After a few scenes from Pai’s POV, we’re back to Graf. I’m not entirely happy with the timing and pace of this segment and will likely revise the heck out of it prior to sending to my copyeditor. Still, raws are raws, to get something down “on paper” to keep the story moving.

I take this time to educate a potential reader about Ildi, for anyone who has not read about here in my two short story collections. She sure takes after her mother when it comes to fecundity. I suppose I’ll have to know more about her family before all of this is over; I cannot really imagine her kids liking the idea of their mom being worshiped as a goddess.

Graf has never heard of a strip club. That’s hilarious.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“You’re sure you don’t need to be on the flight deck?” Graf asked Pai, sitting next to him on the forward observation deck of the small S-2 saucer.  That reminds me…  “And another thing:  no going outside without my permission, Wife.  I don’t want to lose you the same way I discovered you.”

“I told you already,” she said with a roll of her wonderful eyes, “I am fully in control of INS Caper.  It was autopiloted to us – and boy did those kids get a shock – and here we are on our way north.  Should be at our first stop in five minutes, too.

“And,” she concluded with a kiss, “I promise.  Even if this body was wrecked, besides losing a few memories, my totality is elsewhere.”

That is still so hard to understand.  He looked at the tablet in his hand.  “So the town was called Fort Wayne, then Trudeau during the Canadian occupation, and now back to Fort Wayne?”

“Yes, the Canadians called it their Winter Capital as things were getting just too cold up in Ottawa for the spoiled politicians.  I’d have loved to airdropped them into one of our Russian winters.  Losers.” The ship slowed as it drifted into a cloudbank.  “We’ll put down just a little to the north of the old town center.  I don’t want Caper to advertise we’re here, so I’ll wait until nightfall.  Think of anything we could do for a few hours, Husband?”

She could tell he instantly thought of Alix and their promise.

“Anyway,” she carried on, “we’ve what should be local-looking clothes, plus a rucksack and bolt-action rifle each; a battle rifle would not have been subtle.  From our touchdown, I wanted to walk south to their convention center and college, both reopened by the Canadians once they occupied.  There are still some active farms and ranches scattered about, but as an admin center, there are more in the old downtown than most Midwestern towns.”

“And, from what Aurelia sent into your mind this morning, we should look for signs of Ildi?” He tapped a few times on his tablet and raised it, looking at the young woman with hair a bit like Pai’s, but redder, dark eyes, and a captivating little bow of a mouth.  All under a silver halo with crystalline wings spread out behind her.  “I get that being under the Canucks, these people would not really take to Aurelia, so maybe they see her as a semi-divine alternative?”

“They sure wouldn’t cotton to Mom, after we took the west and central part of their country!” she laughed.  “I know you read the brief on Ildi, but I know more.  Let me get you some water and a snack, and I’ll tell you the story of her forming and what she’s been doing, since.”

Chewing his jerky and cheese and sipping water, he listened to this demi-human’s emergency fusion with Aurelia’s nephew at an experimental reactor in Warring States China, their separation days later, and her coming back Changed.  “Just like in one of our Constructs, everyone has a residual self-image, and don’t you dare bring up my mom being a dog, and that was hers.  It was deemed too dangerous to rewrite her mind, so there she is.”

She carried on.  Very little of the later stuff I know.  Married, nine kids, so far; they age slower, I’ve learned.  Spends a lot of her time in the East:  Japan, Chu, and a few other Chinese states.  They hold her in high regard for some reason and she seems to be a gifted diplomat.  How in the world did she get popular in out of the way places like this?  Or Mexico, too?  After all, the Mexicans have a demi-human queen with their blood on Mars.  He sighed.  I miss fishing and farming, sometimes.

“Then we’ll take a vacation, all of us, back at your Dad’s place when this mission is done,” Pai said, reading his mind.

“Thank you, Wife.  Anything else to tell me?  Then I’d like a nap before you take us down.”

Her kiss was his answer.

She set up down in a small clearing next to some water towers in a bend of the St. Joseph River.  To save power, the ship was on the ground for once.  I’d joked that it does lock and she has the keys, right.  Pai just told me to get my stuff and come on.  Through a side hatch I didn’t even know existed, we walked out into the gathering dusk.

“How far do we have to go this evening?” he asked as she led him through the trees and brush.

“It’s a bit over seven kilometers to the college.  Another one or two west to the convention center,” she replied, holding back a branch for him.

“Should have brought a canoe,” he muttered, glancing left at the small river.

“We’ve spent most of the last two months riding, you need more exercise,” she laughed.  “Ah, just where I thought:  this path leads south, between the river and that neighborhood over there.”

“Don’t see any lights,” Graf noted, happy to be on a road, even if it was gravel.  “This area abandoned all these years?  If so, they are likely all gutted.”

They came to where the path continued south and also bent west.  Now it was cracked asphalt.  “Used to be a bike or jogging path,” Pai explained, “which we will continue to follow.  You can see there is some electric lighting here and there, and if that’s true of the college area, we can look around a bit before your bedtime.”

“I just took a nap, Pai.  I’m fine.”

“Then you can take me to a strip club.  Maybe I can make some money for us!”

“A what?” he demanded.  “What does that mean?”

“I can tell from your voice you’re not kidding.” She lightly punched his shoulder.  “I was.  It is a kind of bar where women take their clothes off.”

Given his low-tech, isolated background, Graf had never heard of the like.  And did not like her suggestion.  “If there is such a thing, my wife will not so much as get near it.  Clear?”

“You know this body isn’t me,” she pushed, just because she could.  “You’ve seen it naked, so why not – ”

“No!” he yelled.

They were silent for at least fifteen minutes.  She took his hand.  “You do care.  And I love you for it.”