Inter-Galactic Transfer Point 27
Part 2 The Visitor.
A few planetary weeks later another part of the puzzle was answered, if not shown to us completely, but at least we were given a few more facts. At the start of one day the two other Gammas joined us at the CrewChef and told us that they had been re-assigned because the new droids did everything better than they did, without any complaining or needing extra rations.
They said that the droids looked far better than they had on a good day and the Betas were now all smiles. I said that they now had the same uniforms and haircut as the rest of us and Gamma 7 said that it had been the worst time of its life when it was buzz-cut and the comfortable uniform had been exchanged to the rough and scratchy ones they now wore. I had never thought of mine as scratchy but as soon as it said that it felt rough.
The two of them had been assigned to the ‘Scottie’ system and were spending their days working through the lessons on how to operate it. They had been told that there would be more jump-cruisers coming our way in the future and that we would need to run two shifts. I had not been told of this and wondered about the veracity of the information but kept my peace. Epsi was over the moon at having a couple of extra bodies to help out, even if it did very little of the work.
The weeks passed and eventually we were all rostered on the same shift to give the new ones a hands-on trial with the ‘Scottie’. They had been trained well and when a jump-cruiser arrived we all took turns to receive and then send containers. Well, three of us did while Epsi kept referring to its device and making notes of the container numbers as they arrived. When we sent the cruiser on its way Epsi announced that the load had contained another large supply of mining droids and some more ‘domestic/pleasure’ droids that were destined for the Delta quarters. The other two Gammas exchanged looks at this bit of information. They still had not told us what they actually did for the Betas above cleaning and entertaining.
On our next shift we did not have a cruiser rostered but were instructed to take the two Gammas though the whole process and mark them to see if they could do it alone. We did a few trial exchanges without pushing the Spock button and they worked out quite well. Suddenly the speaker announced that a jump-ship was about to appear and to be ready. When it did arrive it was not a jump-cruiser with a cargo, no; this one was something we had never seen before, a Jump-liner and the only things it carried were passengers.
When we made contact with their ‘Scottie’ control we were very surprised when the screens flickered into life and we could see them. At first there was just an officer who told us that they had experienced some troubles and gave us a list of things that they needed and that they would stay in orbit until we could send it all up to them so that they could complete the repairs needed. It said that they knew that there would be no trips to the planet for the passengers as we had a glitch with our ‘Scottie’ and that they were sorry about that. It then said something very strange. It said “I think that I now see why they call you Tranny 27.”
We sent the list to our stores to make up the containers and then it was a waiting period until we could make the transfer. During that time some of the crew came into their control room to say ‘Hello’ and they were all wearing a uniform which had a separate tube for each leg. We wondered among ourselves about this at seemed very odd to us. And then a crewmember walked into view that changed our thinking dramatically.
It was of similar height but the body shape was different and wrapped in a uniform that showed the body to best advantage. The hair, though, was a mass of curls, tumbling down its back. The two other Gammas were almost crying when they saw it, saying that theirs had been nearly as long when they had been buzz-cut. This wondrous crew-member looked at the screens and then said “What’s the problem with you lot, haven’t you seen a real woman before?” The screens and communications then went black and silent. Epsi asked the one question we all were thinking of; “What’s a woman?”
I said ”If that’s a woman, then it is wearing a similar uniform to us, but so much nicer.” The other two Gammas were now crying great sobs and we sat them in easy chairs for them to get themselves together. When they did recover Gamma 7 said that the Betas used to refer to them as their women and that they had been always dressed in a similar fashion when they were in ‘pleasure mode’. We looked blank and it dawned on them that we had no idea of what they were talking about. Gamma 3 said quietly that if we knew of a very isolated spot on the base that was not covered by vid they would gladly show us.
The important change was that now they were both certain that they wanted to get on board that liner. We told them that no human had gone through the ‘Scottie’ for many years as it was faulty. Gamma 3 insisted that it would be better off dead than carry on in the way it was now forced to. Gamma 7 was in total agreement and I must say that I was starting to feel the same way myself. Epsi was very quiet and studying his device.
When the screens came back on there was a senior officer looking at us and it asked us if we knew what the problems with our ‘Scottie’ was and we said that we had no idea but had been told that it was dangerous for humans. It told us that they would need several planetary rotations to do the repairs after we had sent the needed equipment and that it would get back to us with some more information later but for now it said it was needed in a meeting.
What threw me was that it said it had a package that we could look at if we activated the ‘Scottie’ and asked where the package should be consigned to so that only the four of us would see it. We gave it that information and took delivery of a package which the automated system delivered to Epsis’ quarters. We left the other two to monitor the system while Epsi and I went to pick up the package.
Back in our control room we locked the doors and Epsi did a bit of programming on his device which, he assured us, turned off the vid-links in the room. He then took the device that had been sent to us and turned it on to start looking through the options. It turned out to be a history module and when we looked up Transfer Point 27 we found a whole new world that opened up for us and changed us all for ever.
The biggest thing was that we discovered what a woman was and saw that we were a human they called men. We then found that a ‘family’ included a man and a woman and small ones they called ‘children’. The story was that Tranny 27 had been built and then twenty ‘families’ had been sent down using the ‘Scottie’ and the builders had left them to settle in. It looked like the first twenty years went well but some of the ‘Alpha women’ started dying in childbirth and all the subsequent ‘children’ were men. Some ‘Beta women’ did give birth to more ‘Delta women’ and the ones that produced us three Gammas were the last on the planet. Any woman sent down by ‘Scottie’ arrived unable to reproduce and generally only lived a few planetary years.
Looking at the list I found that the Alpha I remembered had been the last one alive and happened to be an ancestor of mine. I learned how we came into the world and it was a lot to take in. I also discovered that the ‘woman’ that had created me had been Delta 17 and that her body had been the last human body to be sent to a jump-ship for a return to ‘her’ home world that arrived unchanged.
The whole concept of men/women/families/birth was totally new to me but was not so strange to the other Gammas. With the doors locked and the vid-links off they then showed us what the word ‘pleasure’ meant and it made me feel very odd indeed. My pee-pipe did things that it had never done before. What made me feel stranger was the fact that I was the last of the line. That’s why all of these mining droids were coming down. No-one would come and join us and the ones remaining had been given the means to be well looked after before they died. I expect that the whole base would be automated long before the last one passed away.
It was the final part of the information that sealed our fate. It stated that every ‘man’ who was ‘Scottied’ up to a waiting jump-ship after the Delta 17 transfer arrived having been changed to a ‘woman’ and it had been decided that no more would be allowed to leave. Gamma 7 made a shrill cry when we read that and said “If we get into a package going up we would arrive changed. It would be wonderful!”
I must say I was not so sure I wanted to look like the wondrous creature we had seen but the idea slowly crept up on me. We re-activated the vid-links and told our Beta officer that we would man the ‘Scottie’ controls around the clock with overlapping shifts so that the liner would be away as soon as they could. It, or should I say, ‘he’ was very happy to hear that and told us to get them away as quickly as we could because there would be a jump-cruiser rostered in a couple of days. We split the next few days into constant shifts with me and Gamma 3 taking half the time and Epsi and Gamma 7 taking the other half. We decided that we would sort out any attempt to stow-away when the time came. In the meantime we were to find out everything we could.
We contacted the liner and told them that we would be available around the clock and they were happy about that. They did say that they could move to another orbital point while they did the repairs so we could do our thing with the incoming cruiser. Our first shift was just a sixth of the day and Epsilon 32 and Gamma 7 went off to catch a bit of shut-eye and some food. While they were away Gamma 3 showed me again what pleasuring was all about and what it meant to be pleasured if I was able to get off-planet. I was starting to like it!
Marianne G 2021
