EdenvalesSecret Read online

  “Fuck,” he moaned. “How do you do that?”

  Fern pushed back against him, her vagina back far enough to make this position especially splendid. A female Steeler’s outer ring, once penetration has occurred, moves up and down a little. “Do what? Oh, Kris, you feel amazing!”

  “You are fucking amazing!” Kris ground his balls up tight against her. “It’s like having a blow job and fucking you at the same time!”

  Leaning back, Kris let Fern’s anatomy shiver and grab and pull at him. Fucking her was effortless and it drove him wild. When she came, every mottle on her body glowed like a hot coal and she seemed to vibrate like a wild machine. He could even see the clitoral ring pulsating at the top of him. Kris came without realising he was ready until his cock slopped out completely drained into the heady forest air.

  They dressed.

  “I wondered if we would be able to,” admitted Fern.

  “No problems there,” Kris grinned and was suddenly aware that he had never felt so happy in his entire adult life. “You are amazing.” He kissed her.

  Fern was shaking her hair into shape and stopped. “You, too, Kris.”

  Then a silence, apart from a woodpecker madly hammering away nearby.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “I want to speak to your neighbours. See if they have had any similar problems recently or whether they have any evidence I can examine. Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

  Side by side, hand in hand, Kris led Fern back home, sometimes through wavering corn taller than themselves, sometimes stopping somewhere secluded for another kiss.

  Chapter Ten

  Birch Suffers

  Grey was still laughing. For some reason, Birch amused the pirate leader a great deal and had found himself the butt of many jokes as they travelled to Gala 6, something which Birch would not have tolerated on Dania where he was a respected man.

  He looked out of the window, relieved to finally be orbiting Gala 6, a pure looking planet painted in delicate pastel shades of ice blue, snow white and shivering silver, disrupted every so often by imposing juts of black rock, a clue to the brutal society living below surface. Huge hangar doors opened laboriously for the large ship and Birch was swallowed into the belly of Gala 6.

  Birch was loaned some suitable clothing—a thick fur coat bound with leather straps with a similar hat, gloves and boot linings. He needed these as any living tissue exposed to the elements of Gala 6 instantaneously froze. It was a harsh planet housing the callous and most ruthless of inhabitants well suited to the ferocious discomfort. Even under the bedrock, where the Ratt pirates had dug deep inside, the air was still cold enough to turn their breath into plumes of smoke.

  Birch quietly and obediently followed Ventura and his men deeper inside to where rough corridors hewn into the honeycombed, once volcanic rock, led them into a bright laboratory area, where the air was somewhat warmer, like a greenhouse.

  He was amazed at the activity. Scientists of various species busied themselves amongst large plants like sunflowers, wheat and brastley, or small seedlings too immature to tell what they were. Further along, he heard the snuffling of pigs and the odd call of cattle and could smell their familiar, reassuring scent. Lost in thoughts of ways to improve the economy of Dania, new ways to be hailed as a hero, Birch felt himself pushed roughly on the back by the gauntlet of Ventura.

  “Look here!” he barked and called Birch’s attention to a set of clear plastic trays, filled with damp brown soil and small green seedlings. “You, what is this?”

  A timid scientist in a white coat came over, his clipboard shaking. “Brastley seedlings, Mr. Ventura.”

  “You grow brastley on Dania, Evergreen?”

  “Yes. Well, I did but lost a field recently after introducing the seedlings you gave me.”

  “Well, mistakes happen. If you want to be a pioneer, Evergreen, you will have to accept some losses.” Ventura fixed him with his piercing black eyes.

  “Oh yes,” the small, bespectacled scientist agreed. “We are improving all the time. Brastley has been hard to engineer, most probably because of its four heads, but I think we’ve got it this time. Look, if I give it some water, not too much, and put the heat lamp over…”

  “Amazing,” Birch admitted as the brastley seedling grew from a few small green leaves to a four centimetre tall plant. “I have to admit, that is impressive.”

  “Of course, imagine the money you are going to make.” Ventura grunted and pushed Birch on the shoulder. “Over there. I’ll show you the stock.”

  Further down the greenhouse, past numerous rows of seedlings in trays and troughs, lived the livestock. Two cows, four sheep and three pigs. All of them had young which seemed to be thriving and suckling without a problem. What Birch did not see was the brastley he had just been admiring suddenly start to decompose. Soon nothing was left but sharp, brown, lifeless stumps reminiscent of his own ruined fields in Edenvale. The men leaned upon a metal gate looking into a small pen where a young mother Jersey cow licked a newborn calf with her rough blue tongue.

  “When was she born?” Birch asked.

  “You. When was this born?” Ventura boomed at a nearby scientist who almost dropped his bucket.

  “Early this morning, sir.”

  “Good enough for your money, Evergreen?”

  “It’s a miracle,” Birch stammered.

  Evidently he was dazed at the progress the pirates seemed to be making, or funding, or blackmailing, in robotic farming. His conscience, however, screamed at him to leave well alone, that his daughter, Fern, was right with her idealistic ideas of traditionalism. Birch knew what pirates were. That money was their only goal. Yet he could not erase the dream from his mind of Edenvale winning all the inter-planetary agricultural competitions, of Dania becoming one of the richest and most stable planets in the solar system, of the glory he might receive by pioneering robotics in farming.

  It was only a new step, he kept assuring himself, like planting a new seed. That was why he had gone to them, begging for help, last month when Edenvale came second in the Agri Hub Farming Challenge, losing yet again to Steeler and their robotics. Birch had grown too proud to ask the other contestants about their methods. Instead, he took a secretive, furtive and essentially deadly route to his planned success. Payment had not yet been decided. Birch had gone ahead anyway, certain that the Dania government would finance his scheme once they saw the benefits.

  “Right.” Ventura fastened his colourless eyes once more upon Birch. “You’d better be still interested.”

  “Yes,” Birch replied, numb in the realisation that no was not an option.

  “Good.” Ventura scowled which tightened the large scar that ran right across his cheek. “It is time to take things further.”

  Ventura looked around him and shouted for a couple of scientists to join him. They looked as if they had been waiting for his signal. Birch found himself grasped tightly by two of the pirates who allowed one of the scientists to steer an injection right into his neck.

  The next thing that Birch remembered was waking up strapped to an operating table with four round lights burning above him. He felt strange but could not decide why. He was not sore. Nothing ached. Nothing appeared to be missing as he wiggled his fingers and toes.

  “Welcome to my programme.” Ventura’s sly smile appeared above him, his silver hair blinding white against the harsh clinical lights.

  “What have you done to me?” Birch asked, his chest panting and tight.

  “I have come to congratulate you, Mr. Evergreen, on becoming an integral part of my robotic experiment. While we perfect the art of robotic plants and animals, I thought to myself, what about the actual farmers? Maybe if they could work harder, lift more, sleep less, surely that would be an excellent tool to sell. My scientists assure me it is a simple procedure. Injecting a number of robotic particles into your system. The details escape me. You, Mr. Evergreen, are the first robotic farmer. Consider it a down payment.”
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  Birch shook against his manacles and collapsed, suddenly tired out, and sank into unconsciousness. When he awoke, he was outside the forest on Dania, feeling feverish. Ventura stood in the doorway of his ship which was about to depart.

  “You make payment tomorrow, Evergreen! Send someone here. They will come back to Gala 6 to collect a certain special something. If there is no money, you get none of the serum you need to sustain the robotic matter inside you. Without it, those things I put inside you will turn on you and eat you from the inside, just like your pig! It really is your money or your life! I love being a pirate!”

  Birch shielded his face from the downdraught and tried to close his ears from the maniacal laughter of the cruel Grey Ventura.

  Chapter Eleven

  Blackmail

  Safely at home in her bed, Fern wrapped herself tightly under the brushed cotton sheets and sheepskin coverlet, her mind full of Kris’s naked body, his hands like soft sandpaper all over her, his enormous manhood, the strange white fluid he had left inside her to trickle down her legs, the smell of him still covering her, of further passionate days to come. She could not bear to process the long term of him one day flying away in The Scarab. Those thoughts were completely blocked. However, her languid fantasies were brought to a crashing close as she heard her mother scream.

  Fern dove out of bed, threw on her kimono and rushed upstairs to the top of the house where she had heard the terrible noise. She found her mother on the floor, bending over her father’s imposing, yet trembling figure.

  “What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know, Fern,” she replied in a tight voice. “He has only just returned home. He’s in a terrible state. His skin is cold and he seems terribly weak.”

  “Nonsense,” Birch managed to say. “I’m fine. Just tired. Been overdoing it as usual. Get me in my chair, I’ll be fine.”

  Pike silently came upstairs and stood playing with his hands.

  “Don’t worry,” Fern smiled at him. “Dad’s fine, aren’t you, eh?”

  “Course I am,” Birch shuffled into his chair, though he did look a peculiar grey colour and had a thin film of perspiration covering his skin. “I’m fine, lad. Go on, back to bed with you. Got an early start with the silaging tomorrow.”

  Pike left. Fern and her mother stood watching him, waiting for some explanation.

  “What’s happened, Dad?”

  “I need you to do something important tomorrow, Fern.”

  “Help Pike? You need a rest, you should stay in bed.”

  “No,” he said and looked to the floor. “I have something to collect. Something very expensive and very valuable.”

  “What is it?” Fern asked excitedly.

  “A secret,” snapped Birch, making her jump. “You must go and fetch it, without fail, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father,” she replied, his manner not to be disagreed with. “Where from?”

  “Gala 6.”

  The name banged a warning gong in her mind. “Gala 6?” she repeated. “There’s nothing there but ice and pirates.”

  “You’re wrong,” Birch grinned proudly. “I’m not going to be able to make the journey again. You’ll have to go in my place.”

  Fern’s mother frowned. “Again? Is that where you’ve been all day?”

  “Yes, mother, for good reason, I promise.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked but received no reply.

  Birch’s mind was on more important matters, the robotic matter inside him beginning to destroy all in him that was natural and organic. “Promise me you will go, Fern. They will be waiting for you tomorrow by the forest. Be there at the crack of dawn.”

  “Who will be there?” asked Fern.

  “A ship.”

  “Whose ship?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he replied pathetically,

  Fern asked in alarm, “Is it pirates?”

  “Maybe, but they are not here to rob us,” he admitted,

  “You are sending me away with pirates? My own father?” Fern was horrified.

  “You don’t understand.”

  Fern interrupted, “I understand enough. It’s you, isn’t it? All along, it was you?”

  “Shh,” her mother tried to calm her down, for her own sake and for her father who was writhing in some sort of pain.

  “Can it be true?” Fern turned pale. “You ruined our crops? You gave our pig that metal baby? Oh Father, what have you done to our farm? To Edenvale? What have you done? Was it really you?”

  “Fern, please try and understand. If you only knew—”

  For the first time ever, she shouted at her father, “I’m not interested!”

  “Please tell me you will go.”

  “No! Never! I won’t trade with pirates and I won’t dilute the beautiful life on this planet with metal and wires. Never!”

  “Please, Fern, I’m begging you.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “If you refuse,” Birch frowned, his skin turning ever more grey silver, “you are no longer my daughter and you no longer live on this farm.”

  “Birch—” their mother tried to interrupt.

  Fern ran cold with fear and contempt. “Then so be it. Is that what you want?”

  “Of course it’s not,” her mother was again cut short.

  “Yes!” Birch yelled. “Get out! Go on and never come back! Leave me!”

  With tear-filled eyes and a pounding heart, Fern flared her nostrils with derision, disrespect and crumbling love. She closed her eyes in disbelief. “Where?” Fern gave in. Her family was her world. Trusting her father was terribly hard but she could not imagine he would send her into danger. Not without reason. Fern did not realise that her father’s reason was being attacked by the second.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dirty Money

  Even before the cockerel crowed, Fern waited with nervous impatience at the edge of the forest where, only the day before, she had enjoyed such a wonderful experience. Something told her this would not be enjoyable at all. Had the cockerel known what was coming soon to a barn near him, he would not have crowed at all.

  Soon enough, a dark ship landed and from it stepped a tall, broad, muscular man with silver grey hair, a burned-on scowl and bloodshot, dispassionate white eyes that could mean nothing but danger. His crooked laughter was pure evil.

  “The currency,” he demanded.

  Fern thought him highly uncivil, but had expected nothing less from a Ratt, “Here.” She chucked him a brown paper package, full of the currency from the Agricultural Committee, which should have been payment for the bounty hunter.

  Ventura tore open the package with dirty fingernails and littered the forest floor with its fragments. “Get in,” he growled.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Beware a Broken Heart

  With his small amount of evidence and nobody to tie it all to, Kris took a quick breakfast and left to explore Edenvale inch by inch. He wanted to fetch Fern to help him but knew, if he was to be truthful, that they would end up screwing at least once and little work would get done. Plus he had woken early and thought it kind to let her sleep in. He would see her later. Kris prowled away, the yearning to hunt ebbing away from him with every step in the lush and homely Edenvale soil.

  Edenvale offered him another glorious day. Up above were skies of clearest blue offsetting a beautiful horizon of green trees waving ever so slightly against the caresses of a warm zephyr. A good day for exploration. Since he had not spent much time yet in the south west, he made his way there, enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun on his neck and arms.

  After speaking to some other farmers, something he had planned to do the day that Fern led him to the forest and other things overtook his mission, Kris discovered that most had lost at least one crop or one animal over the past six months. None of them had saved any samples, but why would they? The fields had been cleared and replanted, growing successfully in the majority of cases. The a
nimal carcasses had been burned and the rest of the livestock, even those who had been in close proximity, had survived unharmed. One case concerned him, where a lamb who had nursed from a dying mother had also died. However, without evidence to dissect, Kris was left floundering.

  His search eventually led him back to the forest. A place of intense pleasure. Where he and Fern had become one. The place where he realised he could perhaps be happy once more. Where the soil made his toes tingle with the recollection. Also the place where his reader gave him the unforgivable news. As he searched the area with his reader in his palm, activated by his thought transfers of possible poisons, airborne viruses, trespassers and, lastly, suspicious craft, the reader blinked and vibrated its warning.

  Excited to have finally caught a thread of a trail, Kris read the pale green screen. A suspicious craft had indeed been in the area, at approximately five twenty-seven that morning. A pirate ship. Kris caught the scent of a hunt like a starving fox, the thrill of the bounty in him again like an instinct. He asked his reader a further question, who was onboard?

  Persons onboard: 11 Ratt pirates, 3 humanoid

  “Any names? Any known form?”

  Known forms: Grey Ventura

  An answer which made Kris growl like a motorbike. He liked this hunt. And another answer, much less favourable, pattered innocuously onto screen.

  Known forms: Grey Ventura, Ratt pirate, wanted, bounty payable…Fern Evergreen, Steeler, condition safe

  As if they knew the devastation of his breaking heart, a pair of ravens burst from the forest canopy, shrieking a shrill, painful, knowing call.

  With feet heavy as lead, Kris paced back to The Scarab, at times finding it difficult to breathe. Probably the stupid atmosphere on this forsaken planet. His fist thumped the print recognition panel and he slammed every door until The Scarab shook like it was caught in a twister. He opened his cupboard of tricks and pressed a few buttons to set his long distance radar in operation which would feed from the data on his reader. Like a hawk desperate for prey, Kris viewed the scanner and clenched his teeth.