Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel

by Anderson, Evangeline

  Of course, if the mites spread—which was very likely—every plant in the lab would be wilted and dead very shortly thereafter. But since many of them were dangerous and had serious side-effects, Stone didn’t consider this to be much of a loss. Gozeriam had ordered the death of an innocent human female and he was trying to pin that murder on the Kindred—he deserved to lose his entire lab full of plants.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s around,” Cassandra murmured. She was wearing another one of her Mistress outfits—a black dress with a high collar and a plunging neckline that showed the sides of her breasts and even the pink curves of her areolas on either side. It was split at the bottom as well, plainly showing a pair of bright red panties which contrasted sharply with the black fabric of the dress.

  Stone didn’t like the outfit one fucking bit, because he knew it was meant to attract The Beast and draw him into their trap. But what if the bastard didn’t wait until he got to the ship to strike? What if he attacked Cassandra while they were still in the palace?

  He had brought this idea up to his partner and she had agreed to wear a small communications device inside her dress that could also be activated as a panic button. She had promised Stone that if The Beast tried to hurt or violate her in any way, she would immediately alert him.

  This adjustment to their plan made Stone feel better—but only a little bit. He didn’t trust the murdering, raping Beast to wait until Cassandra got him out to the ship to try something. And just the thought of the other male alone with his partner made Stone’s eyes feel hot and red with Rage.

  I’ll kill him if he tries to touch her, he thought, squeezing his hands into fists at his sides. Kill him just like he killed that poor, innocent female back on Earth…

  “Earth to Stone! Hey, are you with me?”

  Cassandra’s soft voice brought Stone out of his revenge fantasies and back to reality.

  “Sorry,” he said, his voice coming out in a growl. “I was…thinking.”

  “Well, I’d hate to know what you were thinking about that made you look so freaking murderous,” his partner remarked. “Take it easy, Stone—we’re at the lab to kill a plant, not a person.”

  “All right. I am ready.” Stone took a deep breath and blew it out, letting his face go blank. “How do you want to try this?”

  “I say we just walk right in. If nobody’s there, I’ll keep watch while you find and kill the plant. If somebody asks what we’re doing here, I’ll say I want a tour in my best demanding Mistress voice.” She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at the imaginary lab tech. “What do you mean it’s too late for a tour? I demand to be shown the laboratory at once!”

  Stone felt a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “You’re certainly an imposing Mistress, when you want to be,” he admitted.

  “Thank you.” Cassandra flashed him a smile. “I’m doing my best. Come on—let’s get this done so we can move on to phase two of our plan—stealing the snuff film.”

  “Agreed.” Stone nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Forty-Eight

  Cassie walked up to the lab and put her hand on the knob, as though she had every right to be there. She was getting used to playing a Yonnite Mistress now—the haughty sneer she could feel on her face was almost second nature.

  The knob turned easily and the door opened.

  “Huh—no lock?” Cassie looked up at her partner who shrugged. Well, all the better for them. It certainly made breaking into the lab easier when they didn’t have to do any actual “breaking in.”

  They both walked in but as the door swung shut behind them, it emitted a short, sharp beep!

  Oh crap! Cassie looked around to see if anyone had seen them. Sure enough, a man in a long white coat came bustling out from a back room somewhere.

  Well, he had a body like a man’s. But his head was that of an insect—something like a beetle crossed with an army ant with long, twitching antennae and big serrated mandibles that looked sharp enough to cut a hand off at the wrist.

  But when the insect man spoke to them, his voice came out in perfectly modulated tones—it even seemed to have a slight British accent.

  “Yes, hello?” the insect man said to her. “What may I do for you?”

  “Oh, er, hello,” Cassie began and then remembered she was supposed to be a demanding Yonnite Mistress. “I am here for a tour of the laboratory,” she said, lifting her chin high and staring the insect man directly in his bulging compound eyes.

  “I’m very sorry but the laboratory is closed at this juncture,” the insect man said. “If you could possibly come back during daylight hours—”

  “What?” Cassie exclaimed. “You’re denying my request? How dare you? Do you know who I am? I am Mistress Cassandra of Yonnite Six, the star of his Slimefullness’s latest hit vid, Forbidden One. He honored me at the private viewing tonight and told me I could go anywhere I wanted in the palace because he was so pleased with my work. And where I choose to go right now is here. And I want a tour!” she ended her rant.

  “Yes, yes, of course, Mistress!” The insect man backed up, holding up his perfectly normal looking hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Please forgive me, I had no idea you were a person of such importance.”

  “Well, I am,” Cassie said, with a toss of her head. “So please begin the tour, Mr.…”

  “Dr. Sslwx,” the insect man supplied helpfully.

  Cassie frowned. “All right, er, Dr. Sisselwix,” (which was as close as she could come to pronouncing his weird alien name) “Please proceed with the tour.”

  “Of course, Mistress Cassandra. Right this way. I’ll be happy to show you some of our more interesting plants and tell you their uses.” The insect doctor quickly and led her to the far side of the lab. “This, is the cattellis laxis,” he began, pointing to a patch of furry gray moss that was growing on a damp stone enclosed in a lighted terrarium.

  “I see. And what does it do?” Cassie asked.

  “In this form—nothing,” Dr. Sslwx said. “However, if you macerate it with sugar oils from the tempa tree of Tyronious Five, it creates a serum that, when applied to the engorged male shaft of most any species, causes insatiable pain and itching.”

  “Pain and itching?” Cassie frowned. “That certainly doesn’t sound very sexy!”

  “It is when you consider that only the saliva of a female can ease the symptoms,” the insect doctor remarked. “In fact, it is often used in concert with the extract of this plant—succubalis maxalis.” He pointed to a terrarium across from the one with the moss. This one contained what looked like multicolored grass.

  “Really? What does that one do?” Cassie asked.

  “It gives females an endless thirst for male seed,” Dr. Sslwx informed her. “I’m sure you can see that if you apply the serum from the cattellis laxis to a male’s shaft and then give a female a drink of liquid containing extract of the succubalis maxalis, erotic activities are almost guaranteed to be the result.”

  “I get it,” Cassie said dryly. “Put those together and you’ve got the makings of endless blow-job porn.”

  “Well, to put it crudely, yes.” The insect doctor nodded his grotesque head, his antennae twitching in agreement. “But these are very common species. If you’d like to come deeper into the lab, I can show you some truly interesting and exotic varieties I’ve been working with recently.”

  Cassie followed him further into the lab, looking with genuine interest at all the different species of plants. Near the very back of the lab, they entered a kind of greenhouse with long rows of exotic looking flora, all of them drinking in the pink sunlight of Bachanalius’s red giant sun.

  “Now, here we have some experimental plants that his Slimefullness has recently acquired for our lab,” Dr. Sslwx informed her. “This one is a species of folum floxis.” He pointed to a three-foot high toadstool-looking plant, coated in a layer of thick, gelatinous slime. “It comes from his Slimefullness’s home planet,�
� he added. “Its secretions are excellent ingredients in all kinds of lubrication jellies.”

  “I’m sure,” Cassie said, eyeing the slime oozing from the cap of the enormous toadstool with disgust. “What’s that one?” She pointed to a tall, graceful looking flower with four or five brilliant scarlet blossoms sprouting from a single orange stalk. The petals of the blossoms all had interesting-looking black leopard-type patterns on them.

  “Oh, I must ask you not to touch that, Mistress!” Dr. Sslwx hurried over to interpose himself between Cassie and the mysterious plant. “That is an Amaryllis Fatalis.”

  “What does that mean? What does it do?” Cassie asked.

  “It is a most unusual species—quite deadly if used the wrong way,” the insect doctor assured her. “The petals themselves are poisonous—see these black markings?” He pointed to the leopard spots on the crimson petals and Cassie nodded. “They contain a rare toxin that causes instant, painful death when ingested,” he said.

  “So it kills people? Why would you want to grow that?” she demanded.

  “Why because, when you boil the petals down in a solution of amyl-nitrate and ketagin sap, you are left with a serum that—when injected into a subject—causes the most intense craving for sexual intercourse!” Dr. Sslwx exclaimed. “In fact, the more you inject, the greater the chances that the subject will, in fact die, if she does not immediately engage in coitus and receive a healthy amount of male seed.”

  “So it’s a fuck or die plant?” Cassie asked flatly. “And it only works on women? Bravo, Doctor—you’ve found a species that’s homicidal and sexist.”

  “But the subject does not actually die if she is, in fact, inseminated,” the insect doctor protested. “Although, the semen itself causes a whole new set of problems.”

  “Besides getting her pregnant, you mean?” Cassie raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, yes,” Dr. Sslwx admitted. “You see, though she craves the male’s semen desperately, the female subject will experience his seed inside her in a very different way.”

  “Very different how?” Cassie demanded.

  “Well…” Dr. Sslwx cleared his throat nervously. “It will burn like hot lava inside her. It will not actually physically burn her of course,” he hastened to explain. “It will only feel like she is burning—it’s pain by nerve-induction, you see.”

  “Ugh—that’s horrible!” Cassie exclaimed. “So you give her this stuff that forces her to have sex but when she actually does, the guy’s, uh, ‘seed’ inside her feels like molten lava. Yet she has to have it, because only his seed inside her can save her from the Amaryllis Fatalis’s poison. Have I got that right?”

  “Essentially, yes.” The insect doctor nodded eagerly, his antennae twitching. “His Slimefullness feels it will make for some extremely interesting vids—especially at the moment of climax, if the female who has been injected does not have prior knowledge of the plant’s properties and does not know what to expect.”

  “Right, I’m sure that will be extremely interesting if you’re a freaking sadist,” Cassie muttered. What an asshole Gozeriam was! She hoped he drowned in his own slime.

  “What might this be, Mistress?” Stone spoke up for the first time and Cassie saw that he was pointing at a sapling tree about four feet tall. It had ebony-black bark and leaves and the fruit growing from it was a bruised, rotten-looking purple.

  “Oh, we are most proud of this!” Dr. Sslwx said, rushing over to the small sapling. “This is our Pain Fruit plant! A rare variation of the Bonding Fruit grown by the Twin Kindred.”

  Bingo, Cassie thought.

  “How interesting,” she said, moving over to stand in front of the sapling. She leaned forward, pretending to examine it while blocking the insect doctor’s view of what Stone was doing. “And what does it do?”

  “Oh, well, it makes the subject who is injected with it long for pain instead of pleasure,” the insect doctor told her. “It has already been tested successfully and when the tree produces a few more fruit, we will begin using it on a regular basis—especially in The Cave.”

  Oh no you won’t! Cassie thought, but didn’t say aloud. Instead, she distracted the insect doctor by asking him about another plant while Stone was unobtrusively infecting the Pain Fruit plant with the evil little mites he had brought.

  As soon as her partner was finished, he gave her a tiny nod that said, mission accomplished!

  Cassie nodded back and smiled at Dr. Sslwx.

  “Do you know, this has been the most fascinating tour, Doctor? But I’m afraid I’m all worn out now. It’s getting so late.”

  “You did not seem to think it was late earlier,” the insect doctor objected. “Are you certain you do not wish to see the rest of the lab? I have thousands of other plant species to show you.”

  “Thank you but I believe I’ll come back later to see all those,” Cassie said. She manufactured a yawn. “Goodness, I’m simply dead on my feet! Thank you, Doctor, for your time. I’ll see you later.”

  “Very well. Good night, Mistress. Let me show you out of the lab.” And Dr. Sslwx led her and Stone out of the laboratory courteously.

  Cassie thanked him again but as soon as the door snicked shut behind them, she grabbed Stone by the arm.

  “All done?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  Her partner nodded.

  “Now we only have to hope that Gozeriam is asleep so that we can search the vid chest behind the stage and get the snuff film.”

  “We’ll get it.” Cassie snapped her fingers. “It’s as good as ours—let’s go!”

  Forty-Nine

  “We need to find a way to get to the backstage area where they store Gozeriam’s vid chest without anyone on the stage seeing us,” Stone said. “But I am not sure if that is possible.”

  “The Beast said this is the time when Gozeriam and his guards sleep,” Cassie pointed out.

  “I very much doubt they all sleep at the same time,” Stone said grimly. “Gozeriam would be leaving himself open to a considerable security risk if at least one of his guards did not keep watch.”

  “And all it takes is one to wake him up and sound the alarm.” Cassie frowned thinking hard. “Wait—what if we try the lights?”

  “What?” Stone frowned, clearly not following her. But Cassie was already trying her plan.

  Tapping the wall beside her she murmured, “By the order of Xempi Gozeriam, take me to the backstage area of the throne room.”

  At once a tiny white dot lit up on the wall and soon it was followed by another and another.

  “There we go!” Cassie grinned up at her partner. “I knew that light trick Gozeriam’s head writer told us would come in handy at some point.”

  “Excellent thinking.” Stone gave her a rare smile. “Come on—let’s follow the dots.”

  The lighted dots led them to a small door which opened into the backstage area. The curtain was down, which meant they had no idea if Gozeriam and his guards, who were on the other side, were sleeping or not, but they didn’t hear any noise of talking or conversation, so Cassie hoped they were all taking a nap.

  “There, I see it,” she whispered, pointing to the large chest—which looked like something an enterprising pirate might store his booty in. It was sitting beside the curtain, just waiting to be plundered, Cassie thought.

  “I’ll go,” Stone murmured but Cassie shook her head.

  “No, let me. I’m lighter than you are. Less chance the boards will squeak when I walk on them.”

  His face went as dark as a thundercloud.

  “I do not like letting you take all the risk.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Cassie said impatiently. “Listen, I think they’re all asleep now. We need to get this done while we can.”

  “All right.” He sighed. “Get the snuff film. I know Commander Sylvan said to destroy it, but it occurs to me that we might need it for evidence in court.”

  “I thought the same thing. I’m going to get ours
too, if I can,” Cassie murmured. “I don’t want millions of strangers wanking off to the sight of us, uh, doing what we did.” She felt her cheeks get hot as she remembered the making of their little masterpiece.

  “Agreed,” Stone said shortly. He cocked an eye at Cassie. “Although I would not mind watching it again in private, with you.”

  “Stone…” Cassie didn’t know what to say to that. So she just shook her head and reached down to unzip her tall black Mistress boots. If she had any hope of sneaking up the stairs onto the broad stage without being heard, she couldn’t be wearing those high-heeled monstrosities.

  “Allow me, Mistress,” Stone murmured. He knelt in front of her and began removing her boots for her.

  Cassie leaned over, bracing herself for balance, with her hands on her partner’s broad shoulders. This put her half-bare breasts directly in Stone’s face, but she tried not to notice.

  It didn’t escape her partner’s attention, though. When he finished getting her boots off, he looked up and placed a soft kiss right between her full mounds.

  “Stone?” Cassie looked at him uncertainly.

  “For luck,” he rumbled softly. “Be careful, sweetheart.”

  “I…I will.” Cassie nodded at him. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be right here,” Stone promised. “If you need me, I’ll be at your side in a moment.”

  “Thank you,” she said again, smiling at him. “I know you’ve got my back.”

  “Always,” Stone promised. “Now go while it’s still quiet on the other side of the curtain.”

  Cassie nodded and straightened up. They were on the floor level and there were about ten steps to get up onto the stage itself. She tested the first one and was glad to see it didn’t creak.

  Moving slowly and carefully, she climbed up to the stage and made her way to the vid chest. She was all ready with a tiny lock-pick device she’d stashed in the bodice of her gown, right beside the communicator slash panic button Stone had insisted she wear. But to her surprise, the domed lid of the chest swung open easily and silently. Apparently Gozeriam didn’t think anyone would dare to even try to steal from him—which was probably a good assumption considering what he would do to a thief if he caught them, Cassie thought grimly.