Thanks for the positive comments. This is another long chapter.
*****
1 Law-suit and air-suit
Danielle was fuming.
She read the message on her computer again, just to confirm what she thought it said, though it was short and blunt. The message read:
"Dear Doctor Goldrick,"
"Pending the outcome of a legal challenge, you are required to cease and desist all activity pertaining to the Samothea Project immediately. A meeting is scheduled at 09:00 on Thursday in the Vice-Chancellor's office to discuss the case."
Sent late on Wednesday afternoon by a bureaucratic drone in the Celetaris Institute's legal department, Danielle hadn't seen the message until now, eight-thirty on Thursday morning, when she sat down at her desk to begin her day's work. Furious, she grabbed her coat and bag and stamped off to the lift.
She decided to walk from The Vortex, the tower in which she worked, to The Needle, the thin skyscraper half-a-mile across the campus whose upper floors housed the Institute's governors and administrators. She would probably be late but at least she would have walked off some of her anger.
It was ten days since the Samothea Project had sent their Traveller all the way to Samothea in a single jump; after which it was lost, presumed destroyed. Following muted celebrations and a carefully-worded press release, the survey ship docked at Capella SpacePort. Danielle and Roger collected Yumi Takahashi's suitcase and other belongings from storage and took their places on the regular transport to Earth, where they planned a week's working holiday.
They deposited Yumi's things in their Cambridge apartment, with the plan of giving them to Itsuki Takahashi on a future visit, and took a stratoliner to Boston to stay with Roger's family. It was a short trip, during which they met relatives, visited friends and conducted interviews with the news media.
Roger was publicising his video film, which was garnering positive reviews. Danielle was sought out by many science journalists who, unlike the popular news reporters, understood the magnitude of what the Samothea Project had accomplished and didn't consider the mission at all a failure.
In fact, Danielle found herself having to dampen down the expectations of those who wanted to know when her team would send a spaceship with a manned crew to Samothea. Not for a long time, she cautioned.
The other main thing she and Roger did that week was fuck like rabbits on amphetamines. From Monday to Saturday, they followed Danielle's rules for nightly sex: woman on top, man on top, doggy-style, 'tie up my wife and fuck her night', oral sex and anal sex. It was wonderful, satisfying and exciting sex. Now it was Sunday and Danielle thought of a good way of teasing Roger to enhance that night's spanking session.
"You know, Darling," she said, as she lay comfortably over his knees, presenting her curvy bottom nicely for him to spank, "sex this last year has been amazing."
"It certainly has," he agreed, stroking her naked pink buttocks, big and squidgy enough to be fun to fondle but firm enough to reward smacking.
"I think it's because there's been such long gaps, usually three months, between sessions," she said.
"No doubt."
He was making circular strokes now, warming and preparing the target area.
"So when you come to live permanently with me at Celetaris," she said, "I think we need another sex-rule."
"Yet another rule?"
"Yes, we should only ever have sex once every three months."
"Really? Only once?"
"Absolutely. I'm completely persuaded; and I don't believe there's anything you can do to make me change my mind."
"We'll see about that," he said with exactly the determined edge to his voice that she was hoping to inspire.
Danielle smiled to herself (at first), as Roger gave her the best spanking of her life so far. It was precisely what she wanted and it stopped only when she pushed herself off his lap, breathing heavily, finally at her limit. Small tears made her lust-filled eyes sparkle brightly, but her smile was hungry. With her bottom hot and aching, her mind still in the erotic zone, she climbed back on him, engulfed his cock in her soaking pussy and rode him until he came twice and she lost count of her orgasms.
Danielle often smiled again during her lonely three-day journey home to Celetaris, inspired by a tingling afterglow every time she thought about the last week, re-living particular scenes in her mind. It made her ache for her husband and wish his video film hadn't been so successful, so he hadn't been invited to give so many interviews but could join her on Celetaris as soon as possible.
What also occupied her thoughts on the tedious journey, most of which was spent waiting for connections between hyperspace transports, was analysing the data sent by the Samothea Project team. She preferred to do this, rather than wade through hundreds of congratulatory messages or answer the same obvious questions from journalists she'd already answered a dozen times. So she arrived home late on Wednesday night, not having read the message from the University administration.
The walk benefited her. Danielle had cooled off by the time she reached The Needle and stepped inside a lift.
It was a plasti-glass tower on the edge of the planet's central ocean. As its name suggested, The Needle was a tall thin building that rose to a sharp point. Its ornament was a large golden 'C' for Celetaris, twice the width of the tower, one third of the way up. From the end of the C, a clever animated feature simulated a waterfall cascading into a shimmering silver lake.
Vice-Chancellor Joan Mayfield's office was near the top of the tower, with windows to the south and north, giving truly awesome views over the ocean, the university, the rest of the city, its parks and the surrounding farms. From this height, on clear summer evenings, one could see the lights of Ocean City, a hundred miles away across the bay, twinkling on the calm surface of the water. Today, the mist that the spring sun had burned off the city still hung over the ocean and over the green forest to the north.
Three people rose to greet Danielle as she entered the Vice-Chancellor's office: Joan Mayfield herself, a short busy woman standing behind her large cluttered desk; the Dean, Doctor Hoxton, a tall mild man, harassed-looking and prematurely balding; and another man who looked like a movie star. Preposterously good-looking, well-groomed, tanned, relaxed and rich, he was a romantic character for women to swoon over.
"Welcome, Doctor Goldrick," the Vice-Chancellor said. "Thank you for coming. You know Doctor Hoxton, I think. This is Mr. Kessler from our legal department. Please take a seat."
Danielle did so but sat stiffly, no longer seething inside but ready to be affronted.
"First, let me apologise for the brevity and tone of the message we sent you yesterday," the Vice-Chancellor continued in an efficient but sincere business voice. "It was composed by a junior member of staff in a hurry to leave for the night and not vetted by me, though I gave the instructions."
That did a lot to improve Danielle's temper. She wasn't yet ready to forgive but she did relax as she waited to learn more.
"I'll let Mr. Kessler explain what it's all about," the Vice-Chancellor said.
"This is an informal meeting," Mr. Kessler began, his voice as smooth as an oil-slick, "so I'd like to use first-names. I'm Paul."
"Joan."
"Michael."
"Doctor Goldrick."
Danielle wasn't playing along. She wasn't going to let this smooth man charm her out of her righteous protest. But the handsome lawyer wasn't fazed at all.
"Very well, Doctor Goldrick. ... The reason the University has requested the Samothea Project be temporarily halted is in response to a letter from the solicitors for the Nakatani Corporation of Japan."
He projected a letter for them all to read. Amid a load of impressive legal gobbledygook, there was a clear threat of court action against both the Celetaris Institute for Science, HyperStar Japan and Danielle herself for patent infringement unless work stopped immediately on the hyperdrive motor, which was suspiciously similar to the Hayai C1 engine manufactured by the Nakatani Corporation.
Danielle's anger returned.
"This is absurd!" she protested. "You're shutting down my project just as it has achieved success on the basis of this letter?"
"We're being cautious," the Dean said.
("'Cautious' is your middle name," Danielle thought to herself but wisely didn't say it.)
"Doctor Goldrick, do you deny that your engine and the Nakatani Hayai C1 Hyperdrive Motor are identical?" Paul asked.
"Yes, I do. There's a superficial similarity between the two engines," Danielle admitted, "but they work in entirely different ways."
"So you didn't steal the design of the Hayai C1?"
"Steal it? Of course not!"
"Then why did you say you did?" Paul challenged.
"What do you mean? When did I say that?"
"The Nakatani Corporation cited this article on the PhysicsWeb," he said, projecting another document, an interview with Haruki, the young engineer from HyperStar Japan, who had been her first champion when she visited the company in Kyoto.
A few days after the Samothea Project went public, a pretty young journalist invited Haruki to a bar, plied him with alcohol, fluttered her long eye-lashes, and asked him to describe the vital role he'd played in this technological marvel.
He fell heavily for the siren and told her everything, including how he met Danielle and from where she said she got the inspiration for her new engine.
"Oh God!" Danielle said, suddenly remembering. "I did say that, but it was a joke. I didn't really steal the design. The waveguide of the C1 just gave me an idea."
"That sounds like a serious admission," Dean Hoxton said.
"But it's just the shape of the waveguide that's similar," Danielle protested. "Surely you can't patent a shape!"
"Not a natural shape, no," Paul explained. "But a shape that's integral to a technological design is not so clear-cut. Nakatani's lawyers seem to think they have a case."
"But the innovative part of my motor is that it communicates through the hyperspace plume," Danielle explained. "The Nakatani engine can't do that."
She described the technical differences between the two kinds of hyperdrive motor. Vice-Chancellor Mayfield followed intently; poor Doctor Hoxton's eyes glazed over; and though Paul Kessler listened politely, it was impossible to tell whether or not he understood the point. But after she finished, he smiled and asked in purring tones:
"Do you think you could make a jury of laymen understand that?"
"Good God!" Danielle exclaimed. "You don't think it'll go to court, do you?"
