On A Wing And A Prayer Ch 01 Flying

Dearest reader

I hope you are well. This is Part 1 of 2, a slow burn Sci Fi story, with no sex in this section. No hard feelings if that's not what you're in the mood for. Please try some of the amazing stories by other authors on

my lists

if you are after something different.

Massive thanks to Migbird, Mykymyk2 and Wandering Minstrel for their advice and feedback. Remaining flaws are all my fault.

Best wishes and happy reading

T x

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On a wing and a prayer Part 1: flying

As she waited to be called into the research approval panel, Ruth Samuelsdaughter watched the wild chickens fly from the pursuing cockerel outside, flapping from branch to branch of the large walnut trees outside the JS Physics Research Laboratory. As clumsy as their flight was, she couldn't help but feel envious of their freedom. The offspring of escapees, they hadn't gone far, and local boys would often hunt them. But with no predators besides mankind, and finding their wings worked well in the lower gravity of Jerusalem, they had thrived and survived.

"Esther!"

The joyful exclamation of the receptionist at the end of the corridor brought Ruth out of her reverie. Sarah TomandJohnsmother was hugging a woman, one Ruth recognised as her erstwhile colleague in plastics research, Esther Philipsdaughter... well, as was. She was Esther Michaelswife now of course.

Esther's baby bump was already showing: most likely twins, Ruth thought to herself. Of course, that was pretty normal, given that most of the population had been modified to carry and release more eggs in order to increase the chances of conception and multiple births in order to populate the planet as quickly as possible. It had only been three long moons since Ruth had stood in the daughter's section of the congregation as Esther had become Michael Jamesson's third wife, passing up her white robes for green. She wondered idly now what Esther was doing here, seeing as she wouldn't be allowed to return to work until she was past child-bearing age and her youngest future child had reached fourteen. And maybe not even then: the pace of Scientific research as such that few women, no matter how talented, were able to return to their prior positions post-motherhood, even if their husbands gave permission. Ruth had read some of Sarah TomandJohnsmother's research papers, yet that insightful lady had found the leading edge of Science had left her far behind during her twenty-two year absence.

"Blessings Ruth!"

"Double blessings Esther." Ruth rose to offer the married woman a hug, remembering at the last moment that this was no longer appropriate and offering a curtsey instead. "And I see that you are indeed double blessed," she quipped.

"Yes, indeed," laughed Esther. "Twins there are! The Saint has blessed us and Michael's harvest shall grow."

"It warms my heart to see you so blessed," Ruth responded carefully. "Seeing you is a joy I had not looked for."

"Indeed," giggled Esther, "I was certain I would never again know the drudgery of these walls and halls." Ruth suppressed any reaction - she didn't think the slight was intentional - Esther was not known for her tact. "But, I found some hard copies of field results on the cellulose polymer and felt it would be sinful if I did not return them."

A smile lit Ruth's face. She had been looking for those. "Indeed, I am most grateful. Shall I take them from you now?"

"Thank you. Though I see you are waiting for a panel. If you prefer, I can leave them with Sarah?" She proffered the cloth bag containing various papers and hard disks.

"In the Saint's name, I would not trouble you or her further. I will take them."

Esther handed them over, looking past Ruth as she did at the closed door to the panel room. "Perhaps you will be blessed this time Ruth, and the panel will decide that you have contributed enough. You will at last be allowed to lay down your tools and lay down amongst the blessed wives and become a mother. I know you must want that."

Ruth suppressed a shudder. She knew Esther fervently believed her own words. She had sulked terribly when she had been given a six long moon extension on her own project.

Ruth dipped a curtsey. "I serve the Saint and his appointed. It is as they will it."

"As they will it," Esther replied.

The door behind opened. The lined face of the panel assistant, Rachael SamuelandPaulsmother, appeared.

"Ruth Samuelsdaughter, you are called to the panel."

"May the Saint bless you," said Esther.

Dropping Esther the curtsey her status and state merited, Ruth entered the panel room.

* * *

On the way back to the sanctuary of her lab, Ruth's feet felt even lighter than usual. Entering, she was met with the sight of the person she both most and least longed to see. Her heart leapt even as her stomach tightened at the presence of Martha Thomassdaughter.

"Well!!?" Martha asked, jumping and seeming to hover in the air as a result. For a moment, her curly, bouncing blonde hair caught the sunlight and looked not unlike a halo.

"By Saint Joseph, how can you possibly know already?" Ruth laughed. "I've literally just come from the panel room and haven't spoken to another Sainted soul."

"It's in your walk," Martha said. "Plus there's no way you wouldn't be crying if they had rejected your proposal and told you it was time to marry and be blessed."

She laughed and threw her arms around Ruth, causing Ruth's pulse to soar. She was sinfully aware of the delicious weight of Martha in her arms, the press of her breasts into her chest.

"By the sweet Saint, I'm so pleased we can keep working together! Yay!"

"Well, I'm sure it helped that a certain Thomas Lukesson was chairing the panel and might have been primed by a certain sainted daughter."

"By the Saint, I don't know what you mean," Martha said, cocking up a leg and twirling a finger in her hair. The gesture caused twinges in parts of Ruth that she knew should absolutely not be feeling anything. "As if I have any influence at all with Father."

Martha reached out and squeezed Ruth's hand, tugging her black haired friend after her. "Sweet Ruth, come and see my latest microlight designs. I want to use your self-repairing polymers for the wings."

Pulling her closer to her tablet, Martha commenced to talk Ruth through her plans for a new single person aeroplane, pointing out where she would require Ruth's new cellulose based polymers, and to what tog and dimensions. They were so close, that Martha's curls were tickling Ruth's cheek, entrancing her with the simple scent of soap they bore.

Ruth tried to focus, but was distracted by the grace and elegance of Martha's wrists and fingers as her hands flew over the screen, panning across and zooming in on specific details. She couldn't help but imagine the feel of those fingers on her own skin, remembering times of innocent touches - the smearing of suncream, the helping with hair, the friendly interlinking of fingers in greeting. Martha was excited and bubbling over with enthusiasm, almost bouncing, and her generous chest swelled under her white lab coat. Like Ruth, she came from genetically modified stock, with wide child-bearing hips and bountiful breasts.

It has once struck Ruth as odd that on a planet where 80% of the population was female, that obstetrics and gynaecology were purely the preserve of men. It was no longer a mystery to her: she had long since worked out that it was one of their means of control, to ensure that women were bred for child-bearing and male pleasure, and men for muscles and power. Indeed, the typical Jerusalem male weighed nearly twice what a woman did and had on average an extra 70 centimetres. This despite, as Ruth knew, Jerusalem women being considerably taller than their Terran ancestors, a fact due not to any genetic interference, but rather three generations of settlers being born in space while the terraforming took place, and a further four in Jerusalem's weaker gravity. These days she saw signs and symbols of their control everywhere, down to her very name and garments. But if there were others like her who chafed under the system, they hid themselves well. Though if any would be brave enough, it might be the one next to her now.

"So, what do you think?"

"Well," Ruth swallowed and blinked, and tried to remember the substance of the question. "I think that you should leave a copy of these with me. Then, I'll try a few models and see which version of the polymer can best withstand the forces they will need to. What top speed did you have in mind?"

"Oh, not more than sixty mph. My sainted Father and his brothers want to open up the plains to the west of the Beard to cattle without the need for fencing. His idea is to use the microlights for spotting and rounding them up. Plus a bit of hunting I imagine."

Focused back on the issue now, Ruth nodded. With most of the planet's population of just over thirty thousand people clustered around the equatorial towns of Bethlehem, Jericho and New Ogden, all within thirty kilometres of each other around the extinct volcano of Mount Sinai (or Moses' nose as the more irreverent called it), there was truthfully little need for air travel and had not been prioritised. A lack of fossil fuels or uranium on the terraformed planet meant biofuels and solar dominated, with the former in short supply. Thus, the lightweight, solo-flyer, solar-powered vehicle Martha was designing would be very useful. Indeed, it might lead to a paradigm shift in terms of the settlers' relationship with their planet. But the project would never have got off the ground had Thomas Lukesson not been patronising it.

"Well, it's blessed amazing. I'm assuming you'll want to fly one?"

"Yes, by the Saint. Simply because as women are lighter than men, it'll be easier to get airborne, you understand?" She pulled back and tried to look innocent, something her blonde curls and full lips made disturbingly easy to pull off. "It's got nothing to do with the fact that I'm hoping to.... No, nevermind. I won't pollute your Saint sweetened mind."

Puzzled, Ruth pressed. "Saint alive, I very much doubt you could." In fact, given what had often occupied Ruth's mind when thinking of Martha, she had very good reason to believe her mind was polluted enough.

"Well," Martha began, before looking around and then leaning in close. The sensation of her hot breath on Ruth's ear was almost more than she could bear. "Perhaps if you would care to assist me in the gathering of fruits this evening, I might share something with your sweet Sainted ears."

"I would be blessed to do so," Ruth replied.

"I leave this here for you sweet Ruth, and see you after evening prayers at the orchard, if Saint Joseph and our fathers will it so?"

"I'm certain the Saint shall." She wasn't so sure about their fathers.

They embraced, Ruth savouring once again the closeness of her friend, her heart both skipping and lightening at that warm, soft, sweet touch. Then Martha took her leave, her face turned towards Ruth as she left the door.

With a sigh and prayer to the Saint for forgiveness, Ruth returned to her work.

On a planet with no fossil fuels, plastics needed to be made from organically grown hydrocarbons. Earlier generations of female researchers - the biochemists Deborah Marksdaughter and Mary Simonsdaughter especially - had managed to create hard-wearing, load-bearing plastics from plant refuse that could be used in construction.

(As it had taken decades for the first forests to grow enough for a sizeable harvest of wood, the majority of early dwellings had been caves covered over with panels scavenged from the Ark that brought the first settlers to Jerusalem. Even now, the lava tubes on the south-side of Mount Sinai, near the centre of old Bethlehem were still used for grain storage and mushroom farming, with a few preserved with the original living arrangements as a museum for future generations. Their presence and suitability for habitation had been the reason why this site was chosen for the first settlement of the new colony planet.)

Ruth's work built on earlier advances, but her big breakthrough had been to use polymers made from living cells, which could then grow to seal any breaks or damage. Precisely gene-coding the edges of a given panel would prevent growth occurring in unwanted directions. The incredibly light-weight material was also proving to be astonishingly tough and durable, with impressive tensile strength, even at thicknesses of two or three millimetres. At thicker dimensions, her new polymer also retained impressive insulation and load-bearing properties. She was hopeful that her material therefore would have multiple uses: thicker sheets and pillars for construction (her projections suggested that four storey buildings might be possible, though given the space available on the new planet she suspected that bungalows would remain the norm), with thinner, flexible sheets for clothing, sails and ropes.

The panel that morning had granted her another six long moons of time to invest in perfecting the manufacturing techniques, as well as space and the right to request resources and an assistant to replace Esther. Luckily, as she worked with plant refuse that would otherwise have gone for composting or animal feed, her raw materials were cheap and readily available. She had heard that Judith Elijahsdaughter's panel meeting had been unsuccessful in part because she needed quantities of copper, gold and titanium, all scarce materials, for her project on improving microprocessor speeds. The bans for Judith's forthcoming wedding to Simeon Matthewsson had been announced at the first Sabbath meeting after the failed panel, not a short moon ago.

Ruth spent her afternoon testing the properties of different iterations of her polymer in response to the forces Martha had demanded. Each version was based on different source cells: brassica, birch, potato and olive. After the final batch of tests, during which the olive version had proved most unsuitable, tearing badly, Ruth decided it was time to head back home. She had her domestic chores to do after all.

Yet first, she decided to give into temptation and visit the function room.

"Saint forgive me," she muttered under her breath as she opened the door.

There were three cubicles, each offering only a minimal amount of privacy. Which in this instance was a blessing as she knew she was alone.

Going into the end cubicle and shutting the door, Ruth hitched up her long skirt and adjusted her chastity garments in order to sit. Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, she pushed at the panel in the wall she knew to be loose. Reaching carefully behind, she found the plastic wallet full of notes. She slipped in one she had prepared herself, even before taking out a new sheet of paper.

She unfolded it and read with eager eyes, her heart pounding.

It was a poem:

On a wing and a prayer, fancies take flight,

First firm friendship forms, then love does possess,

Pure hearts and intents, no sins to confess,

Your mind meets with mine, strokes mutual delight.

Your maker's sweet soul, stokes admiration,

That soars on currents and thermals up high,

Riding the winds your sweet self does supply:

Drive, ambition, care and imagination,

Inspires me to owe you all affection

Feelings I am told and taught must be ill,

Cannot but be the blesséd Saint's will,

Why else cast in you such sweet perfection?

That no words of mine should mar that sweet truth

I reveal unto this heart your self as proof.

Ruth's heart skipped and she fought to hold back tears. She dearly wanted to remain there reading and re-reading those sweet words for hours, but could not risk it. Already, she regretted her own missive as being slight, insubstantial, trite even, and careful to reveal nothing about her true feelings for her unknown and far more candid correspondent.

She flushed to cover the sound as she returned the paper and carefully realigned the panel, before slipping the gloves off and into a pocket. She wished once again that she had the courage to be more ardent, be brave enough to respond in kind to those declarations within. But she dare not risk it. She remembered too well the horror and guilt of the last time, many turns ago now, a gender traitor had been discovered. The stain of the stoning was still fresh on her conscience. So while she replied, she tried her best to keep the messages chaste and pure, while also maintaining deniability, though in truth the number of women who had access to that function room numbered fewer than a hundred. Still, at least the current location was more public: the correspondence with her unknown poetess had begun a turn and a half ago with a quite accidental discovery in the records room.

Most records were kept electronically and were accessible from anywhere, but some were originally made in physical form, before being scanned. One particular data set, from twenty turns ago, had not been scanned well and much of the information was illegible on screen. At the time, Ruth had regularly found need to consult it and had grumbled regularly to all and sundry about this, including requesting that it be rescanned, though this had never occurred.

Thus, when Ruth found the following message within the data, she knew there was a high probability it was meant for her:

Sweet thoughts of a sister scientist

Safely saved unspoken on a single sheet

We rue that it is not meet to meet

Though simple functions may assist

The rest gave details of where and how to hide future messages. The regular hiding of her name with the words gave Ruth all the more reason to believe these poems, speaking frankly of friendship and affection, and hinting at deeper desires behind, were meant for her.

Yet the writer had not, as far as Ruth could tell, revealed or hinted at her own identity. The poems came and went infrequently: sometimes three in a short moon, while once a whole long moon with no reply had passed, leaving Ruth feeling both glum and scared.

They were just words, and Ruth had admitted nothing about her deviant desires. She had never touched another person the way she longed to. Yet, despite this, they thrilled her. To simply know that she was not alone. To know that she was seen, that she was understood, that there was another woman like her out there, meant so much and had given her such strength in the dark times when she feared for her life and soul.

In her fantasies, rare though she permitted herself to dwell on them, it was Martha, magical Martha, sainted and thrice blessed Martha, who was the scribe of her dreams. As Martha had been a learning partner of Ruth's younger full sister, Mary, they had often seen and spoken to each other as they grew up, assisting on communal chores such as the fruit harvest, or singing together in the church choir. Ruth adored her: her smile, her facade of innocence that hid her brilliant mind, her wit and charm. But she rarely dared to.

After completing her share of the laundry and cleaning, she shared a simple supper of bread, cheese and salad in the women and children's dining room on her father's ranch.

Then, along with most of her sisters, she set out for the communal orchard on the shores of the lake. As the eldest daughter still living at home at nineteen turns, or twenty seven in the old reckoning, Ruth was nominally in charge, but as the youngest daughter Miriam was already ten turns old, none would need much supervision.