A Matter of Fertility

That's where we came in. The Scout Service was formed to track down all those lost colonies and reestablish contact. I'd been doing it for several years, having trained in sociology and diplomacy. Standard practice was to pair up people with compatible skills, put them on a scout ship with an AI computer, and send them out following the many traces in the records. My partner on this mission was a rookie by the name of Mizuki, a biologist. While I observed the settlers and worked out the best way to approach them, she'd study the planet's ecology and see what possibilities there were for trade.

I suppose I should point out that Mizuki was really into body mods. Medical science had gotten to the point where people could sculpt themselves into all manner of humanoid forms. Changes to skin color and ear shape were the most common. While I stayed a "baseline" male, Mizuki went....well, some people would call it overboard. Seven feet tall, with a very well-muscled frame. Those muscles came in useful; she sported a huge pair of breasts. Easily a foot across - each. And between her legs... a truly massive cock and balls. "Hyper herms" like her weren't very common; it wasn't easy to combine all the parts into a functioning - and attractive - whole. Mizuki pulled it off. Glowing blue tattoos were the icing on her cake.

We became good friends during our time together. Lovers of a sort. There was no way that cock of hers was going into any holes of mine (or anyone else's, for that matter), but it's not bragging to say that my hands and tongue pleased her. She returned my affection in a similar way.

This latest mission was tracking down a group of "back to nature" matriarchal neo-pagans. The records had a good deal of information as to who they were and their beliefs, but very little as to their "flight plan". We pretty much put ourselves in their minds, and figured out what sort of planets they'd be looking for. It took a while, but we did find them.

Standard procedure was to orbit the planet, map it to find the colony site, use drones and remote cameras for closer observations, then use a lander for quick sample retrieval of local life forms.

The colony had settled in a nice river valley and set up a couple of farming villages. They had gone back to pre-industrial technology; even disdaining radio. That's generally a bad sign; it means they don't want to be contacted and are likely to forget their origins. In this case, the low tech was appropriate for their beliefs. And during the post-Diaspora confusion, a lot of colonies stopped hoping for contact with Earth. I noted that there were a number of abandoned farms, and the population wasn't as large as it should have been. Something was very wrong here.

We landed in one of those abandoned farmsteads that wasn't too far from an inhabited village. We were able to hide the lander in the barn, and moved into the house. While Mizuki studied the ecology, I went to contact the villagers.

Over the years, they had developed a religion based on a nature goddess. "Geya" watched over them all, controlling everything from the weather to harvests. Recently, their faith had been shaken by a succession of crop failures. Each harvest was producing less and less. The colony's birth rate was dropping, too. I presented myself as a messenger of Geya, who had come in response to their prayers. It didn't seem like they'd be too happy to hear about the Confederation in their current society. Best leave that for later, for the experts. Right now, they had more immediate concerns.