A Princess Of The Far Future

I write this in a secret code, an extinct language that hardly anyone knows. I don't know who will ever read it, so I will explain some background.

My people have ancient traditions. There was once a time when we had tremendous power. We had oceans of water, and one large moon that sloshed the water around, rather than the two small moons we have now. We burned that power until the oceans went dry. Now we get by with the dregs.

We studied our genes and changed ourselves. Here are the most important things about that. First, we do not age. At least not in the first ten thousand years. But we found that very old people became tremendously clever and sneaky, and they left no opportunities for younger ones. So after a thousand years we send them off on a mysterious journey from which none return. Still, old people own the world and rule the world, and there's little scope for young ones.

Second, we fixed pregnancy. The old way was atrocious. Now a pregnant woman lays a small, comfortable egg. The egg is exposed to light and it photosynthesizes, and grows, until after some years it hatches into a small child.

Third, we have "telepathy". People can sense each other's thoughts. A skilled person can read an unskilled person's thought without hindrance. With decades of training a person can learn to make their thoughts almost impenetrable even to skilled readers. But when people want to, they can communicate with such clarity! Spoken language is reserved mostly for insincerity. Telepathy starts early, and babies in their eggs learn a lot about the world.

We are not very hypocritical. We have learned to accept each other as we are.

Oh, also there are the Greens. They changed themselves more. They grow up to 20 feet tall and have four arms, and they are literally green. We don't get along very well with them.

So here I am, a princess of City Two. The Crown Princess. I fly on an expedition above the ancient sea bottoms. Twenty ships, over 1000 men, and I rule it. My name is Dayja Thurus. It means Already Traveling. I am only 93 years old.

Chapter 1: My Own Personal Fleet

It was late morning and I went to check on my admiral. He had the learning tools out, good. He looked like he was trying to learn the job. Good! I smiled at him, and jiggled my breasts a little. This language is not very expressive. I had learned 64 variations of expressive smiles, and 81 varieties of subtle moves to emphasize the breast. I am a careful student. My mental shield is excellent. My study of sexual technique is also excellent. Also my training in government, how to rule. His eyes widened and he breathed quicker. I said, "I hope your studies go well. We all depend on you."

"Yes, sir."

"Try to learn the most important parts first."

"They're all important, sir. It said so at the beginning."

"Then try to start with the parts you'll need first."

"Yes, sir."

I moved in a way that gave him a subliminal whiff of musk, and moved on to the captain.

My captain stared into space, despondent. I made some little gasping sounds like a woman approaching orgasm, too softly for him to consciously hear. I could feel his mind start to adjust. "My captain."

"Yes, sir." He stood and saluted. I saluted back.

I thought to him, 'What can I do to assist your studies?'

'I -- it's all so overwhelming.'

'Try to squeeze two hundred years of training into a few days? You don't have to be good at everything. Start with the things it takes to keep the ship in the air, and then move on to attacks.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do you have any questions?'

His mind was open to me. His shield was not good at all. 'Do we really have a chance?'

I projected confidence and determination. 'Yes! Our ships are old but well-maintained. We have sufficient supplies. The Greens do not expect any attack. With one documented victory we can return home as heroes. I have seen the records, it has happened six times in the last century. With our leadership we can be lucky seven.'

'How did you become the boss?' He yearned both for me and for my position. He wanted to be the boss and to have me.

'I took the initiative. No one else did that. And we needed somebody.' Also I was the only woman in the fleet. I didn't project that.

'Why did you choose me?'

'I saw you take initiative. You. Now follow up and learn the job. We all depend on you. Learn enough so we can have our victory and go home.' He had fantasies about obedient sex and I encouraged that. I don't particularly enjoy that mode myself, but I needed to motivate him. He had the attitude that I was a stupid woman who couldn't understand the complexity of warships. It was easier to work with that than to fix it. I let him know that I depended on him to learn. It didn't really matter whether he thought I could do it myself. It was easier to get a thousand sexist men to follow the officers I chose for them, than to get them to follow my own orders when I wasn't there to hint at sex.

I worked my persuasion down the list of officers and a sample of the men. The one bright spot was the weapons master. He had actually been in the navy for three years until he had an affair with his captain's wife. He presented an idea. 'Well you see sir, about 95% of what we do is shoot other ships out of the air. City Two has the best navy in the world. But here's the best way to go after Greens on the ground. See, they have nothing in the air and no big guns, only their sniper rifles that are good to about 10,000 meters. So what we do, is we approach them hull down. The hull isn't really down, it's tilted to face them so that's all they have to shoot at. And we bomb them. The bomb mechanism almost runs itself, I can get the men to use it with hardly any training. So catch them on the march, they'll be strung out in a line. Approach them hull down and bomb them before they can spread out much. I reckon five or six bombs should do it. Kill ten thousand of them easy, and then we can go home.' The images in his mind were graphic and easy to follow.

'I see. So we don't need to train to fight other ships.'

'Yes sir. It ain't just that we don't know how, they didn't even give us the weapons. That's why we can't go home until they let us.'

'So show me more about this attack.'

'Everybody on deck has to be strapped in so they don't fall off, sir. It's the simplest possible attack and we can learn it. Practice the hull-down trick and find the Greens on the march, and it'll be over quicker than horses fuck. If you pardon the expression, sir.' I recoiled slightly from the projected image of eight-legged horses in their quick fuck. I agreed to his strategy. We arranged to prepare the crews, and run the first test of the hull down technique in three days.

Three days later the admiral's ship practiced the hull down technique. It worked. Three men fell off. I investigated. Two of them were busy fighting each other. The third was too depressed to strap in. We held a ceremony for them, since I thought that would be good for morale. I pointed out that we need to work together, to follow orders so we can get our victory and go home. Later when I sampled crew minds I was concerned to find that many of them thought that the dead men had "gone home". After another three days we repeated the test with all the ships. There were twenty one casualties. Two of the crews did not succeed at the maneuver. A third took several hours to undo it. I had to accept this as a success of sorts. Under ideal conditions, one ship could bomb sufficiently for victory, and the others could "draw enemy fire".

I spent two hours a day learning the ship myself. I started with food preparation, because our cooks were atrocious. I learned the basics quickly and taught the cooks myself. Morale improved somewhat. Next gunnery.

You might wonder how I wound up in command of this fleet. Here is how it happened.

Chapter 2: My Papa The King

Our culture is ruled by tradition. The children of important people resent them deeply. The children want to be important too, but before they inherit their parents' positions they must wait, often as long as eight hundred years. So the tradition is that they attempt to kill a parent, and when they fail there is a ceremony. Their feelings are acknowledged, everyone recognizes their love for each other, they hug and discuss the sadness of existence, and then it's over until the next time. If the attempt succeeds, then there is a victory party where the child describes how sad it is that the parent didn't live his full thousand years, and how sad that it cannot be otherwise in this life.

Commoners don't bother. Their parents have nothing worth inheriting. They typically don't bother to marry either.

My father has the most important position in the city. He runs the sewer system. Without it we have no water to drink and the city must be abandoned. Tradition demands that he be the crown prince, and someday he will rule the city unless he has a child that kills him first.

I learned the work perfectly, but I did not really want to replace him. I loved him, and I was happy to wait. I enjoyed the life I had. But people started to dismiss me for not doing it. I was losing status. And I realized, what if I instead attempt to kill my grandfather? That would show them. They said I didn't take enough initiative. But if I went for the whole thing and failed.... He was a lovable old rogue himself. Papa was over seven hundred years old, and on holidays he used to gather me with his other grandchildren. He told us stories and had us play games that encouraged us to be ruthless.

I came up with a truly excellent plan. It used six of my followers -- enough to get results, not enough to attract attention for being mine. It would look like random little things until the sudden end. I couldn't expect it to work. He had so much experience! Nothing anybody had tried before had worked. But it was definitely not a plan to be ashamed of.

Skipping the details, of course it didn't work. His guards extended no courtesy when they disarmed me. They took my gloves and sandals, my hair ornaments and all my jewels except the one that showed I was my father's daughter, and the one that showed I was the crown princess. They removed all chemicals from my skin and rinsed all from my body cavities. I don't want to describe that. I'll say that the most undignified was the nasal sinuses. I cried and my sinuses refilled with mucus, and then they got flushed a second time. The most painful were the tear ducts. The guards dragged me to Papa. I would have preferred to walk, but they didn't let me. He was in an empty room with bare stone walls.

Papa looked noncommittal. He didn't give anything away. He was about nine inches taller than me, so I looked up at him. He looked me in the eyes and after a time, said "Your shields are excellent."

I should hope so! I began practice before I was born, with the best teachers. Commoners learn whatever they get from the untrained minds around them.

He continued, "That was an excellent first attempt. It would likely have worked against anyone else. Then he switched to the ritual. "You have failed. Your life is in my hands. Do you beg for mercy?"

"Yes, Papa."

Then he projected anger, intensely. "Do not trivialize this ritual or I will have you killed!"

After what felt like a long time, he said, "You have failed. Your life is in my hands. Do you beg for mercy?"

"Yes, Master." I knelt down and put my face on the ground with my butt demurely sticking up. Then I lay flat and kissed his feet. Then I pulled back to the position with my butt in the air and my face on the ground and my back arched. I waited. The tradition was that if you said no then they applauded your independence and killed you.

Then he broke the ritual. "I have identified one hundred thirty nine of your supporters. One hundred eighteen commoners and twenty one minor nobles. Do you beg for mercy for any of them?"

"No, Master."

"Why not?"

"They are lackeys. They joined me in hope that my success would lead to their success. They bet and they lost. They don't matter."

"Good. You learned well. Now there is an unfortunate fact you must learn. My son is not your father. Your mother had sex with a wide variety of men. I cannot blame her for that, there were reasons. But I know this fact. You do not deserve the name Thurus."

My mind raced. He had no reason to lie about this. If he lied, and the story got out, it would hurt him. It must be true.

"Remove your jewels. You are not entitled to them. You have no title."

I sat up and removed them. I put them aside. Then I got back into position, butt up. It seemed like the thing to do.

He continued inexorably. "You are not my granddaughter. You are only a random subject who has tried to kill me. Do you imagine I will have mercy for you." He did not say that as a question. I saw no opportunity to take initiative, so I did nothing but breathe. "I will give you a chance. I will fuck you, and if you impress me then I will let you live."

Good. An opportunity. My eighty nine years of training in the sexual arts might give me a chance. I would sense what he wanted and provide it. I thought quickly. Did he want me to respond as someone he had absolute power over? He must get that response often. What would it take for me to be his equal? I would have to be someone who does not fear death. Fine. I can do that. If my life ends tonight, I accept that. I will make my best effort. I sat up and said, "I want sex with you. Let me do that."

"You have no choice."

"It doesn't matter whether I have a choice when I want to." I flashed number eighteen, coy desire, which merged into number one, open lust.

He laughed and sat beside me. His penis was already erect. I looked around. Bare stone floor. Bare stone walls. Couldn't he at least have given us a few pillows? I gathered my jewels and tossed them aside so I wouldn't roll over them. As we started the preliminary foreplay, he talked. "You were always my favorite grandchild. You never disobeyed, and you had an air of hidden disdain for your cousins who got punished. You pretended to sympathize, and they were fooled, but I could tell."

While I massaged the sensitive spot behind his ear, dammit this stupid language doesn't even have a word for that spot, I replied. "You taught us. How to rule, and what person it takes to rule."

While he did enticement number two hundred seventeen, brushing past my nipples while massaging the back of my neck, he said, "You learned so fast! You made deals with the others, and double-crossed them, and often they didn't notice. When they did, you pointed out that you had no choice and they accepted that. At ten years you outsmarted children thirty years older than you."

I replied, "I marveled at the games you had us play. I tried to imagine what sort of person could come up with them. And I realized you were like me." Basic rule number three. Establish rapport.

As we continued he opened his mind to me a little. I could sense his admiration for me. I opened mine in response. I admired him as an equal. And we did more of that. Sometime after the second time I came, he expressed deep love. I was able to send that back without revealing too much more. By the fifth climax I mostly didn't think about technique. I just responded. My teachers had not treated me like this. They taught; he performed. Somewhere along the line my shields went down completely.

I loved him with all my mind. I was ready to die for him. He rummaged through my mind for whatever he wanted, and I gladly accepted that.

I glowed, totally relaxed. He loved me. He respected me as an equal. I had never felt this so much from anyone, ever.

After a timeless interval he stood up. "This interrogation is over. We're done."

I stretched lazily and smiled at him. "So did I pass? Will you let me live?"

"Hardly. You are not that impressive. You don't know secrets about anybody important. Not even your father. You are useless. Except as a scandal to hurt your father."

I felt suddenly completely naked. Nobody had ever invaded my mind like that. Not my mother. His semen was leaking out of me, I'd opened myself up to him completely, and he didn't care about me. I instinctively started to put my shields up and I couldn't. He grinned and let me see some of his thoughts. I was defeated, completely. He could do whatever he wanted to me, and what he wanted was one fuck and then he would give me to his guards, who could do whatever they wanted provided I was dead tomorrow. I was nothing. He might remember me again someday, briefly, among his much more important victories. He didn't care how good I was at sex, though by his standards I was inevitably mediocre.

That was how he wanted me to see myself. But I refused. I wanted to live! I opened my mind to possibilities. I sensed his comment. 'Impressive recovery. Most people can't do that.' He was about to dismiss me. What could I do to get a few more minutes to think of something. "Whose genes do I carry?"

He stopped and thought. "Yes, I'll need to know that. It might be somebody I can use that against. Though she often had sex with commoners."

He pulled a stone out of the wall to get to his gene lab. Ah. This was not a bare stone room to him, only to me. He took a blood sample from my ear. He didn't want a tissue sample from inside my cheek because that was contaminated with his DNA. While he fiddled with it I started to recover. My shields would be no good against him until I could rebuild them. That would take weeks. I couldn't fool him about anything. How could I persuade him I was useful to him? I hated to be reduced to a lackey, but it was somewhat better than being dead.

He said, "The imperial gene registry won't be open until tomorrow. I can run the test right now to confirm that your mother's husband is not your father." He fiddled some more. "Hmm. Not him but somebody closely related to him. One of his brothers? I can use that. One scandal, two deals." He fiddled more. "Death. Death and destruction! Extinction! Shit!"

He was swearing. There might be an opportunity.

"I made completely sure this could not happen, and she tricked me! Your despised deadshit mother got pregnant with me. You are my daughter."

I wasn't sure how to use that, so I stalled. "What should we do about that, Father?"

He glared at me. "This changes everything. If you die, the gene sequence will be revealed." He stopped to think. I picked up my jewels from the floor and put them on. "You must leave City Two. I can't risk this."

"You know I wouldn't tell. If you fall, I fall. When you are not the king, I am not the crown princess."

"Yes, and your shields are excellent. But as the ancient saying goes, 'What can fail, fails.' You are my daughter, and I wish you all the best, but you are horribly inconvenient." His guards escorted me to a luxurious cell. Far more politely this time. They returned my sandals and gloves and jewels.

I was not out of resources yet. If I could seduce one or more guards, I might escape. I washed myself thoroughly in pleasant warm water, and swam in the pool. I anointed my skin with oils and perfumes, heavy on the musk. I went to the entrance (there was no door, of course) and started to walk past the guard.

He said, "No." That was predictable.

I got the guard's attention. I switched between number eight, provocation and number one, lust. His eyes widened and his pupils dilated. "Would you have the best sex of your life with me, and then let me go?" This was a risk. He could think he would do that and then later change his mind. But I couldn't very well escape first.

"No."

I sighed, number seven hundred twenty three, dejection. "Then would you just have sex with me?" Maybe I could persuade him later.

"No."

His mind was crystal clear. He cared about his survival far more than about sex with me. And Papa gave him plenty of women to have sex with. Oh well, it was worth a try. Papa and I agreed. I needed to leave City Two. But I was safer if I could leave without him knowing. I knew he loved me in his way, but he was a king and his love wouldn't stop him from killing me.