"Rejected Extraneous Subhuman Offal." That's what a Reso means to Devin Newcome, forget that the Committee calls it a free license for "Recreational Sex ONLY." That's what they gave him, while the young lady he worships from afar, Astra Ortiz, got a Genetic Morality List mandating three men she has to make babies with, in two more years when she's eighteen. The people in Papa's Pride love old-fashioned SF space operas like "Star Trek" for all the things they got wrong: transporters, food replicators, warp drive, bopping ...
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"Rejected Extraneous Subhuman Offal." That's what a Reso means to Devin Newcome, forget that the Committee calls it a free license for "Recreational Sex ONLY." That's what they gave him, while the young lady he worships from afar, Astra Ortiz, got a Genetic Morality List mandating three men she has to make babies with, in two more years when she's eighteen. The people in Papa's Pride love old-fashioned SF space operas like "Star Trek" for all the things they got wrong: transporters, food replicators, warp drive, bopping back and forth in time ... As far as Al Gadore's humungous space venture knows, it is the one and only starship ever to lift off from Old Earth; and even now, as the first babies born aboardship reach the age to get their genlists, Papa's Pride has still not found either a vacant planet to colonize, or one already inhabited with life forms of its own. The time dilation factor means that by now the civilization they left must be unrecognizable -- if Old Earth itself still exists. There is no return. Papa's Pride is alone, carrying quite possibly the last human beings still alive in the universe. At liftaway, they numbered 3,000 -- 2,000 potential colonists and, thanks to a deal with the Vatican for partial funding, 1,000 monks and nuns of the Cosmic Christ, in twenty-four pylons each one 5 km. long, rotating around a central core huge enough in itself to sustain survivors indefinitely. Artificial gravity they have, and -- if not a "holosuite" -- at least simulations with bodysuits and goggles. And arks storing as much as possible of Old Earth's flora, fauna, and humanity in seeds and genes. And as much of Old Earth's heritage as could be carried along in computer banks or uploaded while still in some kind of contact with Old Earth. But they must grow all their own food, supply all their own needs, waste absolutely nothing and recycle absolutely everything, because "Everything is precious in Papa's Pride ." Creating a computer virus endangers the whole ship and therefore counts as one of the very few capital offenses. Devin and Astra are heirs of the Genetic Morality Coup staged by the scientific party during the ship's first decade out, ostensibly to breed the humans best fit to colonize space, more secretly to hold the population down to the numbers Papa's Pride can sustain. Milo Black and Molly Beitung are of the Liftaway Generation, he a scientists' son who fled to the monastery pylon in order to escape the Genetic Coup, she a Sister of the Cosmic Christ. Meanwhile, threatening the ship's delicate political balance of scientists and religious, Al Torelli, who considers himself the mystical heir of the ship's builder (lying now in cold storage while his widow captains the ship), plots a second great coup -- to overthrow the whole Genetic Morality system and restore the free mixing of genes with no limits at all. WARNING: Apart from one page of proto-foreplay, this story contains no explicit sex scenes. The author trusts mature readers to understand what's going on during a row of asterisks.
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