Chapter 13. Consequence

The communal evening supper illustrated to the four men how serious their problem was. They would be dealing with twelve intelligent attractive young females who would be more demanding now that they greately outnumbered them. Talk about being in the minority!

But what Alice said was an indication that they were using their scientific brains, not their emotional instincts.

"We deployed the main telescope array yesterday and focused it on Proxima B using the shade array to cut the star's light down."

"What did you see?" Charles asked her.

"It seems that Proxima B has been scorched clean. It no longer has the twilight zone that we found water in."

Charles and Carl exchanged glances before Charles turned back to her. "Was that because of a powerful flare?"

"I don't think so. The star seems to be in a quiet mode, much like our sun is."

"That would suggest that the Centauri system might have been altered by the blackout event," Charles said. "Maybe that's true of other systems."

"We're working on that," she replied.

"If that's the case, it would indicate that the blackout affected many more celestial objects than we realized," Carl said. "That would suggest that we're in the right universe, but it has been rendered free of life by some cosmic event."

"So, it has come down to the fact that we might be the only humans still alive," Hilary said. "If that is the case, then that means we're going to live in this tin can for the rest of our lives with not much to do."

"Oh, I don't know," Vicky said. "We have these hansom hunks that we can have fun tormenting."

"Yeah!" Janice exclaimed with a teasing grin and excited eyes. "I could think of lots of ways to have fun with them."

"I think we should take over command," Alice said, sounding serious but with a smirky grin.

"Yeah!" Hilary replied with her face twisted with amusement. "That way we can make the rules."

Charles reacted with a concerned expression. "You need us to make sure that this ship remains ship shape. If you obstruct us, we won't be able to do that."

They laughed. "Come on, you guys!" Vicky blurted with a grin. "We're just teasing you."

"Yeah," Janice said. "We're not crazy." She ceremoniously rubbed her jaw. "However, we might want to regulate what you can wear."

Charles tilted his head and offered her a confused expression. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you certainly don't need to wear full uniforms all of the time."

"I don't understand," Charles replied. "What should we wear?"

"You could wear your briefs."

"Maybe we should not allow them to wear anything," Hilary said while grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"Yeah!" Beverly piped in. "They don't need to wear clothing."

"Working in the nude would make us less productive," Carl proclaimed.

"But that would be fun to watch," Alice said, her eyes expressing frivolity.

"That would be a really delicious sight!" Judy added with a sly grin.

He squinted at them. "Are you serious?"

They laughed and guffawed while pointing at their victims.

The men walked out of the mess hall without further efforts to deal with the women's gibes. Obviously, they were in for a rough time, but they should have expected the women to be razzing them.

What made them even more nervous was the fact that these weren't just any women toying with them. These were intelligent young females that were stunningly beautiful. Brains and beauty represented a dangerous combination, and this situation was exacerbated because there were so many of them.

Later, when they were down in the engineering deck, the men had time to discuss the situation.

"I hope they were only kidding us about only wearing just our briefs," Dave said.

"That would be better than having to go in the nude," Carl added.

Robert blew out a disgusted breath. "Why are they being so stupid? We didn't do anything to them to warrant being harassed."

"They're just trying to find a way to forget what a crazy situation we're in," Charles said. "We're young and in perfect health but can't make use of it. We need them to determine where the blackout came from and whether it was a cosmic event." He sighed. "I'm sure they realize that we know how to keep the ship working properly."

"Maybe they're acting like they're crazy because we're not paying all that much attention to them," Robert proposed.

"The problem is that if we were to tease them, they would get pissed," Carl retorted.

"Women," Dave said with a disgusted expression. "You can't live without them, and you can't live with them."

"Unfortunately," Charles said. "We're stuck living with them. I think they're bored and teasing us is something they can do."

Just then, Hilary showed up. "What do you guys do down here, goof off?"

"We're discussing whether we should go around in the altogether," Charles said.

She did something that they had not expected. She sighed and looked away for a moment before turning back to them. "We're so sorry about that. We had no business teasing you like that." The dire expression on her face reflected her statement. "I am speaking for all of us women when I say that we have no intention of taking over. You are our commander, and we will do anything you wish, including ordering us to entertain you guys."

"I would never order you to do anything like that," Charles said, trying to control his urge to smile. "As you must realize by now, I don't make rules. I assume that everyone will go about their jobs without any problems."

After a long silent pause in which she stared at Charles, she came up to him and wrapped her arms around him so that her face was within inches of his, a move that surprised him. She tilted her head and pressed her lips into his for a long kiss. He was so taken back by her move that he wrapped his arms around her and continued the kiss.

When she detached her lips from his, she smiled. "Thank you." She said in a sultry voice.

When they broke physical contact, she stared at him for a moment smiling before her expression morphed to a more serious one. "I was thinking. Maybe this blackout was something that hatched at the time of the big bang. Maybe it was a left-over form of energy capable of distorting time and space that changed everything we see now,"

"That's a possibility," Charles replied. "But we need some sort of evidence to prove that. Maybe it left a quantum clue to its existence, a change in quantum physics that wasn't in it before this . . . event."

"I think we found the possible cause."

Charles tilted his head. "Really?"

"Yes. We went back to the recordings in the ship's outer sensors when we were in the blackout, and it recorded something that's weird at best."

"What?"

"It has to do with exotic antimatter neutrinos, which are supposed to be massless, but there is evidence that they have mass, which can annihilate photons."

Charles' eyes ballooned. "And that would explain why there was no light of any kind."

"Yes, but we still aren't sure how that botched up time and ended up destroying all life on Earth. It's going to take a shit load of time figuring that out.

"Time, we got plenty of," Charles said in a serious tone but with a subtle grin.

She stared at him for a few minutes before replying, "Ok, we'll see what we can come up with." She turned and trotted to the elevator swinging her caboose suggestively. After the elevator door closed, the men were left in a more relaxed but still confused mood.

"Well, that's something I didn't expect," Carl said.

"Yes," Charles said. "Maybe we shouldn't be so down about our relationship with them."

"She sure as hell likes you," Dave told Charles. "That was one hell of a kiss."

"I didn't expect that," Charles said, sounding melancholy. "Maybe they're becoming more amorous."

"Or they're still toying with us," Carl said. "They're acting like high school teenagers."

"Actually, maybe the nude idea isn't that crazy," Dave proposed. "It would be an amusing way to show them that we're willing to pay attention to them."

"Or they would think we've lost our minds," Charles said. He paused for a moment before continuing. "I think it best for us to leave them alone. This new theory may be the answer we've been looking for."

"If it's true, we will be stuck living with a bunch of crazy women for the rest of our lives," Carl said.

"Or we enjoy them without any consequences," Robert said, grinning.

"Sounds like we're in purgatory," Carl said.

"Or it's Dante's concept of hell," Charles said. "Like maybe limbo."

They laughed.