by Alma Nilsson
Finally, they reached orbit around the Alliance Capital Planet. The most prestigious of all the planets in the galaxy. The supply ship docked at Alliance Capital Space Port One. They were lined up and guided off the ship into the port where they were met by a group of six Alliance women of various ages. The women were all dressed in the signature Alliance dresses, solid, dark colored, loose fitting garments with floor length hems, mandarin collars and quarter length sleeves. They adorned themselves with copious amounts of intricately designed jewelry both on their person and in their long, braided black hair. Their jewelry was much more colorful and detailed than any of the men’s they had seen onboard the ships. They wore no makeup, which was strange for humans as almost all humans now, men and women alike wore makeup, especially on planet or in space ports. One of the Alliance women spoke firmly with the officers from the supply ship and immediately their bubble forcefield was released, but the officers remained around them, frowning, weapons drawn.
Anu, the Chief Medical Officer on Alliance Capital Space Port One stepped forward to address the human women. She was angry that they had been treated so poorly on their voyage here. She looked over the 26 women and was disappointed. Most of them were smaller in stature than the average Alliance woman and they all were of varying body shapes, health and age. What was even more disturbing was that all the women seemed to be wounded in one way or another. Not one of them had a clean uniform without some blood on it.
In the Alliance Empire, women were treasured, there were so few of them and without women, there would be no more Alliance. Humans were the only other species in the galaxy that were genetically compatible. The only differences between the two species were skin colors, small variations in eyesight and slightly different body temperatures. As far as Anu was concerned, these women were Alliance women, the only difference is that they had been altered through evolution on a planet that they were never meant to be on. She believed they were the Lost People. A group of Alliance explorers that were mythically lost centuries before.
Anu berated the guards from the Igu, “Why haven’t these women’s injuries been attended to? Why haven’t’ you given them clean clothing?”
The lead guard said plainly, “You know how cunning and charming humans can be and these are women. We were given orders not to get close to them by Admiral Tir.” The lead guard knew the Admiral's orders had been sound. None of them had hardly talked to a woman besides their mother and most would never have an opportunity for a wife. To have too much contact alone on a supply vessel with these extraordinarily beautiful women would have been too much of a risk even for the most disciplined of men.
Anu shook her head in disbelief, “You should be ashamed of yourselves, treating women in this way. I’ll have a strong word with the Admiral about all of this.” If they were going to steal human women, they should at least be civilized about it, Anu thought angrily.
Anu looked at the sad group of women and said with some compassion, “Human women from the starship Dakota, welcome to the Alliance, your new home. From now on, you’ll be given proper meals, warm clothing, education and a decent place to live. I apologize for the treatment you’ve received up until now. Men are lost without women to guide them. Now if you will all follow me, we will get you started on your medical checks, a final precaution before you are taken to your new home on the Capital Planet.” Anu and the other doctors turned and began walking, telepathically talking amongst themselves about the ragtag humans. The humans and the guards followed.
Dru knew they carried a stench of unwashed women with them as they walked behind the doctors and it didn’t surprise her that passersby in the space port stopped to stare at them. Humans were not a common sight in the galaxy. Even though, everyone knew what humans looked like as they were considered the most beautiful species in the galaxy with their wide array of skin, hair and eye colors, like no other civilization in the galaxy, and their images were often used to promote interspecies peace across the galaxy. Also because as the least technologically advanced species, no one was afraid of humanity. Most found them adorable and marveled at how they felt the need to waste their time making everything attractive rather than efficient.
Dru was surprised by their thoughts as she caught them as they passed the curious onlookers. She was trying to gauge whether or not the whole Alliance Empire and galaxy knew what was going on or if this was a secret plan of Admiral Tir's.
What are all those human women doing here?
So, it is true.
They will depopulate adorable little Earth. Will no one
say ‘no’ to the Alliance Empire?
This is good for us. Finally, some relief from the gods.
Gods, it is true. They are beautiful and no one can
doubt, the Lost People have returned.
Dru wanted to ask the last woman she passed, 'Who are the Lost People?' but of course she didn't have the opportunity as the woman was already a good distance away by the time the thought sank in and she turned around. For the rest of the walk through the station, Dru focused on the Lost People and tried to remember if she had ever heard that phrase before for humans.
After walking for about 15 minutes through the busy port, they entered a medical screening area. There were five med stations set up with silver medic robots and large medical beds surrounded by virtual walls of transparent computer screens. The human women were lined up and examined five by five. Dru was the last called to be examined, while most of the women tiredly watched on without emotion.
“Drusilla Anne James,” her name was called by the Chief Medical Officer and she was assigned a bed with a doctor and a robot.
Dru could hear gasps from most of the Dakota crew when they heard her full name. ‘Drusilla’ was an ancient name and not many knew the name she went by was only a nickname. Dru didn’t know what to do, so she pretended that all was normal as she walked up to her assigned medical bed, hoping her crewmates would think the Alliance had made a mistake that she didn’t care to rectify. She quickly removed all of her clothing as she had watched all the other women’s examinations and knew this was what was required, so she didn’t wait to be told. She just wanted to get this over as quickly as possible so that they could all get to wherever they were going to next.
Dru was asked to lie down on the medical bed and was scanned with three different lights over her body, she felt nothing though. Multiple readouts were shown on the virtual 3D screens to her left. She could not help but look at them, and marvel at the superior Alliance technology, while the robot fussed about her person, taking blood, salvia, ear wax, looking into her eyes, groping her breasts, probing her vagina and all kinds of invasive tasks while the doctor began asking her questions.
“How old are you?”
Dru looked up at the Alliance woman standing next to the medical bed, her long black hair was braided into four heavy braids and adorned with intricate silver jewelry. She had smooth grey skin and big grey eyes. Zombie, Dru thought. “Twenty-two years old.” This was a lie she was actually only 20 years old, but a lie she was so used to telling she almost believed it herself. And she had no reason to think the Alliance would question it either.
The doctor looked her in the eye and asked again, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-two years old,” Dru said confidently.
The doctor noted,
Possible discrepancy in age. She says she is 22 years old however, the computer suggests a couple years younger. Yet, I don’t believe she is lying.
“Profession?” The doctor was trying to reach out to Dru telepathically too. She could see on the read out she had an exceptionally high level of telepathy, And do you hear me like this too? she transmitted the words without speaking, but she felt Dru mentally blocking her, so she made note of that too and continued with the examination orally.
“Junior Doctor.”
“Does your hair color make you special in some way? Out of all the human women here, you are the only one with this red co
lor.”
“It’s rare. A recessive gene, only a small percentage of humans have red hair, but among people with red hair, I’m more common with my green eyes. I’m only different from humans with other hair colors in that I’m more sensitive to ultraviolet rays and extreme temperatures, I’ve a higher threshold for pain and prefer to use my left hand over my right.”
“I see. We have recessive genes that express themselves differently. Are you married?”
“We don’t marry on Earth. We stopped doing that centuries ago,” And none of us ever want to marry one of you, she thought.
The doctor looked into Drusilla’s green eyes with surprise at hearing her project her thoughts so clearly and then asked through telepathy, We don’t have to speak out loud. We can do this naturally if you like? But again, she could feel the young woman block her, “Have you any children?”
“No.”
“How many full siblings do you have?”
“Three. Two sisters and one brother.”
“Any half siblings that you know of?”
“No, we don’t marry but we are not feral,” but this was a lie. She didn’t know for certain who her father was and some of her siblings might even be half siblings, but her life had not been normal for modern human society, so she didn’t want to draw attention to this. Especially since her crewmates were now all listening to her examination.
The doctor looked into her patient’s eyes and easily knew that she was lying about her siblings. That she was not positive they were all her full siblings. She noted it and then continued with the examination, “When did you get your first period?”
“Twelve years old. Are you really going to use us for breeding?”
The doctor was not surprised by her question as the other women had all asked her this same thing after that particular question about the onset of menstruation. She reckoned that humans must be very backward indeed if they used women as breeders like livestock. But it only made her feel more relief that these women had been saved from their barbaric lives on Earth and brought to the Alliance, no question, under dubious circumstances. No one really believed that Admiral Tir traded for them. The doctor ignored her question though, “How often does your period come? And how do you deal with it?”
“Every 28 Earth days, one of our calendar months, pain killers and a menstrual cup.”
“You all seem to be affected by your lunar calendar. That may change here. We’ll have to wait and see. There is only one human woman living on the Capital Planet now so there is no way to know for sure. Alliance women’s cycles are governed by our two neighboring planets and last three times as long. As for the excess blood, we have a better solution which I’ll give you before you leave. Your method seems to be more primitive than the other women, is there a reason for that? Are you religious in some way? All the other women were taking birth control so that they did not bleed.” Without asking the doctor began probing her mind. She sensed this human was different from the rest, not only for her red hair and being telepathic but something else as well. Drusilla’s thoughts and memories were well guarded, but the doctor waited at the edge of her mind so that she was able to catch the odd word or image to explain these differences and it was enough to note,
Her childhood might not have been on Earth. I picked up images of very rugged interiors and filth both on the people and surroundings, like a colony gone wrong. However, her record shows nothing of this.
Dru had always used the menstrual cup her mother had given her. Even though she was a doctor she never thought about changing it as it had always worked. The blood was useful for prayers or spells, her mother was a kind of medicine woman or witch, depending on who you asked and Dru sometimes still used her blood for spells or offerings to spirits. “My mother is old-fashioned, and it’s always worked for me, but I am more than happy to try something modern as I obviously didn’t have time to take it with me when we were taken prisoner.”
“You’re not our prisoners. You came of your own free will,” the doctor said and Dru began to protest until she heard the doctor say to her telepathically, I’m sorry Admiral Tir took you this way. I hope that you will find we are offering you a good life here. Please remain calm and don’t call yourselves ‘prisoners’ or you might receive punishment.
Dru had never had someone speak to her telepathically. She could read others’ thoughts but not this. This was sophisticated. She tried to talk back with her mind, but it was like a toddler trying to speak for the first time.
The doctor looked at her and said telepathically, And we will teach you how to use this skill properly. We have saved you from the barbarians of Earth. What a talent you are, and you were almost wasted. The doctor then spoke out loud to her, “I’m glad you are willing to try something more modern. Some of the other women were more reluctant. The more you all resist the longer integration will take. It’s better if you all just accept this as your new life. Are you also taking some kind of birth control?”
“No,” Dru answered and then was echoed by the shocked gasps from her crewmates. She knew now that they would guess she was from the Exterior. Everyone else took birth control. Births were planned on Earth. You had to get permission to reproduce. Only people in the Exterior were allowed to reproduce as they wished, as without technology, a lot of people of all ages died, so population regulated itself naturally. They would know now that she was born outside the system and was assigned no physical regime that was monitored by the human government set. When the fleet registered her, they forgot to do that and then by the time someone noticed, her superior on the Dakota, John, he just ticked the box saying casually, ‘They must have made a mistake.’ She knew that he knew she was from the Exterior. It was one of their unspoken bonds.
“I‘m glad to see that some humans have some sense not to poison their bodies. Women in the Alliance never take birth control. It’s preposterous that you would control a woman’s fertility as it’s fleeting like a flower for only a few days every cycle and only for a couple decades of her life. It goes against nature and the gods to alter women’s bodies.”
“Do the Alliance gods care so much about women’s bodies and sexuality then?” Dru’s experience with gods and worship was from her mother. She definitely believed in unseen forces, but not necessarily deities. And definitely not deities that cared too much about what the mortals in the world did daily.
“It’s blasphemy to even question it. The gods control all of our fates.”
Dru definitely believed that she had a future set out before her, but whether or not a god had planned it, or it was just how things were going to play out, she hadn’t decided yet.
When the doctor realized Drusilla was not going to reply, she continued with the examination, “You’re also the only one young enough to fully utilize our anti-aging techniques. You’ll have the opportunity to live as long as we do. You should feel lucky.”
“Three-hundred years on the Capital Planet. All my friends will be dead and gone. How will that be a better life than the one I was living, the life I chose for myself?”
The doctor looked at her somewhat sympathetically, “You’ll make Alliance friends and it’s double the life-span of humans and probably more than that as you were most likely going to die in the war. Why other species choose to have women on starships I don’t know?” The doctor said the latter more to herself than to Drusilla. “And as far as choosing your life, none of us choose. The gods choose our paths. You’ve no control. You’ll see,” the doctor said dismissively and resumed her exam. “On Earth, are children conceived naturally or artificially?”
“Mostly naturally.”
“Just a few more questions. What about you and your siblings? Naturally or artificially?”
“Naturally.”
“All born naturally?”
“Yes. How are babies born in the Alliance?” Dru didn’t want to go into any more detail, babies in the Exterior were born completely naturally, not ‘modern human naturally’. She suddenly
felt sorry for her crewmates if they were going to have to birth hybrid zombie babies the old-fashioned way, to experience pregnancy and all with no practice at all in managing pain. They didn’t even get their periods; they were completely unprepared for that kind of strain and pain on their bodies.
“You’ll find that all out in good time, but for the moment let me put your mind at ease that we’ve reverted back to doing things naturally as well with very little intervention. We’ve found that that is the best for both mother and child. Babies born from artificial wombs lacked emotional attachments that couldn’t be cured.”
“Obviously,” Dru said thinking, What kind of technological maniacs are you? Thinking that fetuses nurtured outside a living woman wouldn’t have emotional issues? Even humans knew that there were some things that could not be substituted. “How many years did it take the Alliance to come to that conclusion?” She wanted to know if any of the men she would be coming into contact with would be emotionally defective because of being nurtured in an artificial womb.
The doctor picked up her thoughts, “It’s been centuries since we have had children that were bred in artificial wombs. It was a mistake that we corrected quickly.” The doctor then got back to the exam, “Have you ever had sex with a man?”
“Yes,” Dru answered sharply while she began swatting away at the robot as he was trying to put something rather large in both her anus and vagina.
“Let the assistant continue and try to relax,” the doctor said calmly as the robot began sprouting more hands to restrain Dru on the bed and complete its task.
“How often?”