The Empty Ship

"That ... That's enough for now." he finally got out.

"Not until you tell me if you like it or not."

"Ok. You win. I like it. But we can't do this. Why don't you understand that?"

"I understand that you're driving me crazy. Every time I look at you, I want to fuck you. Your dick is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep."

"What the hell? Really?"

"I looked it up in the journals and checked it with the computer. I know it's just hormones and I know it will eventually pass but for right now you have to let me do this."

"Can't you ... I don't know ... resist or something? Meditate. Anything."

"There are accounts in the journals of women killing themselves, willingly going to the river to drown themselves because they couldn't get dick. Do you want that to happen to me?"

"The river? Oh, shit!" Tom jumped to his feet. No. Please no.

"What's wrong?" Marsha asked.

"And you just let her go."

"Ahoji? No. She's not going to ..."

Speaking to the computer, Tom asked "Where is Ahoji?" The computer started to display text as usual but then Tom added, "Voice, please."

The robotic and yet feminine voice of the computer replied "There is no one aboard the ship with that name."

"Oh, shit!"

"Don't panic." Marsha cut in. "You just pronounced her name wrong. It's A-Ho-YEE."

"Computer, where is Ahoji?" he repeated with the slightly altered vowels.

"There is no one on the ship with that name."

"Shit. Oh shit. No. Why didn't you tell me you two were getting hit that hard. FUCK!"

"She's not dead. I know she's not dead. We talked about this."

Tom wasn't listening. He stumbled back and found himself sitting on the floor. Marsha had the decency to realize she shouldn't be half naked in this situation considering what Tom had thought happened.

"Computer," Marsha began; "How many people are currently alive on the ship?"

"There are nine thousand forty seven people alive on the ship."

"How many people are in the sleep chambers?"

"Systems report nine thousand forty four people currently in sleep chambers."

Marsha turned back to Tom. "See, three people awake."

"Someone else could have woken up."

"Well, let's ask. Computer, who was the last person to leave the sleep chambers?"

"Please repeat the question."

"Who was the most recent person to wake up from the sleep chambers?"

"You are, Marsha Flin." the computer responded.

"Well, there you go. Ok. No matter what her name is, she has to be alive."

"For now. We better get to her." Tom said.

"She should already be on her way back."

"Computer, please have one of the robots go check to make sure Ahoji is safe."

"There is no one on the ship with that name." the computer responded.

"You know the thing that pisses me off," began Marsha; "is the thing knows who we're talking about but it just wants to ..."

"Computer, where is Alfie?"

"Current location, Balzendjaiv."

"Ok. I know that place. Computer, send some robots to make sure Alfie is ok."

"Define, OK."

"Not dead. Give me a video feed if you can. And I want to know about the rider as well."

"Recon ETA, fifty one minutes."

Marsha was still not happy that the computer would not recognize Ahoji's name. "Computer, can you give me a list of the people who are awake right now?"

"First name: Thomas, Last name: Flin. First name: Her, Last name: Imperium. First name: Marsha, Last name: Flin. List complete."

Tom and Marsha looked at each other. "Can we get a full name for ... Her?" Tom asked.

"Her Most Honorable Majesty, Empress of the Eternal Imperium."

"Oh shit." Tom said as he realized who the ship was talking about. She looked at Marsha and his sister looked dumbfounded.

"Is she still alive." Marsha eventually asked.

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Unable to comply. Privacy settings for ..."

"Never mind." Tom said.

"Why didn't she tell us?" Marsha asked.

"Ok computer, from now on I want you to call Her ... Imperium, Ahoji. Ok?"

"Ok. I will call Her Imperium, Ahoji."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"She's the Empress. Wow. That's just wow." Marsha said and she and Tom went to the kitchen.

"I guess that officially means I have no shot with her." Tom mentioned.

"You wanted a shot with her?"

"I was thinking about ... It doesn't matter. It's not going to happen."

"Don't give up. She's a woman. You're a man."

"She's the Empress and I'm nobody."

"You are the master of this ship. The owner. The landlord. The ... KING."

"Yeah but I still can't make captain and without that it doesn't really matter who's registered as the owner."

"But you're close, right?"

"Not really."

"But you can make it. Ok. You'll eventually make it and then we might be able to wake more people up."

"More women who will want to kill themselves if they can't have sex with someone? Maybe that's not a good idea."

"Ok, forget about all that. Ahoji does like you. Focus on that. She likes you. Ok. And no matter what, you'll always have me."

"Don't bring that up."

"No, I should. Ok. I know that to you what we just did was ..."

"Nothing. It never happened."

"No, it did and I'm taking responsibility for it."

"Just forget about it."

"I'm not going to just use you for sex, Tom. I care about you."

"Then drop it."

"Because I care about you I can't drop it."

"Why not?"

"I know maybe you think I hurt you or something."

"I understand. It's not your fault. It's the sleep chamber stuff you've still got. I get that. But now that it's over let's just ..."

"I'm not going to do that to you. Look, Tom, I'm making a commitment to you. For life."

"You're being dramatic."

"No, I'm serious. For life, I commit myself to you. If I want to or not, chemicals or not, any time for the rest of your life, if you want any part of my body, it's yours for the taking."

"That's crazy talk. You're my sister. EW."

"If you never cash in, that doesn't mean I didn't offer. I'm willing to pay you back in full plus some."

"Ok. Ok. Acknowledged. Now can we please drop it?"

There was silence as they both got something to drink and then Tom went outside. Marsha followed and saw him as he got on the other horse and started riding out towards Balzendjaiv. She tried to tell him again that Ahoji was ok but he didn't listen. He had to go see for himself, just in case.

...

Ahoji felt so free and safe. She never would have thought that those two things could go hand in hand. She was sitting on the remains of an ancient stone bridge that had mostly collapsed and she was fishing with a hand made rod and some line made from the threads of that thing she'd awoken wearing. She didn't have any bait on her hook so it was unlikely that she'd catch anything but there were clearly a lot of fish down there and they were rather big fish too.

Just like Tom was a big man with a big cock.

This life she lived now was almost a dream. She no longer had handlers who were always telling her what to do, what to say, where to go, what to dress in, and even when to use the rest room. No one was going to force her to marry anyone before she'd even met them. She was just a normal girl.

And no one was going to tell her she couldn't be with a normal guy like Tom.

Ok, she didn't feel normal half the time with all these sexual impulses constantly hitting her. She was able to manage with Marsha's help but it was only barely enough. It took almost all the discipline she'd learned as a child to keep her mind occupied on other things. If not for that, she might have found herself doing as Marsha had been the last few days with her sexy poses.

And she just knew if she did, Tom would take her the moment she bent over in front of him. He'd rip her clothes off and just ram himself into ...

She shifted her weight to find a more comfortable way to sit and she noticed another robot rolling by. Those little guys must like this place. She sort of wished they would leave her alone but they weren't getting too close so it was ok. She remembered all the damned photographers trying to get pictures of her ... but that life was over. For right now, she could almost pretend that this was back in the days of the old stories about valiant knights in their keeps with swords, grand battles, salt of the earth villagers, and formal balls. That was the one thing about her previous life that she would both miss and not miss at all. A good ball with fine music, good food, and fun dancing was always to be looked forward to. However, as ... who she used to be; she couldn't really participate as much as she wanted. She was the symbol that everyone else looked to even though her own personal power ended at the perimeter of her dress. In all practicality, the Regent was the actual Emperor. And now she never had to see his face ever again or hear his voice. He was gone and she remained.

Not that she was happy to learn of his death. She wouldn't be happy to learn of anyone's death, she didn't think. But it was true that she often thought of the difference in treatment she'd received from the Regent as opposed to Tom. She just bet Tom would defeat her once overbearing overlord in fisticuffs. No, she didn't want to ever see someone killed, but given a bloody nose might not be so bad.

Still, it did seem interesting to one part of her mind. She'd been Empress of the Eternal Imperium for over seven thousand years. No regime ever lasted that long. Whatever government had existed on the rebel worlds, it must have surely changed by now. They might not even have united world administrations anymore. She didn't even know if there were even any other humans out there in the galaxy besides those on this ship. She assumed there were since mankind had fertilized so many systems but ...

"They're out there." she said to herself. "Somewhere. They have to be."

She wasn't saying that in the hopes of rescue. She knew they were probably much too far away from any other humans for that to happen in her lifetime. But humanity was blessed by God to go out and spread life to every world and every star in the galaxy. And when Andromeda finally got close enough, they were going to colonize her too.

Like Tom colonizing the inside of her love canal.

Her father used to talk about the glorious future of the Imperium when it would be able to bring all worlds under one banner and one code of law. Did anyone even remember the Empire anymore? After seven thousand years, maybe not. But in a way, it still existed. As long as she was alive it still existed, even if it was just in her mind.

And her offspring if Tom would just give in and ...

But she was under no delusions. There was very slim chance that they were going to be able to wake everyone from the sleep chambers and even if they did, the Narranese outnumbered the Imperials more than ten to one. Narra was a republic that had never been part of the Imperium but had always been a good ally and trading partner so long as it was understood that monarchy was left off the export list.

Oh, how she wished Tom would export some of his semen ...

Republics puzzled Ahoji. She didn't understand how everyone could be equal and yet maintain that some people had authority over others. Power and authority were what made people intrinsically not equal. That was how she understood immediately in this new situation that she was the lowest status person here. Mr. Tom was the authority figure and after him, Marsha was in charge. Ahoji knew her place and she didn't despise it. It was a properly ordered society of three and there was nothing wrong with that. If she tried to disrupt that order in an attempt to supplant either Marsha or Mr. Tom then harmony would turn to strife, love to resentment, order to chaos, and eventually life to death. For her own good and the good of the other two she lived with, she needed to embrace her current station.

And accept Tom's embrace should he ever ...

There were times that Marsha would suggest putting something to a vote so that she and Ahoji could outvote Mr. Tom and get what they wanted. Ahoji saw voting for what it really was. It wasn't the people making their voices heard. It was the larger group, and thus the one with more power, forcing the smaller group to do or accept something that they didn't want. After all, when was the last time the majority group made a sacrifice for the greater good by voting against their own interest for the sake of everyone? That was why minorities were often ill treated in republics but were always protected by the fullest extent of the laws of the Imperium. In the Empire, you didn't have one group flexing their muscle against another they didn't like. That would be unpatriotic.

Even here on this ship, the old lessons of order and balance were refreshed in her mind. Maybe some would see grand chaos in the random jungle that had overtaken most of the ship. But Ahoji didn't see that at all. Each creature, plant or animal, had needs and there was a grand order to how they all depended on one another and provided for one another. The only way this continued to work was by being in balance. If the others ever woke up they'd have to learn that. Being out of balance had even brought the Empire to a low state. Their failure was rooted back with her great grandfather who had wanted his subjects to not only respect his authority as Emperor, but to also worship him as a god. While it was true that their ancient ancestors used to maintain that the Imperial family was descended from the divine and were in a way divine themselves, that kind of thinking had not been part of Imperial pageantry for centuries.

With that one lie, which even her great grandfather knew to be untrue, he began the decline of the Imperium. People lost faith in their institutions and their relationships with each other. Once rules were put in place to keep the Emperor from overreaching, it suddenly became possible to put all kinds of additional rules on the Emperor. By the time of her father's rule, he wasn't even a ruler anymore. He was Emperor in name only. The order of things had been corrected too far in the other direction and they were never able to find balance in time to save themselves.

In a way, she was very happy she never made it to Ajo. Whoever her husband would have been, he would have wanted to reach for offices above his station. Other nobles would have been suspicious of her children. And those suspicions wouldn't be completely unfounded. The Regent was always scheming to give himself more power through her father and then through her and she didn't see him stopping that kind of behavior when they reached Ajo. And now he was dead. She wondered what his final scheme was. Whatever it it had been, it was probably the thing that got him executed for insubordination.

She shook her head to force the thought of death from her mind. She looked down at the water and all the elegant movement.

Well, the fish weren't biting. Big surprise. The bridge was useless for crossing but the water seemed calm enough to cross in a small boat. She could probably get some of the robots working on that. She sort of had a vision for a possible future. When the others did wake up, they wouldn't be homeless or forced to live in dilapidated rubble. They wouldn't have to scrape together to survive. When the others woke up, everything would be done properly and systematically. They would be cared for, and properly welcomed. They would be given a place to live and a livelihood if they wanted it. They would also be free to go and enjoy all that the ship had to offer so long as they obeyed the law. As captain, Mr. Tom was the ultimate authority on the ship, not because he was captain, but because he was responsible for all their lives. Mr. Tom was still a bit young to take on such a huge responsibility but she could see potential in him. He had already earned her respect with as much as he'd already accomplished. He was up to the challenge when the time came. And when it did, she was going to make sure that there was every opportunity for a correctly ordered society to emerge under his leadership.

Anyway, while there was a wonderful chance to make something like that happen, there was still a long road ahead until it was a reality. Speaking of roads, she had a nice long road back to the tower. By now Marsha had to be finished with the super private discussion she'd wanted to have with Mr. Tom. It was time to head back and see if Marsha had in fact just talked with the man or if she'd used a more physical form of communication. Ahoji and Marsha had sort of discussed this issue several times and each time, though each one was sort of pushing for a different outcome, they'd inevitably come back to the same conclusion.

Ahoji became excited at the prospect of it. Granted, in an ideal and properly balanced world where men and women each made up about fifty percent of the population; one man with one woman was probably best for society as a whole. But that was not the situation here and Ahoji could not expect that no matter how much she might emotionally want it or feel she should be exclusive with Marsha because they'd already been intimate with each other. For the greater good she was going to have to find herself in a very different kind of relationship and any kind of jealousy she might have that Marsha was with Mr. Tom first was going to have to be checked.

Ahoji left the river, packed up, and mounted her horse for her return trip. Once Ahoji was back on the saddle she began to play a little game with herself. As the horse walked she would just let herself enjoy the motion between her legs. Oh, Mr. Tom; when was he going to finally just fuck her?

...

Tom felt sort of embarrassed as he continued on to Balzendjaiv and then he saw Ahoji in the distance and she was fine. He half wanted to go up to her and call her out on her deception but then realized that it wouldn't really be a constructive way to deal with things. And she hadn't exactly lied. He still felt like she should have told him but he was beginning to realize the reason why maybe she hadn't. He was going to have to let her know that it didn't matter who any of them were before they woke up here. It didn't matter who was Imperial and who was Narranese. It wouldn't even really matter if there were any colonists out there hiding from the ship's sensors. They were all in this together. That meant that they all had to stick together, pull together, work together, and do all the other together cliché things that people used with the word together.

Ahoji saw Tom and she waved at him. Tom stopped with Sanders and waited but Ahoji didn't rush over to him or anything. She continued on at her normal pace and she didn't even slow down as she passed him. After a bit of riding to turn Sanders around, Tom and Ahoji were side by side.

"So, how was the river?" he asked.

"Pleasant." she answered.

"Catch anything?"

"Not today but I'll be back."

"Um ... so like ... did you do a lot of fishing on Shikju?"

"No. I never had the chance except for when I'd pretend to fish in a a swimming pool."

"At the palace?"

Ahoji paused and thought of what the best answer would be. "Actually yes. I'm surprised they let me, really. There were always so many rules."

"Well, you know ... me and my dad used to go fishing a lot."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. On the weekend we used to go and try to catch gar fish."

"I've never heard of those. Tasty?"

"Oh yeah. Catching them was pretty fun too cause like they used to like jump out of the water and stuff. This one time they snapped my rod and almost pulled me into the water."

"How old were you?"

"About seven or eight. And you know, after we'd cook them, Marsha wouldn't want to eat any of it cause like gar fish have green bones."