The Preacher Man

I turned to my wife. Except for the brief helicopter flight, this was my first moment to be with her since our wedding night, more than a month ago, and the helicopter was no place to tell her what was going on. But I was certainly overjoyed to be with her again, and I knew she could sense that. "Hi Abigail!"

She removed her veil and nodded playfully, looking a little uncertain about the situation. "Hi back Ilias! What would you like me to do?"

I smiled in admiration of her discipline. I knew she was probably bursting with questions, and I was sure she very much wanted to tell me what her month had been like. But, first things first! I broke open one of our large backpacks and went straight to the armaments.

"Abby, we have about forty minutes to sunset. I want to teach you how to fire a flechette pistol. Do you know much about them?"

Abigail stared at the large pistol I had handed her. "Well, as a girl, no direct experience of course. I have read a little. Exploding micro-darts, right?"

"That's right. Actually, here's the lever near the bottom of the breach for ammo selection..." Over the next few minutes I gave Abigail a basic course in a shooter's stance, how to hold and sight the weapon, and the lever operations for safety, ammo mode, and firing mode. "In the Holy militia, this gun has the nickname of Devil-dog. Each magazine holds eighty micro-darts, forty with exploding tips and forty without. Both types of darts will stay super-sonic for almost a hundred meters. Inside that radius and for pistol size, this is about the most deadly weapon imaginable."

Abigail practiced sighting and fire selection as I continued my lesson. "The pistol is superbly balanced, easy to control even at full auto. Firing modes are manual single-shot, slow-auto at three rounds per second, and variable-auto which will fire ten rounds per second with a fully depressed trigger. If you exhaust the supply of exploding darts, the pistol will automatically switch to the non-exploding darts. It will NOT automatically switch in the other direction. You'll have to push the ammo-mode lever to horizontal."

Abigail nodded. "Got it."

I let her practice for a while, loading and unloading a magazine, becoming familiar with the optical sighting controls, and finally chambering the first dart manually with the bolt. Abigail was then ready to test her marksmanship. I told her to use up an entire clip, starting with the non-explosive ammo. We discovered she is a born natural shooter, and she seemed to be really enjoying herself practicing with the non-exploding darts. But in the early twilight, just before it was too dark for practice, she tried automatic fire and the exploding ammo.

Abigail stared silently at the small but deep crater she had carved out in a boulder sixty meters away. I was very impressed with her control. She had stayed dead on-target for a full three-second, thirty-dart blast. The crater had a conical shape and we could probably have fit both our heads in it.

Abigail sighed. "Devil-dog, huh? An apt name..."

In the gathering darkness, we pitched our tent. Abigail watched with interest as I mounted our proximity detector on a lightweight magnesium-alloy pole. "This is a nice, open clearing," I commented. "Guard duty tonight will be little more than staying awake and making sure the sensors are operational."

Abigail nodded. "We'll sleep in shifts?"

"Oh yeah." I muttered. I was pre-occupied studying the sensor's start-up diagnostics. I wasn't anticipating the guard duty to be a problem. Thousands of years ago, modifications to the human genome had reduced humanity's daily need for sleep to four hours.

"The bears?" Abigail continued.

"Yep. A month from now they'll all be hibernating. But right now they're in a frantic mode, one last chance to stuff themselves. We'll have to stay alert the whole trip. It's likely we're going to have several encounters, probably at least one where the bears don't give up."

"Bears? Plural?"

"Yeah, they hunt in packs. You don't know?"

Abigail shook her head. "Qataban girls aren't taught much about North American wildlife." She paused for a moment. "It's sad. If the women are moved here, they're at the mercy of their husbands to leave them a note about the local dangers in their marriage books. And they'll have to relearn the lesson, every day of their lives... Ilias?"

I had just finished with the diagnostics and was switching the sensor array to operational mode. "Uh huh?"

"These bears! I remember a few vague references to them, very old, perhaps even from before the Great War. Your description doesn't fit. North American bears were described as shy, especially the black ones."

"Black?" I shook my head. "I never heard of a black bear. These are white with a mottled brown. It's a good camouflage, especially if there's any snow."

"Snow? Think we'll get any?"

"This time of year? I'm surprised the ground is still clear." I shook my head and smiled. "Shy bears?! That would be a switch!"

"I don't think they hunted in packs, either."

"Really?" I considered her words. "I don't see why not. Their main prey animals are elk and bison, and I've even heard they'll attack a herd of wooly forest hippo if they're hungry enough. Those hippo are tough, and they defend as a team. I don't think the bears could survive as solitary hunters."

Abigail shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I've read."

I finally laughed. "Shy bears?! Downright peaceful, huh? All those muscles and claws and too embarrassed to use them?!"

Abigail grinned back. "Well, it does sound ridiculous when you put it like that! I don't know. Maybe I was reading a fairy story and didn't realize it."

"Yeah, maybe." We had finished unpacking our sleeping gear. I gave a playful pat to our double bag. Abigail's face burst into a willing smile and she quickly undressed. I soon followed her into the warmth and covers. Her body felt so smooth!

I smiled at her. "If the alarms go off, be prepared to grab your pistol and dash out the door. Worry about clothes later."

"Okay. Think we'll have to?"

"We're probably okay for a while. This time of year, the bears' normal pattern is to hunt at dawn. It's the coldest time of the day, and it slows down their prey."

I felt Abigail's naked body shiver. "Yeah," she whispered. "It must have been a fairy story." She smiled at me. "You seem very familiar with their behavior."

"Of course. I've been out on Anqara survival training since my second gate. All the monastery boys were. They probably are out right now, about 400 kilometers north of here."

"Is this what this is, survival training?"

I nodded. "It's a yearly requirement for all Security members. There are no exceptions. If you're sick or injured, you just have to suck it up. And there are no rescue missions if you run into trouble."

"I had no idea! Do all males have to do this?"

"No, just the Security Guild, and the Holy Militia... Maybe some special weapons teams of the Holy Police too..."

Abigail nodded thoughtfully. "And how long will we be out here?"

"As long as it takes for us to hike back to Jericho. In a straight line, we're seventy kilometers due north of home right now, more than halfway to Cairo in fact." I was referring to another of the world's townships, built near the ancient site of Montreal at 45 o 30' N, 2 o 41' W.

I continued. "The terrain isn't bad. We'll probably wind up hiking about ninety kilometers. Part of the test is patience, knowing not to rush and do something stupid. All we have to do is hike twenty kilometers a day and we'll be back at Jericho before the end of the month. A critical error would be to hike to sundown and then not find a clear space to bivouac for the night. The sensors can't detect well in dense forest, and we'll be depending on them for our lives."

Abigail sighed and cuddled with me, curling into the warmth by my side and hugging me. We shared a few brief kisses, nothing too erotic, but we could both sense each other's desires. "I'm dying to tell you about my life," she whispered, "and to ask you a thousand questions!"

"I have the same desires! Why don't you go first? How is your foot doing? Up for a ninety kilometer hike?"

"It had better be! Now I know why you signed me up for all that physical therapy! And to answer your question, yes, my foot is in fine shape now." She lifted her leg and caressed my calf with her foot as she spoke. "The cast came off more than twenty days ago. I'm fine."

I nodded and returned the caress, massaging the small of her back, my hand occasionally drifting down to pet her buttocks. Abigail cooed with the pleasure.

"Abby, your life," I whispered. "Having to pretend you have no memory. Is it difficult?"

She sighed. "A bit. I'll only have one chance at this. One slip-up, just one, and the game is over."

I glanced at the proximity monitor, one white diode and eight green. All was quiet. "I can imagine," I whispered. I returned to caressing her. She was so wonderfully warm and alive.

"The burqa helps a lot. I see someone I know, I don't have to hide my facial expression or eye recognition. Not that I'm recognized back. My female physical therapists, they don't recognize me, one day to the next."

"Yes... That's how I first guessed, about the memory drugs I mean."

Abigail's hand had been caressing my thigh, and was just starting feather-light strokes on my scrotum, but she stopped at my revelation. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"When we were young boys, before our first gate, my monastery class was cared for by women. Most of the boys thought they were different women every day, since they never gave any sign of recognizing us. But there was one with a bit of a limp. I was sure it was the same woman. One day I risked helping her complete a chore. She would have been punished otherwise. She seemed so startled by my action..."

I took a deep sigh. "About ten days later the same thing happened. I got the same startled response. I couldn't figure it out. I started giving her a monastery hand signal when I could do it discreetly, a hand sign for friendship. She was startled every time I did it. I couldn't figure it out Abigail. I knew it was the same person, but she seemed so unable to recognize me."

Abigail was quiet for a long while. "What finally happened to her?"

"No idea. She was probably one of the Priest's wives at the monastery. A year later I was at my eighth year and passed my first gate. We saw no women after that."

"None at all?"

"No. Is it different at Qataban?"

"I..." There was a long pause from Abigail. "I guess I don't know."

More kisses... We started playing with each other, rubbing our noses and laughing. Abigail was so beautiful! In the past month, my heart was longing for her, and it felt so wonderful to be with her again, especially alone like this. We started caressing each other's hips. I made a few playful thrusts into her side. Abigail smiled and turned and reached down and held my thigh, pressing my leg and groin against her body.

The sensor display provided just a bit of light in the tent. Abigail glanced at my uniform. For three days now blue had been sharing a spot with the yellow on the top half of my diamond. "Well done Ilias! Was it difficult, riding the Lion?"

I nodded. "Each time is different, and this time was the strangest of all. And I rode the Lion right in the center of its lair."

"Huh? Oh! You mean Babylon?" Her hand drifted upward and cupped my scrotum. I lifted my leg to give her better access.

"Yeah..." I was referring to the township built at the ancient site of Lima, Peru, 12 o 5' S, 6 o 9' W, and the home township of the Computer Guild. Among their unique responsibilities are the operations of the Asad and the adult Class promotion software, Cl-2 to CL-23, everything below Ruling Royalty. The Guild had been performing that function uninterrupted for over eight thousand years.

Abigail gave a gentle tug on my penis. Her eyes were full of playfulness. I nodded to her. I was so interested! Her smell, the beauty of her body and her curves, her sparkling eyes, the softness of her skin, she filled my senses completely. We started kissing again, and this time our minds let go of everything except the nakedness of each other's body. Further conversation would have to wait.

Playful and timid, eager and inexperienced, this would be the first time for both of us. In the back of my mind I dimly saw the horrible attraction, the desire to capture Abigail's gift of virginity forever, to be able to play this moment again and again. I shook the thought from my mind, and returned to the moment and the wonder of Abigail offering her body to me.

We entered a world filled with hands and mouths, tasting and caressing. Abigail was delightfully bold with her licking. I was wet everywhere! Penis, sac, armpits, nipples, throat, her tongue and nose went everywhere in playful intimacy. I tried to respond, but often found myself drifting in Abigail's exquisite sexuality. Finally an inviting breast was passing near my mouth and I locked onto it with a strong suckle. Abigail gasped as she realized how firmly she was caught.

More time flowed. My suckle began to wander, up to her throat, her lips, such beautiful lips, staring into each other's eyes as our tongues sought to caress each other. And then down, playful kisses on her swollen nipples, rubbing my nose against the hard muscles near her ribs, hearing her cry out as I unexpectedly licked her navel. Abby held my head as I descended into the soft curls of her pubis. So mysterious! So wonderful! Such amazing smells and silkiness, so inviting, I could lose myself there forever. I opened my mouth and began to taste her, lowering my head as she spread her legs to accept me.

For a while the sense of time seemed to disappear. When it returned I realized I was hearing Abigail breathe in gasping pants. I broke my suction on her puffy lips and slid my tongue from her. I looked back up at her and was amazed to feel my penis and sac, even my anus, were slick and moistened with her saliva. She groaned and looked at me, pleading with her eyes for us not to wait any longer.

I moved to give her some room to turn in the small tent. She quickly assumed the one coitus position described in the Book of Bel'dar, kneeling on all fours, elbows and head to the floor, legs splayed and hips held high, arching her back to lift her rump and open herself to me. I knelt behind her. So open, so beautiful, so sweet. I mounted her back, my stiff erection sliding in her folds and then cupping into a hot and moist depression.

My instincts took over, one steady hip thrust to seat myself inside her. Abigail cried out as she broke.

"Darling! Forgive!"

"No Ilias! No! I want this! I want this so badly!" Abigail wiggled back until I was fully seated inside her. The feeling of having her groin lock onto mine, feeling her pull me into her body, the feeling was... beyond... beyond anything and everything. I lost myself in my thrusting, so slick! So warm! So tight! And then tighter still, as Abigail gasped and her body held me like a vise. I reached below and held her breasts as I felt her cry and vibrate and stiffen beneath me. She was orgasming! And I rode her as she came, until the pleasure was finally too much for the both of us and she jerked forward and turned.

I followed, lying on top of her, breast to breast, stomach to stomach, groin to groin, my penis seeking her, urgently seeking to return to its home of wetness and hot tightness. Abigail lifted her legs high as I thrust, giving me a nice slippery angle to reenter her moisture. I thrust once, then again, and then gasped as I felt myself start to release, spurting and inseminating this most precious creature beneath me, our eyes centimeters apart, locked on each other and staring into each other's soul. Abigail laughed and cried and held me tightly as I emptied myself into her loins.

I quickly became very sleepy. We hadn't discussed guard rotation yet, but in a few moments my head was in Abigail's lap and I realized she was offering to take the first watch. My cheeks were held against her warm and beautiful inner thighs, so soft! Gentle hands were caressing my hair, and then Abigail started to sing me a lullaby. I drifted for a short while, and soon became oblivious to everything.

Chapter 11. A Shot in the Dark

Eight hours later...

Time: November 26, 8235

Abigail roused from her slumber slowly, smiling as she realized I was petting her head, tracing a fingertip lightly across her temple. "Oh, that feels so nice," she murmured. She opened her eyes. "What time is it?"

"2:30 AM. Up for some walking?"

Abigail yawned and nodded. "Sure. Wait! Won't the bears be active soon?"

"Exactly. Think Abigail! When the bears are the most dangerous, where would you rather be? Mobile and in control of your environment, or a fixed target waiting to be ambushed?"

Abigail blinked at me and sat up. "No contest! Let's get going!"

My wife quickly got up and dressed before going out to relieve herself. But when she poked her head outside the tent she exclaimed, "Snow!"

"Yeah, there was a burst of it while you slept. It's clearing out nicely though." We both admired the stars as we took down the tent. I smiled at the sight of the brilliant moon, and how it wouldn't set until shortly after sunrise. Perfect! I thought we were in excellent shape, and the survival test was beginning to feel like a walk in the park.

We left our campsite around 3 AM. I had studied the maps of our route closely, and with my perfect memory I knew exactly the direction we should be heading. Walking side by side and a few meters apart, we started munching some food bars and hiking south southeast.

We made good time through the woods, covering three kilometers in the first hour, constantly alert for bears. We began angling towards a large expanse of lake.

"We just have to clear the water to the east," I commented as we walked. "Then we'll head due south along the shoreline."

Abigail nodded, intently scanning a nearby fallen tree as a possible ambush point.

We soon made it to the lake shore. We had a nice piece of relaxed hiking ahead of us. The deep forest had receded more than a hundred meters from the lakefront, depriving our adversaries of ambush cover, and I wasn't worried about the bears springing up out of the unfrozen lake. The bright moon provided ample illumination, and our primary worry became not to twist an ankle on a rock beneath the snow. Treading carefully, we began to relax as we continued our way south.

"So Ilias," Abigail asked. "How was your month?"

"Super busy. I spent half my time at Bandar Arenas." I paused for a moment and then laughed. "And it felt as if I spent the rest of the time in supersonic jets. I was in a dozen different townships, often for only a few hours at a time."

Abigail nodded and laughed back. "I suspected as much! Mudar?"

"Yeah. And it wasn't just negotiations with Royalty. For me, it was also a crash course in inter-Guild diplomacy. I was often the only CL-12 in the room. All the top commanders in the other Guilds wanted to know that the deals had my personal approval. It was driving my superiors crazy!"

Abigail chuckled. "Your ride on the Lion?"

"Yeah. My Guild tried to keep it quiet for a while, but word finally leaked out. There was one other person in history who tried a full ride, back within a hundred years of the Great War. His name was Raghib, and he didn't make the gate at CL-13. I'm the first person to ride this far."

We talked for hours as we hiked, making great progress, four kilometers an hour. We spent most of the time talking about our childhoods, what it was like to grow up. Our experiences were so different! Boys and girls are raised so differently. Both genders are separated from their mothers about a month after birth. By law, infants are then sent to nurseries in different townships. The children are segregated by gender even then, and once they are transferred to monasteries in their third year, their experiences are completely different.