Gheht

There were faceless robots that looked like they were made of liquid silver. There were robots welding themselves into holes in the walls, there were capsule robots zooming around devouring anything on the floor, walls and ceiling that shouldn't be there.

She thought of the raptor. The raptor didn't attack her maliciously, it was just her nature. The robot with her glanced at her and said, " You need not fear, they have been programmed to only clean certain biological discharges."

"What is this place?" Charmaine asked.

"It is like a terminal on your earth. Many little flying objects all land at one spot and then something directs them further and they leave again."

"An airport?"

"A little, yes."

"Why do you record everything we say? We can't even talk to one another!"

"Do not distress yourself Vogt Charmaine. The Stygiopians are a military species. Once we reach the Stygiopian galaxy, we will all disembark this ship and you will go to your new home."

"That was in the welcome pack. Still doesn't explain why they record everything."

"Welcome pack?"

"Knowledge implant."

"Ah. They have orders not to kill. They lose credit, if they do, so they record."

"They? You are not a Stygiopian robot?"

"No, I am not."

They were at the head of the queue now.

"And what is your code and who are you bringing?" The bored Stygiopian behind a wide desk asked, suddenly they hit another planet sized asteroid and were all flung to the floor in a heap.

"Stay down, magnetize!"

The alarms went off again and the robot held Charmaine in its arms like a doll. As the ship jolted around she could see they were all there, bear lady was behind her with her three robots, and there were a few women she didn't recognize. She saw wolf woman just behind them and raised her hand in greeting. She was more than a bit astonished when wolf woman waved back and gave her a crooked smile.

At long last the ship was settled and leveled again and blue lights indicated business could resume as normal.

The robot stood with Charmaine still held in his arms.

"Let's try again," the Stygiopian behind the desk said.

"What is your code and who are you bringing?"

"My name is Fingerling."

The man's head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the robot.

"You are a hybrid?"

"Yes."

"Belonging to?"

"The Musso."

"Oh, yes, them. They do make good hybrids."

"I shall forward your compliment Stygiopian CSO"

"And this is?" The man pointed at Charmaine.

"She is of the last harvest in the Vogt galaxy."

He looked up something on a screen on his desk.

"Let me scan the implant."

Fingerling turned so that Charmaine's left shoulder faced the man and a red beam ran over her implant.

"We are still missing another fourteen females, this one is called Charmaine for now and the seeker from Nasterium captured her. She goes with the other Nasterium females. Go straight down to H5, then left to the green block, we've assigned thirty pods for them, just put her in the nearest one."

"Excuse me sir-" Charmaine began, but he cut her off.

"Not now, I'm busy, go with him." He pointed at the robot.

Fingerling turned and walked past the man and the desk into a large airlock with a mistifier.

"I have questions! Lots!" Charmaine complained to Fingerling.

"You may ask me any question you want Vogt Charmaine. I will not respond to questions that could be perceived as a security threat. Otherwise I will do my best to answer."

They stepped out of the airlock on the other side and Charmaine demanded to be put down. A short argument with Fingerling ensued, with Charmaine winning, having convinced Fingerling that she could walk.

"What did you mean when you said you were a hybrid?"

"I was once a being like you, there was an accident. I should have died but the Musso are advanced in life skills and managed to meld me into a hybrid."

"Do you know where the other females from Earth, err, Vogt are?"

"We are going there now, all the females caught by the Nasterian will be held in one place."

Thinking of her new acquaintances she looked up at Fingerling and opened her mouth to ask. He beat her to it.

"Yes, that is how you were kept here too, they put you in the outer pods, but then they flew into driftrock. The pods are already rebuilt, that's the Stygiopians for you, but you will now be kept in secure pods for the rest of the trip."

"Secure pods?"

"Secure pods."

"Prison cells."

"Yes, prison cells. That's one other way the Stygiopians earn their place and their credits, they transport prisoners to the Iron Planet, metals back from it and they can be retained to fight small inter-planetary wars."

Charmaine looked at him with her mouth hanging open again. This was not in the welcome pack.

" Here we are, H5."

"Do you belong to anyone?"

"Not any more, I used to."

"You were a slave?"

"Yes, like you, I was too kidnapped from my home planet in my home galaxy."

"Where is that?"

"Same as you Vogt Charmaine."

"Stop! Wait! Fingerling!! Fingerling damn it! Stop!" Her voice had risen from loud to screaming and Fingerling stopped.

"Oh shit, should you have said that? They record us."

"It does not pertain to the security of the ship or the mission."

"You come from Earth."

Fingerling stood still, facing her, looking at her.

"How long have you been.... Here?" She waved her hand around vaguely, trying to indicate the universe.

"Eighty two Earth years, but the Musso make good hybrids, I'll easily live for another hundred Earth years."

Charmaine thought he must think her an idiot because her mouth was hanging open again.

"You never tried to go back?"

"Many times. I was punished every time, eventually I just didn't try anymore, and now I cannot." He said looking down at his robot legs.

"Where? Where on Earth?"

"It doesn't matter."

"How many humans from Earth have you seen?"

"Not many. Earth is considered an unadvanced planet. Besides you, I have only seen one other human, a man."

"Tell me please, how, when, where?"

"The Ossyx sent an unmanned ship to take botanical samples. A man came in view of the screens on board. The ship was allowed to fire a warning strike, it hurt him. They transported him up to the manned vessel not far into space. When they had healed him, he woke up and was very aggressive. They ordered me to take him to a lander craft and return him to Earth. The year was 1969 and his name was Walton. I didn't care about anything except seeing home again."

"Yet you didn't stay..."

"I couldn't, I had been implanted with a bomb they could set off and would set off if I tried to run. I've seen pink mist."

Charmaine looked horrified.

"Do you know what year.... when you were... " She trailed off. Morbid curiosity was why she asked, she was beginning to get an inkling of the permanence of her new place in the universe, Earth she suspected, would become a fond yet vague memory, as it was for Fingerling now.

"It was in the third year of the Second World War, 1941. My name then was Feldwebel Wilhelm Schwarzstein."

"Oh dear...." She said, a slight understatement.

"I trust the war is over. Did Herr Hitler win?"

"No, he did not."

"Good."

"Your family Fingerli-Wilhe-"

"Are no longer alive." He interrupted her. "Here we are, green block." He made it plain he did not want to speak of them. Charmaine was sad for him, it's a hell of a thing to just do as one pleases with other beings and never think of what that does to them. She thought about refugees on earth, especially those who were alone in the world. Empathy meant more now.

Almost in a daze and not really seeing, she let Fingerling lead her to the pod the Stygiopian at the airlock of the green block had indicated. All too soon they were there.

"Will I see you again?"

"If you ask for me and you are allowed to receive me, I will come."

She flung her arms around him and held on tightly, she knew he liked it because he squeezed back. She kissed him on his cheek and whispered "Thank you."

With one final squeeze of his hand she let go and entered the pod. The door clunked shut behind her as she stood with her head bowed, tears falling from her chin like melting snow dripping.

There was a loud commotion that she wasn't interested in until someone shook her by her shoulders and shouted her name. She looked up into Denise's face and burst out crying, bawling like a baby she and Denise, both sank to the floor.

Several minutes later after rivers of tears and hugs they finally got around to telling one another their stories. Bear lady, wolf woman, Helen, some other women from earth, the sci-fi aliens with big black eyes, a purple woman with iridescent blue and gold feathered wings and many more. Charmaine looked for a raptor but there were none, thankfully.

They spent hours telling their own stories of how they were abducted, sold by their own species to the Nasteria.

"The Nasterians don't seem to sell their women," Denise remarked, "Probably a good thing if their females are as big as they are."

"No," replied Wolf woman, whose name they since found out was Tansa.

"We are to be sold to species who have breeding difficulties. Too much incest if you ask me. The Nasteria are in it for the money. They look after everybody's money, everyone involved in this... Thing." She twirled a green hand-paw delicately in the air.

"So who exactly is involved in this... Thing?" Denise asked and copied her gesture with her own gesture.

"I know." Bear lady whose name was Quayn said, everybody looked at her expectantly.

"The Stygiopians, do the transport, the Nasteria collect the females and handle the money side. The Musso will change our appearances to be very well suited to our new masters after auction. The language and history chips are courtesy of the Limbians. Each species has representatives on board this ship. Ask yourselves, who isn't here."

Tansa looked at the purple lady with wings for arms. "Callyx." She whispered.

Quayn nodded. "Callyx." She confirmed.

"Where are we going?" Asked a small quiet voice. Charmaine looked to where the sound came from, it was the black eyed woman.

"This ship will take us to Stygiopia, then we will disembark and go to hospitals of the Musso, from there we will be sold. From there I don't know. What is your name?"

"I am Koris and this is my cousin Laine."

There were head nods all round and repetition of names.

"You said the Musso will make us look like our new masters after the auction? What did you mean by that Quayn?" Denise asked.

"They will operate on our bodies, they will make our sexual organs larger, unrestistable to the males that the Limbians have made certain can make us bear their children."

"Is there anybody missing besides the Callyx?" Legiana the half bird asked.

"There are too many species. I only know of the Callyx because our galaxies are close. Who knows who can breed and who cannot. If I had to guess, I'd say you were going to the Callyx because you're already purple. I'd say Denise and Charmaine are going to the Stygiopians, they look exactly like them, just smaller."

"One thing is certain, wherever we go to breed, our status will be slave." Quayn said.

"So after we're made into oversized sex symbols, we get split up again?"

"Yes. I think that it is certain we will be slaves, and I am certain that we will all be in the Greater Known Universe."

STYGOPIA

The little robots came with food and clothes and they all felt better with the suits off and the hunger gone.

"Anyone know if we're going to go through another asteroid belt?" Someone asked.

"No," Tansa answered, "We're getting close to the Stygopian Ring, so no more asteroids."

Tansa was correct when a while later a voice spoke from the top of the pod announcing that they had entered the Stygopian Ring and that the craft would stop for disembarking in five minutes.

At least, Denise and Charmaine understood it in minutes, the others understood it in their own measures of time.

Five minutes later, the door to the pod opened and Fingerling and an army of robots walked in.

Charmaine smiled and walked to him, he put a neon green wristband around her arm and it melded to his hand.

"If you pull away for any reason, the wristband will break and the poison inside will kill you. Do you understand Vogt Charmaine?"

The smile on her lips died. He was not human anymore. She nodded once and looked back to Denise and Helen and sent up a quick prayer that they would at least stay together until they were sold.

Fingerling began walking and she had to choose to die or walk with him. She walked.

As they walked off the craft into a large busy terminal for people three times the size of the one on the craft, she said to Fingerling - "Do you know what your problem is Fingerling?"

"Yes," he answered. That infuriated her.

"It was a rhetorical question idiot."

His head spun to look at her, she saw surprise in his eyes.

"Your problem is that you lost hope. Hope died. You tried to run and failed, you told me. Hope died. And it made you one of them." She practically spat at him.

He stopped suddenly and she took another step and stopped when she felt the wristband burning suddenly.

"Ouch! That hurts! Fingerling!"

"Get over it." He replied callously.

"I'm not running Fingerling!"

"Everytime it gets pulled, it hurts worse, it's your warning. Three warnings and then you die."

She moved closer to him. The burn subsided. He suddenly started to walk again and yanked her wrist. It felt like a hot poker digging in, she screamed in pain as she moved quickly to him. That was the second warning.

Through the tears jumping from her eyes, she saw a figure in camouflage quickly approaching them.

"Number?" He asked.

"My name is Fingerling."

"Who do you belong to?"

"Nobody, I am free. I live with the Musso."

"I will take her from here-"

"No, I will deliver her safely."

"Her security is my problem not yours, we are in Stygopia now. Hand her over."

Fingerling's robot arm unmelded the green cord and he handed it over. Then he turned his back on them and walked away into the crowd.

New guard took off the wristband and disposed of it in a capsule that magically appeared. He put a new green wristband back on her arm. Charmaine knew he wasn't concerned about her, just concerned about the security.

Silently he led her to a small craft, really small by their standards, this was about the size of a bus. She walked up the short ramp and sat where he directed her, melding her neon wristband to the armrest of the chair.

This wasn't how she had wanted to end things with Fingerling. She had hoped to make him angry, but only enough to awaken whatever was human left in him. His reaction scared her. She was just beginning to think she had made an acquaintance at least of one of them....

She stopped thinking when she realised she did think of Fingerling as one of them, not one of us.

THE MARKETPLACE

They traveled at a fairly low level to the ground for enough time for her to get bored looking out the window.

Every single damned thing on that planet was for something military. Thanks to the language implant she could read the signs.

Volton Terminal, Volton Cadet School, Volton Military Barracks 1 through 25, Volton Military Farm. Volton Military Judicial Advocates Quarters, Volton Military Court. She gave up after that and dozed off. She woke as the craft slowed and she looked out to see yet another sign.

GREATER GALAXIES EXHIBITION FAIR

It was massive. But instead of tents this had the permanency of buildings, hundreds of buildings all painted differently.

Apparently some of her fellow passengers recognized some of these buildings becoming quite excited when they saw them.

They slowly moved towards a large building painted in different kinds of camouflage. BREEDING EXHIBIT, the sign said.