BOOK ONE: ALLELE; Chapter Six

"Phase-craft: Any of a variety of mobile devices used for transport of personnel and materials that are propelled using Grav-drives and equipped with Multi Frequency Phase Aberration. Grav-drives use gravity reversal and enhancement to propel and steer the vehicle. Multi frequency Phase Aberration creates a bubble that disjoints the molecular phase of the surrounding ice and other obstructions. The ship's bulkhead desynchronizes whatever comes within six inches of of its surface to an alternate molecular frequency that allows the ship to pass through whatever obstacles it encounters making deep ice navigation possible.

In order for grav-drives to work the surrounding environment is desynchronized rather than the ship itself since a primary gravitational body (Europa itself), is needed to interact with, to push off or pull toward. If the ship were desynchronized it would drift through or away from the planet's orbit into space having no resistance against which to propel."

~ Outer System Ship's Registry

Besides the psychological adjustment and training needed to endure severance, Allele's team would learn how to operate and maintain environmental equipment and how to pilot the different Phase-craft they would be using. To access subsurface sites they would require the use of several types of Phase-craft ranging from single occupant laborpods, to the Rhumbulian, an old phase yacht of the schooner class named for it's unique hull, The ship was converted to an on site research station and launch. There were also several dual occupant Observer craft used mostly for study and on-site experimentation.

Except for the laborpods each craft was equipped with its own Portable MIB. The schooner could handle twenty monads for a crew of twelve and eight passengers. The Observer Craft handled three allowing for a possible passenger. Laborpods required the use of a zip brace or zeeb, a personal brace that houses the user's monad, a very limited surrogate MIB, and an interpreter capable of a single persona thread for the user's basic somentity. Change of appearance was not an option. Zeebs did not project, but used a small unraveler that unfurled the somentity to surround the brace which remained attached. They consisted of a metallic spine that ran beneath the surface emerging only at the lower back. The monad itself was buried deep in the abdomen so as not to interfere with movement.  Zeeb use was the most severed a person could get.

Unlike ordinary transports, furniture, clothing, and most things used in everyday life, the phase-craft, MIBs, Zeebs, and many other pieces of equipment they would use on the expedition were made with vestigial matter that did not need Ministry's projection blanket to maintain physical integrity.
Severance wasn't required to operate any of their fleet of craft as long as they remained within Ministry's projection blanket. The team was able to begin learning to maneuver the craft while still in the early stages of severance training. Allele and her team became proficient quickly. In particular, Sita gained a sense for the various craft and the feel of grav-drive that made any craft she handled, even the lumbering Rhumbulian, seem to be an extension of her own somentity.

Ministry's Lexi-empathic system endowed them with the basic knowledge needed to operate the crafts, but gaining the body sense and feel for how they moved and responded to commands was something they each had to develop on their own. By the time Sita finished her training the instructors granted a Prime Operator accreditation which usually wasn't awarded until at least two hundred hours were booked of solo drive time.

Jon could handle a laborpod expertly but showed little interest in the other craft. He was focused on the laborpod purely as an exploratory tool. He had little interest in support utilities and so developed little expertise in their use. Allele was adept with both laborpod and the other support craft, though most comfortable with the observer craft. She handled laborpods with skill, but felt claustrophobic in them. Neither Allele nor Jon were invited to helm the Rhumbulian.

***

Allele steered the observatory craft she had been practicing in out of the bed ice and into the hanger coils that would stabilize it until she shut down and organics were hosed from the hull. She miscalculated the movement of a good sized firmasquid that was feeding off the roof ice in a large air pocket about twelve fathoms below. Just as she boosted her ascent it slithered into her path. Since organic matter can't withstand the trauma of molecular frequency shift the beast was completely liquified clogging Allele's observatory sensors forcing her to bring the craft into the hanger on instrumentation alone. Killing an organic was considered bad form though bringing the craft in on instruments alone was a respectable feat for a novice. Upset by the death of the animal Allele would avoid lower depth training where organics were abundant until she was more adept.

As soon as the hanger coils set the ship on its stabilizers Allele opened the Bendhatch and stepped carefully across the smooth blue wake ice that Phase Aberration leaves behind. As she entered the main receiving lounge at the other end of the facility she spotted Henry Skeintender waiting at a table by the window wall that looked out across the busy terminal with the city sky line in the distance. He watched the city traffic coursing through networks of roads and bridges that stretched from the low plains to the towering central rings of the metropolis. A paper lay on the table beside him. He turned from the vista to look up at Allele only as she walked up to the table.

Henry was the team's Clearance Administrator. He usually met Allele with apologetic eyes and breathless impatience as his assignment on the project had extended more than twice as long as anticipated. All because of one man that Allele refused to replace. Their conversations rarely varied beginning with Henry sharing Jon's most recent test results and pointing out again how they were unchanged from the previous. Allele would then repeat her defense of Jon. He would then counter that if Jon had even shown results a good week before it could be months before he reached an acceptable level.

Allele spoke before he could break into his usual rant, "Well, well, if it isn't Hal! To what do I owe this reception?"

Henry paused and gave her a wry smirk, "Like you don't know, and don't call me Hal."

"I don't know," she came back, "don't tell me our boy showed some movement."

"Okay we'll play your way. Yes, our boy showed improvement. I don't know what you did and truthfully I don't really care anymore. I'll give him clearance and be done with it I have too many other things to get on with around here."

Allele had tried to break in as Henry spoke but couldn't. When he stopped she asked, "You're clearing Jon? What happened? What do you mean, 'What I did?' I did nothing. What's happened, Hal?"
Henry looked insulted, thinking Allele was treating him like an Outlaborer, "He did 1.36 today. Almost as high as your results. I ran the test three times. Three times 1.36, 1.36, 1.36," he repeated rapidly like he was throwing it in her face. "Near flat lined at .04 and then over a weekend to 1.36. I've never seen anything remotely like it."

"That's fantastic! I can't believe it," Allele clamored.

"Neither can I," Henry shot back, seething with anger, "which is why I'm attaching a long list of reservations to his file. Something happens to that boy out there, I'm not taking the fall. Do you understand? I don't know how you did it, but there's nothing I can do to veto a score that high repeated three times. Congratulations, you have your team, and I'm out of here."

"Hal! Henry! I didn't do anything," but Henry was already walking away and only wrenched his shoulder in response, as if to throw her words off his back.

Allele fell back into the chair he'd been sitting in and watched him walk away across the lounge and disappear into the main exit Bendway.  When he was gone she turned to the report lying on the table.
The results were as Henry said. She wondered how Jon could make such a turn around in a matter of days. In a single wave of emotion she felt pride for Jon and loathing for Henry. How could he think that? How could he accuse her of fixing the protocols? She knew that somehow she'd acquired an enemy in the organization and she hadn't heard the last of him. She thought for a while about what she could do to fix this new "Henry" problem, and regretted ever calling him Hal, at least to his face.

Her thoughts drifted in a blur of recent events. Henry's anger swelled into the poor firmasquid sputtering into globules as her ship's phase bubble pressed up through it into the ice, and finally the look on Jon's face when he told her he understood if she had to replace him. How his eyes filled with controlled fear that she might take him up on it. Now she wouldn't have to. With that, her eyes sparked back to life and the corner of her mouth curled in a slight smile.

***

"I have my team," she said out loud.

 Lepton woke opening his eyes in short spasms. His rejuvenation protocol had finished no more than ten minutes before. He didn't usually wake for a full thirty minutes after but the bed rocked and he felt fingers run through his hair. His vision finally cleared and he found that he was looking at Allele's throat through wisps of her hair. She was lying under the covers beside him holding his face to her neck. She lifted her knee wrapping her leg around him pulling his groin up against hers. She spread her fingers around the back of his head shifting it to press his mouth over her wind pipe.

"Bite me, Lep. Hard please," she growled into his ear as she shifted to bite the lobe.

He obliged rolling over her to pin her to the bed by her neck with his mouth. She wrapped her other leg around him but they weren't aligned the way she'd have liked. He sank his fingers deep into the waves of her thick blue black hair. It was her actual base template color. She only allowed Lepton to see it and only at times like this, but her secret appearance would soon be made public.

Gripping her mane he gently pulled her head back, better exposing her long throat to slide his teeth along its full length. Feeling her groan through his lips always aroused him, but he pulled away for a moment to speak, "To what do I owe...?"

"This is the last time you will be the only person who sees me like this," she cut in.

Lepton looked bewildered but kept silent. Allele wriggled out from under him and sat up on bended knees throwing her hair back over her shoulder, the thick black tresses reaching halfway down her back. She had an honestly athletic body that her base template settings evolved into due to her extensive physical activity. She walked everywhere, was even known to walk home if she had the entire afternoon free. She also did a fair amount of climbing having scaled several of the higher and more treacherous peaks of nearby rifts.

Long walks alone, and climbing gave Allele the private time she needed everyday. Working with people, even casual socializing with friends was draining. She needed solitude as much as nightly regeneration. If she had her way she would be alone with her thoughts and her sorrows for the best part of the day. It was something Magdalena hadn't been able to adjust to. Lepton did and he, as Magdalena had been, was the only person she allowed to see her actual persona.

Allele took a deep breath and threw her shoulders back. She held her chin up and a bit to the side striking a serious expression that showed off the sharp bridge of her otherwise graceful nose and the strong upper lip that supported it. Her mouth was slightly open with her signature smile that curled in one corner of her full, but not bulbous lips rimmed by a sharp sculpted edge. She looked down at Lepton with smiling deep brown eyes, their corners slightly raised, nestled under strong cocked eyebrows.  

She saw his gaze fix on her muscular stomach, "Take a good look, Mr. Limp-ton, pretty soon it will belong to everybody," she said leaning forward on one arm, grabbing hold of him with the other."

"What are you talking about?" he asked jolted from his stupor by her clutching hand. "Who's everybody? What's going on?"

Allele didn't answer but crawled up his body with a giant grin and gleaming eyes that seemed to be trying to tell him something he should already know. She pulled his lower lip into her mouth and sucked on it for an instant pulling it with her teeth before letting go.

"The whole world, and there's nothing I even want to do about it, you'll just have to live with sharing," she said and held him by the ears to kiss him sliding her tongue deep into his mouth. She then pulled back, "Sorry pal, you'll have to adjust." She concentrated on his eyes, waiting for the lights to go on, her smile slowly widening the longer it took. Finally she gave him a hint, "Well, if not the whole world, our expeditionary crew anyway."

"Jon passed! It's a go!" Lepton burst, Sitting up and nearly throwing Allele off the bed. "MIBs only store our base templates so," He paused, "nobody is going to be able to keep their mind on their work when you're around."

"Precisely Mr. Limp-ton, I'm impressed, but I think you speak only for yourself on distractions," She said as she slid back to him. "still, your powers of deduction are amazing, and frankly very arousing. You're so smart, are you a scientist?" she asked positioning herself on her back to lie on him head to foot, propping herself up on her elbows.

He opened his legs to straddle her, "Yes, in fact I am." He answered as she held her foot to his face for him to bite. He obliged.

"Ouch, you horrible man." She scolded, lowering herself off her elbows to reach down and stroke his knees. "To become a scientist you must have a good memory, no?" she continued.

"Yes," he played along.

"I thought so. Therefore Mr. Limp-ton, Mr. Techley, Mr. Outlabe, you must remember a little bet we had over our dear Jon's passing clearance. As I recall you thought he wouldn't"

"True."

"The bet was for the whole day was it not?"

"The entire day, actually."

"Yes, that's right, you are the brainy one."

"Come to collect?"

"I don't like to waste time."

"I knew that about you."

"So smart you are. Then you also know that I like to make an early start of it in the morning," she said lifting her legs to rest on Lepton's shoulder.

"Yes, I've observed a great deal of supporting evidence to that affect," he answered running his hands down her thighs.

Allele lifted one leg and slowly rested it on his other shoulder. Hooking her feet around his neck, she began to pull him toward her, "Now Leppy, let's test your powers of deduction. Where do you suppose I want you to start?"