Abel III's Awakening - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Accounting irregularities lead to a surprise.

From the personal logs of Abel Silversmith III

June 2733: I was in a lousy mood, which had persisted for a couple of weeks. Accounting was not my thing and knowing I had no say or choice in the matter made it worse. Keeping accounts for the family business was a big job and there were three others beside myself involved in the operation. We had to track all expenditures for the ship as well as account for all the freight we transported, including the taxes, import-export fees, and maintenance fees. Costs were carefully tracked for everything. It was so computerized and so boring. I have been on this job for just over a year and passed my accounting certification and still have almost another year before I can rotate into my next assignment.

I started working on board the ship just after I turned sixteen starting in food service and spent two years there learning everything about food, the supplies needed and their ordering, the storing, preparation, display and the budgeting. Then I spent two years in our maintenance and supply department, becoming proficient in everything needed to keep the ship clean, stocked with supplies and functioning except for the power, propulsion and life support section as that was another section (and one I yearned to learn). I then spent two years in the medical bay learning everything about first aid, emergency medicine and the equipment the ship had to treat injuries and infections before being assigned to accounting.

So here I was at the ripe old age of twenty-three and bored out of my skull spending hours daily poring over computer displays of spreadsheet documents, manifests, bills of lading, requisition orders, expense reports and the like. I was impressed at first when I learned that the family business was a multi-billion sovereign enterprise but the minutiae, was boring. The computerized programs, portable coms with scanners and sophisticated tracking programs were a double-edged sword in that everything was tracked and predictable.

I was born to a surrogate mother on Earth just after my father turned thirty-six years old. I never met or knew her and apparently neither had my father. I remained on Earth until I reached age sixteen. I lived at a crèche/school for dependents of off-worlders on the continent island of Australia, and there learned all the basic subjects as fast as my mind could absorb the packaged data modules. I was also taught several forms of mental/physical development including Karate, Yoga, and T'ai chi. We were expected to practice as well as meditate daily. I had classmates but no close friends. The whole experience was emotionally numbing. We were treated fairly but it was a Spartan life and one we knew would only end when we reached age sixteen and received our work assignments.

On my sixteenth birthday I met my father, Abel Silversmith Jr. for the first time when he came to collect me. He was a forbidding character, with dark spiked hair and deep blue eyes. He laid out his plans for me to learn the family business from the ground up following the same path that he had followed as laid down by my grandfather. My grandfather Abel Silversmith Sr. was now ninety-three, semi-retired and resided on the ship along with his husband Drew Parker who was of an age. Drew was the semi-retired astronavigator. My father was now fifty-nine, had never married, but shared his cabin with his mate Kade, the current astronavigator.

Still distracted and bored I came across an order for an item for the maintenance department that seemed odd. It was for six self-sealing, heat activated boron rivets. I knew the department had a large rivet module that used the boron rivets but it had never been used while I was assigned there. It was used for riveting patches to large support beams or hull sections that were damaged by the odd meteor or space junk collision. I knew for a fact that there were plenty in stock when I worked in that department and that no impacts had occurred then or since. The point defense ship system usually blasted such debris out of the way. Six of them were priced at five thousand sovereigns. Not a huge expenditure but odd. I programmed the computer to run a cross match program against recent requisitions for all departments against usual stock on hand to see if any other items were being mysteriously purchased. I also set up another program to see if the items were actually placed into inventory if or when received.

I expected the complete results in about half an hour, but when I queried the computer after that amount of time, it indicated it was still working. Four hours later as I was going off shift, my computer screen chimed and an infobox noted the programs finished their tasks. I directed the computer to print out the results and it chimed again and showed another infobox indicating it would take about seven hundred pages to print out and did I really need that? I was astounded. I directed the computer to save everything to my private directory and to wipe all traces of the searches connected with the two programs, which were also to be sealed behind my private directory.

I went off shift and returned to my quarters in the family axis off the bridge of the ship. The engines were at the ends of the two flying struts at the rear of the ship with propulsion and power in the V just ahead of the engines. The core axis was elongated running eighteen hundred meters in length with places for cargo modules to attach along it and contained five decks. The short cross axis at the front contained three decks and held the bridge in the center with family side to the right axis and administration to the left on the top deck with computer, mechanical, and life support on the lower decks. This axis at the front of the ship was completely hardened and shielded. Crew facilities for our one hundred and twenty employees were along the central core in the central corridor or third deck. It was the most shielded in the central core with two decks above and below. The ship accommodated thirty-six huge cargo modules almost five stories in height along the core axis with eighteen to each side. The ship was strictly for space and had a shuttle and two tugs for moving the cargo modules. The shuttle bay and tug bay were separate and tucked in between the engines and exited from the top deck and the bottom deck rather than the rear of the ship.

I dropped my com unit on my desk and stripped, used the facilities to do the necessaries and then went into the refresher unit to take a shower. The refresher unit used a little warm water vapor and sonic waves in a LED lighted pulsating pattern in time to the music and was adjustable and something I had ordered, installed and programmed. Mine was set so it was like showering in a rock concert. It was decadent and I would take several per day. It always got me rock hard and I usually took time to relieve tension and did so.

Afterward, I was relaxing and I took some time to reflect about my situation and living and working in space.

Space was a dream of humanity that turned out less than perfect.

It was vast, it was beautiful and it was harsh.

There was other sentient life out there, but it considered humans as infant children, somewhat wayward children and that consortium had embargoed humans to one small arm of our galaxy, which was the Orion Arm or Spur. It was an area of the Galaxy devoid of other sentient life. The elder races, as they styled themselves, forbade contact with them until mankind matured. They told us they would give us at least five thousand of our years before allowing us to contact them again. If, that is, we survived.

Addendum to my log: An abstract from the Human Space Encyclopedia:

The Orion Arm is a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy some 3,500 light years (1,100 parsecs) across and approximately 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) in length. Earth and its environs are located in the Orion Arm. It is also referred to by its full name, the Orion–Cygnus Arm, as well as Local Arm, Orion Bridge, Local Spur and Orion Spur. Fourteen worlds besides Earth are currently settled and our local spur space is served by a total of twenty-four space stations strategically situated in populated star systems or in proximity to important transit points.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/285/the-milky-way-galaxy/

The Milky Way Galaxy

From school I knew the governing entity of human space styles itself the Sovereign Celestial Empire with a total population of just over twenty-nine billions. It maintains a huge space navy to provide peace and order.

Adult humans working in space did okay as long as they kept to a daily workout routine to keep their muscle and bone mass up and their cardiovascular systems in good shape. Artificial gravity was complicated, hugely expensive and most ships maintained it at twenty percent in crew areas and less in non-crew areas. The biological effects of long-term micro gravity were so global that almost all ships maintained that standard in crew areas. The technology for providing gravity had advanced greatly over the seven hundred years since man first ventured off his home world but it was still a huge expense.

Biologically men adapted better than women and shorter people adapted better than taller ones. Longer extremities had more problems with fluid pooling. The physical development of infants and children was adversely affected by low or micro gravity and thus they could not live in space. The male reproductive system did okay in low or micro gravity for extended periods of time, but the female reproductive system did not. As a result, females who took a job in space with gravities under fifty percent of earth normal, found their biological clocks malfunctioned and their fertility became impaired or destroyed within a year or two of being in space. That worked for women who did not want children. A side effect was that women in space also lost their libido, a problem at least as far as men were concerned.

Women were offered government incentives to not work in space because they were needed to breed due to the ongoing population imbalance between genders. This lead to ships being crewed by males only, as was my home: The Sovereign Celestial Civilian Cargo Space Ship “Silverspin”.

Additional addendum from the Human Space Encyclopedia:

Human biology and nanorobotic technology: At the end of the twenty-first century mankind began to use nanorobotic technology in medicine to treat human genetic birth defects and severe diseases. In the twenty-second century nanites were used to build super men and women with incredibly strengthened bone structures and self-repairing organs with the intention of making people immortal. The experiments lasted approximately one hundred and fifty years before the nanite viruses became widespread and fatal. It was called the great “Blight”. Human populations which had reached an estimated forty billions spread over seven planets were reduced to just about three billion. Women survival rates were about one-third of men so the population estimates indicated that of the three billion survivors, only one billion were women. As a result the use of nanorobotic technology in medicine was severely curtailed in the year 2250. Mankind had been forever changed however and the human body could not tolerate any self-replicating nanites or any nanites that did not dissolve within twelve hours of being introduced into the body. Women were more susceptible to fatal outcomes than men due to nanite viruses. Therefore surviving females after the great “Blight” were encouraged with tax and subsidy incentives to have as many children as possible and surrogacy became well established.

Of the 125 total men on board, the vast majority had more than 30 years of service with the ship and were between the ages of 45 to 65 with just 7 of the oldest non-family active crew members within 3 years of their early retirement age of 75. Full retirement benefits did not kick in until age 82. I was the youngest at age 23 and the next youngest crewmen were 35. Almost none of the crew had families with children of their own. They were gone for very long periods of time and were often very far away. To have a child like my father and his father did, cost a considerable amount of treasure and was out of the reach of most pay grades of the crew. Unfair or not and barring some unexpected event, it looked like I would have to wait about 5 years before additional crew members, hopefully closer to my age, were hired. Also, about 70 percent of the crew were in relationships, although most were not exclusive. Yes, watching hunky males in spandex spending time daily sweating in the gym certainly kept the male libido humming.

Shaking off my ruminations, it was time to go to the gym. Donning a fresh jumpsuit I headed to the gym where there were fifteen of us gathering to workout on the various machines designed to exercise the whole body and keep the cardiovascular system in good health. Watching my sweaty crewmates exercising made me glad I had relieved tension before arriving. It was still a sight. On ship we wore form fitting single piece jumpsuits of polyester and spandex and they were revealing. The suits included soft soled boots with a metallic thread that assisted in keeping us attached to the magnetized decks of the ship. The male endowments were visibly displayed. The average crewman was about 172 centimeters tall (five feet eight inches) and weighed about 68 kilograms (150 pounds) and it appeared they were all well endowed. All of them were good physical specimens, no matter their age, as was I.

Hair was kept short and sometimes spiky. Unlike many ships, our crew as a group did not use chemical depilatories and most looked like bears, taking their lead from my grandfather and father. At age 23, I was one horny cub. As the son and grandson of the owners and as the youngest member of the crew, I was also apparently off-limits. Therein lay one of my many problems and another source of frustration.

I had always been attracted to males, especially ones about my age. In fact such an attraction was in my DNA. Look no further than my father and grandfather. In school, sex was casual, almost mechanical and no one made any commitments because we all were going our separate ways. I was still attracted to males but for the last seven years I was on a ship with a relatively small crew who were all much older and no one showed even a smidgen of sexual interest in me. My sex life was reduced to pornos and my shower. Fortunately, I also have a few toys, but they are increasingly less than satisfactory substitutes for a lover.

Upon completion of my exercises, I avoided the group shower and returned to my cabin in the family quarters and took another quick shower and dressed and went to eat supper. I sat at the family table and the food was up to its usual high standards. My father was discussing our planned ports of call over the next six months with his dad and their mates. They were all places I had never been and would probably not get much of a chance to explore. ‘Drop off cargo; pick up cargo including supplies, and move quickly on to the next destination’ was the mantra of the ship. Time was money and space was vast. Little time was allocated for recreation on exotic planets or the many space stations. Life in space was so boring, boring, boring.

After supper I returned to my lonely but spacious cabin and sat at my desk and called up the reports I requested on my terminal. There were literally thousands of transactions, mostly small that really made no sense. And of course, the items that never made it into inventory were the most suspicious. My prior program had told the computer to review 'recent' transactions and on analysis, I found that it decided that recent meant over the past five years. Limiting further searches to those items that were ordered and paid for but never made it into inventory, I instructed the program to list in descending order by frequency of those transactions, the crewmember that had placed the order and the crewmember that approved the order.

I fully expected that the money trail would ultimately lead back to my father or perhaps Kade or even my grandfather or his husband. Having enhanced computer access not only because I was family but also because I worked in accounting, I then cross checked the transactions with changes to crew members personal accounts to see where it all lead.

To my surprise, it did not lead to those I suspected. However, neither did it clearly show any one or even a small group were profiting. The proceeds seemed to flow in dribbles and drabs in fairly equal amounts to just about every member of the crew except me and my family and their mates. The total amount over the past 5 years is what shocked me. It totaled 1.2 million sovereigns or approximately two hundred forty thousand a year. It worked out to an additional two thousand being credited to each member's account per year. For the average crewman it was like getting an extra two weeks pay each year.

Having reviewed the general ledger position on the company on a weekly basis for the last year, I knew as a company we were doing well. Our expenses due to crew turn over were extremely minimal. Other expenses were well contained and we made a handsome profit on each pick-up and delivery we made. I knew for a fact that the company had no debt and a line of credit in twelve figures. I further knew that my father and grandfather had diversified investments in more than a dozen other enterprises, which prominently included mining and hydroponics. Realizing all that, I decided I needed to forget what I just found out.

Consolidating and encrypting everything and putting it behind a secure partition in my personal directory, I decided I would consider it a profit sharing operation that was done off the books and therefore was not counted as income for the crew. The crew all treated me well even if it was like I was a virgin nephew, and they were to a man, helpful, and willing to take time to explain things about the ship and their jobs.

I was just about to put my terminal into hibernation when a priority message alert arrived. It was addressed to my grandfather, his husband, my father, Kade and me. I opened the message and my stomach clenched. It was an automatic alert notifying the family about my evening activity in analyzing personal accounts for every one aboard the ship. I knew there were built in computer safeguards and alerts, but assumed with my accounting access coupled with being a member of the family that such alerts would not be tripped by my actions. I wondered who would be contacting me first.

Unexpectedly, it was Kade. My cabin door chimed to announced him and I let him in. He saw me sitting at my terminal and told me that he guessed I knew why he was here. I asked where my dad was and just then my dad appeared at the door. He came in, saw me at my desk and Kade standing there, then he said, “I was delayed as pop told me to give you a chance to explain.”

I was embarrassed, but explained that I was bored and that an item from accounting had looked weird and it set me off on a fact finding mission which led me to some place I didn't want to talk about. Both men gave me funny looks and I squirmed. They continued to look at me and waited for me to say something further and I didn't know how to deflect their interest. A minute stretched into two and I blurted out, “I was wondering if there was any member of the crew trying to defraud the company and that's why I was checking into the personal accounts of the crew.”

They both continued to stare at me for at least another minute and then they shared a glance and then returned their gaze to me. My dad finally asked, “What did you find?”

I bit my lips and tried to think of how to put it, but just blurted out instead “That no one person seemed to be getting rich through any fraud that I could detect.”

Dad and Kade exchanged another look. Dad then asked, “But you did detect some fraud?” I couldn't lie but I didn't know what to say. They continued to look at me and then Dad asked, “What did you do with the computer program, the analysis and findings?”

Defeated, I told them everything including my conclusions and that I decided to consider it an off the books profit sharing. For the first time my dad smiled at me and then at Kade. Then I pulled up my directory and the encrypted folder that contained everything I had done.

My dad sat down at my desk and proceeded to shred that folder and its contents with a military grade shredding program. Then he had an over-write program over-write all the blank parts of my directory two hundred and sixty-four times, then clean and delete that as well. Then he went into the computer search history and deleted all references to my searches and cross- referencing requests. Finally he deleted the history of my searching the crew accounts.

He explained that there could be nothing left to lead anyone to what I had found. The off-book profit sharing scheme had been in place for the past twenty years and was started by my grandfather. It began small and gotten only marginally larger over the years. The randomized requisition entries were specifically done to avoid detection and they would have to try to tweak things to make them even less obvious now that I had detected them. Likewise, the random and very small credits to the crew accounts over the course of each year were so gradual that the crew knew nothing of it as no one ever questioned finding a couple more sovereigns in their account than they expected.

As they moved to leave, Dad put his arm around my shoulder and said, “I'm proud of your accomplishment and the maturity you showed in deciding to forget about it and consider it was helping the crew without real detriment to the company.”

I sort of melted into his arm. It had been so long since I had any kind of human contact and it felt so good. I turned and pulled him into a bear hug and he returned it. I felt Kade step up behind me and I was enfolded in a three-way hug, which felt amazing. Unconsciously, I started grinding my ass back against Kade and just as I realized what I was doing, I noticed my dad was grinding his crotch into mine. I looked up into his eyes and saw lust. Kade chose that moment to push my face into my dad's and I was kissing my own father who returned the kiss and pushed his tongue into my mouth. It was very passionate and then I was really embarrassed as I groaned and creamed my jumpsuit feeling the wetness spreading across my crotch. I tried to pull back but Kade was still glued to my back and grinding his crotch into my ass and I suddenly felt wetness seeping through my jumpsuit back there as well. He kept moving and then my dad groaned and the wetness in my crotch got warmer.

As that moment ended, I was suddenly suffused with embarrassment. My face must have looked like a ripe tomato. My posture went rigid and I quickly stepped sideways out from between my dad and his mate and turn away from them. I didn't know what to say, what to think or what to feel. I was afraid I had humiliated myself and at the same time was terribly confused at the exhilaration of the shared release.

In my confusion I heard my dad whisper to Kade, {Well my son is not the Ice Prince his reputation has suggested.}

{So it seems, as we all found that passionately explosive} Kade responded. As I turned, wondering how to respond, Kade added: {I sense young Abel 'heard' us!}

Flustered, I mentioned, “Of course I heard them. Do you think I was so overwhelmed that I missed your comments?”

Dad looked at Kade and then at me and explained, “We weren't talking out loud but telepathically when you 'heard' us.”

I was dumbfounded... literally speechless. It was a defining moment and everything I knew changed.

Telepathic ability was known and known to be extremely rare. In reality it was only a myth as far as my personal experience was concerned. I had never known anyone with that ability and never suspected anyone I encountered, least of all that my father and his mate might have it. And just how had I 'heard' them, as I had never experienced it before?

They saw my confusion and both gave me reassuring smiles. Dad explained that it ran in families, but not always reliably and thus was never mentioned unless it manifested. Why mention it to an offspring who might never develop it and have them feel cheated?

In a panic, I asked, “Can you read all my thoughts?”

My dad again glanced at Kade and said, “No, not even most of them. But if you are projecting or something is really on your mind, if I concentrate, I can get a good sense of it. We have tried to read you and get past your natural shields without you being aware of it, but had to withdraw as your natural shields and more importantly, your awareness are very keen and we did not want to trigger your abilities prematurely. ”

{What aren't you telling me?} I projected with a sudden sense of outrage.

Dad looked at me and said, “Son, sit-down and get comfortable, this might be a little intense.”

I looked at him and sat at my desk and turned to him and said, “Have a seat Dad. I too think this might take a while.”

He smiled and replied, “For you yes, not so much for me.”

Then he stared at me and I realized he was projecting and a veritable tidal wave of information hit me and I lost track of time.

I vaguely remember my dad saying something about we will let you process that and at least two of your next work shifts are canceled so you can deal with everything. I was reminded to eat and take care of the normal activities of daily life and not to miss more than two days of physical workouts before they left.

Thanks to Cia and the Writers Moderation Forum for their advice and input.  Your comments and reactions are always welcome!
This story is set in a far distant future, very different than most imagined.  Men substantially outnumber women due to genetic tinkering and a blight that decimated human populations with long lasting residual effects. In that light, any comments are welcomed.