Jack Of All Trades (Erotica)

He had a quick shave, a little deodorant, then slipped on his clothes. Not too shabby.

He went back out to the living room and settled down to wait. He probably could have spent a little more time mooching around the shopping district but recalling his security detail’s plea for him to limit the chaos, hiding in his room seemed more sensible.

>>>>>

He bid his escort to Tanz’s apartment a good night and turned to face the door. The fellow had led him deep into the palace and up a few levels so he wondered if they were close to the surface as the royal apartment had been. Pulling his shoulders back he knocked.

Moments later Tanz opened the door and gave him a dazzling smile. He smiled in return.

“Come in, please! Welcome to my home!” Tanz gushed.

Jack stepped inside and she closed the door. “I never like to arrive empty handed so I brought this,” he said handing her the bottle.

“Lussht! Perfect! I’ll put this in a chiller for after dinner! Where are your Altarian friends?” she asked.

“They had a… work issue to deal with tonight but they did want me to thank you for the invitation,” Jack replied.

“No chaperone then. Good!” she said with an impish grin. “Come meet the other guests!”

He was smiling at her enthusiasm as he followed her into her apartment. There was a large bathroom just to his left and further along on the right was an entrance to a huge kitchen with delicious aromas wafting out. His mouth watered. He caught a glimpse of the kitchen being open into the next room then he was past the doorway. When they exited the hall into the living area he caught his breath. Much like the royal apartment the room was circular and dominated by a deep pit of cushions. This time however, instead of having a window on the far wall showing a view of the valley and sky, there was a huge dome window over the pit. As Jack walked forward slowly he looked up, his jaw dropping open in awe. The night sky was filled with stars and each was twinkling back at him.

“Oh my god, this is spectacular!” Jack whispered almost reverently. He could imagine reclining back on the cushions staring up at the stars for hours.

“I’m so pleased you like my apartment and its amazing view,” Tanz said warmly.

Jack was pulled back to the here and now. “Yes, your place is gorgeous!” he remarked taking in the comfortable furnishings and lovely art. He spotted three couples waiting to be… reintroduced. He did recall meeting them the night before. OK, show time. His brain went into overdrive.

“Minister Berris and Hahn! So nice to see you again! Minister Mirs and Geng, a delight! Minister Phan and Minister Julli, good to see you too!” Jack said making his way through the group. The skill of remembering names and titles he’d picked up in his job as Altarian Ambassador came in handy. Each was delighted to be remembered and their spouses were equally pleased as so often they were not.

He ran through his mnemonic patterns to recall the positions each minister had in the Queen’s council.

Berris was in charge of Agriculture and Health and her husband Hahn was a doctor.

Mirs, one of the two males in the cabinet, handled the Employment and Social Development portfolio while Geng took care of their children and ran a daycare with a neighbor.

The only husband and wife team in the cabinet, Phan was the Queen’s Minister of Finance and the only other male. Julli was Minister of Tourism, a portfolio which currently had no off-planet ambitions. Jack had other ideas about that.

These were people who would have deep insight into the current state of the planet.

He’d learned the population of Chrystan was holding steady at roughly 750 million. This was fifty percent higher than when they were evacuated from their original home world. Better living conditions and improved diet were cited as reasons for the increase. The Shreen seemed to have an automatic mechanism for self-regulating their population in relation to their environment’s resources. A concept that eluded Humanity’s grasp to this day.

“Dinner is ready so if you would come this way,” Tanz gestured and led them into a comfortable dining room with a beautifully decorated round table which facilitated conversation. She quickly removed two place settings and chairs as Geng helped spread out the remaining ones. She sat Jack with his back to the wall, facing the entrance to the living room, and without Gee and Bal present they were able to use a boy/girl seating arrangement. Covered dishes on the table contained the meal and Tanz began lifting off the lids. The scents were strange but appetizing and soon everyone was scooping out their favorites onto their plates.

Tanz returned from the kitchen where she’d put his bottle of Lussht in a chiller. She sat next to Jack and pointed out the dishes that were best suited to a human metabolism. It was warmer here at the table so Jack slipped the coat off his shoulders and let the chair take it.

They began talking about the hot springs which led to how difficult it was to take time off from their busy schedules to go to the hot springs. This segued into talking about their different positions and areas of influence. They were all proud of their work and satisfied with the progress they believe they made every day.

While Jack gleaned a good bit of information about the current health of major components of their society and it appeared very healthy indeed, he was no closer to finding the source of the troubles Queen Elissa mentioned. Perhaps it was a class gap? He’d been spending time amongst the leaders of the world’s government and those closest to it, the city residents in the world’s capitol. He would be visiting the other side soon, going deep into the countryside to a village where the resort was located. Perhaps he’d discover a disconnection between the government and its people. Understandably, 750 million people were a lot of individuals to keep happy. The local residents probably didn’t represent a complete view and may not be an accurate representation. He would have to see.

“Jack?”

“Hmmm?”

“We lost you there for a second,” Tanz teased.

“Sorry! My mind was so busy absorbing all this fascinating information while my body is digesting all this fabulous food!”

Tanz gestured across the table where an excited looking Berris was waiting to ask her question again.

“I was wondering if you’ve had any jobs where you had to live in conditions like we have on the surface.”

Jack’s mind immediately went to his time as a Park Ranger and he smiled. The other guests at the table leaned forward unconsciously.

“I’ve had many, many different occupations in my life but yes, I’ve had to work, and live, in conditions very much like the ones above us. It was back on Earth many years ago when I worked as a Park Ranger.” He caught the question on Berris’ tongue before she asked it. “Earth has land set aside for public recreational use. No commercial development allowed. Natural places in a world overrun by… never mind. The point of these parks is to preserve what little natural beauty we have left. Park Rangers protect the land by working as watchmen. Solitary guardians. The job didn’t pay a lot but it was a job and I was good at it. Working the winter season was brutal but paid a little more so I took the job.”Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“What made it brutal?” Berris asked.

“Well, it was cold. Like it is upstairs. It was starkly white. Also like upstairs. But mostly it was the solitude. The closest you’d come to another human being during those long, cold winter months was when a military air transport flew by overhead, way up in the sky. A tiny silver reflection of sunlight off metal. Those were the only moments you’d know you weren’t the only human left on Earth.”

“You must have had some means to communicate with the world outside the Park!” Hahn argued.

“Sure. The Ranger posts had a direct line to the Park Headquarters. We could call anytime.”

“There!” Hahn blurted in relief, knowing there was no way Human’s would impose such isolation on another.

“Budget cuts eliminated the permanent staff in the headquarters during the winter months. We could leave a message on an automated receiver. These would be reviewed once a month when the regional supervisor made his rounds,” Jack explained.

The table went silent. Isolation was not something the Shreen endured for long.

“One of the job requirements was to be able to keep it together mentally for the four or so months it took to get through the winter. Mostly nothing happened during those months. The silence was deafening. I did a lot of reading. No electronics. Actual paper books. The Ranger post I worked out of had hundreds of them. There was usually enough food and if things got desperate we were allowed to hunt but that had its own dangers.”

“You hunted for your food?” Geng asked, a forkful of something red forgotten halfway to her mouth.

The memory still made Jack flinch. “Once.” He looked around and saw he had every eye on him. He sighed and continued.

“There was a weird atmospheric event that winter which drew polar air south over the ocean and down the western coastline of the country I lived in. The snow that fell crippled our transportation lines, food shipments failed to reach their destinations and the bitterly cold temperatures froze water lines and downed our surface power grid. We had shortages of water as well as fuel. People who lived in houses with fireplaces went back to burning stuff for heat. Many hadn’t used the fireplaces in years what with the price of firewood being so high. Many didn’t know how to use a fireplace. There were a lot of house fires and a lot of people died from that or just freezing to death in the dark. Panic set in and it took the army clamping down on the movement of people to settle the situation. My shipment of supplies never made it and I only had another month of food rations. I was going to have to hunt while I could. The Ranger post had a powerful rifle and I knew there was a herd of deer moving through so I packed up my gear and headed out wearing snow shoes.” At the curious look he smiled. “Our feet are much narrower than yours so we wear special shoes to spread our weight out over the snow so we don’t sink.” They nodded.

“I was a couple of hours out from the Ranger post, as far as I was willing to go that day when I heard the sound of a tree falling. I got closer and I saw a man had cut down four trees, sawed them into logs and was stacking them on a trailer behind a snow crawler, like a cart with tracks instead of wheels. He was working on the fifth tree when I got there. I yelled out for him to stop and he shot at me.”

There was a gasp.

“He wasn’t a soldier or really good with the weapon. Just a desperate man stealing wood to heat his home in the winter. I have no idea where the bullet went but it didn’t hit me. I got behind a tree and yelled at him to stop shooting. Then I heard a loud growl and screaming. I looked around and saw the man trying to shoot a very large bear with his tiny handgun.” Once more he saw their question. “A bear? Well, they can get really big, this one was, and are densely muscled and heavily furred. Long sharp claws on all four limbs and incredibly strong. Wide jaws with sharp teeth. Small black eyes with poor vision but a keen sense of smell. They usually leave people alone but there are times where they become a most dangerous predator.”