“What about Moots and Carmen?” I asked. “They did most of the work. I only supplied a little help.”
Fastid’s tendrils trembled. The other Nancharm’s tendrils shook. They pivoted and slapped one another on the shoulders in masculine bonhomie.
“A little help? 92712, you are much too modest. Your little help is exactly what is going to save us from extinction.”
“I brought back your mojo?”
“Well …” Fastid wiggled his fingers and the hologram disappeared. “Not exactly. But the physiological telemetry looks promising. First, we have to wire you up. You see—”
“Wire up?” Carmen interrupted. “Like Toby?”
“Who?” Fastid asked.
Moots fluffed her tendrils to answer.
“Ah, yes. Him,” Fastid said. “92712, your implants will be much more sophisticated. Imagine your pride knowing how you’ve contributed to my success.”
None of this sounded good. “And when we’re done?”
“Why, you’ll be recycled to recover the precious metals and components. We can’t let that expensive material go to waste.” Fastid paused and stared like he expected me to leap for joy.
When I didn’t, he and Moots began an animated tendril conversation, during which she must have explained that I would object to being recycled.
Fastid draped his hand on my shoulder in avuncular fashion. “92712, you look like a member of an intelligent species. You know about money? Credits? Debits? Balance sheets? The bottom line?”
I knew all about this bottom line, as in my bottom on the line. I nodded.
“Good. Better. Excellent. I know you won’t disappoint me.” Fastid drummed the hard shell of his torso carapace. “92712, I like you. And if you’re worried about not getting any recognition from this, I promise that you’ll be mentioned in a footnote when my report is circulated during the peer review. For a foreign species, there is no higher honor.” He grasped and shook my hand. “Congratulations.”
The toilet plunger device skimmed close and flashed.
Spots careened through my vision like bumper cars. I tried to pull my head away but Fastid held tight. “One more,” he muttered. The device took another photo. “Wait, my little alien friend, that is not all.” Fastid gestured to the toilet plunger device. The tip beamed a ray that materialized into a hologram of a Nancharm. “After your splendid performance with Moots, you’ve earned the right to practice your technique with my daughter.”
My guts melted into a slimy, queasy ball.
He snapped his fingers and the hologram cycled through images of more Nancharms. “The rest of my team has also volunteered the services of their female staff and kin. 92712, you are a lucky, lucky man.”
No way was I being forced into a Nancharm stud farm. Disgust filled me until it seeped out my pores. “There’s no point,” I protested. “You’ve seen how it was done.”
“Absolutely. I’ve reviewed the holographic video many times. You’re quite the performer,” Fastid elbowed my shoulder. “If you know what I mean. Heh, heh, heh.”
His laughter dripped buckets of creepiness. Carmen looked at me and shuddered.
“I’ve already scheduled your surgery for the implants,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the iatric modules are still being calibrated. But patience, my extraterrestrial Lothario, patience. In two days, you’ll be a new man. Parts of you at least.” Fastid started back to his hover scooter. “And once we get the data we need, then it’s off you go to the materials recovery and recycling center. Again, congratulations.”
Fastid and his team levitated back onto their hover scooters. They started out the door like a pack of Shriners in go-karts. “And Moots,” he said over his shoulder, “I need a draft of my commendation first thing. Make it sing my praise.” The door shrank after they had passed.
Two days. My knees weakened under the weight.
Now that the Nancharm had designated me as their prime specimen, what were the chances that once Blossom arrived I could get away?
Carmen took my hand and led me back to a chair. She pushed my cup toward me, but even if the blood-coffee mix was warm, anything that I drank now would be unpleasantly bitter.
Moots had her eyes leveled on us but I couldn’t tell what she was looking at or thinking. Maybe she stewed in indignation because Fastid treated her like a kitchen wench.
“You got anything to say?” Carmen asked.
“Plenty,” Moots shot back. She reached to the table, grasped our coffee cups, and crushed them. Blood-coffee and shards of crockery shot from between her fingers.
Carmen and I shrank back in surprise. My talons strained inside my fingertips, ready to spring out.
“What is the problem?” Carmen spoke slowly.
“I know your game,” Moots replied.
Carmen shot me a look of bewilderment. I shrugged nonchalantly though my kundalini noir quivered in alarm.
“Sex with me was only a distraction,” Moots declared. “You and Blossom are scheming something. An escape?”
Carmen reached under the table and touched my knee. I clasped her fingers.
“Escape? With Blossom?” Carmen’s voice cracked with feigned hurt. “I’m shocked you would think such a thing.”
Moots pointed to the ceiling. Blood-coffee dripped down her wrist. “Don’t take me for a fool. Blossom never left D-Galtha. She’s in orbit right now.”
She was? This was news.
“So? She’s a pilot.” Carmen’s reply sounded perfectly sincere.
Moots’ voice turned into a growl. “She’s been trying to access the Erection Committee communications network. The only reason she would do that is to contact you.”
If Blossom was trying to contact us, she was doing so in a damn clumsy way.
“Suppose this is true. Dr. Fastid doesn’t know, does he?” Carmen asked. “Why haven’t you told him?”
“Don’t tell me my job.” Moots slammed her fists on the table. “Both of you, listen and listen well. You will complete your sexual protocols as required. You will then be disposed of as Dr. Fastid so orders. And you will never, under any circumstances, ever leave Planet Pleasure.”
***
Chapter Thirty-two
I paced inside the dining room, flipping out about my dismal future. In two days I was to be sliced open, reconfigured into a sex machine, and forced to stoke a train of Nancharm señoritas. In the end, regardless of whether I helped the Nancharm figure out their boner problem, I’d be scrapped and recycled.
The fate for the rest of the crew wasn’t any rosier. Carmen and the chalices would be sold at auction. Jolie’s fate hadn’t been discussed but I was sure it involved wearing a collar and a leash and eating extraterrestrial kibble.
But there was a grain of hope. Carmen’s former master, Blossom the Wah-zhim pilot, circled the planet with undefined plans to get us out of here. The flip side was that Moots knew about Blossom and had warned Carmen and me to give up trying to escape.
Jolie entered the room, the chalices trailing after her. She wore her pistol harness with the .45s snug in the holsters and carried my leather jacket. “Here.” She tossed me the jacket.
“What’s this for?”
“We need to shake this funk we’re in,” she replied. “Putting our gear on might put us in a more receptive frame of mind. You know, channel the universe for possibilities, yada, yada.”
I slid my arms into the jacket and enjoyed the feel of leather and the weight of the big revolver against my chest. Already I could feel my thoughts shifting into kick-ass mode.
The chalices huddled side-by-side and gazed at me with tense expressions like they were sheep and I was the shepherd who would lead them to salvation. Too bad my neck was numero uno on the chopping block.
Jolie reminded. “We can’t forget what’s at stake.”
“No chance of that.” I tapped the butt of the revolver. If we had to shoot our way out, Moots would be the first to interfere and if so, these bullets were mea
nt for her. I could see her shudder under the impact of repeated .357 magnum slugs. I’d already drilled her once, and I didn’t relish drilling her again. Then again, the Nancharm hadn’t shown any concern over our guns. The weapons technology was probably so ridiculously simple that our pistols didn’t even register as dangerous. That might be a fatal oversight on their part. Or a laughable mistake on ours. When the time came for violence, we might be better off hitting the Nancharm with spit balls.
Jolie glared. “There’s more at stake than our skins. I mean when we get home.”
“Home?” the chalices repeated in chorus.
Cassie asked, “Why do you need guns at home?”
“There’s a welcoming committee waiting for us who is not very welcoming,” I answered. How much had happened back in New Mexico since Jolie and I had left? Had Coyote recovered? Had Phaedra and her minions harmed him? What about Marina? And his girlfriend, Rainelle? Did the Navajo skinwalkers still protect her? I was already wound plenty tight over our problems here; thinking about Phaedra took up the remaining slack and my anxiety squeezed into a chokehold.
Toby stepped away from the others and approached me. Juanita and Cassie clasped each other’s hands. “Whatever you have planned, we’re in,” Cassie said, her voice quaking.
I panned their faces. Juanita. Cassie. Toby. Irsan. They each looked so desperate for escape that I’d bet any one of them would throw their bodies on barbed wire if it meant the rest of us could run across their backs to freedom.
I noticed Carmen was missing and asked where she was.
“The main bedroom,” Juanita answered.
I left the dining room and found Carmen sitting in an armchair, her eyebrows and face pinched in deep, sullen meditation. If I ever brooded this hard, I’m certain smoke would shoot out my ears. Two carafes, one for coffee and the other for blood, rested beside her cup on the table. Jolie and the chalices crowded into the room, but Carmen made no notice of our presence. None of us dared disturb her, and we waited for her to ease out of the trance.
With a faraway look in her eyes, she announced, “Remember you told me that I would sense mind probes?”
The floor seemed to shift beneath me. Our dilemma had just gotten worse. “You felt them?”
Carmen nodded. “She knows we’re here.” Her expression darkened and her gaze cut to our guns. “You’re going to need those. The Nancharm won’t be able to protect us.”
“From who?” Cassie asked.
My nerves tightened. I knew the answer though I wish I didn’t.
The alarm exploded with a loud wail. Ceiling panels flashed red. The hologram reappeared, blaring the message: Intruder Alert. Priority One Lockdown.
Carmen said, “Phaedra.”
***
Chapter Thirty-three
Phaedra. The name sent questions ricocheting through my head. How did she get here? Doubt it was a spaceship. Had to be a portal through the psychic plane. But how? Coyote had said our access to D-Galtha came only after a hundred and more years. Something was very wrong. I retrieved my revolver. Jolie already had one of her .45s in hand.
The alarm’s blare echoed through the building, so loud it hurt our ears. The hologram kept flashing: Intruder alert! Intruder alert!
“Phaedra’s on D-Galtha?” Jolie yelled the question.
I asked Carmen, “How can you tell it’s her?”
She stood, moving slowly as if fighting a trance. “I just know.”
I remembered that creepy feeling. Years before, when Phaedra’s thoughts had wormed into my mind like clammy tentacles.
The chalices gawked at Carmen and asked all at once. “Who is Phaedra?”
I looked back at them. Where to begin?
The alarm faded and the hologram warning disappeared, replaced by an image of Moots. “Stay in the building. A guard force is on the way.” Her image blinked off.
Phaedra’s arrival had triggered a massive alarm from the Nancharm. Now they dispatched guards to protect us. Meaning Phaedra was on the move. If they knew where she was, why didn’t they stop her? The Nancharm could demolish planets, obliterate civilizations, yet I feared their weapons and defenses were no match for this maniacal ingénue and her psychic superpowers. We were in deep trouble.
A worried grimace spread from chalice to chalice. Cassie said, “Whoever this Phaedra is, she must be bad news.”
“In the worst possible way,” I replied.
“What’s she doing here?” Juanita asked.
Carmen blinked as if shaking off the last of the spell. “Phaedra has come here to kill Felix, Jolie, and me.”
Toby and Irsan’s expressions warped into frowns. Cassie and Juanita asked in chorus, “Why?”
I replied, “Because she knows that only Carmen can stop her.”
Cassie looked at me. “What about you?”
I tightened my grip on the revolver. “The last time Phaedra and I met one-on-one, it didn’t end well for me. She intends to end what she had started.”
The chalices volleyed questions. “Who is this Phaedra? Why can’t the Nancharm protect us? Stop her from what? What can Carmen do?”
Carmen managed a grin that tempered our doubts. “Now I understand why Phaedra fears me. Every time she tries to get into my mind, I can read hers. The intuition the aliens prize in me has that unexpected benefit. Jolie, watch the chalices. Felix and I are going upstairs for a look see.”
Carmen and I left the dining room, went through the kitchen, and entered the hall on our way to the escalator. The door from the bedroom stretched open. A Nancharm guard wearing an oversized suit rode through on a hover scooter. The suit shimmered as if it was made of mercury. Thick sleeves encased the arms, and a cylindrical helmet with a dark face-shield covered the head. A small dish antenna jutted from the top of the helmet. One arm had a spatula-like device fixed to the wrist and the other had a trident. A second Nancharm guard with similar arm attachments waited behind on another scooter.
“The perimeter around the building is secured,” the first Nancharm announced through a translator box attached to his helmet. “Our priority is to stop the intruder. Stay out of the line of fire.”
“No problem.” I backed away. I wasn’t going to let myself become collateral damage. But if these guards were here, they must have assumed Phaedra might breach their other defenses.
The two guards turned about and returned to the main bay. The door between us shrank until it was barely large enough for a Yorkie.
“They don’t stand a chance,” Carmen said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw into her mind. She knows how to beat the Nancharm.”
Minutes ago, I was in a funk because I had two days before Dr. Fastid put his alien mitts on me and sliced me open. Now I was on a shorter countdown to a bigger disaster, and my mind clicked like a revolver cycling through empty cylinders as it searched for a solution to our worsening troubles.
Carmen and I climbed the escalator to the second floor. That Phaedra feared Carmen was the key to an answer. “What’s this connection between you two?” I asked.
She gave a weak shrug. “It’s not like I can open the top of her head and rummage around. But her thoughts come to me.”
“How does that help us?”
“At the very least, she loses the element of surprise. Down the line, there might be more that I can do.”
The door onto the balcony opened and we stepped onto the balcony overlooking the paved apron around our building. A dusky twilight muted the evening’s colors. The landscape scrolled toward a yellow horizon that blended into an indigo sky dotted with stars. D-Galtha’s pale moon floated beside the planet’s ring. Other buildings glimmered around us, and flying saucers zipped through the air like schools of silvery minnows.
A fireball rose in the distance, and though it was but a yellow and orange smudge, I sensed the danger it promised. Phaedra was doing a Godzilla rampage across the Nancharm’s turf.
The fireball faded into a
cloud of smoke. A faint green light passed through the base of the smoke and moved in our direction. The light was a tiny glowing dot like a colored lamp on a faraway porch.
A thought clanged through my head, Phaedra announcing herself. I’m here!
A hatch opened in the apron below us, and two more guards on hover scooters popped into view. They glided across the apron, dismounted the scooters and turned to face the light.
Two Nancharm saucers zoomed overhead, powerful and menacing, racing like a pair of fighter jets to obliterate the enemy. A crimson beam shot from one saucer toward the light. The beam missed and set the ground on fire. The beam flicked off, then flicked on again, this time aiming at the second disk, its wingman. It exploded with a sickening boom and showered the ground with burning debris.
The first disk continued on its path toward the green light. Unable to control his weapons, the pilot must’ve decided on a kamikaze run. A cheer in appreciation of his ballsy self-sacrifice tingled through my kundalini noir. But the disk abruptly veered away, knifed the ground, shattered, and exploded.
My congratulatory cheer congealed into a sinking, dismal feeling. Phaedra was using her mental powers to seriously mind fuck the Nancharm. Of what I knew about the aliens, at least the ones who had visited Earth, they were aware of the psychic dimension. They had invented the psychotronic projector, in fact the mission of the Roswell UFO was to test it on humans. As for what they knew about psychic powers, they were still at the trying-to-light-a-fire-by-rubbing-two-sticks-together stage while Phaedra was well into its laser inferno capabilities.
Rescue From Planet Pleasure Page 20
