The New Mission

The next morning, our space suits arrived. All eleven of us were all together when we were trying on the suits. Our group of eight simply tried on the suits, without catheters, and made sure they fit. They were set aside for our return to Earth. The other group got fully ready for flight, with a near pass of their target to the station just an hour from when the suits arrived. Our return was going to wait until the other group went out and caught this thing that changed us, or destroyed it.

While they were getting into the ship, the rest of us were put into a room where we could watch the feed from the ship. There was nothing to do at first, while they were boarding and getting ready to go, and my recent crewmates cracked lots of jokes about turning female. Clearly, they had gotten over any resentment for having been changed, though Chloe, the former Zimmerman, was the only one who really was delighted by it.

But soon they launched the ship, and it didn’t take long to reach the artifact. They needed only 20 minutes from launch to match its speed and location.

We were holding our breath as they approached it. Was it going to change them back to male, make them even more exaggeratedly female, just knock them out, do nothing, or do something else entirely? The answer turned out to be “something else entirely.”

At this point we had a split screen in the video feed, one side showing the device outside the ship from the retriever’s perspective, the other showing the interior of the ship where the other two sat. As soon as Reynolds grabbed hold of the device, rather than bathing them in a pink beam, it spoke. I’m not sure how, but we heard it clearly in the audio feed from the ship.

Welcome back, my daughters. Only three of you returned, but that is two more than I require. One of you must serve as my interface to the world. Who shall it be?

At first, the people seemed frozen, and we were all shouting “No, don’t do it!” but after about 30 seconds, Gardner said, “I’ll do it.”

So be it.

A blue beam shot out from the device in the exterior view, and an aura of the same blue encompassed Gardner’s body from his position as arm operator.

Our Mission Control on SpaceFab-1 were frantic. They had not wanted anybody to volunteer for whatever the device wanted, but Gardner did, and now they were powerless to stop what was happening.

As the blue glow faded. we saw that the artifact had disappeared, but there was no evident change in Gardner.

“What happened?” Mission Control asked, desperately seeking clarity on Gardner’s status.

Gardner responded in a monotone, “I shall serve as the conduit for those who need the artifact’s services.”

“Are you Gardner, or are you the artifact?”

“We are both here. Gardner speaks for herself, except when information about the artifact is needed, or its services.

“You spoke of services and those who need them. Are those services gender changes?”

“Male-to-female only. My counterpart does the others.”

“There is another device?”

“Yes. It looks identical, but I do not know its whereabouts.”

“OK. We will look for it. How do you intend to perform the services, or determine who to perform them for?”

“Now that the device is in a host, it is easy to determine who wants the service. Only those who insert their penis inside the host shall receive the service. When the device was first activated, without a host or a potential host near it, the only available option was to service those near it to try to obtain a host.”

They returned to the station, and there was another call with Greene which we were all allowed to participate in. Those from the mission explained the situation to Greene.

Greene responded, “This is helpful. You have removed the threat of further involuntary gender changes just from flying into the wrong part of space. In doing so, you have completely fulfilled the requirements for the first 5 million apiece.”

We cheered, even those of us who didn’t volunteer and weren’t getting money.

“I am afraid I have to say the second part of the deal was not satisfied. The intent of that deal was to deliver the artifact to a location controlled by me and to give me full control over its usage. With it trapped inside Ms. Gardner, to satisfy that deal would essentially mean turning her into my slave, to service any and all customers as I wish. This is distasteful to me, and probably also distasteful to Ms. Gardner and most of the rest of the human race. So the additional 5 million apiece will not be paid.”

There were a couple of “awwww”s, I think from those who would have been getting the money besides Gardner herself, who looked relieved. Mostly I saw nods from people in agreement with Greene’s conclusion. When Greene asked the three potential recipients of that money to indicate their agreement with this conclusion as a way of resolving the deal, they all agreed with his conclusion.

“With that done, Ms. Gardner, you and I may negotiate a separate deal for the use of the artifact. That does not have to happen now; you may wait until you are back on Earth and you can speak in comfort.”

“That seems reasonable,” Gardner said. I was glad to note her voice was back to normal.

Those of us besides Chloe who didn’t want to become female could hold out hope the other device could be found. But we weren’t counting on it, and still prepared for the likelihood of living our lives as females. Before they even put us in our suits for the trip back to Earth, they told us they’d looked through the satellite photos of every object of unknown origin similar in size to the female-making device, and they didn’t find a match.

This was going to be a shorter trip, but we still had to maneuver from high orbit, through some remaining space junk, to a splashdown on Earth, and get picked up. The space suits would protect us through the pickup, though as long as we landed properly upright we could open a hatch on the capsule, remove our helmets, and breathe normally while waiting for pickup. So we got back in the suits, and they hooked up the catheters for the trip.

There was one more step to prepare as women. We learned that the women’s suits allowed for a third catheter for the vagina, mainly for menstrual fluid. They used that on the 10-day junk pickup flights when it wouldn’t be possible to change tampons or pads. They could not risk the suits getting stained by menstrual fluid, though I really wondered when they were next going to have a female astronaut in my size. For this short trip, that was overkill, but just in case any of us started our periods, since none of us knew when they might start, we had to put in tampons for this trip. And that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I couldn’t feel it at all once it was in unless I specifically searched for the feeling that it was there.

We waited half an hour in the capsule before launch to get the best path to Earth needing the least maneuvering to avoid junk. And this worked, because we only needed to use thrusters twice after leaving the station and landed without incident.

They knew where we were landing, so there was a ship a short distance away that picked us 45 minutes after we splashed down. It was a Philippine navy ship, but some of the crew spoke English. It was a two-hour ride back to shore, during which we helped each other remove the catheters and get out of the space suits.

Living With Ann

On land, we got some real clothes, though they had problems with some of our sizes. They didn’t have a bra in my size, for instance, but they provided me with a densely woven undershirt that helped keep my nipples from showing, and a big loose dress to wear over it. Then we got on a commercial flight from Manila to LA, except for Chloe, who was from Australia and went to Sydney instead, and Gardner, who went... somewhere else. They were keeping her location secret even from us. I largely slept through the flight.

They took us to a SpaceFab office somewhere in southern California. There, we signed some paperwork which was mostly filled out for us already to make things official, including applications for our insurance payments that were already being processed, and some identity documents not previously filed. They also had clothes there that SpaceFab had bought for us. Since this was clothing they bought in advance for a place they thought I would end up, and not just whatever city we’d splashed down closest to, this time they had a bra for me. They warned me I would be shopping in specialty stores to find my size. That wasn’t a new thing for me, since I had shopped in “big and tall” men’s stores before. It would just be the women’s version of those.

We spent the night in a hotel, and in the morning they put us all on flights to our respective destinations. Ann and I got to Philly, took a cab to our apartment, and found more clothes there in our sizes waiting for us.

We spent the next two weeks in a flurry of activity. There was more paperwork to fill out. Our belongings from our old homes arrived. We opened those boxes to pull out specific things, but mostly left them boxed. Ann and I went house-hunting and found one we liked. We were only going to have to live in the apartment for the one month they’d already paid for us.

Ann readily adapted to sleeping in a bed together with me, though most of the time it was just sleeping and maybe cuddling. Ann and I only got intimate twice during the first few weeks, both times doing oral sex.

We both started our periods on the 12th day after getting to Philly, which wasn’t as bad as we’d worried. We didn’t suffer any PMS, which was good, in a way, but it also meant it happened as a surprise.

We also explored different types of clothing. The week’s worth of clothes that were waiting for each of us at the apartment were in a variety of styles and types of garment. When they sent over our old stuff, they included all our male clothes, but they weren’t of much use. I looked through mine, and while I could wear some of the shirts, they were very tight over my breasts, and button shirts left peekaboo gaps between the buttons. I needed one size larger. My smaller waist and wider hips made my old pants not work. Ann found it even more hopeless wearing her old male clothes. So we put all of them back in the boxes and stored them in the attic in case we ever got turned back.

The limited amount of clothing we had when we started forced us to try out the different types of garments they provided. I hadn’t ever really planned on wearing dresses or skirts, but one dress they provided me seemed to bypass my younger appearance. It made me look like a very formal English matron, the leader of an aristocratic family who lived in a mansion. Ann simply couldn’t pull off that look no matter what she did, but she had clothes that let her look more like a normal person and less like a big-breasted bimbo. So we had ideas what to look for when we went out shopping for more clothes, which we did pretty quickly. Sadly, I found the advice I was given was right: there is only one manufacturer who makes bras in my size, not available in any of the stores near me, but I was able to order them online.

But most of what we bought were simply casual clothes, pullover tops and shorts, because we weren’t going to be going out and needing to impress people all the time. Lots of the time we were simply going to be at home. We bought enough things we’d be comfortable in every day to last two weeks, and all of it machine washable, because who really wants to go out to a cleaners? That kind of stuff was for special events and we’d buy it when we needed to. We quickly learned which stores had good selections we liked, though my large size meant that those were never the same stores for both of us.

When all of our initial expenses were taken care of, we invested the rest of my 5 million and Ann’s 3 million, figuring we’d make more than enough to live on and grow the capital to keep up with inflation. I had intended for 3 million to do that for me alone, over a shorter time span for which it might not be critical to grow the capital.

We were surprised to see Gardner on TV. The stories featuring her explained that we were changed female during our mission but that Gardner was the only one whose identity was being revealed. They were not, at this time anyway, talking about how it happened, but Gardner explained that she never wanted to be changed female but she’s accepting it and dealing with it. They were painting her as the unfortunate victim of an accident. And they still weren’t saying where she was, though clearly at least one TV crew knew.

Getting Back With the Crew

At our request they had put us all in contact via e-mail, but Chloe set up a weekly video chat for the whole group. The 11 of us were invited, along with spouses, though the spouses usually didn’t attend. They were held Saturday evenings in Britain, afternoons in the US, and Sunday morning in Australia. This kept regular communication going among all of us.

The first was a session for the three who went on the recovery mission to get to know the rest of us. We’d had some time together but we’d largely been segregated after making that decision to go or not go on the recovery mission.

Melvin Gardner was now known as Freedom Gardner. She had naturally been most in touch with SpaceFab during the recent weeks. She confirmed for us that SpaceFab had kept our identities secret. Usually, the names of the crews get posted on their web site, but only after the conclusion of the mission, in case something happens. And something indeed happened.

Freedom was going to allow her name to be posted there, and gave the rest of us the option, and only the crew’s doctor chose to allow her name to be posted. In time, Freedom was going to work out how to offer male-to-female gender change service using the artifact, but there was a lot to figure out, in part because she wasn’t just giving the change away.

I wondered what Greene’s bargaining chip was. Gardner volunteered for this, she had the thing, and if she wanted to offer services through it, why did Greene need to be involved? But she explained.

“First off, this will be public eventually, but I am in the Netherlands and for now this is a secret. Even before Greene sent us out on the recovery mission, he’d already been contacted by the governments of the U.S. and U.K., and since then all the other major powers as well. They want the thing. Apparently, the ability to remake someone with a totally new appearance and gender, even if that appearance isn’t under our control, is the kind of thing those governments would normally put under the deepest secrecy levels, and they are really upset that it’s in the hands of a private individual. Well, hands is not the right body part, but you know.”

Chloe asked, “The artifact said it’s going to trigger when men put their penis into you, so does that mean it’s in your...”

Freedom nodded so that Chloe didn’t need to finish the statement.

“Basically, Greene’s my liaison to the major governments of the world. He’s running security for me, really high-level security, to keep someone from one of these governments from coming in here and kidnapping and enslaving me. I’m going to give him a significant cut of each conversion and he keeps me alive and free. And the Netherlands was simply a country with no such ambitions and one neutral with respect to letting them send their agents in here to be converted, should they wish to do so. Of course, all these governments are going to be spying and probably getting pictures of everybody converted.”

Freedom stopped at this point and let the others speak.

I’d wondered how Reynolds was going to get along looking like a 14-year-old girl. She’d moved in with Chisholm in London, as they were the only two British among the crew. In public, they often posed as mother and daughter, and like us, they’d chosen to use the same surname, Victoria and Elizabeth Riley. But legally Reynolds was 18 and they were simply two adults living together. In private, they were a lesbian couple. That made sense to me; Reynolds latched onto someone she trusted just as Ann had with me. After Reynolds, now Elizabeth Riley, mentioned this, Ann described the limited ways in which she and I had become intimate. And we went around the rest of the group.

In subsequent meetings, Freedom gave updates. Greene was getting 30% of the 50,000 euros she was charging for each conversion after certain expenses were deducted. She’d also negotiated for Reynolds and Chisholm to each get 10% until it reached the 5 million they would have gotten if they’d been able to turn over the artifact Greene’s way.

She did test conversions. Things worked pretty much as they did on the ship. Patients were going to need medical care with IVs and such for about two days, and the cost of this was the major deduction. And people were still getting made younger along with the conversion. Typical seemed to be a reversion of 50% of the aging since puberty, but this varied across a wide range of about 20% to 80%. They wouldn’t be able to model it until they had more data that would come when they started doing the changes in bulk.

Gardner completed divorce proceedings with her wife. As expected, her wife didn’t tolerate at all being married to a woman, and so Gardner got a good deal. Her wife got their house and half of their money from before Gardner went into space. Gardner kept all the money paid by SpaceFab and had full rights to whatever comes out of the service, apart from whatever she pays to satisfy Greene.

In other news, Chloe reported that she was actively dating men, aiming to find a husband, but was still looking.

Rhonda and Joanna had started using a life coach at their home in New York, and gave positive reviews. It wasn’t just the kind of stuff Dunn had told us in two sessions on the station. The life coach was a woman we could ask about any aspect of womanhood. There was no stupid question except the unasked one. Ann and I decided to get one.

Rhonda and Joanna also reported they were both trying to date men, though they hadn’t found any they liked yet. They had gone on 2 dates as double dates to help reassure each other as they started this life. They and Chloe were the only ones doing this, but not the only ones lusting after a dick...

Doctor Cardenas reported, a few months after returning to her practice, that about a third of her patients had left, but she had picked up enough transgender ones to replace them and more. She had told us she was married, but only now revealed her wife was a pre-op transsexual. They had previously had sex in both roles, but Cardenas was now enjoying receiving her wife’s dick in her pussy and her wife was going to keep that dick. And the doctor was now pregnant, confirming that it was indeed possible for the rest of us.

Because this discussion involved anal sex, Ann had to step away, and I called her back when it was over. This led to Ann telling the whole crew how, when she was a boy, she was anally raped, and how it made her avoid sex entirely until she changed. Cardenas apologized, but Ann said it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t know, and furthermore that she wanted to talk about it now. So this turned into a discussion that anal sex is a thing that some men and women enjoy, and is not simply a way boys get raped. Ann still didn’t want anything to penetrate her back there, but she could talk about it.

Ann and I had eight one-hour-long weekly sessions with the life coach before we stopped. I don’t think she told us anything we couldn’t have figured out on our own, but it was nice getting confirmation of some things. Some of it might have taken us a while, but she was able to tell us directly without us spending months wondering. She liked the way we had decided to dress, and made a couple other suggestions but thought we had chosen good styles for our shapes.

Five months after our transformations, it was December. We all exchanged clothing sizes because some of the group wanted to send gifts, and that obligated all of us to do so, though we did not all send clothes. Gardner had started offering the service, and her secure setup meant she lived and worked in that compound all the time, so we could send her gifts there.

I sent everybody a scented bath oil I enjoyed. Ann had already been planning to buy me a vibrator-like toy that was designed to massage a nipple after discovering that she could suck her own nipples but I could not. When the gift discussion came up, she realized from the video that none of the others were as endowed as she was, and got them all that gift, even sending two to each of our crew who was married to a non-crew woman. We weren’t sure if it would work for the trans-woman the doctor was married to, but at least she would have the opportunity to find out.

In January, SpaceFab contacted us to let us know they had visually inspected with their satellites every piece of tracked space debris potentially of the right size to be the other device and did not find any candidates for the female-to-male device. But they were still looking.

That led to us directly discussing on our next call whether any of us would change back if they did find it.

Baker and Posey said they’d consider it, though they were both enjoying the rather different interactions they had with their wives now, and they would still be happy if they never got turned back. None of the others indicated any desire to change back, including myself and Ann.

After the call, I asked Ann, “Are you sure of what you said on the call, that you wouldn’t change back?”

“Robin, I like what we have now. Ken was afraid of sex.”

“Ken?”

“Yeah, you know, the old me, Sputterman.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that you’ve never actually given me that name before? You were always Sputterman or Sputty and I never heard your old first name until just now.”

“Wow! Maybe I’m beyond that more than I thought. But as I was saying, even though Ken was grown up, he was still a little boy afraid of any kind of sex. As Ann, I’ve been able to break through that and enjoy sex with you in lots of different ways, ways I didn’t even know about because I had been so afraid to explore sex. Thank you, Robin.”

“You’re welcome. Is it time to dispose of our old clothes? I’m happy as Robin, too, and if we don’t have any intention of changing back, even if we are able, then we should get rid of them.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ann told me.

But the next time there was a clothing donation drive here, Ann agreed to do it, and we went through all of our male clothes, donating the ones suitable for someone to wear and throwing out the ones that weren’t.

Epilogue

We kept our weekly chats going for years. Not everybody showed up every time, but nobody quit entirely and there were enough each week to keep going.

By mid-2043, Gardner was servicing 10 patients a day, 5 days a week, and the Rileys each got their full 5 million each by the end of that year.

Doctor Cardenas had a healthy son, and then two daughters, the last in 2047.

Victoria Riley proposed to Elizabeth in 2044 and they married that November. Ann was so excited when the talk of marriage came up that I knew the time was right, and I asked her to marry while we were still on the call, apologizing for not having the ring yet but going out to get us matching engagement rings the next day. We married in January 2045.

Rhonda and Joanna finally found and married their Mr. Rights in 2045 and 2046, respectively, and in that same order also became the second and third of us to bear children. None of the rest of us ever got pregnant.

Despite Chloe dating extensively from just weeks after her return to Earth, she didn’t actually find a guy she liked until 2048 and married him in 2049, the last of us to be married, apart from Gardner, who had no intention of again marrying either a man or a woman, and devoted her life to the service.

In 2050, SpaceFab finally identified what they believe was the female-to-male device, but it was only about a third of the device. They found other smaller pieces among their inventory, some of them even picked up but unidentified even before our fateful trip, and there was no hope of putting together a working device. Fortunately, we were all happy with our new lives.