Chapter 4(OB)
The sailboat continued heading south as night fell, sailing unerringly on into the dark. J3N didn't have the ocular upgrades for night vision, being only a baseline model, and couldn't see a thing. Apart from the stars, there was no light of any kind.
S41 line salesmen like Z8C had night vision eyes as standard and Z8C could apparently see clearly in the blackness. He continued to steer and operate the boat, apparently completely unbothered.
"Your oxygen tank is getting low J3N. Hold your breath now while I change your gas bottle," Z8C informed her out of the dark.
J3N obediently took a deep breath, and heard the sounds of Z8C fiddling with the air hose and gas bottles for about 20 seconds. She then heard a hiss and felt the air flowing into her mask once more.
"Ok you can breathe again now. I will change your bottle again in about 3 hours." Z8C informed her.
"Are we getting close to my new husband now?" J3N asked hopefully.
"Not even half way yet. We will not even reach the mouth of river 20B until just before dawn. Then we will have to follow the river far inland to reach the farm. It won't be fast." Z8C informed her.
"Are we going to stop to get some sleep soon?" J3N asked.
"We can't afford the oxygen to stop for a proper sleep. You can nap if you like, but I will have to wake you up every 3 hours to change your air bottle. It's too hazardous to weigh anchor out here in the ocean anyway. Once we reach the calmer water of river 20B, I will anchor us in the shallows and have a two hour nap to keep me going. Then we will continue on our way," Z8C replied.
"Are you going to be ok with so little sleep?" J3N asked worriedly.
"It won't be pleasant, but we have little choice. I couldn't afford more oxygen than this. We just have to make do," Z8C admitted.
"Do you want me to stay up and keep you company?" J3N offered.
"Much as I would like that, it would be better if you nap. That way I could turn down your oxygen flow rate a bit, would save me some money." Z8C said gratefully.
J3N nodded in the dark and settled down to sleep.
***...
J3N was woken up twice during the night to change air bottles, quickly drifting off again in the lowered oxygen flow, and was then woken in the light of morning to find the boat anchored in the shallows of a wide river.
"We are at anchor now in river 20B. I will change both our air bottles and then I will nap for two hours. I am setting an alarm clock but I want you to wake me in two hours if the alarm clock doesn't sound." Z8C informed her.
Z8C gave her some cheap looking bread to eat, and a flask of fresh water. He provided her with a bucket to toilet in, another bucket and bar of cheap soap to use river water to clean up her chastity belt and anus afterwards, and requested that she not empty the toileting bucket as he needed the poo for the garden back home.
A bit of fiddling with air hoses and bottles later, and Z8C settled down in the far end of the bottom of the boat for his nap.
J3N ate and drank, and daintily relieved herself in the bucket. Her chastity belt did not cover her back passage at all, only interested in protecting her hymen, so didn't get too disgusting. J3N was very fastidious however, and spent a full 30 minutes thoroughly cleaning her intimate areas and chastity belt with soap and river water, unable to stand being dirty. She then stripped out of her dress and bra after checking that no one was around to see, and gave herself a complete full body wash.
The river was completely sterile by the look of it, and surrounded on both sides by a desolate moonscape of bare rock and a bit of sand and other dead sediments, with loose dead rocks here and there. Down the river behind them, the ocean was visible a few hundred meters away, the roar of the surf in the air and the ocean breeze blowing briskly onto the land.
Off in the distance over the land J3N could see distant hills and mountains of bare rock, not pretty snow capped tall pointy mountains, but low ugly things, like upside down bowls, weather beaten and eroded by the elements. The river stretched on inland for as far as the eye could see, flowing over a very flat landscape all the way to the horizon.
The river water was clearly sterile, but did contain some very fine lifeless silt particles suspended in the water. J3N wasted a lot of effort trying to rinse all of the very fine silt off her skin, it wasn't even noticeable but she was just extremely fastidious, compelled to be clean for the pleasure of her husband.
J3N eventually gave up and let her naked body wind dry in the ocean breeze, before putting her bra and wedding dress back on. She fussed over her hair without a mirror, and then waited in silence for the last 5 minutes until the alarm clock was due to ring.
The alarm clock rang with a dull clatter, and Z8C awoke groggily and turned off the alarm clock. He looked terribly tired, but after spending 5 minutes waking himself up, he dragged the anchor back into the boat with straining muscles in the high gravity, and continued their journey up the river.
"Why is it called river 20B?" J3N asked.
"All the rivers and bays are in code here. No one could be bothered naming all the rivers on the planet. The system actually works better than naming, as its easier to find on a map in numbered code. The letter B is code for "south of the space port", the number 20 is a tally of how many rivers down it is. Heading south from the space port, you will pass river 1B, then 2B, and so on until you reach river 20B. The 20th river you see." Z8C explained.
"Are there a lot of rivers then?" J3N asked.
"Yeah, heaps of them. A lot of them are creeks or streams rather than actual rivers, but anything big enough to get a boat up is counted as a river here." Z8C said.
"Where are the farms?" J3N asked.
"Further inland, away from the sea. Huge storms sometimes blow in from the sea, destroys the crops. So the farmers go far enough inland to avoid the storms. Be seeing farms soon enough, just takes a while to get past the storm zones." Z8C explained.
They sailed on for about an hour before changing air bottles yet again, and that entire time J3N saw nothing alive. It was really spooky just how alone they were out here, the only living things of any kind for as far as she could see.
Another hour and they saw a cargo boat full of grain traveling the other way on the river, and Z8C stopped for a chat, the way that people in isolated communities do.
"Z8C? What are you doing all the way out here?" One of the crewmen asked.
"Delivering J3N here to Seth Renwick, he purchased one of my slave girls as a wife." Z8C said conversationally.
"Oh very nice, wow she's gorgeous, Seth is a lucky man." The man said impressed.
"I have many sisters still for sale, all on promotional sale. They would be very pleased if you bought them," J3N told the man hopefully.
"Tempting, tempting. Let's see how you go with Seth first, make sure everything works down below if you catch my drift," the man said, slightly offending J3N with his words.
"Oh sorry girl, I meant no offence," the man quickly added, reading her body language.
"J3N has a full money back guarantee if she is found to be infertile from natural causes, full refund offered," Z8C said quickly to defuse the tension.
"Really? Well colour me interested. How much for one?" The man asked.
"Me too, I wouldn't mind one if it's money back," other crewmen added, joining the conversation.
"50000 credits," Z8C said happily.
The men all winced at the price.
"Emperor's balls, that's a bit pricey!" The men exclaimed.
"You get what you pay for. The 679 line are bred to be the ultimate wives. Perfectly obedient to their husbands, 100 percent faithful to one man alone but bred to never say no to sex. They cook, they clean, they never nag or complain, have a charming personality and natural intelligence to be interesting wives. No woman you ever meet in real life will be as perfect to marry as a 679." Z8C explained passionately, a natural salesman.
The men all looked very intrigued and Z8C continued to proclaim all the benefits of owning their very own 679 line wife. J3N held different poses, showing off her perfectly sculpted figure, showing everything that modesty permitted.
"You could come home every night to this, with a hot meal cooked and bed all ready. She will never say no, never be difficult. An obedient wife like man was meant to have," Z8C was saying.
"What about kids? Will they be normal? I don't want my sons to be spineless sissies," one of the men asked.
"The submission genes are automatically cancelled by the presence of a Y chromosome. The 679 is designed so that her sons will be real men. Your daughters will be well behaved, chaste and obedient, completely obeying their fathers and not dating anyone without their father's permission." Z8C reassured him.
"The daughters won't be whores?" The man asked uncertainly.
"Far from it. They are bred to be faithful to a single man, a man that YOU get to choose. They will then be model wives for the man you choose for them, perfectly chaste and faithful, a credit to the community." Z8C assured him.
The men were clearly interested, but still didn't say yes. 50000 credits was a lot of money after all, certainly not spent without serious consideration before hand. But the men were clearly interested, and would think about it over the coming days. It would take a lot more thinking and deciding, but they were potential customers for the future.
Eventually both boats continued on their way, and Z8C gave cheaply printed business cards to all the crewmen to think about it.
J3N and Z8C had huge smiles on their faces as soon as they were out of sight of the other boat. Increasing business for Wsuioo gave both of them nearly orgasmic pleasure, an imperative bred into them to increase business for their creators. Z8C in particular looked so satisfied that he might have just finished having sex, the S41 line got intense pleasure from selling slaves. He hadn't actually sold a slave to those crewmen, but it was clearly in the cards that at least one of them might buy one in the future.
The sailboat continued on its way, the ocean breeze still filling the sail. The wind was getting gradually less strong over distance from the ocean, but the lack of vegetation really helped to carry the wind far inland.
The river branched in places, with small side branches joining the main branch of the river, and they stuck to the main river, ignoring these side options. The river had a current, but not very strong, and the sail easily carried them past the feeble current.
For miles they kept on sailing up the river, following occasional twists and turns until the ocean was no longer visible behind them. The ocean might be out of view, but the ocean breeze still continued, carrying them ever onwards up the river.
J3N was almost in despair of ever seeing an end to this dead landscape when the very first farm came into view in the distance.
In the distance she could make out a large field of some sort of tall grass, most likely some sort of grain. It was still too far away to see clearly but was a yellowish green colour and looked quite tall. J3N pointed excitedly.
"Ah, you are looking at the first of the farms. That crop there is a low oxygen strain of wheat the locals grow. It can grow without oxygen, stores some of the oxygen it makes from photosynthesis, stores it in the sap and carries it down to the roots. The roots grow even without oxygen, but the oxygenated sap let's them grow faster." Z8C explained conversationally.
"Not drugs?" J3N asked.
"Oh they will certainly be growing somewhere in that field to be sure, but not out in plain view from the river. Very occasionally a sheriff from the town will come down the river, just to observe. The sheriffs know it's going on and don't mind so long as it's out of sight, but can never be too careful that an agent of the adeptus arbites hasn't infiltrated the planet to secretly audit the local sheriffs, so they have to at least pretend to uphold imperial law," Z8C explained.
"What drugs do they grow?" J3N asked.
"A mix of different drugs, low oxygen strains of course. I deliberately have no direct dealings with the drug trade, I don't really want to know the criminal details. Local scuttlebutt is that they mostly grow opioid "bliss grass", some sort of wind pollinated grass, not native to Terra, that coincidentally happens to contain the same chemical as the Terran opium poppy, convergent evolution you know," Z8C informed her.
"They then apparently turn the bliss grass into uncut heroin, I'm not sure how, and it is packaged up and discreetly hidden on the shuttles, sold to the merchant ships without transaction records, all cash in hand, very hush hush," Z8C explained.
"If my husband is growing drugs, then it's my duty to help him. I want to know everything, so I can be a good wife," J3N said.
"You will not learn it from me, it is against my breeding to commit a crime, nor be involved in a criminal conspiracy. Your husband will teach you everything you need to know, I will have no part of it," Z8C stated firmly.
J3N dropped the issue and went back to looking at the surroundings. The farm gradually creeped closer, on the left side of the river. Further down the river another farm was now visible on the right hand side, and the river seemed to be flanked by crops from then onwards.
The first of the wheat on the left side farm creeped past the boat, and J3N looked at it with interest. It was growing in the sandy sediment that passed for dirt on this planet, with trace quantities of manure sprinkled on top of the ground to give the plants some nutrients to work with. It was clearly well watered by local rain, and seemed to be thriving. The wheat stopped a few meters away from the shore, and a line of stones formed a border to the field, presumably to prevent soil erosion.
"All wind pollinated, wheat is, is fine without any insects to pollinate it. It grows great here, no pests to eat it, no diseases neither. The carbon dioxide level is quite high too, excellent growing conditions," Z8C chatted conversationally.
The wheat stretched endlessly down the river, broken only by the occasional vehicle track. Standing on tiptoes J3N could just see over the wheat and got a view of corrugated iron buildings off in the distance. The farm on the right then passed by too, and from then on the river was flanked by wheat fields.
The river was joined periodically by smaller branching side rivers, and here and there the shores were too rocky for crops, but apart from that it was an endless monotony of wheat. It didn't seem to have proper moorings for boats, but here and there a suitably deep bit of shoreline had crude mooring pegs screwed into the bedrock, with crude iron ramps sitting by the river bank to let wheat be carried onboard with ease. The odd sailboat could be seen pulled up on the shoreline, padlocked to harness points screwed into the bedrock to deter theft.
It was all extremely rural and crude, nothing fancier than the occasional windmill water pump visible anywhere. No people were visible, presumably too busy working the farms to be able to sit around the riverbanks, and it was only slightly less lonely than when the river was all dead rock.
The wheat soon started to dull the strength of the wind slightly, with only the upper half of the sail catching the full breeze, and the progress slowed as the river got steadily narrower over time. The sun was quite gentle, but the greenhouse effect was high, causing it to get steadily hotter over the day as the heat was trapped in, and away from the cool ocean it was getting uncomfortably warm.
"It will rain soon. Feel that rising humidity, it will get worse and worse until we feel like we will die, and then all that humidity will drop down, the high gravity makes it rain more easily. Before evening it will be pouring with rain, and keep raining into the night until it drops all it's humidity. When you live here long enough you learn how to predict the weather." Z8C told her.
"What are we going to do when it rains?" J3N asked with concern.
"We will get wet, can't stop for a bit of rain," Z8C informed her apologetically.
***...
It did indeed rain a few hours later, oh how it rained! It was raining heavily, but very weirdly. The drops were not big like they would be in normal gravity, it was more like a cloud being forced down on the ground to transfer the moisture directly to the ground almost!
The gravity was too high for water droplets to remain airborne long enough to form large drops, the individual drops were tiny, like the size of a small grain of sand, but they made up for it with sheer QUANTITY!
The rain certainly wasn't hazardous, neither to people nor crops. It didn't rain down like bullets, more fluttered down like particularly heavy snowflakes, drenching everything without hard impacts. It was a very efficient way of transferring a lot of moisture very quickly, sticking to absolutely everything and completely soaking it in seconds.
The wind still blew, but the rain slowed it down, making progress especially sluggish through this blinding haze. J3N could barely see 10 meters ahead in this strange mist like rain, and even Z8C had to reduce the sail for safety in this blinding cloud.
J3N was soaked, absolutely soaked, as was Z8C and the boat. Z8C hurriedly covered the toilet bucket to keep the valuable poo safe from too much water, and used the other bucket to scoop water out of the bottom of the boat. The boat was filling up with water with alarming speed from this strange rain, and Z8C had to work hard to keep enough of the water out.
J3N tried to help scoop out water, but she wasn't strong enough to lift much at all over the side of the boat. Z8C was not deterred, and just kept sailing onwards, albeit quite slowly, for hour after hour, multitasking between piloting the boat and scooping out the water.
The rain just went on and on, apparently nearly endless, and got heavier over time as the day drew to an end. The rain had cost them a lot of time, and only the GPS let them navigate through the blinding downpour. It was getting dark now, and the rain was getting worse as the air temperature decreased, lacking the heat to remain airborne at much smaller droplet sizes.
As night fell there was so little light that even Z8C couldn't see properly, and he grudgingly turned on a small waterproof electric lamp to see in this choking mist. Z8C looked absolutely exhausted in the lamp light, frantically scooping out water as the rain got steadily worse. He had had only 2 hours sleep, and been working nonstop for the last two days.
They didn't have the spare oxygen to stop sailing, even in this, so just struggled on with this horrible journey, praying to the Emperor to stop the rain. The rain only got heavier over the course of the next 4 hours, the temperature sluggishly getting cooler, it got heavier and heavier, then suddenly had no more humidity left to give, and just stopped like a bad dream.
The exhausted Z8C scooped the boat out to only a few inches of water in the bottom, and increased the sail as the stars became visible enough for him to see in the dark.
There was no time to rest, they simply had to keep going, ever deeper inland towards the remote farm of Seth Renwick.
***...
J3N woke with a start to find Z8C waking her up to change her air bottle in the light of predawn. More than half were now empty, and Z8C still needed to get home again after delivering her. It was getting desperate.
"My new husband will surely give you some more air to get home, it would be murder to do otherwise," J3N reassured the worried looking Z8C.
Z8C clearly hadn't slept at all, and looked quite sick. He didn't want to risk another nap, fearing getting caught in more rain if they didn't take advantage of every spare moment to keep moving.
Z8C nodded hopefully, he looked really unwell.
"Are we far away still?" J3N asked pessimistically.
"No not far now, we should arrive by around midday if we have no further delays. Seth Renwick will be getting worried by now, we should have arrived late last night." Z8C reassured her.
"Will you be staying long when we arrive? You need a good nights sleep, you look really unwell." J3N told him.
"Seth Renwick is a decent man as far as I can tell, he will probably give me some oxygen and a bit of shelter to rest for a few hours. If he lets me and if he gives me more oxygen for the return journey then I will stay long enough to get some sleep. But I must be on my way no later than dawn tomorrow, I must return to my little side shop to make money, I have already lost far too many days of work, I'm in danger of starving this coming week if I don't make up the difference," Z8C said gravely.
J3N nodded grimly in understanding, she would miss her intrepid travel companion.