Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- May 7, 2001
- Messages
- 1,820
- Points
- 0
by Strelnikov
Copyright 2017 by the author
Part 1
Well, there she is, thought Megan Owen – my new home. Megan was slender and attractive, a little taller than medium height – she had shoulder-length wavy dark brown hair, gray eyes, and the sort of fair skin that freckles on the way to a suntan. At age 18, Megan was a work in progress, pretty enough but with features a little too strong for conventional beauty and a serious and somewhat reserved demeanor. In a few more years, she would be absolutely stunning. She was dressed in a blue-and-gray shipsuit, a sort of close-fitting coverall, and black slipper-like shipshoes.
The little motorized cart purred over the tarmac of the planet Thanet IV’s Port Manston landing field. Megan could see her destination at the far end of the field, in an area used by unscheduled shippers – tramps, in other words. Either the ship was a long way off, or it was very small.
It had drive capability for atmospheric and interplanetary flight, but those were just auxiliaries. The real Drive, Capital-D, was the Jump drive, that allowed the ship to evade Einstein’s Law and travel faster-than-light through hyperspace. Megan’s job – her first real job – was to provide the power for the drive.
Starship systems were straight-forward engineering; the problem, as always, was power. Power plants aboard naval vessels, Blue Riband liners and planetoid-size freighters used cantafordium cores. Smaller ships had to make do with lafyurassium, a compound that collected, transformed and amplified the energy released by laughing.
Starships need compact, high-intensity laughter-power sources that could be turned on and off at will. Tickling was the best way to create them, so Tickler and Ticklee – Ler and Lee – were job titles. Modern misconceptions to the contrary, the oarsmen on ancient merchant rowing galleys were free mariners, well paid for their strength and endurance. So it was with the Lees who powered the ships. The paths of interstellar commerce were made by the well-tickled feet of young women.
Picture a right angle Cartesian axis. The vertical axis is tickle-power output. The horizontal axis is age. Power output is essentially zero throughout early childhood. It rises slowly to the age of puberty, rises steeply through the teen years, and levels off at its peak level at physical maturity. Power output stays constant at peak level until somewhere around age 35. It begins a gradual decline afterward, then falls off sharply before leveling off at zero again by age 45.
There were a few male Lers – very few, because the usual progression was from Lee to Ler. Lees were always young women, because no one would hire a male Lee.
Why? Call the power output at puberty P1, and the peak output at maturity P2. P1 is about the same for everybody, regardless of gender. P2 is the number of X chromosomes, plus the same number raised to the same power, times P1. Males have just one X chromosome – the multiplier is 2. Females have two – the multiplier is 6.
Megan had already passed a number of bigger ships close to the administration complex, each in its landing bay. Some were loading or discharging cargo, swarming with workers and automated machinery. Others sat with their boarding ramps down, portals open, waiting for passengers. Now, approaching her own ship, she was able to take a closer look.
Like all of its class, it had the appearance of a cone, far shorter than it was wide, with the top sliced off and a squat cylindrical section placed horizontally between the pieces. A row of round sensors circled the cylindrical section. The conical skirt was perhaps 50 meters in diameter, and the ship was some 25 meters tall from base of skirt to the top. The ship had a dull gray coating above – chameleon-like, the coating mimicked the ship’s surroundings – and was painted an off-white color underneath. The drive nodes were visible under the skirt, three big white bulges spaced 120 degrees apart. It sat on three landing legs about 5 meters high, offset 60 degrees from the drive nodes. The portal was open, boarding ramp extended.
A sign with an electronic display declared that this was T/S Amanda Jennings F-0859-040. Megan turned off the marked path and stopped. She got out and was just reaching into the back for her bag when–
“Help you?”
Megan looked up. A pretty blonde emerged from under the ship, where she had been concealed by one of the landing legs. She was a little shorter than medium height, with an athletic figure, blue eyes, and shoulder-length wavy hair. She wore a silvery pale blue pullover shirt and shorts, and a pair of close-fitting silver bracelets. The shirt was something like a jersey, but close-fitting, with a v-neck and three-quarter length sleeves. The shorts were like gym shorts, with a self-adjusting waistband. She was barefoot – fingernails and toenails were painted a silvery blue that matched her clothing. She looked to be in her mid 20’s.
“I’m Megan Owen,” she said, and extended her hand. “Reporting for work. This is the Amanda Jennings, isn’t it?”
“This is the Mandy J, sure enough,” the blonde said. She started to take Megan’s hand, then realized that hers were full. She had a bottle of nail polish in one hand, the brush in the other. “Oops! Sorry! I was sitting in the shade, enjoying the air and painting my toenails. We didn’t expect you until later.” She capped the bottle, put it in a pocket and shook hands. “I’m Melissa Hollis – power room. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Get your gear – I’ll take you aboard.”
Megan unloaded her bag and sent the little cart on its way back to the terminal. They climbed the ramp and passed through the outer and inner portals to a circular passageway. “The skirt is in six segments,” Melissa said. “We’ve just gone through the first. It’s the ship’s boat bay, and it has the arms locker and a work station for cargo operations. The other five are cargo holds. Each of those has an outside escape hatch.”
Directly opposite the inner portal was an elevator. An emergency ladder ran up the wall next to it, closed at the top with a circular hatch.
“Engineering spaces are in the core,” Melissa said as they boarded the elevator. “You’ll see those after you’ve signed the ship’s articles. We have two crew levels. Top level is the bridge, ship’s office, power room and the Captain’s and Chief Officer’s cabins.”
The elevator stopped. “Here’s the second level,” Melissa said. This time the corridor was straight, with the elevator about in the middle. The ladder continued upward to another ceiling hatch.
“Common room on that side,” she continued. “Combination dining room, day room, exercise room, you name it. The galley is automated. Bathrooms on both ends of the hall. There’s four crew cabins and two staterooms for passengers. We can carry up to four passengers, but they’d better be real friendly.”
Melissa tapped a keypad next to a door. “Home sweet home,” she said as it opened. “You get first dibs on the bunks – take either one. Have a seat on the bottom bunk. Oh, and lose the shoes,” she added. “We don’t bother with ‘em on board. Floor covering stays cleaner that way.”
Megan toed off her shoes and sat. There was no place else to sit – the cabin was tiny, no longer than the bunks and maybe three times as wide. There were cabinets or lockers on the end wall, drawers underneath the bottom bunk. That was the extent of the furnishings.
By now, Megan had formed a general impression of the Amanda Jennings: meticulously clean and well maintained, but with a few rough edges. The atmosphere plant was adequate, but the air smelled faintly of machinery and lubricants, of the ghosts of dinners past, and of female bodies too close together. The glowing ceiling illumination was uneven, a little darker in some places. The paint on the walls was burnished from people brushing past, and worn to bright metal at door frames and corners. Worn-out sections of the resilient gray deck covering had been replaced at high traffic locations like doorways, but the colors didn’t match very well. Mandy J looked like what she was – a working merchant ship whose small crew did what was important, and let the rough end drag.
Melissa sat next to Megan. “This is a small ship, our maximum output is six girlpower,” she said. “We can run our life support and other onboard systems with one girlpower, keep station and maneuver with two, cruise with three, boost with four. We orbit and de-orbit with five. But to Jump into hyperspace, we need a single, mammoth burst of energy to be sustained until the process is completed. That takes six girlpower, and we all laugh our asses off for as long as it takes.
“So I’m asking you now. Are you sure this is what you want to do? I do it because I love to have my feet tickled – I’ve been at it 8 years, ever since I was 18. If you can’t stand tickling, leave and find other work. Because once we lift, you’re committed until we get back home.”
Megan had already thought that one over. “I’m sure,” she said.
Melissa lunged downward, scooped up Megan’s ankles in an arm lock and stood up – suddenly Megan was sprawled backward on the bunk, feet up, gravity working against her.
“Hey!” Megan said. “Eep!” she squealed as Melissa flicked her nails across a sole. “Hehe! HAHAHA! AH-HAHA-HAHA!” as Melissa dug in, well manicured nails dancing on ticklish flesh. Megan’s tickle laugh was a musical contralto, clear and not the least bit scratchy.
Melissa spider-walked her nails side to side across both soles – Megan’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed like mad. Melissa tickled an arch just behind the sole, getting a great reaction, then worked her way toward the heels, drawing figure-eight’s, spirals and other tickling shapes. Megan’s helpless laughter streamed out as Melissa flicked both heels like chording a guitar. Tickling a zig-zag path back up the arches came next – more laughter. Then Melissa made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet at once, just behind the big toes. That was the sweet spot, where Megan’s feet were unbearably ticklish – she arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Melissa quit and released the arm lock. Megan laid there, breathing hard, tears running down her cheeks. It had tickled so much!
“Still want to come along?” Melissa asked.
“Yah... Is that... all... you’ve got?” Megan gasped out.
Melissa laughed. “I like your spirit. OK, stow your gear,” she said. “You’ve got Lee working clothes like these, don’t you? Get ‘em on. I’ll meet you in the common room as soon as you’re changed, and I’ll take you to see the Chief Officer.”
Megan did as she was told. Megan’s jersey was blue, the shorts gray – she had worn them at school. She looked down at herself, made a few experimental movements. The outfit was well adapted for its purpose – it moved with her without binding at all. She was barely aware she had it on.
Megan padded barefoot to the common room. The resilient gray floor covering under her feet didn’t seem to have a temperature, either warm or cool. There was a sign posted on the common room wall – ILLEGITIMII NON CARBORUNDUM, it said in an antique font.
“What language is that, and what does it mean?” Megan asked, pointing at the sign.
“That’s the ship’s motto,” Melissa answered. “It’s in some ancient pre-Diaspora language, I forget which. It means, Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
Megan laughed. “Sounds good to me.”
“It was the Captain’s idea,” Melissa said. “Now come with me.”
Melissa guided Megan to the bridge level. They found another crew member at work in an office. The other was an attractive hazel-eyed woman with long, straight blonde hair, a little taller than medium height – she looked to be about 25. Like Melissa, she wore a pale blue jersey and shorts, silvery blue nail polish and silver bracelets. She was dictating a letter, bare feet propped up on the edge of the work surface, ankles crossed.
“Lori, this is Megan Owen, our new Lee,” Melissa said. “Megan, meet Lori Cowan, our Chief Officer.”
“Command – delete Melissa and save,” Lori told the computer. “Welcome aboard, Megan.” She saw Megan’s questioning look. “In case you’re wondering, we all dress like this while we’re aboard – Lee work clothes are a lot more comfortable.”
“Ship’s custom,” Melissa said. “Convenient, too.” Melissa gave Lori’s feet a quick tickle.
“Hehehe! Quit!” Lori said, and put her feet flat on the deck. “Melissa’s the senior Lee aboard. She’s incorrigible, but we like her anyway. Ready to sign the ship’s articles?”
Megan signed – she was an official member of the crew now.
“Take Megan to see Adrienne,” Lori said. “She’ll meet you in the common room.”
“Will do, Chief,” Melissa said. “Come on, Megan.”
“Lori’s our business manager,” Melissa said as they made their way to the common room. “She can squeeze a shilling so hard that Her Majesty screams. The bills get paid on time, the debts are being paid down, and most times there’s a little left over. She’s a sharp negotiator – her motto is “let’s make a deal”. We’re lucky to have her – she could be captain of her own ship, she has a Master’s Certificate.”
Engineer Adrienne Stuart was waiting in the common room. She was in her mid-20s, a tall, well-built brunette with fair skin and blue eyes. People spoke Anglish in the Thanet System; in Adrienne’s native Lochlann System, they spoke Scottic. But the languages were closely related – anyone who spoke one could easily learn the other. Adrienne had done so, though she still had a bit of a brogue.
“Welcome aboard, Megan,” Adrienne said. “Your school reports say you’re a better-than-average Ler. I’d like to see if that’s true.”
That suited Megan just fine. She had been a gifted amateur when she started school, the winner of numerous pick-up tickle fights. Even better, she had discovered long ago that she liked tickling other girls – it was great fun to make them giggle and laugh. With help from her instructors at school, she had used those things as a foundation to develop a high level of skill.
“Who’s the Lee?” Megan asked.
“Me,” Adrienne said. She had an engineer’s directness and no-nonsense attitude, but she obviously wasn’t the dour Scots engineer of legend.
“Why not me?” Melissa asked. “I love it – you don’t.”
“I want to see for myself, from the inside.” She crossed her wrists behind her back, silver bracelets touching. Melissa walked behind her and tapped the bracelets with a stylus. The material fused, binding Adrienne’s hands behind her back.
“Adrienne’s a shipboard rarity – a woman who doesen’t like to have her feet tickled,” Melissa explained. “But if that’s what the task demands, well... I guess it’s the Scot in her coming out.”
“Melissa could’ve had my job if she wanted it,” Adrienne said. “She has an Engineer’s Certificate, just like me.”
Melissa grinned. “I’d rather be a Lee. No worries, and all the tickling I can stand.”
“Which is plenty,” Adrienne said. “Have a seat, Megan, and let’s see what you can do.” She sat in a chair facing Megan’s and put her feet in Megan’s lap. “Melissa, stick around – you’re our Safety person.”
Megan trapped Adrienne’s ankles in a leg lock. “Any preference?”
“Find the sweet spots, then tickle me sil– eep! HA-HAHA-HAHAHA!” as Megan drew circles on both heels. The ticklish laughter went up a notch as she traced circles in Adrienne’s arches. Megan worked her way up both arches, then scratched a sole in the exact center, along the crease – Adrienne laughed like mad, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. Megan switched to the other sole crease, tickling with a single nail. Adrienne laughed helplessly, squirming and struggling.
Megan flicked her well-manicured nails on the balls of Adrienne’s feet, just behind the big toes – Adrienne arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs. Gratified by the response, Megan made a Peace sign and circled the nails on the balls of both feet, getting great reactions and a flood of laughter.
Megan held Adrienne’s toes back and scratched lightly under them, tickling the soft skin, and Adrienne laughed with wild abandon. Megan released the toes and tickled both soles two-handed, watching the toes twitch and curl, then down the arches to the ticklish heels. Adrienne bucked and squirmed and laughed her head off. Her feet were sensitized by the tickling – she didn’t have a sweet spot any more, so everything Megan did drove her wild.
Megan tickled Adrienne’s heels and arches, getting great reactions and wave after wave of helpless laughter. She tickled up the arches to the soles, making the toes twitch again, then held the toes back and tickled the stretched out soles. Adrienne laughed and laughed, musically, helplessly, face red, tears streaming – she was losing it, right on the edge. Megan shifted one hand under the right toes, the other to the left heel, and countermarched both hands, tickling from toes to heels and back. Then holding Adrienne’s toes back again, Megan attacked the soft skin underneath, tickling mercilessly. Adrienne laughed herself breathless.
“Good one!” Melissa said – she recognized art when she saw it.
“You’ll… do… fine… ” Adrienne gasped. She took a deep breath. “Turn me loose, Melissa, I’ll take her from here.”
“Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Melissa,” Adrienne said after the blonde left. “She’s a lot sharper than she chooses to appear – we respect her judgement and take advantage of it. Now come with me,” she continued. “Some of the places we’re going, you’ll need non-standard clothes. Let’s scan you into the database so the ship can make them for you.”
The room was on the lower level, in the engineering space at the ship’s core. It appeared to be a combination of a workshop and a nail salon set up to do pedicures for two customers.
Pedicures were a weekly feature of shipboard life. Unlike similar treatments ashore, the shipboard variety were deliberately done in a way that tickled like crazy – it was good Ler practice. Mainly, though, it kept the girls’ feet soft and made them more ticklish. That would pay off when they powered the drive.
On the bulkhead facing the chairs was a tool rack and work bench – some of the tools were the sort one might see in an electronics repair shop, others looked like pedicure stuff. Beside the rack was a shelf – it held two black spheres the size of bowling balls with yellow nodes on opposite sides. The spheres were the ship’s spare jenerators, Megan knew – automated ticklers. They were named for Jen Edmonds, the long-ago junior engineer who volunteered to test the prototype, and was almost tickled to death in the process.
“Two chairs?” Megan asked. “The training ship at school only had one.”
“You probably didn’t spend much time in the training ship,” Adrienne said. “I know I didn’t – we did most of our pedicures as class exercises. A trading ship has to be self sufficient, and it saves time to do two at once. Now strip to the buff, and we’ll get you scanned.”
In one corner of the room was a booth the size of a small closet, with a bench along the bulkhead beside it and hooks above the bench to hang clothing. Megan stripped and stepped inside the booth, closing the door behind her. There were two red footprint shapes on the deck. She stepped onto them and stood easy, head up and eyes closed. “Ready scan!” she called out.
“Hold still, starting now!” Adrienne called back.
As always, Megan felt nothing as the booth did a full body scan, though her mind suggested a line creeping down her body. It was purely psychological, she didn’t even really need to close her eyes. Nor did it take long – about 15 seconds maybe.
“OK, come on out,” Adrienne said. Megan dressed and went back to her cabin with Adrienne. Adrienne showed her how to access the ship’s technical manuals. Megan lit off her reader and settled in to read.
Shipboard modifications are like barnacles – they begin to accrete as soon as a ship enters service. This ship was considerably older than Megan. The electronic files were heavily annotated by everyone who had ever tweaked the ship’s systems. Even so, it could have been worse – pre-Diaspora bound-paper manuals would have been ragged and dog-eared, pencil-marked and grubby, verging on illegibility.
The rest of the crew drifted back over the next few hours. They assembled in the common room at lunchtime. As was typical of this ship class, the crew was young – Melissa was 26, Adrienne and Lori were only 25. They were short one Lee, so there were just five others. The atmosphere was egalitarian – all wore pale blue jerseys and shorts, silvery blue nail polish and silver bracelets, and all were barefoot.
Robin Sewell was the Captain. She was the only married crew member – a shapely brunette, 27 yrs old, about medium height, with bright blue eyes. Crack-the-whip discipline wouldn’t work on a ship this small, even if Robin had been so inclined. Here, she was first among equals, a colleague with more experience and greater responsibility. She was always willing to undertake any necessary task, no matter how menial, for the good of the venture. Still, there was never any doubt that she was the boss.
Pilot Amanda Grayson was 24, petite, with a cute shape, curly dark hair and brown eyes. She had a mischievous streak. She was all business on watch, but in her free time she was likely to instigate pick-up tickle fights with anyone. She enjoyed being tickled and tickling others. She especially liked tickling sobersides like Robin, Adrienne and Lori – she figured it did them good to let go a little.
Julie Ferguson was 23, small and trim, with great curves, dark brown hair and soft brown eyes. She was everybody’s friend – she could get along with anyone. She was a restless one. Her mother had married and taken a desk job after 12 yrs as a tramp trader – young Julie had loved the stories, had always known that this was what she wanted to do. Someday she might become a Captain or a ship’s Engineer. For now, she was happy to be a Lee. She had the most ticklish feet aboard.
Anne and Bethany Long were identical twins, 21 yrs old – they were little beauties, with manes of fiery red hair, jade green eyes and skin so fair that it seemed almost translucent. They were playful and fun-loving, impossible not to like. They made a habit of standing about an arm’s length apart, and sharing their half of a conversation with others between them, relay style. It was uncanny, as though they were telepathic, and disorienting – Megan found that she had to shift her eyes back and forth as they spoke.
“Welcome aboard,” Robin told Megan. “We’ve had some turnover lately. Amanda just moved up before our last trip – our former Pilot got married and quit. And two of our Lees jumped ship when we got back. We’re looking for another – know anybody who’d be interested?”
“No, ma’am,” Megan answered. “My classmates all found other jobs.”
“This isn’t the Navy,” Robin said. “We’re pretty informal here. Call me Robin, or Skipper, or Boss, or…” She grinned. “Well, just don’t call me late for lunch. Now let’s eat.”
“OK… Robin,” Megan said. “Thanks.”
***
Robin changed into a shipsuit after lunch, and left the ship to interview a prospective Lee in town. The others had various duties on board – even Megan, as she soon found out.
“Let’s get you pedicured and calibrated,” Adrienne said.
“I could use a touch-up,” Bethany said, grinning. “Anne too, probably. We’ll join you.”
“You two are as bad as Melissa,” Adrienne said. “Don’t you ever get enough?”
“Nope,” Anne said cheerfully. “I call dibs on first round.”
They went to the nail salon room on the lower level. Inside, Adrienne handed two silver hoops to Megan. “Put these bracelets on,” she said. “Safety equipment – that’s why we all wear ‘em.”
Megan had worn bracelets like these before, at school. She slipped one over her left wrist. Suddenly the bracelet shifted and shrunk. Even though she had expected it, Megan still felt an odd crawling sensation as it adjusted.
“One size fits all,” Anne said. “Put the other one on too. It’s for your own protection – you’ve got to be immobilized, or you could get hurt.”
“All right, then,” Adrienne said. She walked behind Megan, crossed the girl’s wrists behind her back, touched the bracelets together and tapped them with a stylus. The material fused, binding Megan’s hands behind her back.
Adrienne repeated the process with Anne. “OK, in the chairs, ladies,” she said cheerfully.
Megan sat. The chair contoured itself to her body – even her bound wrists. Adrienne touched a control on the back of Megan’s chair while Bethany dealt with Anne. Tentacles extruded from their chairs, binding them to it at shoulders and waist.
Adrienne touched another control on Megan’s chair, Bethany on Anne’s. The deck irised open and basins full of steaming warm water rose from the holes. They placed the girls’ feet in the basins, and two more tentacles wrapped themselves around the girls’ ankles, immobilizing their feet.
Adrienne sat on the stool at Megan’s feet. “Let’s let your calluses soak for a few minutes,” she said. “Anything we can tell you while we’re waiting?”
“Yah, what’s this trip gonna be like?”
“As you know, we’re pretty far out on the Spiral Arm,” Adrienne said. “The Diaspora didn’t go much farther, and not all of the colonies made it through the Troubles after the Collapse. Some of ‘em that did, lost most of their tech. The most advanced systems we trade with are Lochlann and Far Samarkand – that’s where we get some of our most profitable items. The others are a good bit more primitive.
“This is a small ship, we trade in high value, low volume items only. We’ll probably tweak our route after we load our final cargo, but we’ve got a consignment for a new resort on Santiago III. From Santiago, we Jump to Colony-1112 , then double-Jump to Lochlann. We’ll stop at Lindisfarne on the way back, then Brabant, then Far Samarkand and return.
“What’s Colony-1112?” Megan asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It was rediscovered a year or so ago,” Adrienne said. “It got hit hard during the Troubles – it’s pretty primitive, the locals just call it “the World”. We trade for hand-crafted art objects and so forth.”
“How long will we be in port at each stop?”
“Depends. I think what you’re asking is, will you get a chance to get off the ship? Yes – but with a chaperone the first few times, so you don’t get in trouble by accident.”
Bethany checked her watch. “I think they’re ready, Boss,” she said.
Adrienne and Bethany released the others’ ankles and disposed of the water. Bethany dialed up another basin and put her own feet in it. “Might as well – saves time later,” she said.
Megan had been through this before, and knew well enough that pedicures tickle like mischief. But this was torture, just like it had been at school. Both women went out of their way to tickle. It took twice as long as it should have, while Megan and Anne laughed and laughed. Not everything the two did tickled – but almost everything. It was horrible!
Finally it was over. Megan’s throat was dry, her ribs and abs were a little sore from laughing. But she wasn’t sweaty – the jersey had wicked the sweat away, as it had been designed to do.
The girls were released from the chairs. “OK, Megan, you ought to be extra-ticklish now,” Adrienne said. “So let’s get a jenerator calibrated to you.” Megan followed Adrienne out of the room – Bethany was already in a chair, laughing her head off, before the door closed behind them.
They took the elevator to the bridge level, The power room was aft of the bridge – it was a standard arrangement, Megan saw, familiar from school. The room was separated from the bridge by a movable bulkhead, now closed. On the opposite bulkhead was a row of six identical chairs that looked like armless recliners with narrow foot rests. In front of each was a circular deck opening with an iris-type closure.
Just aft of the partition was a control panel, with a swivel chair behind it. Over the panel were two diagrams. One was a vertical graph like a thermometer, labeled with a lightning bolt below. The vertical axis was graduated on the left from zero to 1.0, in increments of 0.1, with a horizontal red line at 0.8. It was flagged on the right with stylized laughing female faces – one at 0.2, three at 0.5, five at 0.8 and six at 1.0. The other graph looked like a less-detailed reflexology chart, with annotations and demarcations made on a schematic of the soles of two feet.
“We’re on shore utilities right now,” Adrienne said. “We don’t need the gravity compensator, and life support is circulating outside air. You’ll just be lowering our power bill a little.” She pointed. “Sit in the first chair.”
Megan obeyed. This chair was as comfortable as the one in the nail salon had been. It reclined, and tentacles extruded, binding her to it around shoulders, waist, knees and ankles. The foot rest – an ankle rest, actually – was narrow, just wide enough for her ankles. Another sub-tentacle rose from the ankle bonds and bound her big toes together, immobilizing her feet. She checked them out and wiggled her toes.
“It’ll be a few minutes,” Adrienne said. “I’ve got some setup work to do.” She came over to Megan when she finished what she was doing. She grinned again and said, “This is the fun part.”
Adrienne scrabbled long polished nails on Megan’s soft, freshly-pedicured soles. Megan threw her head back and laughed uncontrollably, ticklish laughter streaming out of her, straining desperately against her bonds.
Megan’s feet were extremely ticklish all over, but the soles and balls of her feet were the worst. Adrienne figured that out right away – she tickled Megan’s soles, watching the toes twitch and curl while Megan laughed with wild abandon. She drew figure-eight’s, circles, squares, and other tickling shapes in the arches. She scratched and scrabbled on the heels. Megan laughed and laughed, wildly, helplessly. She was no longer capable of resistance, or even coherent thought – it had been tickled completely away.
Adrienne kept it up, tickling fiendishly and inventively. She scratched Megan’s heels, then flicked her fingernails in Megan’s arches, fast as she could. Then the soft skin under the toes while Megan laughed her head off. Adrienne scratched between two toes, producing more helpless laughter, repeated it on the other toes, tickling between each pair. Then finally held Megan’s toes back and tickled the stretched-out soles, side to side across both feet, up and down the creases in the middle, around the balls. Megan laughed herself breathless.
Megan blinked away tears of laughter, trying to get her breathing and heart rate normal again, while Adrienne did something at the control panel. The deck opening in front of her chair irised open, and a jenerator rose from it on a telescoping stalk. Some other Lee had added a personal touch – a mirror on the top, so that she could watch her own soles being tickled.
“You’re not like the twins and Melissa, are you?” Adrienne asked. “Well, neither am I. Don’t try to watch. Just go with it, let it carry you away. Try to enjoy it if you can.”
Adrienne engaged Megan’s jenerator – the two nodes each extruded a tentacle tipped with a five sub-tentacles like a cartoonish hand. The right “hand” circled its “fingernails” on the ball of Megan’s foot. So much for warm-up – Megan threw her head back and laughed at the top of her lungs. The shell of the black sphere was lafyurassium – it lit up with a red glow, collecting the ticklish energy.
“Looks good so far,” Megan heard Adrienne say through her helpless laughter. “I’ll start with a one-tentacle series.”
The jenerator eased off. Megan blinked away tears, looked at the mirrored image of her soles, watching them being tickled. The jenerator spread the toes on Megan’s right foot, tickling between each pair, each time getting a burst of laughter. It tickled side to side on the soft skin under her toes – Megan’s laughter was continuous. Her sole was next, starting under the little toe and working its way across – no more watching, she couldn’t muster the concentration. Megan laughed her head off as it got on the crease in the middle of her sole. Each finger-tentacle sprouted sub-tentacles, like brush bristles – they got on the ball of her foot, and her laughter went off the scale.
The tickling tentacles moved down onto Megan’s arch, and she dropped back to normal-rated laughter. There was a spot in her arch, just behind the sole crease, where it tickled horribly – as good as the ball of the foot. The rest of the arch and the heel were a little less ticklish, but her foot was sensitized by now. Megan laughed wildly, eyes closed, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. The tentacle shifted onto Megan’s left heel and repeated the process in reverse. It wasn’t so bad now – she was in the zone, riding a tickle high.
The jenerator finished between her toes and stopped. Megan blinked away tears and took long deep breaths.
“Doing OK, Megan?”Adrienne asked.
Megan took a deep breath, “I’m fine,” she replied, and oddly enough, that was true. She checked out her bare soles in the mirror – odd that they were the source of so much sensation. “C’mon, give me more.”
This time, one tentacle tickled under Megan’s toes and down onto the soles. The other tickled her arches and heels. The jenerator was at its lowest setting, forcing a continuous stream of giggles. Megan watched the mirrored tickling – it was fun to watch, even with herself as the ticklee.
“Increasing power,” Adrienne said. The jenerator speeded up, and Megan’s giggles morphed into laughter. It was harder to watch now, she was losing concentration from the tickling. More speed – Megan lost it and laughed her head off.
The jenerator tickled relentlessly, kept her laughing without tickling her out – time expanded as the tickling filled her universe. Megan was in the zone now, completely overcome by the tickling, unable to form a coherent thought. She laughed and laughed – she was red faced, eyes closed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The fingers sprouted sub-tentacles again, and the jenerator went to its highest setting, covering Megan’s feet with unbearable tickling. That brought her back from the zone, and her laughter went off the scale. She ran out of air and laughed herself breathless. The jenerator stopped, its hands and tentacles retracted, the shell fading again to black.
“That was 9 minutes, 17 seconds,” Adrienne said. “Not bad at all.” She did something, and the jenerator retracted back into the deck. “Well, we’re through for now. “I’ll take you back as soon as you catch your breath.”
“That… really… tickled,” Megan gasped.
“It’s supposed to,” Adrienne said. “You know that. These are almost new – they’re pretty reliable. It’s more fun doing it by hand, but this is a lot more uniform. It won’t tickle you out unless it’s programmed to do it, and that keeps you laughing for a lot longer than manual tickling.”
Megan showered afterward – she needed it. She recycled her blue-and-gray outfit and dressed in pale blue like the others. She borrowed a bottle of the silver-blue polish from Melissa and repainted her nails. She ate with her shipmates, who made every effort to make her feel at home.
Robin left after supper to spend a last night with her husband, leaving Lori in charge. Megan stayed in the common room with the others for a decent interval. Then she excused herself and settled down on her bunk to read through some more of the ship’s tech manuals.
Anne and Bethany stuck their heads in the door a few hours later. “Time for us to introduce you to a Mandy J tradition,” Anne said.
“We’re gonna put a top-off charge on the power banks before lights-out,” Bethany added.
Megan’s eyes were burning by then anyway. She marked her place and shut down her reader. “How do we do that?”
The twins shared a glance. “Tickle us pink, of course,” they said together.
They joined the rest of the crew in the common room, and Megan bound Anne’s hands behind her. They sat in a pair of chairs, and Megan swung Anne’s feet into her lap and trapped Anne’s ankles in a leg lock. The others knew what was coming, so they found good vantage points and settled in to watch.
“Ready for a dose of misery?” Megan asked, and started in on Anne’s feet. She tickled lightly, flicking the sensitive soles, bringing out a stream of little giggles.
“Surely– hehe! you can – haha-hehehe! do better– haha! than that– hehe-haha!”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” Megan said, and dug in, her manicured nails flicking and scrabbling Anne’s arches. Anne’s giggles morphed into all-out laughter. Her fair skin colored – tickled pink.
Megan tickled both heels, up the arches and onto the sensitive soles. Anne’s toes twitched and curled and her ticklish laughter filled the room. Megan tickled the tips of Anne’s toes, between them, held them back and tickled the soft skin underneath. Still holding the toes back, she tickled the stretched-out soles. Anne thrashed and squirmed, laughing her head off at the top of her lungs. Megan had found her sweet spot – her soles and the balls of her feet.
Anne arched her back and laughed her head off as the tickling fingernails flew over her soles. Megan scratched her right sole in the exact center, along the crease. She tickled straight across to the crease in the left sole, then drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet. The loops got tighter, faster, covering every square inch of ticklish flesh. Anne went wild, laughing helplessly, red faced, tears leaking out of her closed eyes. She laughed herself breathless.
Megan paused to give Anne some air. “How was that?” she asked.
“Is that… the best… you can do?” Anne replied breathlessly. She took a deep breath. “You need more practice.”
“Practice on me,” Bethany said. “Tickle spots are exactly the same,” she added helpfully.
Megan released Anne and bound Bethany. She started slower, prolonging the tickle torture, holding Bethany on the edge without letting her zone out. She started on the heels, and Bethany laughed with wild abandon. Megan’s tickling fingernails danced on Bethany’s heels, up the arches, onto the soles. Bethany laughed and laughed while the tickling fingers lingered there, drawing figure-eights around the balls of Bethany’s feet and scrabbling the sensitive soles.
Megan tickled Bethany’s arches just in front of the heels, with both hands, then down onto the ticklish heels. Bethany laughed uncontrollably as Megan tickled her heels, drawing circles and other random tickling shapes. Then back up the arches and onto the the soles again – Bethany laughed like a madwoman. Megan held Bethany’s toes back and tickled the sweet spots, fingernails flying as fast as she could. She tickled Bethany breathless too.
Lori stood up. “Fun’s over,” she said. “We’ve got a full day tomorrow. Get some rest, all of you.”
“Were we really charging the power banks?” Megan asked.
“Nah, ” the twins said, grinning.
“You should know– ” Anne started.
“ –it doesen’t work that way,” Bethany continued.
“It’s just for– ”
“–the fun of it!”
“Good night, shipmate!” they finished in chorus.
Megan was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Copyright 2017 by the author
Part 1
Well, there she is, thought Megan Owen – my new home. Megan was slender and attractive, a little taller than medium height – she had shoulder-length wavy dark brown hair, gray eyes, and the sort of fair skin that freckles on the way to a suntan. At age 18, Megan was a work in progress, pretty enough but with features a little too strong for conventional beauty and a serious and somewhat reserved demeanor. In a few more years, she would be absolutely stunning. She was dressed in a blue-and-gray shipsuit, a sort of close-fitting coverall, and black slipper-like shipshoes.
The little motorized cart purred over the tarmac of the planet Thanet IV’s Port Manston landing field. Megan could see her destination at the far end of the field, in an area used by unscheduled shippers – tramps, in other words. Either the ship was a long way off, or it was very small.
It had drive capability for atmospheric and interplanetary flight, but those were just auxiliaries. The real Drive, Capital-D, was the Jump drive, that allowed the ship to evade Einstein’s Law and travel faster-than-light through hyperspace. Megan’s job – her first real job – was to provide the power for the drive.
Starship systems were straight-forward engineering; the problem, as always, was power. Power plants aboard naval vessels, Blue Riband liners and planetoid-size freighters used cantafordium cores. Smaller ships had to make do with lafyurassium, a compound that collected, transformed and amplified the energy released by laughing.
Starships need compact, high-intensity laughter-power sources that could be turned on and off at will. Tickling was the best way to create them, so Tickler and Ticklee – Ler and Lee – were job titles. Modern misconceptions to the contrary, the oarsmen on ancient merchant rowing galleys were free mariners, well paid for their strength and endurance. So it was with the Lees who powered the ships. The paths of interstellar commerce were made by the well-tickled feet of young women.
Picture a right angle Cartesian axis. The vertical axis is tickle-power output. The horizontal axis is age. Power output is essentially zero throughout early childhood. It rises slowly to the age of puberty, rises steeply through the teen years, and levels off at its peak level at physical maturity. Power output stays constant at peak level until somewhere around age 35. It begins a gradual decline afterward, then falls off sharply before leveling off at zero again by age 45.
There were a few male Lers – very few, because the usual progression was from Lee to Ler. Lees were always young women, because no one would hire a male Lee.
Why? Call the power output at puberty P1, and the peak output at maturity P2. P1 is about the same for everybody, regardless of gender. P2 is the number of X chromosomes, plus the same number raised to the same power, times P1. Males have just one X chromosome – the multiplier is 2. Females have two – the multiplier is 6.
Megan had already passed a number of bigger ships close to the administration complex, each in its landing bay. Some were loading or discharging cargo, swarming with workers and automated machinery. Others sat with their boarding ramps down, portals open, waiting for passengers. Now, approaching her own ship, she was able to take a closer look.
Like all of its class, it had the appearance of a cone, far shorter than it was wide, with the top sliced off and a squat cylindrical section placed horizontally between the pieces. A row of round sensors circled the cylindrical section. The conical skirt was perhaps 50 meters in diameter, and the ship was some 25 meters tall from base of skirt to the top. The ship had a dull gray coating above – chameleon-like, the coating mimicked the ship’s surroundings – and was painted an off-white color underneath. The drive nodes were visible under the skirt, three big white bulges spaced 120 degrees apart. It sat on three landing legs about 5 meters high, offset 60 degrees from the drive nodes. The portal was open, boarding ramp extended.
A sign with an electronic display declared that this was T/S Amanda Jennings F-0859-040. Megan turned off the marked path and stopped. She got out and was just reaching into the back for her bag when–
“Help you?”
Megan looked up. A pretty blonde emerged from under the ship, where she had been concealed by one of the landing legs. She was a little shorter than medium height, with an athletic figure, blue eyes, and shoulder-length wavy hair. She wore a silvery pale blue pullover shirt and shorts, and a pair of close-fitting silver bracelets. The shirt was something like a jersey, but close-fitting, with a v-neck and three-quarter length sleeves. The shorts were like gym shorts, with a self-adjusting waistband. She was barefoot – fingernails and toenails were painted a silvery blue that matched her clothing. She looked to be in her mid 20’s.
“I’m Megan Owen,” she said, and extended her hand. “Reporting for work. This is the Amanda Jennings, isn’t it?”
“This is the Mandy J, sure enough,” the blonde said. She started to take Megan’s hand, then realized that hers were full. She had a bottle of nail polish in one hand, the brush in the other. “Oops! Sorry! I was sitting in the shade, enjoying the air and painting my toenails. We didn’t expect you until later.” She capped the bottle, put it in a pocket and shook hands. “I’m Melissa Hollis – power room. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Get your gear – I’ll take you aboard.”
Megan unloaded her bag and sent the little cart on its way back to the terminal. They climbed the ramp and passed through the outer and inner portals to a circular passageway. “The skirt is in six segments,” Melissa said. “We’ve just gone through the first. It’s the ship’s boat bay, and it has the arms locker and a work station for cargo operations. The other five are cargo holds. Each of those has an outside escape hatch.”
Directly opposite the inner portal was an elevator. An emergency ladder ran up the wall next to it, closed at the top with a circular hatch.
“Engineering spaces are in the core,” Melissa said as they boarded the elevator. “You’ll see those after you’ve signed the ship’s articles. We have two crew levels. Top level is the bridge, ship’s office, power room and the Captain’s and Chief Officer’s cabins.”
The elevator stopped. “Here’s the second level,” Melissa said. This time the corridor was straight, with the elevator about in the middle. The ladder continued upward to another ceiling hatch.
“Common room on that side,” she continued. “Combination dining room, day room, exercise room, you name it. The galley is automated. Bathrooms on both ends of the hall. There’s four crew cabins and two staterooms for passengers. We can carry up to four passengers, but they’d better be real friendly.”
Melissa tapped a keypad next to a door. “Home sweet home,” she said as it opened. “You get first dibs on the bunks – take either one. Have a seat on the bottom bunk. Oh, and lose the shoes,” she added. “We don’t bother with ‘em on board. Floor covering stays cleaner that way.”
Megan toed off her shoes and sat. There was no place else to sit – the cabin was tiny, no longer than the bunks and maybe three times as wide. There were cabinets or lockers on the end wall, drawers underneath the bottom bunk. That was the extent of the furnishings.
By now, Megan had formed a general impression of the Amanda Jennings: meticulously clean and well maintained, but with a few rough edges. The atmosphere plant was adequate, but the air smelled faintly of machinery and lubricants, of the ghosts of dinners past, and of female bodies too close together. The glowing ceiling illumination was uneven, a little darker in some places. The paint on the walls was burnished from people brushing past, and worn to bright metal at door frames and corners. Worn-out sections of the resilient gray deck covering had been replaced at high traffic locations like doorways, but the colors didn’t match very well. Mandy J looked like what she was – a working merchant ship whose small crew did what was important, and let the rough end drag.
Melissa sat next to Megan. “This is a small ship, our maximum output is six girlpower,” she said. “We can run our life support and other onboard systems with one girlpower, keep station and maneuver with two, cruise with three, boost with four. We orbit and de-orbit with five. But to Jump into hyperspace, we need a single, mammoth burst of energy to be sustained until the process is completed. That takes six girlpower, and we all laugh our asses off for as long as it takes.
“So I’m asking you now. Are you sure this is what you want to do? I do it because I love to have my feet tickled – I’ve been at it 8 years, ever since I was 18. If you can’t stand tickling, leave and find other work. Because once we lift, you’re committed until we get back home.”
Megan had already thought that one over. “I’m sure,” she said.
Melissa lunged downward, scooped up Megan’s ankles in an arm lock and stood up – suddenly Megan was sprawled backward on the bunk, feet up, gravity working against her.
“Hey!” Megan said. “Eep!” she squealed as Melissa flicked her nails across a sole. “Hehe! HAHAHA! AH-HAHA-HAHA!” as Melissa dug in, well manicured nails dancing on ticklish flesh. Megan’s tickle laugh was a musical contralto, clear and not the least bit scratchy.
Melissa spider-walked her nails side to side across both soles – Megan’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed like mad. Melissa tickled an arch just behind the sole, getting a great reaction, then worked her way toward the heels, drawing figure-eight’s, spirals and other tickling shapes. Megan’s helpless laughter streamed out as Melissa flicked both heels like chording a guitar. Tickling a zig-zag path back up the arches came next – more laughter. Then Melissa made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet at once, just behind the big toes. That was the sweet spot, where Megan’s feet were unbearably ticklish – she arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Melissa quit and released the arm lock. Megan laid there, breathing hard, tears running down her cheeks. It had tickled so much!
“Still want to come along?” Melissa asked.
“Yah... Is that... all... you’ve got?” Megan gasped out.
Melissa laughed. “I like your spirit. OK, stow your gear,” she said. “You’ve got Lee working clothes like these, don’t you? Get ‘em on. I’ll meet you in the common room as soon as you’re changed, and I’ll take you to see the Chief Officer.”
Megan did as she was told. Megan’s jersey was blue, the shorts gray – she had worn them at school. She looked down at herself, made a few experimental movements. The outfit was well adapted for its purpose – it moved with her without binding at all. She was barely aware she had it on.
Megan padded barefoot to the common room. The resilient gray floor covering under her feet didn’t seem to have a temperature, either warm or cool. There was a sign posted on the common room wall – ILLEGITIMII NON CARBORUNDUM, it said in an antique font.
“What language is that, and what does it mean?” Megan asked, pointing at the sign.
“That’s the ship’s motto,” Melissa answered. “It’s in some ancient pre-Diaspora language, I forget which. It means, Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
Megan laughed. “Sounds good to me.”
“It was the Captain’s idea,” Melissa said. “Now come with me.”
Melissa guided Megan to the bridge level. They found another crew member at work in an office. The other was an attractive hazel-eyed woman with long, straight blonde hair, a little taller than medium height – she looked to be about 25. Like Melissa, she wore a pale blue jersey and shorts, silvery blue nail polish and silver bracelets. She was dictating a letter, bare feet propped up on the edge of the work surface, ankles crossed.
“Lori, this is Megan Owen, our new Lee,” Melissa said. “Megan, meet Lori Cowan, our Chief Officer.”
“Command – delete Melissa and save,” Lori told the computer. “Welcome aboard, Megan.” She saw Megan’s questioning look. “In case you’re wondering, we all dress like this while we’re aboard – Lee work clothes are a lot more comfortable.”
“Ship’s custom,” Melissa said. “Convenient, too.” Melissa gave Lori’s feet a quick tickle.
“Hehehe! Quit!” Lori said, and put her feet flat on the deck. “Melissa’s the senior Lee aboard. She’s incorrigible, but we like her anyway. Ready to sign the ship’s articles?”
Megan signed – she was an official member of the crew now.
“Take Megan to see Adrienne,” Lori said. “She’ll meet you in the common room.”
“Will do, Chief,” Melissa said. “Come on, Megan.”
“Lori’s our business manager,” Melissa said as they made their way to the common room. “She can squeeze a shilling so hard that Her Majesty screams. The bills get paid on time, the debts are being paid down, and most times there’s a little left over. She’s a sharp negotiator – her motto is “let’s make a deal”. We’re lucky to have her – she could be captain of her own ship, she has a Master’s Certificate.”
Engineer Adrienne Stuart was waiting in the common room. She was in her mid-20s, a tall, well-built brunette with fair skin and blue eyes. People spoke Anglish in the Thanet System; in Adrienne’s native Lochlann System, they spoke Scottic. But the languages were closely related – anyone who spoke one could easily learn the other. Adrienne had done so, though she still had a bit of a brogue.
“Welcome aboard, Megan,” Adrienne said. “Your school reports say you’re a better-than-average Ler. I’d like to see if that’s true.”
That suited Megan just fine. She had been a gifted amateur when she started school, the winner of numerous pick-up tickle fights. Even better, she had discovered long ago that she liked tickling other girls – it was great fun to make them giggle and laugh. With help from her instructors at school, she had used those things as a foundation to develop a high level of skill.
“Who’s the Lee?” Megan asked.
“Me,” Adrienne said. She had an engineer’s directness and no-nonsense attitude, but she obviously wasn’t the dour Scots engineer of legend.
“Why not me?” Melissa asked. “I love it – you don’t.”
“I want to see for myself, from the inside.” She crossed her wrists behind her back, silver bracelets touching. Melissa walked behind her and tapped the bracelets with a stylus. The material fused, binding Adrienne’s hands behind her back.
“Adrienne’s a shipboard rarity – a woman who doesen’t like to have her feet tickled,” Melissa explained. “But if that’s what the task demands, well... I guess it’s the Scot in her coming out.”
“Melissa could’ve had my job if she wanted it,” Adrienne said. “She has an Engineer’s Certificate, just like me.”
Melissa grinned. “I’d rather be a Lee. No worries, and all the tickling I can stand.”
“Which is plenty,” Adrienne said. “Have a seat, Megan, and let’s see what you can do.” She sat in a chair facing Megan’s and put her feet in Megan’s lap. “Melissa, stick around – you’re our Safety person.”
Megan trapped Adrienne’s ankles in a leg lock. “Any preference?”
“Find the sweet spots, then tickle me sil– eep! HA-HAHA-HAHAHA!” as Megan drew circles on both heels. The ticklish laughter went up a notch as she traced circles in Adrienne’s arches. Megan worked her way up both arches, then scratched a sole in the exact center, along the crease – Adrienne laughed like mad, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. Megan switched to the other sole crease, tickling with a single nail. Adrienne laughed helplessly, squirming and struggling.
Megan flicked her well-manicured nails on the balls of Adrienne’s feet, just behind the big toes – Adrienne arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs. Gratified by the response, Megan made a Peace sign and circled the nails on the balls of both feet, getting great reactions and a flood of laughter.
Megan held Adrienne’s toes back and scratched lightly under them, tickling the soft skin, and Adrienne laughed with wild abandon. Megan released the toes and tickled both soles two-handed, watching the toes twitch and curl, then down the arches to the ticklish heels. Adrienne bucked and squirmed and laughed her head off. Her feet were sensitized by the tickling – she didn’t have a sweet spot any more, so everything Megan did drove her wild.
Megan tickled Adrienne’s heels and arches, getting great reactions and wave after wave of helpless laughter. She tickled up the arches to the soles, making the toes twitch again, then held the toes back and tickled the stretched out soles. Adrienne laughed and laughed, musically, helplessly, face red, tears streaming – she was losing it, right on the edge. Megan shifted one hand under the right toes, the other to the left heel, and countermarched both hands, tickling from toes to heels and back. Then holding Adrienne’s toes back again, Megan attacked the soft skin underneath, tickling mercilessly. Adrienne laughed herself breathless.
“Good one!” Melissa said – she recognized art when she saw it.
“You’ll… do… fine… ” Adrienne gasped. She took a deep breath. “Turn me loose, Melissa, I’ll take her from here.”
“Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Melissa,” Adrienne said after the blonde left. “She’s a lot sharper than she chooses to appear – we respect her judgement and take advantage of it. Now come with me,” she continued. “Some of the places we’re going, you’ll need non-standard clothes. Let’s scan you into the database so the ship can make them for you.”
The room was on the lower level, in the engineering space at the ship’s core. It appeared to be a combination of a workshop and a nail salon set up to do pedicures for two customers.
Pedicures were a weekly feature of shipboard life. Unlike similar treatments ashore, the shipboard variety were deliberately done in a way that tickled like crazy – it was good Ler practice. Mainly, though, it kept the girls’ feet soft and made them more ticklish. That would pay off when they powered the drive.
On the bulkhead facing the chairs was a tool rack and work bench – some of the tools were the sort one might see in an electronics repair shop, others looked like pedicure stuff. Beside the rack was a shelf – it held two black spheres the size of bowling balls with yellow nodes on opposite sides. The spheres were the ship’s spare jenerators, Megan knew – automated ticklers. They were named for Jen Edmonds, the long-ago junior engineer who volunteered to test the prototype, and was almost tickled to death in the process.
“Two chairs?” Megan asked. “The training ship at school only had one.”
“You probably didn’t spend much time in the training ship,” Adrienne said. “I know I didn’t – we did most of our pedicures as class exercises. A trading ship has to be self sufficient, and it saves time to do two at once. Now strip to the buff, and we’ll get you scanned.”
In one corner of the room was a booth the size of a small closet, with a bench along the bulkhead beside it and hooks above the bench to hang clothing. Megan stripped and stepped inside the booth, closing the door behind her. There were two red footprint shapes on the deck. She stepped onto them and stood easy, head up and eyes closed. “Ready scan!” she called out.
“Hold still, starting now!” Adrienne called back.
As always, Megan felt nothing as the booth did a full body scan, though her mind suggested a line creeping down her body. It was purely psychological, she didn’t even really need to close her eyes. Nor did it take long – about 15 seconds maybe.
“OK, come on out,” Adrienne said. Megan dressed and went back to her cabin with Adrienne. Adrienne showed her how to access the ship’s technical manuals. Megan lit off her reader and settled in to read.
Shipboard modifications are like barnacles – they begin to accrete as soon as a ship enters service. This ship was considerably older than Megan. The electronic files were heavily annotated by everyone who had ever tweaked the ship’s systems. Even so, it could have been worse – pre-Diaspora bound-paper manuals would have been ragged and dog-eared, pencil-marked and grubby, verging on illegibility.
The rest of the crew drifted back over the next few hours. They assembled in the common room at lunchtime. As was typical of this ship class, the crew was young – Melissa was 26, Adrienne and Lori were only 25. They were short one Lee, so there were just five others. The atmosphere was egalitarian – all wore pale blue jerseys and shorts, silvery blue nail polish and silver bracelets, and all were barefoot.
Robin Sewell was the Captain. She was the only married crew member – a shapely brunette, 27 yrs old, about medium height, with bright blue eyes. Crack-the-whip discipline wouldn’t work on a ship this small, even if Robin had been so inclined. Here, she was first among equals, a colleague with more experience and greater responsibility. She was always willing to undertake any necessary task, no matter how menial, for the good of the venture. Still, there was never any doubt that she was the boss.
Pilot Amanda Grayson was 24, petite, with a cute shape, curly dark hair and brown eyes. She had a mischievous streak. She was all business on watch, but in her free time she was likely to instigate pick-up tickle fights with anyone. She enjoyed being tickled and tickling others. She especially liked tickling sobersides like Robin, Adrienne and Lori – she figured it did them good to let go a little.
Julie Ferguson was 23, small and trim, with great curves, dark brown hair and soft brown eyes. She was everybody’s friend – she could get along with anyone. She was a restless one. Her mother had married and taken a desk job after 12 yrs as a tramp trader – young Julie had loved the stories, had always known that this was what she wanted to do. Someday she might become a Captain or a ship’s Engineer. For now, she was happy to be a Lee. She had the most ticklish feet aboard.
Anne and Bethany Long were identical twins, 21 yrs old – they were little beauties, with manes of fiery red hair, jade green eyes and skin so fair that it seemed almost translucent. They were playful and fun-loving, impossible not to like. They made a habit of standing about an arm’s length apart, and sharing their half of a conversation with others between them, relay style. It was uncanny, as though they were telepathic, and disorienting – Megan found that she had to shift her eyes back and forth as they spoke.
“Welcome aboard,” Robin told Megan. “We’ve had some turnover lately. Amanda just moved up before our last trip – our former Pilot got married and quit. And two of our Lees jumped ship when we got back. We’re looking for another – know anybody who’d be interested?”
“No, ma’am,” Megan answered. “My classmates all found other jobs.”
“This isn’t the Navy,” Robin said. “We’re pretty informal here. Call me Robin, or Skipper, or Boss, or…” She grinned. “Well, just don’t call me late for lunch. Now let’s eat.”
“OK… Robin,” Megan said. “Thanks.”
***
Robin changed into a shipsuit after lunch, and left the ship to interview a prospective Lee in town. The others had various duties on board – even Megan, as she soon found out.
“Let’s get you pedicured and calibrated,” Adrienne said.
“I could use a touch-up,” Bethany said, grinning. “Anne too, probably. We’ll join you.”
“You two are as bad as Melissa,” Adrienne said. “Don’t you ever get enough?”
“Nope,” Anne said cheerfully. “I call dibs on first round.”
They went to the nail salon room on the lower level. Inside, Adrienne handed two silver hoops to Megan. “Put these bracelets on,” she said. “Safety equipment – that’s why we all wear ‘em.”
Megan had worn bracelets like these before, at school. She slipped one over her left wrist. Suddenly the bracelet shifted and shrunk. Even though she had expected it, Megan still felt an odd crawling sensation as it adjusted.
“One size fits all,” Anne said. “Put the other one on too. It’s for your own protection – you’ve got to be immobilized, or you could get hurt.”
“All right, then,” Adrienne said. She walked behind Megan, crossed the girl’s wrists behind her back, touched the bracelets together and tapped them with a stylus. The material fused, binding Megan’s hands behind her back.
Adrienne repeated the process with Anne. “OK, in the chairs, ladies,” she said cheerfully.
Megan sat. The chair contoured itself to her body – even her bound wrists. Adrienne touched a control on the back of Megan’s chair while Bethany dealt with Anne. Tentacles extruded from their chairs, binding them to it at shoulders and waist.
Adrienne touched another control on Megan’s chair, Bethany on Anne’s. The deck irised open and basins full of steaming warm water rose from the holes. They placed the girls’ feet in the basins, and two more tentacles wrapped themselves around the girls’ ankles, immobilizing their feet.
Adrienne sat on the stool at Megan’s feet. “Let’s let your calluses soak for a few minutes,” she said. “Anything we can tell you while we’re waiting?”
“Yah, what’s this trip gonna be like?”
“As you know, we’re pretty far out on the Spiral Arm,” Adrienne said. “The Diaspora didn’t go much farther, and not all of the colonies made it through the Troubles after the Collapse. Some of ‘em that did, lost most of their tech. The most advanced systems we trade with are Lochlann and Far Samarkand – that’s where we get some of our most profitable items. The others are a good bit more primitive.
“This is a small ship, we trade in high value, low volume items only. We’ll probably tweak our route after we load our final cargo, but we’ve got a consignment for a new resort on Santiago III. From Santiago, we Jump to Colony-1112 , then double-Jump to Lochlann. We’ll stop at Lindisfarne on the way back, then Brabant, then Far Samarkand and return.
“What’s Colony-1112?” Megan asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It was rediscovered a year or so ago,” Adrienne said. “It got hit hard during the Troubles – it’s pretty primitive, the locals just call it “the World”. We trade for hand-crafted art objects and so forth.”
“How long will we be in port at each stop?”
“Depends. I think what you’re asking is, will you get a chance to get off the ship? Yes – but with a chaperone the first few times, so you don’t get in trouble by accident.”
Bethany checked her watch. “I think they’re ready, Boss,” she said.
Adrienne and Bethany released the others’ ankles and disposed of the water. Bethany dialed up another basin and put her own feet in it. “Might as well – saves time later,” she said.
Megan had been through this before, and knew well enough that pedicures tickle like mischief. But this was torture, just like it had been at school. Both women went out of their way to tickle. It took twice as long as it should have, while Megan and Anne laughed and laughed. Not everything the two did tickled – but almost everything. It was horrible!
Finally it was over. Megan’s throat was dry, her ribs and abs were a little sore from laughing. But she wasn’t sweaty – the jersey had wicked the sweat away, as it had been designed to do.
The girls were released from the chairs. “OK, Megan, you ought to be extra-ticklish now,” Adrienne said. “So let’s get a jenerator calibrated to you.” Megan followed Adrienne out of the room – Bethany was already in a chair, laughing her head off, before the door closed behind them.
They took the elevator to the bridge level, The power room was aft of the bridge – it was a standard arrangement, Megan saw, familiar from school. The room was separated from the bridge by a movable bulkhead, now closed. On the opposite bulkhead was a row of six identical chairs that looked like armless recliners with narrow foot rests. In front of each was a circular deck opening with an iris-type closure.
Just aft of the partition was a control panel, with a swivel chair behind it. Over the panel were two diagrams. One was a vertical graph like a thermometer, labeled with a lightning bolt below. The vertical axis was graduated on the left from zero to 1.0, in increments of 0.1, with a horizontal red line at 0.8. It was flagged on the right with stylized laughing female faces – one at 0.2, three at 0.5, five at 0.8 and six at 1.0. The other graph looked like a less-detailed reflexology chart, with annotations and demarcations made on a schematic of the soles of two feet.
“We’re on shore utilities right now,” Adrienne said. “We don’t need the gravity compensator, and life support is circulating outside air. You’ll just be lowering our power bill a little.” She pointed. “Sit in the first chair.”
Megan obeyed. This chair was as comfortable as the one in the nail salon had been. It reclined, and tentacles extruded, binding her to it around shoulders, waist, knees and ankles. The foot rest – an ankle rest, actually – was narrow, just wide enough for her ankles. Another sub-tentacle rose from the ankle bonds and bound her big toes together, immobilizing her feet. She checked them out and wiggled her toes.
“It’ll be a few minutes,” Adrienne said. “I’ve got some setup work to do.” She came over to Megan when she finished what she was doing. She grinned again and said, “This is the fun part.”
Adrienne scrabbled long polished nails on Megan’s soft, freshly-pedicured soles. Megan threw her head back and laughed uncontrollably, ticklish laughter streaming out of her, straining desperately against her bonds.
Megan’s feet were extremely ticklish all over, but the soles and balls of her feet were the worst. Adrienne figured that out right away – she tickled Megan’s soles, watching the toes twitch and curl while Megan laughed with wild abandon. She drew figure-eight’s, circles, squares, and other tickling shapes in the arches. She scratched and scrabbled on the heels. Megan laughed and laughed, wildly, helplessly. She was no longer capable of resistance, or even coherent thought – it had been tickled completely away.
Adrienne kept it up, tickling fiendishly and inventively. She scratched Megan’s heels, then flicked her fingernails in Megan’s arches, fast as she could. Then the soft skin under the toes while Megan laughed her head off. Adrienne scratched between two toes, producing more helpless laughter, repeated it on the other toes, tickling between each pair. Then finally held Megan’s toes back and tickled the stretched-out soles, side to side across both feet, up and down the creases in the middle, around the balls. Megan laughed herself breathless.
Megan blinked away tears of laughter, trying to get her breathing and heart rate normal again, while Adrienne did something at the control panel. The deck opening in front of her chair irised open, and a jenerator rose from it on a telescoping stalk. Some other Lee had added a personal touch – a mirror on the top, so that she could watch her own soles being tickled.
“You’re not like the twins and Melissa, are you?” Adrienne asked. “Well, neither am I. Don’t try to watch. Just go with it, let it carry you away. Try to enjoy it if you can.”
Adrienne engaged Megan’s jenerator – the two nodes each extruded a tentacle tipped with a five sub-tentacles like a cartoonish hand. The right “hand” circled its “fingernails” on the ball of Megan’s foot. So much for warm-up – Megan threw her head back and laughed at the top of her lungs. The shell of the black sphere was lafyurassium – it lit up with a red glow, collecting the ticklish energy.
“Looks good so far,” Megan heard Adrienne say through her helpless laughter. “I’ll start with a one-tentacle series.”
The jenerator eased off. Megan blinked away tears, looked at the mirrored image of her soles, watching them being tickled. The jenerator spread the toes on Megan’s right foot, tickling between each pair, each time getting a burst of laughter. It tickled side to side on the soft skin under her toes – Megan’s laughter was continuous. Her sole was next, starting under the little toe and working its way across – no more watching, she couldn’t muster the concentration. Megan laughed her head off as it got on the crease in the middle of her sole. Each finger-tentacle sprouted sub-tentacles, like brush bristles – they got on the ball of her foot, and her laughter went off the scale.
The tickling tentacles moved down onto Megan’s arch, and she dropped back to normal-rated laughter. There was a spot in her arch, just behind the sole crease, where it tickled horribly – as good as the ball of the foot. The rest of the arch and the heel were a little less ticklish, but her foot was sensitized by now. Megan laughed wildly, eyes closed, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. The tentacle shifted onto Megan’s left heel and repeated the process in reverse. It wasn’t so bad now – she was in the zone, riding a tickle high.
The jenerator finished between her toes and stopped. Megan blinked away tears and took long deep breaths.
“Doing OK, Megan?”Adrienne asked.
Megan took a deep breath, “I’m fine,” she replied, and oddly enough, that was true. She checked out her bare soles in the mirror – odd that they were the source of so much sensation. “C’mon, give me more.”
This time, one tentacle tickled under Megan’s toes and down onto the soles. The other tickled her arches and heels. The jenerator was at its lowest setting, forcing a continuous stream of giggles. Megan watched the mirrored tickling – it was fun to watch, even with herself as the ticklee.
“Increasing power,” Adrienne said. The jenerator speeded up, and Megan’s giggles morphed into laughter. It was harder to watch now, she was losing concentration from the tickling. More speed – Megan lost it and laughed her head off.
The jenerator tickled relentlessly, kept her laughing without tickling her out – time expanded as the tickling filled her universe. Megan was in the zone now, completely overcome by the tickling, unable to form a coherent thought. She laughed and laughed – she was red faced, eyes closed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The fingers sprouted sub-tentacles again, and the jenerator went to its highest setting, covering Megan’s feet with unbearable tickling. That brought her back from the zone, and her laughter went off the scale. She ran out of air and laughed herself breathless. The jenerator stopped, its hands and tentacles retracted, the shell fading again to black.
“That was 9 minutes, 17 seconds,” Adrienne said. “Not bad at all.” She did something, and the jenerator retracted back into the deck. “Well, we’re through for now. “I’ll take you back as soon as you catch your breath.”
“That… really… tickled,” Megan gasped.
“It’s supposed to,” Adrienne said. “You know that. These are almost new – they’re pretty reliable. It’s more fun doing it by hand, but this is a lot more uniform. It won’t tickle you out unless it’s programmed to do it, and that keeps you laughing for a lot longer than manual tickling.”
Megan showered afterward – she needed it. She recycled her blue-and-gray outfit and dressed in pale blue like the others. She borrowed a bottle of the silver-blue polish from Melissa and repainted her nails. She ate with her shipmates, who made every effort to make her feel at home.
Robin left after supper to spend a last night with her husband, leaving Lori in charge. Megan stayed in the common room with the others for a decent interval. Then she excused herself and settled down on her bunk to read through some more of the ship’s tech manuals.
Anne and Bethany stuck their heads in the door a few hours later. “Time for us to introduce you to a Mandy J tradition,” Anne said.
“We’re gonna put a top-off charge on the power banks before lights-out,” Bethany added.
Megan’s eyes were burning by then anyway. She marked her place and shut down her reader. “How do we do that?”
The twins shared a glance. “Tickle us pink, of course,” they said together.
They joined the rest of the crew in the common room, and Megan bound Anne’s hands behind her. They sat in a pair of chairs, and Megan swung Anne’s feet into her lap and trapped Anne’s ankles in a leg lock. The others knew what was coming, so they found good vantage points and settled in to watch.
“Ready for a dose of misery?” Megan asked, and started in on Anne’s feet. She tickled lightly, flicking the sensitive soles, bringing out a stream of little giggles.
“Surely– hehe! you can – haha-hehehe! do better– haha! than that– hehe-haha!”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” Megan said, and dug in, her manicured nails flicking and scrabbling Anne’s arches. Anne’s giggles morphed into all-out laughter. Her fair skin colored – tickled pink.
Megan tickled both heels, up the arches and onto the sensitive soles. Anne’s toes twitched and curled and her ticklish laughter filled the room. Megan tickled the tips of Anne’s toes, between them, held them back and tickled the soft skin underneath. Still holding the toes back, she tickled the stretched-out soles. Anne thrashed and squirmed, laughing her head off at the top of her lungs. Megan had found her sweet spot – her soles and the balls of her feet.
Anne arched her back and laughed her head off as the tickling fingernails flew over her soles. Megan scratched her right sole in the exact center, along the crease. She tickled straight across to the crease in the left sole, then drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet. The loops got tighter, faster, covering every square inch of ticklish flesh. Anne went wild, laughing helplessly, red faced, tears leaking out of her closed eyes. She laughed herself breathless.
Megan paused to give Anne some air. “How was that?” she asked.
“Is that… the best… you can do?” Anne replied breathlessly. She took a deep breath. “You need more practice.”
“Practice on me,” Bethany said. “Tickle spots are exactly the same,” she added helpfully.
Megan released Anne and bound Bethany. She started slower, prolonging the tickle torture, holding Bethany on the edge without letting her zone out. She started on the heels, and Bethany laughed with wild abandon. Megan’s tickling fingernails danced on Bethany’s heels, up the arches, onto the soles. Bethany laughed and laughed while the tickling fingers lingered there, drawing figure-eights around the balls of Bethany’s feet and scrabbling the sensitive soles.
Megan tickled Bethany’s arches just in front of the heels, with both hands, then down onto the ticklish heels. Bethany laughed uncontrollably as Megan tickled her heels, drawing circles and other random tickling shapes. Then back up the arches and onto the the soles again – Bethany laughed like a madwoman. Megan held Bethany’s toes back and tickled the sweet spots, fingernails flying as fast as she could. She tickled Bethany breathless too.
Lori stood up. “Fun’s over,” she said. “We’ve got a full day tomorrow. Get some rest, all of you.”
“Were we really charging the power banks?” Megan asked.
“Nah, ” the twins said, grinning.
“You should know– ” Anne started.
“ –it doesen’t work that way,” Bethany continued.
“It’s just for– ”
“–the fun of it!”
“Good night, shipmate!” they finished in chorus.
Megan was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.