The Golem of Haven

Dagny luxuriated in the big bathtub. The tub was truly the size of a small swimming pool. She intentionally moved her body back and forth to get the water sloshing around. The curved walls of the tub rose over a meter above the surface of the pool to contain the water in the two-hundredths of a gee habitat. Lazy water waves propagated at barely half a meter per second towards the edge of the tub. The waves were then deflected upwards then inwards by the curved wall until they surged over her head to lazily fell back under the microgravity. The repeated deluges rinsed the soapy lather out of her hair and off of her nude body.

After a long, leisurely soak, Dagny climbed out of the tub to stand on the deck that surrounded the tub. A touch of a button caused warm air to blow on her until her skin was dry. She'd allow her hair to dry more slowly in the intentional warmth of the compact shelter.

Dagny used a built in terminal rather than the far smaller touch screen of her bracer to check the weather. She'd lingered in the tub far longer than she had expected. The stellar storm was now raging outside. The storm was even more intense than she or The Oracle had predicted. A tsunami of atomic nuclei, mostly ionized hydrogen and Helium, were blowing by at a velocity of over a thousand kilometers per second. The plasma density was also much greater than expected. Magnetic fields supplemented by half meter thick steel walls kept the radiation at bay.

Switching to the navigational subroutine, Dagny checked on the progress of the Magnetosail module. The compact, egg shaped, eight ton spacecraft had its magnetic sails fully unfurled to capture the energy and momentum of the stellar wind. The spacecraft was currently accelerating at over ten gees. The acceleration would wane as the plasma density decreased and its velocity increased until it was nearly keeping pace with the stellar wind. The egg would require barely two days to accelerate to its peak cruising velocity of a thousand kilometers per second.

Dagny utilized the storm shelter's tiny kitchen to prepare herself a meal. The label read "Macaroni and Cheese." She didn't know what that was. The prepackaged foods were a legacy from Earth. Even freshly rehydrated and heated, the taste was about what one would expect of food that had been manufactured two centuries earlier.

Awakening half a day later, Dagny checked the weather as well as the progress of the tiny cargo craft. The stellar storm was continuing to rage. The acceleration of the cargo craft had waned, but was nominal. The Magnetosail continued to boost into the void, carrying its precious cargo of human embryos.

A pang of guilt inspired Dagny to briefly contemplate returning to the starship. The five women in her crew were no doubt getting a workout from the dozen, young men. She knew that she was shirking her duty by intentionally avoiding the ongoing orgy. She could remotely pilot the magnetosail capsule from anywhere. The gondola had magnetic fields to ward off radiation. However; in the event of a power failure, she'd be quickly exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. She would remain in the shelter until the stellar storm abated.

A quick check of navigational data revealed that the magnetosail craft had veered slightly off its anticipated course. A magnetosail gets the best performance when it is running with the stellar wind. Although such a craft could have no keel to enable it to tack into the wind, it could broad reach a point or two off axis. No doubt the computerized brain was reacting to unexpected variations in plasma density and velocity to optimize boost with the expectation that it would adjust its course later.

Dagny knew that the glorified, electronic calculator was foolishly presuming that the stellar storm wouldn't abate prematurely. She knew better. Touching a few icons on her bracer transmitted commands to the little craft. However; the light speed time lag compelled her to wait for an hour while the commands propagated at the speed of light then acknowledgement of those commands returned to her. Even more time would be required to reveal the evidence of the required course correction.

To combat the boredom of waiting, Dagny accessed the video and data feed from the Sentry satellites. The observation platforms had been released, very covertly, by the starship as it was it was boosting out of Sol system centuries ago. Magnetosail transport modules had decelerated the Sentries so that they would lurk only a few hundred astronomical units outside the inner system. While neither the Transhumans or the Cybers had specifically forbidden the colonists from leaving Sentries behind to monitor the home system, they probably would not have approved. Shrouded by distance and the darkness of interstellar space, the sentries were effectively invisible. The probes would be extremely vulnerable if they were detected.

Although the sentry platforms had deployed optical interferometers with an effective aperture diameter of over a hundred meters, their resolution wasn't unlimited. They couldn't resolve objects on Earth that were smaller than a few dozen kilometers in diameter. However; that resolution was more than adequate to resolve the diminished oceans and greatly expanded continents of Earth.

While Transhumans and Cybers had denied the motive, they had not been content to allow the human population of Earth to diminish gradually and gracefully to inevitable extinction. They had installed a constellation of their solar power satellites at Earth's number one Lagrangian point. The enormous solar collectors partially eclipsed the sun.

Ironically; the Transhumans and the Cybers had cited the discredited theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming as a rationalization for their solar power project. That mass hysteria had not only wrought economic devastation. The competition for needlessly scarce resources had escalated to nuclear war.

Thanks to distance and orbital inclination, the eighty-four-thousand kilometer diameter habitat ring that girded the Earth at geosynchronous orbit was largely unaffected by the interdiction of solar energy. While the dwindling remnants of humanity had been languishing in the cold and the near darkness for centuries, the Transhumans and the Cybers had thrived in their ring around the world.

The orbiting megalopolis had grown continuously over the centuries. The most recent imagery that had been transmitted by the Sentries revealed a solid ring that was a thousand kilometers wide and dozens of kilometers thick. If one counted the inner as well as the outer surfaces, the surface area of the orbital ring was now quadruple the surface area of the Earth! The effective living volume was orders of magnitude greater. The ring around the world might be inconsequential compared to Niven's Ringworld around a star, but it was an awe inspiring marvel of engineering. It was estimated that tens of billions of Transhumans lived in the ring. The population of Cybers was no doubt at least an order of magnitude greater. Venus as well as Mars and Earth's moon hosted similar albeit much smaller, orbital megalopoli.

The Sentries were able to image the glaciers that had spread out from the Arctic during recent centuries. Most of North America and Asia as well as all of Europe we're covered by ice sheets that were kilometers thick. The Antarctic ice pack had expanded Northward to reach Australia. The cities of the once temperate zone of that continent were now under ice sheets kilometers thick.

A colder planet is a drier planet. The temperate zone and subtropical deserts had expanded to envelope the equatorial jungles. The Transhumans and Cybers had been unsympathetic to humanity. Earth's diminished and continually diminishing population no longer needed most of its once great cities anyway. Unlike humanity, neither the Transhumans or the Cybers cherished Earth's former biological diversity. They had ceased making pilgrimages to Earth's former ecological wonders generations ago.

Later

Another day had passed and the stellar storm had abated before Dagny boarded the gondola. She resisted the temptation to program the craft for a leisurely journey. She strapped herself in. She then programmed the craft for the journey. She'd accelerate at one gee for half an hour before decelerating for another half hour to arrive at the starship at Havensynchronis orbit.

A flaw in the design of the gondola was that the seats were not designed to be reversible. As the craft accelerated downwards, Dagny was subjected to one gee, negative. It was as if she was standing on her head! Since she was nude, her large, mature, pendulous breasts sagged towards her head rather than towards her belly. Her nipples presented themselves. Dagny couldn't resist the temptation to suck on her own nipples. She also inserted her fingers into her vagina to stimulate her gee spot as well as her clitoris. By the time the gondola began to decelerate, she'd brought herself to climax, twice.

The Next Morning

Dagny was being spit roasted, yet again. She was on her hands and knees. One of her paramours was kneeling behind her. He was relentlessly thrusting his penis into her vagina. The other three were kneeling in front of her, offering their penises to her mouth. Only one of them actually had an erection. The other two remained flaccid. She couldn't blame them. They'd both inseminated her at least three or maybe four times last night then again this morning. She paused occasionally to give each of them a few tentative licks, just so they wouldn't feel neglected. She then returned to performing fellatio on the eagerly erect member of the trio.

Dagny climaxed. The contractions of her vagina sent her suitor over the edge. He was exceptionally virile as well as impressively endowed. She could actually feel his semen surging against her cervix. The sensation prolonged her orgasm.

Dagny was certain that her suitor's testicles were depleted by last night's exertions. However; he was less than half the age of her husband. Along with being better endowed than her spouse, he along with the other three young men had proven to be far more virile. She had no doubt that he was far more potent as well. Undoubtedly; tens of millions of his sperm were at that moment flooding into her eagerly receptive womb. After last night's festivities that were preceded by the previous days of debauchery, his sperm were joining, as Sagan would say, billions and billions of sperm, from well over a dozen men on a quest for her ovum.

Witnessing his rival inseminating Dagny provoked a response from the guy that Dagny was performing fellatio on. He wanted to cum to, but not in her mouth. Fortunately; the rivalry was a friendly rivalry. The young man who'd just inseminated Dagny withdrew his penis then stepped aside so that the other could have his turn. In spite of his eagerness, he was able to restrain himself long enough to bring her to another orgasm before he to inseminated her.

Exhausted from her exertions, Dagny would have preferred to fall asleep. Unfortunately; duty called. The young men might have been savages from Botany Bay, but they were in their own way, gentlemen. Aside from playfully squeezing her breasts and fingering her dilated vagina, they didn't restrain her. She staggered off to the shower. When she was reasonably clean, she staggered off to the communal laundry.

Dagny removed her skinsuit from the cleansing machine. The protective garment was warm and dry. She carefully examined the fabric of the crotch. She was pleased to see that the machine had finally gotten out the semen stains. That's what she got for not taking time to shower after a day and a night of vigorous, unrestrained sex with multiple males before prepping for more zero gee training in vacuum. Unfortunately; she once again didn't have time to shower thoroughly.

After donning her skinsuit then the ridiculous looking yet functional brass brassiere, she reached for the waste extraction attachment. It looked like an archaic bikini bottom, but with a urine extractor protruding inward. She gently pressed the twenty centimeter long, phallic shaped projection against her vulva. Sensing the pressure, the smart fabric of her skinsuit dilated automatically, allowing the urine extractor to enter her. It was just like a third pair of labia. She fastened the clasps at her hips. The urine extractor buzzed and throbbed inside her as it eagerly absorbed her copiously continuing flow back.

The twelve men and five women who comprised her crew were waiting patiently for Dagny. They didn't complain about her being late. The four men who'd escorted her to bed last night certainly had no right to complain. They'd kept her awake most of the night with non stop copulation. She almost envied the women who'd bedded down with only one or two paramours. However; after her extended pilgrimage to the end of the beanstalk, she had felt that she was obligated to take on more than an equal share. At least that was what she had rationalized last night.

Thinking about last night provoked an instinctual glance at the bracer on her wrist. The icon for her ovulation tracking app was conspicuously absent. The Oracle had deactivated it again.

There was no sense in chastising the sentient machine. That was almost standard operating procedure for these orbital forays. There were excellent reasons for not just the Colony's extreme, natalist policies but customs that encouraged the maximization of the diversity of the gene pool. The Oracle wouldn't remain functional forever. Many of their fabricators and other machines were nearing the end of their useful lives. Aside from the risks of genetic drift, they needed to expand their population as rapidly as possible. They needed more people with more hands with more expertise so that they would be able to sustain at least some semblance of civilization without the assistance of their computerized guardian.

Given the extreme natalist policies that were necessary for the Colony's survival, contraceptives were taboo. Fertility awareness along with male restraint were the only options available for the few women who wished to minimize the probability of conception, even temporarily. Dagny was at an age when she wasn't as fertile as she had been in decades past. Her youngest child was almost three. Her most recent pregnancy had ended with a miscarriage. However; her waning fertility might not matter given last night's gang bang.

Dagny silently counted the days since she'd last menstruated. She was probably several days away from ovulating but perhaps only a day or two away. Given the absence of biometric data, she had no way of knowing. Of course The Oracle knew, but The Oracle wasn't telling. In spite of the lack of biometric data, Dagny knew her own body. She was late enough in her cycle that one of her ovaries might spontaneously release an egg just in time to greet the billions and billions of sperm that were already swimming around in her womb. She had no doubt that she'd be inseminated, copiously and repeatedly, during the coming weeks anyway.

The young men had certainly had fun trying to impregnate Dagny last night. They'd made vulgar wagers on whose sperm would prevail. The truth be told, she'd enjoyed their rutting and had even encouraged their wagering. Of course The Oracle would never divulge the results of DNA testing to anyone except maybe to the Colony's geneticists.

Dagny led her crew to the axle of the rotating habitat then to the much larger volume of the non rotating, zero gee portion of the starship. She was pleased to see that the five women in her crew were quickly regaining the zero gee proficiency that they'd learned during excursions during their youth. Even the twelve men from Botany Bay were becoming reasonably competent. The Golem was becoming more than just reasonably competent. He moved with the grace of a hexapanther prowling through its jungle.

The crew followed Dagny through companionways as she led them almost a quarter of a kilometer aft. They came to the airlock for the number five tug. The Zionists had requisitioned tugs one, three, four and six for their secretive diversion to Eta Cassiopeiae Beta. A century ago, the secondary star of the binary system had been barely forty Astronomical Units distant from its primary. There they had founded their own, covert colony. The primary colony had retained two tugs as well as the starship. It had been an equitable division of assets for the amicable dissolution of their partnership.

Tug two was not operational at the moment. The starship's largest, most sophisticated fabricators were still working on the needed parts. While the colony's smaller, less advanced fabricators could produce small numbers of simple parts and products with relative ease, mass production was beyond them. More importantly, fabricating large scale parts became far more difficult when not only the elemental and isotopic composition had to be perfect, but every atom had to be precisely placed in its proper position with Angstrom level precision.

Dagny wasn't exactly comfortable with not having a backup tug available in case of an emergency. However; it wasn't every day that a previously undiscovered, rogue asteroid falls into your star system. Her telescope hadn't detected the asteroid on its hyperbolic trajectory until it was only a few dozen Astronomical Units from Alpha. Spectroscopic analysis had confirmed that in addition to the usual surface deposits of frozen volatiles, including Ammonia, Carbon dioxide and various hydrocarbon ices, the asteroid was rich in metallic elements. She had even detected elements heavier than Iron!

The Oracle had insisted that the Colony needed the asteroid. Dagny agreed. She wanted the asteroid so badly she could almost taste it. The metallicity of Alpha was much lower than Sol. Haven was nearly devoid of elements heavier than Iron. Haven's small moons had an even greater paucity of metals heavier than Aluminum and Titanium. The few asteroids that orbited Beta were not geological treasure troves like Psyche back in Sol system. The Colony hadn't been able to retrieve an asteroid since the arrival of the first generation anyway. All the elders agreed with the Oracle that Dagny and her crew should tag it, snag it and bag it. Unfortunately; their launch window was somewhat narrow.

Everyone followed Dagny into the tug then watched as she sealed the airlock door. The core hull of the tug was amazingly cramped given it's volume. At a dozen meters in diameter and over a hundred meters long, the core hull of the tug was comparable in volume as well as mass to the submarine warships that had once prowled Earth's oceans. Such submarines had often been crewed by more than a hundred people. The tug should have been more than roomy enough for only eighteen people. They weren't armed to the teeth with dozens of torpedoes and nuclear missiles. However; the fusion rocket occupied far more volume than one of those ancient submarine's fission reactors, power plant and torpedo compartment combined.

The hull of the tug was laid out like a small tower. While the accommodations were cramped, everyone had their own cabin. The wedge shaped sleeping compartments radiated off the central companionway. There were six cabins on each of three accommodation levels. The communal showers and other sanitary facilities along with a sauna and hot tub occupied a fourth deck. A mess and lounge occupied another, double deck. The medical facilities and bridge were further forward. The bow was occupied by equipment for extravehicular activities. The fusion rocket with its six, divergent exhaust nozzles along with other equipment occupied the aft half of the core hull.

Dagny deposited her duffle bag and other stuff in a locker in her own compartment. The enormous bed occupied most of the floor space. Access would have been somewhat difficult if they hadn't been in freefall. Given the fact that they'd be in near freefall during the next few months, the lack of floor space wouldn't be a problem.