward was painful. Rielle waited patiently for someone else to break it. Scott, probably.

"Well," Scott drawled (good guess), "that whole 'busting out and starting your own city thing' sounds pretty good." He shrugged. "I can see myself doing that. I'd call my village New Wadlwengula."

"Fuck that." Rielle spat. "Seize the opportunity, Scotty. Change the name."

"Yeah," April echoed. "Wadlwengula sucks. I'm sure it'll be the first thing the Permanent Commandant changes."

"I think it's customary to eventually name the first settlement after the Interim Commandant," Sergey ventured. He was sitting on the ground. "So, Weathers. Weathers City? Weathersville?"

"Yeah. No." April shook her head decisively. "I was cloned in a First Settlement. It still had the name the terraformers had given it, shit, three hundred years before? Four hundred?" She smiled at the memory. "Well, unless the IC's name was S-h-i-t-p-i-l-e." She spelled it out.

Scott laughed, eyeing April's legs. "You're from a city called Shitpile?"

"Well," she snapped, tossing her hair, "we can't all be from the Core." Scott had grown up on one of Jupiter's moons. "They don't pronounce it that way anymore. They say it more like sh'PEE-lay." She shrugged. "Linguistic drift. It's a pain in the ass. But at least it keeps you from having to say you're from Shitpile."

"Damn straight," Leonor snorted. "I wonder what they'll end up calling me in the history books on this planet."

"Leonor Raantta." Scott chewed on the words. "I have a hard enough time pronouncing that now." She smacked him. They'd grown up together, barely a year apart. Rielle wondered idly whether she'd fucked him yet. "I'll bet they'll start pronouncing it as 'fucking bitch from hell.'"

"You'd know," she replied testily, kicking him from her spot on a folding chair. Yes. Definitely, they'd fucked, Rielle decided. And why not? He'd fucked everyone else, Rielle included. But there was a difference between once, twice, and a regular thing. And he and Leonor showed every sign of being a regular thing.

She wondered whether April saw it.

Dinner was more smoked purgeon than any of them could eat; it had been a good few months at the hatchery, and the auto-processor was functioning perfectly. "Purgeon Bay," she said quietly, nudging Erno. "When we establish our town. We can call it Purgeon Bay." She nodded toward the still water, with the angry line of the surf by the breakwater beyond. "And we can lounge around all day in the exhaust heat from the smoker."

"No." He swirled the last of his drink and thought about how to respond. "Purgeon Bay is too literal. I'd want something more substantial. With some history behind it."

She chuckled softly. "So I guess New Promise is out, too?" He smiled at her, quickly, and she restrained herself from glancing down into his lap. He liked her, clearly. This had been an outstanding plan, and she was even starting to want to fuck him, quite apart from the challenge of getting his sperm. "What are you thinking?" she yawned. "A little seaside village, alone with me? Maybe a dog. Some kids." She watched as his eyes closed briefly; yes. It was a sore spot. "Or not."

"Whatever." Fuck, he was so diffident! "It's a fantasy, anyway. Once the Permanents arrive, I doubt they'll want anything to do with us. That's the point," he shrugged.

"All the more reason for us to take the best parts first," Rielle pointed out, but she wasn't really arguing. She handed over her beer. "Here. You can have mine." He smiled. "So. What's your name? For your village?"

He glanced at the others, but they were in their own conversation; he was used to people not paying attention to him. "It's silly," he warned.

"I'm an apprentice surgeon," she winked. "I'll keep your secrets." She wondered whether he even realized how husky her voice was getting. "You clearly have something in mind."

He looked down, then nodded to himself. "I've always figured, if I had to name anything like that, that Tiamat sounds nice."

"It does," Rielle nodded, shifting to move closer to him. "Rolls off the tongue. What is that, Old Chinese? Sounds like it."

"I don't think so," he replied. "It's the name of some sort of god or goddess, from way back. Early Earth." He shook his head. "But that's not the real reason I like it," he admitted, looking at her sideways, and she hoped he was smelling her pussy now, thinking about the smell on his hand after she'd smeared his doorway. All subconscious. She wondered what the others would do if she leaned over right now and laid a harsh, eager kiss on geeky Erno.

"What's the real reason?" she breathed.

"It's stupid," he insisted. "It's also a character in an old game people used to play. A dragon. Five, six heads."

"A game?" She reached out and smacked his forearm playfully. "What's stupid about that?"

He shrugged and smiled again. "I don't know. I've researched it. The game wasn't cool or historical or anything." She thought of the chess knight on her work table. "Just a game dumb kids used to play. Seems like a silly thing to name, like, a city after."

"I dunno." Rielle reached over, took back her beer, and had another sip. "As far as anyone knows, it's some old historic goddess." She winked again. "I'm telling you. Your secret is safe with me, Erno. And for the record, I like the name." She sat back, feeling the tiredness. "Rielle Fourbee, Resident Surgeon of the City of Tiamat." She laughed softly. "A woman could get used to that. And you'd be, what? King? Commandant? Subemperor? Agronomical Engineer-in-Chief?"

"Apprentice surgeon, maybe," he joked, and the pulse from Reille's vagina was quite unexpected. It felt like a warm, surging jet of excitement up into her abdomen. She was going to enjoy fucking him, she knew now. The urge became too much to ignore, and she leaned abruptly over to plant a wet kiss on his cheek, avoiding his glasses. Nobody much noticed, other than a smiling April. "What was that for?"

"Nothing." She smiled against his cheek. He'd been bristly against her lips. "Does there have to be a reason?" She was murmuring into his ear now. "When it rains later, if your dome leaks, I'll have room in the shuttle." She sat back again. "I'd rather not have you catch pneumonia. Prophylaxis is the best treatment, after all. Though, what was it you told me? You don't like to be fussed over?"

He blinked over at her, astonishment snapping over his face before he pasted his mask back on again. He hesitated; it was rare that Rielle was a better flirt than anyone else, but it was certainly happening now. "That old shuttle is more likely to leak than my dome."

She ran a hand through her hair, finally free of its ponytail. "Well then." She looked him slyly up and down, making sure he saw her do it. "Maybe I'll be the one to seek shelter." Her instinct told her, loudly, to leave it there, that the harpoon had been sunk deeply in, and that there was nothing more she could accomplish here under the gazebo. So she smiled pleasantly and stretched her arms high. "Fucking early morning tomorrow," she sighed loudly. "I'm off to bed, fellow citizens," she called. "Oh. And Domestics." She nodded down at Janicka and Sergey. "One can never forget the Domestics."

"Fuck off, Ms Fourbee," Sergey smiled. "Few more months and I turn eighteen," he went on pointedly. "Like you."

"Pretty important few months, then," Rielle grinned. "Good night, all. Stay dry."

It had always been difficult to find a warm place to sleep in the shuttles. There was plenty of space, but all of it was hard, cold, and angular. Sleep pads had a tendency to slide around, and the lighting was weird when the moons were anything but full. Tonight one was a crescent and the other a half, and that meant a weird bluish glow suffused everything in the crew bay. Rielle sat over the little chemical toilet and waited for the ovular indicator to calibrate; once it beeped, she pulled it calmly out of her pussy and studied the readout. Fuck. She was deeply in heat.

92.2. The percentage likelihood of her getting knocked up by any normal man within the next eight hours. And, once she followed up by inputting Erno Taconic's latest motility numbers, the probability went over 97%. It would be tonight, then; Rielle felt the tingle run through her body in a stiff hot wave.

She didn't really think Erno would come to her there, but that was the point of not bringing a fourth tent. The shuttle's discomfort was her excuse to go to his dome, so she willed herself to ignore the damp prickle in her cunt and set her neural alarm for local two in the morning, swaddled herself in the air blankets, and set herself up for alpha wave initiation to lull her into sleep. There was the usual brief, pulsing tone while the wave generator synched itself to the wakeup time, and then she felt her brain slowing, dragging, pushing her down into that treacly half-state on her way into oblivion, just as the rain began lashing the roof of the shuttle once more.

* * *

The system worked as well as it always did, timing down the delta waves starting around five minutes before two; a quick swoop back through REM, and the implant prodded her back into wakefulness right on schedule. The bluish light was still there, even brighter, and it hadn't moved; the Lower Moon here was perfectly antisynchronous, so the shadows tended not to move for most of the local year.

She sat up, wondering whether she'd strike her head on the aft crew release; as expected, her pad had slid all the way into the deckwell. All around her the hatchery station slept: the muffled roar of the surf against the breakwater, the nightly noises of the region's nameless bugs and vertebrates, the everpresent sting of raindrops on metal. Rielle kicked the air blanket from her naked body and stretched her neck, already feeling the anticipation in her gut. She didn't need to check her dream log to know she'd been having a sex dream.

Before her grey eyes swam the chrono: 02:01, and she wanted to get laid. Rielle groped on the bulkhead for a water spigot, marveling as she always did that humankind had tamed the stars and achieved greatness across the universe, but it hadn't figured out how to eliminate the scourge of the halitotic wakeup.

She got lithely to her feet, running an exploratory finger through the hair above her vag, feeling the matted gumminess alongside her clit. Yup. A sex dream, and evidently a solid one. Already she felt the warm flutter behind her abdomen.

The rain wasn't heavy, and she debated about what to bring; as expected, Erno had ignored her earlier invitation. She'd need no clothes in his tent, obviously, but when the sun came up she'd be doing a walk of shame, and even her limited experience had told her it was always best not to do that in the nude.

She was twisting in the dark to grope for a moisture gown when the exterior hatch rattled, a deliberate and heavy sound that owed nothing to the night's mild breeze. Hesitating, Rielle aimed wide eyes at the door, wondering who the hell was trying to get in; she decided immediately that it had to be Scott, sneaking out of the shack for some nocturnal fun after April had gone to sleep. Faintly there was a chance it was one of the other girls, but it didn't sound that way. Rielle gritted her teeth.

A complication wasn't what she needed. Any other night, she'd have spun around with her ass toward the hatch and bent herself over as soon as Scott got the door open. But his wasn't the cock she needed to take tonight, dammit.

Still. If Scott was skipping out on his pregnant woman for some carefree pussy, on a station with three available vaginas, it made her just a little bit buzzier to know she was his choice. Her mind was still racing for an excuse to give him when the door finally slid open, and the silhouette beyond wasn't Scott's.

Rielle couldn't suppress a gasp. Her head was already buzzing, feeling compressed, her voice sounding distant to herself when she spoke. "Umm. So, I take it your tent is leaking, after all?"

Erno's shrug was almost offensive in its diffidence. "I mean, it's just... you offered."

"I did." She was suddenly conscious, very conscious, of her nudity; he'd obviously seen it all before, as recently as the other day in the factory window, but she straightened anyway with that instinctive need to put herself on display. She thought about how her skin must look in the blue illum, every slim muscle outlined in inky shadow, with her hair hiding her face. Good. He'd have been unable to see her shock. "I'm just up to take a piss. Make yourself comfortable, Erno. I use an air blanket usually, but if you'd rather we use wool? Fine with me." And then she was off to the latrine, feeling the breeze through the open hatch against her bare ass, and already her mouth was bone-dry again.

The little analog mirror in the shuttle's chemical latrine showed her a pair of wild eyes in a flushed face as the light came subtly up, and she regarded herself for a few moments. Rielle was deeply surprised Erno had found it in him to come to her tonight, and she was eager to find out what other depths he had. Her mind lingered on the memory of his face as he'd driven himself toward that desperate orgasm in the sickhouse, the way his large balls had bounced so madly; distantly, she realized she was mildly tachypneatic, and as her hand slapped absently to stir the unused toilet she forced her breathing back under control.

She didn't need to reach down to know she was weeping all over her inner thighs, as thoroughly aroused as she'd been with anyone. She bit at her lip and remembered Erno's hard dick as he'd urged himself toward his orgasm in the sickhouse storeroom, and that was the image that launched her back out of the latrine and into the crew bay.

He'd shut the hatch and stood now, half-seen in the moonlight from the flight deck windscreen. A bare, wiry torso caught the bluish glow in his sparse chest hair, and Rielle felt her pulse quicken as he fumbled with his waist strap. So she forced herself to a slow, sliding glide, her bare feet pattering on the metal decking, and knelt by her sleeping pad. "So. What's your poison, Erno? Air or wool?"

He hesitated before sliding his pants down over his hips; they landed at his feet with a damp whisper. "It's your house," he managed after a few seconds. She could see the outline of his penis, half-hard in the dimness; nobody in the colony wore clothes to bed, but she was amused at the lack of underwear. She licked her lips automatically.

"Air." She tapped the temperature code into the air blanket, accounting for the extra body. "It's only a one-person sleep pad, but we'll be close." She peered up at him from her knees, her back straight, ignoring the chill in the bay, expectant.

She heard him draw a deep breath as he stepped closer, the shadows shifting across his skin. "Those fucking domes," he mused. "So leaky."

"Lot of that going around," Rielle sighed, meaning the wetness creeping slowly down her thigh. His cock, firmer, bounced as he walked; she could almost feel the confidence growing in him. She smiled to herself when he stopped within arm's reach of her, his smell rolling toward her: thick, masculine. She felt her body responding fiercely. She craned her neck up. "Coming to bed?"

Rielle heard him swallow. "It's why I'm here," he said quietly. She laughed too loudly.

"Not because of the leaky tent?" She pouted, sliding on her knees from the cold deck to the warm pad. The air around her grew warm and cozy as the blanket pulled itself up. "I'm beginning to think you're here to take advantage of me, Erno," she teased, hearing the burr in her voice.

He chuckled nervously. "Not at all, Rielle," he murmured, and then his hairy legs were sliding under the air blanket, along her back, and she couldn't stop the shudder as his body glued itself to hers. She giggled when she felt coldness along her hip. "Something wrong?"

"Fuck. Is that water?" The sensation puzzled her until she remembered it had been raining out. "Your hands."

He laughed, and she could feel his chest vibrating against her skin. He felt good. Warm and sinewy, and with the confidence growing along with the cock she felt nestling between the cheeks of her ass. She twisted her hips playfully, letting him know she appreciated it. "I'm all clammy," he agreed, his mouth just centimeters from her ear. His breath tickled her neck. "If only we could think of a way to warm my hands up."

Rielle exhaled, feeling the fire build. She had him, that was for sure; now she could relax and let him have her. She raised her foot and set the instep on his ankle, the top one, then she moved her foot slowly up his leg, opening herself as she bent at the knee, waiting for Erno to take the invitation. She hoped she was reading him right, that she wouldn't have to prod him. That she'd synched him to her needs as effectively as she'd planned, back there in the commandant's office.

She rolled her head back, feeling the press of his chin behind her ear as that chilly hand of his crept around her, over her hipbone, and she settled back into him. She moved her hand to rest lightly along his wrist, and Erno's lips found her neck at the same moment his fingers found her pussy.

Rielle sagged into his embrace, a happy sigh gurgling out of her throat. All of this: the anticipation of the event, the unexpectedness of her man's arrival in the shuttle, the refreshing confidence in his rain-cold hand, the sheer animal pleasure in being played with... She lost herself, fully and rapidly, like she had that first night with Roni: this wasn't about her any longer. It was about them. And Erno was showing he knew it, too.