by Opal Carew
“There is one piece I’m especially interested in.” He leaned across the table, his eyes gleaming strangely again. “A chip-drill. Here—let me show you.”
He activated his holo-ring—a hell of a lot nicer than my own—and a small image appeared hovering above it. It looked like a round, blue glass ball with a twisted metal blade coming out of it.
I stared at it uneasily and for some reason Zoe rose to my mind again. No, she’s fine, I told myself and pushed the worry away.
“It’s an instrument for making just the right pathway for chip implantation,” Doloroso explained. “Once it tasted the subject’s blood, it knew exactly how far to drill.” The holo projected by his ring jerked as the curving silver blade shot out without warning.
I actually jumped back a little.
“Hell of a nasty thing,” I growled. “I think I’ve seen it. Pretty sure it’s with the rest of the stuff in the hold.”
“Good—excellent.” He gave me a very satisfied look. “And there’s just one more thing I hope you have. A sensitivity tank. Looks like this I believe.”
He made another motion and the chip-drill disappeared to be replaced by a yellow, glowing tank with murky black tendrils waving inside it.
“Those are sensu-pods,” he said, indicating the tendrils which now looked more like tentacles. “The tank sustains them with its liquid but they feed best on the emotions and sensations of sentient beings. They’re quite good at measuring sensitivity. How long did you say you’d had this equipment?”
“Around ten cycles,” I said absently.
“Hmmm…” He nodded. “I imagine the sensu-pods in your particular tank are quite hungry by this time.”
I stirred in my chair, remembering my own plans for the tank. I needed it for Zoe’s sensitivity test. Although knowing what I did now about her fear of being submerged in liquid gave me pause about using it. Still—what else could I do since I had refused the Commercians’ testing? I pictured her floating in the tank and felt another stab of worry. Again I pushed it to the back of my mind.
“I do have that as well, I know,” I said. “But it’s the only piece that’s not for sale. I need it for…personal matters.”
“You have a subject you wish to test?” His eyes gleamed. “One who has been recently transported, perhaps? From what world did you buy her? A newly opened one? There have been rumors recently…most intriguing ones.”
“Where I got her is my business,” I said shortly. I didn’t like the idea of Count Doloroso tracking down the Commercians and scanning the Alien Mate Index for an Earth female of his own. I was fairly certain whoever he picked and paid for wouldn’t be treated well at all.
He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Very well, but do be careful if you use it. The liquid that sustains the sensu-pods is toxic to most sentient beings if left on the skin for too long. Whoever you’re testing must be thoroughly cleansed of it if you don’t wish them to go into cardiac shock.”
“Is that right?” I felt more uneasy about using the tank than ever.
“Really,” he said seriously. “Honestly, after such a long time without use, the tank is really not fit for anything but a collector’s item. So I hope you’ll reconsider my offer. I really need it.”
“You need it?” I frowned. “I thought you just collected this stuff for fun.”
“I mean, I need it to complete my collection,” he answered smoothly. “And I’m willing to pay handsomely to get it.”
“How much?” I asked.
He named a price that nearly made me spit out my mouthful of ale and brandy.
“Goddess of Mercy!” My voice rasped a little.
“And twice that for the entire lot,” Doloroso assured me. “But only if it’s complete. Just think—you can clear your hold of a lot of old junk, and I can complete my Assimilation collection—we both win.”
“Show me your credit,” I said. “I don’t know many people that have that much just to spend on a hobby for the hell of it.”
“Here you go—test it yourself.” He handed me a cred-card—black with gold bands. When I pressed the emerald chip embedded in its center, a small holo-figure popped up and hovered briefly over the card before dissipating like a whiff of smoke.
He was telling the truth.
“You can see that’s from the First Bank of Femme 1,” he said, taking back the card when I handed it to him. “A guarantee of authenticity and secure funds. So…are you interested?”
“You know I am,” I said evenly. I still didn’t like to give up the tank but with this much credit, fixing the hydrogen scoop’s panel wouldn’t break me—that was if I could find a mechanic to fix it. As for Zoe’s testing—I would have to get it done elsewhere. I didn’t like the idea of her in that tank, especially knowing that the liquid could be toxic—didn’t like it at all.
Zoe
It happened so fast, I didn’t have any idea what was going on. How could I be standing on my own two feet one minute, and then hovering three feet above the weird tank filled with yellow liquid the next? Before I could answer the question, I found myself plunging down as something pulled me into the liquid which closed over my head.
At once I was back in the swimming pool, back when I was so little—almost too young to remember, and yet much too old to ever forget. I heard myself crying my little sister’s name, saw her sinking in the water below me, eyes open wide, limbs flailing. I couldn’t reach her…couldn’t reach her because neither of us could swim…
My head was yanked back above the surface and I took a choking, gasping breath. I wasn’t in the swimming pool at the neighbor’s house—I was in a tank in an alien spaceship and something had me by the waist. What was it?
Looking down, I saw a thick, slimy tentacle wrapped around my waist like some kind of belt. I grabbed it and tried to push it down—to push it off. It was slimy and horribly warm under my hands—almost hot. What the Hell was it?
My heart was pounding in my chest as I pushed at it, my pulse skittering like a frightened rabbit’s. The sleeves of Sarden’s black shirt had unrolled themselves and they kept getting in the way as I tried to get a grip on the damn thing.
“Let me go,” I muttered under my breath. “Let…me…go, you bastard!”
And suddenly, it did.
I dropped to the bottom of the tank like a stone, the weight of the sodden shirt pulled me down.
“No!” I tried to say but I sucked in a mouthful of the yellow liquid which was more viscous than water, and choked it out again. I looked up, clawing to find a way out but the sides of the tank rose around me, slick and high and unclimbable. I thrashed as hard as I could, the glowing yellow tank mixing with the vision of the murky blue pool in my past to make a confused vision of horror in my head. Angie, I thought. Angie, I’m so sorry…
Suddenly the slimy black tentacle grabbed me and lifted my head above the water again. I took another ragged, gasping breath and coughed it back out again, trying to rid my lungs of the horrible liquid, which tasted like mud and blood mixed together.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, more tentacles appeared and started tearing at the black shirt I was wearing.
“Hey…hey, stop that!” I gasped as they managed to get it open. Two more tentacles stripped it off my shoulders, leaving me naked and flailing in the slimy liquid. What the hell was going on? What were they going to do?
I found out sooner than I wanted to.
Two thin, shiny black tentacles suddenly appeared right in front of me, their tips pointed at my chest. I looked down at them stupidly, unable to move since the thicker tentacle was still wrapped around my waist.
As I watched, the end of each tentacle began to grow and change until, instead of a blunt tip, they had both turned into starfish-looking appendages on the end of the long black arms.
Before I could wonder what the starfish-hands were for, both of them surged forward and plastered themselves to my boobs.
“Hey! Hey, stop it, you perverts!” I
began to thrash even harder, trying to get away from the awful things. But they were stuck on me like suction cups. And speaking of suction, it seemed like they were determined to suck my nipples right off my breasts. In fact, it felt like someone had put a vacuum hose against each of my boobs and flipped the switch to high.
It hurt like hell and felt perverted at the same time. And then another tentacle brushed at my inner thigh.
“Oh, no,” I said, kicking out at the thing as hard as I could. “Oh, Hell no, I don’t think so—get away from me!”
I was shouting at the top of my lungs—dimly I could hear my own voice echoing in the vast chamber. But there was no one to hear—no one to save me. Was this how my story ended? Could I really die like this, molested to death by some creepy alien creature, like some hapless schoolgirl in Japanese hentai tentacle porn?
“No!” I screamed as the tentacle brushed between my legs again. “No—no, you son of a bitch! Get off me!”
And then the main tentacle around my waist yanked me down again. My mouth filled with the awful yellow slime and I couldn’t shout any more…
Chapter 11
Sarden
I didn’t care for Count Doloroso—there was something strange about him. But I told myself he was just an odd male with a weird Assimilation obsession. What could it hurt to let him buy the medical instruments in my hold?
We made the deal, to be finalized when he came to my ship for the Assimilation equipment in a few standard hours. Though Gallana isn’t actually on a planet, it orbits around a star and its rotation is paced to mimic the thirty hour day of Femme 1, where the Empress lives. Since the day is long, it was still just mid-morning. I should still have time to find a mechanic to replace my panel after Doloroso made the pick up—I hoped, anyway.
Doloroso and I took one last drink on the deal and I left The Suck Hole, the thought of Zoe still in the back of my mind like a nagging song that won’t leave your brain.
“Call the ship,” I told Al, who had been keeping silent in his travel form during the negotiations. “Check on Zoe—make sure she’s well.”
“Don’t you wish to hear what I have found out about the local services and mechanics, Master?” he asked. “I have one you might care to visit but—”
“Not now,” I snapped, quickening my pace. “Check on Zoe.”
He was quiet for a moment, humming softly on my shoulder.
“No answer, Master,” he said at last.
“What? What do you mean, no answer?” I frowned. “She’s probably sulking because she wanted to go with me.” As if I’d bring her to a place like The Suck Hole! “She’s probably just refusing to answer.”
“No, Master—I don’t think so.” Now Al sounded worried as well—if an Artificial Life-form can be worried. “I’ve scanned her room twice now and I don’t detect a heartbeat or breathing. Either she is not there. Or…”
He didn’t finish and I didn’t need him to. I remembered Zoe’s big blue eyes, filled with tears she refused to shed last night when she’d begged me to take her home. Frozen Hells of Anor! What if she’d hurt herself in order to avoid being traded? What if she’d decided it was better to die than to live the rest of her life away from her home planet? What if she’d…?
I couldn’t let myself finish the thought. I sped up until I was almost running, drawing concerned looks from the Majoran Peace Keepers stationed in the docking area. I didn’t give a damn though—the worried feeling that had been tugging at me almost the entire time I’d been making my deal had worsened into a sick dread in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t known the little Pure One even an entire solar week yet but somehow the idea of losing her was unbearable.
I tore into the ship, barely giving the hidden side panel door enough time to open before I was squeezing inside. As I pounded down the main corridor, I feared what I would find when I came to her room.
“Al, unlock her door,” I ordered, my boots thunk-thunk-thunking on the metal floor.
“No need, Master—it is already open. Look.”
Sure enough, as I skidded to a halt before the bedroom I had assigned to Zoe, I saw the door standing wide open. A quick look inside the room revealed no trace of her. My own door was unlocked as well but she wasn’t in there either.
“Frozen Hells of Anor!” I swore angrily, coming out into the main corridor again. “Where is she? Al—scan the rest of the ship.”
“Yes, Master. Scanning.” He hummed softly, still in his travel form on my shoulder. And that was when I heard it—over the quiet humming of Al’s processing, a faint splashing noise, like water sloshing in a tank.
And then a single, piercing scream which was cut off abruptly.
“Fuck!” I pounded down the corridor as fast as I could, feeling like my heart might burst. I didn’t know how in the Frozen Hells I’d known it or how she had gotten out of the Force-Locks and escaped her room, but my uneasy feelings had been correct—Zoe was in trouble.
The splashing sound came again from the back of the ship. But what was she splashing in? There were no personal cleansing pools located in the hold, where the sounds were coming from. So how in the hell…
Suddenly an image rose to my mind’s eye—the holo projection of the sensitivity tank Doloroso had been so eager to buy. The yellow liquid with its nest of black, writhing tentacles, the sensu-pods. “I imagine they will be quite hungry by now” he had said…
“Zoe!” I shouted, running for the door to the hold which I could now see was standing wide open, as were all the other doors along the corridor. She must have opened every one, looking for a way out. “Zoe, where are you?”
A faint splashing and the noise of liquid sloshing onto the ground was my only answer. I reached the darkened hold and started shoving my way through the medical equipment stored there, not giving a damn if I broke any of it or not. Up ahead I could see the yellowish glow of the tank and something was writhing inside it…black tentacles were whipping around like some creature from the Great Deep gone berserk.
And then I saw her—her long, red hair floating like a corona around her still face, the filthy tentacles wrapped around and around her smooth, pale skin.
It was Zoe—and she didn’t seem to be breathing.
Chapter 12
Zoe
I don’t remember much about what happened after the last time the shiny black tentacles dragged me under. The putrid yellow liquid filled my mouth and lungs and everything started to go gray.
Vaguely I thought I heard someone—some familiar voice—calling my name. But the voice was too deep to be Charlotte or Leah. Could it be my ex? But no, I hadn’t seen Scott in nearly a year and besides, he hadn’t had a very deep voice for a guy. My father had, but he’d been dead for the past five years—he had passed in his sleep only a month after my mother had died of cancer. He just couldn’t stand to live without her.
Whoever was calling me sounded like that—like he couldn’t stand to live without me. But there was no one in my life who felt that way about me. No one I knew of, anyway.
The next thing I knew, someone was unwinding the choking tentacles from around my waist and pulling them off my lady bits. Then he hauled me out of the glass tank and started pounding me on the back.
I began coughing and choking, trying to get the awful blood-mud tasting stuff out of my lungs. It burned like fire coming up and several times I thought I might pass out from the pain.
“Zoe? Zoe!” someone said in my ear. “Can you hear me? Tell me you’re well.”
“’s aw-right,” I said, my stubborn tongue slurring over the words it refused to pronounce. “’m fine.” Which was a total lie but it’s what you always say, isn’t it? Even if you’ve just been half drowned in alien slime by molesting tentacle monsters, you still say you’re fine.
I do, anyway.
The person who’d hauled me out of the tank clearly wasn’t buying it.
“Little, liar—you’re not fine. Not even close to it,” he growled and then strong arms w
ere lifting me and taking me out of the dark room while the black tentacles thrashed in their yellow tank, angry to have lost their prey.
“Lay some cloths on the bed. She’s soaked in this Gods-damned stuff,” the person carrying me commanded.
“At once, Master,” a prim and proper voice replied. It sounded familiar and memories began to come back to my oxygen-starved brain.
“Al,” I mumbled as I was laid on a cool surface that seemed to rock gently, cradling me in comfort.
“Yes, Lady Zoe?”
“Lady Zoe? Not…’m not…” I choked again, my eyes still closed. I wanted to open them but they felt glued shut by the sticky slime that still covered me.
“Zoe, look at me,” the deep voice ordered. I wanted to ignore it—now that I was finally out of the tentacle-tank I just wanted to rest. But there was an authority in his tone I couldn’t ignore. “Zoe,” he said again.
Reluctantly, I pried my sticky eyes open to see the Devil, complete with red skin, horns, and glowing golden eyes, staring at me anxiously. No, not the Devil—Sarden, a little voice in my head reminded me. I was lying on one of the silver, floating hoverbeds and he was standing over me.
“I’m okay,” I said and then I started shivering uncontrollably.
“It’s all right, little one,” he murmured, pulling me close. His warmth and the spicy campfire scent of his skin was comforting, and I felt my heart do a funny little flutter.
“The t-tank,” I whispered, my teeth chattering. “The t-tentacles…they p-pulled me in.”
He frowned. “I’m sure they didn’t reach all the way from the hold to your room. How did you get out of the Force-Locks anyway? And why did you go back there?”
“I p-pressed them with my n-nose,” I managed to say. “They turned g-green and unlocked. Then I u-used them as a k-key to explore. I was l-looking for a way out.”
“I see. Although why they worked for you I have no idea. They’re supposed to be keyed to Vornish DNA and I know you don’t have any of that—you’re a Pure One.”
