Page 19

Zorn

I’m lying on cold stone. Every muscle in my body hurts. I instantly remember what happened in Yellowstone and don’t open my eyes as I try to give every indication that I’m still unconscious.

“What does Mary plan to do with this thing?” a female voice says as if she’s talking about a soiled rag no one wants to dispose of.

“She says she has plans.”

I don’t know what the plans are, but the fact that there are plans sounds like a good thing. I’m still alive. If they had wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.

“He’s so gross,” one of them says. She sounds younger.

“An abomination,” the other agrees.

“I’d sure like to see what’s between his legs, though.”

“Billy!”

“What could it hurt, Teeg? He’s out cold. There will never be another pureblood man on the planet. I’ll never see a man’s cock. I’d like to—”

“Stop it, Billy. You sound as bad as the whore he was with.”

I keep myself still even though I’d like to shut them both up by any means possible. Annora is a wonderful person. They shouldn’t judge her like that.

“He’s still out?” This is a third voice. She’s more forceful; I think she’s the one who barked the orders back at the van. I hear her stride to my cell. “Go get me a broom from upstairs,” she orders. “I’m going to wake him up.”

“Okay, Mary.”

It’s chilly and musty here. And dark. I’ll examine things more thoroughly when I open my eyes, but I don’t think there’s a source of sunlight.

I’m naked and cold. The cold stone has already leached heat from my body.

I’m going to get weak quickly under these conditions.

The last thing I need is for them to further abuse my body.

I groan and open my eyes as if I’m just waking up.

“Never mind. It looks like our guest has decided to join us.”

I assess everything I see, storing it in my military mind, assessing for their weaknesses as well as possible avenues of escape.

I’m in a cell in a dark, dank basement. This place is old with a cracked, gray stone-like floor.

There are two cells down here that look like recent additions.

The round metal bars that surround me are new.

I’ll check when I don’t have an audience, but I assume they’re set deep into the stone and are sturdy.

There’s a clean mattress on the floor against the rear of the cell.

The wall is made of the same smooth, grey stone as the floor.

I’m not sure it’s stone at all. It looks fabricated.

There’s a bucket for waste, I assume. My mind flashes me a picture of the cell at Annora’s cottage.

Even from our first meeting, she tried to be nice to me.

I don’t think I’ll be treated nearly as well down here.

There’s one small window at the end of the hallway that allows weak light to bleed through the dirty pane of glass. My system will need a great deal more than that to keep me alive.

“Name?” Mary asks.

“Zorn Krine, captain in the Draalian army,” I tell her these basics, just as I’ve been instructed since my first day as a private.

She laughs derisively and the two other women join in, even though it appears to me they have no idea what the joke is.

“I will not be using any honorifics with you, wog. I don’t give two shits if you’re a captain in your alien army.

” She’s older than Annora. If I had to guess, she’s close to my mother’s age.

Her brown hair hangs limply to her shoulders and her eyes, though they’re green, aren’t lovely and luminescent like Annora’s.

Her mouth is pulled into an angry pucker.

I stand and peer down at her, not allowing myself to grimace as every muscle in my body squeals in pain. They must have held that stunner on me long after I faded into unconsciousness.

“What do you want with me?” I demand. I’ve decided to use whatever strength I possess now, as I imagine my body will start failing within days, perhaps hours, from abuse and lack of warmth.

“He wants to know what we want with him?” she sneers to her friends. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you. We’re going to be filming vids, sending them out over the Internet. We’re not the only newt-haters in the world.

“There are groups of us on every continent. Some are law-abiding. They sponsor marches and sit-ins and write letters to their governmental representatives. Some, like us, are tired of not being heard. We’re committed to forcing you heathens off the planet by any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary,” the one called Teeg chimes in as the black-haired female nods her head in agreement.

The female in charge seems happy to talk. I might as well ask her more questions.

“You plan to kill me? What will that accomplish?”

“That’s for us to know and you to find out, wog.” She’s halfway to the steps at the end of the hallway when she orders, “Billy, bring him water. We’ve developed a bug problem down here. Maybe if he gets hungry enough he’ll help us solve it.” She snort-laughs as she stomps up the stairs.

Billy returns a few minutes later with a paper cup of water. I was hoping for something larger so she’d have to open the door to pass it to me.

“Sit on the mattress against the back wall,” she orders as she waves a stunner at me.

When I do as she says, she puts the cup through the bars and sets it on the floor.

This is the one who wanted to see me naked. She’s younger than the other two. Her hair is cut straight across her nape in a most unbecoming style. She’s shorter than the others, and younger. She’s the weakest link here. Perhaps I could curry her favor.

“Thank you. That was very generous.”

“You’re . . . you’re welcome.” She firms her jaw and glances away as if she broke a rule by treating me civilly.

“Perhaps you could find me something to wear when you go upstairs again. Or a blanket? It’s cold down here.”

“Um. Mary didn’t tell me to.”

“Yes, I understand. I wouldn’t want to get you in any trouble.” Guilt might work. I’ll try that next time we’re alone. Right now, I’ll stick with being nice and non-threatening. These people talk about God. Perhaps somewhere in their scriptures it preaches kindness and compassion.

I sit at an angle, my posture mimicking the male on the side of Annora’s van, hiding my sex from her. Her frank interest in me is unsettling.

“I’ll make you a trade,” she says as her open expression turns hard. When I cock my head in question she continues, “I’ll get you a blanket for a peek at your cocks.”

I hear a flash of what the slaver said when I first woke up on the vessel orbiting Earth. “All they want are your cocks and your sperm.” Except for Annora, he was right.

Annora. Did I really say those horrible things to her? The last words she ever heard me say were mean and spiteful and demeaning. I know she feels shame about her stress-eating, and I derided her body. My stomach squeezes in anguish when I think of that.

I had to do it, though. I needed her off that hover-van before a stray laser burst hurt her. I did her a favor. Not only did I save her life, I made it easy for her to forget me. It was for the best.

“What do you say, wog? Blanket for a peek?” Billy cocks her head boldly, but her gaze runs from mine.

Draalians have no prohibition on nudity—we have to bask.

There have been hundreds, maybe thousands of times in my life when basking in public was a necessity.

It carries no stigma. I discovered firsthand how different Earthers treat it when those two females at the mud pots in Yellowstone mentioned there were laws against such things.

“Pants and a blanket and you’ll get your peek and . . .” I raise a browridge meaningfully, “my silence about the peek.”

As she thinks it over, I see the exact moment when it dawns on her that she’ll need my silence to maintain her status in her group. Reminding her of that fact was a good strategy. She’ll think I’ve got her best interests at heart and I’m on her side.

“I won’t find anything that fits. You’re taller than anyone in a hundred-mile radius,” she turns to leave, then returns, her face close enough to the bars that I could grab her and knock her unconscious. I’ll bide my time, though. I don’t know if her biometrics will open the lock.

“Quick peek now, to prove you’re telling the truth, then the clothes.”

I lower the leg that’s hiding my cocks and put my foot on the floor, giving her a moment’s glance of two blue Draalian cocks in all their woggish glory.

“Clothes and a blanket,” I say. “Two blankets if you want a closer look.” It’s cold in here already and bound to get colder when the sun goes down.

I’ve read about prostitution. Zoriss and I have been on planets where they have it.

It’s always been females for sale, not males.

I never availed myself of it. First, it was against army policy.

Second, it seemed vulgar. Yes. Vulgar. That’s what this is.

But I need to escape, and Billy seems like the most promising avenue.

Annora

I did nothing as those awful women hovered off with Zorn. I was powerless as I watched him go, my eyes still filled with tears from the cruel words he lobbed at me as if I were nothing to him—less than nothing—something repulsive.

I walk around back as I check the hole they shot with the laser. It didn’t damage anything vital; the hover-van will fly fine.

After climbing back into the van, I lock the doors, then grab the stunner and put it in my pocket. I like the weight and heft of it as it lodges against my body. It makes me feel safer. I slide into the passenger seat, set my heels on the edge of it and hug my legs, my head on my knees.

“I need to think,” I say out loud to the empty vehicle.

My heart is clenching, my eyes get hot as if I’m going to cry again. Now I know how much it must have hurt him when I called him repulsive. It certainly broke my heart when he said it to me.

And calling me fat! My Achilles heel! And he knew it. Well, he didn’t call me fat, just said I was flabby and my rounded belly was unattractive. As if I didn’t know.