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Seeds Of Life

Part 4

There's Nothing Out There

---

by Dissident Love

All Rights Reserved

Ongoing Science-Fiction

Space Weirdness

Cast of Characters

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---

Colonel Stacey Wolf, Commander.

Crewmate Sascha Siberian tiger, male, botanist.

Crewmate Renfrew Panda, male, entomologist.

Crewmate Gosh Violet-hued bobcat, herm, nutritionist

and physical therapist.

Crewmate Kelly Walnut-brown Dutch horse, herm,

structural engineer.

Crewmate Guido Black Mallorquín horse, male, civil

engineer.

Crewmate Lister Racoon, female, meteorologist.

Gunner Vasquez Cougar, female, electrical engineer.

Gunner Hudson Badger, male, aerospace engineer.

Gunner Ebony Black bear, herm, linguist.

Gunner Speedy Lynx, male, metallurgist / chemist.

Medico Mariposa Four-armed grey kangaroo, female,

surgeon, neuroscientist.

Heavy Nicole ("Boomerang") Australian wombat herm, software engineer

and accidentally cross-programmed with

the Breeder protocols.

Heavy Chuck Male rhino, and chief terraformer of the mission

Heavy Sammo Male wingless anthro-dragon, also artist, linguist

and poet-laureate

Heavy Grimes Male deer, virologist and molecular biologist

Heavy Koko Male bulldog, anthropologist and sociologist

Heavy Polly Female lioness, structural engineer

Breeder Tina Skunkette hermtaur, theoretical xenobiologist.

Breeder Claudette Labrador hermtaur. Geophysicist and vulcanologist.

Breeder Coenne Minkette anthro-herm. Astrophysicist.

Breeder Rocky Herm anthro-doe. Psychologist.

Breeder Vail Female equitaur, lifelong educational specialist.

Breeder Mischa Female anthro vixen. Geneticist.

"Has anyone seen Gosh?"

There was a general murmur of noncommittal negativity around the long military-style breakfast tables. "Grub was all set to go when I got here," Vasquez growled helpfully. This was not very meaningful or insightful into the dangerous cougar's demeanor; she had no other method of speaking. "Probably working on some experiment again. Page hir."

Mariposa frowned, but nodded. "I know I can page hir, I was just wondering if anyone had seen hir. Lately. At all."

A few ears were scratched in concentration.

"I saw hir last night at dessert, for a minute."

"Saw hir walking with a coffee this morning, just before dawn."

"Shi came to me for some more laser sectioners the other day. Shi only said thanks three times, though."

Only three times, Mariposa thought. That's not like Gosh at all... "Thanks," the chief Medico and tacit Director of the Planet said, politely popping her last refried reconstituted super-enriched potato wedge into her mouth.

For the last week or so, Gosh had been almost a nonentity around Hearth, the unofficially official name of the first Planetside settlement. Truthfully, everyone had been exceptionally busy, working twenty-hour days (a good deal easier with twenty-seven hour days), and sleep schedules were already out of synch. For half the colony this was breakfast only because it was the first meal after sunrise, though it might be their fourth or fifth meal since waking. Furthermore, the Breeders never stopped eating long enough to distinguish one meal from the next.

Mariposa could have simply paged Gosh, at any time, but that wasn't the information she wanted. She was in charge of the community, and technically was in charge of the entire planet, and their society as a whole. No pressure, she thought wryly. Gosh had been an indispensible part of the preparation for that level of responsibility, the gregarious bobcat easily and naturally in tune with the emotional health of the crew.

That skill had all but vanished since Colonel Stacey's arrival the week before, as had Gosh hirself, leaving the four-armed doctor swinging in the strange alien breeze.

She gazed around the huge dining hall, ten tons of genetically enhanced flesh chewing and talking with hearty gusto, often at the same time. The Breeders now tended to cluster together, possibly for protection; almost no-one was brave or dumb enough to try talking to all of them at the same time, except for Speedy. The Gunners had originally sat by themselves, their military background and experiences somewhat isolating them against their civilian comrades, but bit by bit they were being welcomed into the fold and they were able to find some balance between a life of discipline and a second chance of improbable wonder.

The Crewmates, the cover-all term for the scientists and engineers and explorers who had signed up for the Seeds of Life mission, did their best to act as the glue to keep the rest of the population together. The Heavies, camped outside of Hearth in what had been dubbed New Acropolis, were civilians as well, though by necessity had limited physical contact with their much smaller colonists.

I... suppose they're doing fine, Mariposa worried. They seem happy. There have been fewer incidents and injuries than our most conservative projections had indicated, and even the, ah, romantic incidents have not caused any lasting damage to the new bodies. Still...

The slender doctor stood from the end of the long table, placed her tray on the stack by the door, and headed off to her morning rounds.

As the door was swinging shut behind her, she heard it. The wolf-whistle filled the room and spilled out into the sun-warmed air around her, ringing in her ears, and not even the expected laughter and applause could fully rinse it out. She ground her teeth together, but kept her feet moving.

"One of these days," she growled, which was most definitely not her default mode of speech.

---

Hearth had been transformed in the seven long days since Colonel Stacey's arrival. The Breeders, in spite of or perhaps due to their hyperactive hormones and overdriven metabolisms, were tirelessly working double and triple shifts. At first Mariposa had forbidden such schedules, but at their repeated insistence that they weren't sleepy she spent several hours studying them, both at rest and at work. In the end, she was forced to admit that, medically, nothing seemed capable of stopping them from being helpful.

The Heavies had spent a lot of their first few days on Planet napping, acclimating their bodies to new gravity, new atmosphere, and the entirely new ways their bodies dealt with temperature build-up. When the shuttles brought down their work suits, which were simply super-sized coveralls with liquid cooling, they were able to put in a full day's work, which at their scale was a phenomenal feat of civil engineering.

Shattering their best estimates, all of the colony's structural needs were now handled. Power generation was more than triple what was required, water purification was double, algae nutrient production was breaking even, and both the synthetic and organic fabrication facilities were now capable of keeping up with all mission-critical objectives. Day and night, the four long, low structures at the southernmost tip of the Big Meadow were pumping out machine parts, which were meticulously assembled by Hudson and Vasquez into the solar-powered, fully-autonomous drones which would form the backbone of their global information network.

"Thirty-four," Hudson said, watching the latest craft buzz softly up into the sky. The aerospace engineer and former weapons master sat outside Manufacturing Plant Number Four, surrounded by small, clear plastic boxes of drone components, enjoying his work and the sunshine. "Fare the well, Cloudy Jim."

"You've already named one Jim," Vasquez pointed out from the other side of the little clearing, lounging in her bikini and chewing on the end of a screwdriver.

"That's Sunny Jim. He headed south. This one's heading north."

"Ah. Of course. That makes perfect sense."

"Don't judge me."

The satellite maps of the Planet were now being supplied with up-to-the-minute weather information, atmospheric spectrographic readings, ground-looking thermal imaging and myriad other data. The furthest drones were close to a thousand miles away now, and were, in theory, good to fly on their own without repair or assistance for a good ten years.

"In short," Mariposa concluded, "the worst is behind us. Our physical and energy requirements are being more than met, and our projections indicate no foreseeable shortfalls well into the Breeder Protocol production schedules. The colonists are healthy and happy, and are both working hard and using their allotments of relaxation time."

Colonel Stacey (Retired) nodded gravely, thumbing through the briskly-worded reports on his tablet. Despite undergoing the sort of long-term neural-sleep genetic reconstruction that could create both a Heavy and a Breeder at the same time, the aged wolf had not changed his appearance much. His body was long and lean and powerful, and would last him for at least another century, but he was still grizzled and greying at the temples, with tufts of white in his eyebrows. There were certain habits one grew unable to shake; in this case, he was unable to shake the knowledge that he was, indeed, old. "Very good," he said at last.

"Thank you, sir."

"Report is careful, concise. Numbers are accurate. Performance, exemplary."

"Thank you, sir."

"And, once again, Chief Medico Mariposa..." The retired colonel paused to choose his words tactfully.

"Yes, sir?"

"Once again, seem to have missed fucking point."

Her delicate jaw dropped, four hands wringing together nervously. "I... sir?"

"Look around you, Chief Medico. What are you seeing?"

Mariposa dutifully looked around. "Hearth, sir, on Planet. Our colony site is situated south of a coastal mountain range outcropping, and just east of the world's major circulating oceanic body of water. The sun is-"

"No, no, no not all that," the wolf waved dismissively. "Look around, right here, right now. What do you see right in front of us?"

Forcing herself not to think like a colony director, she looked around a little more cautiously. "Uhm... well, sir, I see-"

"And stop with the sirs!"

"Well, uh... Mister... Stacey... I, uhm... I see... a standard hab module."

"Is my home, Miss Mariposa."

"Your... yes. Your hab-... your home. We are in your... front yard, I suppose."

"Good, good. Go on."

Unsure exactly what was being asked of her, or why, she soldiered on simply out of the deeply-ingrained impulse to obey authority. "It is a... a sunny day. Mid-morning. You have a new solar shade-"

"Is beach umbrella, Medico."

Sure enough, it was one of the very small number of items Colonel Stacey (Retired) had requisitioned from the manufacturing plants. It was red and white striped, fringed with little white flaps and tassels, stuck into the ground at a jaunty angle just behind the old wolf's lounge chair. "B-beach umbrella," the 'roo continued. "Yes. And you have a... a... well, I'm not sure.."

Stacey sipped from his drink. "Is called 'mimosa'. Spietoh has introduced me to them. Wonderful beverage. Look, even has tiny umbrella in tumbler..."

"Sir, if Speedy gave you that, I wouldn't-"

The wolf jiggled the tumbler, ice cube rattling in the bright orange cocktail. "Medico Mariposa, I had thought we had agreed that I was no longer to be referred to as sir."

"Yes si... er, yes." Mariposa shuffled her large feet uncomfortably. "May I be excused?"

Stacey sighed. "No. Have not yet established point that is being missed."

"I was hoping we could skip that."

"Hah. No. Walk with me, please. I am old. I might need doctor at any moment."

Mariposa stepped respectfully back when the big canid stood, suppressing the urge to salute, even though she was not military and he, technically, no longer was, either. Even a retired colonel was due respect and appropriate military honorifics, but if he was the sole member of a military that did not even exist for light years, did it even matter?

He was also clearly in no danger of needing a doctor, despite his advanced chronological age. The neural-D and deep sleep reconstruction had created for him a body that looked as though it could rip an armored vehicle in half, towering over the slender kangaroo. The fake straw sunhat he wore seemed wildly out of place, to say nothing of the tiny tropical beverage held delicately in three fingers.

"Mariposa, there have been many setbacks on this mission," he said placidly, trotting out of his little front yard and onto the barely-work path connecting the hab modules. The local grass-like life was incredibly durable and adamantly refused to be fully cleared or worn down, and so the roadways and pathways were simply marked out with rows of little solar lights. "Many... regrettable problems. Lost many good men and women. Survivors have worked hard, and created a new home, on new world."

"Yes, sir. Er... sorry."

"You get one more," Stacey smiled. "But in spite of setbacks, know what has been most important in ensuring success of mission?"

The petite Medico frowned and hummed, all four paws fiddling with the buttons on her dull grey blouse. "Proper planning and teamwork," she hazarded carefully, "and the sense of camaraderie that comes from-"

"Hope, humor and the comfort offered by fellow colonists," he cut in. "Is very simple, really. May have new bodies, may have military training, may have deep-sleep technical programming, may have best-laid plans in two worlds, but deep down, below the atomic level, deep down, Mariposa... colonists are people. Yes, even Spietoh."

The corners of her mouth flicked up for just the briefest moment. Stacey and Speedy were notoriously prejudiced against one another, ostensibly due to three tours of duty served together in the distant past. "I see."

"You are terrible liar, Medico."

"Sir!" she gasped.

"That was last one. Mariposa," he sighed wearily, sipping his drink again as they trotted out of the cluster of hab modules and headed towards the clearing colloquially referred to as the Diamond, after some archaic sporting event. "You are excellent doctor. You are excellent administrator. Much to your annoyance, am sure, you are excellent leader. You are needing considerable help to become actual person, though."

Her shoulders pushed back with pride as he spoke, but his last few words deflated her once more. "I'm not... not the sort of person that can just forget about my responsibilities, when there's so much to be done!"

"Are schedules ready for crew for next few days?"

"Yes, but-"

"Are milestones being reached within acceptable variances?"

"Er... yes, sir, actually slightly ahead of-"

"How much are you sleeping per night?"

"A couple hours. It's fine, my body can withstand-"

"Would seem responsibilities are adequately fulfilled, da?"

"Da. I mean, yes. I mean, no! There's so much more to do!"

Stacey nodded. "There will always be more to do, but there may not always be enough Mariposa to do them. Had not wanted to do this, lacking sufficient rank, but I am left no choice."

Mariposa's ears swayed back. "Sir, I don't know what you're suggesting, but I can't simply-"

The wolf broke through her protests, speaking into the tiny comm fibre woven into the brim of his hat. "Gunner Spietoh, are you online?"

"Ready, willing and waiting, Mr. Colonel!" came the lynx's insufferably chipper growl.

"Please initiate new lockout protocols."

"Aye-aye, mon capitane!"

The wolf rolled his eyes and sighed, wishing that he still had enforceable rank, just enough to have the feisty Gunner keel-hauled. "Thank you, and never to be saying that again."

"Ma cherie?" Speedy hazarded.

"No."

Mariposa's attention was pulled away by a series of bleeps and chirps from her tablet. She stared curiously at it, watching as one by one her server access plots saved and closed, seemingly of their own accord. "What the... Speedy, what did you just do?" She typed furiously, dragging fifteen fingers expertly along the touch-sensitive surfaces, trying to restore her server connections, but she was rewarded with nothing but lockout errors. "Speedy!"

"Just following orders, Doc. Don't shoot the messenger."

"He's not allowed to give orders anymore!" she snapped, gesturing angrily at her former commander. "He's wearing a frickin' straw hat right now! He... er... oh, goodness, sir, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't deserving of respect considering your status, I simply meant-"

Stacey waved away her protests absently. "I can endure the barbs of your words, Medico, as I have endured many other things in my life, but please, do not insult my hat. It cannot defend itself." Speedy's insolent snickering could be heard coming from the hat-mounted comm fiber, and Mariposa had to suppress the urge to smack the jaunty decoration off of the big wolf's head.

With a final sad warble, Mariposa's tablet powered down. Her knuckles whitened around the edges, the virtually unbreakable device bending noticeably in her grip. "But you can't do this! Safety protocols forbid me from being out of contact with-"

"Is vacation, Medico," Stacey spoke, the merest hint of steel creeping into his voice. "You are being given forty-eight hours free from your EXCEPTIONALLY well-handled responsibilities, in order that you may, if it can be hoped, enjoy yourself. However, in order to keep in terms you can be understanding, I am expecting a full report of this period upon your completion, with special note to be taken of lessons learned, and favorite moments."

The towering canid leaned down, the brim of his hat casting a menacing shadow across his brow. "Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

Knowing when she was defeated, the 'roo sighed plaintively but nodded. "Understood. Forty-eight hours. I will... go for a walk."

"Good. And is forty-eight local hours, not Earth hours."

"Awwwwww!!!"

---

Gosh sat in the hollowed-out single room of hir hab module, violet-furred chin resting on hir lavender paws, glaring intently at the impossible stalk of kale that dominated what had once been hir coffee table.

Mariposa might have been doing fine with very little sleep, but Gosh was starting to feel the effects of the last week's efforts. Ever since Colonel Stacey's landing, and the revelation of hir forbidden garden's produce, shi had become preoccupied to the point of obsession. A small sticky note that simply said 'Take A Nap!' was adhered to the wall just above hir bed, but shi couldn't remember why shi'd put it there.

The tricky part had been keeping up appearances in the colony. Shi was in charge of many duties, not just food preparation, but hir new body allowed hir to perform most of these simple tasks with a speed that would have been absolutely unheard of back Earthside. Many meals were prepared in advance, and shi could arrange for the heating and distribution to be assigned to one of hir helpers, which were nominally the Breeders these days. After that, the only real trouble had been keeping hir research off of the grid.

The tablet laying between hir feet looked as though it had sprouted roots, one corner of it neatly excised with a laser and many of the internals pulled out. Server connections were an intrinsic part of each device, but with Speedy's help shi'd managed to separate one from the network completely. He hadn't been hard to convince; after implying that it was so shi could plan pranks better, he had been all too happy to help.

Several different readouts scrolled and flashed and beeped on the tablet's surface, picking up the endless streams of data from hir other equipment. There was a glut of scientific analysis materials on Planet, the vast majority of it having not been brought down from the Seed until recently, and shi'd had no problems acquiring all shi could ever ask for. Automated programmable tunnelling electron microscopes were examining the tiniest details of carrots and cabbage, while laser excision equipment was scanning increasingly thinner segments of spinach and onions. On some level shi thought hir hab module smelled heavenly, but the constant underlying river of terror kept that in check.

Impossible, shi thought, for the thousandth time, maybe the millionth.

Not only were all the fruits and vegetables suspiciously healthy, they were hardly ripening or rotting whatsoever. That wasn't entirely surprising in and of itself, as the normal bacterial and environmental factors that would hasten decomposition weren't present on Planet, but the increased gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperatures and alkalinity should have reduced everything to compost days before. Hir analysis showed that their cellular structure seemed to be regenerating at a pace sufficient to stave off rotting, but shi could find no basis for why this might be the case, outside of blaming errant nonexistent wizards.

And as of yet, none of it had attempted to speak to hir.

"I'm not crazy," shi grumbled, standing stiffly and working the kinks out of hir back. "I'm not."

Shi had proven that to hirself, at least. Hir first tests had been not on the Planet's twining grass-like fauna, and not on the vegetables from hir garden, but on hir own eyes and hir own brain. Shi'd complained to Mariposa of headaches and had requested a full scan, with nothing conclusive or even interesting. Not crazy, shi thought. I saw what I saw.

_ _

When shi'd returned to that nondescript patch of grasslike, the single word they'd spelled out was gone. Shi'd cautiously picked a sample of the twining tendrils, half-expecting them to protest further, but there was no reaction, and all testing had proven futile.

Insanity or not, impossibility or not, shi had, shi supposed, obeyed the warning. Shi had told no-one of hir vegetables, shi had not spoken of the strange communication, and shi'd taken all precautions to make sure hir work ran undetected. The other colonists did not seem suspicious, and as far as shi could tell shi was safe in hir hab module.

The knocking at hir front door caused hir to stifle a tiny, panicked shriek.

"Hello?" came Mariposa's high, almost childlike voice through the single sound-transmitting panel in the otherwise soundproof module's exterior. "Gosh, are you home? Your comm fiber's not transmitting right now."

"Dammit," the purple bobcat cursed, fiddling in hir cleavage for the fibre and twisting it between hir fingertips to activate it. "Sorry!" shi called out when it was transmitting. "Not to worry, I turned it back on!"

"That's good," the Medico replied. "Now that I know where you are, though... can I talk to you?"

Dammit! Gosh thought. Go away!! "About what?" shi asked.

"Uhm... Colonel Stacey, uh, sort of... fired me. Temporarily. From being Colony Administrator. Uhm. He says I'm on vacation," she added with a pout that could be heard through the door.

Heh, good for you, the bobcat thought wryly. "I'm not sure I could talk him out of that, really," shi noted. "Once he's set his mind to something, he can be very tenacious."

"I don't think talking him out of it is going to do any good," Mariposa grumbled sourly. "He had Speedy do something to the network, so I'm completely locked out. My comms work, and that's it."

"Oh my. That must be torture!"

"I know!"

"I was joking."

"... oh."

In spite of hir preoccupations, Gosh had to smile. Mariposa was young, far younger than anyone else on the mission. She'd barely been into her late 30's when she'd been selected for the Seed Of Life, whereas nearly everyone else had been well into their 70's, many of whom were long since retired. She'd been an exceptional student, an outstanding medical doctor, and a brilliant researcher, but Gosh had also read the roo's psych profiles; emotional and social detachment, non-verbal spectrum misalignment, satisfaction displacement. Ironically, the traits that made her a much-sought-after but difficult-to-work-with doctor had made her a prime candidate for the mission.

And deep down, Gosh had known this day was going to come.

"Can I come in? It's weird talking to a door."

Gosh looked around at hir assembled experiments, wringing hir hands. "Tell you what... I think we could both use a little fresh air. And some coffee."

"I'm only allotted one-point-five cups of the coffee rations per day, and-"

The bobcat twisted hir comms off again, cutting out the neurotic roo mid-sentence, and heaved a sigh. "This is going to take some work."

---

The dining hall was a vast, low, thin-walled structure, little more than a converted aircraft hangar from the Seed's stores. One corner was walled off for food preparation, bordered by a huge ring of heated trays and troughs of reconstituted dry foods, and the rest was a constantly shifting landscape of tables and chairs, a visual representation of the colony's social development. Where the aisles dramatically widened mapped out the routes taken by the Breeders, and where the tables were pushed closer together, near the walls, was a reliable sign of a Gunner cluster.

At the moment, between nominal-breakfast and nominal-lunch, the only customers were Tina poring over hir three tablets, Guido with his head lost in a collection of video lenses, and Lister surrounded by four tables completely covered in satellite renderings of Planet. Tina had heaved hir table over to be trough-adjacent, allowing hir to reach the crate of triangular sandwiches without needing to stand, and ensuring that hir tail wouldn't accidentally demolish anyone else's work.

"Upper-atmosphere single-celled organisms?" Lister pondered, the plumply-hourglassed raccoon scratching her ears with a pencil.

"Wouldn't account for the uniformity," Tina replied, chewing thoughtfully and flicking through the confusing, conflicting data, trying to find some way to represent it visually that satisfied hir curiosity. "I mean, they're present, but in low numbers, and are more at the whims of the prevailing high-pressure zones than anything else."

"OK, Koko, pan left," Guido spoke softly, shifting one lens away from his left eye and sliding another down over his right. "That looks good. You and Polly, you can take the aqueduct from there over and around the copse of trees to the south. We don't want to unduly disturb the locals. Grimes, you set to sink your reader in? Soil looks soft down at least three hundred meters."

"Might the radiation absorption be cyclical?" Lister continued, having long since tuned out the huge equine. "Solar cycle, fauna spike, radiation absorption peaks, weather responds to the extra energy, solar cycle fades, fauna are caught up in the resultant weather patterns in reduced numbers?"

Tina fiddled with hir figures, the colossal skunktaur enjoying the challenge but not used to being balked at every turn. "No, they don't synch up. And there would need to be a corresponding methane spike with the faunal decay. I got nothing."

"I got nothing."

"I got little sandwiches," Tina added helpfully.

"Well, that's something," Lister giggled in reply. "What are they? Smells like egg salad."

"I think it's SUPPOSED to be egg salad," the Breeder said wryly. "It's... yellow. And chunky. And it definitely smells like something you don't want to leave out in the sun. Surely, that's close enough."

"These days, it is." Lister sighed and leaned back, her bench creaking. "Bloody hell, I don't know. We've been going over these numbers since... what day is it?"

"Nom-Thursday."

"Really? Damn." The raccoon stretched vigorously, her exceptionally well-filled overalls quivering and creaking from the strain. "I dunno. I have other things to get to before the Dragon-Roo gets back on duty. I'll try to come back around to this next week with fresh eyes."

"Yeah, me too," Tina yawned, somehow finding a way to eat two more sandwiches in the process. Breeder restrictions or not, the one-ton skunk's caloric intake was still the single largest drain on the colony's resources, outside of the Heavies. "Can you believe Stacey really did that? And asked Speedy of all people to help him?"

"She needed it," Lister grunted, scraping her poster-sized printouts into a pile and rolling them up. "I was going to slap some fun into her if that kept up."

"Ooooh. Is she the kinky type?"

"Perish the thought!" the raccoon laughed. "Though that might work better. I had wanted to try and get her in a quiet corner of the Command module the other day, try unzipping the girls and little bit and seeing what develops. Gosh says she's pan, like pretty much everyone else on the Seed, but I dunno... to me, I think she's equally attracted to everyone in the sense that she's equally attracted to furniture: not at all."

"She'll come around," Tina assured hir, shifting hir weight with a thump and a slosh, that sound finally piercing Guido's remote supervision of the Heavies. "I can tell, she just needs to take that one little step outside of her comfort zone."

"We've LEFT THE SOLAR SYSTEM!" Lister laughed in exasperation, gathering up the rolls of satellite maps. "How far does her comfort zone extend?! I'll catch you later, ok?"

"Ok, sweetie."

"Still up for catching the sunset tonight? Obie's Ridge?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," the Breeder purred, waggling hir fingers at the departing raccoon and trying to keep hir eyes off of that heavy, swaying, pear-shaped bottom. Shi inhaled slowly, a metallic creaking sound briefly filling the room as the physical components of the Breeder Protocol restrictions fought against hir arousal.

When Lister was safely gone, Tina allowed hirself a little groan of frustration and twisted hir torso around to rub the ring of sore flesh just behind the cuff of hir sheath. Despite hir tremendous height and hir even more impressive length, that vast and silky black mound of velvety fur was disproportionately large, stretching along fully half of hir underbelly (if shi was lucky... more, if shi wasn't). At the moment it was creeping past hir barrel's floating ribs and inexorably approaching hir forelegs, swelling up and out from the undeniable pressures of the expanding flesh within, held in check only by the too-small titanium collar keeping hir safely under wraps.

"Stupid thing," shi grunted, trying to put the soreness and the awkwardness and the maddeningly persistent desire to copulate out of hir mind.

Guido whinnied under his breath, lifting all four lenses to take in the sight of the skunktaur's body on full display. Although he would be the first to admit that he found the fantastical xenobiologist to be almost unbearably sexy, he would also freely confess to being terrified of what such a romance would involve. The Mallorquin stallion was more than eight feet tall, and he was still fairly certain hir sheath outweighed his entire body. "You can make it, grrl," he offered helpfully, adjusting his own trousers to hide his interest. "Couple more weeks, food and power milestones, then... you do that voodoo that you will hopefully do so well."

"Would that you were on the list of 'acceptable targets'," Tina grinned and winked, thumping hir tail meaningfully against the wall. "Sadly, you lack the requisite wombs."

"Dodged that bullet," he chuckled half-heartedly.

"Don't worry. I'm sure I can find some time to recreationally do terrible, TERRIBLE things to you."

"Bleat."

"Oh, get your mind out of the gutter," shi giggled, a remarkably girlish sound from such a titanic creature. "Hey, since Mariposa's out of the loop, who do I check with to requisition a skimmer? I want to do some primary research on these solar absorption rates."

"Is that what you two have been droning on about all morning?"

"'Droning'? Well, I never! Just for that, no nookie for YOU!" shi smirked, rolling back onto all fours and heaving hirself upright. "But yeah, the readings we're getting from high atmospherics, weather patterns, heat distribution and infrared albedo just are NOT adding up. I need more data."

"Drones not good enough?"

"Drones don't know what to look for."

"You can TELL them what to look for-"

Tina glowered, tucking all three tablets one by one into hir immense ebon cleavage, the slinky little green tank top doing very little to hide hir exceptional curves. "I need some fresh air and some privacy before someone does something unfortunate."

_ _

Guido was one of the most massive and well-muscled of the world's colonists, but that didn't stop him from suddenly feeling a brief paing of terror. "Hey, no problem, no problem," he chuckled swiftly. "Really, anyone can requisition them as long as you update the central schedule. Here, I'll just go ahead and click you in as performing field duty on the number-two skimmer. Couple hours? Rest of the day?"

Tina covered hir muzzle with one paw to hide hir smile. "A few hours will be fine, thank you," shi purred, bowing graciously as shi started to ease hir bus-sized body through the dining hall, a significant portion of that mass swaying dangerously in hir tail. "Any word on when I can get my own entrance installed? A little skunky-door just for me?"

"Eh, no idea," Guido shrugged, trying to hide his expression behind his various lenses. "I think everyone just enjoys watching you wiggle-wiggle."

"Fresh."

---

One of the first major roads out of Hearth headed north-east, as it was measured on Planet. Created with a Heavy-sized hand tiller and a small seventy-ton push-roller, Chuck and Boomer had managed the entire length of the road in one long, sweaty day, which ended with the creation of the first satellite village: Rampart.

The road was only ten feet wide, and little more than just a roughened, smoothed and compacted dirt trail. Due to some peculiar chemical traits of the world's topsoil that Sascha was still trying to figure out, soil tilled from more than a couple feet below the surface inhibited the regrowth of the strange grasses, and so after nearly a week the road was still clear and easily navigable. Of course, with the aid of satellite telemetry and solar-powered hovercraft, there was no need for roads for navigation or even for travel, but there were certain aspects of life in a new world that helped build a sense of community, and permanence.

"I still feel bad about it," Coenne sighed, reclining a little further in hir carbon-fibre reinforced deck chair. "I mean, sure, it's just grass, but we came a billion billion miles to... what? Rip up some sod? There's bug-likes that died to make that road, and probably some bird-likes that didn't get enough food because of it. Er, lizard-likes, I guess we're calling them for now. No birds."

Kelly chuckled, pausing in hir assembly of another wall panel to stretch hir arms, knuckling hir back. "How, exactly, did you end up on this mission again?"

"Clerical error," the silvery mink grinned. "And I know, I know, you can't settle a planet without affecting the planet, and it's just a ROAD, but... I dunno. It feels weird to just show up and start wrecking up the place and feeding trees into the assembly presses."

"Those assembly presses made the chair you're sitting in."

"You're ruining my bland indignation."

Rampart was, so far, just three hab modules and a partially-constructed command module that resembled a wizard's tower, all perched high on a rocky ridge more than a mile above sea level. A cluster of solar panels kept the lights on, and kept Kelly's tools humming. "You could help me, you know," the big draft horse chuckled, busy assembling the third floor of the command module.

Coenne fanned hirself with one paw, propping hir tablet up against the vast and twitching velvet of hir sheath. "I don't think I'd be much help, considering. Unless you want me walking backwards the whole time."

"I wouldn't entirely object to that..."

"Fresh."

Kelly had anticipated a lot of hands-on work in hir new future, and hir new body reflected that. Every inch as tall as Guido, hir broad shoulders and thick legs were counterbalanced by slender hips and an impressively proud and improbably full bust. Hir standard work coveralls did virtually nothing to hide hir obviously equine maleness, several times larger than what would have been considered 'big' back on old Earth.

One glance over at Coenne, though, and shi realized that perhaps shi'd set hir sights a little low. The minkette was tall, statuesque, buxom and gorgeous, an unearthly shade of silver that sparkled like diamond dust in the sunlight, but no-one would mistake hir for anything but a Breeder. Half of hir deck chair was completely obscured by hir sac, six achingly swollen orbs stuffed into a cloth-clad bulge that easily outmassed the rest of hir body. To make matters worse, depending on one's point of view, the pressure within hir be-ringed sheath was keeping it permanently semi-hard, and shi'd had to cut a hole in hir coveralls to allow it a modicum of freedom. Despite basking in the sunlight, that tautly-stretched sheath stood proudly upright, shading hir from hip to head.

Kelly had banged hir fingers more than once while shi worked, constantly glancing out of the corner of hir eyes at the spectacularly endowed Breeder, and shi was pretty sure the damp patches on hir coveralls were never going to wash out.

"Have they figured out why there's no megafauna? Mischa and Tina?"

Coenne shrugged. "I dunno. What, you think just because we're all Breeders we only talk to eachother? There's an ugly word for that, you know... racism."

"Breeders are a race now?"

"Stop oppressing us!" the mink giggled. "But seriously, I have no idea. I'm an astrophysicist, not some sort of animal-ologist or anything. Tina's working on some excavation locations to try and look at the fossil record, but if hir last bulletin is any indication shi's too busy trying to figure something out about microbes and the weather. Gah, I dunno, Kell, we're all just sort of flailing around right now."

"You're flailing, I'm building," Kelly smirked. "I cannot wait for all the easy stuff to be done so I can start really putting together something nice."

"Like what?"

"I was thinking a city hall. No prefab grey panels, no solar windows, no spray-on carpet. No, ma'am. I'm talking architecture."

"Ooo, that would be nice," Coenne nodded, stretching out once more, sheath twitching back and forth like a metronome. "Wood? Stone?"

"Local wood, and I've scouted some locations for quarries. There's this limestone that has the most absolutely unbelievable purple veins, I've never seen anything like it. It's GORGEOUS, and I know it's going to polish up so lovely."

The command module hummed, leaning slightly as a gust of wind swept across the high rocky peak. "That would be nice. And real homes."

"Cozy. With fireplaces."

"Mmm. You know, I've got some ideas for mine..."

Kelly laughed. "Get in line, hun! My inbox is practically maxed out with 'ideas' from everyone else. Everyone wants something different, and I've gotta somehow make it all work together. Can you believe Speedy wants neon signs on his?"

"Yes."

The grrls laughed, hardly feeling the brisk nearly-freezing temperatures. Their new bodies registered the temperature, yet were all but impervious to that level of discomfort, and much to Kelly's delight shi was apparently also impervious to hir high-powered tack nailer. Distracted by the sight of Coenne initially easing hirself into the deck chair, shi'd fired one right into hir palm, but removing the bent little sliver of metal had been quick and painless.

Shi glanced over at the reclined Breeder, and couldn't help but follow that logic train all the way into the station. What else can these bodies do... and what can they handle?

_ _

"You heading back to Hearth tonight?" the Dutch draft asked casually, hoisting another billboard-sized panel slowly and carefully into the air and maneuvering it into position where it would form the new south wall.

"Mmmm, nah," Coenne replied offhandedly. "There's a couple hab modules here and everything, and I'm still networked up. I can get all my work done from here." Shi glanced over the unfinished lip of the command module's top floor, taking in the snowless landscape of jagged indigo peaks, narrow and eye-wrenchingly green valleys and the distant sparkle of the ocean. "I kinda like the change in scenery, you know?"

"Me, too."

Coenne smirked, still facing away. "You're not looking at the same scenery I am, are you?"

"No, ma'am."

"Good."

---

Gosh and Mariposa trotted through all of the new neighborhoods of Hearth that had sprung up. Due to the limitations on just how many hands could be lend to a specific task at any given time, there was the occasional non-essential project that were used to fill out the schedules. Most popular among these were the Not Really Blue Lagoon, Hearth's first swimming pool, and the Echo Chamber, one of Speedy's suggestions that actually made a little bit of sense. It was an inflatable hab module, airlocked to the outside world, with the double membranes filled with thermally-impregnable foam, which had the additional bonus of also being phenomenally soundproof.

Once Speedy had succeeded in bringing down his stereo and DJ equipment from the Seed, everyone was glad for a soundproof place to put them.

"So, how're you-"

"So, what's up-"

Bobcat and kangaroo blushed and chuckled, each pausing to let the other finish. When neither one continued, they each tried again, with similar results.

"You first."

"No, you can."

"Uhm... well, I thought I asked first..."

Mariposa tugged at one ear with a free paw and smiled ruefully. "OK, fine. For the sake of diplomacy... not much is up. Despite my best efforts. I don't think Colonel Stacy understands-"

"Retired."

"Er, yes... retired Colonel Stacey understands... er, doesn't understand all the effort I'm trying to put into making this work. We didn't come a hundred years and a billion trillion miles to wander around and smell the flowers!"

Despite hir week of preoccupation, Gosh couldn't help but fall back to hir notes. "Yes. We are creating a new society from scratch to espouse the virtues of chastity, abstinence, and oatmeal five meals per day," shi deadpanned.

"That's not what I mean! I want to relax, but I can't relax when there's so much to DO!"

"And you told him that."

"Of course!"

"So there's no-one doing the jobs you were doing."

"Right! Er... I mean, no, not exactly. Nicole already redistributed all of my duties around, but shi shelved several of them!"

"Were they crucial?"

"Yes! I mean... well, they weren't crucial right NOW, but they need to be done!"

"And will they be done?"

Mariposa narrowed her eyes. "Are you therapizing me? Just answering everything I say with more questions?"

"Do you think I am?" the violet feline grinned.

The roo opened her mouth, violent expletives dancing on the tip of her tongue, but she just slammed her jaw shut and crossed all four arms, fuming impotently. "It's not funny."

"Did I sound like I was laughing?"

"STOP THAT!"

Gosh laughed, throwing one arm around the slender doctor's shoulders and pulling her close. Eventually, even Mariposa's carefully-constructed frigid facade was forced to crumble when squeezed up against one of Gosh's impressively full and jiggly breasts. The bobcat was quite a bit taller and more thickly-built, especially compared to the slender young kangaroo, and Mariposa's eyes bounced up and down in time with the psychologist's bustline. "See? The world will go on spinning without you... just for a couple days."

"I guess," Mariposa pouted. "I don't need to like it."

"You're saying you don't like this?" Gosh asked, inhaling, hir coveralls filling up quickly to capacity, carbon-fibre seams creaking under pressure.

Mariposa swallowed. "Uh... it's not that..."

"What, you're more attracted to Ebony? Or Vail? Or Speedy?"

"No... oh, gods, no," the 'roo laughed at the last suggestion. "Definitely not! It's just..."

Their path had taken them past the pool and past Speedy's nightclub, and they were now in the sprawling grotto of Sascha's Garden, a haphazard botanical display of local flowers and exotic plantlife. It was difficult to classify some of them as 'plants', however, as some of them had unrooted themselves, gotten up and wandered away during the night. "Just what, Doc?" Gosh asked in exasperation. "What is your major malfunction?"

"It just feels wrong to... to waste what I've been given like that, to waste the chance we've all been given. It feels greedy and... wrong."

Ah-hah, Gosh nodded. "I know what you mean," shi nodded. "I've been given this wonderful, responsive, sensitive body, and it just feels like I'm abusing a thousand years of technological progress by putting it to pleasurable use."

"Uhm..." Mariposa gulped audibly. "That's also not quite what I meant."

"I mean, look at these tits!" Gosh continued loudly, squeezing the roo even closer with one arm and groping at hir coveralls with the other. "These would have been downright SILLY back on Earth! Not to mention probably pretty damn expensive. They're bigger than my head! What was I THINKING?!"

"Uhm..."

"And don't even get me started on all this," shi wailed melodramatically, guiding one of Mariposa's tiny paws to the even larger bulges straining at the bobcat's loins. "Surely this was unnecessary to the sanitary, sterile act of logistical species procreation!"

"I think I get it..."

"Society will CRUMBLE if I take five minutes to engage in a dopamine-releasing frivolous recreational activity!"

"You can stop now."

"OUR WORLD IS DOOMED IF I SO MUCH AS LOOK AT MARIPOSA'S HOT LITTLE-"

The roo's arms might be slender, her fingers unnaturally long and delicate for the minute details of surgical precision, but she was every bit as strong as the firm-bodied bobcat, and she had no problems in squeezing Gosh's mouth shut until hir face could be tilted down to an appropriately kissable angle.

The pair remained linked like that for quite a long time, eyes closed, lips locked, bodies slowly turning to face one another and arms twining together. Gosh heard the faint thump-thump of approaching footsteps but shi didn't care enough to investigate, whereas Mariposa's senses were acute enough to actually recognize the interloper.

"Just ignore him," shi whispered, two paws drifting down to caress Gosh's abundant rump.

"Who is it?"

"Ssshhhh." Mariposa's mind whirled, lost in the soft and comforting embrace of the much larger feline. Sometimes, as she was drifting off to sleep at night in her quiet, sparse hab module, the young doctor was unable to keep thoughts such as these out of her mind, the rational part of her brain warring with the purely logical and selfless part. "He's just checking up on me..."

Gosh's arms tightened around the lean kangaroo, and shi leaned back just enough to completely lift her long legs off of the ground. "Well, isn't that nice of him," shi giggled in between kisses, feeling hir coveralls tightening in awkward places. This is certainly one way to keep her from finding about about my garden! And I suppose I should follow my own advice and maybe... relax... for a minute...

_ _

"Mmm," the medico murred, arms and legs wrapping around Gosh's plump figure. "You feel... nice. I'm sorry about how I acted..."

"Ssshhh," Gosh smiled, giving Mariposa's own bottom a more than cursory squeeze. "It's all right. We all need help, sometimes. You can't be afraid to ask. We're all here, for eachother."

"Literally?"

"Literally."

"Except Speedy."

"Hmmm, you might change your mind on that, eventually," Gosh growled, hir smile turning positively predacious. "He's really quite lovely, once you get to know him."

"EW!"

"Oh, you hush," shi giggled, tilting hir head down to kiss the neurotic medico once more while shi walked, Mariposa's body bouncing up and down against hir new-and-improved curves. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Thank you," Mariposa whispered again in between smooches. "I... this is my first time since... med school..."

"Then I'm honored to be your first lover in over a hundred years."

"Gosh, when you put it like that..."

The grizzled old wolf watched them go, hands clasped behind his back. He made no expression, staring dispassionately at his surroundings, the strange arrangements of local flora-like and fauna-like, the spreading influence of the colony gradually changing the environment around them.

His ears perked, despite the lack of any detectable sound, and he trotted slowly away, roughly in the direction of the escaping bobcat and hir kangaroo cargo.

---

A couple hundred miles to the south of Hearth was a peculiar landform currently known as the Rockwater. The precise tectonic nature of their formation and continued existence was still being mulled over by Chuck and Claudette, but it was pretty far down on their priority list at the moment. The land rose steadily out of the ocean, occasionally rolling and humping only collapse next to a larger mount of igneous rock. This continued until the center of the vast ovoid range had an average elevation of nearly fourteen thousand feet above sea level, rounded and wrinkled like a continent-spanning raisin.

Patches of sparse, feathery forest-likes dotted and decorated the Rockwater, so different from the low-lying trees that they hardly seemed to be related at all, and in fact Sascha compared them more to sea anemones than trees. This left him feeling rather unsettled after his exploratory survey of the region, and ill-equipped to properly analyze and scientifically describe them.

Tina, however, had no such qualms.

The skimmer set down on a cool, breezy dome of slickly-eroded slabs, those feather-trees clinging further down the slope. There were distinct patterns of coloration to them, a range of green to reddish-purples in keeping with Planet's general color schemes, and they shimmered like rainbows in the sudden gusts as the skimmer's engines died.

The canopy popped open with a hiss of equalized pressures, and Tina immediately inhaled the heady scents of alien fog, mysterious life and unfettered freedom.

"Mostly unfettered," shi sighed, slowly heaving hir tremendous mass up and out of the skimmer. Two of the seats had been removed to make room for hir body and tail, and even then it was a cramped fit. Anchoring hir hind legs against the cockpit's lip and slowly working hir forelegs onto the fuselage, then the stub wings, then the ground, it was an involved process to fully extract hirself but worth every moment shi could feel the cool breeze against hir fluff and the smooth, rippled stone beneath hir paws.

Shi grunted when the titanium collar snagged on an antenna stub, tugging awkwardly at hir sheath and nearly sending hir tumbling. "Getting real sick of your shit, Carl," the huge skunktaur grumbled, wrenching hirself free with only minor damage to the craft.

Bit by bit, the sounds of nature returned around hir, the peculiar little bird-likes and bug-likes chirping and singing in the nearby forest of waving fronds. After another few minutes the high, sweet flute-like notes of the largest of Planet's flying predators tickled hir ears. They were long, scaly creatures, with paper-thin wings and bones that were more air than fibrin, and it was still unclear how they managed to successfully catch and eat anything without damaging their fragile bodies, but they were clearly successful, and variations on the species were found on all continents.

"I missed you, too," Tina purred softly, preening and fluffing hirself up, finally able to run hir paws shamelessly over hir curves. It's not that shi was against showing off hir body around the other colonists, far from it... rather, there had been a petition passed to politely ask Tina to please stop distracting everyone else until the Breeder Protocols were no longer suspended.

Hir green tank top was off in a flash, freeing hir tremendously full black-and-white breasts, nipples hardening almost instantly in the crisp mountain air. Shi shivered and grinned, eyes half-lidding, as the very first stages of proper arousal set hir body aflame. Hir tail shuddered and audibly groaned, followed a moment later by the titanium cuff ring keeping hir restrained.

Tina reached into hir cleavage and removed a tiny metallic device, boxy and featureless except for two buttons, one red, one green. Shi inhaled, the pressure mounting to maddening levels between hir hind legs, and pressed the red button.

A piercing, reverberating _ting-g-g-g-g_filled the midafternoon air, sending all of the winged creatures in the vicinity into panicked flight, as the cuff split into two harmless pieces.

"I love you, Speedy," Tina moaned, tucking the device back against hir sternum where it would be safe. "I love you... so... much..."

_ _

Hir flanks twitching mightily, shi very, very carefully kicked out hir legs and eased hirself onto hir side. Hir sheath, no longer restrained by the cursed metal ring, swelled forwards with renewed vigor, in seconds every inch as big around as hir barrel and pushing towards hir forelegs. It seemed unthinkable that a taur so large should be anywhere even remotely so well-equipped, that black velvety mass continuing to pulse larger and larger in time with hir heart, but shi'd been unable to stop in the strange unreality of deep sleep. Shi'd just wanted more... and more... and more...

Shi cried out, a high girlish squeal of ecstasy, as shi reached hir ultimate capacity and hir sheath retracted, eight feet of thinly overstressed flesh tugging back to reveal better than twelve feet of soft, pastel pink maleness. It lurched forwards between hir forelegs, pinning one of them to the ground, by all measures already larger than any other colonist's entire body.

Tina's eyes rolled back as hir hearts started to pound harder now, veins plumping up just below the surface as shi started to_really_ show.

---

The command module was nearly finished, but without the rest of the roof anchoring the internal shear walls it wasn't particularly strong. Well to the north of the main colony, the weather was cool and calm, with hardly a draft to stir the evening's stillness.

The three-storey module was shaking back and forth, carbon-fibre wall panels creaking and groaning, for entirely non-wind-related reasons.

"Are... you... sure..." Kelly moaned for the fifth time, fingers digging hard into Coenne's hips as shi rocked back and forth.

"Yes!" the silvery mink snapped in between gasps, arms and legs splayed in all directions, hir body fully supported by the considerably larger shapes of hir sac and sheath. "Double... checked... this morning!"

"Good..." Kelly wheezed, hir powerful legs quaking as shi loomed over the prostrate Breeder, pressing hir heavy brown breasts into the mink's back. "Don't need you... going and... repopulating... the planet..."

Coenne giggled drunkenly, unable to do much beyond rolling hir hips against the much larger equine. Leaning so far forwards, neither hir fingers nor hir toes could actually reach the floor, and after just a few moments of foreplay hir sac had swollen so tremendously shi wasn't entirely sure how shi was going to be able to walk in the morning. Not that shi was concerning hirself with such matters, not when such a magnificent creature was pounding forcefully but lovingly away at hir.

''I can't believe... I fit..." Kelly whinnied, eyes clenched shut, lips trembling, tail arched high behind hir so shi could feel the cool night air against hir rump. "I could barely... get half... into Vasquez...!"

"Mmmm, I'm a Breeder," Coenne purred, straining to push hirself up higher, both paws gripping hir tree-hard sheath for support. "We're built for this..."

"You... have... muscles... there...?!"

The mink flexed an inner anatomy shi was just beginning to fully comprehend and appreciate, ripples of pressure tugging at Kelly's equine immense shaft, drawing hir still deeper if that were even possible. "You have no idea...," shi gasped again, feeling hir lover's flare nearly shoving at hir lungs. "D-dont stop... never stop..."

"F-fat chance..." Kelly almost squeaked, a tiny sound from such a powerfully-built herm. "I'm thinking... about baseball... and math... and I still... can't... hold... back...!"

Coenne's lusty grunts grew louder and louder as hir Breeder physiology continued to try to overcome Mariposa's technological restraints, hir sac a chorus of gurgles as six colossal seed-tanks expanded still further. Kelly was on the tips of hir hooves now, trying to stay on top. "You can do it," the mink cooed, twisting hir legs around, hir heels stroking at the backs of Kelly's thighs, toes tickling the horse's painfully overfilled balls. "Don't hold back... finish, if you can..."

"Are... you... I mean, did... you..."

The mink rolled hir head around, eyes showing white and grinning like a fool. "It's not the same... for Breeders..."

"What...?"

"This has been ALL orgasm... for me..." Coenne gushed, and Kelly could see the svelte mink-herm was dripping with sweat. "I think... I've gone blind..."

Kelly smirked back, tilting hir head down to kiss hir lower, rendered helpless by hir own colossal attributes. "Then your wish... is my command!"

Hir hips drew back, a far more difficult motion than shi'd expected given how tightly Coenne's insides squeezed around hir, and shi began to thrust slowly, deliberately. Each pump forced another shriek of ecstasy out of the Breeder, unable to tell the crests of hir climax from the valleys between them. No wonder they try to stop us from fucking, shi thought madly. I'd probably have to be locked up if I knew this is what happened!!

_ _

Kelly's breaths became raspy, girlish yelps as shi felt hir own masculine orgasm approaching, thighs slicked with hir own juices and practically soaked by Coenne's. Hir sac tightened hard against hir backside and shi drew back a final time, braced hir hips, and drove forwards with all the force that remained in hir body. Liquid fire swirled through hir loins, the underside of hir shaft bulging violently as pre gave way to gallons of seed...

... until Coenne's internal muscles clamped down with the force of a vise, halting Kelly's eruption mid-spasm. The much larger horse's eyes bulged out, a wail of questioning disbelief filling the air as hir already oversized balls suddenly bloated out in all directions as hir production was backed up.

"I said... 'if you can'..." Coenne noted, massing Kelly's shaft anew, once shi was sure hir lover had been stalled. "Gotta make this... memorable..."

_ _

Kelly shook hir head, trying to clear out the cobwebs. The unexpected cessation had bordered on agony, but hir new nigh-invulnerable body had adapted remarkably well and simply dumped even more endorphins into hir system. Shi rocked back and forth tenderly, feeling hir now badly-over-capacity testes sloshing against Coenne's still vastly larger and more numerous ones.

"I... ha-a-a-a-ate... you..." shi whispered into Coenne's ear, tightening hir grip once more as shi prepared for a second assault.

"I love you, too," Coenne purred, wondering how many times shi could pull that trick off.

---

"Should have wished for... unnff... bigger paws!"

Hir paws were already as big as most Crewmates' torsos, especially Speedy's, but they still covered only a small portion of hir genetically-modified maleness. Hir hindlegs flailed weakly at the air, clutching at nothing, while hir forelegs massaged with all the strength shi could muster. Shi leaned forwards, pressing hir breasts against the rock-hard upper arc of hir shaft, paws gripping tightly and stroking up and down, back and forth, over and over, but there was only so much shi could reach.

Flopped over onto hir barrel's side and groping with wild abandon, the vast majority of hir shaft remained untouched, and indeed shi could hardly reach more than two-thirds of the way to hir twitching, flaring glans. Twelve feet long in the body, hir cock was now more than twice that, and every little gasp of delight, moan of pleasure and shudder of ecstasy added another inch. The mission's senior theoretical xenobioligist didn't think any living tissue would be able to handle the sorts of pressures shi was being subjected to, but shi looked forward to further empirical testing.

Shi glanced back over hir shoulder, admiring the lines of hir tauric body and the way hir black bulk contrasted so nicely with hir pink shaft before feeling another ripple and surge pass through hir tail. That colossal fluffy mass stretched out so far behind hir it was nearly touching the skimmer, and all the strength shi could muster could barely swish it back and forth more than a couple feet. More worrying, the rapidly-increasing weight was forming a small depression in the soil behind hir.

"Maybe... too much?" shi giggled, not even willing to entertain such a silly thought with an answer.

Hir underbelly lacked visible testes, simply because there wouldn't have been any room for them, what with the dimensions hir sheath had achieved. No, it had been a much simpler matter in the endless dreamy playground of neural-D to simply shift a few genes around, alter some musculature, and move hir seed-makers a little further back, into hir tail.

And when that had been done, why, it had been a matter of but a thought to add another pair, drawing on more of the mission's stored genetic material. Then another pair. Then another pair. Then another...

Shi didn't know how many orbs were stuffed into that monstrosity of a tail, and Mariposa had been too stunned to actually answer, but each one was filling with wild orgiastic abandon, a small black-and-white mountain of skunk and spunk.

With that thought shi felt something within hir give way, some valve rupture, some obstacle suddenly removed. Veins just below the surface of hir shaft distended in a cascade of blood, shifting and wriggling as they strained to cope with the load. Tina bucked as though riding a wild stallion, which in a certain manner of speaking shi was, as the urethral underside of hir shaft bulged far larger than even shi would have guessed with the Breeder's pent-up climax.

When I finally get to do this to someone, we're going to need all the medical personnel on standby, shi mused in the final moment before hir orgasm obliterated all rational thought. The oversized and undersexed skunktaur jerked once, twice...

... and threw back hir head and screamed. Almost dwarfed by the immensity of hir endowments, shi was helplessly along for the ride as shi erupted, countless gallons of potent seed geysering across the clearing, more than the other Breeders together could possibly hope to match. Again and again shi came, the spreading pool flowing downhill and gathering momentum as the slope increased. With an IQ dangerously close to 200, shi nonetheless lost track of hir shuddering, groaning outbursts.

Shi did realize that hir tail was only shrinking back down in size with extreme reluctance, and with the initial pressure released shi was now practically pumping out a steady flow that felt like it could go on forever. Shi struggled to calculate volumes, in terms of multiples of potential mates body volumes, and wondered just how shi could ever safely mate.

As the minutes passed and hir brain descended from the foggy heights of pure, perfect bliss, shi stretched out all six limbs and plumped up hir bosom against hir muzzle, their pillowy softness helping to lull hir into a dazed slumber. Shi continued to come, body rocking back and forth as hir shaft flexed with each load, and shi knew shi would carry on for quite some time. Shi enjoyed hir 'afternoon breaks', the most relaxing sleep shi could manage these days, and was reasonably sure that the natural precipitative drainage of this region of Planet could handle the increased flood levels shi provided.

"Someday," shi murmured, all six paws rubbing giddily at hir sore flesh. "Someday you're going to make someone very, very... happy. And big," shi added, almost as an afterthought.

As hir snores mingled with the wet, sticky splashes of hir perpetual orgasm, the local flora and fauna, when the distinction could be made, seemed to pause. All buzzing, chirping and soughing ceased, and with a single intent, a single purpose, all of the myriad forms of life turned and swarmed towards the slow-motion avalanche of Tina's ejaculation, blocking it and guiding it, redirecting it and collecting it.

And, as always, by the time shi woke up, it would be almost all gone and shi would feel reassured that this area, at least, would not be harmed by hir irrepressible urges.

---

"Why is he still following us?"

Gosh's path had taken them in a wide, circuitous loop through Hearth and back around to the residential neighborhood's clusters of habitation modules. Every couple dozen paces another article of clothing marked their passing, until now, as they approached Mariposa's little cottage at the long end of the path, the lean four-armed kangaroo wore not a stitch, while Gosh was clad only in hir buttercup-yellow safety shorts.

"I can't get these... urnngg... with one hand," the violet bobcat griped, still walking with the smaller Medico wrapped around hir body like a most peculiar vest. The bountifully-endowed herm was quite obviously aroused, but it was that arousal that made the binding garments more difficult to remove.

"I don't think you heard me," Mariposa whispered, nuzzling and nibbling at Gosh's feline ears. "The Colonel is still following us."

"Maybe he likes to watch? We could ask him to join in... maybe HE can get these damn shorts off..."

The roo wriggled her hips enticingly against Gosh's plush belly, the base of hir thick tail thumping meaningfully against the bobcat's loins. "Don't you even think about it. A menage-a-deux is already a big leap for me!"

"You may need to perform an emergency shorts-ectomy on me, I think these might be permanent... OW, and now things are cramping!"

"What things?" Mariposa leered, leaning back to lick at Gosh's nose.

"THINGS!"

The roo dropped her hips a little lower, grinding suggestively. "These things?"

"And here everyone thought you weren't into... things."

Mariposa nodded and smiled a sad little smile. "I know. I... try to ignore those parts of my mind."

"That's not your 'mind' your rubbing on my junk right now," Gosh noted, accelerating a little bit as they rounded the final corner and could finally see the doctor's front door. "You can't ignore things like sex and desire and... and love, dear. That's not why we're here."

"Here on Planet?"

"Here, as in, existing. As in the Universe!"

"You're getting very philosophical, considering I'm naked right now."

"Best time to get philosophical," Gosh giggled, trotting up the short steps. "All your mental filters are down, and you're emotionally vulnerable. If you can't self-analyze now, when can you?"

"Maybe when the Colonel isn't watching us?"

Gosh froze, one paw on Mariposa's rump, the other on the hab module's front door. Hir bobtail tail swished back and forth, and shi turned slowly. Sure enough, Colonel Stacey's unmistakably wolfish form was three modules down, standing upright, hands behind his back, as imperious as ever.

"Maybe he's just.... really concerned about you?" Gosh smirked, giving the little roo a squeeze. "Come on, you know he just wants the best for you."

"Yeah, but this is a... PERSONAL moment."

"Ebony and Guido have been fucking in the streets all week," the feline pointed out.

"That's different! They're... THEM!"

"I might almost be insulted," the herm replied primly.

"Oh, you know that's not what I mean, just... one second." Slowly, reluctantly, the slender medico unwrapped herself from Gosh's lush figure, stepping bravely out from behind her burly protector to stand, fully nude, on her front porch. "Colonel?" she called out loudly.

"Da," came a voice from right above her ear, the comm fibre automatically detecting the vocal imperative.

Mariposa froze, mouth suddenly going dry. "S-sir..." she spoke carefully, her oversized eyes focusing with laser intensity on the wolfish figure watching them. "Where are you?"

"Observing water intake process at beach. Is fascinating."

The towering wolf's mouth did not move, and indeed Mariposa and Gosh could hear the sound of waves lapping whenever the Colonel's comm channel was open. "So you're not in Hearth," she croaked.

"Of course not. Why are asking?"

The wolf, who by all appearances absolutely was Stacey, turned and vanished around the corner of the hab module. Mariposa put her lithe figure to its most strenuous test yet and sprinted the fifty yards in the blink of an eye, Gosh following but considerably slower, and dashed around the corner in hot pursuit.

To find no-one there.

She carried right on through to the back of the module in two long strides, Gosh darting around counter-clockwise to try and cut the intruder off, but they both emerged, wild-eyed and empty-handed.

"What is happening there, Chief Medico?" Colonel Stacey smoke over the comm, voice all business.

Her newly-honed and enhanced senses able to pick out the tiniest motions of each blade of grass, the faint rustle of every insect, the subtle differences in heat and light all around her, Mariposa could do nothing but shrug helplessly, pleading to the clouds for a sign.

"I don't know, sir," she started to respond, noting the mirrored expression of exasperation on Gosh's face as they moved to embrace, some small motion of comfort amidst the chaotic situation. "We just-"

She was interrupted by a warbling series of bleeping musical notes through her comm, her eyes somehow managing to widen another fraction of an inch. "Oh no," she breathed. "Oh, no!"

_ _

In an instant Gosh's arms were empty, the hyperactive little roo all but a blur as she raced back to her hab module. The perplexed bobcat followed, still trying to make the slightest bit of sense of the most recent thirty seconds and coming up empty. "What is it?" shi called, stepping through the Medico's open front door, thoughts of dalliances with the sexy doctor completely out of hir mind.

Shi found Mariposa hunched over over a small desk, typing furiously into her private workstation. "No, no, no, no, NO!"

"Medico!" Stacey snapped over the comm. "What is happening? Explain!"

It seemed that not all of her protocols had been locked out, Gosh noted, moving closer but careful to keep away from the roo's dangerously swishing tail. "Mari? What is it?"

Mariposa's four paws stopped typing, her head hanging low as whatever information she had been searching for flashed across her screen. "Sir," she began, each word falling like lead weights. "We had just witnessed... a figure approximately identical to you in the residential courtyard here at Hearth. The person... vanished. Utterly. When given pursuit. And..."

Here she swallowed again, the inexplicable scene with Stacey's doppelganger still falling second place to the all-too possible. "And... Breeder Coenne is pregnant."