The Great Escape Chapter 15, Part 5 of 11

The Great Escape
Chapter 15, Part 5 of 11

"Come now, Roger, my lad. You know me well enough now to call me Stephen."

"Thank you, Stephen."

"And I suppose I've got to call Goldrick by a new name as well."

"Yes, you can call me 'Danielle she said."

"Certainly not. I call all my eggheads by their surnames."

Danielle was about to protest that she was no longer one of his eggheads, but she rather liked the fact that he treated her as one of the lads.

"Should I call you 'Harcourt'?" Stephen enquired.

It was Roger who replied.

"Danielle would be pleased if you keep calling her 'Goldrick.' It's her professional name."

"'Goldrick' it is."

Another receptionist came out to greet Stephen. After bowing, the visitors were escorted inside and sent up in a lift to the top floor, where Ryota Miyazaki, Chairman and Founder of Hyper Star Japan, waited to welcome his guests. He was accompanied by his chief engineer, Mr. Yamada.

Stephen Oakeshott was visiting Hyper Star Japan to discuss the business partnership with his company, but he deliberately timed his visit to coincide with Danielle's. She was here to present her idea for a special hyperspace drive. Introductions and business cards were exchanged, and there was fantastic survival these days of electronic communicators. The two chairmen sat in an office while Mr. Yamada took Danielle and Roger on a tour of the engineering department.

On the shop floor, Danielle met a team of five engine designers. After admiring their work, she explained the concept of what she called an 'inside-out' engine: a hyperspace drive that enhanced its power with power from the beacon. She projected her calculations onto the wall, along with an outline of the engine's design.

Danielle was met with silence. The Japanese engineers were too polite to express their incredulity, so she had to present both sides of the conversation.

"Yes, I know that the engine requires us to communicate with the beacon through the plume," she admitted, "and I know that everyone says communication through the plume is impossible, but my team and I think we've found a way. We've checked the calculations. It's theoretically possible. I need to know if an engine of this type can be built."

Still, the men were silent. They waited for Mr. Yamada to let Danielle down— except one lightly, a young engineer named Haruki, who looked like he had something to say.

Haruki looked at the chief engineer, who was studying the calculations again, and waited. Mr. Yamada breathed out and said:

"I find no errors in the calculations."

Emboldened, Haruki said:

"I think the calculations are correct, and I can see how an engine like this might work in theory, but I don't know if it can be built."

With general agreement that the calculations were correct, but the engine would not work, the discussion became two-sided. The engineers began filling in Danielle's outline, adding and replacing components, and treating it as a theoretical exercise.

Haruki became Danielle's champion, emphasizing everything positive about her engine and, with Mr. Yamada's implicit approval, trying to find ways to work around its problems.

Haruki commented on the waveguide's most novel feature and wondered how Danielle had thought of it.

"I stole it," she said, again met with uncomprehending silence and shock.

"I mean, I was inspired by something I saw yesterday on a Nakatani Corporation engine," she corrected.

"Ah, the Speedy C1," Haruki said. "It works differently from your design."

An hour later, the team's deliberations were interrupted by a message inviting Danielle and Roger for refreshments on the top floor.

Tea with Mr. Miyazaki, Mr. Yamada, and Stephen Oakeshott was successful. With only a little prodding from Stephen and a message to the legal department to check that Danielle's design would not impinge on the copyright of Nakatani Corporation, Mr. Miyazaki committed Hyper Star Japan to investigate the possibility of making Danielle's engine. It would be a worthwhile side project and, if it worked, may produce a lucrative return. With smiles and bows, the visitors took their leave.

Outside, satisfied beyond her expectations, Danielle hugged Stephen again.

"Thank you," she gushed.

"No need for thanks, Goldrick. It's an investment that I expect to pay off handsomely. I trust you. Now, what are you doing for the rest of the day?"

"We have no plans."

"Then let's go sightseeing together. My flight home isn't until this evening."

They summoned a ground car and became tourists. Like all visitors to Kyoto, they were awed by the impressive castle of the Shogun warriors and its beautiful gardens; then, they were enchanted by the serenity and perfection of a Shinto shrine that covered an entire hilltop.

Saying goodbye to Stephen as he headed home, they returned to their hotel, where the maid, Aiko, advised them to eat dinner there so she could wait for them. They could eat in their room or with other guests in a communal room, where all the maids would play their instruments and dance for them after dinner.

Tired from walking around and interested in the communal dinner, they agreed to stay in the hotel and be waited on traditionally. Aiko bowed and requested permission to help them undress. There was no shame in the procedure. She began with Roger and, when he was naked, helped Danielle off with her grey business suit.

Aiko stripped down to a white slip and led them to the plunge pool next to their bedroom. She entered the pool first and invited them in, where she washed them with a loofah.

The water made Aiko's slip see-through. Roger carefully avoided looking at her, but Danielle happily admired their pretty maid's short, curvy figure as she scrubbed Roger. Never one to deny the beauty of other women, Danielle thought Aiko's small breasts with perky brown nipples pressing through the thin fabric were beautiful. A triangle of thick black pubic hair was visible through the slip, which formed a curtain over her thighs.

After drying her guests with towels, Aiko helped them into comfortable robes and went to dress herself with the other maids. Danielle and Roger joined the other Western guests seated on cushions on the floor around low dining tables in a large room with wooden floors and rice-paper walls over bamboo lattice. Made up and in gorgeous kimonos, the maids entered, playing their instruments and singing a traditional song. Two of the maids danced.

After singing and dancing, the maids left their instruments and catered to their guests, bringing out the dishes and sitting down at the table to fill and refill the plates. Danielle and Roger were hungry and ate everything Aiko served them, trying not to gulp the food down too greedily. She was impressed that they understood Japanese customs so well they could finish their plates.

"Leaving food is an insult to the chef," she explained.

"No chance of that," Danielle said, gamely endeavoring to transport a generous portion of delicious fried seaweed to her mouth with chopsticks.

Aiko politely took Danielle's hand and gently guided her to a better way of holding the chopsticks. It wasn't so complicated, and she soon got the hang of it. There was no hope for Roger, who ignored etiquette by using his soup spoon to eat his dinner, pushing the food onto the spoon bowl with the fat ends of his chopsticks.

The meal was exquisite, and the maids' musical entertainment enchanted them. They sang and danced prettily while their guests sat comfortably. The whole evening was a delight, so a replete and happy couple of honeymooners thanked Aiko effusively and persuaded her that, though it was traditional to bathe after dinner, they felt spotless and were too full. She made their bed and wished them a good night's sleep.

They sank into the futon and held one another.

"Monday night, Darling. What kind of sex do we have on Mondays?" Danielle asked.

"The ordinary kind, I think, Sweetheart, except that I'm too full for any kind of sex."

"I can't believe you're neglecting your new wife less than a week into our honeymoon!"

"I can't move."

"It's your fault for being so greedy."

"I didn't see you stinging."

"I was being polite."

"It's not bad manners to refuse a fifth plate of sashimi."

"Oh, God! It was so delicious," Danielle enthused. "I'm going to taste it for ages."

"You're right. It was amazing. So which is better, food or sex?"

"Mumm? Right now, I'd struggle to choose between them. What do you say?"

"Sex with you is better than any kind of food."

"Flatterer! You have to say that to your wife."

"I'd say it to any woman."

"You better not!"

He laughed.

"I'm serious. Loving you is more harmonious than any music, more exalting than any shrine, and more nourishing than any food."

"I don't know what that means, but it's beautiful."

"It means you'll always be my highest ideal and greatest pleasure."

"Hmm!" she snuggled closer to him.

"I love you, husband."

"I love you too, wife. And I've remembered now that Monday night is 'woman on top' night."

"Your memory is very convenient for you."

"Isn't it?"

"All right, but don't blame me if I squash you flat. After all that dinner you made me eat, I must weigh a ton."

She climbed on him and planted her mouth on his. They clasped hands together, fingers intertwined, just kissing, too full for further action.

But as their dinners went down, so their appetites for sex went up, and soon both were horny.

Danielle moved down his body to take his cock in her mouth. He was hard already, and she made the most of it, licking around the head before taking it into her mouth with a light suction.

She went slowly, taking in a mouthful and then pulling back with a soft suction, working gradually further and sucking gradually harder. Danielle was a very good cocksucker and knew how to keep Roger on the boil for ages. She massaged his balls and changed her style, licking sideways up and down the shaft.

Danielle spun around and knelt over his head when he was groaning nicely. His tongue in her pussy worked her up so vigorously that she forgot the weight of food in her belly and began to grind her pelvis onto his face. Roger alternated, sucking on her clitoris with long, succulent licks along her pussy. After some time, he added an exploratory finger, teasing on tendons and muscles, feeling as far into her vagina as he could, finding the a-spot, which he fingered, triggering a gush of dampness and a happy moan.

They kept in this position to the end. Roger's insistent fingering brought Danielle off with a shudder, spraying her sweet juice on his face. Not long afterward, her work on his cock brought him off, splurging his seed into her bobbing mouth.

On their last day in Japan, Danielle and Roger met Itsuki Takahashi at the grand entrance gate to the Nanzen-ji Temple.

He was a thin young man with a slightly nervous look, perhaps because he was carrying a heavier burden than was his due. He made a polite bow and then shook hands with them in the Western fashion, asking them how they were enjoying their visit to Japan and what they thought of Kyoto.

Pleased by their praise of his city, Itsuki guided them through the serene temple. Afterward, they sat in the garden to talk about Yumi.

"She's my older sister by two years," Itsuki said. "She studied Hyperspace Engineering at Kyoto University. I'm there now studying Computer Science. After university, she worked with the Nakatani Corporation in their engineering department, working on hyperspace drives."

"We visited the Nakatani Corporation exhibition in Tokyo," Roger said. "We saw their new prototype engine."

"Ah, the Hayei C1. Yumi worked on that engine in a small way. She helped model its waveguide before it went out for space tests."

"That's a coincidence," Roger said, proud of his brilliant wife. "The same engine inspired Danielle to change the design for her engine."

"You're a hyperspace engineer as well?" Itsuki asked.

"Hyperspace pathways are my specialty, not engines," Danielle said modestly. "But how does

Yumi's education and profession relate to our problem?"

"They're relevant because Yumi fell in love with someone at university, a fellow student. It's because of him that she ran away."

"Go on, Itsuki," Danielle said, "tell us the whole story."

"Her lover was Michio Nakatani, son of the Chairman of the Nakatani Corporation. That's why she went to work for Nakatani Engineering to be near him. Michio and she loved each other, or so Yumi thought, but maybe Michio didn't love her as much as she loved him."

"I have to explain: my family are humble folk. Mr. Nakatani wanted Michio to marry someone from his class, the daughter of an industrialist whose company Nakatani was courting. Their marriage would unite the two families and complete the merger of their companies. Michio refuses to marry her, though she is beautiful and stylish, but he gives his father no reason and never tells him about Yumi. He knew that, even if the alliance failed, Yumi would still be too poor and humble for his father: Mr. Nakatani would see to it that they were never together."

"They decided to run away. They would go to one of the outworld settlements and start a new life. It wasn't a fantasy: millions of people have done it."

"Yumi spent her savings on a ticket to Capella. She went there to wait for Michio. His wealth is tied up in the company. He needed to release it, and then he would follow her."

"Michio never left Earth, and his communications with me were being monitored. I could tell.

I'm good at computer security. I got messages to him without being snooped on. He told me his father had frozen his bank account and prevented him from selling his shares. Also, his communications with Yumi were blocked: he hadn't heard from her since she left Earth, and he couldn't send her any money. He thought his father knew about Yumi."

"I told Michio I would convey messages to her for him, and he said he'd be in touch again. I never heard from him since."

"At first, I was in touch with Yumi while she was on Capella, and then our communications ended. Perhaps she left Capella or just stopped answering my messages."

"I wanted to go to her, but I've no money, and I have classes. Besides, I don't know if she's on Capella."

"Yumi asked me never to tell our father about the love affair or where she went. After a month, he had the police issue a missing person's report, but it got quashed. My father doesn't understand why the police won't investigate, and they won't tell him, but I think it's Mr. Nakatani's influence."

"Is that everything?" Danielle asked.

"No, there's one more thing. There was a news item about two days after Yumi arrived in Capella. It was announced that Michio Nakatani was engaged to the heiress of a rival industrial firm, and it had a photo of Michio in evening dress escorting his fiancé to dinner, surrounded by their parents, with reports of the merger being finalized."

"I'm sure Yumi must have seen the story, even on Capella, because it made the front pages of Japan's financial and society news. Also, that was the last day I heard from her."

"That's everything I know," Itsuki said, relieved that he could finally tell someone.

To be continued