We are guilty for all the suffering we produce to others. Following the orders like a blind horse does not excuse us from this (an officer in the 2nd world war).
Caution: contains a discussion about sexual relations in the future
Julia and Sandra graduated the Galileo university on Callisto - Jupiter with good marks. They are the first hermaphrodite couple ever to do so and the first couple in history to change gender from male (Sandra - David) and female (Julia) to hermaphrodite. The year is 2541.
But even if this is a historical first, the event was not a subject for mass-media. Only a few online newspapers wrote about it as a footnote. The only ones who realized this is a first and who tried to take them an interview, were those from Intersex TV and Free Soul News, both owned by some LGBT organizations. The two answered briefly about the subject. In fact, they focused on their mission, to go to Himalia and tell the world the truth about reincarnation and about past lives.
The professor told them to go to Himalia base. Those were his last words.
What is Himalia? Why Himalia base?
Himalia is an outer moon of Jupiter and it is considered the gateway to Jupiter. Cargo and passenger ships are huge, sometimes over 10 km long. Such ships cannot land on a planet and moon with high gravity. So, they ferry between space stations. The inner planets and some large asteroids have their own orbital stations: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Ceres. However, where a moon is suitable for such a task, the station is built on a moon. Mars uses Phobos, Jupiter uses Himalia, Saturn uses Helene, Uranus uses Perdita and Neptune uses Halimede.
Himalia is a small moon, with a diameter of only 150 km and with a very small gravity. Despite this, the base is huge, with many platforms built for ships of all sizes. It has all the facilities required for docking, transshipment of cargo and passengers, for hosting people waiting for a ship and for repairing damaged ships. Nearly half of the surface is covered with buildings and there are many structures built underground. Everything that Jupiter exports and imports, goes through Himalia. Almost every person that comes here, be it settler, tourist or someone just passing by, goes to Himalia. Even more, this moon hosts the military force of Jupiter Federation, which has the task to stop terrorist attacks and to deflect comets and asteroids that might pose a risk to the other moons. A significant police force is stationed here to stop traffickers which try to smuggle drugs, forbidden technology and people.
Once they come here, Julia and Sandra realize why the professor sent them here. It is the safest place in the Solar System. It is impossible to leave Himalia without a checkout. Everything is recorded on cameras. Nobody can attack anyone here. With so many police and military forces, it is impossible to kill someone and get out from the moon.
It is easy to find a job here. It took them just a day. Sandra got a job at traffic surveillance, while Julia found a job at cargo transshipping. Both will sit in front of an interactive screen and will collaborate with many people on the base, both in the rooms where they will work and by radio. Finding a home was also not difficult. The base offers apartments to all workers for the time they will work here. Their apartment is small, but much larger then the room they lived in at the university. It is built underground, in the same place where all employees live. As they soon found out, on the route from work to their apartment, there is no place where they can be alone. People are walking in all directions. The base is crowded all the time... and still lacks the needed personnel.
The first days at work were very hard. Ships come and go in large groups when planetary alignments allow for the cheapest passages, which occur all the time to a destination or another. Then, they started to adapt to this new environment, to the almost complete absence of gravity and to the ever-crowded places that surround the base.
Soon, the two realize that they have a great opportunity. They have a job that provides them with enough money to sustain themselves and they have enough time to explore their past lives and write about them. Here, they are perfectly safe. They can write all their memories here, safely, at home. nobody will dare to attack them on Himalia.
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The following part is added by request.
Many people would ask what kind of a relationship is between Julia and Sandra? Since they both are hermaphrodites, what kind of love can be between the two? Is it a platonic relation or do they have sex? Well, in the 2500's, things are far more different then in the 2000's. Many violent incidents changed the history of sex in these 500 Earth years. Sometimes, mass media can change the way people see things in only a few years, but 500 years will change things dramatically.
After the AIDS, the world witnessed four major diseases transmitted by sex in the 2100's and early 2200's. All ended-up with millions of deaths. Religious leaders showed that this was a punishment from God for our sinful way of life, while doctors failed repeated times to find a solution to the problem. In a desperate attempt to solve this, governments recommended people to stop having sex with untested partners and turn towards masturbation to calm down their sexual needs.
In the 2200's and the 2300's, something else happened. The industry of sex invented sex toys that can offer far more pleasure then the conventional intercourse. Virtual reality companies developed virtual environments that are more attractive then the real world. Sex moved from reality to the world of simulation. The development of virtual sex was sponsored by many governments, desperate to stop the four viruses that were transmitted through intercourse. However, this came with a major problem. People turned from real life to virtual relations, from sex to simulations. The rate of marriages decreased dramatically. Far less children were born, until the world seen a massive depopulation coming on all continents.
Then came the space colonization era, in a time when human population was decreasing dramatically. In the late 2300's and in the 2400's, the new states fought for independence from Earth. It happened. Then, the new states started a campaign to attract settlers. Since world population is decreasing, the new states tried in any possible way to force women to have children. In many cases, sexual aggression was tolerated, abortion was banned and people were forced to have children. As a direct result, the four sexual diseases, together with AIDS, appeared again.
Things changed again in the late 2400's. with a strong women's emancipation movement. Surprisingly, not only women, but also many men protested on the streets of almost every town. In many cases, protests ended-up with violence. People were mostly shouting two things: couple life is old fashioned and sex is old fashioned. Sexual minorities strongly supported the campaign.
In this time, governments turned to a new idea: growing embryos in incubators and then growing the artificial children, to compensate the lack of population. It is a very expensive process, still. These are called cloned children.
Now, in the 2500's, this campaign lost power, but it already made strong transformations in the society. The way people perceive sexual relations in the 2500's is completely different. Classic intercourse is far more rare, but on the other hand, virtual sex and the use of sex toys is extremely common. These methods offer more satisfaction, since they are able to produce a much more powerful orgasm, but are almost harmless for others. Sexual abuse in the 2500's is extremely rare. Almost everyone prefers the new approach to sex, even if the correct word should be improved masturbation. There are many couples which experienced classic intercourse only a few times in years.
In the 2500's, having classic sex is something less accepted, while oral and anal sex are considered almost as abominations. However, modern sex, as people call it, is very common. Sometimes it happens even in public areas. There are places where modern sex is done in group, like certain areas on beaches, designated places around clubs and not only. Public sex (in fact public masturbation, sometimes with the help of toys), is something tolerated in society, but only in certain areas. Even in high schools and universities, such places exist. Children are taking sex lessons at school, where they learn that classic sex is very dangerous, with risks of diseases and risks of getting pregnant, while modern sex is a natural way to release hormonal pressure.
Even more, there are many cases when modern sex occurs during parties or with friends. Even in many families, children do this while their parents are around or with their brothers or sisters, without feeling it as an incest... and technically it isn't.
The introduction of modern sex changed things beyond anything. Now, it doesn't matter if you are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or you belong to any sexual minority, since intercourse is something very rare. This stopped almost all conflicts between mainstream population and sexual minorities.
So, to answer the question. What type of relationship is between Sandra and Julia?
At a young age, they started exploring the modern sex, after they heard about it from school or from their parents. They practiced it for many years, when they were on Earth and later on Jupiter. Being very shy, they never went to buy sex toys, but each of them had a computer and each could easily visit a virtual simulator.
After they transformed into hermaphrodites, a few things changed. First, they wanted to explore their sexuality. This happened very soon after surgery. Without any toy, they produced themselves an orgasm on their new organs. I don't know if this happened while they were alone or together for the first time. They never told me in detail about their sexual life. What I know is that, for them, an orgasm of one genital triggers the orgasm of another genital. So, after a female orgasm, the male orgasm comes in seconds and vice versa. Also, I know that, at some point, they tried to have classic sex. Since they are hermaphrodites, they could easily change roles, who will be the man and who will be the woman. I asked them about double penetration and they did not want to answer anything. I presume that they prefer modern sex, but still practice classic sex sometimes.
Well, this is less important for our story. The important part is that, in the time they stayed on Himalia, they finally found the truth about reincarnation, about the world of souls, about where we come from and where we ultimately go, about who is in charge of all this and about the origin and fate of the Universe.
