Author's note:
This is chapter three of Lost Ark, a sort of sequel to Lost Colony (previously published) but which may be read as a standalone story. The characters and setting are new, with only the Lost Colony backstory tying them together. It is also more science-fictiony than most of Lost Colony.
All characters are over the age of eighteen. Thank you for reading!
--------------------
-Kyle-
Okay,
Kyle said to himself,
I take back my earlier claim that yesterday's encounter with Skye was the most pornographic sex of my life. This topped it.
After he and Amber2 had finally emerged from the well of their shared bliss, the blonde led him to the bed and laid him down. Amber1 joined her and soon the two were licking his cock, chasing the remaining drops of cum, and trading kisses with one another. Kyle soon began to harden again, but suddenly it was as if a hidden timer expired. The two stood, found Skye, and together began to clean the room. Once more he and Lissa were on their own.
Kyle caught Lissa gawking at his erection before quickly turning away. "Sooo," she began awkwardly.
"You and Skye seemed to get along," Kyle observed. He picked up his clothes and began to dress.
He had expected denial, but Lissa surprised him. She kept her eyes averted but didn't shy away from the question. "This generation," she said, "they're more complete, aren't they?"
As much had occurred to Danton. "In several ways. The shave and trim were pretty good." Danton stroked his smooth cheek and jaw. "And they didn't go into a coma afterward."
"And now look." Lissa nodded in the direction of the clones, who were now sweeping up hair, wiping the tub, and returning their equipment.
Danton got her point. "No one told them to clean up."
"And..." Lissa began to speak but trailed off nervously. When she felt Danton's eyes on her she blushed but continued. "The sex," she said, "is pretty nice."
"So we're talking about this now?"
By now Danton was dressed enough that Lissa felt comfortable facing him. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"Sorry you got on my case so much when I slept with Skye?"
Instead of answering him directly, Lissa posed an unexpected question. "Did you ever attend one of Alain Sparr's lectures?"
"Several of them," Danton admitted. Everyone in the camp had. Sparr was an Odysseus biologist who had been the victim of a plot to hijack Kaybe's biological rights. His perilous first year on the planet was the stuff of legend. Secretly, Kyle was jealous of the man. At well over six feet tall, handsome, and with stories to match his scars, Sparr might as well have been the official camp heartthrob.
"He likes to say that on Kaybe, death is never far, and neither is its twin, lust."
"Is this your way of apologizing without actually apologizing?" Danton asked.
"Mmmaybe," Sloane said, drawing out the word while smiling sheepishly. "Let's just say it would be hypocritical of me not to."
"Kinda apology kinda accepted." Danton stood, pulling on his other shoe. "Now, let's see where those clones came from."
It wasn't difficult to figure out. The next room was as bleakly utilitarian as the other lab spaces, with just enough room for three tanks, a corner shower fixture, and a wardrobe. The tanks were each open, still dripping with the orange fluid that unhatched clones floated in.
"They just hatched, look," Danton said, pointing to the dripping tanks.
"And then showered and dressed before joining us earlier." Lissa was peering inside the wardrobe. "More of the same spa uniforms."
"It's incredible," Danton mused out loud. "They hatch, know to shower, dress themselves, and go to the spa. Once there, they're skilled in giving massages, baths, cutting hair, cleaning, and are completely uninhibited in bed."
Lissa was smiling at something private.
"What?" Danton wanted to know.
"It reminds me of a joke: A woman needs a man who is a boss at work, a wizard in the kitchen, and a demon in the bedroom. And those three men must never meet."
"Yeah, funny," Danton sighed. "I heard that same joke, but from a man's perspective."
"Of course, but you get it, right? It's exactly what Bauer was trying to create. An ideal clone who would clean, cook, pamper her man, and meet his needs in bed. This was his proving ground."
"The first clone we met, the first Skye, was nowhere near that ideal," Danton pointed out. "And it sounds like even the second generation clones were a disappointment. I don't know what generation we just encountered, but it obviously took a while to get there."
"And for all we know, Bauer kept going, making even more sophisticated generations."
Danton nodded. "Right. So how long did it take? How did he keep the others on board, so to speak?"
"I don't know," Lissa admitted. She looked around the tank room, her eyes settling on the exit. "If we can find a place to hang out for a while I'll see if I can put a timeline together."
The next room felt like a poor cousin of the common room from the first segment. The tables were metal and synthetic laminate, not rare hardwoods. The floors were plain, and the walls unadorned. Lissa seated herself in front of a terminal, Danton unlocked it, and she began flipping through the log entries.
"Here," Lissa said, just minutes later. When Danton returned to her side she pointed out a menu category not previously encountered:
Li - Private Log.
She pushed play.
"It's recording," a voice said. "Let's get started."
The scene was someone's personal quarters. Four people faced the camera, their faces poorly lit from the side, the light creating deep shadows. Nearest to the camera was Doctor Li, the cloning specialist. He was recognizable from the interview video with Bauer, but here looked tired and slouched.
"Day eight hundred and twenty-seven," Li began. "More than two and a quarter years into our mission. I'm Doctor Thomas Li." Here he paused, turning to those seated just behind him. "Could you each identify yourselves please?"
A young woman at Li's right shoulder went first. She was at least a decade and a half younger than Li and might have been pretty but for the worry in her dark eyes. "Elise Weir. I'm Doctor Li's research assistant."
"Adam Cheung," a young man said, leaning forward nervously, "Doctor Ford's assistant."
"Sandra Corbin." A brunette leaned into the frame, pushing Cheung to one side. "I was Nkosi's assistant. Was!" Corbin was a few years older than Weir and Cheung, and visibly agitated. "I'm done with this sickness."
"Yes," Li said, gently nudging Corbin back. "Yes, that nicely brings us to why we're here. The four of us, a majority of the scientific team, state our objection to the direction this mission is taking."
Li drew in a breath, squared himself to the camera, and continued. "Bauer, this is all wrong. The direction this project is going is not ethically sustainable. When I signed up you told me that I'd have the liberty to pursue my cloning research, take it farther than I could on Earth. In this you were truthful, and I have, in fact, made the breakthroughs that I envisioned at the beginning of the project."
"Truthful?" Corbin laughed harshly. "He hasn't been truthful about anything!"
Li raised his hand for quiet. "Ms. Corbin is agitated, but she has a point. While I was making my breakthroughs, you and Dr. Nkosi were already planning to use them to make sex slaves. At first, I thought that something had gone wrong, that the clones were simply reverting to their base sexual drives. But their explicit language, their response to auditory and visual cues, those could only be programmed."
Elise Weir spoke up. "And now we're getting a view of the endgame, and it isn't just sex. Cooking, cleaning, massage. Sewing, for chrissakes! It's like you're trying to make June Cleaver, but with a vagina."
Who's June Cleaver?
Danton wondered.
Li nodded somberly. "What about you, Mr. Cheung? I believe you may have slightly different motivations for joining our protest."
Cheung appeared to be the most reserved of the four, with a wide-eyed expression as if startled to find himself in front of the camera. For a moment Danton thought he wouldn't speak at all. Then Corbin elbowed him and suddenly the young research assistant spoke up loudly. "I just want to get out of here!" he blurted. "We're here, at Kaybe. All of the cargo pods have been unloaded. The colonists are on the surface. Why aren't we? I'm tired of preserved food, of artificial light, of it always being twenty-three degrees. There aren't even any windows here!"
The outburst seemed to startle Li, who looked back at Cheung for a moment before facing the camera once more. "Thank you, Mr. Cheung," Li said. "Mr. Bauer, we've shared our ethical and personal objections to this mission. It's time to end these untenable experiments and to move the operation planetside. Our contracts grant you rights to our research, but not to hold us hostage. We're giving you thirty days to meet these demands, after which we will be forced to go to the surface on our own." The video concluded with all four nodding in affirmation.
"I didn't see that coming," Danton admitted. The implications of the rebellion were still turning in his mind.
"Kinda though," Sloane said. She was still staring at the last frame of the video. "Remember in Bauer's log he predicted that once they reached Kaybe the others would become impatient?"
"I guess he was right."
"Yeah. Give me a few minutes. I'll see if I can put a timeline together from the date stamps on those files."
While Lissa organized her notes, Danton poked around the room. There was little in the way of personal effects, but he did come across a stack of books. The sad little collection reminded Danton of a similar shelf of books from his apartment building's library back on Earth; the stack was seemingly as much about discarding unwanted books as it was a place to seek a new read. He thumbed through the pile until he found a book titled
On Faith: Essays and Perspectives
. Something struck him.
"Do you think they have souls?"
