Scouts (8 page)

I had never really paid that much attention to my body. It was always just there, often just taking care of itself while I engaged in some kind of activity. After just an hour of focusing my attention on, for example, the sensations in my resting hands, I felt things I had never felt before. Even with something as simple as my body, the Scouts were going to show me amazing things.

By the end, I was more than ready for lunch. We ate, chatting about the morning’s studies, and how they fit into the life and work of a Scout.

After lunch, we had a free hour before our next class.

I gave Shirley a hopeful smile as soon as I finished eating. “Could Valka and I just take a walk together? We haven’t had any time alone since we got here, and . . .”

“Certainly,” said Shirley. “You know where the main entrance is. Through there is a promenade that leads out to the oxygen deck. Don’t wander too far, but I doubt you’ll get lost. Your tablet has your schedule; it’ll signal you if you’re in danger of being late. And remember—no orgasms.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Discipline, Challers. Discipline.”

I loved walking with Valka. She took my left hand in hers, wrapped my arm around her back, and held me close. I shortened my stride a little for her as we walked. When we started, I felt some slight worry that the intimacies I had shared with Shirley would get in the way, but we fell into our accustomed places with ease. It felt good to do something so familiar, even if the place we were doing it was not.

The promenade was lined with little bars and eateries, but having just finished lunch, neither of us was interested. We looked them over, sampling the music that wafted from open doors, drawing a few interested looks from passersby. Having spent the whole morning in our cadet uniforms, I’d forgotten how revealing they were. I felt suddenly self-conscious.

“Maybe we should go back,” I said. “I don’t see any other cadets out here.”

“How many other opportunities like this are we going to get? If there aren’t many other cadets out here, that must mean they don’t get away often. Let’s just walk.”

We continued down the promenade. It wasn’t crowded, but the wide corridor had plenty of traffic, both white-clad Scouts and those in more colorful garb. We figured out soon enough that only active-duty Scouts wore the white outfits. Everyone else was either a native of the station who had never served, or retired. Even off-duty Scouts seemed to dress in white.

At the end of the promenade, a wide gate led out onto the oxygen deck. It was like nothing I had seen before. Wonder upon wonder had been presented to me that day, but they all paled in comparison.

This wasn’t just an oxygen garden. We were in the main ring of the station, standing on the edge of that ribbon of blue and green we had glimpsed when we docked. The blue was water, an impossible amount of it, flowing in a wide stream. The green was grass and trees and plants, artfully arranged and jubilantly healthy. Just from where we stood, we could see dozens of robots working in the fields and orchards, tending to the marvelous greenery.

Still, I hesitated. It didn’t feel safe to be out in the open like that. The enclosure above us, holding in the air, seemed impossibly far away, and too transparent. My skin felt itchy, my breath tight. I wanted a spacesuit.

“Is this safe?”

“Come on,” said Valka. “It has to be.”

Slowly, the promenade shrank behind us and we made our way down to the water. There were voices, shouting and laughing. As we got closer, we could see that there were people in the water. Valka and I stared.

“Are they supposed to be there?” I asked. Valka just shrugged.

As we got closer still, the figures bobbing about in the water saw us and shouted, “Look! Cadets!”

They waved and smiled, inviting us down to the water’s edge in musical, gentle voices. There were four of them, paddling about in the clear water. When we finally reached the shore, I couldn’t help but stare. They seemed to be women, but there was something odd about their faces.

“Hi, I’m Challers,” I said.

They introduced themselves as Trey, Shar, Jo, and Hom. They climbed out of the water, and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Their bodies were slim and mostly hairless, and while each one had a modestly feminine pair of breasts, each also had a set of male genitalia.

They noticed my amazement and laughed. As they picked up their towels and began drying off, Trey asked, “Have you never seen our kind before, then?”

“We only arrived yesterday,” said Valka, recovering quicker than I did.

“Where are you from?”

“Stakroya Station,” I said.

Shar nodded. “I’ve heard of it. It’s a trade hub, out in the Rimward Reach. They’re mostly puregens out that way.”

“Puregens?” I hoped it wasn’t an insult. It didn’t seem that way, but one could never tell.

“Yes, you’ve still got the same basic body shape from the Original Seed.” Shar finished drying off and wrapped up in the towel. “You’re puregens, and we’re newgens. Chevalier newgens, specifically. I’m sure you’ll learn all about it in the academy.”

“I’ll be sure to ask about it if we don’t.” My tablet bipped. I checked it, and gave the foursome a bow. “We need to be getting back now. Class will be starting soon.”

On the way back, after we were well out of earshot of the hermaphrodites, I leaned in close to Valka. “I’m glad it wasn’t those kind that picked us up.”

She squeezed my arm and gave me a disapproving look. “Challers, don’t be like that. They’re just people.”

“Okay, but where would I, you know, put it?”

“You didn’t see Jo bending over? There’s a vulva there too.”

I tried to imagine how that would work. That piece of information made things a little better, but the image still disturbed me more than it intrigued me.

“I’m still glad it was Shirley and Masters that found us.”

“She is beautiful,” said Valka.

“Not as beautiful as you,” I said and kissed her cheek. I paused. It seemed the right time to ask a question that had been on my mind whenever I had an idle moment to think. “Have you, uh, done anything, with Masters yet?”

She nodded. “Yeah. And you?”

“Before bed last night. With her hand.”

“Masters used his hand too.”

I swallowed hard, trying not to let the queasy feeling in my stomach show. I was beginning to think that the Scouts were the lesser of three evils, but saying that to Valka would only create a rift between us. I just squeezed her tighter and kept my doubts to myself. She was far happier than she had ever been on Stakroya Station. I wouldn’t spoil it for her.

Any pain was worth it, to make her happy.

As we got closer to the academy, I remembered that our next class would be Astronavigation. I broke into a jog, and the two of us ran the rest of the way back. We sat down at our places in the lecture hall and I eagerly activated my tablet.

To my horror, we wouldn’t be starting with any of the stuff I wanted to learn. Before we would get to the stars and engines and computers, there was a lot of basic, foundation information to go through that hadn’t been covered back on Stakroya Station. Galactic coordinate systems. Stellar coordinate systems. Time-shift vectors. Synchronization schema. The first forty days, at least, would be mathematics.

Vacking math.

My headache started just a few minutes in, bad enough to make me groan and rub my temples. We hadn’t gotten any further than skimming the syllabus. The holo paused mid-sentence.

“Are you all right, Challers?” It was Shirley, above and behind me.

“Headache,” I said. “It’ll pass.”

Valka ran her hand over my shoulder. Her sympathy helped, some.

I heard Shirley come down and stand behind me. She put her hands on my head, working on the knots in my temples. “Breathe deep,” she said. “Relax. Use what you learned in Physicality today. Let the tension go.”

“Math always gets him like this,” said Valka. “I helped him through it, back on Stakroya Station.”

The truth was she had practically taken my tests for me. Even with her coaching me every step of the way, I had barely passed. Crippling headaches are no way to go through a class. Math was the only blemish on my academic career, and the thought that it might get me sent back to Stakroya Station, never to see Valka again, gave my stomach fits.

Shirley gave me a good five minutes with her strong hands. She knew exactly where to put her fingers. Within a few minutes, the headache had faded a good deal and, with it, the queasiness in my gut.

When I sighed, she patted me on the back. “Good job, Challers. Are you ready to restart the lesson?”

“Yes. Thank you, Shirley.”

She returned to her place, and the lecture continued. Keeping the calm centeredness as much as I could, I managed to fend off the headache at the cost of some of my attention. Still, the result was better than before, and when the class was over, Shirley bent over her desk to ruffle my hair.

“You did a good job there, Challers. I’m proud of you.”

I smiled back at her. “Thanks for helping.”

After a short break, we started on the next class. Valka and I were both certified for basic first aid, as was everyone on Stakroya, so we would be starting with more advanced material. Once again, the technology available to the Scouts surpassed what we had back on Stakroya by a huge margin. Since travel of any great distance, for a Scout ship, required two healthy bodies on board, they went to great lengths to make that a certainty. Every ship carried a “gentank” underneath the main passageway. If a Scout could make it into that tank, the robotic systems there could repair any damage short of brain failure. For this reason, our methods focused on ways to stabilize and transport people to the gentank.

“Excuse me,” I said, “during the free hour, Valka and I met some people who called themselves ‘newgens.’ Does that have anything to do with the gentank?” I turned to look up at Shirley.

“It comes from the same technology,” she said. “Gentanks can alter, as well as repair, all the way down to the cellular level. We’ll get into more detail about newgens in our other classes.”

My curiosity was momentarily satisfied and the lecture continued. I had trouble paying attention. I didn’t much like the idea of being altered, especially as radically as the hermaphrodites I had met down by the water.

“Pay attention, Challers.” Shirley tapped me on top of the head. “If you’ve got something else, make a note and move on.”

I nodded and focused. This lecture was actually quite interesting. There was an “excursion kit” onboard the ship, with gear for treating any number of problems that might occur. This implied that Scouts didn’t spend their time cooped up on a ship day after day, and that prospect interested me. What kind of dangerous situations did Scouts find themselves in? Before Shirley could tap me on the head again, I let the question pass and went back to the lesson. The answers would come in due time.

After Medical, our day would be rounded out with the third hour of Physicality. Instead of leading us to the gym, however, Shirley brought us into a circular room focused on a raised Scout-ship bed.

“During this hour,” said Shirley, “we’ll continue our study of sexual response. Sex is the fundamental act at the center of your duties as a Scout. You will finish this training understanding it under a wide variety of conditions. For now, we will be studying each other. This may be a little uncomfortable, but I want you both to stay with me. It’s important not only to understand the anatomy of the opposite sex, but also your own. So let’s start with the erogenous zones.”

Gradually, Shirley went on a tour of her body, talking about each part and its general level of sensitivity, both for women in general and for her in specific. First, her head and neck, then her hands and arms, then feet and legs.

Then she pulled up her shirt and laid it on the edge of the bed. “Now. Breasts.”

After the things that had happened that day, it wasn’t as shocking as it could have been, but I still found myself blushing. I took a breath, centered myself, and tried to enter a more receptive frame of mind. It wasn’t easy, and in spite of everything I did, my cock swelled, and the room seemed to be getting warmer.

“Women vary widely about how they like their breasts treated,” she said. “For me, you can squeeze and pinch and suck as hard as you like.”