OVER THE SILVER SKY TO THE WORLD OF NEVER : Part 221 - My, You Have Been A Busy Boy.

You really can't over express the importance of underwear. It's the first thing you take off in the morning and the last thing you sniff at night. It's what keeps your rude bits from chaffing against your outer clothes. Recently I decided to treat myself to some new underwear to cheer myself up. The old ones were sneaking away in the night to throw themselves into traffic. You see those ones in the picture? Well they've got about 3 months wear left in them. The best way to calculate wearability is to peel them off before you go to bed. Then when you wake up throw your undies at the wall. If it takes them less than 2 minutes to slide down to the floor then you're good to go. Anyway I bought the underwear after a lot of study. Eventually I went for some lovely boxer briefs, with flex fabric and moisture wicking. I wasn't entirely sure whether my underwear, or anything contained within, was in need of wicking. In the end I went for safety. I might not need wicking now, but it could become popular at some point. This way I'll be an early adopter. By the way, never burn your underwear. It looks very suspicious if anyone sees you doing it.

(The copyright to this image is the property of YouTube.)

It turned out that the 1.5 kilometer long, 125 meter diameter space ship did have some points of interest. For a start the bow and stern were thinner. Making it very needle like. Not because of aerodynamics. It was protection against potential collisions. That was the purpose of the frictionless surface as well. Anything it came into contact with at superluminal speeds would slide off rather than blow a hole through the entire vessel. Even when the thing slowed down to sub-light speeds a collision with a speck of dust would have wrecked it. While the hull was nearly indestructible, it wasn't quite. Funny when you thought of it. The damn thing had survived hitting the ground yet it could be fatally damaged by tiny particles.

Chiro had only been constructed for a single purpose. To land here, collect data unobtrusively and await Jake's arrival. It was a one off design for a one way trip. The reason its hull was made of a superfluid solid was again for Jake. Due to its velocity on impact the vessel was bound to be buried. Thousands of calculations had worked out there was no chance the docking bays would be above ground. Unless the ship was upside down or at an angle. Then because it was frictionless there was no way of reaching those docking bays if they were high up. As it was the thing had ended up almost completely buried. The 120 meters or so of height that was above ground constituted less than 8% of the whole. Scarlet had been right about that. The ship was big.

While it had been constructed without any provisions for crew, it did contain many other features which could be operated by a potential crew. Merely because it had been simpler to design it like that. Removing all the rooms, controls and screens would have required even more engineering. To Jake that sounded stupid enough to be true. He'd accept it for now. After a few hours aboard he eventually discovered that the transparent hull could be turned off. Mostly. The bridge, where he'd ended up, would always be transparent. In his current state it didn't make any difference to him. The messages to his brain were coming directly from the ship itself. A giant detector built at immense expense to repay a debt to The Wanderer. The nature of that debt unknown. Both to Chiro and Jake.

There was a holographic deck in the middle of the craft. Mostly containing recreations of scenes from the various Ustraski worlds. Somewhere for the crew to go and unwind. According to Chiro there were also simulations. They were of little interest to any non-Ustraski. They didn't go in for RPG's or shoot-em-ups. If they encountered anyone stupid enough to want to fight them, they did it in space. Where they were unbeatable. That was extremely rare. As a species they were peaceful. Preferring to trade. Holding a near monopoly of all trade in their galactic cluster. In a thing this size elevators were needed. Ones that went in any direction necessary. Generally horizontal or vertical, but no pathway was off limits. Once your entered that transport system you could go just about anywhere. His explorations had been limited. Only perusing anything to keep his mind off what was happening elsewhere.

That was it. A space ship, that cost the entire GDP of several populous planets, had been dispatched to The Never at his behest. Complete with a recorded greeting for The Wanderer. In English to. Things were coming together though. Very slowly. Jake had been hard at it working out things. It kept him occupied, until something else attracted his attention. It was usually Scarlet and Ydrie. The other three were treating their forthcoming tryst like a leisurely, pleasurable meal. Not rushing at it. Although in another way they'd decided to hump each other after only meeting an hour or two before. Compared to Ydrie and Scarlet they were unhurried, so it was valid. Things were slotting into place. Unfortunately merely thinking that caused his mind to leap back to other things slotting in.

Eventually he decided he couldn't wait any longer. It was almost 9 in the evening. He was hungry again. Jake told Chiro he was heading back to camp. Chiro accepted this, but insisted he had to return the following day. That was problematic. They'd be due to head off to find Ugo, Patriarch of clan Shucha. They'd already lost well over half a day. He took the elevator down to the aft docking bay. The lights coming on as he exited his inertialess ride. Which was still dizzying because he could see the whole world around him. One of those things he'd worked out was that the things he felt, such as orgasms. Weren't being felt as such. What was happening was that he was interpreting the data he was receiving. The raised heart rates, increased hormone levels etc. Considering he knew next to nothing about hormones, pheromones and neurotransmitters, that was impressive. Getting out of the ship was mind bending. Once the doors had slid open a small gap was visible. Only wide enough for him to wriggle through. The situation being complicated by the different directions of gravity between outside and inside. Down within the ship was across outside the ship. Simply sticking his head through the small exit did horrible things to his balance. It was like his body didn't belong to him. I was elsewhere doing its own thing.

It was after dark. Although in The Never it was rarely pitch black, it was still difficult to see more than a few meters on land. No problem tonight though. His x-ray super-vision cut through the darkness, making it brighter than day. Even from this distance he could see where everyone was. Fetu and Pip by the campfire they'd lit. The others doing rude things. Another realization he'd made was that the effect was historical. He could see the past that had been recorded. From the party that had originally come to examine the crash site to first Taini and then Ydrie moving here. Right on up to the present. How he'd been able to read their emails was a conundrum, until he understood that he could read the Fafindi language and had been viewing the missives from when they were first read. There was one thing bothering him though. His best efforts at keeping his attention off the lovers had been in vain. Time after time he'd had to drag himself away. After a few dozen, maybe a hundred, he'd spotted something he couldn't explain.

"Hermes? Where are Scarlet's nanites? I haven't seen them, yet I can see what her cells are doing internally."
The preoccupied AI got back a lot quicker than before.
"They're dormant. Not as sophisticated as I am. Just basic programming. They don't work outside technological areas. And anyway they are purely a survival aid. They only go into action when there is serious trauma. That's why they did nothing against that toxin the pygmies used. It wasn't potentially fatal. Nothing less than serious injury gets them going. Her nanites are rudimentary. It's still early days in their development and anything more sophisticated is banned in most places. Too many nanites have gone berserk to trust them with anything complicated. When they're dormant like this they breakdown into their constituent molecules."
Seemed reasonable. Raven had given them to Scarlet in Harrowmist apparently. There was a possibility they had been gifted simply to keep her alive in Galakhand. Some calculation, portent or examination of the timeline had necessitated them.

Being able to see the past in detail, Jake knew Taini had moved here a little over 20 years ago. Having visited the site shortly after the craft crash landed. Ydrie had followed about 2 years later, when he'd decided to concentrate on his art. Both had been city dwellers up to then. Now they were out in the middle of nowhere. Their nearest neighbor Nour. It explained why they worked so fast, as far as sex was concerned. They received very few visitors. So when travelers came they usually ended up inviting them into their beds. This happened maybe once or twice a year. No wonder they worked that fast. Transient relationships. That lasted hours or weeks at most. Nobody had been by for almost 10 months. So they were making the most of things right now. Especially Ydrie it had to be said. he'd found the ideal partner in Scarlet. Who, when she was Sharon, had propositioned Jake within minutes of meeting. Something else had been pretty quick.

"You responded a lot faster than I thought you would , when I asked you about the nanites. I thought you'd be far too busy filtering and doing computer stuff."
"I've been learning a lot about sex from Scarlet and Ydrie." The intelligence returned. "I've learned a host of new things about Scarlet to. For instance I didn't know she was that religious. Until I heard the number of times she says oh God, my God and God. She's also a lot more agreeable than you'd think. Judging by the number of times she's said yes. There have been a couple of no's and some don't stops. Harder and faster are also popular it seems. As is I'm c.."
Jake rocked with laughter, interrupting Hermes in mid flow.
"That's not really representative and you know it. The circumstances are unusual at the moment."
"It's got me thinking to. Once I get this body with a dong like a donkey, which approach do you think I should use with Morag? The straight down to it or the long drawn out foreplay?"
Jake actually considered that.
"I'm not sure. You're limited to only being able to survive in another body for hours. So really the straight down to it is your only option. Morag won't mind. Although I suppose it would be nicer for her if you drew it out."
"Thanks to that squid and Chiro, more correctly their tech, I have ways of extending that to days. My systems will degrade, but at a much slower rate. I've worked it out."
"My, you have been a busy boy." His hunger pangs were doing a good job of keeping his attention off the others, but he needed to eat. "I don't give a shit what anyone says when I get back to camp. I'm having some churt. I'll cook it. No one else has to eat it. In fact I'd prefer it. That way there's more for me."