"Dad, what are you doing here?" Chia asked.
She looked indignantly at Vard who was sitting at the edge of the clearing, leaning comfortably against a tree. Roy stood next to her, manfully trying to control his irritation with the intrusion into his privacy.
"And more to the point, how long have you been here?" he asked.
Vard nodded calmly, a faint smile on his face. "We've been here for quite a while, Roy. And the reason why we're here is that someone tried to kill you just a few hours ago and almost succeeded, so at least one of us had to watch out for you. Both of you were likely to be distracted, and Tami and I didn't have anything to do that couldn't be postponed. So here we are." He looked up. "Ah, there she comes."
Tami stepped into the clearing. She shivered.
"Hi, Roy, hi, Chia," she said. "Sorry to do this to you, Roy, but as Vard said, it was the sensible thing to do. Damn, that pool is cold."
She stepped up to Roy and hugged him. He almost screamed when he felt the chill of her skin against his. The shock was enough to give him goose bumps. Tami giggled while Roy looked at her incredulously.
"You went for a swim?" he asked.
Tami nodded. "Yes, I did." She chuckled. "I figured that if that didn't cool me off after watching the two of you, nothing would."
"Hm," Roy grunted. "Well, I hope you both enjoyed the show."
"Oh, I'm sure they did, Roy," Chia said, smiling. She didn't seem bothered at all by the thought of having had an audience.
She sat down across from Vard, lowering her well-fucked butt onto the ground rather carefully, Roy thought, but he managed to keep a straight face, even when Tami gave him an amused sideways glance.
"Anyway. it's good to see you, dad," she said. "Just... Next time, just knock or something, okay?"
Vard's smile was unruffled. "Fair enough, Chia. I'll just knock on a tree, if that's alright."
Roy sat down as well. "I suppose you do have a point about someone being after us," he admitted. "So thanks for watching our backs."
"Our backs and everything else," Chia muttered, her smile turning into a grin. Roy felt himself flush.
Tami sat down next to him and put her arm around him. "I'm sorry if we made you feel uncomfortable, Roy," she said. "But it's no big deal. Really it's not."
Roy smiled wryly. "Yeah... I guess so. It's just that..."
She nodded. "You're not used to it. I know that, my darling man. But you will be. I promise you. And it will be easier than you think."
She put her hand on his arm. It felt good, warm and comforting.
"Relax, Roy," Vard said easily. "It's nothing that any of us haven't seen many times before." He smiled. "Or something that we all aren't intimately familiar with."
Chia nodded. "Speaking of familiar," she said to Vard. "How many more times do I have to ask, dad?"
"One of these days, sweetheart," Vard said. "Patience is a virtue, remember?"
"Yeah, right." She turned to Roy. "I wanted dad to take my virginity. But he said no. I've been trying to trip him ever since."
"Maybe I'm more old-fashioned that you'd expect, sweetheart," Vard said.
"Then it's time you get over it," Chia replied. "Roy didn't have any problems giving me a good fuck, so why should you? Or are you trying to say that you're more old-fashioned than he is?"
Roy gave her a long, hard look.
"Oh. I guess that didn't come out exactly the way I meant it, Roy. I'm sorry."
He chuckled. "That's alright, Chia. You are talking to a four hundred year old fossil, after all."
She stuck out her tongue.
"That's quite enough of that, young lady," Vard said.
"Oh, don't be a square, dad," she replied.
Vard looked at Roy. "Do you see what I'm up against?" he asked with a look of long suffering on his face. It would have come off better if he had managed not to smile.
"Are you asking the four hundred year old fossil for advice?" Roy said.
Chia poked him in the ribs. "Four hundred years old, my well-fucked ass! You're young, Roy. Don't be stupid."
"That's what I keep telling him," Tami said. "But he just won't listen."
"Will you stop ganging up on me?" Roy said, smiling. "I surrender, OK?"
Vard chuckled. "You should have done that long ago, Roy," he said. "It would have saved you a lot of trouble. Anyway, I'm glad to see that you're doing so well."
"With Chia, you mean?"
Vard shrugged.
"It's those spiked berries she's got growing here," Roy said. "They're amazing."
Vard shook his head. "I know all about Chia's experiments in gengineering," he said, smiling. "But all those berries do is keep you hard, isn't it, Chia?"
Chia nodded. "Yes."
"But then why..." Roy started.
"Why did you cum again and again so copiously just now?" Vard said.
Roy could only nod.
"That's because you're now healthier than you were ever before," Vard explained. "When we revived you, we were forced to rebuild major parts of your endocrine system almost from scratch, because the defunct nanotech in your body hadn't been very kind to it. So we did a lot of re-balancing and fine-tuning in the process. Health is mostly a matter of biochemistry, and sexual health even more so. Your body still has its limitations, of course, but its overall performance is better than it ever was. You haven't had any problems with bad digestion, insomnia or headaches. No coughs and sneezes, no unusual fatigue, no cravings for carbohydrates or any of the other things you used to have, right?"
Roy nodded.
"And you won't have any", Vard continued. "Nor viral respiratory infections, tooth aches, rashes or any of that. That's largely because your body now maintains optimum levels of all the substances that make it tick. There's more to it than that, of course, but the main thing is that your biochemistry is now as good as it can be."
"The mind also plays a role," Tami said. "As you become more accustomed to your improved physical condition, your mind is also learning to shrug off the limitations it had become used to." She smiled. "And you've already gotten over most of the inhibitions and taboos of your time, too."
"I... suppose that's true," Roy said, involuntarily glancing at Chia.
Vard nodded. "Yes. Mostly due to the fact that Tami and her partners in crime neatly manipulated you into that," he said. "But then, I wanted her on your medical team because she's the best."
Tami raised an eyebrow. "I thought I was there so you could spend more time working on your tan?" she asked.
"There's that, too, of course," Vard said, with a kind of massive dignity. "I've got my priorities to keep track of, after all."
Chia made a face. "Is that it, dad? Priorities? So what do I have to do to get bumped up on your priority list?"
"You walked into that one, Vard," Tami said. "Why don't you just give the poor girl what she wants so badly?"
"Yes, dad," Chia cut in. "Why don't you? Tonight. Or even better, right now. Are you busy?"
Vard looked serious all of a sudden. "Actually, that does bring up a point. Jaru has called a... council of war, I suppose we could call it. He hasn't said why, but my guess is that he's found out where that weird data transmission came from that reprogrammed Roy's autodoc to kill him."
Chia nodded. "Okay," she said. "That would have priority. So what are you doing tomorrow?"
Tami laughed. "Vard, my old friend, you're not getting out of this one," she said.
"You're damn right he isn't," Chia replied with some heat. "How about tomorrow, dad? Or must I have mom talk to you?"
Vard put up his hands. "Alright," he said. "Soon, OK?"
"Promised in front of witnesses," Chia said, looking at Roy and Tami. "Alright. I'll take it. But better make it real soon." She gave him a long look, then smiled. "I've been waiting for years, dad. Don't make me wait any longer, OK?"
Vard looked at her, his face gentle. "Alright, sweetheart, I won't," he said. "I promise."
"Good. As long as you make it this week."
"Or else?"
She chuckled. "You don't want to find out."
Vard sighed, smiling. "I suppose not." He looked up. "It will be dark soon," he said. "Let's go see Kyo and Jaru."
* * *
Kyo's floor-sunk tub managed to be full without being crowded. Or maybe it was just that they all knew each other so well by now. Roy sat with this back against the edge of the pool, Tami's head on his shoulder. Off to the side was Vard, his arm around Reesh. Across from them Kyo was sitting in Jaru's lap, his arms around her, her head leaning back against his massive chest.
"Okay," Jaru said. "The reason why I've asked you all to come here is that Kyo is able to arrange for more security here than in most other places, and that's something we definitely need for what we're about to discuss. As you probably have guessed, we've managed to locate the origin of the first attempt on Roy's life." He looked at Roy. "I don't think you will like this much, Roy."
Roy took a deep breath. "That hardly matters, does it?"
Jaru shook his head. "No. Probably not. In any case, we had quite a job tracing the transmission through the old military comsat network. What put us on the wrong foot was that the comsat that we had pinpointed as the most likely candidate appeared to be completely defunct. If it weren't for the fact that we got lucky and picked up a very brief squirt transmission, we'd still be looking. In short, the transmission was relayed via no less than three different comsats, all of which seem to have been programmed to stay dormant and play dead most of the time, and to wake up briefly every now and then to relay transmissions back and forth across several hops, using random store-and-forward intervals to confuse the picture even more."
Roy slowly nodded. "Which suggests..." he started.
"Which suggests that whoever did this has considerable resources, a lot of time, and an intimate knowledge of the military technology of your day and age."
"You were right", Roy said slowly. "I don't like it much. In fact, I don't like it at all."
