World Re-visioned

Chapter 17: Duntas

Chapter 17: Duntas
Copyright 2021 by John Wells. All Rights Reserved.

Duntas had no clue why he was the top council leader of Infantes Facit. He had been happy making babies with any female to catch his eye. Now, he may not make babies because he does not live with any female. But he may have sex, so at least he had that. They forced him to take courses, many of which were a challenge to understand.

The day the sex course started really upset him. Now, he could not have sex with anyone. One look and he could not even think about it. He was stuck doing himself. How do you make babies by yourself? It made no sense to him. He fought the AI over it, but got punished if he resisted too much. While the punishments were temporary, the lesson it gave was permanent. Do what the AI demands or suffer badly. The first time he had made almost an entire minute before realizing the only way to make the pain go away was to do what you were told. Now, even a warning of pain normally caused him to comply.

It took him ten days to finish his self hundred finally. Now, he could have sex with others whenever they showed up. He was shocked to find out the females could enjoy sex. He had never known them to previously. It was their duty to make babies, so they had sex with all comers.

He already outlived all of his ancestors by at least one hand and three fingers years or nine years. He was four hands, two feet, and five toes old. His species had six fingers and toes, making him thirty-nine, though that was beyond his counting ability. His species had words for zero to six, so their highest number was six hands, six feet, six fingers, and six toes, or eighty-four. They had a counting pattern, both hands before both feet, left before right, because most were lefthanded, so leftmost finger of left hand was one, while the rightmost finger of right hand was twelve.

History, math, language, science, English all were new words to learn. They had no meaning to him and, therefore, neither did the courses. He started all of them and was totally confused. Nothing made sense. The words from the dead species that provided the technology were now in the language course. Since he knew most of the words, he pushed through the course to fail it. It took two hands of tries before he passed it.

He finally got a partner for sex, and it is another male. What now? Neither can remember what they read. The AI explains what they should do. They look at each other, laugh and both say no way. The pain is quick and they state okay. An hour later, they figured it out and one can become female. A few seconds of argument over who and the oldest gets changed, namely Duntas. Some pain later for the male, Duntas gets licked to orgasm. Duntas also experienced pain to suck on the male. Much pain later, they figured out the way through the routine.

Math was a complete confusion. First, was counting without fingers or toes. The species that created the language had five fingers and toes so used base eleven because two hands can show eleven different numbers. They had eleven different symbols, from zero to ten. Each numeric column could have any of those symbols. Using 0 to 9, plus a for ten, gives 3a6 as their number being 479 as ours because three times one hundred twenty-one (eleven squared) or 363 plus ten times eleven or 110 plus 6.

The day he counted his fingers with words without touching them, he celebrated with the best meal of his life. It only took who knows how many quarters.

The council was more confusion. June and the AI met with his fellow councillors to explain everything beforehand. They all talked in his language, so, other than some unfamiliar words he had not learned as yet, he could understand things. When the councillors felt they knew what was going to happen, they would go upstairs to the meeting. They warned the meeting the day before, his councillors would meet early, and, as they walked upstairs, the others were told to arrive. Normally, Duntas got completely lost during the meeting. Most talked in English, which he did not know as yet. Others used their own languages, which he would never understand. The AI spoke into his ear with the thing he had to put there, but the multiple talking confused him, so he became lost. The screen on the desk displayed the words, but he was still learning to read,\ so it was not helpful.