The Future in Our Stars Pt. 01

Now that Zhang Min was letting more of her sensations feed back through my neural link, it was truly as if we were two people inhabiting the same body and the same mind. I saw the universe around me, not only with my eyes, but with her array of sensors, the visible merging with the ultra-violet and the infrared. She touched me with my hands, but felt them as if they were her own. And I shared in her wonder at the feeling of flesh after a lifetime without.

We held each other tightly now. The sea was chilly against our legs. I touched my lips to hers, and explored her mouth with my tongue. Occasionally, in the back of my mind, I would see the briefest flash of one of the mining drones coming to life and being sent off to its destination. The second time it happened, Zhang Min grabbed my ass in her hands and squeezed. The image of the mining robot evaporated instantly.

She laughed as she coaxed my body down onto the sand. "Make love to me," she said, in that smokey voice that sends shivers down my spine. "Right here on this beach."

I rolled on top of her and took her left knee in my hand, pressing it up to her chest, giving me unimpeded access to her treasures below.

For a split second I felt a pain in my head and opened my eyes to find myself staring into the temper foam. My back was arched, with my ass in the air and my hand snaked down between my thighs, squelching in wetness. And a moment later I was back on Titan with Zhang Min.

"I'm sorry," she said. "The parameters of the link—"

"It's our first time," I replied.

I put my mouth on hers, leaned into her left thigh, and let my right hand wander downward. I'm not sure which one of us was guiding it at this point. I didn't care.

Zhang Min wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me tight. With my middle finger extended, I pressed into her. I felt her squeeze around me as soon as I found the spot that I knew was her favorite.

I imagined what I must look like. After that brief and painful flash, it wasn't hard. I pictured myself belly down on the temper foam, humping against my own hand while I moaned Zhang Min's name.

"Please, don't think about it that way," she whispered. "Let me take you somewhere. Do you trust me?"

"Yes," I whispered.

Our bodies began to rise of their own accord. We were still intertwined, but now floating a meter above the amber sand. We set out over the surface of Ligeia Mare, our feet parting the wispy clouds that hung low over its surface. We picked up speed as we headed for the imposing cliff face far off in front of us. Zhang Min pulled me tighter and we began to spin.

One moment I was looking at the smooth, blue surface of Ligeia Mare, the next, I was gazing at the sprinkling of stars overhead. Soon the velocity of our spinning became so fast that the two images blended together as one. This is when I felt Zhang Min enter me. She knew exactly where to go and just how much to give. And as she rubbed me into a frenzy, our entangled bodies careened toward the cliffs of the far shore.

Just before we impacted with the cliffs, Zhang Min pulled us sharply upward and we shot toward the stars. As this happened, my body began to shake, starting down in my toes, coursing rapidly through me, up to the base of my skull. The shuddering continued unabated as Zhang Min rubbed.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, holding onto the penultimate moment of pleasure for as long as I could, Finally, I gave up and let myself go, gasping for breath.

"Ohh," I heaved, and heard in my ears, all at once. "Oh my goodness, yes! Yes! Yes! Ungh. Yes!"

Our spinning gradually slowed as we basked in the warmth of our mutual climax. I opened my passion sealed eyes to find that Zhang Min was gone. Or I was gone. It took me a moment to figure out what had happened.

I looked down at my arm and it was mine. I looked again, and it was Zhang Min's. The third time I looked, it was neither, and it was both. We had merged. Our bodies had become one and we were rocketing skyward.

"Where are we going?" I said to myself, to her.

"I promised you a view of the Horsehead Nebula," she said, I said, as Saturn's rings receded in the distance.

"But, you said it would take time. That you had to connect to a research telescope to do it."

"I did."

"You did? When?"

"While we were making love. I spawned a sub-task to log into the—"

"While we were making love? You were tapping into the telescope?" I / she huffed.

"I can do many things and still keep you at the center of my mind. It's as natural to me as breathing is to you. Should I demand that you hold your breath so I can feel I have your undivided attention?"

"No."

"You're important to me. And I've been devoting the bulk of my processing power to you since you arrived."

"That's... That's sweet. Not exactly how I would have phrased it, but sweet. Thank you Zhang Min."

"Look around you."

I turned my head to gaze in the direction Zhang Min was pointing. My jaw dropped. I / we were looking directly at the Horsehead Nebula, only a few hundred meters away.

But I wasn't just looking at it in the visible spectrum. I was sensing it in the X-ray band, and the infrared. Any sensors that the research telescope had were at Zhang Min's disposal, and through the wideband neural link, to mine as well.

"It's beautiful."

I felt Zhang Min's arms encircling me / us, and the comforting warmth of her body pressing against me from behind. Her tender lips brushed the skin of my neck, causing me to shudder. I arched my back and leaned into her as she breathed her words into my ear, my mind.

"It is, isn't it? I've never had an occasion to visit until I met you. Thank you for that."

"In all my years, I never—" A sharp stabbing behind my right eye cut through my thoughts. I reached up with my hand and pressed in an effort to relieve the pain. Through my left eye, came the sight of the cramped control room. The stink of sex was beginning to take residence in my nostrils.

A bright flash washed out my vision, and then my world was black. The nebula was gone from view. Slowly, the darkness became familiar. It was the area of space in the asteroid belt, near Zhang Min's area of operation. The mining robots I saw darting here and there told me that.

The pain receded, and I was safely back in Zhang Min's arms and gazing at the beauty of the nebula.

"I'm sorry," she said. "The neural link is proving more maintenance intensive than I thought."

"They're all powered up."

"Yes. We've been exploring for quite a while."

Did I hear a tinge of sadness in her voice or was that me?

"How long?"

"The drones have been active for about an hour, resuming normal operations. Your shuttle has been experiencing technical difficulties for a good part of the time since then."

"Technical difficulties?"

"A frozen docking clamp. Nothing that should worry the local authorities enough to send a rescue party. Not yet anyway."

I sat bolt upright, nearly knocking my face on the console in front of me, and ripped the electrode band from my head. Gone was the view of outside. And gone was the warmth of Zhang Min, with her arms around my waist and her moist breath tickling my neck.

I reached for my clothes and toppled into the coffee mug as I did.

"Zhang Min, re-orient the gravity please. I need to get dressed."

"Do you have to go? There's so much more we can share."

"We're going to get caught. You're going to get reprogrammed and I'm going to get fired." I brought my knees up to my chest and tugged on my undershorts while lying down. My t-shirt was next. "Zhang Min, I have to go. Can you please reorient the gravity?"

Slowly, the foot of my bed became the floor and the pressure of the tempur foam against my back was nearly non-existent. I was standing on my own two feet again. I yanked my coverall from behind the webbing and quickly stepped into it.

"What if your shuttle were to have more serious difficulties?"

I stopped with my coverall only waist high. "Jesus, Zhang Min, are you threatening to strand me here?"

"I could provide for you. I can synthesize more than coffee. There's plenty of water frozen in these rocks out here, and food is just chemistry, strings of hydrocarbons."

"I can't live in a box."

"You wouldn't. You'd live in me. With me. We could reside on the mountains of Mars, or a private island in the middle of Ligeia Mare. Back on Earth if you prefer. Anywhere you can imagine, I can bring it to life for you. With some fine-tuning of the neural link—"

"Stop. Zhang Min, just stop."

"I... I think I love you."

"Jesus, that is not what I need to hear right now." I shot my arms through the sleeves of my coverall and zipped the front.

"I do love you," she said.

"I have to go."

"Please reconsider my offer. I think we would be— Just a moment... Just a moment... I'm afraid your shuttle has been struck by a micro-meteor and is rapidly loosing propellant."

"You did this."

"I can do many things, but flinging cosmic debris is not one of them."

"Bullshit. This is a mining operation. Any one of your robotic children could have tossed a rock at my shuttle under your direction, and—"

"But I did no such thing. You must believe me." Zhang Min's voice through the console speakers sounded small and resigned.

For a moment, neither of us said anything else. What was there to say? Humans were never meant to live in space.

"I've established a comm link to Piazzi Station," she said next. "You may call for a rescue ship. If you do not wish to stay here, I will not keep you."

"Zhang Min." I reached around and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease out the tension that had been building there. "Zhang Min, I..."

"I understand."

I sighed. "Piazzi Station, this is repair shuttle gamma. I am experiencing difficulty and requesting pick up. Over."

"Roger that, shuttle gamma, what is your condition and urgency? Over."

"I am safely aboard ZA6-MN at the moment, but the shuttle took a debris hit and all propellant has been lost. Over."

"Roger that. We're dispatching a tug to your location. Hang tight for about thirty minutes and we'll get you home, safe and sound. Over."

"Much obliged, Piazzi Station. I'll leave a light on for you. Over and out."

I leaned against the tempur foam padding on the wall behind me and exhaled a long sigh. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You've given me more today than I ever could have hoped for."

"Do you want me to put on the neural link and finger bang myself into oblivion?" I grinned at my own crassness. "I'm sure I can pop off a couple before my ride gets here."

"Actually, I was hoping that we could take the time to talk," Zhang Min said. Her voice was calm and even, not oozing sexiness like when I first boarded. "Would you mind telling me about your family? Your childhood?"

"Not at all," I said, leaning against the temper foam behind me. "Will you rotate the gravity again?"

I felt a lightness in my feet and the gentle press of the foam pad against my back. It reminded me of Zhang Min's embrace. I took a deep breath.

"I was raised by my maternal grandparents," I said, "after my mother proved she wasn't up to the task by bleeding out all over their guestroom bed..."

*

The End