EdenvalesSecret Read online

  “Continue, please.”

  “The pirates did not stop. Even though I threatened to kill one of their crew, they did not quit. The one I faced laughed at me. They shot everybody on the ship except me. When I tried to fight again, one of them gave me a lash with his barbed whip and left me with this scar.”

  “Why do you think they did that?”

  “To teach me a lesson, obviously. I lost my parents. I lost any sense of security or sanity. I had to watch them loot all the dead bodies on that ship of their valuables, pulling rings off still warm fingers, taking my parents’ wedding rings.”

  “That must have been very upsetting for you.”

  “Do you think?”

  “And how have you been feeling since then? Try and rank your emotions, beginning with the most prevalent.”

  “Guilty. That’s what I feel the most. If I hadn’t tried to be such a hero, if I’d let them just loot us, some of those people might still be alive.”

  “Do you ever think you were all doomed from the moment your ship was boarded? Perhaps you saved yourself?”

  “No.” Kris shook his head. “No. I can never know that. Not for certain. All I know was that what I did was reckless.”

  “Not heroic?”

  “No. It was meant to be but, well, as you can see it didn’t work out well.”

  “And do you think that your current line of work is helpful for you?”

  Kris considered this new question. “I don’t know. At the moment, I know nothing. I became a hunter to get revenge and find the pirates who took my parents’ lives. Perhaps after that, I can begin to see more clearly. Until then … “ he trailed off, unable to see anything past that disappearing point.

  “Mr. Kris, I am sorry I do not have a miracle cure for you. All we can do is talk it through until it becomes less painful.”

  “That won’t happen,” Kris snarled.

  “Perhaps not yet, but one day the pain will get less. Until then, keep yourself busy. I believe you are leaving HQ tomorrow?”

  “Good news travels fast,” Kris replied, relieved to be off the subject of his past.

  The doc continued, “Have you, as I suggested, made any friends here on the HQ? Someone who might have a similar past? Someone who understands the job?”

  “No. I told you, I don’t want to do that.”

  “I fear, Mr. Kris, that you will feel terrible pain and loneliness until you begin to form relationships again. Man is not an island.”

  “No man is an island,” Kris quoted, his belief in the hologram waning.

  “And as such,” the prune-faced doctor continued, “I want you to see the robonurse before leaving. She is waiting for you in consultation room seven. When you return, make sure you have an appointment with me. I’m sure we will have plenty to talk about.”

  “Yes,” Kris grumbled. “Whenever that might be.”

  After his session, Kris’s mind was a tumble of thoughts and emotions. Deep down, he knew that the doc’s advice was sound. He desperately needed to take the leap and attach himself to another person, whatever species, to have a conversation, swap notes, do anything. Until then, he felt more comfortable with safe, controllable, dreary holographic forms. They shut down and changed without any emotion. He could not harm them and vice versa. One question rolled around in his mind, constantly coming to the fore as he knew he had not answered it properly, of why he had taken a job as protector when his belief in attachment of any sort had vanished.

  Kris approached the smoked Perspex door to consultation room seven. Everything here smelled clinical, a mixture of all kinds of antibiotic sprays, disinfectant wipes and white melamine. With barely a noise, the door glided open. Inside, the lights were dim. The robonurse was bending over a small raised single examination bed, showing the tops of her white lacy stockings and tucking in the corners of the sheet tightly, like a good nurse should. Her uniform was blindingly white, beautifully pristine, from the starched skirt and hat to her shiny shoes and skin.

  “I’m ready for your examination,” the robonurse turned and smiled. Her lips were a perfect red and they shone glossily to reveal a perfect white smile. Tucked neatly under her cap were folds of blonde hair pinned neatly back. She was whatever Kris wanted her to be, whatever was in his mind.

  “Please, lie down.” Her voice was soft, gentle, erotic. “Relax, Mr. Kris, whilst I remove your garments.” Slowly, the robonurse slid her cool hands up Kris’s torso, revealing his perfectly toned stomach and sweeping obliques.

  “I look forward to your visits, Mr. Kris. I feel like you are the one making me better instead of the other way around.”

  Built on the client’s fantasies and needs, the robonurse was programmed to build Kris up emotionally, to try and form a connection, however immaterial. The robonurse undid Kris’s button and zip and slid down his trousers.

  “Mr. Kris, you’re not even hard yet. Did the naughty doctor work you too hard in your session today?”

  “He was a pain in the ass,” Kris looked down at his groin, disappointed.

  “Not to worry, nursie knows what you like. I’ll soon have you in good working order.”

  Soon, she had Kris’s boots removed and placed tidily on the floor, socks tucked inside, ready for departure. His psychiatric profile told the holograph that he liked order and especially he liked to know that there was an escape route somewhere easily accessible. This helped him to settle and she removed his underwear to leave him fully naked. She smiled the same smile all the way through and Kris missed the way real women gasped and lavished greedy looks upon his body. However, he was not ready for that kind of attachment yet. This would do nicely.

  With her beautifully curvaceous body revealed as her simple uniform dropped to the floor, almost standing up alone with the heavy starch, the robonurse straddled Kris on the examination bed. His penis began to twitch as the scratchy nylon and lace tops of her white suspenders came into contact with his muscular thighs. The robonurse bent forward so that her client had the best view of her thirty-four E breasts, round and bouncy.

  “I’ll begin your treatment now, Mr. Kris,” she said in a quiet, clinical melody.

  With both hands, she squeezed Kris’s flaccid penis between her warm, doughy soft breasts. Two pink holographic nipples pressed and rubbed upon his taut stomach. Kris propped himself upon his elbows to watch closely. After all, this was his last stint in the HQ for a while, he might as well enjoy it.

  The robonurse manoeuvred her breasts up and down Kris’s body. With her anatomical training, she knew that his foreskin was moving correctly, not too tight, enough friction to finally get a rise.

  “Mr. Kris!” the robonurse cried out. “You are such a good patient.”

  With that, she began to massage his penis between her breasts a little faster. Kris reached down for the rubbery nipples and held them loosely in cupped hands. He began to moan. Very soon, he was well and truly hard.

  “Good boy.” The robonurse smiled. “Now I can take your temperature. Can you guess where my thermometer is?” she asked as she spun around, her holographic leg shivering as it passed through his own.

  She sat on his stomach, allowing Kris to gaze upon the soft curves of her peachy buttocks and feel a slight wetness above his pubic line where she sat. In reality, the holographic nurse was attaching a vibration device to the base of his penis which would mimic the feel of a hot, wet vagina. Once this was safely in place, the robonurse set the intensity to maximum, allowing an unstoppable rhythmic flood to throb up and down.

  So that he could see everything, she lifted her buttocks and spread her lips with one deft hand. Kris reached for her with his glossy penis and raised his clenched buttocks off the bed as he saw the ragged red folds and the dark enticing hole. With her back towards Kris, the robonurse enveloped his whole length and crouched so he would feel he was completely engulfed in her tight warmth. The robonurse began to writhe and bounce up and down, at first sedately then with complete abandon. She unpinned her hair,
throwing the grips to the floor, and ran her red fingernails through her tresses. Kris felt his balls tighten and the rush of semen fill his cock.

  “No!” he shouted as he began to pump out his semen, all hot and white and frothy.

  When he had finished, the robonurse dismounted, kissed him deeply with a searching tongue, removed the orgasmatron and wiped the area with a soft, warm, disinfected towel before she blew him a kiss and vanished.

  Kris caught his breath. People could say what they wanted about holographic sex, but he loved it. The orgasms were mind blowing and you seemed to come from the soles of your feet. His robonurse was certainly proving very therapeutic. Besides, just now, such an easy relationship was all that he could handle, although he was beginning to miss the inherently human parts of the act like true warmth, skin against skin, moans and groans that he knew he had caused a proper two-way thing.

  “Crap,” Kris moaned as he remembered he still had to sort out his kit and pack. There was a bounty waiting on Dania.

  Chapter Three

  On Dania

  Fern Evergreen stood in the middle of a field which had once been filled with waving arms of shimmering gold brastley, their staple crop, a high performance barley with four prongs of ears instead of one. Now the field was a disaster area, filled only with sharp stubbly stalks.

  When the humanoids originally settled Dania, a lush jungle covered the planet, full of birds, animals and plants. Knowing that the soil was good, the humans monopolised the fertile fields for themselves and produced hybrid crops, mainly from earth, in the fruitful soils. So rich was the land that earth crops blossomed as though way back in the history of time there had already been links between the two systems. Once the original scientists and explorers had established the basics of survival, there was an influx of many species, although the predominant populous of Dania is earthlings.

  As Hudson Brody had pre-empted, Fern’s family had fled to Dania from Steeler in the last Hazing. The disaster had been expected, but the Steelers remained powerless as how to cope, so they emigrated to Dania. Since the Evergreen’s background was firmly rooted in agriculture, their acceptance to Dania was immediate and her father, Birch, a tough man of the land, soon became Head of the Dania Agricultural Committee. This position gave him a lot of power, a farm with plenty of land and the family were soon respected for the new ideas they brought, such as the introduction of Mord, a flat, white mushroom with a short stalk, so fully packed with vitamins and thick in texture it was a healthy substitute for meat. Not only did the Mord provide a healthy alternative to animal protein, it also boosted the economy with a new export. The Evergreen name was firmly set in the history of Dania.

  Since then, however, times had begun to change and it made Fern’s heart heavy with concern. With a small tear in her glowing orange eye, Fern looked around for clues. No blight had attached itself to the brastley as far as she could see. There was no sign of sabotage, no scorch marks, no scent of poison, although she did not rule out any of these possibilities. Fern raised her eyes to the sky. The sun burned brightly, a perfect day for crops to reach high and grow plentiful, and she hopefully sought out the image of an approaching spaceship or pod, in answer to her plea. Fern felt very alone.

  A crunching sound made Fern turn around. Her shining chestnut spirals of thick, healthy hair bounced around her slender face and short, pointed chin. She had wrapped her arms around herself and had become cold on such a hot day. Wearing the traditional farming clothes of loose brown linen trousers, tight at the ankles to stop mites from biting, and a baggy top, again with tight cuffs and waist, with an empty carrying pouch, she looked like she had risen from the ground herself, which was not far from the truth.

  “Found anything?” her father asked. His arms were strong with the outlines of long faded tattoos of youth sunken behind the weathered skin.

  “Nothing.” Fern sighed. “I cannot see at all what might have caused this.”

  “Same thing happened to the Brastley next door,” Birch uprooted a piece of withered crop.

  “Yes. I wondered if there might have been a blight of some kind, carried here airborne, but there’s no sign of anything immediately obvious. I’ll take some samples to send to the Committee.” Fern picked up a wicker basket and began to put in fruitless stalks and scoops of soil into plastic containers and bags.

  “The researchers and scientists of Dania are working around the clock,” Birch said.

  “Did they find anything from those strange insects I sent to them a couple of days ago?” Fern enquired.

  “No.” Birch kicked the dry earth with the back of his boot heel. “Nothing. Just flies.”

  “I’ve never seen any like that before.”

  “Just flies, they said. Just bigger than usual.”

  “Perhaps that’s the problem,” Fern replied. “The crops are getting weaker while the insects are getting bigger. Some sort of change in temperature?”

  “Anything’s possible right now, Fern. They are working on it. We’ll have our answer soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  Birch snapped another dead stalk between his hands. “Any news yet from your bounty hunters?”

  “Not yet, Father.”

  Birch sniffed, “As long as they don’t expect more money once they get here.”

  “I’ve arranged the price they advertised.”

  “Pirates, half of them. You know I voted against your idea, Fern?”

  She looked disappointed and snapped tight the lid of a container, “I thought you might. I really think they could help, Father. The rest of the Committee seem to think so, too. If we don’t find out what’s happening soon, Dania might become barren.”

  “Well, I hope you and the Committee are right. Democracy is on your side. After that, we don’t have any spare currencies.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know.” Birch put one hand on Fern’s shoulder. “We all are.”

  A voice from afar shouted, “Fern! Fern!” Her brother, Pike, came wading across the field, his thick legs far apart, his fat arms waving, a piece of paper in one hand. “Looks like they are coming.”

  Pike was younger than Fern even though he was built like his father and huge in stature. Leaving school with no qualifications, Pike was lucky to have a family business to enter. He had always been on the simple side, though harmless and very loving. There was no way that Pike would ever inherit and run the farm after Birch’s death. He would not cope with the responsibility and so their father had always trained and pushed Fern to do so in the future, something she looked forward to. That way, she could always live on the land she loved and could take care of her brother, as their house was big enough for two small families.

  “The bounty hunters?” Fern cried out in excitement and snatched the paper from Pike’s strong clutches.

  “Just came through. Ma printed it for you.”

  “Thank you, Pike,” Fern read avidly. “They’ve accepted. They’ll be here tomorrow night.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Birch replied, about to walk away. “It’s going to be a mighty expensive mistake otherwise.”

  Fern clutched the paper to her breast. Pike smiled. Moving from Steeler had caused Birch to age overnight and, if the transition to Dania had not been so pleasant, Fern feared her father would not have lived much longer. Not only were her hopes for Dania’s economy riding on what the bounty hunter discovered, so was her hope for her family, in particular for her father, as she was certain he would not survive another relocation.

  “Kris,” she relished the name. “Can’t wait to meet you.”

  Chapter Four

  Flight

  Finally Kris packed the last of his belongings—toothbrush, paste, shaving utensils. Everything was spick and span. Not a surface had any dust upon it. He smoothed down the bed sheets on his bunk, ready for his return, tight enough to bounce a coin on.

  With ease, Kris hoisted the heavy rucksack onto his strong bac
k and marched down to the supply wing to check his inventory, not that Ward or his team ever got anything wrong.

  Kris left his black, bulging rucksack at the top of the hatch leading to the supply desk, as it was too big to fit down the hatch. He clanged down the metal steps two at a time, eager to board the ship and start his next mission in the hope that he would finally confront the pirates who owed him big time.

  Behind the long, metal counter, Ward’s assistant, Jones, was folding up pairs of standard issue black cargo pants into small squares, arranging them by waist size. Scruffy as always, Jones’s hair got on Kris’s nerves. Jones didn’t realise how lucky he was as Kris had a secret desire to shave off all his annoying, untidy brown spikes until he was as smooth as an egg.

  “Morning, Kris, come to check your stuff?”

  Kris nodded. “Don’t know why I bother. You’ve never let me down yet.”

  “Yeah, although there’s always a first time. What we don’t tell you is, by signing for it, you’re responsible.”

  “I know,” Kris replied. “I get handed the bill every time I get back.”

  “All your stuff’s loaded. You’re leaving on The Spitfire. Here’s some currency to get you started.” Jones slid two piles of triangular currencies to Kris. “If you need more, just prepare a transfer. Check the list for me. You’ve got gravity boots, cuffs, barbed whip, rope, pistol and the small knives you like. All packed to your specifications inside The Scarab.”

  The Scarab was Kris’s pride and joy, a small manoeuvrable ship which he had purchased with his last remaining currency before leaving earth the last time. Able to turn into a car once on terra firma, it was money well spent and had sped him out of a few scrapes, and into some, more than once. Black and shiny, covered with stealth technology, The Scarab had all terrain wheels, four on each side, with auto inflation. In the front shell, was the control centre, with a large, one-way, blast-proof glass panel. At the rear, was a self-contained living area so Kris did not have to rely on the hospitality, or otherwise, of his hosts. With two bunks, a TV and food replicator on one side, a small shower and urinal, plus bounty cage at the rear and a large closet full of weaponry, with more stored under floor, Kris was self-sufficient to the maximum. Both Ward and Jones knew exactly where Kris demanded his weapons be stored, everything had its place.